Pitch Cave/Foothills Trip 3
Thursday 23rd October 2003
The start
Geez, where do I start on this one? Ok when reading the please remember that everything written he is purely IC, where marked, and any personal comments are aimed at the Exile and not H/SWC, this is very important. Also this is my opinion, not Yors or anyone else involved in the trips, although you’ll find they agree with the majority of what I say ;-) (thats of the IC stuff is say BTW)
The beginning
This trip had been planned for about 3 weeks, and it was during the first
week, I think, that Yor and myself thought about using the portals for
the trip. Possibly a good idea we thought, it could allow some latecomers
to join us, something I had been keen to do from the beginning (OOC to
allow US clanners the chance to join).
We posted a notice to pre-warn of this fact knowing that many exiles use
the portal to hunt KI and we didn’t want to spoil any pre-planned
trips. We also felt it best to let everyone know that we planned to take
the portal along, and return if afterwards.
The events that happened after that posting are well known to all so ill
give a short run through.
What happened next?
We didn’t think Klur, or anyone else would actually be this bothered,
as what we were doing didn’t seem that much different to portaling
onto Noth for Hide’n’seek, how wrong we were.
With this in mind and the fact that no one owns the portals, there is
no warden, and who is any exile to tell me or anyone else what I can or
cannot do with something. I felt, as did others that our plans were perfectly
reasonably and we weren’t going to alter something so long planned
on the unreasonable protestations of a few exiles. So the hunt was ahead
as planned.
I think most people know that Klur and his allies came for the portal
late one night when most exiles were in the library. Fortunately I wasn’t
and neither was Valtrim or Zorton who had been on portal watch for hours.
The warnings went up and we fought over the portal ownership, you can
read more about this at my thoomcare
posting.
Out of the library
Having been in the Library for a few hours I came back out to find that
Klur had been defeated and had left the portal in the wilds of KI, not
a great place but definitely not the worst. I then spent the next day
or so guarding the portal with various exiles coming along to help. Some
names I remember were Tara, Jnder, Dana, Omega, Puffy, Sabbit, Gorvin
amongst others, I must confess I did fall asleep a lot.
One great thing that did happen was I woke to find my Backpack stuffed
with Ale! Now that was find :-D
The next few hours were then spent retrieving the portal, or rather Yor,
Mjollnir, and Zorton did, I spent my time planning the trip and answering
question from exiles eager to know if we still had control of the portal.
A new leader
Although Yor usually leads, Elenis offered to do so this time, and I duly
accepted his offer as did Yor.
With the portal under our control the hunt gathered in the meadow (40+
this time round) and we teleported into the Foothills. We made quick progress
through all the snells, and remarkable progress through all 3 Noid caves.
The portal didn’t seem to slow us at all.
Once outside the pitch cave, we camped up for a bit, planning our next
move. As it happened there were a number of exiles who wanted to join
us and had arrived late so we decided to let them join us, after all that
part of the use of a portal isn’t it.
Having dragged it back to teleporting range we let a large group of exiles
join us, and they seemed more than pleased they could meet up, even at
this late stage.
Then, whilst gathering new forces it seemed that the 3rd noid cave had
spawned and the force we had left behind was quickly overwhelmed. Frantic
ss messages hit me, but we were to far away to stop them falling, don’t
worry I ss’d we have more than enough exiles to raise you and take
back that cave. This we duly did, raised all the fallen and got ready
to take the cave.
A suspiciusly crowed cave
Now I won’t go into great detail here, but suffice to say upon entry
the Pitch cave seemed suspiciously packed, /action looks up, and the runner
we sent to lure things for the Zu team fell, but we still got the zu down.
It seemed from the messages we got that there was already 8+ crimson,
some pitch and other noids in the cave, a thing I’ve never seen before
in all my trips, it was like they knew we were coming.
Another new leader!
Well some of the ones to fall were Elenis and Yor, Elenis duly deputised
me and made me the leader. I couldn’t persuade Natas, so I took my
first ever stint at being in command of such a large number of exiles.
Well all things considered I thought I did ok, its damn hard to think
when you have the lives of so many in your hands, everyone wants to help,
people talk, send SS, and Sinstone messages and offer advice, I can see
why Yor finds it hard at times to think of what to do. I also found it
hard to pick which exiles would be best for which job not knowing everyone
level of skill. At the end of the day, it was down to me what we did,
and i made the decisions as best i could, although im sure some felt they
weren't all right.
Well I did my best, but the cave was to full, there was no way we could
take it, we couldn’t get the wall in far enough to even try rodding.
Eventually we had lost a fair few of our best exiles and many of the others
wanted to dash or leave.
I had to advise against rushing as the cave just wasn’t clearing,
and reluctantly agreed to leave... once we had more exiles out. There
was just no way without waiting ages the cave was gonna disperse for runners.
The same old problem
Well the usual routine ensued and we gradually chained most exiles out,
but some were just to far in, and weren’t *appearing* near the entrance.
Eventually due to the number of exiles wanted to return home we had to
leave 5 or so exiles behind, to them I apologise, but we just couldn’t
take the Pitch that day.
(One nice point to add was that Manx tried a suicide run (she had to go)
and actually made it to the Book. Next time were definitely going to do
the mad rush tactic!)
Returning home
So we returned back and duly let everyone portal to the meadow and return
home. One slight mishap was that the portal movers fell and a rescue group
had to gather and get them. Recruiting exiles to help wasn’t a problem
and we quickly got them back up and let them return the portal to it previous
home.
All in all, with all the hype surrounding the trip, a rather uneventful
trip, although good fun :-D I’ll be planning something different
for the next (euro) one, we’ll be exploring FH rather than going
through the caves.
Thx to all who came along, great time was had, and I promise the next
one won’t be some political, and we’ll do more exploring. Also
many thx to those who kept watch over the portal for 3-4 puddleby days,
Ledward who watched the portal whilst we travelled, it really helped us
protect it.
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
Lastly, I sent a postcard to Klur from the Foothills
Postcards from Paradise
(a purely IC postcard - please remember that)
Klur and co.
Having a lovely time in the Foothills, lots to see and do, plenty of friends
came along too, in fact I haven’t seen that many exiles in one place
since my last trip. It was shame you couldn’t make it along but I
understand you and Malkor were playing on KI before we left, and I heard
eggplant tagged along too! Nice fellow eggplant I like him a lot, he’ll
go far.
Well what can I say, weather was lovely, nice and hot, but we had a bit
of lightning at times, but nothing to bad. We picked up a portal along
the way and thought we’d drag it with us for fun, you might see it
in the top right of my photo, just near Sor. Someone had tried to dump
it on KI for some reason, but we soon fixed that, exiles eh, who’d
do a thing like that?
Anyway that’s it from me, and everyone else who came along, we had
a great time and we’ll be sure to do it again sometime.
Your jousting friend
Fundin
A Picture for Klur of Happy Exiles in the Foothills
A word about whats happened
IC:
I couldn’t leave my report without commenting upon what has happened
in the past week.
I was very angry that Klur had decided to ruin my portal plan and decided
to do all in my power to stop him, and many many exiles were offering
to help. I did what I thought was right imo, we defended the right of
every exile to do what they want in Puddleby without anyone making up
laws for other to follow. No-one owns the portal, not Klur and least of
all me, I’m happy for exiles to move it and play with it as they
please, so long as they give due warning of their plans.
The battle as some call it, or the minor scuffle *we* had with *Klur &
co.* was something that was bound to happen, with two conflicting viewpoints
and no-one giving much ground there was only going to be one outcome.
The majority of exiles were of the same mind as myself and backed *us*
up, so I felt we had every right to carry on with our plan. Had I felt
that had so many exiles been against my plan I would have backed away
and not bothered to use the portal.
Overall im pleased that we succeeded in using the portal, holding off
Klur, and upholding what I felt was the rights of every citezen of puddleby.
I am however disappointed with level of tension, hatred and bitterness
that has risen up in Puddleby of late, and feel that most of this has
been caused by one exiles immoveable opinion on the portal.
Part of me can’t help thinking that if I could turn back the clock
I would, but then again I feel what I did was right and just and was backed
by nearly everyone, so why should I?
This is still IC:
Lastly I feel I must add that this, having read an article by Klur to
his clan //My stance at this point is fairly simple. If I do nothing some
of you claim you are leaving. If I do something some of you say you can't
participate and if it turns to bad you will stop playing//
I, for the life of me cannot understand why if you don’t agree with
your leader (I presume Klur leads PM?) and you cannot get him to change
his views you don’t step away from the clan and distance yourself
from the fallout surrounding his actions. If I felt so strongly about
what my Clan leader did that I wouldn’t come out of the library then
I certainly wouldn’t stay in the clan.
Times seem to be changing in Puddleby and time will tell whether its for
better or worse.
Now strictly OOC (and my opinion only):
Puddleby has always been a friendly society, and as such generally a nice
place to be, a bit of conflict and everyone is up in arms. Great Role-playing
aspects here, but I think the severity of it has taken a lot of clickers
by surprise, their used to nice chats in TC.
Life isn’t always calm folks, especially in a game, that said…
I find myself deeply upset about what has happened, what started as little
hunt, has blown up into a vicious *war*. I think many people are upset
and bothered by this, if I could step back in time I *might* have done
so, if only to stop players leaving on account of something I was heavily
involved in.
The fact that some players might leave upsets me, be they PM or not, this
is a game and as such should be treated as a game. Personal comments about
people who click really hasn’t any place in a game, imo, and the
only way it should be dealt with is in the game, or by the GM’s OOC
in the ways they see fit. I do however feel that there is an element of
OOC gameplay by exiles in trying to affect how the portal works, but that
is purely speculation on my part.
I cannot stress enough that this is a GAME, I don’t hate Klur or
any other PM who helped try wreck my plan, IC I might do. Klur is a devious
and clever exile who’s unliked by many exiles I know.
OOC I must admit I find his game play annoying and don’t agree with
many of his opinions, but people in the real world are all different and
not everyone is going to get along. I doubt very much he agrees with much
I have to say either. Ce la vie.
It’s a game, a game, GAME, do what you will in the game, I’m
sure I will, but don’t get so drawn in that you find you can’t
stomach playing.
A final note :-D
Lastly, on a lighter note if you find puddleby hard to live in, try living
in Ultima or Everquest in the PC world, there’s a whole host more
people you aint gonna like in game that size ;-)
Like I say, and Fundin would say too, lifes to short, have a drink,
then another, BEEER.
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.
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Pictures & Visionstones
from the trip
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Postcard to Klur |
A not so nice |
Leaving the Foothills |
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Late arrivals |
Late arrivals extra |
Rescue for the |
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