AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT

Ember arrived in Act Three 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 - Act 2 NM
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
Lennymo, Broc, Hotspur, Snakecord, and Biggins Bonnet saved for High Durability Rare purposes (gambling).

Upon disembarking, Ember received a warm greeting from the smith on the dockside.

(I think someone ought to tell the poor guy that Ember's only magic is Firebolt. On second thought, maybe not, we wouldn't want to depress these poor people any worse. Even Meshif seems distraught at the condition of this place).

My favorite part of the game is Act Three. I can get annoyed by town desync on the Realms, but that's a problem with the strangenesses (dare I say poor design?) of the multiplayer networking. Act Three itself is filled end to end with atmosphere: music, visuals, and the most interesting monster AIs. Maybe Act Five will top it, but that remains to be seen. Parts of Act Three can be brutal in multiplayer: flayers plus lag, temple stair traps plus lag, all those magic users in Kurast City plus lag, council plus lag... hmm. The common factor in all of those is the lag! Here in single player, Act Three is fun end to end, except perhaps for the council if you are offensively underpowered. ... Like Ember.

We'll cross that bridge later, though. For now, time to hire a bit of help (Hello, Asheara? Is Thadar available? Oh he's not? Oh rats. Darn it. Uh... who else do you have then?)

Let's rock!

Out the gate and we spot the Dark Wanderer!

He vanishes before we can make a successful attack (I don't REALLY think he was laughing at my firebolts, do you, Ajheed? He MUST have been laughing at something else!) Ajheed zaps them with some charged bolts and Ember cleans up the remains (read: does 98% of the actual killing).

We press into the forest and to my surprise, no Cloud Stalkers. Thorned Hulks (slow, but they take a lot of shots), Jungle Bunnies, and Fetishes. Fetish blowdarts to be precise, with no shamen. Strange enough, I am used to the shaman packs: a shaman, a couple knifers, a couple darts. This all one type deal minus the shamans was different enough to be annoying, from a certain point of view. I no longer had -5 damage, and the blowdarts hit for a lot more than that anyway, so there was no more tanking for the merc against hordes of blowdart shooters. As such, Ajheed was sucking up a goodly bit of damage. We returned to town a few times and then I decided to drop six full rejuvs in the town square so I'd have enough room to cart TWO armors or weapons at a time back to town, instead of just one.

We arrive at the first bridge and there are some Fetish champs, the knife kind. I thought we could handle them, but by the time I realized how much trouble Ajheed was really in and raised a portal to try and save him by rushing back to town for a quick healing, it was too late. He had met his fate and I wondered when Ember would meet hers. On the up side, one of the champs dropped the figurine and Ember picked up 20 more life.

I hired another lightning merc and we pressed ahead. The waypoint sat in the first alcove. I almost hate that, it's too close to town to be useful, and Murphy usually dictates that in such situations, you won't see another waypoint for the next couple of hours. Heh.

I also itched to do the Arachnid Lair, but I remembered Warriv's advice about avoiding a full grave and left it alone. Up around a bend in the river, then west, west and farther west we go, past a T and still west, so far west that we came to the Marsh Entrance.

Well that was good to know, but we had other business first. We backtracked a bit, crossed the river and took that fork to the north. Ember leveled up to clvl 36, so that was 11 more life (total) and another two damage thanks to increased Fire Mastery.

The Spider Cavern lay in the next alcove. Down we went and Flux did a splendid job of tanking against a trio of Poison Spinners. Sadly, he quite nearly died, and even though I got him back to town (along with some junk to sell) I knew his life expectancy could be counted now in minutes, at best.

Back to the Cavern, and Flux lasted through two more spider battles (hitting town after each one) and perished in the third to a trio of flame spiders. I cleared the rest of the side of the Cavern alone. As I worked down along the west and neared the possible beginning of Sszark country, I grew more cautious. When I thought I had figured out where the big bad spider was hiding out, I made sure to avoid that area and clear everything else first. Turns out I nailed his precise location:

Back in town I hired the best available cold merc, laid out a back door portal along the upper west side, then approached the chest from the west. We lured out two minions first and, with the help of Rhadge, these were slain.

Then "Old Sszark Buy-a-Vowel" (as my friend Cyrene calls him) woke up and came charging out. I had little hope that Rhadge could hold him long, but I expected longer than I got. Poor Rhadge. Buy-a-Vowel and two minions were after Ember. They weren't Extra Fast, that's all I know. I shot at them a few times but they kept on coming and discretion asserted itself as the better part of valor. I led the three to my portal and ducked through it. No pix, sorry. I don't even know what his bonus ability was, nor did I care to go back and look. I ran the distance from the waypoint to the Spider Cavern, and it was frankly a bit longer than usual, but no help for that. Down in the Cavern, Ember approached the chest now from the northeast side, staying as far away from where Buy-a-Vowel and company were parked as humanly possible.

There was one minion holding fort on that side. Ember was not strong enough to kill him quickly, but she was determined enough to get it done slowly. Look how far the poor wounded thing crawled before she could finish him!

Actually it was even farther than that, but the tail end of his web stream was evaporating already.

Got the Eye and got out of Dodge. One Relic down, three to go.

Ember cleaned up the rest of the Spider Forest. (Well, actually I was hoping for a shortcut through the last, empty alcove directly to the Flayer Jungle and came up empty, but "Ember cleared the rest" sounds more noble and suchlike).

On into the marsh and lo and behold, look what drops:

What's remarkable about a socketed Knout? Nothing really. Ember sold it as junk. However, the USEast Elemental Strike team spent a good many hours waiting and hoping that exact item would drop and never had any luck. (Our Paladin wanted a knout and had to settle for war scepters, oh well). Then the time when one even COULD drop had come and gone, so it was never to be. And here little old Ember turns one up and sells it. Hehehe. :)

The Marsh was filled with more fetishes. Lots and lots of them, this time in complete packs: knifers, darts and shamen, too. Also Gloams, and some zombies. Up around the north bend, Ember found these tasty treats to snack on:

I came to an alcove and found a gold chest. One good thing about being a firebolt sorcie: you can shoot down those river hydras. Try THAT with fireball or meteor! Ha! :)

Farther north, in a corner, lay the second alcove. I got ambushed here by a swarm of Gloams (thought it was a boss pack at first, but nope).

Fetishes and more fetishes. I really got a good chance to put my Tempting Fate mechanics into practice here. It sure is nice not to panic any more when the fetish swarm jumps out at me. Just walk away... Even more useful in the Flayer Jungle, which had to be coming up soon, right?

I'm sort of skipping over the huge numbers of trips to town Ember made. Even with pots on the ground I could only carry two items, and I went ahead and sold everything I could worth more than a few hundred gold, taking the chance to gamble more and more and get a free healing.

Gambling turned up Bloodfist, which actually could have been a keeper item with its 40 life and Fastest Recovery, but for my dire need to maintain high Fire Resistance, and no acceptable alternate way of doing so besides the +18 from my gloves. I stored Bloodfist anyway, sold Biggins Bonnet, and moved Broc to ground storage.

I realized I found the Flayer Jungle not when I saw the message, because there was no message. Well, in a way there WAS a message and this is what it looked like:

These eager beavers pushed Ember back a way into the Marsh but that isn't the most notable thing here. See that boss ability? Spectral Hit? I swear I saw more Spectral Hit bosses on Ember's run through NM even this far, than I ever had on any three other characters combined, and no I'm not counting that Brute boss from the Black Marsh ten times! Spectral Hit this and Spectral that. I wouldn't complain except that they DO get some added magic resistance, making more work for Ember. Better than FEB though, so I should shut up and knock on wood and such things.

Still no Marsh Waypoint yet. What did I tell you, hmm? I pressed ahead and Ember cleared the rest of the Marsh, and this time she really cleared it, no treasure hunting for shortcuts.

Here was an incredible moment for Ember:

It's amazing enough to roll up an experience total arriving EXACTLY on a 100,000 number, but the most remarkable thing of all is that I NOTICED IT. I don't even remember what I was checking... I opened up her char screen for SOME reason, and forgot about it the moment I spotted that score. Amazing stuff.

Oh yeah, now I remember. I was checking on how much experience I was earning per kill. I wanted to compare to what I'd been getting in Acts 1 and 2. The experience bar was moving along quite nicely, fed by all these fetishes that were scoring pretty high for critters I could kill in three or four shots (same as it took to kill stuff in Act One, I might remind you).

Now the Flayer Jungle...

Wall to wall to wall to wall flayers! Wowee, I'm used to seeing SOMEthing else in there: vultures, frogs, something else. Not this time. Flayers and Soul Killers and NOTHING ELSE. But you know, I loved it, and because these things would show up in large packs (five or more) compared to other critters showing up two or three at a time, this was actually some pretty high experience. And even without shield or any defense at all (95% chance to be hit) it was no problem. Flayers were MADE for Tempting.

The first alcove was empty.

The second alcove had the waypoint, and once again I was itching to visit the Swampy Pit but decided not to take the risk. I come out of that alcove and turn north again and there's a frog minion. Ooh. I switched gear to higher poison resistance then pressed ahead, looking for the boss. I looked and I looked, looked some more, looked around, looked up and down. No boss, not even so much as a single minion.

Now WHAT the deuce happened there? Anyone have any ideas? I can only think of two possibilities: either the game malfunctioned and made a single minion, no boss, or else the boss pack was stuck on one of those buggy islands out in the jungle that Blizz CLAIMS to have eliminated, and there wasn't room for this one minion so he got stuck in normal land. Those are the only things I can think of.

Arrive at the third alcove and I know what's inside. I played extra cautious with the Gidbinn, returning to town, then luring the LEB ratman boss to a safe location to be disposed of.

Yep, there's that Spectral Hit again!

And guess what! That lil bastard refused to hand over the Gidbinn! NO GIDBINN! How am I supposed to complete that quest without the Gidbinn??? I mean, I KNOW the chances of getting a useful ring from Ormus are virtually zero, but I want to play the lottery anyway! Gimme my ring! Aw rats.

I spent ten minutes confirming that, yes indeed, I got ripped off. No Gidbinn. "Sorry, those are out of stock. Would you like to order something else? We have other daggers that may interest you."

Silly little game. More bugs than Daggerfall, I swear! (And that's BAD).

Since I would have to refight this area to get another shot at the Gidbinn, I decided to skip the Flayer Dungeon for now, and press ahead to the Lower Kurast waypoint ASAP, then probably end my session.

Not knowing whether Stormtree might draw FEB, Magic Resistance or Teleport, I set up a parking zone for him on a dead-end island in the river, with Town Portal waiting. Turns out I didn't need it:

He was dead before we got halfway there. Cleaned up his goons and enter the city... OH COME ON!

What is UP with this session anyway? First no Gidbinn, then they put the LK waypoint so close to the gate even Ember could pee in a circle and hit it from there, and she's not properly equipped for doing that, if you follow me. This was as bad as the Jail 1 waypoint guarded by that goat boss. If I restarted and came here, Stormtree would be on me like white on a Gloamshot.

Nothing for it, then. Press on to the Bazaar or face either this mess or redoing extra in the Flayer Jungle and fighting Stormtree again anyway. Ember pressed on.

Now here's something else you should know. I don't give two wooden pennies WHAT the Chaos Sanctuary says about Tree Leapers, it's wrong wrong wrong. I've maintained all along that these nasties are brutally fire resistant and I'm going to say it again now. Twenty-two shots to kill ONE leaper, pinned to a pedestal and stunlocked? You bet! Twenty-two! That's almost as many as I foretold it would take to kill a Venom Lord! Now TELL ME those aren't heavily fire resistant (when you can chop them with an axe in a couple swings) and I'll offer to sell you my oceanfront property in Utah. Deal? :)

Do the math: over 60 damage per shot, twenty-two shots, that's... over 1300 damage?? Now if they have max fire resistance (75%) then it would still be over 325 damage. Factor in some regen there (hey it takes a little time to shoot two dozen times) and it works out about right. Maybe it's time for Shlonglor to make a correction on Act Three and Four Leaper fire resistances and list what they actually have in the game.

I shuddered to think how many shots it might take to kill Cliff Lurkers. Let's not dwell on that, shall we?

If you think I had the urge to full-clear Lower Kurast, you'd be wrong for once. I was happy to skirt the edge of town and get out of there as soon as possible. Even so I had to kill at least twenty leapers, and that was no picnic. Remember, this was the first monster that gave Hotfoot a hard time (yes, here in Nightmare, even). So you can imagine that Ember was playing rather cautiously. I even hired another cold merc for part of this trek, but he died before we got to the Bazaar.

Finally out of that nightmare mess and Ember has already leveled up again. (Told you those flayers were really scoring well for her!) Only one extra damage from Mastery this time, though. It's really trickled down. I'll probably get two more on the next level, but then only one each level after that, if that even (two percent increase per level after slvl 9 -- that ain't much!)

On the up side, some of these Hell Swarms were dying in ONE SHOT! This was such tremendous glory that I considered parking Ember here in the Bazaar and replaying it over and over until she reached clvl 99! Yay!

Well, OK, maybe not. But it certainly was intoxicating to fire a few shots and down a whole mob, instead of inflicting paper cuts on one of four leapers, with the other three still at full health. Not only that, but they gave almost as much experience as a leaper. Go figure.

Ember danced and pranced and quickly advanced, then was astonished when she actually ran into a bug that didn't fall over and die right away.

By the time Ember reached the waypoint, in the far corner, I was riding high and no longer wanting to quit. I made the decision to forget the Gidbinn and just play through without that ring, so it was time now to go back to the Flayer Dungeon.

There were no more cold mercs to hire. There weren't many to begin with, and I'd used them up. So I hired a lightning merc and down we went. The merc didn't survive the first room, and Ember had to Tempt undead flayers then back off to shoot them. Only my newly heightened confidence in my ability to handle flayers better by WALKING rather than running got me through this first room, and that's all I needed, because I recognized the map layout and made the correct turn to find the stairs in the next segment. Hire a new lightning merc and here we go.

Oh no! Look what's waiting in the first room on level two!

You can see I managed to kill a minion there, but my merc is already almost dead. I considered the possibilites of parking this baddie but the options looked slim at best. And then it got worse. From the south (left side of this room) comes charging out a pack of Dark Shapes. I can't tell exactly how many because they are stacked, but it looks like at least four. The merc tanked for me and I shot at them. That lasted a tenth of moment and then they are swarming after Ember, all worked up and ready for a sorcie snack. (No these aren't like Scooby Snacks. These are snacks made up OF sorcies, not made FOR sorcies. This is an important distinction for Ember in deciding her participation on the menu tonight).

Well this is a jailbreak at full throttle now. I've got all of one half a closet plus a portion of a sardine can to work with, too much situational awareness to dare pressing ahead into uncharted lands to meet with certain death, and I've only got four years to make up my mind. Oh sorry did I say years? I mean't seconds. You know, the time it takes to run down that itty bitty hallway and choose whether to flee up the stairs or open a portal and flee through it instead.

I chose the portal. Well... I THOUGHT I chose the portal.

The wraiths sped after me, flooding into the room and on top of Ember as the portal opens.

As fate would have it, one can walk right through these ghosts. This is one secret some don't seem to have recognized, but is usually only of tactical value in the Arcane Sanctuary. Here, all I had to do was click on that portal and Ember would escape safely. But... you know me, I hate backing down from a fight I think I can still win. Two of the ghosts got stuck on the doorway, leaving only three to attack Ember. If I was to take advantage of this, I had to do so NOW and damn the risks. So I made the decision to stand and fight, come what may.

Click Here to see the results.