Ah, so my sorceress is in Act 4 now. And what a string of luck she's been having since arriving at the Pandemonium Fortress -- oh, sure, that old Tyrael says he can't help you *directly*, but I should have guessed that he's secretly running the gambling rackets and the random number generators! It's like we've got a whole mafia rigging arrangement here -- I must have really impressed him in getting here.

Allow me to share this tale of fortitude. It's a tale that would make Vegas high rollers jealous. I'd been trying to get my hands on Frostburn ever since Act 2. Elzix was eager to help but never managed to get anything in stock.

"You know, my friend Alkor in Kurast deals in this higher end stuff a lot more than I do. Talk to him when you get there."

And I did...man, what a shifty bastard! Must have been a friend from his renegade days. I shell out 200 G's to you for gauntlets and the most useful thing you can dig up is +5 to light radius? Bah! See if I gamble at your little rigged outfit again. Oh, and that fake accent is horrible, too. In fact, all of Act 3 was a bust, except for a shaman boss dropping Nightsmoke. That was a nice find. Perhaps it was an omen, as you'll soon discover.

My days of dealing with falsely accented hooligans and endlessly streaming *crap* from monsters ended quickly. Actually, the drops sullied the good name of crap...I think I kept one thing out of the whole act.

Anyway, Act 3 really started to roll once I found Kurast...I did the whole thing in one sitting. Now I had arrived in Hell, where the only thing hotter than the excessive lava is the nightly Mardi Gras celebration hosted by Bill Gates. Ooooh, now we're playing with the big boys! Er, girls. Something. Yeah. Whatever.

Anyway, I would visit Jamella every time I'd work my way back to town but she wasn't having much luck on the gauntlet end of things.

"My vendors aren't delivering as of late -- you know, that whole apocalypse thing, scaring them all off. The only people they send out here nowadays are the non-union drivers. But I may have something next time you're around."

And sure enough, she did. I slapped down 38 G's and take the lone pair of gauntlets in the odd little box labeled "Acme Corporation". I took them over to Cain, who proceeded to look for the union label.

"Ahhhhhhhh," he exclaims suddenly, "see the ancient runes these gauntlets bear?"

I looked where he was pointing. "Um, actually, it says 'Made in Japan'."

I learned Japanese so I could play imported Final Fantasy games.

He gave me a very unpleasant look. "I'm the ancient object and arcane lore expert here, I don't need your mouth. Anyway, these are the legendary Frostburn gauntlets!"

Ho ho, jackpot winner! That foolio Alkor isn't *worthy* enough to dole out these things! Thank God for the Japanese gauntlet industry! Now we're playing with power! Kneel before me, minions of Diablo! Quake in fear at my 400 mana count! (Okay, fine, so it's 372 -- but I don't have to tell *them* I'm rounding, right?)

"I'm impressed," I say to Jamella. "The last gambling nimrod I dealt with dicked me around for weeks. You deliver on the first try." Now I'm feeling lucky. "What else have you got for me?"

Jamella rummaged through her inventory. "I just got this fine piece of jewelry today. At the very least you can take those two junk rings in your stash and make an amulet out of it."

Indeed, I'd been saving up the rings for precisely that purpose, although I didn't see anything displacing my Fortuitous Amulet of Regrowth (+5 replenish life, 15% better chance of finding magic items) -- I was making the most of both bonuses. But hey, I don't see anyone around here offering anything *more* interesting for 48,000 gold -- so I took her up on it.

"Nagelring!" Cain exclaimed. Wow. Jamella is batting a thousand here -- she's 2-for-2. But I didn't feel like tempting fate anymore at the moment, so I felt it was time to try out the new threads.

Now, the lucky streak didn't stop with gambling. No, there were much higher strings being pulled here. For no more than a few minutes of fighting in the Outer Steppes, and a Venom Lord coughed up the Blood Crescent unique scimitar. Now, I'm purely magic based offensively, so I lug a weapon around solely for its magical properties. And this has one *very* good one: +15 to all resistances. I ditched the scepter I had been lugging so far -- oh, sure, that +32 to mana was nice, but mana isn't helpful once you've been reamed by a group of Knights heaving mounds of elemental *DEEP HURTING* in your general direction. Besides, Frostburn is more than making up for it.

A few more minutes in the Outer Steppes delivered a fine piece of gothic armor. At my target strength of 75 (aiming for a 3D tower shield at some point here), that's the best defense I can wear, and it's medium weight. My current magic splint mail is giving me a very nice life boost, but it was time to retire it, I figured. Besides, this gothic armor is a much better fit. But, no magical properties! Ah, that wasn't going to fly if I opted to proceed to Nightmare. It was time to call in an old favor. I warped back to the Rogue camp and talked to Charsi.

"Yes, this is very fine craftsmanship here...I think I can improve it to your liking," she said.

So I hand it off for an hour or so to let her work her magic. She does a pretty good job on it, coming back with Enhanced Defense (a hefty 182), 41% lightning resist, Fastest Hit Recovery, poison length reduced 75%, and +5 to life. Okay, not the +31 life I was wearing before, but I'm satisfied.

With the 20 G's that the old splint mail fetched, it was time to spin Jamella's wheel again.

"You know," I said, "I've had these Chain Boots of Pacing since Act 2. The soles are pretty worn. I need something new."

Jamella dug around. "I just got these greaves today. Try 'em on."

I liked the fit, so I cashed in. If they at least have Fast Run/Walk, I'll be happy. Well, I'm beyond happy. Jamella had spun three bars again -- okay, so it wasn't Tearhaunch, but it was a nice rare set -- not only featuring Fast Run/Walk, but enhanced defense (20), cold resist 8%, fire resist 11%, and +25 to life. The life made up for the splint mail, as far as I was concerned. It was a good gamble.

I went back to Jamella. "All right, I *defy* you to dig up an item like that again."

More digging ensued. "Need another ring?" she asks.

The temptation was envigorating. Excessive cash had been burning a hole in my stash, and a good portion of my pockets as well. You know, items of Wealth become less valuable when everything in sight is dropping superior reallyhighclass armor. Hey, I had been lucky so far.

"Sure," I finally told her, "maybe it's Manald Heal. One step closer to that Stone of Jordan." Well, it wasn't Manald Heal. But, it was a pretty good spin -- a nice rare with -2 magic damage, +19 mana, and +1 strength.

And now we come to the funniest part of this whole saga: the name of the rare ring. "Entropy Master". It was an appropriate trinket for one who had, for a whole evening, defied all supposed laws of pseudo-random number generation. I was, indeed, a master of entropy, at least the numerical kind. I think I'll keep the ring around as a souvenier. Oh, if only you had come around before I filled out my NCAA tournament bracket.

So, what better way to close out a crazy evening like this? Why, by laying waste to the Chaos Sanctuary, of course. Ah, poor Diablo, I knew thee well. You were a pushover. You should take some fighting tips from your Oblivion Knights -- at least they managed to get me under 50% health at one point. So much for that fearsome lightning hose of yours, it's not very effective versus nearly-max lightning resist and three different items offering magic damage reductions. I just stood smack in the middle of it and let him *try* to bring on the pain, meanwhile he'd eat about 20 glacial spikes. Apparently I managed to freeze his brain -- his desperation attack as his health bar vanished? Infinitely repeating lightning hoses. Um, that didn't work before, guess you don't catch on to these things very well. I used one, maybe two health potions on that whole battle. Exhausted all my mana potions, but I was expecting that to happen, at least.

I had flashbacks to the final bosses of the Gradius series. Bah! I can only hope you're more fun in Nightmare.

So, that was the end of my first sorceress' first run through the game -- and it's by far the class I've had the most fun with so far. I'll have to create another one with a variant, or maybe try my hand at hardcore.

Stephen Clouse
warpcore.org Founder, Chief Megalomaniac, and Evil Overlord

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