Petrified Beyond Belief

Author

Greetings, disbelieving onlookers. My name is Antique Cupcake, and I am a naked Druid.

The name "Antique" comes from a long tradition of nudists, which began with Antique Popsicle. Antique Popsicle, a once BNM / now Naked Cold Sorceress, named thus after Lemming found a popsicle in his freezer that was many years old. (He eventually fed it to a friend, and then told him how old the popsicle was.) It was bizarre, and it was amusing. It made a good character name, as it surely was original. Well, ever since Antique made her way into D2, all of Lemming's Nudists have carried the title "Antique" followed by a foodstuff you wouldn't want to think of in an antique state.

But why "Cupcake?" Being mostly an elementalist, with specialties in fire and wind, Lemming thought a baked good would best personify me. Fire and Wind represent convection baking. As for deciding on "Cupcake," it sounds better than "AntiqueCake."

Life started out the same as that of any other naked character. I ran out into the Blood Moor (I cannot fathom why it would be named such, as one is unlikely to lose much blood there.) and began methodically punching things. Finally I was able to learn my first spell, Firestorm. My next spell, Poison Creeper, came soon after that.

Ahh, sweet, sweet flames. But it has a spell timer? Why? I do not know. Perhaps there was fear that a great pandemic of Firestorm Druids would overtake the ladders and lead to the downfall of all duels, bringing even whirlwinding Barbarians to their knees. But I digress. It had a spell timer, but I couldn't cast it too much anyway - low mana pool, you know. And with Firestorm by my side I was able to clear out the Den of Evil (more like Den of Why-Didn't-You-Just-Send-Flavie-Instead-Of-Me?) and proceed on to Cold Plains and the Cave. Soon I'd learned how to bowl with Molten Boulders and the secret of having ever-frosty breath, Arctic Blast!

"Battle.net will be going down to fix a problem with item deletion in 5 minutes. It will be up 5 minutes after that."

Ahh! What's that voice? W-where did it come from? Realms going down?! The world is coming to an end?! NOOO!! Not now! Blood Raven still lives! I must hurry!

When I first met Blood Raven she tried to recruit me, "Join my army of the dead!"

But they have a thing about being naked when you're not in the locker room. So I taunted her with my elite naked speed, "Your army of the dead moves like lead."

Her response was quite appropriate to a nudist, "Smart-ass!"

Why stop the pun war? "Feel the wrath of my molten balls!... boulders!"

She couldn't resist either, "Aww, nuts! Those things hurt!"

I was finally fed-up with her jerking me around, "Stop pricking me with those blasted arrows!"

No-nonsense time: "Ok, how about a fiery one? *FVOOSH*"

"OW!... Hey, I didn't know I was flammable!... Urk! *dies*" At least I learned something from the experience.

Well, I came back and the fight didn't last much longer. I don't think I could've taken any more puns anyway.

"Battle.net will be going down to fix a problem with item deletion in 2 minutes. It will be up 5 minutes after that."

Whew! Just in time!... Hey, you have something for me, Kashya? An Aliza? Is that some sort of sled? No? Then what is it? A wife? I can't marry her? I'm not a eunuch! What do you mean you couldn't tell?!?!... And so Aliza joined me, an we fled to the void while the mystical realm of Battle.Net disappeared.

* * *

Well, Aliza, now that these "realms" have returned, how about you and me finding a nice cave to call our own?... You don't like my name? What's wrong with it? Oh, and "Aliza" is better? And you don't like sharing a home with lichens? Well, how do you know if you've never done it before? Yeah, suuuure you have...

So Aliza and I began our quest. Quest for what? I'm not sure. We were supposed to be tracking this guy who dresses in a dingy robe. I think his name was Cain. Strange man that Cain. He could tell you anything about anything any time any place anywhere anyhow... That about sums him up. We released him from a sort of prison. I think the townspeople put him there to shut him up, but as fate or perhaps irony would have it the cage saved his life.

Once we saved Cain, he told us about another guy in a dingy prison robe; his name was "The Wanderer." Aliza was absolutely in love with the thought of finding this Wanderer. She's got a thing for ex-cons, I guess.

We continued on to this lady known as a Countess. Apparently she'd bathed in the blood of various people, though I didn't see any skeletons of these alleged victims lying about. *shrug* Maybe that moldy tome was just one of those "Beware of Dog" signs when there never was a dog. So I bowled right over her, with Aliza backing me up.

From there we went on to the Tamoe Highlands and I learned Fissure and Cyclone Armor. I wish I had this Cyclone stuff back at Blood Raven, but I guess you can't have it all. I adore this Fissure spell, which allows me to decimate most any mobile enemy. I also gave in and summoned an Oak Sage. The little fella was fun to have around, but he seemed to think he was a tank of some sort. Even my new vine was a little smarter than the sage.

Well, there isn't much to say about the Rogues' Monastery, except for Aliza's demonic transformation, of course. But before I get to that, a deformed blacksmith of some sort came after me and killed Aliza, but I took him out. After resurrecting Aliza we continued to the Jail, and from there to the bowels of the Catacombs wherein Aliza...

I guess the best way to describe it is that she showed her true colors. Four wiggly legs lept from her back and she herself tripled in size, completely tearing her leather outfit. (Gosh, it must've hurt like hell to have that leather thing get smaller, and smaller, and smaller (in proportion to her own size, that is) before it finally snapped. Wedgie from hell, eh?) It was like "Attack of the 20' Drunken Wobo¹." She had the remarkable ability to upchuck, turn it into gaseous form, then fling it around the room. (I think she had practice at upchucking, because she was quite accurate.) So I had to down an antidote potion, which saved me from her fetid gastric acid. Now it was my turn to attack.

¹: "Woman Hobo," of course.

In hindsight, I think I could've gotten somebody to exorcise her. But she was so repulsive I decided to just send her to Hell. It only took a few fissures and she slipped right through the cracks.

* Vitals *

Skill Type Level Firestorm Elemental Fire 1 Molten Boulder Elemental Fire 1 Arctic Blast Elemental Cold 1 Fissure Elemental Fire 1 Poison Creeper Poisonous Vine 1 Oak Sage Life-increasing Minion 1 Carrion Vine Munching Vine (Heals) 1 Cyclone Armor Bone Armor-like Elemental Protection 1

Clvl Stat Distribution Reserved Skills 16 +2 Vit/lvl +3 Eng/lvl 8

Fissure proved to be very, very useful. It opens up multiple holes in the ground over a nice-sized area (Visually, it's some sweet eye-candy.) and monsters are "hit" by little flickers of flame (much like how Holy Fire causes a flame flicker to "hit" an enemy). It lasts 3.2 seconds (IIRC) and has a spell timer of about that long.

Molten Boulder was fun. It's also a visually fun skill. Like the name says, it's a molten boulder. When cast, a molten boulder emerges from your Druid's hand and rolls along the ground toward enemies, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. The downsides... I found it a bit slow to intercept enemies. If used correctly, it can keep most enemies in a constant state of knockback until the spell ends. This is useful, but it seems that one must be put in harms way (i.e. in the monster's face) to use it effectively.

Addition: Upon further use of Molten Boulder I've decided it's a broken skill. The Boulder explodes, pushing nearby enemies away from the center. Since the center of the boulder explosion has the most concentrated flames one can easily deduce that most of the damage done will occur with an enemy in the center. I'd equate Molten Boulder to a D1 Useless Sword of the Bear.

Arctic Blast is nice. It's basically Sorcie's Inferno with (what seems to me to be) bigger starting range. (But it might just be me.) Damage seems to go up nicely.

Poison Creeper was fun early on, though its low hps were a downside. Carrion Vine, which destroys corpses and replenishes life, easily replaced it and it helped keep my red orb full. The ability to destroy corpses was helpful around resurrectable mobs.

As for Oak Sage, he's fun, but he's easily slain. You've gotta be careful with the little bugger. ;) Although when pumped even a little, his hps become such that they're actually useful for keeping him alive. And in multiplayer games his hps scale up, which is very nice. In Nightmare difficulty, Unsummon reveals Oak Sage to be immune to Poison. This is not displayed in Normal Difficultly. The other two sages have been confirmed to be Poison Immune in Nightmare difficulty as well.

Aliza was very powerful right up until Andariel, where she died easily to the Poison Nova.

With Aliza gone, I needed a new patsy; a scapegoat to blame any potential failure upon. Well, I'll tell ya, I found just that. And his name was Kasim.

Kasim recommended I buy him a spear and some armor, and that I cover up a little bit. Well, a bit miffed by the latter part of his comment I refused, and so we thrusted ourselves into the sewers where a funny little man named Radament was supposedly living.

I leveled up quickly, but I was still short of learning Twister. Kasim was slow to follow in leveling. When I hired him he was 2 levels below me, and he remained that way. He always leveled up a little bit after I did myself, and experience shrines just widened the gap.

You know, I've never seen anyone pray as much as Kasim. He was praying even when he was slaying. I couldn't believe how accurate he could be in combat while he was praying at the same time! I eventually caught his attention by giving him some ring mail, a helm, and a trident to use, but he went right back to praying. It was nice having him around though. He didn't use mana to pray like Paladins did, so he never ran out of healing ability.

After awhile we found Radament, but I insisted on exploring a little more so I could learn Twister. And, wow, I must say that I'm impressed with that spell. It's so terrible I can't believe someone actually invented it, much less had the balls to make you wait so long to use it. Yuck!

So we went back to Radament. He had a rather sizable group of skeletons around him, and Carrion Vine was helpful in disposing of their bodies once they were slain. But Radament himself was no laughing matter. He had the WORST breath you could imagine! Kasim nearly keeled over right on the spot! I tossed him some smelling salts and he was fine after that. And down went Radament.

Our next quest was a direct order from Cain himself. Apparently his order of magi hid some artifacts and in their old age they'd forgotten where they put them. Being too old to find it himself, Cain gave the quest to Kasim and myself.

We found the Cube rather easily. Strangely enough, it could contain objects larger than the space it took up! Oh, and on my way there I got sunburn... nearly everywhere. Ugh, maybe I should've listened when Kasim said to cover up.

Back in town, after I showed Cain the cube I'd found, I gambled a nice Scythe for Kasim. He somewhat disliked it, saying it was an instrument of death. I told him to pretend he was cutting wheat, so he closed his eyes and started swinging. Upon slashing Oak Sage to bits he thanked me for his new and speedy weapon. Oak Sage was less than pleased.

Well, our next stop was a hole filled with maggots. Kasim said that maggots were very tasty this time of year, so we went into the lair in search of the plump Queen Maggot. I led the way, stepping back every so often so Kasim could engage the enemy. From behind him I'd cause Fissures, though they weren't very effective in the confined spaces. Molten Boulder wasn't very effective either (I found it difficult to aim without a premature explosion against a wall), so I resorted to using Arctic Blast in the tunnels.

After 3 winding sets of tunnels, we finally found the Queen. My Fissures sucked nearly all of her guard maggots into the bowels of the earth, though the cracks were too small to consume the Queen herself. Kasim, however, had no problem disposing of the bloated maggot. We then feasted upon the insides. Personally, I wasn't impressed. Some foreign foods are great, but others are best left alone. But I guess it wasn't wholly the fault of the food's taste; I lost my appetite when I bit into an old wooden staff.

Emerging from the maggots' den, Kasim and I couldn't tell where we were. It was very dark out, but we thought we could find the way back... We were wrong. We eventually stumbled upon some ruins and a temple with snake statues. Well, this temple was anything but holy. As we probed deeper into the bowels of this strange snake-filled building we found an altar, but a group of snakes were ready to defend it!

The battle wasn't too bad, and both Kasim and myself survived. But it was a rather painful battle as the snake had some kind of electric ability. Still, we triumphed and were thus free to explore their temple and prod their altar. The altar had a strange arrangement of stones upon it, and when I removed one the altar cracked in half and a brilliant light flared out. When the light dimmed I found gold spilled all over the floor, and among the gold was a pendant, which I took. Luckily, the light from the altar illuminated a wooden ladder and a hole in the roof. I climbed up and found myself within Jerhyn's Palace!

When Kasim and I emerged at the top of the stairwell we met a guard named Kaelan who had but one thing to say to us: "You may not pass." I summoned Oak Sage in his pants and ran past him. Kasim and Oak Sage, however, were arrested and placed in the Palace Harem.

I told Cain of the little adventure. He said Drognan might be able to get me past Kaelan so I could rescue Kasim and Oak Sage from their concubinity, but to do so I'd have to do him a favor.

"I see you've got a Cracked Gnarled Staff in your backpack. Good, take that out and carry it around. Now, you'll need some facial hair... Ah! You have plenty of back hair to do the job. Get Fara to shave your back (She's a part-time barber, you know.) and fashion your hair into a beard. Once you've done that, all you must do is walk up to Jerhyn and he'll chase you into the Palace," Drognan explained the plan. I was surprised he'd already formulated such a complex plan. "Ah, and as for the favor, you must search the Palace for an entrance into Horazon's Arcane Sanctuary. Once there, bring me his journal."

I had to ask... "Why will this plan work?"

"Cain's a bit senile, but Jerhyn cannot prove it. He hates the elderly, you see, and takes any chance he can to dispose of them. So if you can impersonate Cain - the staff and facial hair - the fact that you'd be naked would finally give Jerhyn proof he's senile (which is unlawful in the land of Lut Gholein) so he can lawfully chase you into the demon-infested Palace."

"Demon infested?!"

"Er... Good luck!"

The plan wasn't too difficult, and it almost went off without a hitch. It was Kaelan who nearly botched the plan when he noticed I didn't have any food stuck in my beard, as Cain did. I quickly explained that I just had my beard shampooed, but Kaelan didn't accept that. He wanted to know why I still stunk if I'd just had my beard shampooed. I had to think fast... "That's not me you're smelling, that's my camel!" Kaelan, figuring this was some sign of senility, conceded that I had to be who I said I was and sent me into the Palace.

I located Kasim and Oak Sage quickly, and then disposed of my fake facial hair. Kasim complimented me on the gnarled staff I was carrying, and said it made me look, as the commoners say, "elite." So I decided to keep it around, if only as an ornament.

Continuing through the Palace, we found the Arcane Sanctuary and Horazon's Urinal. It seems that Drognan had the noun wrong, it was a urinal not a journal. You know, I heard Lysander call it a urinal, but I thought he'd just mispronounced it. Turns out he was right, heh.

Protecting the urinal and the six stalls was a creep known as a Summoner. (Don't think about what he summons, don't think about what he summons, don't think about what he summons...) I beat him nearly half dead with Fissure, and Kasim finished him off. We were then better able to get a look at the urinal. There were instructions on it that read: "Flush twice." So I did, and a portal opened up! Further instructions said to take notice of the urinal cake, which was shaped like a circle. Oak Sage attempted to devour the cake, but merely became pine scented. (It very much distressed him, as the possibility of being mistaken for a Pine Sage is quite horrible for Oak Sages.)

The Portal went to a canyon with tombs everywhere. Each tomb was marked off with a shape, one of which was circle. Kasim and I entered that tomb and eventually found a room with an orifice in the middle. We returned to town and talked to Cain about the tomb. He said we needed a Horadric Staff to place in the orifice, so I used the strange Cube and was able to create one.

Placing the Staff in the Orifice, a magical reaction was triggered which sent a bolt of lightning into a nearby wall. It completely decimated the wall and fried poor Oak Sage who was standing in the way.

I approached the hole in the wall, but I slipped on the debris and fell in. Kasim, Oak Sage, and Carrion Vine followed.

"Looking for Baal?" came a deep, demonic voice.

I was about to reply when an oversized slug slammed into me! I shook it off, backed away, and sent off a molten boulder. "Looking for Balls?" I replied.

"That tickles!" the beast giggled as he slashed his sickle-like arms at Kasim.

"To hell with ye, beast!" I shouted as a fissure opened beneath the slug.

"Don't do that! Stop! It tickles! I'll wet myself!" the beast pleaded as it felled Kasim and then rammed into me... and then wet itself.

I tried to escape to town, and though the floor was slippery and difficult to run on I made it. I'd left the demon was waiting under the portal... Hmm, I thought I'd better grab Kasim for the return trip, so I visited Greiz and resurrected Kasim, who was ready for revenge. We made another go at it.

I heard the beast squeal as it slid across the slick floor, "Wheee!!!", just before it slammed into Kasim.

"KASIM! Not again!" I protested as I fed him a potion. As long as he remained alive, I could open a fissure safely. Though the beast was very strong, and slayed Kasim twice more before I slew it.

* Vitals *

Skill Type Level Firestorm Elemental Fire 1 Molten Boulder Elemental Fire 1 Arctic Blast Elemental Cold 1 Fissure Elemental Fire 1 Poison Creeper Poisonous Vine 1 Oak Sage Life-increasing Minion 1 Carrion Vine Munching Vine (Heals) 1 Cyclone Armor Bone Armor-like Elemental Protection 1 Twister Crappy Physical Attack 1

Clvl Stat Distribution Reserved Skills 22 +2 Vit/lvl +3 Eng/lvl 14

Fissure's usefulness remained unparalleled. Its weaknesses were few, but noticeable. The biggest weakness is that it doesn't seem to hit stationary targets - or not very well, at any rate. The second weakness is that it is not very effective in narrow areas, such as maggot tunnels.

Twister flat out sucked! I can't think of any other way to describe it. It's cute as a support skill, but not very effective at doing much of anything. It stuns for a whopping 0.4 seconds (at ANY slvl). Uh, yippee? The twisters move similarly to Charged Bolt, so you can't really aim them too well. And where charged bolt gains more bolts with slvl, twister always shoots out 3 wind funnels: Never more, never less. Did I mention the damage? It's physical, and it's so low it's pathetic. It's a clvl 18 skill, but it's more appropriate at clvl 6. (Or less.)

So, twister sucks. I think It needs fixing. For a clvl 18 skill it's... as bad as Enchant used to be. I'd suggest, for one, giving it more twisters with more points. 1 point = 3, 2 points = 4, etc. Charged bolt does it, why not twister? It surely wouldn't become an uberskill. Next, give it something other than physical damage! BLEH! Please, MAGICAL DAMAGE. Yes, MAGICAL DAMAGE. Not physical: MAGICAL. Pets do physical, let Twister (and Tornado) do magical.

Ah, Kurast, the jungle homeland to the Zakarum!... Eh? What do you mean "the Zakarum left?" So who lives here now? Dehydrated munchkins?! They wield knives!? Pea-shooters?!... AAAAHHHH!!!!! What IS this place, Oz on crack?!

Oz on crack or no, I had to stop Diablo and Baal from reuniting with Mephisto... Didn't I? Well, it's what Cain kept telling me, and you can't argue with him; believe me, I tried it once and his rambling lasted 137 days.

Ahh, dehydrated munchkin land! The foul smell of rotting corpses in the air, the cloud stalker dung on your shoulder, stepping in Doom Ape droppings... that says it all. The tone of Kurast was truly a revolting one. Well, no time to stop and smell the cadavers! (Rather, no time to stop and pick up air fresheners so you don't have to smell them.)

Kasim and I didn't have too hard a time with our journey. We explored a spider infested cavern and found an eyeball that was strangely well-preserved. After that we went to a barbecue, but it turned out that we were on the menu. 'Tis just rude to put one's guests on a platter, so off went our hosts' heads with a splatter! One of them dropped a cute golden blade, which Ormus said was of magical grade. He gave us a ring in turn for its finding, though neither Kasim nor myself were fond of the winding. Kasim sent it home in an envelope plain; home to his wife in Lut Gholein.

Still a bit miffed at being the dinner at a dinner party, we decided to invade the underground home of the munchkins. We eventually found a Witch Doctor, but he had such horrible heartburn he couldn't talk to us. Kasim and I volunteered to put out the fire, but our methods were less than medically sound and the good doctor died on us. Kasim noticed that his brain had fallen out, and pointed out that Cain had told us to search for a brain. We took it back to him, and the morbid fellow told us good job.

From there we continued to the city of Kurast, and along the way I learned Volcano and Tornado - two fun skills. I also got a new pet, Solar Creeper. The city of Kurast was quite run-down. Kasim and I believe that half of the population had been turned into apes, and the other half had simply gone crazy. Even their pet parrots had been turned evil. But all in all, they posed little threat. Until... Travincal.

A mob of Hierophants guarded the entrance to Travincal, and in a single massively stacked casting of Blizzard the magey bastards took out both Kasim and myself. 'Twas truly a miserable experience, but one we took our revenge upon! We never did locate the boss Hierophant... he probably teleported away like a sissy. Good riddance!

Travincal is protected by three guardians: Toorc Icefist, Geleb Flamefinger, and Ismail Vilehand. They keep safe an object known as the Compelling Orb, which compels the dehydrated munchkins to stay in the jungle. For Kasim and I to sneak into the durance in which Mephisto was kept we needed to distract the guardians, and the only safe way we could think to do that was to smash the Compelling Orb!

The well outside of the durance was full of cool, clear water. Kasim and I drugged it, and then Kasim disguised himself as a Zarakumite. He took a bucket full of the drugged water and fed it to the three guardians, who then fell fast asleep. We looted them, and finding a flail upon one of the bodies, we crafted a device to destroy the Compelling Orb.

"Kasim, you do it. I don't know how to use one of these things."

"Master, using such an item is beyond my abilities."

"You wield a pike, but a ball-on-a-chain is too difficult to use?" This will surely be noted on Kasim's next performance review...

So I was forced to soiling my hands by swinging with a... a weapon! *sobs* But Mephisto had to be reached, so we went into his durance just as the pitter-patter of millions of munchkin feet was heard trampling down trees in the distance.

While the durance contained some despicable enemies, Kasim and I vanquished them easily. It was not until we met up with Bremm Sparkfist (a name which currently does not suit him well as he is no longer sparky), where Kasim was brutally slain. I avenged his death, and then he got revenge by slaying Bremm's comrade known as Maffer Dragonhand. And finally we had reached Mephisto.

I will always remember the first thing Mephisto said to me, "You are too late to save the child, and now you will join him in-"

And the first thing I said to him, "What child?"

"Er- my brothers have escaped you!"

"So, they ditched you?"

"They wouldn't do that!!"

Well, Kasim bravely engaged the Lord of Hatred in combat, but my brave mercenary was felled easily. What choice did that leave me with? I ran like a naked sissy! Luckily Mephisto was a bit dull, you see, and though he seemed to fly, he couldn't figure out how to float over the lava pit. I quickly took to erupting volcanoes underneath him. It worked reasonably well, but at one point - even though I felt completely healthy - I was hit by his "skull orb" and immediately ate cobblestones. Bleh, the jerk... He died but quick after that.

* Vitals *

Skill Type Level Firestorm Elemental Fire 1 Molten Boulder Elemental Fire 1 Arctic Blast Elemental Cold 1 Fissure Elemental Fire 1 Volcano Elemental Fire 1 Poison Creeper Poisonous Vine 1 Oak Sage Life-increasing Minion 1 Carrion Vine Munching Vine (Heals) 1 Solar Creeper Munching Vine (Mananess) 1 Cyclone Armor Bone Armor-like Elemental Protection 1 Twister Crappy Physical Attack 1 Tornado Hard-to-control Physical Attack 1

Clvl Stat Distribution Reserved Skills 24 +2 Vit/lvl +3 Eng/lvl 13

In this act, Volcano replaced Fissure. Volcano, as one would expect, causes a volcano to appear where you cast it. The volcano then proceeds to spew forth many, many globs of magma much like how Coldworm spews out globs of poison when it is slain. Enemies hit by these magma balls take damage. Obviously, an enemy directly over the volcano will take the most damage. Also, the magma balls - in a sense - "pierce," so hitting something when they first emerge from the volcano will not stop them from continuing their flight upwards and then downwards again. In other words, a monster on top of the volcano will not "plug" it. The spell has a timer of I'd estimate maybe 4 to 6 seconds. One downside is that a volcano will not cast if there is not enough room for it. Most areas are wide enough to accommodate a volcano, but areas such as the winding stairways of the Arcane Sanctuary are too narrow.

Tornado does quite a bit more damage than Twister, though it is one giant wind funnel instead of three small ones. It too does physical damage, though it does not stun. It is similarly difficult to target, but it can be useful to use against monsters that get too close to you since it has no spell timer. I also found it useful to cast into mobs when Kasim was surrounded and the timer on Volcano was preventing me to cast another.

Solar Creeper was a help. I didn't notice how helpful it really was, but at the very least it was an extra target for enemies to go after.

As I entered Hell I could already smell the brimstone. We'd arrived in the smallest fortress I'd ever seen. There were no living quarters, no dining quarters, no "facilities," only a fireplace, an equipment shop, and a winding staircase. It was a very clean place, and the architecture wasn't shabby, but it was just so small. What IS this place?

I turned to see Cain standing by my stash, which was strangely already transported here from Kurast. He motioned for me to go over to the fireplace, where Tyrael was warming himself.

"Hero, you have done the impossible," the angel turned to congratulate us.

But in doing so, his left wing drifted into the fire and ignited. "Eh, Tyrael, your wi-"

"Now, I have something important to tell you about. There is a trapped soul wandering this land - Hades. He's a fellow by the name of-"

"Tyrael, your wing is-"

"Don't interrupt! This is important! Where was I? Ah... *sniff* Ohh, what's that smell?"

Kasim took off his field plate, ran over, and started beating Tyrael's flaming wing to put it out. "Kasim, no! You'll hurt him! Use cloth!" So I unleashed a Tornado to put out the flames, yet it only spread them!

Tyrael howled in agony, "AAHH!!! NOT AGAIN!! THAT'S THE FIFTH TIME THIS WEEK!!" The angel writhed in pain, and his hood fell back... revealing the visage of a gigantic rodent!

"Holy Greiz, Father of the Legion! AAAIIIEEE!!!" Kasim screamed at the sight and ran off. I quickly followed after him.

"Hail to you, champion," a woman muttered as I barreled into her.

"Uh, sorry about that. Hi, I'm Antique Cupcake. Who are you?" I asked.

"I am the angel Jamella. Would you like to buy anything?"

"If you're an angel, why are you charging me for things? Isn't it said that money is the root of all evil?"

"Yes, it is. You'll notice I don't have wings anymore, which is because I like money more than I like to fly. The same goes for Halbu over there."

"So you're a dirty, greedy angel, but you weren't sent to Hades?"

"Yeah, I was. What do you think I'm doing here?"

"Ha! Then why is Tyrael here?"

"You'd best keep your mouth shut... now git!"

What a strange one, that Jamella. So Kasim and I took our exit, descending a winding staircase to the outer steppes of Hell. 'Twasn't bad as one may think Hell to be. Aye, there were disgusting monsters of nightmares, but all in all I figured I'd seen worse. (Hell? I've been to KURAST, buddy! This ain't no Hell!) I did wonder, however, why the trapped souls did not moan, and why they never thanked us for freeing them. Perhaps they'd had their tongues cut out, or worse - their tongues rotted away. Though I wonder, where does a slain trapped soul go when it dies? It was already in Hell...

My wandering with Kasim led us to a large, blue brute by the name of Izual. He was really quite pleasant, offering us iced tea brewed by the hottest fires of Hell. We accepted and had a nice afternoon (or so I think it was afternoon) tea. While we were having our tea a telegram came from the Pandemonium Fortress.

Dear Cupcake, I regretfully inform you that Tyrael is in intensive care. But he was alert enough to tell me to tell you to be on the look-out for a trapped soul by the name of Izual. You are to slay him, no questions asked. Senile, Deckard Cain

Ignoring the telegram, we continued our tea. Izual proceeded to brag about how he knew Tyrael, and that he tricked Tyrael into a whole Soulstone conspiracy. He also told us that Tyrael was an outcast angel, considered a nerd for being so interested in humans. Well, we thanked him for the tea and then promptly ran him through. Izual died in a brilliant display of blue light, and his spirit floated up from his corpse.

"Hey! What the- Why did- What's the big idea?!" he demanded.

For some reason a lie seemed to be in order, "It was your breath. We couldn't take it anymore."

"Oh, well I guess I never noticed. And to think of all those trapped souls that never told me! Thank you, Cupcake, Kasim. I'm off now... Wait, where am I off to?"

"Good question. We were wondering that earlier."

Kasim took quick action, pulling an old lamp from his tunic he scurried over to Izual's hovering spirit and captured the fallen angel.

"Kasim, what is it you've done?"

"I have caught a genie for my beloved Kassima."

"Ah, indeed. She shall be pleased, my friend."

Kasim sent the lamp to Kassima on our next visit to the Fortress, and then we continued on our trek through Hades. We eventually came upon a blazing river where the fish had no flesh. Traveling along, we ran into a demon named Hephasto. He was in no way as cordial as Izual had been, and he slew Kasim a few times before he finally fell. A quick search of his body revealed a mighty Hammer, which we used to destroy Mephisto's Soulstone. In doing so, we heard a mighty roar issue forth from somewhere downstream. Was it Baal? Was it Diablo? We had to investigate.

The Chaos Sanctuary, as it was known, was the home to Diablo. Baal was strangely nowhere to be seen, so we had to find Diablo and question him to find the location of his brother. Though getting to Diablo was no easy task, his minions fiercely protected him and nearly killed both Kasim and myself. Luckily, I suffered only one death to Diablo's hordes, which was incurred when I opened a seal and literally froze, making me an easy target for the minions of Lord De Seis.

Returning, Kasim and I dealt swift death to De Seis. And then only one minion of Terror remained: the Infector of Souls. He was no problem, really. Kasim engaged the throng that was the Infector's mob while I caused volcanic eruptions and used tornados to wrench off the wings of the megademons. And only then did Diablo show himself.

Kasim bravely charged up to him and asked where Baal was. The Lord of Terror scoffed and breathed a blast of lightning all over Kasim, who keeled over on the spot. And so the fun begins.

"Baal? Why does everyone want to find Baal? I'm the star! ME! ME! ME!" Diablo whined.

"Well, I was expecting to find him here with you," I replied.

At that point he became uncommunicative, lashing out with fire novas, firestorms that'd make any Druid envious, and a lightning so strong that it alone could power California. I had to be fast on my feet, and so I was! Volcanos were key, and Diablo was inclined to sit on top of them while he shot off spells. I drank all of my rejuvenation potions, large and small, but I didn't need to visit Jamella at all. Eventually, Diablo fell to my earth-shattering wrath.

That'll teach him to harm Kasim!

There were no new skills in this act. It was mostly a fight to stay alive, which was helped considerably by Cyclone Armor. While any spell seemed to kill it immediately (aside from Venom Lord infernos), that 40 damage protection was worth a skill point, even if I did need to re-cast it.

Diablo was pretty dumb, and basically sat on top of Volcano. One single death to Diablo was incurred when I took a screenshot. I hadn't taken a screenie that whole session, and when I take a screenie - the first of the session, usually - I get a little lag. This particular screenie caused QUITE a bit of lag, freezing me for a number of seconds. It was such terrible lag that when I checked the screenie, it wasn't even what had frozen on screen when I snapped it. So, end result: Screen unfroze and I was dead, and I didn't get the desired screenie.

Did you figure out the meaning of each subtitle? No, not THAT meaning. You have such a dirty mind!

"Antique's Ball" = Molten Boulder
"Antique's Cracks" = Fissure
"Antique's Fiery Explosive Orifice" = Volcano
"Petrification" = Ran outta ideas (*sigh* Flog away)