Terrdi, day 36 of Autumn, 555

Today's trip to the Pitch caverns started on time, and the trip out was pretty uneventful and fast. We spent a normal amount of effort advancing through the first few Pitch caves, and moved forward steadily and without untoward incidents until we reached PC5 once again.

Since we had 2 Mystics along, we tried to send in a small runner group first to clear the cave, and then then rest of the group who could then set up in relative peace.

The one time we got this to work, a couple weeks ago, things went very smoothly. Many other attempts had been unsuccessful for various silly or confusing reasons.

But when Drablak attempted to teleport just himself, Yor and CJ parker, he merely shuddered and no one went anywhere.

The two-Mystic jinx seems to be back ...

Since Drablak was unsuccessful in teleporting the runner group, we returned to the old-standby single teleport strategy. We had one problem however: there were 27 exiles along. Since even with the Booster Stone we are limited to 26 exiles, that left one someone out. Oops.

Farhope graciously volunteered to step out, as she was short of time anyway, and would try to get home safely via the Ethereal Plane. Several healers tried to talk her out of it, but she was insistent.

As it turned out, she'd have company ...

Hepta stepped up to teleport the rest of the group, and things looked fine as we glowed and then appeared in PC6. However, things were amiss, as one of the subgroups, anchored by Nightbird, failed to teleport! NB, Tonoto, Talin, Drablak and Entil'Zha were left behind when the rest of us left PC5.

Doh.

Nevertheless, the landing in PC6 was as clear as one could hope for, and we quickly organized ourselves for the coming battle while the runners drew the few Noids away to the far corner of the cavern.

Thanks in part to the clean entry, we kept the cave under control as we reduced the number of Noids slowly, and after some time had killed everything there.

We moved on into PC7, and began to lure out and kill the Noids there in ones and twos. After some time, we moved up toward the entry to PC8.

As we passed the unexplored West pit in PC7, CJ noted that it appeared empty, so she called me over and I joined her to take a quick look around for paths there. Hepta also scanned for Illusions. We saw nothing unusual there, so we conclude that we can safely ignore this part of the cave from now on.

While we were doing this, Yor had already entered PC8 to begin setting up our entry there. Unfortunately, he and CJ had some miscommunication while we were still investigating the pit area, and Yor returned to PC7 in a hurry thinking he had been called back for some emergency. He brought with him several Crimson Noids that he had been running into the Southeast pit area - so many that they quickly overran the waiting fighters in PC7. After several folks fell where they stood and yet more Crimsons appeared from PC8, a general retreat was souded and folks headed back to the far South end of the cave as best they could. All along the way, Crimsons followed and nipped at our heels, so that fallens were strung out all over the cave. The net effect was that we were rapidly losing strength while no no Crimsons were being killed. All too quickly, the rout was complete and the entire cave was overrun by these Noids.

It was a bitter moment, as Yor and CJ uncharacteristically traded blame. This was truly the fog of war, and well-intentioned miscues led to our collapse as a viable force. We will recover from this as we have recovered from other setbacks, and press onward once again.

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