An Amazon of Limited Means

Day 20

Kitsilan drank her tea and considered the events of yesterday. Some of those fights had been way tougher than she'd gotten used to recently, and it seemed a lot of that had to do with the meteor strikes of the Blood Lords. She drained her mug and walked over to her stash.

She had a few things that might help, and pulled them out. A ring and a full helm with magic damage reduction… she'd have to give up Tarnhelm's plus to skills and a rare ring's this and that, but might be worth it. Without the ring, though, she couldn't wear her new gauntlets with their 15% fire resistance, so she checked with Asheara who luckily had light gauntlets that would make up the difference.

Kitsilan took the waypoint to level 2 of the Durance and looked around. All seemed quiet, so with Radsomething in tow, she poked through the adjoining room and then into the next hallway. Pools of fire formed at their feet—Kits picked up the pace, casting SM and looking around frantically for their assailants. Night Lord minions poured through an archway at the southeast end of the corridor and the fight was on.

Kits shot rapidly into their midst, but couldn't make a stand. The Night Lords were accompanied by Maulers, and one blow from their fists took half her life. She had to keep dodging and weaving. Gray Tongue the Flayer (extra strong) skated in, and Kits backed up the corridor further, Radsomething a distant memory. She cast a portal and walked through it. She needed more potions and was disinclined to dig further into her own stock of rejuvs. Oh, and a new merc would be handy.

Telash seemed to be over whatever had ailed him yesterday, and Kitsilan decided to give him another chance. They took the waypoint back and eased into the next room, approaching the Night Lord pack from behind. The minions had gotten ahead of Gray Tongue, and Kits chugged healing potions while targeting one after another. That room cleared once more, they raced into the corridor ahead of more fire pools and found Gray Tongue back of the archway. Kits held her ground and kept her arrows on the target, ignoring the fireballs pounding her and Telash. Gray Tongue keeled over and Kits snagged its drop—a fancy breast plate with useless attributes.

She still had a portal standing, so she took it to get Telash healed and rearrange her pack. This setup seemed to be working so far, but she wasn't quite ready to give it her full approval yet. Upon their return, they were greeted by a pack of Cadaver Champions who very kindly dropped healing potions. Around the corner and up the hall from there, Kits found her first pack of ordinary Blood Lords. She tried Guided Arrow on them but found it was very difficult to tell what effect if any it was having, what with all the fire and noise and confusion. Not to mention that it still uses too much mana at this level (2) to be particularly useful. She switched back to multiple casts of SM and settled in to visually spotting her target and staying on it until it went down, then going after the next.

With Level 2 cleared, Kitsilan decided to re-do Level 1 before going on to Level 3. She still felt not quite in the groove, and wanted a bit more practise time before committing herself to the final series of battles with Mephisto and his lackeys. Besides, the Durance held a decent number of chests and stashes in nearly every room. She kept finding long war bows with almost, but not quite, worthwhile attributes, and had hopes of a rare long war bow with super attributes. All she managed was a rare pike, though.

Level 1 cleared out much faster than the first time through—they found Mold Touch the Wraith (magic resistant) and his minion Undead Stygian Dollies, and on his heels Stone Hack the Unclean (mana burn) heading up a pack of Warped Ones.

Beyond these were only a few Dark Lords casting those nasty meteors and the ubiquitous Cadavers. Slightly disappointed, Kitsilan packed up several useless but highly valuable items and portalled back to the docks.

"Cain, you wouldn't believe the stuff just laying around—hey, what's wrong? The Gidbinn rust or something? Docks falling into the bay? What?"

Cain sighed. "If you have a few free minutes in your busy schedule, there's a little matter I'd like you to handle for me."

"Sure, no problem. Glad to help. What's up?"

"MEPHISTO!"

Kitsilan winced. "Well, at least it doesn't involve body parts. I'm on it, okay? He's next. I'll probably die and hurt real bad and get young…" she turned to the Iron Wolf next to her, currently trying to catch frozen bubbles in his teeth, "what's your name again?"

"Huh? I'm Telash! Want to see me spike something? They go all blue!"

"Young Telash here," she turned back to Cain, "fried to a crisp, but don't let that worry you any."

"The whole world depends on you, remember!"

"Oh, sod the world," Kitsilan muttered, then shrugged. When all was said and done, this was what she did for fun, after all. "Okay, ID this stuff and let me get my potions in order. Mephisto won't know what hit him."

"That's the spirit!"

Kits sold everything in her pack, and then it was time to go down to Level 3. They took the waypoint to Level 2 and walked quickly to the head of the stairs. Kitsilan checked her bow, took a deep breath, and stepped down. At the foot of the stairs, she paused and listened. All was quiet, for a mercy. She walked forward a few steps and cast a portal, then Slow Missiles. A pool of fire formed at her feet and Telash began spiking through a nearby archway. Several Blood Lords skated through it towards them, and Kits cast Slow Missiles continuously while rapid-firing Magic Arrows. The space around her filled with fire and she dashed around to the other side of the centre columns. She was having trouble seeing, as usual, but she kept her head and concentrated on taking out one Blood Lord at a time. Sparking balls floated around her—Telash had found Bremm Sparkfist (aura enchanted, lighting enchanted). Kits hastily finished off the last Blood Lord and turned her attention to Bremm and his minions. Telash proved to be not terribly resistant to lightning, but Kitsilan had no time to spare for him. She ran out of red potions and stepped through her portal.

More potions, a spot of healing and back she went. She found Bremm on the other side of the archway and finished him off, then portalled back for another merc, Scorch. They eased up the north side of the main hall and into Wyand Voidbringer's room. Kitsilan lured him out to the hall away from the Blood Lords he kept company and brought him down before she had time to notice his attributes, then back in the room to take out the three Blood Lords.

Scorch needed healing and Kits needed to empty her pack and fill her belt, so back they went. These chores handled, they returned and peeked into the south room, teasing out Maffer Dragonhand (extra strong, extra fast). He almost caught up to Kitsilan, but she led him into Scorch's line of fire before turning to paste him with a withering volley of arrows. He didn't seem to have any Blood Lords in his corner, so Kitsilan shrugged, filled her belt and got Scorch healed up before casting about for Mephisto.

He shouted at her well before she could locate him, which she felt a shame, but she got him in her sights momentarily. Going toe to toe with him wasn't in her plan, but she held her place until Scorch went down, then ran across the room to get some distance. He flung nasty poison balls and cold balls and lightning streaks at her, forcing her to use more potions than she wanted, so she backed up some more and tried targeting him from off-screen. This was only partially successful—she knew she was hitting him some of the time at least, but the damage she was doing him did not match the damage he was doing her. When his cold balls (frozen orbs?) connected, her life would drain to a sliver and it was touch and go for her to get it back up with potions.

Tiring of this, she backed up and cast a portal. She wanted another monster-sniffing merc to flush Mephisto out of his hiding place and back on her screen, and take the heat off her at the same time.

Yeshiad trotted at her heels and through the portal and sniffed around as advertised. He seemed to think himself on a walk in the park, and then he spotted Mephisto across the blood channel toward the north half of the the main hall. With Yeshiad as a distraction, Kitsilan got into position and worked away at the demon with her Magic Arrows. She was relieved to see that she'd already taken him down to half his life, and with something solid to aim at, she quickly finished him off.

He dropped a rare War Axe as well as his soulstone. Kitsilan gathered them up, checked around for loose change and any other items worth selling, and portalled back to the docks. Cain was very happy with her, but said they needed to go straight to Hell from there, so Kits went back down and onto the platform leading to the red portal. There she told Yeshiad firmly that he couldn't follow her through this portal, and he should go back up the stairs and take the waypoint to Kurast, not forgetting to deliver a note to Meshif for her—"So long, and thanks for all the cocoa!"

He looked a little forlorn.

Kitsilan was level 26 when she killed Mephisto. She used Magic Arrow exclusively, since Guided Arrow sucks mana like an SUV doing eighty in a headwind. She managed all of Act III without dying.

Stats:

strength: 56

dexterity: 82

vitality: 54

energy: 26

Magic Arrow damage: 21-41

Magic Arrow Attack Rating: 699 (87% to hit)

Defence Rating: 170 (49% to be hit)

stamina: 143

life: 231

mana: 103

fire resistance: 20

cold resistance: 0

lightning resistance: 46

poison resistance: 12

Skills:

Bow:

Magic Arrow 6

Cold Arrow 1 (prereq)

Multiple Shot 1 (prereq)

Guided Arrow 2

Passives & Magic:

Critical Strike 8

Dodge 1

Avoid 1

Inner Sight 1

Slow Missiles 1

Penetrate 5

Equipment:

Rune Thirst short battle bow

tangerine splint mail of warding

burgandy light gauntlets of the fox

Goldwrap heavy belt

amber light plated boots of speed

full helm of warding

ring of warding

Wraith Knot ring

jade amulet of the bat