Sheer dertermination, that's all I can say. I willed her to make it and she did.

The path she ran was the twistiest, most contorted thing you can imagine. Visualize trying to navigate a live, moving maze where the solution changes on you moment by moment by moment. The monsters were so thick, there was a whole lot more area covered by them than was open. I just kept clicking behind them and leaving the micromanagement of Ember's actual steps to the pathing AI. Yes, it was THAT thick, jerking her this way and that, once even backtracking her out and around a Guardian. Not even one of Billy's shortcuts from the Family Circus cartoon strip would have been any twistier.

Ember took hits yet never broke stride. That was the most amazing part for me. Praise be to triple Fastest Recovery and a 17% chill duration. I wanted to cut as close a path as possible to the altar platform. Well, I suppose I did that, but to get around all those bodies, Ember ended up out along the wall and desperately trying to turn the corner before they herded her behind that cage and forced her to abort. I drank a rejuv as Ember took more hits running down the screen, now heading east toward the steps. Two different Guardians had been close enough during the gauntlet to spit a cloud of poison at her but both had missed. A fourth Guardian blocked the way to the steps and I had to move around him as Vipers closed in. Then Ember was up on the platform, shot down two skeletons there, tripped the altar, grabbed the amulet and I took the screenshot. I was in such a hurry, that I did not get a look at Fangy's extra ability, but once again it turned out to be Cursed (I still didn't know until I cropped that screenie). You can see that one skeleton has already been raised. With four Guardians in this room, they were raising those two skels faster than Ember could rekill them, and after ten seconds of that I'd had enough, opened a portal and got her out of there.

On Realms, this run would have ended in desynch, I guarantee it. Even if you make it to the platform, on the server you'd be stuck inside that thick mob in the darkness to the upper left. That's one of the MOST annoying things about Diablo 2, and frankly was the worst aspect of Diablo 1 multiplayer, too: the way they handle client and server synchronization. D2 DESPERATELY needs a button or option to push, to force your client to resynch with the server and show you where you and the monsters and everything else REALLY is. The desynch problems are only getting worse by the month, too, not better, but enough of that ranting or I'll be at it all night long.

With the light of day to see by, I decided to clear the as-yet never cleared portion of the Lost City. I found the Ancient Tunnels in the far corner and decided what the Hell. There are no instant-mob type traps down there, just as there are none in the Lut sewers (some parts of this game, frankly, are better designed than others). And, well, having just survived a walk in the park, I thought I'd try my hand a real challenge now. :)

The chest was about as close to the entrance as it gets. In that space I drew two Invader bosses, one FEB the other LEB. Not too sticky, though. I went ahead and cleared the place. Not even as hard as the Stony Tomb, actually, because horror mages don't resist fire at all.

Now into the Harem, and I did not draw cold-shot mages, instead pulling archers. Um... yay? Heh. Not! Give me the mages! Please! Oh well.

At least I didn't draw both. The archers in the center room actually bit Ember pretty hard once or twice and this was despite generally cautionary play. Once again I found myself wishing I had some sort of shield.

Level One gave me a break: lots of fire mages (slightly more fire resistant, too, but oh well), but no archers there. Cleared that out completely, as I did the Harem. Level Two, though... no mages but plenty of archers, including the nasty kind:

Why am I full-clearing? I don't know. Because I can, I suppose. Because I wasn't impressed with the threat level, perhaps. Or maybe just because I knew what I could or couldn't handle.

Down on level three, mages and archers and plenty of Invaders. And then something amazing happened. An invader swung at Ember while she was stationary and firing back, and he MISSED. But wait! Before you drop your jaw at the incredible effectiveness of Ember's 30 Defense Rating, he then swung and missed AGAIN. By this time Ember had shot him several times and in complete shame he ran and hid his face in the corner. This poor sap was so pathetic I just had to take his picture. Look at him! For shame. :)

Back around the corner, at the entrance, was a petting zoo. Ember went back to visit all the caged attractions, one of which was an Invader boss with Holy Shock. I shot up all his minions and some mages and archers in there, then noticed strangely that Ember's health was still very high. Holy Shock does not reach through the grates in the Palace? Interesting.

Around the south and to the west we go, and there's a wide open door to the center room. Erg. I prefer the other config for this floor, with just one doorway in. Oh well. Here comes Fire Eye's boys, and wow are they zippy. Two of them chased Ember halfway around the level. I then tried the other entrance and for some reason Fire Eye could not get through. Oops, he's Teleport. Not Good!

Forget that! I'm not toying around with an insanely speedy Teleporting FEB, no thanks. I drew him out the side door after me, circled around to the main door (Hmm, I guess I'm glad this thing had two doors after all! Ha!) make a beeline to the portal... Open up! HURRY!...and into the Arcane we go. Activate the waypoint and then just stand there waiting to see what, if anything, comes charging out of where. Waiting, waiting... well that much at least is good. Back to town.

Now I must tell you, I had no plans for dickering around down there. I wanted the fastest easiest way out and didn't know what I'd have to do if I didn't get it. There are four quadrants, and each has its own distinct possibilities for herding goats.

The twistiest path is the easiest to manage. The enemy doesn't have a complex AI, so just get them to some spot where they'd have to go PAST you and then back toward you to reach you, and you've got them stuck. Or... get them into some spot where they themselves would have to reverse and pick a less direct route to get to you and they're done for. Either way, there are opportunities to keep them at bay in every segment, leaving only the Specters to deal with on their terms, and Ember could handle that.

The teleporter quadrant might seem easier, but there are risks in going back and forth through those teleporters, and that assumes you know where each one will take you. There are a couple blind spots you have to manage (or avoid) and even then, sometimes you have to retreat all the way back to the prior segment. Also, this section tends to have more total population than the twisty quadrant.

Then there are the nasty quadrants. The straightforward one with all the lightning spires is the worst. It's the most heavily populated and there are no places at all anywhere that can be used to "capture" goats. They can and will push you back, and for Ember, well, she'd have to retreat all the way past the waypoint any time she woke up more than one goat at a time. The quadrant with all the stairs is not quite as bad. There are a few rare spots where goats have trouble with the stairs or the layout curves back on itself and you can nab them safely. Other times they might force a full retreat.

So clearly the preference for Ember was to find the Summoner at the end of one of the two easier sides, and she'd look for the twisty quadrant first. If the Summoner should turn out to be in the straightforward quadrant, though, that would force an interesting dilemma: painstakingly try to clear my way through it, or force a new map layout and hope that next time around he'd turn up in a different quadrant.

I coaxed Ember just far enough in each direction to sort out which quadrant lay where. North was the stairs quadrant, west and east were wide platforms, meaning one of them was teleport country and the other was straight. That left the twisty quadrant to the south, so south she went.

She arrived at the first segment and got the chance to fight a few goats from a safe position. At 200-250 life each, and 70% Fire Resistance (reducing Ember's damage down to 18-19 per shot), you can see why it took over a dozen shots per goat and why all this fuss about strategy. Some goats took up to sixteen or seventeen shots, and this was when Ember had them isolated well enough to concentrate on one goat. When they were shuffling around more and spreading out damage among several of them, their slow health regeneration would heal enough damage to add several more shots to the total required for a kill.

That health regeneration is what would make Ember's potential trip through Hell Difficulty extremely tiresome and difficult, if not impossible. Use of poison potions could halt the regen temporarily, but with Venom Lord health rising as high as 950 in Hell Act 4, and Ember's damage against this sort of Fire Resistant opponent (even with several more levels of Fire Mastery... or even with MAX Fire Mastery) would remain in the teens, requiring fifty shots or more PER kill under the most ideal situations (which don't actually occur in the game very often)... you can understand why I targetted Nightmare as Ember's final goal. Without the poison to slow their healing it would be completely hopeless there! Even this right here, with more than a dozen shots per kill, is fairly high drama, with tense moments whenever there's a jailbreak. Poison potions aren't exactly easy to manage anyway, although that might change in the expansion pack with the dual weapon/shield configuration option they've promised us. Fortunately, the sort of health and resistance of foes here in nightmare was manageable for Ember without poison. It will take more than two dozen shots to kill a Venom Lord, I imagine, but first I'd have to get past these goats and a whole lot of other nastiness, so enough theorizing. Back to the fighting.

I turned Ember west at the intersection. Down along that side, at the middle segment, here's a shot of Ember almost done dealing with a mob of some eight or nine goats.

Because none of the goats could reach Ember (and if they could, I'd just retreat a little to a spot where they could not), and because Specters required less than half a dozen shots to kill, I really didn't have much to fear here other than my own sloppiness. Maybe a specter boss pack could stir things up, but it's rare for there to be more than one or two boss/champ packs in the whole Arcane (the one in the south or west that is always there, and maybe one more random one, if that).

Come to the end of the line and there's no Summoner. Ember took out her frustration on a poor Lightning Spire.

There were some interesting toys in the chests. A rare scimitar and some throwing axes caught Ember's fancy and she was off to town to check them out more closely.

Ember consults Elzix for fashion advice: "I'm considering turning into a swashbuckler. What do you think of this big old sword I found?"

Elzix shook his head. "That there is what Greiz would call a 'pigsticker' my dear. I don't think it's the right look for you."

Ember said, "Hmmph. Well, all right, forget that then. I'm also considering joining a Barbarian tribe and making my way in the world like a wild man with a sturdy axe! What do you think?"

Elzix stood speechless a moment, shook his head and mumbled, "Uhh... no."

"Well! Someone obviously woke up on the wrong side of the cot today!" She crossed her arms and refused to look at him.

"Why don't you come inside for a cup of tea. We can talk about the gems you've found."

"Oh goody!" Ember brightened immediately. "I thought you'd NEVER ask! Look at this Sapphire..."

When Ember returned to the AS, it was time to deal with teleporters. First I had to figure out which way they could be found. I turned west and went a short way, oops, here come some goats! I ran Ember south and had to use the twisty path for reverse cover, to kill the goats. I went back to the waypoint and a third goat comes charging out, so back south for another round of playing hard to get.

So east it is then. Ah yes, here we go, much better:

The intersection was BUSY. At least ten specters came from three directions (not all at once, but nearly) and the goats were so thick to the south, I used the potions I'd found at random to soften them up a bit. When this area was clear, I took the north fork, up and around the corner and down to the next intersection. Nasty spot there, too, but Ember stayed safe. Her firebolts were weak enough to allow a Ghoul Lord or two to escape off screen before they could be finished off, but so it goes. Down and around to the worst part, the final intersection. Worst not because it was final, but because of the shape of it. This was the exact same location (same direction, everything) as where Hotfoot bought the farm in my worst ever example of "Duh... oops" when I teleported across the blind side, forgetting that I hadn't cleared over there yet. Chop-chop-chop and Hotfoot was dead in less than a second. I would NOT be doing that with Ember!

I had to teleport over to the crossway, then almost immediately flee back through the portal as several goats woke up. No Quest Log notice, no Summoner here. Not Good (R). Well I played cat and mouse with these goats anyway, luring them out in twos and threes until all dozen plus were dead. Two ghoul lords, and then some treasure chests with little of interest except for a socketed gnarled staff.

Ember consults with Elzix for fashion advice:

"That purple looks pretty good, Ember. I prefer red, but this is all right. I don't think the staff matches well with your figure, though. It's, well, it's a fatter staff and by association it sort of makes you look... bigger."

"Eek!" She hurriedly handed it to him. "You take it. Name your price. I don't know WHAT I was thinking!"

"I do have something for you, though. Here, try on this sleek new belt, just arrived in stock."

"Ooh, this is a nice piece. I'll take it! Oh and you can have that old sash I've been dragging around, the red one. This is definitely more stylish for those special occasions."

Well, eventually there was no more goofing off to do, no more use pussyfooting around. Ember had to clear a path through the stairs quadrant and it was time to get to work. And I do mean WORK.

I was able to take advantage of the entry stairs to entertain a single date at a time. More than one required either extreme Tempting Fate or a retreat south to first twisty segment. Back and forth, but luckily this side seemed to be Goat Lite today, not many of them there. Two whole segments had nothing but ghoul lords.

Here's one of the spots where you can bottle up a goat or two if you work it right:

They can get stuck on those stairs. Sometimes they will break through, though, so you can't get too cozy. If you look at the automap, you can see that the next segment is the corner and that's one of the best spots for stopping a jailbreak, using that lower platform. The upper one doesn't cut it, they are good at finding their way across there once they get started.

Arriving at the intersection and I'm praying he's here. If not, I'll either have to run through the grinder of fighting my way across the busy straight quadrant, or start over and go through all of this again after forcing a map change. Please, oh please let this end here!

Quest log pops up! YES!

-3MD from Greyform was more than adequate to wipe out all firewall damage from the ghouls, but the old Summoner was another story. I switched out my rare ring for the one with -2 Magic Damage. (I still needed cold resistance, so the rare ring is what I had to remove temporarily).

There were several goats to lure out, which were taken back to that corner and handled from the lower platform. Then it was showdown time:

Six shots. Pathetic health. Ember could probably have handled him solo-8 without any serious complications. Now the Hell Clan, that's another story and we won't go there. :)

I read the glyphs. Circle was missing. Tomb One. Well that's in a corner, probably easier to reach than something in the middle. Through the Portal, activate the waypoint, and back to town.

Burning Dead coming up? Unravellers? And Duriel? A walk in the park, I tell you. (A big park, with lions, tigers and bears, oh my!) A piece of cake, it's going to be (laced with arsenic and razor blades, yumyum). Firebolt Sorcie's gonna kick some ass. You just wait and see. :)

Ember will see you for the Maggot Lair and then Tal Rasha's Tomb.

- Sirian

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