Jumping the Gun(The Long Night)

March 22, 7:20pm CST

For anybody who wasn't online during the final hour of last night's session, or didn't quite understand what happened, I'm putting this up to try and explain what transpired on my end, why I was rushed and what I overlooked, and how that led to my mistake, which I'm going to apologize for.

When Kez was kidnapped, I was informed that she had limited time, that we had x amount of time before she died. That didn't immediately affect me, I knew that if the creature had been down the central hallway and not the others, then we had to go through the portal, so I just went for it. That was how I reasoned based on what was presented to me at the time and the threat of a limit on time. If that's something I need to answer for, let me know, but to my knowledge it wasn't a serious mistake to anyone.

What happened next was we were split into two groups, each going through a series of puzzles, and we couldn't say anything in the chat tied directly to what was happening. I was admittedly hesitant to test that restriction, so almost all of my interaction with other players and the GM happened there, with spoilers where necessary. I used a certain tactic for holding back, where I would say that I "ran towards the door", but not that I "ran through it", which I thought was an important distinction to make. The point is, the chat was essentially off-limits, and what happened then was that it devolved back into that lack of out-of-character communication, where we would keep posting, refresh the page before posting to read other peoples' posts, and trying to keep from posting merely for the sake of OOC to a minimum. What I mean by that is I wanted my posts to always something in-character, with or without something OOC.

I kept thinking, "time limit, time limit, no chat, no chat". It caused me to start skimming the chat for the posts that were directed at my character. Once we were all back together, I could have gone straight back to chat to talk about how to go forward, but I forgot. I made the mistake of rushing in that mentality, being "in the zone", which, if you understand the phrase, isn't always a good thing. It was after I shouted "no" at the obsidian creature that I began skimming posts again, saw Arche's reply post about 3 questions, that my error started causing more errors. I started typing up another post in response to get my answers, skimming other people's posts, and ignoring the chat.

My character was thinking about what to answer with, but I was ignoring the other players in chat, and that's what led to the mistake I made. I didn't stop to realize that I could just calm down, step back, and think first, talk to the others, see what they think I should ask. After all, I knew that I alone was being given questions, but I hadn't realized that I could, had to, collaborate with the team.

I'm not trying to defend myself as I explain all this. I know what I did wrong, and I know why it was wrong, and I apologize. The reason for this post is I want to give people an explanation--to not only recognize it and admit it, but to answer to the people who felt the consequences of what I've done, and own up to it.