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 :-)
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Pictures & Visionstones
from the trip
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Outside the pitch cave |
Healing up |
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Visionstone |
Visionstone |
Visionstone |
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