SWEETSPEARGIRL RETURNS
Chapter 16
Unexpected Victory
Cast of Characters:
- SweetSpearGirl, swiftly levelling towards her goal...
- Euyfura, sarcastic as ever
- Miss Frequently Recast 2006, the Ubiquitous Valk
- Nihlathak, the Fallen Necromancer
- Anya, Defacer of Shields
- Korlic the Protector
- Talic the Defender
- Madawc the Guardian
- Baal, the Lord of Destruction
TAKE HEED AND BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTHS THAT LIE HEREIN, FOR THEY ARE THE LAST LEGACY OF THE HORADRIM...
The next morning was bright and crisp, although the leaden sky promised yet more snow on the slopes of Arreat. SweetSpearGirl considered her options; having levelled to 34 on a solo excursion, she decided a few more levels were needed before the crew pressed on toward Nihlathak.
"Come on Rogue," she said. "Let's lay into a few buggers in the Trail."
"Sure. Where's the Valk?"
"Trying to chat up Qual-Kehk. It's that shiny armour of his, she can't stay away!"
The Rogue snorted. "Good grief. Grab the silly bint and let's go."
The trio waypointed to the Glacial Trail and SweetSpearGirl threw a Decoy up ahead. It soon attracted some attention. Star Eye (fire enchanted Reanimated Horde) was soon followed up by a pack of Champion Abominables, but all were dispatched with ease as our heroes moved on into the Drifter Cavern. A small area delineated by chill, softly bubbling water, flowing down the mountain into the Frozen River, the Cavern was filled with packs of Snow Drifters and Frozen Terrors (the latter led by Vile Bender the Quick - extra fast; the former by Pulse Dancer - fire enchanted).
"These buggers go down easy," SweetSpearGirl commented.
"And give good exp too," Euyfura shot back.
"Oh yes. I think we're done here. Crystalline Passage?"
"Why not? It's not like I'll get any colder than I am already!"
"Hush, you. You'll corrupt the Valk. I'll get you some better armour when I can, I know that ring mail's a bit chilly even if it does have cold resist on it."
Onward and downward it was, into the Crystalline Passage, where they encountered a pack of moonies whose slaying boosted SweetSpearGirl up to level 35. "Nice!" she grinned, slapping five more points into Strength (out of the twenty she needed for that long-awaited Lycander's Flank, only seven levels away now...). And the extra few points of damage were welcome, too, against Bone Rend, who was stone skin and kicked SweetSpearGirl in the face.
"Hey!" she yelled, and rammed the business end of her Tannr Gorerod up the harpy's fundament. "No-one kicks me and gets away with it!"
"I notice you let them get away with kicking me though," the Valk put in.
"That's different. I don't lose gold if you get your butt whipped."
The Valk muttered something rude in a half-forgotten language and stabbed another moonie that charged out from a side passage.
The trio finished clearing the Passage, and just for the hell of it, wandered into the Frozen River. The chill waters flowing downwards from the Drifter Cavern lapped softly against the icy ledges, and then SweetSpearGirl saw a boss charging towards them.
"Yuck!" she commented at its name - Puke Feast (!); lightning-enchanted too. "I didn't need that image! And nor do I need - " as a stray bolt went BZZZ into her leg - "that!" She laid into her foe and then the Succubus was gone. SweetSpearGirl wiped her brow before recasting the Valk - who spawned with some nice cold-resistant armour - into the middle of Frozenstein's boys. And then there were no more buggers.
"Where to next?" the spearazon enquired of her companions.
"Somewhere in the fresh air!" Euyfura said.
"Hmmm... well there was a stairway up and out of the Glacial Trail. Let's see if we can find that again."
As it turned out, the stairs did lead out into the open air - into the Frozen Tundra, filled with clumps of trees and containing a very nearby waypoint. SweetSpearGirl wasn't ready to quit yet though - she wanted to hit level 42 today and take up her favourite weapon again! So it was onward and upward, charging through errant packs of those damn teleporting imps (again!) and the usual barricades and towers. Catapults lobbed elemental death; SweetSpearGirl closed in on them and destroyed them. Imps chittered, teleporting back and forth with a vwhomp sound, and spat fire; SweetSpearGirl distracted them while Euyfura filled them with fire arrows. And then they found the entrance to the Ancients' Way.
"Shall we?" SweetSpearGirl said.
"Lead the way!" said Euyfura.
The Valk was humming a tune and said nothing.
The Ancients Way(point) was conveniently located near the entrance; what wasn't so convenient was several moonie bosses in the area. First up was Bile Wing the Quick (cursed), who not only bumped SweetSpearGirl up to level 36 but also dropped a green item! Sigon's Shelter wasn't any use to anyone, but it did pad SweetSpearGirl's nest egg by almost 19k in gold. Which was good, because she needed a few repairs after the next boss - Death Dancer the Dark (cold enchanted).
"Damn moonies," she muttered as it went down and chilled her to the bone.
Driven by some sort of suicidal impulse, she let herself down into the Icy Cellar where the three adventurers were soon having fun with one - no , two - no, three, boss packs! Two packs of Hell Temptresses led by Dire Killer the Hunter (stone skin) and Plague Shank the Dead (extra fast), whose name SweetSpearGirl made very true, very quickly - were followed by Snapchip Shatter and his Frozen Scourge minions. A nasty amp damage curse and cold enchantment were not an amusing combination and SweetSpearGirl and co had to pull back for a moment to drink potions while Euyfura peppered the slow-moving demons with arrows. Finally they went down and the Cellar was clear. Snapchip dropped a rare amulet which, while useless to everyone in the party, did provide 29k in gold...
And finally they stood by the stairs up to the very summit of Mount Arreat.
"Sure you two want to come with me?" the amazon queried.
"Look," Euyfura said. "Usually I avoid the sappy stuff, you know me, I'm a cynic through and through. But I've stuck with you through everything. This'll be the fourth time we've been through this, and I've always stayed with you. And I think we both know why."
SweetSpearGirl nodded. "Yeah. The same reason I always feel bad about dragging you into these fights in the first place!"
"Well, don't, okay? I know what I'm doing. Trust me."
SweetSpearGirl threw up a portal for safety, and they ventured up the stairs. She cast a Decoy and read from the altar, stepping back as the Ancients swirled into glowing, fighting life.
"Yowza!" she cried as Madawc threw an axe at her! She ignored him for now and concentrated on Korlic, who was right there in her face as the Valk fended Talic off. As soon as she'd dealt with the former, she turned to her next adversary, whose life bar was already well down, just as the Decoy went POP...
Finally only Madawc was left. He'd been kept busy by Euyfura, who was holding up well against his flying axes. The three of them ganged up on him and BOOM, he was gone too. SweetSpearGirl was boosted to level 37 and started for the entrance to the Worldstone Keep, deep within the mountain's heart.
"Wait!" Euyfura yelled. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"I can see you're okay from here," SweetSpearGirl smirked.
"No, not that, you idiot! Nihlathak!"
"Oh. Bugger. Do we have to?"
"Anya will be well pissed off if we don't. Besides, it's more experience, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Let's go."
SweetSpearGirl plugged some more points into Strength, realising as she did so that at level 37 she could heft a Hone Sundan. OK, so some idiot had plugged some crappy gems into it, but it would be a better proposition than the Gorerod now. Faster, too...
She hefted the spear, marvelling at how good it felt to have a new weapon. Someone had dropped a Shael rune, too, so she plugged that into the open socket of the waiting Lycander's... and stepped through Anya's portal.
A good omen, maybe - Pindleskin dropped a Brainhew. Gold items good! Useless gold items still give hope! SweetSpearGirl smiled, thinking "Skystrike for Rogue..." as they entered the Halls of Anguish. They fought their way through Night Lords and such, noticing various unholy altars and wondering who built this place before Nihlathak started using it as his base of operations from which to summon undead beasties and conspire with the Big Bad...
Descending through the halls of Anguish and Pain, they fought their way through various badly-behaved beasties, SweetSpearGirl slashing and Jabbing, the Valk venting battle-cries and lancing their foes, Euyfura's arrows unerringly finding their targets. The trio laying waste to huge numbers of monsters and leaving nothing but the destruction of Evil in their wake. Prowling Dead and Death Slashers and Defilers all fell to their attacks, none of our heroes worried in the slightest. SweetSpearGirl and Euyfura even raising their voices in a battle song as they fought, finding the Halls of Pain waypoint, and then, "Onward and downward!" the speargirl cried.
(Even Star Snarl - cold enchanted - hadn't been enough to slow down their advance...)
Euyfura grinned and followed, into the Halls of Vaught.
There was a welcoming committe, of course - a committee soon lying face-down in the dirt while three adventurers raced on, relentlessly, toward their goal. A Dragon Chang spear came out of a tomb ("could've used that back in the Monastery!" SweetSpearGirl commented), which sold for, well, not very much really... so they pressed on towards Nihlathak.
"I still hope he passed on his recipe for that Special Brew," SweetSpearGirl mused.
Euyfura raised an eyebrow. "If I ever have to see that stuff again, I'll pour the lot of it down your back!"
"Nah. We'll be drinking it! You'll just have to make do with hot water for our baths," the spearazon smirked.
"Smartass," the Rogue shot back.
"You know it! That's the way you like me!"
SweetSpearGirl levelled to 38 as they approached a long corridor. Casting a Decoy down it, she heard snarling, and then the abrupt squelching POP of a corpse exploding.
"That's him!" she yelled. "After him! Follow that Necro!"
Casting more Decoys ahead, they raced towards the sound. Ice Spawn swarmed around them, only to die and then explode messily. Finally the area was clear enough for SweetSpearGirl to pin her teleporting Necromantic foe against a wall.
"I will keep my end of Baal's bargain!" he cried.
"Only if you give me that Special Brew recipe first!" SweetSpearGirl snarled.
Nihlathak just laughed. "I will kill you!" he cried.
SweetSpearGirl laid into him. "I doubt it, somehow," she said as he fell, his screaming soul pulled down into a glowing pit of Hell which shut with a snap. "No, I don't think so at all."
Euyfura was at her shoulder. "No recipe, eh?"
"Ha! He took it with him, the sod."
"Oh well. You drunk isn't a sight I want to see often anyway. Except at Atma's."
"I guess. Why can't the world let us stay in Lut Gholein? It's so warm and peaceful and beautiful there."
"You'd die of boredom eventually," Euyfura said. "And you know how the Valk irritates Greiz."
"Screw him," SweetSpearGirl said forcefully.
"Ew. No thanks!"
They headed back to town. Nihlathak had already given the Relic to Baal (Anya was not happy!)and Baal had passed into the Keep, but they knew that already from the Ancients. It was time. Time to end this.
They entered the Worldstone Keep, fighting yet more waves of monsters. The second level tended towards exploding hell spawn, whose odd detonations both chilled and burned SweetSpearGirl, yet had no effect on Euyfura and the Valk.
"Guess it's our natural charm," the Rogue smirked, and SweetSpearGirl blew a raspberry at her before stepping onto the waypoint. The next level down contained Death Lords ("more damn moonies," muttered SweetSpearGirl), as well as yet more of those teleporting imps! Sadly, the most remarkable drop was a Nef rune, but SweetSpearGirl kept it anyway (as she said, "a rune's a rune!").
Onward into Baal's throne room in the bottom of the Keep. The air was hot and the walls red as they approached the very site of the Worldstone. Baal's laughter echoed off the walls as they fought. He threw packs of his minions at them - Colenzo the Annihilator (warped shamen, fire enchanted and something else) was first up, but died so quickly SweetSpearGirl didn't even catch his other attribute.
Baal laughed again. Down came Achmel the Cursed (immune to poison). The poison he and his buddies spewed was incredibly potent, knocking SweetSpearGirl's health down to almost nothing very fast. Baal decrep'd her as she tried to run, and she had to down a potion as a Death Mage cold missile slowed her even further! Finally, they turned their attention to the Valk and let her get in behind, knocking them down one by one until they were all gone.
Up came sudden Hydras shooting firebolts at our heroes. Bartuc the Bloody (lightning enchanted) sent his Council minions swarming around and was soon going BZZZBZZZ as SweetSpearGirl hit him. It was a fight to the death - but it was his death. not any of the adventurers'. The hydras vanished one by one as Euyfura and the Valk pinned the last minion against a wall.
Ventar the Unholy's (extra fast) pack was also a bit of a swarmer, surrounding our heroes, but they went down much easier. Almost as easy as Colenzo and friends. All that was left now between SweetSpearGirl and Baal, was Lister the Tormentor (spectral hit), who slammed SweetSpearGirl and the Valk around, getting them into stun lock frequently. SweetSpearGirl pulled back, casting a Decoy and drawing off a minion at a time, and with a jab stab poke, one by one, whittled them down into nothing.
Baal turned, vanishing into a flowing red portal.
"I'm so gonna get my ass kicked," the Valk said.
"You said that last time!" Euyfura retorted. "Come on, Valk. Into the lion's den!"
They stepped through. The Worldstone lay before them, huge and scarlet, ancient source of the Soulstones. But that wasn't all that was there. Baal cried out as he saw them, shouting, "My brothers have not died in vain!" but SweetSpearGirl was already attacking him, a Decoy at the ready.
Euyfura stood back, firing, as he chilled SweetSpearGirl and the Valk. He was hurting, though, and they kept up the attack. "No ass-kicking from you THIS time!" SweetSpearGirl yelled...
...And then it was over. One minute he was attacking them with cold wedges and tentacles, the next he keeled over, coughing his guts up, dropping some stuff. A Duskdeep full helm (which SweetSpearGirl donned; it was a decent replacement for her rare crown), some gold, and various other unforgettable items.
She forestalled Tyrael as he spoke from above.
"I know, I know. You need to destroy the Worldstone. Well, whatever. We're going home. Please, if at all possible next time, ask somebody else!"
They stepped through the portal.
THE END
(Addendum: SweetSpearGirl followed up with a few Baal runs to get herself to level 43, at which point she equipped herself with not only her Shael'ed Lycanders - 50 IAS! - but also some very nice rare gloves with +2 to spear skills and - at last! - some mana steal...)