I looked at the clock. Ember's last hurrah began at 11:27.

The first two opponents out of the gate: Stranglers.

Ember's earlier river draw had been an easy one, but she had proven on the Steppes, on the Plains, in the City, that she could handle the finger mages. The River meant only the added need to ensure their destruction without allowing them to escape.

Even so, two at once was already pushing the limit. I ran a microloop around the statues until the Stranglers neared half health. I wounded one ever so slightly and let him flee, then made a stand with the other at melee range, letting him pound on Ember while she shot him down. There are benefits to high Vitality, but those benefits also have limits.

I lured the other one back and made a stand at short range. They will keep attacking with homing missiles no matter how wounded they get, if you stand there and take the hits. This applies to both melee attack and their missile attacks (but you have to stay close and stand still). Ember was dry as a bone and seriously wounded by the end of that engagement but the two Stranglers were dead, about eighteen shots apiece. Back to town to see Jamella.

I pressed ahead, encountered two maw fiends. Ember was happy to see them! "Here, boy. That's a good dog. Some nice firebolt snacks for you. Yum yum, eat up! Yes, that's the way."

Ember went a little farther. I observed which segment I'd drawn for the first half of the maze: the one with the path down the right and a wide dead end platform in the middle. Then Pit Lords, two of them. No problem I thought, until two Stranglers flew out of nowhere, posing a crisis for Ember already and we've only just begun!

I ran round and round but they covered for one another with almost intelligent precision. Ember took some hits despite my best tempting efforts and there just wasn't enough time or space to fire more than a shot here or there. I had to drink Ember's last minor rejuv, then a full, and still no handle on this. Good grief, was the whole game going to go like this? If I woke up more than three or four Stranglers at one time, Ember might not even reach the Sanctuary!

I needed to kill the Pit Lords first and I wasn't making any significant headway. Hard times breed desperate measures. Ember ran headlong up the river, into the maze, out onto the middle platform, opened a portal and popped through.

On returning via the waypoint, I was able to lure the Stranglers back for a fight without the balrogs to get in the way. Once those were dead, the Pit Lords were a piece of cake. Another strangler, then two maw fiends on the dead end to the left. Ember finally had a foothold.

I considered what to do about Ember's belt. I had plenty of rejuvs, probably more than I would need or use, unless I squandered them. Ember had to stand and take punishment to finish off Stranglers, though, so I had three options: use rejuvs (and possibly not have enough later, when they might be more urgently needed), stock the belt with rejuvs and try to drink reds from inventory, or revert to a column or two of reds on the belt itself. After brief thought, I decided on the latter. Ember needed the ability to drink during a fight. I'd had barely gotten anywhere and had already consumed three half purples and one full. I'd be going through a lot more unless I put reds on the belt for those non-life-or-death situations where I still needed to restore health without breaking stride. I decided to put red in column one only, and to stock up to half a dozen more in inventory. Sorties here included one or two engagements, then back to town, maybe with one item, maybe not. Any reds I hadn't used would get dropped on the ground to make room for an armor or weapon to sell, and I'd pick them up on Ember's return to the field.

The warm up was over now. The strategizing had been completed. I knew Ember's limits with the finger mages (more than two at a time was serious trouble) and I could now assess the true level of threat without having to think it over. The time had come to get down to business.

Across the lava, unable to reach Ember, several Pit Lords stirred restlessly. Ember attacked them.

In the process of downing those targets, Ember hit others behind them, offscreen, and woke up a champ pack of fiends.

That first one was slain right there, across the lava. The others wised up, refusing to come out and play without a more direct invitation. I had to walk around and lure them out. The first one chased too slowly and I lined him up for easy disposal.

The third fiend played smarter. If I didn't know better, I'd think the game's AI was "learning" from its mistakes. Just dumb luck that each successive champion turned out a little harder than the last to kill. That third one got all the way around to the platform before I finished it, and the last one never did come out. I killed it a short time later, on its terms, further upriver.

Pit Fiends ceased to be a problem, so long as they didn't team with Stranglers. Tempt and shoot, run n gun, balrog dead. I found myself praying for a Sanctuary filled end to end with Venom Lords, with limited Mage/Knight mobs and only a few Storm Casters. And if wishes were horses, we'd all ride to paradise. :)

The other maze segment had the path down the left outside, with the long straightaway loop on the right. Ooh! That one is my favorite for easy river traps of knights and venoms.

Ember woke three Stranglers and got pushed all the way back to the waypoint. While looping there, I stepped behind the waypoint on one occasion and woke up two Pit Lords from downriver! Ack! (For some reason, I prefer to loop clockwise there. I don't know why, because I tend to loop counterclockwise more often in general). That made me glad I hadn't drawn maggots. I'd have had to clear a segment or two downriver.

This led to the escape of one already wounded Strangler, fleeing downriver where I dared not pursue. Oops. I wondered if I'd ever see him again. I expected that he'd show at the worst time. Oh well, can't be perfect. I was honestly happy to have gone this long without losing track of one. I repeated the upriver portal move to separate out the remaining foes. The Pit Lords were the first to die this time. The two remaining Stranglers were camped at the portal and Ember finished them with more masochist tactics and red drinking.

Don't let me give you the impression that handling these finger mages on the river was approaching anything resembling routine. It took renewed nerve each time to stand Ember there and let them beat on her in a fight to the death, despite her overwhelming advantages in these one-on-one struggles. With no shield and no defense for Ember, they only missed one out of twenty times unless I tempted them, moving out of range before an attack could land -- and they only missed that frequently because that's the uppermost ceiling on To Hit percentage: 95%. Well, Ember could not tempt these, not once their health was reduced into the flee range. That stole Ember's greatest advantages away: her mobility and my human intelligence. All they needed to tilt the odds into their favor were numbers. Two were enough to raise threat level to dire when employing this tactic, and three put a complete stop to it, forcing me to loop or give ground, wound the extras and hope to lure them back or catch up with them later -- or try to separate them with some portal move.

There were a few more fiends and balrogs, then Ember stood within sight of the Sanctuary gate.

Well, at least she had made it this far. That's something to be proud of, right? I braced myself. The challenge level was about to ratchet up another notch. The last area of the game.

The Chaos Sanctuary