Sombdi, day 60 of Autumn, 557

Yet another troubled trip. This time, everything went fine until we reached PC5. Disaster struck as we tried to teleport from there to PC6. Instead of the entire group glowing and going, only a small number of exiles were actually teleported. The rest of us stood there dumbfounded at our miserable luck.

Apparently Hepta's Strange Stone flaked but did not break, but that disruption was enough to shake most of us loose from the teleport. We are at a loss to understand how to prevent these mishaps.

Those of us still in PC5 went home via portals to and from the Ethereal Plane, while the unlucky few in PC6 departed.

Since I had been able to open up the deeper Arachnoid cavern outside Camp Dred, and the day was young and the group was eager to explore, we thought we would try our luck there with the entire group.

Since several of us had mapped some parts of these caverns already using suicide runs, we already had ideas about how to enter, and hoped to put these into successful practice.

The major problem was that I am the only pathfinder currently able to open this cave. We wanted to send in a runner/zuer team before sending in the entire group, but if I openned and got stuck, the trip would be over. We decided to play it safe, and Hepta entered just behind me to do a pre-emptive teleport rescue on me. As it happened, I was able to turn around and exit before she teleported out anyway. The runners kept going, hoping to draw Noids away from the entrance so we could set up zu walls for the healer rod and make fighting space too.

When I openned for the rest of the group, however, things didn't look good. The runners had had a hard time getting past the many Arachnoids, and many were still lingering near the entrance despite Farhope having made it an impressive 3 caverns deep into this cave complex before falling. It seems Yor got stuck in this first cave and held many Noids near him before he fell, so they didnt follow Farhope out as we had hoped.

Without a clear area to set up in, we didn't last long.

We quickly found out that these blue-grey Noids we had been wondering about for so long are called Slate Arachnoids, and learned that they made Albino Noids look weak, biting very hard and throwing very damaging webs. We never really did get to test how hard they are to hit, as we were overwhelmed so quickly.

So, our first real foray as a group into the Slate caves (as we have decided to call them) was not a good one. But I recall that our first trips into Pitch Cave 1 were similarly disastrous, and over time we learned how to attack that cave to the extent that we rarely fail to clear it anymore. So shall it be here. Plus, in coming weeks, more of our pathfinders will be able to open this cave, increasing our options for sending in separate runner and zuer teams ahead of the main group.

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