EPILOGUE

There was one small area of the game yet to be defeated, before Skeletorr could lay claim to a Complete Game Clear.

THE DURANCE OF HATE, LEVEL THREE

Skeletorr's Effective Skill Levels:

Raise Skeleton @ 7
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 13
Skeleton Mastery @ 24
Summon Resist @ 8
Iron Maiden @ 11
Dim Vision @ 12
Confuse @ 11

Clay Golem @ 5
Golem Mastery @ 5
Amplify @ 5
Weaken @ 5
Terror @ 5
Life Tap @ 5
Decrepify @ 5
Lower Resist @ 5

Mephisto and the back lines of Blood Lords were all slain the first time through, so that left only the three Council bosses and any creatures in those areas to confront. Although the Chaos Sanctuary was the most difficult area to complete in one sense, the Confuse and Terror skills, with some minor support from Amplify, Iron Maiden, and Clay Golem, had carried the day. On Mephisto's level, there was no magic skill to turn to. Skeletorr would have to defeat these opponents by relying on his feeble army, and in another sense, that might well be the most truly difficult battle in the entire game, as there were no shortcuts, no fallback strategies, no alternate solutions. Skeletons and support curses and golem vs the dreaded Council of the Zakarum.

First thing I did was roll up an all-new map by popping into Nightmare difficulty for a moment, before returning to Hell. Drop surplus potions in town, then down to the last waypoint of Act Three. Skeletorr recruited a battery of mages from amongst the denizens of Durance 2, then descended to engage in battle.

Midget bone champs! Tough draw. I had to be careful, as those could not be Dimmed, nor Terrorized, and I did not have adequate cover from skeletal warriors.

After those were laid low, it was time to face the music. Here comes the sparking one himself. What do we have here?

No thanks. I took one look at that teleportation and skipped town. It was just a silly fight, I tell you. Absurd, broken game element. I am SO glad they fixed these in the Expansion. No more silly frustrations with teleporters, although... these are council, and they can well be frustrating enough with that endless self-heal ability. That's a rant for another day, though. This here was just a final test for the newly crowned King of Skeletons.

I forced another new map by popping to Nightmare, then back to Hell. Recruit another new army, then down to face the music. Skeletorr has leveled up to clvl 53, and I decided this last skill point of his would serve him best in Iron Maiden, so that's where I put it: slvl 8+4 now. Would the third time be the charm with level three? I hoped so.

Oh fun stuff, here comes another undead midget pack, this time a boss and minions. Nasty nasty danger right there, made worse by the Fire Enchanted.

Skeletorr survived that, but it's harrowing having a running bomb skittering around the joint, darting like a demonic hummingbird crossed with a chipmunk from Hell. The damn thing even hissed at me like an evil chippy. What a picture that is, eh! Nearly an oxymoron, as chippers are the most timid, peaceful little things, the essence of cute, while these undead flayers are cute's worst nightmare.

Anyway... Skel survived that, but how many more times would he have to go through it, or something like it, to get a playable draw?

Stone Skin, ack. All my mages dead, and down to relying on Iron Maiden, which is cut to 1/4 damage, on a Council boss not penalized with extra reflective damage by Extra Strong, Might, etc. This wasn't looking good, but I was determined. I spammed the golems, recasting with every other hit. If I could just keep his attention on the golem, he might not notice his own health bar dropping. That was my only hope. One good healing and I'd be back to square one!

Whew, boy. Well, that's one down. If I'm forced to restart, at least I can park Bremm next time out.

So who's up next? Maffer. (I'll save that blasted Heal-a-portation bastard, Voidbringer, for last, thank you very much). Maffer should expend himself quickly, because he's both fast and strong. He'd smash a target with each blow, though, so one thing was clear: I was NOT waltzing in there behind Golly and a single mage (raised from Bremm's corpse). Sorry, that was not happening.

So up to the Great Marsh waypoint I went, to round up fresh troops. I wanted a full array of bodies to hide behind. Now back down, and straightaway to Maffer's room.

Well, that was quick and relatively painless. Lost warriors, as you can see, but not even all of them. Dimmed the blood lords on that side and let my mages clean them up. Now just one room to go, and I'll have my full clear. Should be a piece of cake, right? Right?

Right?

Wrong.

MSLEB Wyand. They don't get any harder to kill than this. What an interesting final challenge. And what the Hell. You only live once, right? In Hardcore, at least. If I could manage to down this bastid, that would be quite a feather in Skeletorr's cap. And even if not, just battling him to a stalemate would suffice to complete the full clear, him with not one, but two kinds of endless healing stacked on top of his mobility and overwhelming defenses.

It did not take long at all for Wyand to wipe out all my troops. As you can well imagine! Just look at that wacky, bug-ridden interaction between Lightning Enchanted's sparks and Multiple Shot's barrage of aimed missiles. Did they really plan it this way? Or did it just come out this way and somebody decided it was interesting enough to leave in there?

Those are stacks of bolts, and there are five such stacks which behave the same as the multishot amazon skill: they target you with a spread of missiles, which spread wider or more narrow depending on the range of the target and what has been targetted. The bolts actively AIM themselves at you, so you have to keep moving. Add lag to this equation and you have a real mess: one-shot kill potential galore, for most characters. Melee players need not even apply!

I tried several different battlegrounds. There was always his teleporting to contend with, though, once I had him down below half. Plus he would heal with his spell power, and it was difficult to hold his attention. I finally settled on the corner of the blood pool as the best spot.

Ten minutes had passed, then fifteen, then twenty. Iron Maiden and lots of distance was my only tactic. At times, Wyand fixated on Skeletorr and would ignore the golem completely, much to my dismay. The golem would follow along and swing and swing to do his piddly melee damage, and if he landed a hit, a big volley of sparks would roll out, but not toward Golly, oh no! Directly at Skeletorr! And what a mess that was. Luckily, I could eat a whole one of those spark stacks, even two, to be honest, though that was cuttin it close. I still tried to avoid them completely, but that wasn't possible while trying so hard to keep the boss engaged in self-desatructive attacks on my golem.

Twenty-five minutes, thirty, forty. I wore Wyand down over and over and over, but almost like clockwork, he'd go into mad mad teleportation frenzies whenever he got below 8% health, and invariably I could not attract his attention again until he'd healed from the teleporting.

I fought him at that corner, always that corner whenever I could manage it.

Golems sacrificed by the score, eating more sparks than a racecar cylinder at a 500 mile event. I could not help but wince at some of the punishment poor Golly suffered.

Fifty minutes, sixty, sixty-five. I came so close a couple times, I could taste it! And then he'd heal and set me back to square one.

I toyed with him a total of seventy-five minutes. He zapped me a couple times, and there was constant danger, but he couldn't kill me and I couldn't kill him. Complete stalemate.

I had one final idea, to try one other area of the level. I led him down there and fought it out twice, coming as close as ever to killing him each time. But he'd get below that 8% mark, or once even down below 5%, and he'd just stop attacking. He'd run, go heal, or he'd jump into a porting frenzy and not stop until he had healed. Finally I grew bored. I'd had enough. This was one trophy I wasn't going to get.

So ends the adventures of Skeletorr, King of the Skeletons. His victory was total, the game completely cleared. All killable monsters slain, two teleportation LEBs fought to a draw (the other was the Fast archer queen on Pit level one, in act one).

I hope you enjoyed reading about this character. I hope you learned something useful as well. This was a challenge like no other, and my very first 3dot Hardcore character. Yes, it's true. I completed Skeletorr's quest before I finished with Astra. He's been done for that long, his story just waiting to be wrapped up. If not for the many screenshots I took, I would not have been able to recall as much detail as I have, lo these several months later.

How could I ever forget that struggle in the CS, though, working through the deadliest part of the game with feeble curses nobody uses anyway, and naught else but the determination to prevail. How could I forget the crosspatch method of skipping parts of areas to save up recruitment possibilities for use against all the tough bosses I was destined to engage in battle, working every last efficiency out of the monster corpses as I could wring from them, to minimize any need for replaying areas. How could I forget the babysitting, the arrgh factors, getting stuck in corners, in town, in all the narrow places, and having to pile up the treasures to an insane degree in the town square in act three. How could I forget the feeble armies, the moments of victory won from thin air with resources all but illusory in their power. I couldn't forget, and I didn't, and I hope that you won't forget, either. If only this game were always this much fun, I'd have nothing to gripe about. :)

Skeletorr now bids you farewell.

- Sirian

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