Pitch Cave/Foothills Trip 2
Thursday 9th October 2003

Firstly, a rant im afraid

Firstly, once again a big thank you to everyone who turned up for this second trip to the Foothills to visit the Path finding trainer. 42 exiles i counted i think, possibly up to 50.

Thanks again to Yor for leading, and Natas for taking over when he fell ;-), Zorton for teleporting and everyone else for doing what there good at :-D

Right, on to a little moan here, partly my fault for not going into great detail about the trip. In future we’ll be doing things a bit differently on these trips. I have to say my piece here as some stuff that happened annoyed me a bit. Click here to skip to my diary piece.

I think I need to make a few things clear about these trips before I write my scrolls. Yor did receive some flak on this trip which I feel was a bit unjustified. He isn’t the only one involved in making the decisions on what we do, where were going, how long its taking and how/why we’re doing it.

Bombarding him with sunstone messages doesn’t help him think and distracts him from leading us through on the trip, it also means he might forget stuff or cut corners on what we're doing which is dangerours, so please dont do it.

Please dont sunstone him unless its important, infact please relay most stuff via Elenis or myself as we're not thinking about the overall plan as much as Yor. We'll relay stuff to Yor if its important.

Other exiles on the trip can deal with queries such as where are we, and why aren’t we doing this, and how long will it take. Elenis and myself are happy to be sunstoned and we’ll try respond to all your questions.

Some of the my points and changes we’ll be making are:

  • A map and an explanation of the tactics we’ll use, and reasons for going to the Pitch cave will be posted on my site before every trip. Please take time to read this as the trips aren’t to everyone’s taste They can involve long periods of sitting about waiting to chain, be chained or just sitting about not able to help due to the severity of the situation below. Also they will help you know what we are up to at various stages of the trip.

  • Although it may not look like it at time ;-) there is a plan behind nearly everything we do, for every snell, please pay attention to Yor, Natas, myself or whoever is shouting the orders. Running ahead or going off on your own only results in delaying the bigger picture and can jeopardise the trip. Even if you've been here many times before we might be trying something different this time.

  • At times if things go badly there will only be one or two chainers ‘allowed’ into the pitch cave. This is generally fighters with a truckload of defence and health, mass chaining usually results in more fallens inside than we get out. If we need a mass chaining we will call for it. Please bear with us on this subject, I know it can be frustrating to sit around for an hour or so but we didn’t plan for people to fall and through past trips this really is the safest, quickest and best method to get exiles out.

  • I know these trips aren’t to everybody’s tastes, but they are open to all exiles whatever the status. If someone makes a mistake please bear with them it might be their first time here. On the last trip someone received a lot of BK as they we’re afk due to an OOC event they couldn’t get away from. No one knew this and as a result they nearly left until I persuaded them to stay. BK doesn’t really help in a situation like that, and hasn’t any place on the foothills trips, we all know when BK is deserved so please think a bit more before cursing on these trips.

  • Everything on the trip has a plan, and plans sometimes don’t go the way we want them too. On this trip I needed boosters and asked a few personally, as did a few other exiles. IF and that’s an IF things had gone as we wanted we would have been luring Noids past the zu for the fighters to kill. Some of the Noids, the Albino and Pitch in particular are very strong and we WOULD have needed good boosters to help anyone hit them with any regularity. As everyone’s knows who went along, the plan didn’t go as we hoped and turned into a chaining rescue for the best part. I CAN”T predict what is going to happen in the Pitch cave, with all the will in the world the boosters would have been put to a much greater use if things had gone right, but they didn’t and I apologise to those who sat around not able to exert their talents as they would have liked. That said the boosters who were present were useful and the balance boosts they gave did help us and so did the scanning. Thx mystics :-)

  • Please bear with us at times, we’re ALL learning when we’re out here, from the lowest to the highest of exiles. Sometimes stuff just doesn’t go right, departs happen, exiles have to sit around doing nothing, some have to be chained around for hours, that’s a fact of life that none of us involved in the trips can change. If you don’t like it then please don’t come along, you probably won’t enjoy the trip anyway if you not a patient exile ;-)

  • Above all patience, that is the watchword of the trips, and im very pleased with the level of patience we have from nearly everyone.

Ok that’s nearly it, apologies to the vast majority of exiles as this isn’t for you as you were very patient, well-behaved and great fun to be with. However this rant had to be said, stuff happened on the trip which I wasn’t happy with so I’ve said my piece, nuff said, exiles know where I stand and how things tend to work on the trip. (any comments email me or post em on thoomcare)

Sorry if I sound a bit peeved on the above but there ya go, im a dwarf after all we got short fuses eh! ;-)

Lastly thank you again to everyone who came along, the vast majority of exiles were extremely patient and followed orders and for that I’m very very grateful, and everyone is very welcome on the next trip, as are any other exiles who want to come.

Exiles accounts of the Foothills Trip

I've written a brief description of the trip from my eyes, and many other more talented exiles have written journals much better than I could. There are already some fine scrolls detailing others tales of the time there. Read about Azriels trip.

My account of the Foothills Trip

Meeting up

This time round we met in the meadow as some exiles wanted to visit the Trainer Grotto. Everyone met in the meadow, and we waited to get the trip underway.

From the meadow we moved to the Orga Camp, quickly through Snaggy to Bones. Half the group took Hatreds Hollow and waited for us at the northeast portion of the snell, whilst we waited for a few stragglers.

Falling to be ported

Then we moved in the Trainers Grotto where a few exiles visited various trainers. Now came the difficult bit, we had to teleport from here to the Outback, but there was no real easy way to fall. Healers used their pendants, and those with bitter berries took them, a few people used there duelling gloves and blades, the others, such as myself had to wait around for shamen and zerks to slowly take us down! In hindsight I should have remembered to tell everyone to bring bitter berries for the trip, next time I’ll remember.

Well with the majority of us fallen, the chainers took their positions by Zorton who then teleported us from the Grotto to the Outback. Upon arrival we proceeded to heal up and get ready to make our way to the first Noids cave through the waterfall. The first few snells we hit were easy, with so many of us (42) nothing really stood much chance, and then we came to the snell containing the waterfall. Here the bolts were extremely powerful and we had to retreat twice before we got our plan together and managed to rush the pits and kill all the bolters.

Now we stood at the first Noids cave. Here the usual plan came into effect, runner and then zu’ers in to fort up. Then in came the healers and the rest of us and we broke a hole in the Kudzu and took the Noids down one by one. Nothing special here, and nothing special in the next 2 caverns the standard tactical procedures moved us through the caverns very quickly.

The Pitch Cave

Then once again we stood before the entrance to the Pitch cave... now I have to say I don’t really like this cave, it’s been the scene of a few suspicious spawns recently. \action looks upwards in the sky

Well we had a new plan today, one that had worked earlier in the week when I had travelled there with the Puddleby Tactical Force (PTF).

The plan was to send in a runner, like usual, then to zu fort a small part of the entrance so the healers could rod the north and south parts of the wall (all rod healers welcome on trips). A good plan, it worked well for the PTF. First stages of the plan went well, the top zu wall in the cavern was being manned by Elrod and Archemar and was holding well, the zu fort was steady and the rod was holding n and s. Noids were being slowly pulled in and killed, and luckily there weren’t any albino or pitch Noids around.

The best laid plans

Then I’m uncertain as to what happened, I was up by the main zu wall where we had just cut a hole to kill some of the massing Noids. Me and a few other fighter and healers had decided to clear these Noids, for something to do ;-) We had just finished killing these, had replanted the wall and were healing up when Natas came up looking a bit concerned to say the least ;-)

Things had suddenly gone ‘tits up’ to coin a phrase, one of the rods wasn’t stable enough and the other rod couldn’t get to it in time to keep it up, the result of this, from what I heard was a mass retreat in which most of the rodding healers got webbed to death and had to be left there.

Well enough exiles made it back out for us to regroup and adjust our plans. We waiting for the appropriate toggles and the zu to disperse a little and the chainers, usually Yor, Elenis and Natas proceeded to get the fallens out.

Chain runs and a lack of horus

This all sounds a little familiar you might think, and yes its similar to what happened last time we came! However this only helped us, as everyone knew the procedure for rescue. It took a little time but using the single person chain method, and a toggle system (somewhat linked to the sinstone!) we proceeded to get every single fallen out of the cave in a remarkably quick time. The downside to this was that due to the retreat that was forced upon us there were about 5 exiles that were to fallen to be raised. (Whilst I think about it, Horus healers are most welcome).

A run for the Pathfinders book

Well with everyone raised that could be, apart from Yor who was in the centre of the cave I decided that we should try for the Pathfinders book. So the plan was set, one suicide runner, Kalian I think (second time for him, he must like it I think), a few chainers and the Pathfinders ready to run we set off. The plan was nearly flawless, 12 of the Pathfinders (out of 14) made it, Yor was chained out and there was only Omega and me fallen. I must thank Omega who doubled back to chain me and almost made it but fell about two steps from the pf entrance (see the vision stone).

The pathfinders who did make it I must thank too, as those who had visited the book all came out and tried to chain me back in to see if I could be raised. Unfortunately I had been webbed to death as was ‘near death’ as healer’s say so could read the book. Oh yes, and you cant read the book when fallen, but thanks Azriel for chaining me to see if you could.

A solo attempt

Well with such a successful first journey we had to make the run back to the exit, or the drag back as it was for me. Once again we tied this into some chain attempts from the entrance exiles. Nearly everyone made it out, and I even managed to get raised. So the plan was set to head home, but I decided that I would try for a suicide solo run for the book, I wanted to get there so badly my judgement was prolly a bit impaired, naw it wasn’t im a dorf we ain’t scared of nothing. I have to say by now there was about 5 crimson, and 5 albino Noids plus a pitch or two running about, so this really was ‘your damn lucky if your gonna make it’ type run.

Even so I wanted to try, I had two energy potions and there were quite a few exiles who offered to run in with me and try to distract the Noids, even though it meant a certain depart, thx Azriel, Thanladin, Sa'Wrap and Dorkhor. A special thanks to shiner who did the suicide ‘first one in run’.

So in we went, and down we went I made some progress before hitting a bunch of Noids and going down like a lead balloon, you can see that on one of my vision stones, its quite funny.

Well it was worth a try imo and Im grateful to those who fell trying to distract stuff with me. That marked the end of the foothills trip for about 15 of us, we departed back to town. However from what I hear the other exiles made it out, through the EP and back to Puddleby, well done all of you.

Well another successful trip I think, many more pathfinders made it, a lot more departs but they were mostly through the choice of the exiles, so a good trip all round. The next one promises to be just as good. Details on the site now.


Some pictures and stuff

You can see some pictures I took below, and I’ll be planning another trip soon.

Please find some of my snapshots and visionstones below, the visionstones are all quite short and some are worth a watch :-)

Pictures & Visionstones from the trip

Outside the pitch cave

Healing up

 

Visionstone

Last Noids Cavern

Visionstone

First PF run

Visionstone

Fundins Solo run!