King Cohen, we have unpleasant news for you! The messengers havereturned from Argh(BAR) and tell of a war within his land, Barsilia, and of a power struggle - he will not be able to attend. King Animal the Tenacious has yet a bigger war to attend to in the evil land of Universitarius, and he is only available right now. Also, my liege, there are some time restrictions for your heiness and the duration of the battle is projected to be far longer than expected. "This is sad news..." replied the King. "Though I long for combat, another must be found for today - there will be other battles for glory." Then was he told of the bravery of a young Barbarian who had risen to become King of his land... by the name of kull(BAR). Sparta has assured us this is sufficient for victory. "Let it be done!!"

In Tristam three Barbarian Kings united to face a foe who had never been vanguished by their people - Diablo of the Nightmare realm. ChariSparta`BAR had been in fanatic training for weeks, reaching his 39th year, and Skull(BAR) had likewise seen amazing growth on his 34th. Animal(BAR) was in prime form at 34, and unusually deadly with the bow, after his ascension to King. They gathered with naught but plain weapons and armor, and a huge hoarde of gold to buy potions of red to slake their thirst.

Skull had the toughest assignment of all - shield, or as it turned out, sponge. This was to allow Sparta, the most accurate to play the role of Hammer and avoid being locked up. Animal did most luring and took out many lawyers with his battle bow. They descended to 13...

Black Knights were the first faced (thankfully not blood), soon joined by a Succubus. The very first kill yielded a Barbarian Broad sword from an unknown underpowered comrade. Sparta solemnly took up the sword and vowed that it would sever Diablo's head that very day. Stairs down were not found for quite a while - if each level took this long it would be depressing. They remembered a few days before when a warmup trip to 14 found triple witches - Succubi, Snow Witches and Hell Spawn. The BAR trio remembered cornering, dodging, weaving and shooting for an eternity. But this day, it would be fire drakes. Animal chortled "Look! Some worms from the caves dare block our path!" Skull let out a warcry which paralyzed them with fear, and they were quicly hewn down. The stairs were very close, and they descended to 15. Hoping tentatively for melee, they found it, with Azure Drakes and Steel Lords. This was the main level where Sparta's training helped, giving him fully double the chance of hitting his foe. They had to go 3/4 around the dungeon to get to Lazarus, who was torn to shreds in an instant. The ferocity of the attack surprised even the BARs, as the lawyer robes afforded no protection whatsoever. Finally, they found an evil pentagram with the words "To Diablo". "Dis must be da place!"

It was now five hours in the dungeon, and Sparta the elder looked almost ready to collapse. Just after they entered the final level, a wave of nauseating juju swept over them, and they passed out! They awoke soonafter, back in town, dazed but still committed, and walked down again through the clear passages down to Diablo's lair. Unbeknownst to Sparta, an evil talisman of Frailty had been slipped on his body, and they were certain that one had been cursed with a luminous cap, for the stairs of 16 soon erupted to a chaotic maelstrom. In just moments, three were two dozen blood knights after them, and as many advocates. They were bumrushed right off the level. Through brave luring, the unthinking knights were lured, far away from upcoming battles. The trio of Kings reclaimed the stairs, and setup a protected kill zone. There knights were led back and engaged. One would be slaughtered, two would provide hassles, and three-five meant that Skull would have another set of mail and his cap shredded. He lost about four of each that game. (Our shield wore Chainmail, Sparta some found field plate, and Animal some rugged leather armor, to be able to distinguish each other apart.)

They carefully cleared the area near the stairs, which was next to Diablo's lair, as well as the northern
walls next to them. Then Animal approach the very first switch, dodging innumerable advocates to lure a handful of Knights to their death. Then he sacrificed himself to throw the switch, and was engulfed in a firestorm of juju. This mean just one more walk down the three staircases, one of dozens. Next they went down the southern corridor to the mazed in a fit of energy. Like a pack of Piranha it was feeding time. Any advocate unlucky enough to be in their path was smote or hewn, as were the two surprised Blood Knight guards. It felt good to be on the offensive instead of luring. The maze was awash in lawyers, and not much room to maneuver, so it took a few tries to penetrate to the center. But they did, and threw the second switch. Phase Three was over (Beachhead, center switch, maze switch, double switches, and Diablo were the five phases planned).

The trio expected Phase four to be the worst, with the potential to awake far more than they could handle. Yet they did so well establishing the kill zone that not many knights were left, and through bravery and happy feet, the two switches were thrown. The maze was chosen as the site of the final battle. After the BK's on the right were eliminated, Diablo was lured there. A final trip to town, and each Barbarian put on his crown, to show Diablo who was boss. Sparta took up the Broad Sword for the Requiem of the Fallen BAR Hero, and they walked down the stairs one last time with pride. Three warcries were loosened and the Barbarians went berzerk. Literally, Diablo was a Barbarian Chew Toy! His head went flailing backward in different directions as each landed punishing blows. An occasional apoc would land, but one would be blocked on occasion too. Skull drank but 12 potions and maintained his armor. When the Piranha BAR were done, Diablo burst into a spray of blood, staining the warriors' chests with two large dots, and giving them the brand new coop title "Respendent BAR".

Their victory was dedicated to all other BARs who have fought the good fight, and in particular to "The Unknown BAR" and to King Cohen the Prime, who was with them in Spirit.

ChariScribe, servant to ChariSparta

Other notes:
- It wasn's Sparta ready to collapse, it was Charis. At 3am they had to wave their swords loudly at the pentagram to wake me up!!
- Fortune seemed wicked but was actually kind. The game crashed at the start of 16. As in Ironman games, it was agreed there was no harm whatsoever in continuing the game at the start of 16 the next evening. As 16 took 5.5 hr, a refreshed Charis was in retrospect delighted by the game crash.
- One on one it was virtually impossible to kill a BK. I say virtually because Skull pulled off such a feat! Sometimes its good to NOT know how bad the odds are against you :) So we always ganged up, attacking the same foe, even in 3 on 3 situations. 3-on-1 was 2 potions for skull, 2-on-1 was about 5. 3-on-2 meant about a dozen potions, and 3-on-3 meant drinking up his entire inventory and/or having all his armor shredded. Kudos to Skull! (Why so bad to take a BK? We were all at autohit, 1 in 20, doing 100 pts per hit, or 200 for a crit. Allowed to swing constantly, that's 15 pts/sec on average, while the BK's regenerate almost 8 pts/sec. Since they always hit you're swinging less than half the time. Ouch. pRNG to the rescue, if you get several hits in a row, a kill is possible)
- I'm looking forward to D2 Barbarians, where the warcry's will be something more than us yelling "BBAARRGG!!!"
- H/H ?? Clearly this thought is on my mind. We need a break for a bit, and exp runs for other characters look appealing after this slogfest :) Several MAJOR obstacles to that however- Diablo should take about 200 potions to kill, if we get that far. ALL H/H monsters except lawyers will be autohit for us, and regen rate of 10hp/sec. So not just BK's will be a hassle. Ironically, BK's will not much worse, two hits more to kill, same chance of us hitting, we just take more damage and block far less. We'll see...