I expected a horde to rush out of the Sanctuary's front hall, eager to tackle the stranger knocking on the door. If not that, a welcoming party would greet Ember or at least the butler would answer the door, let her in and take her cloak. But... nothing. No one there, not even lava crickets chirping in the background. I had Ember over on the isolated maze loop on the right, so that she'd only have to deal with any Storm Casters, and could leave the knights, mages, and balrogs stuck across the lava.

When it became clear that they were being coy, I walked Ember clockwise around the maze, down the outside left to the gate, and waited there. I think maybe I heard a cricket. Maybe.

Ember cracked the gate open and peeked inside. "Anybody home? Hello?" The halls echoed with her voice.

Now what should I make of this development? I knew better than to fantasize about an empty Sanctuary and Ember prancing up to the seals unmolested. Did this void in the front hall imply an easier draw? Or would it mean that the hordes were more tightly packed and apt to attack at platoon strength?

One step at a time, Ember nudged forward. "Hello? I think I'm lost. Mr. Ahblow, are you home? Is this the residence of one Mr. D. Ahblow? I was told to see you about acquiring a new land grant."

Still no response.

Ember advanced up the front hall about three quarters of the way. I miss the ability to move one tile length from Diablo 1. The least you can move in D2 seems to be about four or five tiles, albeit those are smaller tiles. With a little zigzag action one can vector off some of the distance relative to a particular direction, but I'm still divided on just how useful that really is. Here I moved straight.

Ah, here they come. The game is afoot.

Did three Storm Casters constitute a jailbreak? Pretty much so, yes. Perhaps a minor jailbreak, but these criminals were on the loose, armed and dangerous, and Ember could have used a posse to back her up, or at least a sidekick. Instead she had to play the lone ranger.

The first thing I noticed is that Storm Casters were more robust than Stranglers, likely due to higher resistance as well as extra life. Several more shots would be required per target to take them down, pushing them into the range with Venom Lords, to my surprise (two dozen or so hits). I didn't expect them to be quite that sturdy, although the difference needed to get them to flee was only two or three extra shots. Ember temped them as she could, giving ground reluctantly but quickly. At times I had to give a large chunk of ground to prevent the possibility of becoming trapped in a corner of the maze. The next thing you know, we're back at the waypoint. I have one target wounded noticeably, the others only a little. Round and round, clockwise. On the third loop, a Strangler joined us from upriver -- probably the wounded one that got away.

Now we've gone from mess to bona fide crisis. I managed not to panic, but this was pretty grim. The only positive is that I didn't have an aggressive balrog in the mix to dictate the pace of the action.

Storm Casters have two attack forms. Their melee attack is fairly quick, almost on par with doom knights. They will only engage this attack form at point blank range. Their ranged attack involves striking the ground and igniting a string of guided energy missiles. This attack takes a bit of time. They will only attack with missiles from a certain range, call it "medium range", but if you stand still they will keep attacking that way. Your mana ball can be drained quickly if you let this happen, but the physical damage from these missiles is limited, and the time you can buy is greater.

Ember had two mana potions she'd found on the river. I managed to force the most wounded Caster to run, then locked the other casters into missile attack mode and let the Strangler beat on Ember with melee while I concentrated all I had on taking it out. Had to quaff a mana potion, a red and then a rejuv to pull that off. The third Caster came back but I sent him running again with two more hits, then locked one of the remaining casters into missile mode and took the other one at melee range. This required a red and the last mana potion, but he fell. I ran Ember to the waypoint and up and out of there to visit Jamella, restock reds, restore mana, then right back down to tackle the remaining Storm Casters.

That may sound as if I "had a plan". In truth, it was seat of the pants. Without the mana potions, that would have taken multiple rejuvs to accomplish. I had the unsettling feeling that I would come to a crisis point where Ember would be hopelessly overmatched. What I would do if that happened, I had no idea. The welcoming committee had consisted of only three Casters, and look what it took to beat them.

"Welcome to Hell, Countess Ember. Mr. Ahblow is unavailable to receive you at this time. If you will follow these black clad gentlemen to your doom -- er... I meant 'into the next room' -- they will dispose of you appropriately."

Sort of reminds me of a B-class Kung Fu movie, where the evil villain sends his army of weakling warriors to wear down the hero, knowing they will all be slaughtered but not caring, and the hero takes them on one or two, maybe three at a time, pounding them to crap (the hardcore movies include weapons, so the hero is actually slaying all these peons). There's always some hopeless-looking ambush near the end of the fight, but the Hero struggles through, torn and bleeding, then must fight the villain, and the villain always fights dirty, cheats, what have you. Utterly dreadful story writing there, but one can't help but be amused by it anyway. Those cool fight scenes, even when badly choreographed, and all the grunting and high pitched squealing and melodramatic sound effects (which are sometimes out of synch with the action)... Diablo 2 feels like that sometimes, but if you stop to appreciate it without getting stuck on how absurd it is, there is a certain romanticism to it all. :)

One thing became clear. If at all possible, I must fight to stay within the Sanctuary when battling Storm Casters. If a swarm of Casters pushed Ember back to the River, that would be the end of the road.

Next up, the legions of doom.

Ember's second encounter, she woke two mages with their attendant knights. The usual encounter group for these involves one mage and four knights, just like fallens and shamen or unravellers and burning dead. I think the number of knights might vary, but the encounter type is definitely one mage plus some knights.

I did not rush Ember. After the first fight, I was in no way overconfident in her magical prowess. One careful step at a time, and it just didn't matter. Here come the knights!

To quote Marius: "What choice did I have? I ran."

Some of the Doom Knights followed and I dealt with them directly, on the river. Then the mages emerged. I retreated to the safety of the loop on the right and fought them across the lava.

Ember was sturdy and could take a hit, but I preferred not to do so as a first resort. I wanted them to shoot elemental shots. Those stung the most but could be dodged with a single sidestep, allowing Ember to fire off a shot or two in reply. Bone Spirits hurt less but could not be micrododged. Ember had to sprint to get away from them. There's just no way to evade those with precision because (yes, even in single player) the graphics are out of synch with the actual shots. You can't trust what you see, and in that regard it can feel like multiplayer. The options are to run or to let it hit you. Sometimes I would let it hit me, but only in one on one situations where Ember was guaranteed to buy some time, and several hits, possibly even a quick kill, with her blood. When facing two or more mages, the risks and costs grew too high to play that game.

This fight with two mages lasted a couple of minutes, solely due to their bone spirits. Once I managed to kill one, the odds of being chased away by more bone spirits nearly evaporated and Ember quickly downed the other target. Remaining fighters posed little risk and were eliminated.

Ember fought a few Venom Lords. Tempt, shoot, kill, on to the next engagement. (If that sounds routine to you, you interpreted my meaning correctly -- this still took work, but I'd done so much balrog-slaying by now, the dangers were minimized).

Next up, a Storm Caster.

Afraid to let him go, not wanting to retreat to the river, and not yet having any area secured in the Sanctuary, I decided on masochistic tactics. I gave little ground, barely enough to avoid the worst of his missile attacks. Ember's mana was almost sucked dry by the time she wore him down to half, so I closed to melee range and braved the beating. He slapped her around but not too badly.

Next up, more Venom Lords. I started to think of them as mini-Izuals: lot of work to kill, little threat. In numbers they could swarm, but I had a portal open out on the river and could flee there, trapping a limitless number for extermination from across lava. On the Outer Steppes they deserved respect and had to be dealt with carefully. Here, all I had to do was keep them in front of Ember and, if possible, try to avoid fighting Venoms and Casters at the same time. Honestly, this final contest for Ember was pushing my limits as a player. I'd have welcomed a Sanctuary filled end to end with Venom Lords. Then again, the part of me that always loved engaging masses of Soul Burners in D1 Hell/Hell actually thrilled at the challenges posed here. So maybe, after all, deep down, I longed for more Storm Casters.

"Someone ought to take that part of me out and shoot it. I've got nothing to do with that guy, he's crazy."

"Oh shut up. You're enjoying this too, even if you do find it stressful. Now be quiet before they start to think that we're schizophrenic or something."

I advanced a little farther, met another Caster. Now that I had secured enough room, it was time to employ my best weapon against these dangerous pests: the Sanctuary architecture. One on one, Ember could crush them like wheat in her delicate little fist.

The trick to using this corner revolves around the moment of flight on the part of the Caster. When the health drops into or below the "C" on their status bar, they will run. At that point you must have them positioned above you on the screen so that they run straight toward the top of your monitor and into that corner. There are only a few such corners and they vary slightly between the formations of the Sanctuary.

Ember arrived at the first lava pool. I saw the formation I'd drawn and breathed a sigh of relief.

The way the sanctuary walls work, is that all walls above you on the screen are solid. Casters cannot pass through them. There are gaps in some places, but there are no walls that appear below you. Everything toward the bottom of the screen is wide open.

Only the two lava pools in the long hall provide any interior cover. Those are literally the only available tools for trapping Storm Casters, and without Hydras, there is no way for a sorcie to shoot around the walls. Static wouldn't work through the walls even if Ember had that option. The lava area is "out of bounds", so area of effect spells like fireball and meteor that require ground to function can't reach through the wall either. Hydra is the only option and even it is not easy to employ here. This sort of trap is useful only for herding.

You can see Storm Casters on the far side of the windows. There are three there, and if all loosed at once, they would push Ember all the way back to the River waypoint.

By stepping carefully to the left, I lured one out then immediately ran to the right, leaving the others stuck. Ember crushed the loose one in the only secured corner, as shown before, then repeat, repeat, chalk up another skirmish victory for the Firebolt Sorcie.

If I had tackled this headlong, letting them all out at once, it would have taken ten times the work to get it done. What's more, four, maybe five, was Ember's utmost limit at the waypoint. If Murphy's Law showed its face, there would come a time when the only thing standing between Ember and certain defeat would be an opportunity -- ONE chance -- to contain a bad jailbreak through herding.

No signs yet of a random boss or champ pack. I kept expecting to encounter one at any moment.

Behind the lava pool lay a swarm of knights. Back to the river we go. In the screenshot below, you will see that the game has misnamed one of the monsters. I crossed out the error and penciled in a correction:

All this fellow would have had to do is walk around to the left. The path isn't even off screen! I trimmed the screenshot for size, but you can still see how easy it should have been for him to come after her. On the ground you see a dead one, Dumb Knight the First. He hadn't done any better.

Do I feel guilty about capitalizing on their ineptness? Nope. They'd capitalize on mine in an instant. That's known as strategy. Besides, I didn't need to fight them this way. I didn't actually plan this, either, just turned out that I found a new flaw in the pathfinding algorithms. It took longer to kill them this way because numerous shots missed as they wandered around restlessly. Less mouse work for me this way, though, and I appreciated getting a breather.

There were more knights, more knights, and a few more Storm Casters. The Casters I managed to herd without a problem, allowing Ember to fight them one at a time. After killing off the fighters (sometimes had to retreat to the river, sometimes not) Ember had to deal with three mages at once, behind the second laval pool. Plenty of room to run loops there (for escaping bone spirits) so I stuck it out.

Then I spotted trouble brewing, possibly dire trouble. Behind the windows in the long west wall of the long hall, three Storm Casters stewing in their own juices. Only two ways for them to get at Ember: around the top or the bottom of the wall. I would have to be extremely careful. If they followed me downriver and broke around the bottom end of that wall, Ember might be so much buttered sorcie toast.

If I could pull it off, the best way to resolve this new threat would be to lure them out one at a time around the north end of the wall. Problem with that is, that area isn't secure, and trying to secure it might set these bad boys loose in addition to whatever is already guarding that area. Great, just what I need!

I steered clear of that for the moment.

I looked at the clock, which read 1:27. Two hours into this trial of fire, Ember has reached the pentagram.

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