Hot Keys are Stone Curse, Guardian, Lighting/Chain Lightning, and Fireball. Guardian becomes a big player.

I came late to the MS bug debate¹ and did not see Pete's recomendation to pump Vit until I was lvl 26. I wear an Amy of life +25 vit to do the best I can to offset it. I know this is not allowed under BNM rules but I feel it is the only proper thing to do.

¹: A debate about whether or not mage should go out of his way
to avoid passively abusing the mana shield bug rather than building
a character without regard to it. -Lemming

I enter each lvl wearing Armor of Radiance (+40% light) and a Useless club of Radiance (-100% damage and +40% light). I then take it off and equip a Ring of Dark (-40% light), Sabre of Dark (-40% light), and Mail of Trouble (-7 all attributes).

I am now very popular with the bad guys but I have no clue where they are, hence the "Blind Searchlight. "

Level 13

Turn on the lights, put on the blindfold, and stumble right into the the stairs to 14. Lucky me, no clue what's here but I ain't hanging around to find out.

Enemies
Lava Maws
Fire Drakes
Snow Witches

Turn on lights, close eyes, and die to pack of dogs right by the stairs. Okay, restart, throw portal, and die again. This time I sneak out of the portal, throw another one... and die again. Luck is all gone now but I'm hardheaded. This time I crawl out, throw a portal, and run behind the stairs. Stone curse, chain lightning, thank you very much, take a breath. Get my gear, light up and go dark.

Baby steps. Guardian and I slowly make my way down a corrider. Stone, Lighting, rinse, repeat, hey this is easy. Snow Witches, bah no problem. Stupid dog, sit!, zap. Oops a nest of vipers, run, run,... shouldn't have run that far. Dogs and vipers decide I need to stay awhile, and by the way, the Amulet of Life does enable stunlock. Once more to town this time I go slow, pick my targets, and find the stairs. Only four deaths, not that bad. Time to keep moving down.

Enemies
Soul Burners
Advocates
Cabalists with their boss, the Vizier

Starts off okay. Nothing by the stairs, take a few steps, portal off to the side and... what the heck was that bright yellow star? Duck to the wall and try to be small, doesn't work. Stone and golem, I help him when I can but it's mostly a dance, here witch, duck around corner, stone you very much, go golem go and use a little sabre action.

Heavy fire from one door so I wisely choose the other way. Long dark corrider, slow steps, well hello Vizier and boys. RUN AWAY. Okay, big time firewalls toast a few Cabalists, Golem pounds the Soulie, and I stone Vizier and kung fu him with Golem help. Mana Shield Staff good for some cash.

Go for pots, return, start slinking again. Finally make a big circle and find Laz's room. Clear the Cabalists with fireball, Golem helps with the Soulies but this takes forever as they like him very much. Teleport in to get the girls but Mr. Lag says "Wait just a second, son."

As I lay on the floor I can see the stairs off in the distance. D'oh that's why that door was so busy. Restart, take the stairs, portal in the corner, hello girls. Stone them, chain them, get their stuff: Awesome helm and Book of Heal other!! Oh well it pays the blue pot pot.

Teleport to the left corner, Telekinesis my stuff back, lay down a huge wall of guardians for the witches. Me and my good friend Golem slowly clear the room. Only have to die twice. Now to find the way down. Port over a wall and back, lots of Soulies there, try the other wall. Yeah, see the pentagram, take a running dive and roll into the center as a Soulie and an advocate look on dumbfounded.

Enemies
Advocates
Blood Knights

Stairs by the spiral room. Throw a portal near the wall, light up and close eyes. Clanking armor approaches, stone him, fireball, love that graphic and sound. Slowly creep to the door in the wall, send in a guardian or four, lots of shooting but no crying. Take a small step and see 5 advocates and 10 knights. Lay down a pattern of Guardians, retreat around the corner, stone the advo that appears and call on the Golem. Go back into the room, take a few more steps and see THE largest collection of knights I have ever seen. At least 20, all pissed off and backed up by advocates all around. They had a lovely soccer game with my head and I think the knights where up by two before I restarted.

This time I had a better plan. Crept to the door and let loose with Guardian beatdown. Fired off at least three pots of blue all to fuel the beatdown, sounded like a machine gun going off. When the smoke cleared all but three of the knights survived but I still had one slight little problem: 23 Advocates who really wanted to get to know me.

Me and the Golem had a plan. I would sneak up on them, I'd stone 'em, he would bash them, they would kill me. When we could team up on them my useless club was really useless, miss, miss, miss, hit, -100% damage. This was the most tedious part, but we finally got it done.

Tripped the switches, found a spot by the wall, layed down some extra blue, tossed in a holy bolt, ran to the wall and remembered I forgot to hot key firewall. Oops. Tried to fast cast it but panicked and charged bolted Diablo, didn't work. Finally got it too late but got to watch him toast a bit.

Restarted, came back, picked a good corner, hot keyed the right spells and went looking. Found him, as I ran to my position I thought, "Why am I running? Teleport would have been better." Man, I have killed this guy before, I planned for this, why was I panicking now?

Got to the wall, turned and set up the firewalls and there he was. Holy bolt was holding him off, his flesh was toasting and my stupid fingers were fumbling around missing the blue pots. He grabbed me, slapped me around, stomped me to a pulp and as I lay there and the red fog slowly rose around me I was planning on how I would do better next time. Was about to restart but decided to watch him burn awhile. One wall went out, he was still laughing, second wall went out, he still had a silly grin on his face. Suddenly his eyes jerked open, he clutched his chest and blood exploded all around as the last wall went out.

Here was my big moment, but I lay dead on the ground. The big red guy was gone, and I feel kind of bummed. All that work to watch him become a post toastie but I get to see it from ground level.

It was a blast but i could have wished for a better ending. But really the play was the thing. I got him in the end and I enjoyed it all.

Total time: 4 hours, 25 minutes.

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