The Misadventures of Three Sorceress Archmages

[Maltatai]

37. The Lords Pain

Spoiler

With Andariel left behind to guard the Tamoe mountain pass it has only been logical to assume that other lesser evils could be encountered in other strategic sites, such as important harbours, fords, oasises or perhaps random old tombs in the middle of nowhere. Especially the latter could obviously not fail to be of decisive importance for the enemy army. Obviously one cannot continue the campaign and leave such a strategically vital place unclaimed in ones rear as a walled off canyon stacked with archeological playgrounds.

According to the droning beastiary of the resident, and only remaining, Horadric Wise Guy the arch-slug and mega-maggot Duriel possesses not only supreme strength but also an aura of damp coldness which he himself is nearly immune to. Deckard Cain wrinkles his brow and shakes his head as he dissuades the WWW from attempting to use any cold magic. Such a folly is bound to end only in despair, he laments. About that time, the witches facial expressions have turned to various displays of insult and disbelief. Who are the nearly extinct Horadrim to dare to doubt the powers of the elements? None is more icy than Wanja.

"Duriel is mine. I will break him with nothing but ice just to show him. Resistance is futile."

The feeble protests and woe fade in the distance as Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina make their way to the waypoint. Wanja heads for the presumably true tomb of Tal Rasha while Wilma and Wilhelmina watch over the flanks and plan to attack the other tombs to prevent Wanja from being ambushed. It is just that there is some disagreement about which of the tombs were actually the true one. Curiously enough, all three have scribbled a different rune in their journals. Fed up with the short-sighted incompetence of the other two, each witch head out in the right direction and leave the rest to search the decoy tombs.

Wanja encounters a very interesting throwing axe that unfortunately is a bit heavy for her. It would otherwise be a neat tool to overcharge with a sorceress elemental mastery.

​

The tombs are filled with undead as well as scarabs and more boring bullies like the palace cellars, the almost as insufferable gorebellies. Scarabs can be effectively lured into traps in the narrow corridors if a witch casts a meteor or firew all and then runs to its edge.

​

The ghoul lords a mobile and extremely resilient, and draining a lot of mana with their spells. A dual immune lord prove nearly too much for Wanjas lightning mastery but only nearly. Once they have retreated into a corner all ghou lords are much easier to deal with.

​

Duriels CEU (Chief Executive Undead) is on the other hand ridiculously underwhelming. Rumours of the danger posed by this Ancient Kaa the Soulless are obviously exaggerated as his dry and brittle wrappings catch fire with ease.

​

The gorebellies are on the other hand quite the pain. They can not be frozen and are thereby more dangerous than blunderbores but on the other hand they are not immune to fire and can therefore be much more easily attacked and their regeneration can be prevented by the fire walls and meteor fire pools. Even so, a pack of fanatic hooligans of absurd muscle mass and elemental resistance are extremely dangerous and exhausting to deal with. Wanja ecounters a trio of such pack in one tomb and when leading the last one away she is seized with a vision from another world of a witch chronicler being dragged away by some dark power going by the fearful name of "Real Life". She is so unsettled that she retreats back to the town for the time being.

​

This Ooze Froth, somewhat aptly called the mauler like its darker kin in Kurast, has been the only monster in hell that has escaped Wanja so far. Not a little irritating. I had cleared another tomb easily enough and as usual underestimated how much time the next would take and so had to leave before setting fire to the teal menace. On the other hand I don't think I'm planning to open all evil urns anyway so no full clearing of the game will be done anyway.

While the gorebelly leader would have fallen easily in time, Wanja was rewarded for her retreat with the crushingly resistant crusher Storm Wound which was possibly the most resilient she had ever faced. Lightning had almost no effect and while Riphook and poisoning at a time seem to whittle down its hit point, suddenly she hit a bad accuracy streak and it all regenerated. Storm Wound meanwhile chased Narphet back and forth so Wanja had trouble aiming properly. Eventually she was able to overpower her foe with lightning bolts but it was by the narrowest margin.

​

After much bickering with her so called trusty colleagues, Wanja together with Narphet are able to locate the real true tomb of Tal Rasha. Wilmas and Wilhelmin's true tombs are not as true as Wanjas. They're just false true tombs.

The iron wolves do by the way charge their employers by the hour and not by any part of the job done, so they are blissfully unmoved by the incessant disagreements and waste of time of the WWW...they mean by that of course the deep academic discussions and tactical planning.

There can be no doubt that Wanjas true tomb is the most true tomb. The place is freaking huge!

​

It is also packed with undead, which she is quite capable of dealing with, but it still takes ages to clear such a place. Mixed groups of ghosts, ghoul lords and burning dead supported by unravelers are tricky to deal with for the skeletons are protected from frozen orbs by the interspersed ghoul lords and hinder Wanja from keeping the ghoul lords in place and being able to set them on fire. When split up, the groups are vulnerable but doing so always takes time.

The automatic defense systems of the tomb do not impress.

​

It has been a long wading through the undead but at last the regal cracks in the wall await. Now there are several possible approaches to battling the legendarily bloated maggot. If Narphet can hold on for even a few seconds fire walls will roast his many-legged posterior. Wanjas faster cast rate and skill levels make static field an intriguing option too. But easiest to aim from a long distance remains frozen orb, and it is after all a matter of principle. The lord of pain attempts to resist the element most of all and consequently he must be crushed by it and nothing else!

​

Wanja opens the battle by cursing her enemy. That should come as no surprise of course given the uncouth behaviour of the witches.

From the very depths of the dark of her obnoxiousness Wanja then conjures the most insulting of witches chants, a degrading and abhorrent verse from her very HEART.

I would walk around at evening
Through the hairy ones and cats
I would study glyphs and markings
Incinerating six-legged gnats

Then your innocent distractions
Weren't so hard
My emotional reaction
Caught me off guard

They were nothing at all
Like any rabble I've fought before
And it was nothing at all
I expected just so much more
Neither scarabs or the dead
Stood in my way
To the muscle-brained enforcers
I'd just say
You won't catch me at all

Now I slide down to your burrow
And my feet are quick to move
Cause I know my destination
Is a teleport past you
From our first communication
It was clear
Any sliver of resistance
Would soon disappear

You have nothing at all
Against frozen orbs anymore
And it was nothing at all
To remove it, it takes no more
Than a curse, and it will let
me have my way
If you ask me how I did it
I'll just say
It was nothing at all

Then my masterful perfection
Hits you so hard
No resistance, no reaction
You've lowered your guard

It was nothing at all
I've done it all time before
To my orbs you will fall
Like I thought, no resistance more
No one else has ever made
You owned this way
When I'm asked of how I did it
I'll just say

You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all
You were nothing at all...

Unable to bear the humiliation Duriel collapses in a pile of oozing cold slime slowly dissolving into a foul, cold puddle.

​

The triumph is only slightly marred by the minor fact that Tal Rasha and potential dark wanderers have apparently vacated the region already and the even more insignificant and petty fact of the trifling diplomatic incident. A mere misunderstanding and little overeagerness, that is all. No reason for the other witches to be so upset when Wanja recounts the episode, suitably assisted by Narphets unfittingly snarky comments (really unbecoming behaviour of a hired instructor and bodyguard).

​

Wilma and Wilhelmina are really just overreacting. After all, as the old saying goes, if you want to stay warm through the evening you can set the fireplace on fire and if you want to stay warm throughout the week you can set the sorceress academy on fire and if you want to stay warm throughout eternity you can set an archangel on fire. No?

 

[Pb_pal]

What a writeup!

Thoughtful strategies, jokes, puns, a POEM?! You've outdone yourself once again @Maltatai ! Glad to see the ladies carving their way through Hell, even if they have to leave a baddie or two alive.

 

[Maltatai]

Actually it's more of a cover than a poem, as hinted by the mention of the taunting coming from Wanjas heart it is a song of the ballad-icious bards of the group Heart, "Nothing at all", that here appears with a slightly altered general message. You can listen to it here and sing along:

Shall I add the parodied songs in spoilers or something? I realise it could be quite far-fetched and hard to work out just what the eccentric author has been hinting at otherwise.

At least in the noble sport of Duriel humiliation no other character of mine has done better. I could hardly imagine a more outclassing battle. Perhaps a necromancer keeping him trapped in bone prisons would be even more outrageous, but it doesn't really have the style of timely teleporting. The latter is, as the next episode will show, not always as succesful for everyone. And the witches are also in the lead in keeping their iron wolves alive. I'm starting to hope that it just might be possible to make guardian without losing one.

 

[Maltatai]

38. Troubled Teleporting

Spoiler

During the time Wanja spends upholding the bragging rights and sorceress media status of the WWW through bullying the local demon overlords, Wilma and Wilhelmina rob the remaining not quite s true tombs of Tal Rasha, searching for various unspecified items of economical value that belongs in a transaction...that is, of archaeological value that belongs in a museum.

Apart from serpents, which have already been covered by the claw vipers, every tomb robber of note should also expect to whip his way through some sort of massed insect swarms, presumably some kind of beetles. In the case of Wilhelmina and Wilma the scarabs graciously let them have that important point covered. In their kindness they even supply extra tomb robber traps, also established standard fare, in the shape of teleporting beetle bombs.

​

While it may be believed that tomb robbing in enclosed canyons is an isolated niche business, nothing could be further from the truth. The great amount of fallen town guards bear witness tot he fact that the less than honourable sultan would be hard pressed to maintain plausible deniability regarding his knowledge of the tombs and why exactly he would have had to supplement the guard with Greizs mercenaries. Clearly they have not only been squandered on domestic follies but also irrelevant expeditions into the middle of the wasteland. The ones in charge of the area are instead the mandatory competing archaeologists, as always small minded people with more muscle than the protagonist heroes, the gorebellies. Wilhelmina has an easier time than Wanja in laying traps that they can walk into.

​

Wilma on the other hand remains first and foremost a sniper. Hydras can weaken gorebellies form a distance and knock out arcanely automated sarcophagi without them even noticing the caster.

​

The gorebellies have taken control in wake of the power vacuum created by the internal strife of the undead. Obviously the relations between commanders and minions are rather strained these days...

​

The competing gang of the area are the crushers, nearly as big as gorebellies and making up in sweating for what they may lack in strength, which isn't much. They are not let into the finer social clubs of the gorebellies but must stalk the dusty plain and sweat even more in theit heavy fur coats. Little wonder that they are so enraged and immune to cold, being chronically overheated. Crushers are resilient and rather fast and the main danger out in the sands. Boss packs take a good deal of time for Wilma who lacks the area damage of meteors and fire walls, but her ability to neutralize healing from a distance decides any battle against individuals so long as there is enough space or obstacles around. The spokesbully of the gang, whose tongue one may divine is never still, is in fact far easier to take down with envenomed foolhardy arrows rather than spells. Effective, if slightly unbecoming for a refined spellcaster.

​

As mentioned earlier, Wanjas debateable diplomatic tact has incurred some criticism from her trusted colleagues. It is not that the WWW consider themselves allies of the heavens, or any other snooty and stuffy wise guys, but there is after all a working business arrangement between archangels in particular and the sorceresses. Who supplies their finest green staves, after all? Besides, while Wanja is self-sufficient in the way that her spells originates from ground level or slightly above, Wilma and especially Wilhelmina call down things from above, and what if the heavens would infringe of the free trade of elementary particles and energies? It is after all not quite clear where the sky and the high heavens border one another and what phenomena counts as belonging to what realm and jurisdiction. Imagine if blizzards had to await approval of the Angiris Meteorological Board, or meteor bombardments to be countersigned by the newly instated Archangel of Astronomy? Not to mention the electricity bills for keeping a thunder storm online... True terror.

Luckily, it seems that Tyrael had better things to do, or perhaps his council colleagues had gotten so tired of his ways, that no celestial sanctions were voted for, for Wilma manages to procure a considerable upgrade in the shape of a new Archangels Staff of Lower Resistance, now with a chain lightning bonus. A very welcome boost to her most underpowered main attack. The Angiris Council is evidently still sponsoring the witches careers.

​

The rooms with shelves and tables offer the most cover and can be instrumental in handling a dangerous pack leader. It is not that teleporting will not keep the enemy away, it will. It is all about endurance. Clearing a tomb is a lengthy ordeal and for every minute the chances of some slight and fatal mistake rise. A wise sorceress will use unnecessarily much advantages and make it a point of personal pride to overkill anything she can kill at all, and make every battle as simple as is possible to conserve her energy for those that can not be made so.

Wilma has grown into a force against large individual enemies. With her fools bow she can hit reliably with a couple of arrows in most cases and with Hwanins belt constantly equipped again it is usually a petty detail to cut regeneration in time to aid her hydras a great deal. While her staff remains considerably weaker than the memories of Wanja and Wilhelmina the ability to lower resistance without weapon switching is coming into its own by now as it opens up for the regular use of the fools bow. It is a pity that she expended a socket on her legendary but all too unwieldy ballista. Two sockets in Haphets circlet or her staff would have been immensely valuable instead. Although there is always a danger of socketing a staff that could potentially always be beaten by another even mightier for sale at some later time.

​

It is a disputed fact where the gorebellies actually came from but a confirmed fact where they congregate. No crushers or any other competing hooligans are allowed in of course. Sublime and refined pastimes like table-smashing, head-butting (a complicated game of accuracy given the proportionally small heads and smaller intellect of the gorebelies),

​

As the tomb robbing draw close, Wilhelmina is visited by nightmares of facing Duriel instead of Wanja. In her dream she opts to lay down meteor carpets that should easily catch the demon in their flames. While that is certainly the case, and her great skill level and improved cast rate lets her get a few static fields off as well, it is slow enough work to expose herself and Vanji to the maggots claws many times over. And she can not seem to teleport properly! Disruption after disruption leave her stranded or unable to focus on the desired spot to go to. Is it the unholy freeze that radiates from Duriel? Is it the lack of chilling effect, minor as it may be, that stops her from staying ahead of him as effortlessly as Wanja? Wilhelmina really wants nothing but to wake up when she is trapped in a corner and pummelled by hit after hit while drowning herself and Vanji in every remaining purple potion and teleporting just isn't ever working. Out of potions, she opens a town portal and can just narrowly hop through it in time. Shaking and fuming over the insolence of having her spells disrupted and performing so clumsily in comparison to Wanja, Wilhelmina wisely goes back through the tomb and wall entrance to appear on the other side of the dark pit and resume hostilities. She is never caught again in the same way and in the end her vast supply of gathered rejuvenation potions is enough to keep them safe and ahead long enough for her meteors to do compete their task.

That is one battle that should never be repeated. But still she stood face to face with Duriel and held and Vanji did the same. Winning is winning and surviving is surviving, no matter by how much or how little.

​

Wilma is equally haunted. Worried sick over Haphet even when asleep and debating what curses and spells to combine she has anything but a pleasant sleep. She has been inconceivably wise indeed to clear only a limited part of Duriels tomb and then retreat to recuperate in order to stay sharp. When facing the lord of pain Wilma will not be so very drained by disposing of hordes of his minions. She can make use of weaken or lower resistance curses and attack with hydras or blizzards. The former more accurate, the latter stronger as her cold mastery will pierce most, if not all, of Duriels cold resistance. She can let Haphet tank for short periods or try to stay ahead with teleporting, which Wilhelmina would have failed so miserably at. Will the chilling make such a difference? Wilma believes so and engages Duriel with her blizzards and weakening him to give Haphet the best chance. The time of Lionheart gothic plates is past, the time of Smoke field plates begins. Better than Wilhelmina but not as good as Wanja, Wilma keeps ahead of Duriel and throws blizzards at him that he mostly dodges, which is a disappointment. Given his bulk, Wilma would have expected blizzards to hit twice rather than once as a general rule but Duriel is mostly too fast for that and while Haphet can actually stand his ground for a few seconds such tactics are far too risky to employ regularly and Duriel tends to ignore him and runs straight for Wilma. Mana potions drain like they were made of air but somehow they mostly stay out of reach and need few of Wilmas purple potions.

​

It is a beaten and shaking trio of witches that embark the next day in search of greater treasures and more frequent drinks in the east. Staggered crusher and gorebelly bosspacks, seas of burning dead and unravelers can sap the strength of the noblest of heroes. There will be danger ahead no doubt, and stairtraps in great number that only lightning fast cloaking reflexes can defend against, but never the claustrophobic and exhausting combinations of the Aranochian tombs and the cold lairs of Fangskin and Duriel, dreadful beyond comparison. For the iron wolves, still standing proud and unbeaten, the journey ahead holds another significance. They are all going home.

 

[Pb_pal]

Hydras can ... knock out arcanely automated sarcophagi without them even noticing the caster.

I didn't know that Hydras don't trigger the sarcophagi, cool!

Great work as always, glad to see everyone had survived for the boat ride. A nice homecoming for the Iron Wolves, indeed. Good luck!

 

[Maltatai]

Hydras act as traps but don't count as traps evidently, seeing as it is possible to have six active for a moment unlike said traps (I'm positive @Swamigoon has already mentioned that in his doomsday statistics thread and I have already lazily forgotten whether that was actually the case). They do not wake up sarcophagi but many times it does seem like they attract monsters from further away, which is a bit weird. Although, I guess it would be a bit rich to expect the enemy to just stand there watching three-headed dragons emerge from the ground to roast them and not react...

"Nah, just some bored council members visiting the local tourist attractions again, nothing to worry about..."

"Must be the promotion thing for this new song of ice and fire Targaryen fanboy/-girl concession we've heard about..."

"Eh....three-headed dragons from the ground? I knew it was a bad idea to rob Geglashs wine cellar. Uhhh...never gonna touch that stuff again..."

On an unrelated note, while the command to call your silly pet dragon to battle might be some dorky "dracarys" or whatever, every sorceress worth her salt sugar knows that the battle cry of the hydras is instead "Hydraulics!"

 

[Maltatai]

39. Swamps and Spiders

Spoiler

Glorious Kurast! Festering , stinking marshland as far as the eye can see. But not quite yet of course. A snide Dark Wanderer is nesting right outside what passes for the town gates. Before Wilhelmina has the chance to fully employ the most delicate of Zann Esu diplomacy the irritating interloper teleports away leaving a taunting laughter of the spellright infringement echoing.

​

The WWW promptly decide to sue for something, which can be decided later on, and pur-sue the antagonist into the Spider Forest. Unfortunately nobody bothers with tedious things like maps and in their eagerness for an easy hostile takeover of demonic assets they lose track of one another (more than usual, that is).

Wilhelmina and Vanji encounter an even greater invader of immaterial rights. Not even the local mercenary companies are safe from such low and under-mandibled methods! A red lightning enchanted spider called Pulse Wolf, a complete mockery of a lightning Iron Wolf if ever there was one!

​

Wilhelmina takes her revenge by blasting the spiders laundry web. Surely that mature and well-balanced response will make them think twice before repeating such slanderous actions.

​

Wilma has meanwhile wandered into the actual stinking and festering marshland, plagued by the even more disgusting gloamy mists. Many are the heroes that have been waylaid by a barrage of lightning from afar.

Not this one, though.

​

The hydras have, as noticed above, roused the attention of the resident swamp witch, an office currently held by a woodheaded thorn in the WWW:s side. Wilma is hit by a counter-lawsuit of flame witch rights infringements and forced to retreat. But legal actions are unreliable and volatile projects, as proven when Wilma actually complies with the cease-and-desist wooden carving she receives and turns her attention from fire spells to archery. The competitor is soon out of business and Wilma can continue to set fire to the valuable biotopes of Sanctuary.

​

Wanja has also gotten lost in the swamps and without the sniping expertise of hydras she is forced to deal with gloams in far more direct manners. Frozen orbs are a great short ranged brute force attack with minimum requirements to aim. Need it be mentioned that Wilma and Wilhelmina are corrosive in their derogatory dismissal of such graceless approaches?

​

Finding a not nearly enough derelict dungeon in the deep jungle Wanja exhibits true adventurer wisdom and promptly plunges into its murky depths. These kinds of constricting passages do nothing to brighten the day of spellcasters who rely on mobility and exquisite planning to further their goals.

​

Wilma has meanwhile experienced classical sorceress career moments in not only stumbling on a legendary funerary shroud whose belt she mysteriously came across earlier, but also encountering the distinguished dignitary Black Hack! With some minor gear adjustments she almost maintain her resistances while losing Weaken charges but gaining regeneration and magic damage reduction, not to mention the understated and quietly elegant purple and black lacquering. The green chest details will work with her green staff eventually. Wilma makes a mental note to cease regularly enchanting her staff.

​

In her eagerness to display the new elegance to Wanja and taunt her lack of refinement Wilma eventually barges into the same Swampy Pit and run into the foulest inhabitants of the continent, and possibly the world of Sanctuary as a whole.

​

Wilhelmina is greeted by a gloam pack specialising in ambushing unsuspecting witches and also stealing their motto that Magic is Might. Gloams stand out in the way that lightning bolts from the minions are negligibly different from lightning bolts from their commanders. Each drain mana at a frightening rate and only one or two at a time should be engaged, if that is at all possible. And also preferably without a distracted chronicler wasting his attention on screenshots of the most fascinatingly dangerous foes they encounter.

​

It is easy to see why the minions of Zakarum would deploy such a formidable pack to guard the entrance tot he Great Marsh, for on the other side of the entrance sits the very waypoint of said region. Within sight of the Spider Forest Waypoint. Which is very convenient if one should for some reason press the wrong glyph and teleport to the wrong one and see the rest of the party over in the distance at the proper destination. Or something. Because the Horadric designers were surely not complete fools. They were supposedly wise old mages. Or, well, wise guys at least.

​

Hearing about the rest of the team, or at least loose confederation of warring witches, holed up in a damp dungeon Wilhelmina slides down the first such she can find. Unfortunately it is also the wrong one as it is the Flayer Dungeon instead of the Swampy Pit. Honestly, do these tourists not read the signs anymore? It is right in the ground on the underside of the rotted murky plank that has long ago been trampled into the mud.

The Flayer Dungeon is the wrong dungeon also for the reason that Wilhelmina is greeted by a flayer commander. And another. And another. And...wait a fireballed moment here? They all have the same name?

Yes, behind the honourable Spine Brow stands the might of the spiritual wing of the flayers in the form of a distinguished shaman able to resurrect his champion time and time again. His unique champion that cannot be shattered and melted, as all know. But in the wrong dungeon Wilhelmina is the right witch, for in the dustiest corner of the stash she is the one that has been prudent enough to bring along a Black club. "BOOM!" The elegant mage duel against the shaman can finallyproceed without underling interruptions.

​

Concluding that Wilma and Wanja are nowhere to be found Wilhelmina retraces her steps to the Spider Forest and double checks and webbed lair. She is still not left in peace by the flayers, who can apparently shapeshift to nasty spiders nowadays or something...

​

After this slightly untidy beginning, the WWW have encountered a mysterious potential employer. Surely there is no way entangling oneself to the nice lady in a red cape and black lacquered boots can get an innocent witch into trouble?

​

"Greetings...heroes. I've heard about your exploits, and I'm quite impressed. Very few wicked witches are able to avoid capture...that is, dealing with the prime evils...as you are. My name is Natalya and I serve as a standing advertisement for, and lead, an ancient agency for hunting down wicked witches, and other mages of course (although one is currently led to question the morons aptitude for their profession...)."

 

[Maltatai]

40. Fire and Flayers

Spoiler

What sorceress can say no to such charming high boots? The WWW are quickly hired to obtain a sacred dagger for Natalyas breakfast table, or if it was Ormus toolshed. Nobody cares so long as the reward is worth it. Into the flayer jungle the wicked witches tear, preparing to bring further thunder and lightning to the already miserable Kurast weather.

​

Their concern for the local flora, or fauna, or maybe it should be flouna, is as non-existent here as in Aranoch. With evil tricks and dastardly schemes Wilma, Wanja and Wilhelmina wriggle out of fair and honest duels with demonically enhanced corrupted trees and their half a dozen minions.

​

Wanja decides that the others in their borderless incompetence must have missed some nook of the Flayer Dungeon and goes back herself to show how the Gidbinn is found. Not that any of then actually knows how that thing looks but presumably they will be able to tell when they see it. Obviously Wanja must be completely right, what with how well defended the place is. Repulsive doll pack after repulsive doll pack after...

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Wilhelmina on her part is convinced that the Swampy Pit must be the hiding place for the unrecovered Plot Item. It is nearly as repelling as the Flayer Dungeon. Judging by the names of its diplomatic representatives it has something of an inferiority complex in regards to that dungeon. In the eyes of the WWW both stinking places and their disgusting architects can go and silently sink beneath the noxious mud of their modernistic mud holes and take all their abominable piles of dolls and gloams with them. Wilma can at least lay traps for doll packs with the meteors in a way that can't be done with fire walls. Which is a bit odd since judging by the name one would expect the fire wall to be the longer lasting one.

​

After slumming in those most literally downtown dumps it's time to make a STYLISH ENTRANCE beneath the gates of the height of eastern cultural refinement. That one with the fanatical mobs of intellectual midgets. And no, not talking about fanazealots (who are even too lazy to spell out their entire designation fanatic zealot) even though certain similarities are strikingly apparent... Hrm, where were we? Yes, bow and scrape and watch the red carpet being rolled down from the sky! Magic is Might!

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Where is the Gidbinn, then? In fact it is sitting in an unlikely place, in the middle of Wilmas sacrilegious campfire. She is far too busy to notice the puny trinket at the moment though, for the hydras are restless. There are some ugly rumours that abound about their brothers and sisters that haven’t been heard from since they were summoned to somewhere in Kurast in a somewhat strange way. They are now enslaved by twisted demon councillors and forced to do their bidding! One could be fuming for less!

Wilma must use every trick she knows to calm down her hydras. She picked up (and wrote down, she is a studied sorceress after all) a jaunty and shouting tune from somewhere up north about dragons and such seen against the rim of the sky or whatever it was. Maybe that could be reworked a little to fit the current audience…

Hydra-kin, Hydra-kin, naal ok zin los vahriin
Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!
Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan
Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!

Ahrk fin Kel lost prodah, do ved viing ko fin krah
Tol fod zeymah win kein meyz fundein!
Zakarum, feyn do jun, kruziik vokun staadnau
Voth aan bahlok wah diivon fin lein!

Nuz aan sul, fent alok, fod fin vul dovah nok
Fen kos nahlot mahfaeraak ahrk ruz!
Paaz Keizaal fen kos stin nol bein Zakarum jot
Dovahkiin kos fin saviik do muz!

Hydra-kin, Hydra-kin, naal ok zin los vahriin
Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!
Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan
Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!

​

Asheara graciously promises a reward for the WWW but what might they have use for that she could possibly provide? Free resurrections? Only a sloppy amateur needs those! None of the Iron Wolves have yet fallen in combat and that is that. Nyaaah!

​

Speaking of which though, not to mention speaking of witch, it would seem that Wilmas incompetent sisters in arms have gotten themselves lost again and she has to go look for them. Were someone heading down to that dungeon crawling with dolls? Or that dungeon crawl with rolls? No, that was Wilhelminas silly board game last night.

​

For some reason Wilma and Haphet encounter no witches but witch doctors, or at least one. Or technically two since both Endugu and his carrier bear his name. They are one persistent foe and with he constant manoeuvring of flayer shamans it is hard to consistently damage him with chain lightning. Wilma needs to retreat over a lot of ground as ever new flayers rush to guard the big bad shaman. Once Wilma manages to put a bolt in him it is still only a matter of time but a pesky time until Endugu falls. Of his carrier minion.

​

The petty flayer boss manages to corrupt Haphets portrait and turn him green before they are finished with him! Just like some of Andariels modern art that has been distributed from her lair in the deepest hole in the catacombs until her artistic tranquility was crushed by disrespectful brats barging in, as all remember. So called "Andy War-Hole" art. Weird stuff.

​

 

[Maltatai]

41 Tomes and Traps

Spoiler

Wilma's nostrils flare and her eyes narrow menacingly at each and everything in the vicinity. Not even Haphet dares say anything. The encounters with whatever hydra-enslaving filth that pollute Travincal can not come soon enough.

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The latest bounty the WWW are after is actually on a tome rather than a person. Natalya has brokered a deal with Alkor about the retrieval of one tome of Lam Esen. But what does it contain? Nobody knows, or at least nobody told the witches. It must be valuable, so they spend their time valuably and productively speculating about what it could be about that is important enough to warrant such efforts to procure it.

A cooking book with all known desserts of Sanctuary?

A Treasure Map Atlas of Kehjistan?

From Merigolds to Proud Moors - The Comprehensive Collection of Sorceress Fiction? Wanja has long since wanted a copy.

The Misadventures of Single Player Forumites?

The book does in any case carry a well known curse. It is impossible to put down, just like many others, and those that attempt to remove it from its reader will face his or her volatile wrath. Sarina is the current bookworm under this curse. She is no joke, especially with Haphet lacking the heavy damage reducing gear of his colleagues.

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Throughout their careers, the WWW have been followed by foul slander that WWW has something to do with a world-encompassing web of control and subtle enslavement and indoctrination of humankind. It is obviously a diversionary manoeuvre by the true weavers of plots and secret schemes. But their telltale souvenirs they peddle to unsuspecting tourists (yes, tourists daft enough to visit Kurast these days would presumably be quite unsuspecting) betray their presence.

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The temples of Kurast are a stair trapping nightmare. Every witch brings out her Nadir headgear and chants "Black Sheep Wall!" before descending. While Lam Esens tome may rest in the Ruined Temple who knows what other masterpieces might be borrowed from the shelves of the others?

Once you have passed the entrance, the tight corners offer some more attractive tactical opportunities, such as excellent spots for hydra sniping.

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The first time the lazy chronicler of the witches has seen a unique jewel drop, if he recalls correctly, which is of course doubtful.

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The stairtrapping slimes of slithering do of course plague the Kurast temples as well. Haphet is assailed by one particularly bothersome pack leader while Wilma slowly whittles it down with her weak chain lightning.

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The council meetings await, if only Wilmas tardy companions could catch up! Any century now... She will burn those councillors to ashes, and then melt them and pour the sludge into a glass jar and fill it with badly fermented herrings, and bury it deep below ground and then build a colossal tower on top of it and then...

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...then, wait a moment? The Horadrim have already done that?

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Haphet, Narphet and Vanji are contracted by the WWW and have been for some time now. Usually such a deal comes with a certain maintenance undertaking and cost, and especially the cost of said maintenance is a source of extra income or extra expenses for the mercenary company in question. The Iron Wolves are currently satisfied with not having to deal with the paperwork of erasing and re-registering personnel and find wicked witches to be lucrative business partners.

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Sarina is not the only battlemaid in the vicinity. Wanja can only wonder what this one has borrowed for her late night reading.

How To Maximise Melee Ickyness - An Economists Approach, perhaps.

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Not all stair traps are as devastating as others. This one makes for an artful exhibition. Possibly one could make a chandelier out of several deep frozen bats tangled in each other.

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At long last Wanja catches up with Wilma in Travincal and can gauge her mood from looking at the surroundings and morbid trinkets of the locals. This cultural heritage will be razed to the ground no matter how many best-sellers and tomes of town portals are shelved in its libraries.

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Wilhelmina on her part manages to trap a stairtrap crew very fittingly. When deep freezing enemies in a doorway it is important to consider bombarding the ones behind first before finishing off the one that is trapped. Otherwise the second one you freeze may not be large enough or aptly positioned to block the doorway in the same manner. Here is one instance where having variety in not only damage types but also skill ballistics proves to be highly useful.

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Wilhelmina also has the debatable honour of searching through the city sewers in search of another lost relic of His Holier-Than-Thouness Kalim the Sewer-Hearted. Also known as Kalim the Dungeon-Brained.

Wilhelmina begins to question if the church of Zakarum really is the boon to Mephisto's forces that it is cracked up to be. Hratli's description of "the persistence of zombies, but without their charisma" begins to ring truer every day.

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No wonder their church has been seeing a dropping number of members.

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A new and fancy cult has slithered into the ranks of the Zakarumites like a beholder in an Athkatlan temple district sewer. All who have felt its black touch abandon their calm and their fiery zeal shown so far.

Or something.

Black Touch does in any case present a very concrete danger with unbreakable resistances to cold and fire and extreme mobility coupled with its innate volatility. Every spellcaster enjoys facing super-speeded slithering powder kegs.

Like other of the troublesome kind, Black Touch falls before the thunder and lightning of Vanji.

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Preparing for the desecration of the Black Temple, the witches gather to discuss how to show these hydra-enslaving numbskulls their proper place in Sanctuary, namely in a dragon's belly.

Natalya appears less than confident but then, she somehow doesn't strike the wicked witches as someone with a true appreciation for the supreme might of magic. It is hard to quite put your finger on it.

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[Swamigoon]

I always thought they were called Zakarum because the religion's founder was named... um... maybe Zachary?