Eddie ventured out into the blood moor and collected many shiny things, the next morning he did the same, skillfully evading the monsters. At some point he found the skull of a big nasty monster and decided it would make a nice decoration on a shield. After venturing a few times more into and out of the rogue encampment, Charsi finally head a socketed buckler for sale in which he put the skull. Now he was as ready as he would ever be for the challenge he had to overcome for that stupid drunk gamble. Now he could show them the monsters would drop dead without him lifting a finger, except of course to protect himself a bit in due course.
Shield held high he ventured out again and first went to visit a shrine he'd seen standing earlier, he felt he would learn a lot today, shortly after he was beset upon by a few imps who cornered him and he couldn't escape. Luckily he did have a lot to drink with him, some special blood red spirits to heal his wounds while he saw the imps slowly killing themselves when they hit him. They hardly managed to hit him though, even when he was just standing there and laughing at them. Eventually one died and the others immediately ran away so Eddie could move again following those others who again attacked him to bite the dust next to their fellow.
The zombies and spiky beasts he encountered were a little bit harder to engage, but would eventually do the same, attack him and die. At some point he started cursing them all instead of laughing at them, hoping to make them attack him even more stupidly. This worked quite well although cursing made him tired. But since he really was drinking a lot, he thought that maybe some nice circling bones around him could protect him a bit while still alowing the monsters to kill themselves. Beyond his hopes this worked and he felt very safe, he also discovered that those monsters would kill themselves more quickly when he'd run past them since they then tended to hit him more easily, totally against his intuition which told that a standing target is more easy to hit than a moving one. He paid some more visits to the camp in the hope to find more interesting things for sale when the witch Akara mentioned some drug which allowed one to run around far longer without getting tired. It tasted horrible, but it certainly did work, and he ran back into the Blood Moor only to find it empty. Only Flavie was still standing at the edge warning him to go into the Den before venturing further. Hadn't she seen him run past her earlier on to find some waypoint just beyond her?
He did however feel that it would be a good idea to test himself by trying the witch's quest. After buying a lot more of that disgusting potion he ran back past Flavie and into the Den. Immediately he was attacked by some gigantic beast which hit him hard, he had some feelings that maybe things weren't such a good idea as they seemed after a night at the pub. Nevertheless, with his bony protection and cursing abilities the beast went down quickly, as did the imps and zombies he encountered. The imps had however definately some base here, just like the witch had said, since they had shamen here, basically the same as themselves, but not so cowardly and with some special abilities. He got badly burned by the fireballs they threw upon him and also noticed how they resurrected their dead. He thought: `well, I can do that as well', just before remembering that he was not to do that according to the terms of the bet. Still he managed to trick the shamen into attacking him and killing themselves, eventually having most of the area cleared.
There was only a pack of particularly nasty looking zombies left. And as you might know, necromancers tend to be qualified judges in this matter. When a necromancer considers a zombie nasty looking then it is a nasty looking zombie. They hit a bit harder and would quickly wear down his bony protection, one of them, the nastiests of all chilled him to the bone, made him sick and gave him shocks with his touch. He also felt very tired again so went back to Akara for more nasty dope. Being a bit refreshed, he first engaged the other zombies, which did go down fair enough and then went to the nasty one again. Cursing in such terms that can not be repeated here, the zombie went down, dropping some nice (still coated in fresh undead meat, great for a student of life and death) and valuable looking items to be replaced by some strange light. Had this been some holy place he had now cleansed? Maybe some burial place that had been desecrated? He went back to the camp and asked Akara, but she would only teach him how to focus himself better to make his bony protection stronger, and wouldn't say much about the origin of the Den. `Well, I guess that means I've got to go grave digging there soon' thought Eddie as he drifted of to sleep.
So after the story, my first impression.
The monsters have a hard time hitting you, best to run around them to make them hit you, stamina shrines and potions are a must for this.
Find a chipped skull to put in a shield, together with body armour and belt of thorns, you're ready to start, and can do that at players 8, I had no need to lower the players setting.
I did encounter a gem shrine, but decided against upgrading my chipped skull, instead hoping for a second one (unfortunately it became a chipped diamond). I wanted to have some serious damage reflected back from the start (well all six points in this case), a flawed skull would only be usable at level 5, and by then you would also have some skills, not to mention more life, to help you stay alive. Of course now I'm looking for more chipped skulls and gem shrines.
If you play a character starting with high strenght, you'd better use a shield with more sockets (to add more skulls), the necromancer just couldn't wield a small shield at level 1.
The chance to cast when struck things do work and occassionally kill things, but are unreliable, still, the best thing you can get in a helmet.
Necrospecific: amplify damage helps the monsters kill themselves, bone armour lowers your health potion cost. I put a point in dim vision as well, but haven't used that yet. I probably put one point too many into bone armour though, since the synergies give more bang for the buck. Of course those synergies won't be available until level 12. I also shopped a wand to increase my bone armour casting level by two.
Code:
[u][b]Player Build Character Name Level Furthest Point[/b][/u]
Sir Lister Of Smeg Necromancer Eddie 6 Cold Plains
Quietus Paladin ThornBush 2 Cold Plains
Quickdeath Paladin Gandhi II 1 Rogue Encampment
Docturnal Sorceress Theresa 1 Rogue Encampment
Arentol Paladin Draught 1 Rogue Encampment
Scatha Barbarian Brick Wall 1 Rogue Encampment
adzicents Paladin Unscathed 1 Rogue Encampment
Fists of War Paladin Patience 1 Rogue Encampment
newco Paladin SpankMeHard 1 Rogue Encampment
took about 20 minutes to get my first level, I cleared the den of evil first then found a 10% ctc charged bolt that I use for archers, up to 3 returned damage and 10% ctc charged bolt on 2 different items, this is quite fun, Think I will use prayer as a secondary aura, after all Gandhi did pray didn't he :scratch:
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