Piece of Cake


As the last glimpse of twilight was snuffed out by the blanket of darkness, a lone figure stood staring into a fiery fissure that had opened behind the healer's hut. It glowed with an eerie light, and searing heat had killed the foliage within its proximity. The heat did not bother the warrior. He'd felt it many times before. It was the evil juju within Hell that bothered him.

He stood one last moment, hardening his resolve to do this deed. He was turning a ring over-and-over in his right hand, and then thrust it onto his left ring finger. Instantly, the night brightened into day all around him. The brilliant light caught the attention of a few townspeople, who gathered around to gawk at the strange naked man standing near the crack to Hell. They watched as he descended into the pit, and as the light... went out. 

*	*	*	*	*	*	*

DLVL 13

A Nude Luminous Barbarian (clvl 26, 8 AC, 30 damage, 72% to hit) entered Hell to find that the stairs down were close at hand. It would've been unsportsmanlike to not explore just a little bit, so he did. Cave Vipers and Blood Knights populated the level. Cave vipers were cake, but one Blood Knight was very, very painful. Those steps to 14 seem like a good idea - but not until pots are restocked! (Pot restock: Very common occurrence!) So up to Pepin, and then down he went.

DLVL 14

Stairs were, once again, on screen. (Is this luck of the BAR, or what?) Snow Witches, Succubi, and Gold Vipers. After a round or two with Golds and chasing Witches, it didn't seem like a great level for exp. Dlvl 15 seems... interesting.
DEATH #1 Nova trapped chest near Stairs to 15.

DLVL 15

What're the odds of this?! Come down the stairs and Penta is right there! Laz is to the north. The first trip to town occurred before finding any other denizens of the dlvl. The first monster class was Hell Spawns. (Joy)

Hmm, pots are going way too fast. Need to build up a reserve down there. Some of the spare gear he was carrying was equipped to make pack space for potion toting. (A muled Gotter, a TFoS, a Useless Flail of Corruption, a CR, an Amulet of Disease, and a Ring of Radiance - his +LR toy.) This freed up 17 spaces for more potions to be carried down with every trip. And it really helped increase his stays underground. Every time he came back down he'd throw extra pots on the floor and unequip all of that junk. This method continued for the rest of the game. (I didn't want to drop his extra gear in town for fear it'd get eaten should Bnet decide to burp.)

As of yet, he didn't have enough damage to stun the Hell Spawns (barring a critical hit). But while in town he purchased a Strength Elixir which boosted him up to 31 damage. *That* was enough to stun. And back down he went...

The second monster class was Doom Knights. Ooooh, good. Something he *doesn't* have to chase. But taking more than 1 at a time was still quite painful, so he limited contact as much as he could. If multiple Doomies were activated, he led them to a special floor horn he had picked out and funneled them through it one at a time.

When multiple Spawns were activated, he'd run to the back of the room (which was actually the north wall to Laz, but it was solid all the way across and made a good retreat and chase-witch area) and string them along behind him. Then he'd loop around the stairs, come about and chase them into the corner.

Ahh, sweet tactics, sweet mind-bogglingly slow speed.

After, oh, entirely too long of a time, he'd cleared the little tunnel section south of his current room as well as the tunnel section that ran along the side of the room and piped up toward Laz. From there he went straight for the purple-robed menace. Well, "straight for" may be too strong of words. He slowly punched his way there, dealing with more Doomies and Spawns along the way. (Slowly lead them back to the big room for slaughter... slowly chase insolent winged wenches into corners...)

Finally, he'd come to it! The cave of Ali-baba! OPEN SAYS ME!!
Err, wrong story.

Finally, he'd come to it! The Chamber of Lazarus! OUT WITCHES!
YIPES! FLEE

And so he took flight from the evil witches, until he'd lost them. But he could still see their boss lights from around the corner. snicker They were deactivated... good. He went around and woke up one, Red Vex, then chased her into a corner. Next, Black Jade.

DEATH #2 Black Jade, who was trapped in a corner at the time, got in a lucky hit while player was mashing button "5" for potion drinkage - and wondering why nothing was happening - when he meant to be pressing "6."

Restart in town... come back to Jade... Ah, an axe. Joy. It'll go great with the Gothic Shield of Ages that Vex had...

Oh, now it was time for Lazarus himself. It was not an enviable task at all. 4 Advos guarding him... urgh.

Well, first thing's first: Lure out the two Hell Spawns. The first victim (a Spawn) came out easily. And, right after she popped out, so did an Advocate, who was also eliminated. (3 Advos, 1 Spawn, 1 Laz left) Worked on getting another Advo out before going after Spawn #2. It took awhile, but eventually another one floated out and I chased him into a corner. Then I ran in, woke up the last Spawn, and eliminated her, too - after luring her out and into a corner. (2 Advos, 1 Laz left)

After much dodging and peeking into the room to tease them, I finally lured out the 3rd Advo and killed him. At this point I could see Laz's boss light in a corner, so I went in and tried to corner him. Damn the final advo! Try and stop me! I will have Laz's head!! But Laz tele'd away before I could lock him in his corner. Though, luckily, within a few seconds he'd cornered himself *again* so I quickly ran in and locked him in place. The final advo, acting like a putz, actually tele'd next to me and I was able to - somehow - kill him before he got away. (I believe he had to have tele'd out of the room at some point before, but then went back in after taking damage. This left him with sufficiently low hps where I could take him out in two hits.) And now it was relaxed. Just me and my Lazzy. He dropped Demonspike Coat.

WHEW! What a level. It was a long, long battle just to take out Laz. Stopping here would be no embarrassment - I did good. But the question kept nagging at me: Could I get to D? Could I? Could I? And then it sped up like a hyperactive dog: CouldI?CouldI?CouldI?CouldI?CouldI?CouldI?!?

I had to try.
wets the floor
Gah! Bad dog!

DLVL 16

I made another large field of pots on the floor near the penta and went down. After a tussle with ONE knight I decided this was only going to work if I was able to STUN him. By my calculations I needed only 4 Strength Elixirs to get up to 33 damage. And this is the part that separates those who live in padded rooms from those who don't.

In my possession I had

  • Lord/Titan's Bastard Sword (Found)
  • Gotterdamerung (muled item)
  • Demonspike Coat (Laz drop)
  • Constricting Ring

With that outfit (taking off Gotter for Advo fights), I could have BREEZED through all of this. So I sell the Sword and the Coat. >8D
(Selling Gotter would be unnecessary, and CR is much too useful to sell off.)

That raked in a cool 73k, 20k of which went toward Str Elixirs about 20k more toward Dex Elixirs. Damage is now at 33 and To Hit at 74%. Over the course of dlvl 16, about 10k more was spent on Str elixirs (damage went up to 34 - an Advo also dropped a Str Elix at one point). The rest went toward potions.

Oh, boy. Time to start this task.

Stairs on 16 took me between 2-Switch room and D's room. There was no corridor running down the middle of the level. There was a wall projection that jutted into the middle of the level, so the Stairs were pushed up near the 3-Space Wide Gaping Hole In The Wall that connects the bottom half to the top half of dlvl 16. Well then, let's get to business.

I went around the 2-Switch room a little ways - toward the south. Found a few advos there - killed two. (One had the Str Elix) And then I switched direction and went north. 6 BKS!!! They chased me into a corner and... Well, the thing about BKs is I do fine one-on-one (1-3 tiny pots needed). Two-on-one whomps me (entire belt + pack drinking needed). Three is out of the question.
DEATH #3 BK Mob

I go back and wake up them up, one or two at a time, and take them out.

DEATH #4 This was planned. I ran to the first Switch and flipped it, then ran into the deepest corner of the level and died. This brought the mob along for the ride. Fewer worries.

Well, I had hoped that I could go straight for the maze at this point.
DEATH #5 In the north area there were still about 5 BKs... I tried hiding behind a floorhorn and taking 2 at a time, but it was too brutal. I came back and VERY carefully took them out, but I still had to go back for more pots after just this battle.

With the Maze open, I went north from stairs, then east along the bottom maze. Mages from the center of the north area always harassed me as I took this route to the Maze. Eventually I became quite good at running and dodging their multiple fire balls. (I ended up using that route a lot.) Well, around the corner of the exterior of the maze I found an advo, who was slain easily. Then I peeked into the Maze itself and woke up the knight inside, killed him. Maze was relatively easy. Aside from going back for pots, there were no problems. Even the center of the maze, which was full of knights, worked nicely and relatively unpainfully. How? Inside the maze there's a Floorhorn with an invisible wall. Picture it with some ASCII art: 

	           /ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
	          / F /ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ/
	        /  X/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ/
	      /0FB/ /ŻŻŻŻŻ/
	    /*  / /__S  /
	  /   /_____/ /
	/___________/

There are two floor horns, the two "F"s. They're a row apart. Stand in the X.
The Bloodknight (B) comes up to the Floorhorn and stands next to it, much like how a monster stands in a doorway.
The Invisible Wall (*) prevents monsters from stepping to the other side of the Floorhorn (0).

This makes a very nice one-at-a-time system for funneling monsters to their doom. After clearing out the rest of the Maze, I'd come back and use that same floor horn whenever I woke up too many BKs.

Now, maze is clear, switch is flipped, and here comes what seemed like the longest individual part of the game. There had to have been around 25 Blood Knights inside of that stupid room. Or it seemed like it in any case. Waking and killing them took a long, long time.

DEATH #6 I know I had one death where I was running around looking for more BKs and ran into an Advo mob, then missed my potion.

DEATH #7 I woke up two, ran into a corner instead of to the maze, died while pack-drinking.

Fast forward a bit... 3rd room is empty of BKs. Advos, screw 'em. Flip the switches, and... D TIME!

The first victim of D's room is the Black Knight. I looked him right in the eye, and he looked back. I slugged him once, twice, thrice, and BOOM! He died. And do you know what he said to me?! "'Tis but a flesh wound."

Lured out some more BKs, and then... D. CRAP! D HAS TWO BKS WITH HIM!

I lead D to the maze. I'm SO glad Diablo doesn't have that stupid "stop every so often" walk that his Knights have. It lets me haul ass and leave his two bucketheads in the dust... Center of maze, corner... ATTACK! WHAM! WHAM! Hey, he's easier to hit than a Blood Knight! WHAM! WHAM! Belt out. Packdrinking. Pack out.
DEATH #8 Eeep!

Come back, full pack, kill knights, back to D. Hello, D. Hide in corner. ATTACK! Belt out. Packdrinking...
DEATH #9 Crap, missed the potion.

Back again, D won't let me in the corner... Dammit, MOVE D! Oh, fine knockback. Jerk. Belt's mostly gone. Run into other corner.
DEATH #10 Pots out.

Whee... Hide in invisible wall! Punch D some more. Drink more pots. La la la...
DEATH #11 Pots out. 

*	*	*	*	*	*	*

The glowing nude man struck blow after blow on the Lord of Terror. His knuckles bled, though so did the rest of him so it wasn't really noticeable. He landed blow after blow on the boil-covered demonic powerhouse. Claws slashed flesh, and Apoc felt quite odd with no armor to deflect it. The demon stank of juju, but the nude man would NOT RELENT!! And finally! FINALLY! He popped.

As all of the blood rushed out of the hole the warrior had pounded in Diablo's chest, the demon deflated. The ordinarily unwashed warrior was bathed in the crimson liquid. He tried to get a hold of the soulstone within the demon's head, but his hands were too slippery with blood. So he hauled the entire carcass topside and laid it in the middle of town square for all to see.

-Bucky, Nude Luminous Barbarian
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