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Kitsilan woke bleary-eyed, with a thumping headache and every muscle aching. She limped down the stairs and spotted Halbu.
"Say, anyone here have any coffee?" she asked, squinting against the too-bright light of the Pandemonium Fortress.
"Hail to thee, Champion!"
"Nuts to you, buddy," she muttered, and crossed to Jamella. "Is there any coffee, tea, maybe aspirin?"
"What do you need?"
"Didn't I just say? I need coffee!"
Jamella stood there quietly, her expression of infinite patience unchanged. Kitsilan spun on her heel and dashed up the stairs to where Cain stood chatting with Tyrael. She took a deep breath. "Good morning, Cain, Tyrael. If it is morning. Is there any way to make some coffee? Or even tea?"
Cain shuffled over, waving his staff about. "Never mind coffee!"
Kits shrugged. "Okay. How about tea, then?"
"Never mind tea! We've found Baal!"
"That's nice. Where is he?"
"On Mount Arreat, looking for the Worldstone, according to Tyrael."
"That's not anywhere near here, is it?"
"Nowhere's near here, Kitsilan, we're in Hell."
"Well, then," she replied, "that's all to the good, isn't it? He's there and we're here. I like it."
"You must hunt him down and destroy him!" said Cain, sternly.
"Wait a minute—you said to find Diablo. All this time, I've been supposed to be finding Diablo and doing for him. Baal was just a sideline in Lut Gholein."
"Now he's the main course. Hurry up with Diablo, there's no time to lose."
Kits felt her headache wrap itself around her temples in a clove hitch. "Cain, I don't think you realize that I do have limits."
Cain started. "It's not like you'd have to go alone."
"What do you mean?"
"The Veil has been lifted. You may bring a companion with you."
"Uh-huh. Okay, so who did you convince to share my dream vacation with me?"
"Up to you. You can hire anyone you like."
"Hire? I gotta pay someone to – wait a minute – Kyle!" Kitsilan jumped up and bounded over to the waypoint. "Rogue Encampment, and make it snappy!"
Kyle, as it turned out, was bored out of her skull and more than willing to tag along with Kitsilan. The only problem being that she'd let her skills rust a bit since Kitsilan had seen her last. "No problem," Kits assured her, "we'll just do a quickie training course through the area and then see how you are."
Kyle leveled quickly as she and Kitsilan made a lightning run through the Black Marsh, Tamoe Highlands and down into the Catacombs. By the time they flushed Andariel out of her throne room, Kyle was level 14 and rising with a bullet. In Lut Gholein, she raised her stats high enough to wield Kits' spare long war bow. Before long, she was level 24 and frighteningly competent.
Kitsilan and Kyle then wandered out to the Canyon of the Magi, where Kits surprised herself by leveling to 28. Back in town, Fara skimmed through Kitsilan's notebook and frowned. "What's with all this Penetrate? You were supposed to be learning Guided Arrow. Never mind—it'll work out, I'm sure."
Kits pumped her strength to the point where she could wear Plate Mail, and they waypointed to Kurast. There Hratli sold her Russet Plate Mail of Warding (magic damage reduced by 1 and fire resist 15%) and they waypointed straight to Hell.
Despite Kitsilan's admonishments, Kyle insisted the Trapped Souls posed a serious threat to their immediate survival, but as she never quite crossed the line into Trapped Soul Obsession, Kits shook her head and concentrated on shooting anything that moved.
There followed a long period wherein the two continued gaining experience and hunting for better armour. "We can pretty much forget better bows," Kits said, picking through the remains of a pack of Abyss Knights.
"I had no idea that Hell was so…"
"Fiery? Rocky? Dull slate grey?" Kits offered.
"Squalid."
An Abyss Mage pelted them with poison balls, dropping Kits' life ball alarmingly before they found him. "Dammit, where's the stuff with resistances?" Kitsilan said, kicking aside the cracked skull cap he'd been unaccountably carrying around.
She cheered up slightly when, after pummelling a pack of Damned, one of them dropped a rare helm:
defense: 32 10% chance to cast level 3 charged bolt when struck poison length reduced by 25% +22 enhanced defence fire resist +25%"See?" Kyle said. "That's got fire resistance on it. And poison reduction."
Kits brushed slime from its right cheek piece. She nodded. "It's a keeper."
They cleared the City of the Damned and headed into the River of Flame. Maw Fiends, Pit Lords, Grotesques and a boss pack of Stranglers led by Gloom Sludge the Witch (undead, cursed) met them before very long. Gloom Sludge dropped nothing memorable. Just prior to meeting Gloom Sludge of the Unforgettably Silly Name, Kits and Kyle took a southerly route as soon as one offered itself, and inched their way along it, Kitsilan fanning the area before her with Magic Arrows and Kyle wondering what she was shooting at.
"What are you shooting at, Kitsilan?"
"This is called 'covering fire', okay? I just don't want to run into any traps. Hephaesto's somewhere around here, in the Hellforge, and he's got a mean roundhouse."
"Who's Hephaesto?"
"A smith."
"A smith? Charsi's a smith."
"Hephaesto is Diablo's smith."
"Oh. Say, need any help with that covering fire?"
They finally reached the end of that arm and encountered nothing more dangerous than Pit Lords. Kitsilan led Kyle back to the main route at a jog, and they eased their way along it in much the same fashion as they'd covered the prior section. Crossing a bridge, they came to an extra-wide area with a Poison Shrine in the middle of it and a dozen Maw Fiends and Grotesques surrounding the Poison Shrine. They knew it was about a dozen since they counted the corpses. They hadn't seen more than three alive.
A northerly arm opened up off this area, and Kits spammed Magic Arrows up and along its width. Things died somewhere ahead of them, and Kitsilan was just thinking they'd have to go the other way when she caught a glimpse of Hephaesto's scurrying feet. "Run!" she shouted, but Kyle wasn't quite fast enough and the portal was too far for Kits to take the chance. Kitsilan spun around and began backing up her Rogue. They almost had him, but he had a Pit Lord buddy and they ganged up on Kyle. Kitsilan backpedalled to the wide area and dove into her portal as Hephaesto aimed a parting wallop to her head.
She raced to the waypoint and twinkled to the Rogue Encampment to pick up Kyle.
"Hi, Kitsilan! I could see you and Hephaesto, right after he clobbered me. You run pretty good, for a Hero."
"Shut up. If you ran better, I wouldn't now be out ten grand reviving your butt."
"Now what?"
"Now we've got him where we want him," Kitsilan said, as they waypointed directly to the City of the Damned and trotted down the stairs. They came into view of the portal and Kitsilan began shooting as fast as she could in its direction. Within seconds, Kyle spotted Hephaesto and added her arrows. Just as he reached them, he went down.
Kitsilan picked up the Hellforge Hammer and his pathetic treasure and portalled back to the Fortress, where she gathered in the Soulstone. Back they went, moving steadily and carefully around the Hellforge until all monsters were eliminated. Then, with Kyle watching her back, Kitsilan smashed the Soulstone on the Hellforge.
When the light show of the released souls dimmed, she picked up the gems that had fallen around the forge and returned to the Fortress to empty her pack. Cain was overjoyed at her news, crowing about how Diablo himself must have heard the hammer fall, not noticing how Kitsilan winced.
"Sheesh, Cain, I was rather hoping to sneak up on him."
"You were? Whyever for? No chance of that anyway—there's the entire Chaos Sanctuary that has to be cleared, then you have to open the Seals to let him out. He'll notice."
"Shucks. Okay, guess we'd better head back. You sure there's no coffee to be had?"
"I'll see what I can do. Go."
They found the waypoint not much further along. Stepping up on the bridge just past it, Kitsilan was bemused at the sight of yet another Archangel on a Stick, and briefly wondered if there was a market in Heaven for folding camp stools. This one's name was Hadrial, and he had a bit to say about the Chaos Sanctuary and the five Seals Kits was to unlock. She thanked him and they hurried onto the series of platforms that separated the River of Flame from the Chaos Sanctuary.
"So," Kyle asked, "we have to open the Seals to make Diablo appear?"
"Sounds like it. Guess it's like the Cairn Stones—except there doesn't seem to be any order."
"But if Diablo's locked behind those Seal things, why are we letting him out? Why can't we just leave him there and save the world that way?"
"You're thinking way too much for a Hero. You want to watch that. Anyway, Tyrael says we have to do it this way, and he should know."
Using her covering fire technique, Kits and Kyle covered the distance fairly rapidly and soon found themselves at the door to Diablo's sanctum. Kitsilan fired about fifty Magic Arrows into its doorway before finally admitting that there didn't seem to be any monsters just inside it.
"It's a good thing you don't use a quiver," Kyle said, as they passed under the archway.
They inched along the entryway, past a poison resist shrine (which Kits touched, it was there, why not?) and into the first large hall. Still no greeters. "This is getting spooky," Kitsilan muttered, sidling to the right and firing repeatedly up a smaller hallway.
Still nothing appeared, and they carefully walked as far as the corner, where the hallway joined to the second large hall. There, finally, a lone Strangler flew through a crack in the wall, and more followed. Kitsilan was relieved—this was more like it. In lulls between Stranglers and Pit Lords she threw up portals, and in this way they cleared the second large hall. Oblivion Knights mingled with the Pit Lords and cursed Kits and Kyle, much to the latter's dismay. They cleared the last opponent just in time for Kits to drop a pair of healing potions on her.
They crossed the large hall to another smaller hallway on its left, where Kitsilan's covering fire lured more Pit Lords into reach. More Stranglers and Oblivion Knights as they pushed through into the Pentagram Room, and Kitsilan drug Kyle through her nearby portal just in time.
"How's it going?" inquired Cain, "Have you released Diablo yet?"
"We haven't even seen a Seal," Kitsilan gasped. "C'mon, Kyle, let's go down the stairs and listen to someone tell us we're champions, and get healed up. We'll go back by the River waypoint and see if we can sneak up on them."
The sneaking up plan was successful, and soon the far left wing, with its two Seals, was clear. They repeated the process for the centre wing and then the right. Kitsilan used a lot of portal scrolls, but that's what they're there for.
It was time to break a Seal. Kitsilan set the portal midway between the two Seals in the right wing, cast Decoy partway, just in case, and patted the far Seal. It lit up bright as a torchbeam, and she stepped back hurriedly. Nothing. Not a sausage. The Decoy vanished. She and Kyle walked toward the second Seal, and suddenly they were swarmed by Pit Lord minions.
They fell back, and took out five of the minions before the Infector of Souls, attributes unknown as Kitsilan was a little busy, came into view with another four or five with him. They surrounded Kits and Kyle, and were between them and the portal. "This won't do," Kitsilan exclaimed, ducking under a large wing and nipping around behind them. "Kyle! Run! Over here!" she called, shooting rapidly into the crowd still fixated on the Rogue, valiantly chilling one after the other.
Kyle wouldn't or couldn't follow Kitsilan, so Kits took a moment to bomb her with healing potions, then finished off the last of the pack. The Infector dropped some kind of fancy headdress only Barbarians would be caught dead in, but it paid for more potions.
Back in the Chaos Sanctuary, with their hurts healed and belt reloaded, they walked over to the second Seal. It lit up as had the first when Kitsilan touched it, but disgorged no monsters. They crossed the Pentagram Room to the left wing. It was laid out broadly as a Y, with a Seal in each branch. Kits set her portal in the place where the branches met.
The first one Kits touched also lit up with no effect. They walked to the second and sprang back as Kitsilan patted it hurriedly. Strangler minions flowed all around them, The Grand Vizier of Chaos (undead, extra strong, fire-enchanted, immune to fire) in their midst. Kits noticed Kyle was taking more damage than she could sustain, and fell back into the portal.
They again returned via the River waypoint, and approached the Strangler pack from the Pentagram Room, spreading them out and lessening their damage. Kitsilan got a fix on the Vizier and stayed on it till it fried to a pile of sticks on the floor. With it gone, the minions were easy enough to handle. The Vizier dropped a Lizard Helm (+1 to mana), and Kitsilan didn't know whether to laugh or cry, looking at it. Kyle pointed out it was a full helm, which did get Kits laughing after all. She tossed it over her shoulder and they went on to the centre wing and its one Seal.
Releasing this produced nothing but quiet in their immediate surroundings. Kitsilan nosed around the corner, Kyle following close on her heels. All was still. They poked around the second bend and Kitsilan cast a portal as a blob of green shot past Kyle's ear. Lord de Seis (undead, extra strong, aura enchanted) was in the front of his troop, sporting the bright orange aura of a fanatic. Kitsilan found him early and held her ground, disdaining the curse he'd set on them. He went down before he reached the steps, and with him gone, his minions also died. He dropped a blue crown, but before Kitsilan could pick it up, the ground shook and rumbled and then Diablo spoke. They raced for the portal, fairly sure he hadn't pinpointed them but wanting to get set up with extra potions and scrolls.
Fully loaded, they portalled back to the Chaos Sanctuary. Kitsilan tried a few Guided Arrows, but couldn't tell if they resulted in anything useful. She switched back to Magic Arrow and stepped out into view, putting up another portal as she did so.
Waves of fire beat on them, but had little effect. Kitsilan shot wildly into the room, but still seemed to be missing. When Diablo bounded into view finally, she was astonished to think she could miss anything that big. She could stand for the lightening blasts and the inferno breath, but his chilling her slowed her down to a crawl. Kyle was unwell. Kits tried casting a Decoy to turn Diablo's attention from the Rogue, but to no avail. Kyle went down and Kits slow-ran to the portal.
"Well," she said after resurrecting Kyle, "That wasn't as successful as I'd hoped."
"River waypoint?"
"Yup."
This time they caught Diablo on a bit of corner molding, but unfortunately couldn't take proper advantage of this, as Kitsilan couldn't shoot him without freeing him from his lodging place. Kyle, on the other hand, could stand out where she had an unobstructed shot, and this lasted for rather longer than Kitsilan thought it would. Diablo freed himself in one of his posturings and spotted Kyle, which did no good to her health bar. Kitsilan again tried to distract him with a Decoy, but he was having none of that. He bear-hugged Kits, which chilled her again and annoyed her tremendously. She ducked away from him and Kyle moved into his line of sight.
Retrieving her Rogue for the second time, Kitsilan counted her gold and wondered how long she could keep this up. This time they waypointed to the Fortress and took the portal back to the fight. Kits cast another as they emerged from the first, and found herself breaking out of bone prisons. And chilled again. She kept better track of Kyle's health, and pulled them both to safety before the Rogue could go down again.
In her stash, Kitsilan found a pair of chain gloves with Half Freeze Duration on them, plus 8% fire resistance, and switched back to Rune Thirst (more life steal, and she seems to shoot faster) They went back, only for Kyle to get hit hard almost immediately. Kitsilan decided to wear Diablo down for awhile by herself. Without Kyle to worry about, she settled into a steady rhythm—cast portal, shoot, drink, shoot, drink, till her healing potions were gone, then leave. Diablo's fire/lightning attacks couldn't hurt her at the same pace as her drinking healed her. On one of these trips back for potions, Kitsilan switched back to her Russet Plate of Warding, and had more time to shoot instead of drink.
Diablo was feeling the effects of her visits. He stopped trying to bone prison her, and even cut down on the physical swipes. Kits smiled as she shot a bit more life from his line. Time to bring Kyle back for the finish.
"This is it, though," she told the Rogue. "If something happens this time, I'm broke."
"I'll watch out, I promise," Kyle replied, crossing her heart.
And she did, for Diablo collapsed shortly after their arrival on the scene, and no more than a notch out of Kyle's own life. They went back and forth to the Fortress with the stuff he dropped, not forgetting to pick up the crown Lord de Seis had dropped. Kitsilan said she needed the gold for repairs.
Diablo left behind replenishing war javelins, a deadly long sword, a scythe and something else that sold for a bit and was otherwise forgettable. de Seis' crown was a crown of brilliance.
Back in the Fortress, Cain had her stash all packed and ready to go as Tyrael opened the portal to Harrogath. "In you go," he said, bustling about, "Let's not waste time, come on, come on—this place is a dump and I want a beer."
Kits found herself in complete agreement with this sentiment, as did Kyle, so without further ado, they stepped through the portal, leaving Tyrael to sign for the bill.
Kitsilan was level 29 when she killed Diablo. She used Magic Arrow exclusively, after an abortive attempt with Guided Arrow. She managed all of Act IV without dying, though she couldn't say the same for Kyle.
(Kyle was level 28 when she helped Kitsilan with Diablo. She died once to Hephaesto, once to an OK and three times to Diablo.)
strength: 71 dexterity: 87 vitality: 58 energy: 26 Magic Arrow damage: 23-57 Magic Arrow Attack Rating: 686 Defence Rating: 193 stamina: 150 life: 253 mana: 107 fire resistance: 75 cold resistance: 29 lightning resistance: 75 poison resistance: 6 Magic Arrow 8 Cold Arrow 1 (prereq) Multi-Shot 1 (prereq) Guided Arrow 3 Critical Strike 9 Dodge 1 Avoid 1 Inner Sight 1 Slow Missiles 1 Decoy 1 Penetrate 5 Rune Thirst short battle bow (now known as Rune Quarrel, for some reason) russet plate mail of warding crimson chain gloves of thawing garnet plated belt of might amber light plated boots of speed Carrion Horn full helm cobalt ring of the leech Corruption Coil ring amber amulet of radiance grand charm of life large charm of flame large charm of strength viridian small charm of strength azure small charm of shock grand charm of craftmanship grand charm of balance