Tombs are the Pits
Balboa's hopes of spending time in the shops and inns of Lut Gholein were dashed for a number of reasons. The shops were empty of the little glass-spun trinkets he loves to collect - all he could find was adventuring gear for sale. Ah, the free market economy ... supply and demand ... makes you weep sometimes. A strict "No Alcohol" rule was in force in the city which made the local hostelries rather dreary places - staffed by dreary people with dreary stories to tell. One such person had somehow wrung a promise from Balboa to avenge her family. The promise was given somewhat duplicitously though, as Balboa had every intention of slaying evil wherever he could find it. At least until the January Sales, anyway.
The sewers beneath Lut Gholein required careful handling, but were relatively easy to cleanse. Dim Vision seemed to hold creatures
almost motionless, easy prey for mercenary and golem. Where bosses and/or champions proved too much of a handful,
Decrepify evened things up a bit. One Curse that Balboa hadn't really needed before was Life Tap - gradually, this curse has been creeping into his repertoire, especially when faced with
unleechable enemies. In any event,
Malice has no life-leech, so Life Tap has become a useful tool. The third Sewer level had a particularly troublesome Bone Mage Champion pack -
curses and Bone Walls kept things in order.
Radament, by contrast, presented little difficulty once his retinue had been lured away and slain.
Moving into the open desert was quite frankly, a shock to our small band of adventurers. A
Beetle Boss Pack greeted our egress from the city and was nearly the end of us. An emergency portal was kept in place whilst merc and golem alternated brushes with death. Leapers were a complete pain - but amongst them was a hidden a
very unpleasant surprise. That fellow was pure bad news. In recompense, there were some pleasurable moments - a
randomly dropped treasure by a Beetle was a mere taste of things to come ...
this dropped from a normal Spear Cat! We ended up clearing the Rocky Wastes and Dry Hills of wandering evil and turned our attention to the first of two underground Tombs. It was a long hard slog clearing the Stony Tomb of its occupants and
their bosses. At one point we were trapped with
nowhere to go. Terror and Decrepify and some hard fighting kept us alive.
The second Tomb, "The Halls of the Dead", promised to be worse than the Stony Tomb. In preparation, Balboa decided to create a new Rusty, as the existing one simply wasn't doing enough damage, even with the
Strength runeword. He had a 2os Colossus Voulge that was too much for Jemali to wield - that situation wasn't going to change anytime soon, either - and thus a new, even stronger
Strength Rusty was born. Jemali continued to wield a
Malice Voulge, which although under-powered, was still effective in conjunction with the Golem's damage. Confident of his chances, Balboa led us down into the Halls.
Enormous, infuriating frustration - the stairs down led to a squarish corridor which we must have circumscribed perhaps a hundred times. We simply could not kill the skeletons and mummies fast enough to get to the Hollow Ones that constantly revived them. Balboa insisted we persevere beyond any sane measure of futility - but finally Jemali's pleas, combined with my own, were heard and Balboa led us out of the Halls and into an area of Desert known as The Far Oasis. Under the open sky, even a
boss Beetle seemed a bit of light relief. Spirits started to rise amongst the team, but we were soon forced back by a strong band of marauders. Balboa saw Jemali beside him, and looked back for Rusty - of which there was no trace. He had vanished. A Colossus Voulge
Strength Rusty, vanished without trace. Fury blackened Balboa's visage - Jemali fell back and almost fled.
Balboa considered his options, when he had cooled down. There were options ... a 2os Ogre Maul picked up only earlier was socketed with a pSapphire and a pEmerald. The merc retained his
Malice weapon and we once again descended into the Halls. With the shatter effect of the pSapphire, we started to make
some progress. Soon, Balboa was starting to feel
very confident of his ability to defeat his enemies down there. And then, out of the blue, Balboa fell when he was suddenly mobbed by some Desert Wings.
There was no excuse for that, he had failed to pay enough attention to his danger. The Powers That Be decided, after a pause, to resurrect Gumby Balboa as they felt he should not be punished for a simple lapse, not when he was just beginning to show his true potential as a Hero.
The golemancer found himself back in Lut Gholein - the Powers had decreed that he need not try to reclaim the equipment he'd left in the Halls and had restored them to him. Jemail was re-hired and a new Rusty created, especially for the Halls - a 4os Feral Axe with perfect Sapphire, Emerald, Topaz and Skull. Jemali was equipped with a Rare Hyperian Spear with enhanced damage and socketed with a pSapphire and a pSkull. With their minions shattered by Sapphire-powered weaponry,
Boss after
boss fell to the
re-vitalised team, despite some rather
dangerous abilities.
The Halls Waypoint and the stairs to the third level have been located. The fabled Viper Altar awaits us.
Stats
114 Stats and 7 Skill points spare - I may need to boost Vitality soon. The death I suffered was completely avoidable and came as a result of over-confidence after a weapon switch seemed to be working well. Duh.
DV is calling to me, saying my life will be easier if I spend skill points on it. I'm weakening :grin:
All in all a frustrating session (played at /players 5 over the course of three days), with a death, two lost Rustys and a third one dismissed as it was too weak. I
need some uber-socketed weapons and some uber-runes to make a powerful Rusty that can kill quickly.
Rusty's survivability is currently quite good, so a change to a Might Merc is probably indicated - I try to resist this, as every move towards cookie-cutterdom detracts from the individuality of the build. I want
Rusty to be the start of the show, dammit! :soapbox:
Champion GumbyBalboa - Level 83, Act 2, Halls of the Dead
gl and glad you're having fun.
