Part Three: I Don't Think So

Ember continues in Act Two at clvl 35 with the following skills, stats and equipment:

Firebolt @ max (+3 from staff)
Fire Mastery @ 6
Warmth @ 13

Str 12, Dex 25, Vit 138, Nrg 80

Primary Gear:

Gemmed Battle Staff: +3 Firebolt, +2 Frozen Armor (unused), w/ flawless ruby and diamond, normal amethyst
Greyform: +20 Cold and Fire Resist, -3 Magic Damage - gambled Act 3 Normal
Burgundy Leather Gloves of Tiger: +18 Fire Resist, +29 Life - bought from Gheed in NM
Amber Light Belt of Tiger: +32 Lightning Resist, +28 Life - bought from Gheed in NM
Rare Boots: Faster Run, Fastest Recovery, +14 Lit Resist, +11 Life, +7 Stamina - gambled Act 2 Normal
Rare Ring: +37 Lit Resist, +29 Life, +1 Light, +130 AR - gambled Act 1 NM
Ring: -2 Damage, +35 Cold Resist - flesh spawner boss, Outer Steppes in Normal
Amulet: +45 Fire Resist, +12 Dex - beetle boss in the Disused Fane in Normal
Rare Cap: Fastest Recovery, +53 Life, +2 Light, +8 Poison Res, +3 Mana - gambled Act 1 NM

Alternate Gear:

Rare Quilted Armor: +49 Lit Resist, +29 Cold Resist, +34 Life, -50 Poison Dur, -20 Req - gambled Act 1 NM
Rare Cap: +49 Lit Resist, +25 Poison Res, Fastest Recovery, +6 Life, -25 Poison Dur - gambled Act 1 NM
Rare Light Belt: +26 Cold Resist, +15 Lit Resist, Fastest Recovery, +19 Life, +6 Mana - gambled Act 1 NM
Rare Light Belt: +53 Life, Fastest Hit Recovery, +2 Light, +26 Mana, +8 Poison Resist - gambled Act 2 NM
Rare Ring: +29 Poison Resist, -1 damage, +1 Light, Half Freeze, +2 Mana, +79 AR - Duriel in Normal
Ring: +43 Fire Resistance - Act 4 Normal
Ring: +22 Lightning Resistance, -2 Magic Damage
Amulet: +29 Cold Resist, +13 Dex - Act 4 Normal
Amulet of Defiance: -75% Poison Length - boss drop, Act 1 NM
Amulet: +49 Life - LEB Archer boss in Barracks, Act 1 NM
Gemmed battle staff with +3 Blaze (for use on Duriel ONLY).
Lennymo, Broc, Hotspur, Snakecord, and Biggins Bonnet saved for High Durability Rare purposes (gambling).

If I had to dump anything, it would be Biggins Bonnet. The two caps I had were pretty darned good. As it was, I was leaving the bonnet on the ground in town, where they were vulnerable to vanishing in a game crash. That new rare belt had earned a spot in Ember's cube and if any more keeper items turned up, I'd have to dump something (bonnet) and move something else out of storage in stash to storage on ground (likely Hotspur or Lennymo, depending on the new item).

In Normal I will usually complete the game in order. In Nightmare and beyond, my stash is always full with alternate gear, gems, or rejuvs, so I postpone the Maggot Lair in particular until the last reasonable moment, to prevent having to store the Staff of Kings (or leave it on the ground and have to redo the lair to get it back if there's a crash). I've even been known to full-clear all the false tombs and the true tomb and have nothing left to do in Act Two BUT Duriel, and only then do the Maggots.

For Ember, the optimal time for Maggot Lair was at the start of the final Session for Act Two, after the AS was done but before any action in the Canyon. Several things to consider: 1) The possibility of being stumped in the Maggot Lair: of being forced to quit without reaching the staff. 2) The likelihood of burning dead in the True Tomb and the complete grind it would be to get through it even once, much less redo it for any reason. 3) The possibility of heavy feline infestation in the Canyon made even scouting the True Tomb at all undesirable. No sense making MORE work than I would be looking to save. Combine these factors and the answer comes up: Do the Maggots before the Canyon, but do them all in the same game if possible so that the three homeless rejuvs displaced by the staff could sit on the ground in town rather than go to waste.

Yes, yes, I know that's a lot of thinking to put into the saving of three potions, but my ability to carry Ember this far has come on the back of countless little details like this, some admittedly more vital than others. Ember has more uniques saved for gambling purposes than any other char I've played, and thus less room available for storing potions. But do you think I'm going to go with less potions? No, not me. I'll operate on barely enough inventory space to carry one armor back to town if I have to!

The Maggot Lair was near the Oasis waypoint, as you may recall. So it was just a short outing with little fighting, and Ember went down into that stinky hole, grimacing the whole way. She fought some bugs, then a few more bugs, turned right at the first intersection, squished some more bugs, turned right again, then right a third time and found the, uh, hole to the next level. Apparently she had made the "right" decisions.

Level two was less cooperative. First there were Rock Worm champs (with attendant hordes of young) and then at the far east end, Ember rounds a corner and gets a strange feeling of weakness:

She heard the sounds of beetles chomping at the bit (and I could see the boss glow over the wall in the corner of the screen) and she promptly turned right around and chose another direction. :)

More rooms, more bugs. Squishy squishy squishy splat. Yuck yuck yuck.

On Level Three, I hoped to find Coldworm before she had a chance to breed them wall to wall. Poor Thrower had been delayed finding her by some boss packs his first two attempts and faced twenty or more mothers and young so thick he couldn't even Leap around them, the game wouldn't allow it. Ember could not stand up to that, not even close. If there were lots of bugs, she'd just have to keep shooting them and hope she could kill them faster than Coldworm's children could breed more.

Two Rock Worms in the first room, no problems there. Down a hallway, round a corner... beetles!

Behind the beetles, youngins. Lots of youngins. I killed a few beetle minions, then a mob of maggot young, then out pops this tasty boss treat:

I had little room to work, so I had to brave it to some degree. My worst nightmare, however, involved this bastard teleporting behind Ember in the hallway and crunching her up against that now-replenished hungry mob of youngins (and enough time had passed that it was clear Coldworm's room was just ahead, and yes it was filling up quickly and nothing I could do about it. I wore the boss down to near half then retreated to the one room I had to work with and finished him there. Not FEB thank goodness. LEB was actually better and I was grateful.

And then the tug of war began. Who could outdo the other? Could Ember shoot down ten armies of youngins? Or would Coldworm breed Ember right on out of there? Minutes on end, the tug of war lasted, and it took quite some time of lighting up youngins at two shots apiece to get this far:

Several more minutes to wear down the mothers. Babies continued to run interference in packs, but now there were short gap periods and I'd injure or slay a mother or two, then another round of kamikazes and wait for the next opening. Finally:

There were five or six more mothers cowering the back, but they were no problem once the big mama was dead. Got the staff and got out of Dodge.

In the Canyon I found Hell Slingers and Devourers. More bugs??? Um... yay?

Maybe so. Maybe I should count my blessings. Both of these foes were slow, and though two dozen hungry youngins at a time mistook Ember for their next meal, progress was steady and there were no crisis moments. Though the bugs required a lot of shooting, it would only have been more work and more risk to run willynilly all over the canyon, tempting fate with Hell Cats and not able even to do that with speedy mobs of Crushers. The Hell Slingers hurt when they connected but at least I didn't have to run for my life. Ember moved directly left then clockwise along the exterior wall to Tomb One, and made sure the area was secure before entering (I anticipated needing to use the waypoint again, to say the least).

Enter Tal Rasha's Tomb.

The first room was the tight spiral, circling counterclockwise from 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock with doors (thankfully closed doors) at 5, 2, and 11. Not good! Only one entry segment is tighter, and only one other nearly as bad. I would have preferred almost any other roll... except that this one was completely empty! If there had been even as few as two encounters waiting (two Unravellers and 7+ burning dead for SURE, but even one of them and Gorebellies or Ghouls would have been too much) this would have been a total wash and time for a map change.

All right, so Ember is in the door. Now what? I can pick from 11, 2, and 5 o'clock, and the earlier, the farther from the entrance. If I opened 5 and burning dead poured out, I'd either have to bail immediately, or run the other way and then bail through a portal. 2 wasn't much better. At least 11 offered me the full length of the spiral room to work in, with the entrance at my back if things went completely wrong.

Open the door, empty short hall and an open doorway into a room. Approach the room, Unraveller shooting at me, and here come half a dozen burning dead. I could not make a stand there, the Unraveller would just raise any I did manage to kill. So I had to lure them out and away, and just moments later Ember knew what it was like to be a sardine.

Only five followed me to the front room. After two or three minutes of microloop, I managed to kill one but the sixth immediately replaced him. This was disheartening, but I pressed on, remembering how tight it had been in the Halls of Dead a couple times. I contemplated the need for Choking Gas potions to stifle their health regen, but I had none on me and feared that if I retreated now, there might be no way to get back in here. I just kept fighting, running, tempting, shooting.

After an ungodly long time, those first six were dead. I contemplated wading through the entire tomb thick with these bastards, then put this possibility out of my mind to avoid going insane. I went after the Unraveller, but several Gorebelly minions ran interference and nearly pushed Ember back to the front door. Yes, minions, meaning a boss in the hallway beyond that next room. Um... yay?

I lured the Unraveller into the hall, then made a Life or Death stand against him, allowing him to poison and batter Ember rather than let him into resurrect range of those dead skeletons in the room behind me. The great irony here, perhaps, is that it took less shots to kill the big mummy than it did to kill any one of his henchundead.

Here comes the next tasty treat, right on the heels of the Unraveller: several Preserved Dead. Well, all I can say is that's better than Apparitions. Otherwise, this was grim news. The tomb was wall to wall with resurrectables!

Advance into the room and I hear a chuck sound and Ember turns blue. Oh yes, wonderful. A few new skels are coming in from that hallway along with two more minions. Still no sign of the boss, but Ember is now thoroughly chilled and running in slow motion around the room with a mob of seven or eight on her heels.

The only good news was no Unravellers in this mix. Yet.

I killed off the gorebelly minions first, then tried to work on the undead, but finally the boss arrives:

Oh Cursed too? Just what Dr. Murphy ordered.

Ember went down into Tal Rasha's Tomb, she was lookin for the one named Baal. She came upon a Holy Freeze boss who chilled her petite little tail. He chased her around a littly bitty room with a great big nasty old club. The skeletons and mummies too, ding-dong-dang rub-a-dub-dub!

Round and round, run girl run! Undead in the house of the magely one. Shake your little booty now, go child go! Fire resistant bastards chase a sorcie slowed. ... ... Round and round, run girl run! Undead in the house of the magely one. Shake your little booty now, go child go! Fire resistant bastards chase a sorcie slowed. ... ...

Hey, YOU'd make up stupid song ripoffs, too, to break the monotony of endless microloop fighting if you were there, so don't get snippy on me now. OK? OK! :)

That boss was finally killed but here come more skeletons now, so many more that Ember had to bail out a portal and return via the waypoint. (I told you that was coming, and don't think it's over yet! Cuz it ain't).

Lure out half a dozen to the front room and painstakingly fight them there. Also known as "The first fight revisited". Then race into the room to confront the remaining eight or ten (run girl run). At least I wasn't chilled any more. So are you keeping track here? If not, let's add em up:

Nine skels a-chasing...
Eight skels a-swinging...
Seven skels a-walking...
Six skels to start with.
FIVE... BUR-NING... DEAD!
Four normal mummies
Three resurrected
Two Unravellers...
And a Holy Freezer swings a pear tree!

Six burners to start, yes, four gore minions, one Unraveller, four Preserved Dead, five burners and three preserved dead and two minions and the boss all at once from that hallway, then fifteen more burners.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET???

One day, yes one day, I hope to have a whole room secured.

More than a dozen shots per burning dead is the real problem, made worse by health regen when facing large groups that run interference for one another. Can you see now why I flipped Atma the bird and told her to stay away from me! That craven witch would have had Ember fighting whole floors of these things! :)

I'd like to tell you that I eventually handled that mob of ten, but it's not true. What I did is lure the bastards out to the front room and exit via the stairs, then return through a portal I'd raised in the corner of the room I fought the boss in. There's now only one way in or out of Tal Rasha's Tomb, and that's Ember's portal. Fun eh? But you do what you've got to do.

Now fighting a two-front war. Burning dead own the front room, but Ember owns the second room. Her target was the Unravellers. Slay them and gain another room to fight with, and I might still pull this off. If not... if I lost control of the room I'd committed to, this would be over and I'd have to change maps and hope for a better configuration next time. I was thinking that there were four, maybe five unravellers in the next room, and they probably still had minion undeads with them, but I hoped not enough to send another wave of fifteen at me all at once.

Advance, finally, into the next hall, and yes, here come some Preserved Dead and a couple more burners. Microloop until they are slain (as far from the door as I could safely manage), then repeat repeat repeat with a few of this or that at a time. I then advanced into the room (a dead end crisscross hallway) and slew three Unravellers while avoiding/tempting a minimob of mummies. Tweaker SF-ing this ain't! This here is some real work, harder than stuff I get PAID to do! Anyway...

More burners came from the back, where four more Unravellers were lurking (yikes, seven in one room? Good grief!) I ran all the way back to my "secured" room and waited, but none followed that far. I decided to whip around through the hall, bypassing the crisscross, into the next room, to see what was there. Well, only one Unraveller! I rushed in, shot him down, then looped a mass of mummies and a few burners.

Oh, and by the way, I was making many trips back to town. I happily allowed the game to erase as many corpses as it was willing to do, and sold every single piece of crap that hit the floor in the process. This actually was part of my plan: let most if not all the corpses in a particular area get cleaned up while I ran off in some other direction, and deliberately work two fronts at once to reduce enemy opportunities for resurrecting undead. The damn things were hard enough to kill the first time!

Advancing out the other side of that newly cleared room, I find another dead-end crisscross. My heart sank. I would not find the Orifice this way. It was hidden somewhere behind either Door 2 or Door 5. So be it, I still had a mess to clean up, a big mess. I needed this whole quadrant cleaned up to give me plenty of fall back room for dealing with the next dreadful mass of skeletons, and the next, and the one after that. Too much rushing would only get me in too deep and then what? Forced to quit and start all over? That was NOT my idea of rushing. I was rushing by making sure I did this right the first time.

And what's in Crisscross #2? Hordes of burning dead (and what turned out to be another five Unravellers, yes that's a full dozen in just two of these crisscross dead end rooms). I worked and worked and worked and worked back and forth. Retreating sometimes back to the secured room with the portal, and always trying to work things in the area where corpses had been thinned recently. Snag an Unraveller here, another one there, finally I had the whole area secure and cleaned out, except for the entrance room where those nine or ten skels were still parked. Now with lots of room to work, though, it was easy to lure just a few at a time.

Not sure how many hours this all took. More than two, that's all I know. I now had a grand total of four segments secured: the entry, the double room, and the two crisscrosses. And, uh... how many total segments do you think there are in Tal Rasha's Tomb? Not that many in a False Tomb, but quite a few in Kaa's Tomb and many many many in the True Tomb. Unless luck broke my way and soon, I might have to stay up all night to get through this mess! Wow.

I then had the choice: 2 o'clock door, or 5? I decided on the 2, and wondered immediately if I'd made a bad choice, because a tidal wave of burning dead washed me back back back. I even lost control of the second room and had to move my portal to the rear of the first crisscross. If that's not bad, I don't know what is. I'm now bottled up, in effect, in a dead end room and fighting to regain ground I once had secured. Have I adequately communicated how painstaking this was? I hope so. :)

Makes you wonder if I wished I had let Ember have Teleport and Cold Armors instead of making her a Hot Babe, but no, to be honest I am content with Ember's challenge. I thought that if somehow I made it through, that victory would be all the sweeter. I think crazy thoughts sometimes. :)

Finally I wore down this mob of burners, far far away from any hope of resurrection action, then charged in and slew the Unravellers amidst a mob of mummies. I'm dealing with a wide open four way intersection complete with pillars and I thought, might as well turn left and continue clearing in the same general area as I had already been working. Well, this proved to be a solid decision:

You can see the entire map of the tomb in that shot. The part it drew beyond Door 5 was drawn without me opening that door. I never saw what's in that hall. Doesn't look like much real estate when seen from the automap view, does it? All that action to clear five little rooms. I found the Orifice in the sixth room, and truth be told, I could NOT have reached there with less work no matter how you slice it. If I had gone Door 2 right away, I'd have been swarmed and forced out. I needed ALL the space behind Door 11 to be able to get into Door 2, and then Tal Rasha's chamber is right there.

Fate was smiling on Ember today. You wouldn't have known it from the description of the fighting, but I could not possibly have drawn a better tomb layout and encounter load involving burning dead. Maybe an easier one without the burners, but I'll take this one and be happy, thank you very much!

Ember consults Elzix for fashion advice. "I have a blind date, Elzix. I'm planning on playing hard to get. What do you think of this outfit?"

"Hmm. You look like a sturdy adventurer. I like the purple on that sleek new staff."

"Thanks. I'm going to give him a hot time tonight. He'll never even look at another woman again!"

"That a girl! You knock him dead, you hear."

"He won't even know what hit him!"

And now it's time to deal with that ridiculous bug.

I have no qualms about admitting that I hate Duriel. I hate everything about that encounter: it's cheap in more ways than I care to list. There are countless other ways they could have put up an interesting boss, and they cheesed out completely, with a one-shot-kill, charge-you-in-a-sardine-can, Freeze-you-so-you-can't-fight-back-or-run-away piece of CRAP boss. I despise everything about the Duriel encounter from front to back and top to bottom.

You know the real problem with Duriel? He's one of those stupid puzzles with narrow answers. There are several easy ways of coping with him, but if you don't build your character to include one of those, well you are shit out of luck, aren't you? Especially as a hardcore character.

Well fooey on that! That's why I made an exception in the rules for Ember, for dealing with Duriel.

Burn you ugly bastard, burn.

As you can see in the picture, slvl 3 Blaze doesn't last very long. There were times I had to just run dry, waiting for the next safe opening to cast. No stamina problems (I walked some too) but the combination of how long this would take and how dangerous his charge could be made this a nasty, tense, no-fun encounter that I'd honestly rather have avoided entirely. I don't really care about Duriel if the char I'm playing has a solution for him built in, but this would have been the end of the road for Ember for SURE if I played her pure firebolt instead of allowing the blaze staff. Even that was a hard solution.

Do you think I'm going to let this cheesy son-of-a-@!+$# end Ember's adventures???

Click Here to find out.