An Amazon of Limited Means

ACT V

Day 23

Kitsilan stepped out of the Harrogath portal and looked around. "Where'd Cain get to?" she asked Kyle.

Kyle squinted. "Over there, down by that big guy."

"Which big guy? You want to define your terms, in this town," Kits grumbled, squinting down on the town square, where several well-muscled fellows were milling around.

"The one with the long white hair and the fancy mail."

"Oh, that big guy. Okay, as long as he's happy. Well, looks like a nice place, for a town under siege by a Prime Evil. Let's find an armourer and see what's what."

They walked down the stairs and over to Larzuk's forge. A big guy, as all the local lads seemed to be, Larzuk was also easily the dimmest of the smiths Kitsilan had met so far in her wanderings. Very good at his trade, though, as it seemed from the items scattered around his workshop.

According to him, if Kits and Kyle hoped to be taken seriously in Harrogath, they needed to lift the siege. "We just did for Diablo," Kyle expostulated.

"Yeah, well, provincials are like that," Kitsilan shrugged, "Local troubles loom largest, y'know. Remember how keen Akara was on getting the Den of Evil cleared?"

"That's different, they were… okay, maybe you have a point. Right, let's get it over with."

There didn't seem much reason to hang around, especially when the only gambling was to be had by chatting to Nihlathak.

"When I was a wee Rogue," Kyle muttered, as they headed for the main gate, "we used to play a game of making sets of things, like swords and bows and such. And swords didn't belong with bows, nor bows with swords."

"Where'd daggers come into this blissful childhood?" Kits asked, as the gate clanked open and they walked through.

"Usually in the looks we gave our shooting instructors. Anyway, what I was getting at, is that Nihlathak doesn't belong."

"Think not?" Kitsilan said, spotting her first Enslaved and firing away. "You may have a point there. He's a Prime Weirdo, that's for sure."

They found more Enslaved surrounding a struggling Barbarian, and laid them out. The Barbarian didn't give them so much as a passing glance before trotting off to wale away on another set of Enslaved and Death Maulers. Kitsilan soon learned to let them go their way and concentrate on her own business. The Death Maulers seemed to cluster around the Catapults, which Kits found were easy to destroy. What she couldn't figure out is why they seemed occasionally to drop gold or items.

"Where does a Catapult keep it all, you know?" she asked Kyle, kicking over a skull and bones contraption.

"Dunno. What I can't work out, is why a Catapult would be into hoarding," Kyle responded. "Must be part of that demon thing, I guess."

They worked their way through another two rows of Catapult landings, then the ledge narrowed into a passage no wider than three, maybe four, Barbarians. Who were striding purposefully ahead of them.

"And another thing," Kyle said, "all these rabbits hopping about."

"What about them?" Kitsilan said, staring at a Barbarian pacing aimlessly back and forth in a side canyon.

"Every other place we've been, there've been creatures who weren't Good or Evil, who just hung around and lived off the dead. Scavengers, like."

"You mean like the scorpions and the snakes and all? My pack's full, let's hop to town."

"Yeah, them," Kyle said, as they reappeared on the landing by Malah's hut.

"Okay, so…?"

"So here there's rabbits. Hundreds of them."

"You don't like rabbits?" Kits shrugged, then stopped dead on the stairs as she made the connection. "The rabbits are eating the corpses of the dead?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you—and look over there," Kyle pointed to a Barbarian bending over a firepit near Larzuk's shop. "That man is cooking rabbits. The rabbits eat the dead, and the Barbarians eat the rabbits."

"That… is not something I really want to think about right now," Kitsilan responded, "Let me just sell this stuff off and we'll get back to killing demons and stripping them of anything valuable. I can deal with that."

"Okay."

They portaled back and ran immediately into the band of Dac Farren, a cold-enchanted imp, and set to smacking them back to wherever they came from. As the last imp died (along with a few more Death Maulers), Kits leveled to 30 and paused to consider just what this meant to her.

"I haven't the least idea what I should be learning now," she said, "nor if I should pump vitality or energy or dexterity or strength. Any ideas?"

"Let me see your book," Kyle responded. She thumbed over the pages, frowning. "Nope," she said, shutting it with a snap and passing it back to the bemused Amazon, "not a clue. Sorry."

"Well, guess I'll worry about it later, then," Kitsilan said, chucking the book in her pack and striding forward. "Let's see what this Shenk is made of, and then think about it."

They careened their way through another couple of Catapult rows, then came within sight of Shenk's firepit. He was whipping Enslaved into a frenzy. Death Maulers flanked him on either side.

"What do you think?" Kits asked Kyle, looking at the activity across a trench.

"South. Definitely. North is way ugly, too many approaches to defend."

"Yeah, that was my take on it. Those two zombie Barbs will just have to manage without us."

They smashed another Catapult and veered south into an entrenchment. Shenk was just northeast of them, the direct path bottlenecking on a stairway from his firepit to their position.

"Really," Kits said later to Cain, "it was just perfect for us."

Enslaved fell on the stairs by the score, mixed with Death Maulers and some kind of suicidal hopping demons that puffed up and then burst, with deadly force.

"What kind of force?" Kyle asked, as one exploded right next to her, ruffling not a hair of her ponytail.

"Hey, take it from me—they hurt!" Kits shouted, chugging healing potions and concentrating her fire on Shenk the Overseer.

A couple dozen Magic Arrow's later, Shenk was but a memory and Kitsilan collected his forgettable hoard to pad her gambling fund. She still had that level-up to ponder, and here was Larzuk falling all over his kilt to thank her.

"Sockets? Really?" Kitsilan marvelled. She'd found a smith who could actually socket stuff.

"Well, not that many, most of the time," Larzuk explained, "but I'll do my best on almost anything you have."

"Can you socket Kyle, here?" Kits wondered.

"Hey! You watch your manners, Hero!"

"Just a joke, really, honest, I'd never let anyone socket you," Kitsilan said, deftly evading the bow leveled at her head.

"Can't socket anything but weapons, armour, shields and helms," Larzuk said, "so I don't know what you're all worried about. You think about it, while I go get me some more of that Rabbit-On-A-Stick, okay?" He wandered off, oblivious to the two fighters staring at his broad back.

"Maybe it's something in the sauce, you think?" Kyle said.

"Maybe. Look, while we're here, we take all our meals with the Rogues."

"Sounds good to me."

Kitsilan sorted her gear and they retired to a quiet patch of grass beside the stash. They could hear the sounds of Cain and the Harrogath worthies whooping it up in the town square, but the noise was faint and in its way, comforting. Kits knew that lifting the siege was only a temporary measure, but all the same, it'd been a fine day indeed.