Pathfinder, anyone?

 80 Summer 551 (19 September 2003)

• Now look at this! Fundin the dorf was busy organizing a trip the foothills over the last zordiacs. And this at an unusual time - to let us folks from this side of the ocean also have a try at that mysterical advanced pathfinding book. Of course I had heard from that book - and also that it is well hidden beyond the foothills after a series of cavens inhabitated with very fierce noids! So most exiles never had a chance to train there - until yesterday!
  I expected that only a few exiles would show up for that hunt. I came a bit late from the lib to be shocked by a crowd of almost 60 at the docks!! So much about my expectations! And Zorton was now able to offer teleporting services right into the foothills from meadow. So it was the usual game. All but five have to fall and get chained in order to use the porter. So how to kill over 50 exiles quickly? Right! Use Water! Could have been my idea! 8)
  So we all ended up in the foothills in no time. Yay to Zorton, many thanks!

Looks like I was wrong about the head count... 8)

• Once there we skipped all tactics and just mobbed the place. With our massive force we just cut through any resistance on the way. Midnight wendies, Wraths, Dredlocks... no problem! It was much more difficult to manoeuvre our crowd through the narrow passages. So in the end we made an excellent time in reaching Camp Dred.

No resistance was found on the way to camp dred!

• From there we just overrun the dred wood and reached a waterfall near the northeastern corner. Now came the most difficult thing of all the journey. I had to jump into the waterfall!!! Curmudgeon was so nice to give me a waterproof cloak, but it did not really help. Darn...had I known this I would stayed most likely at home.
  Well, I am a fierce warrior and had to take my chance. Somehow I managed to get through the water without dying. And once inside our skilled kudzu experts had already errected a wall which allowed to have a controlled way at the malachite noids that waited for us. After the malachine we entered the pitch cave. This was supposed one of the harder obstacles. But we were very close now!
  We had bigger troubles now. But again kudzu saved the day! We fought our way down to some ruins of a library - from there we found another cave filled with noids. (Oh wonder! 8) But in the most southwestern corner there was an old well. Beyond were all our hopes and nightmares...

Conquering the pitch cave. Praise kudzu!

• So we made a plan. Yor had even prepared a map and explained the tactics. The southwestern and southeastern chambers had to be closed off with kudzu and runners had to distract the webs (these pesky noids were throwing them!) as the rest of us created a base in the center.
  It worked greatly at first, so we felt secure enough to lure an albino noid, which are supposingly the most hardest of them. Never saw one of them myself and it looked not so bad. But we were not able to kill it! Where is a boosting mystic when you need one? Zorton were no longer available and so we just failed to kill it. So it called its fellows and they started to kill us.

An albino problem. And webs that did not improve the situation.

• Now the most tendious part of that journey began. Hours after hours of running, chaining, falling and so on. Lot of us lost all hope. Most of our group were fallen, we were slowly running out of kudzu and saw no progress at all. Just the opposite - we sent in five chainers to get only one back with two other fallens rescued. On the other side a small group had split off to guard the eastern perimeter against spawning noids and to farm kudzu. At least this worked great and all was stable there!

  Just as we were about to give up and were voting if the remaining force should try to limp home, Fundin insisted to try once more a rescue run. And now Gaia somehow smiled on us, we were able to rescue a significant number! Soon after almost all exiles were out of that darned cave! So, it was clear now that our group (even with that size!) was unable to conquer the cave. But the real reason of the trip was to bring pathfinders to the advanced training book. So Kalian did something unexpected. He offered to do a suicidal run to distract the noids long enough so our pathfinders could reach the hidden cave. It worked! All of them (twelve full PFs!) were able to get there savely. Wooooooh! Success after all! They even made it back and eventually all were rescued. (By now we had unfortunately lost several exiles due to departs - I hope they reached town savely).

  Ok, mission accomplished, but now all wanted home quickly! (OOC about 5.5 hours had passed now!) We decided to use an ethereal portal stone, but had first to climb back up two more levels. Somehow that thing does not work deep underground. So we fought back through the pitch and malachite caverns (with some minor drawbacks..) and ended up in the third sphere of the ethereal plain! By pure luck the portal brought us into the area with the ethereal forge, which helped a lot to create savely another portal which brought us back to the town temple! (Through purgatory).
  Wooooooh... A long long trip! But it was a huge success and I want to congratulate Fundin. Now a lot more advanced pathfinders will be around! 8) Also big thanks to Zorton and Yor and Gurgi for leading. And to everyone who was there!
  Fundin announced to do that again - but please much quicker then! *chuckle* See you all there next time!
  (Be sure to check TMN for the announcement!)

Farming to get kudzu reinforcements (and kill time) before we went home.

  posted 2003-09-19 22:29:19 CET - Add a comment [Viewed 3088 times]