Irene, the Infirm

[MongoJerry]

IRENE: OUTER CLOISTER / BARRACKS

After clearing the Tamoe Highlands and The Pit, our heroines returned to town to rest. After getting some useful advice from Deckard Cain regarding their mission, Irene decided to confront Charsi about that +1 Firebolt staff Charsi had grossly underpaid for.

"When I fled the Monastery," said Charsi, "I left behind the Horodric Malus. If you can return it to me...".

"Great," interrupted Irene. "You cheat me out of my +1 Firebolt staff, and now you want me to do you a favor? Shoving your breasts at a person may get a barbarian to do your bidding, but I don't bat that way, sister, if you know what I mean?"

"But I'll imbue your equipment with magical powers!" said a stammering Charsi.

"What equipment?!" responded Irene. "Don't you see what I've been doing here?"

Aliza restrained Irene before she could punch Charsi in the face.

"Look, She's an a------," said Aliza. "But the Order needs the Horodric Malus."

Irene calmed down and stopped trying to get at Charsi. "Fine," she said. "I'll help get that stupid Malus. But I'm doing it for the Order and not for this bimbo."

Irene and Aliza took the waypoint to the Black Marsh and ran to the Rogue Monastery's door.

"Should we knock?" chuckled Aliza.

They burst open the door and quickly accosted and dispatched the returned archer guards near the door. They then opened the door at the far end of the room, and, not seeing anything immediately to attack, ran to the center of the Outer Cloister, where they knew the waypoint to be.

After getting the waypoint, they settled into a routine clear of the Outer Cloister, which was populated by Yetis, razor spines, and black rogues. The monsters were definitely getting tougher, so our heroines had to break up even normal monster packs. However, the archways, corners, and wide spaces of the Outer Cloister made breaking up packs fairly easy. A champion razor spine pack gave Irene and Aliza some trouble, but eventually, they were able to pick it apart.



They opened the doors to the Barracks and were immediately accosted by a black rogue boss pack. Black rogues, especially minions and bosses, hit hard and run fast. Irene and Aliza had to use practically the entire Outer Cloister area to break up the pack. Even the minions could only be handled one at a time. But bit by bit, they picked apart the minions and finally took down the boss right in the middle of the Outer Cloister.



The most annoying thing about the Barracks, though, was the devilkin shaman. In fact, I'm starting to develop a perhaps unhealthy fear of shaman. It can be so easy to get swarmed and trapped around them if you're not really careful. Most of the time, Irene and Aliza led the little devilkin out to the Outer Cloister and killed them there before attacking the shaman. The shaman would still raise the devilkin even though the bodies of the devilkin were several screens away, but at least the devilkin would be parked far enough away that they couldn't disturb Irene and Aliza while they were killing the shaman. I'm beginning to think that there's no limit to the range of the shaman revive spell and no line-of-sight requirement. All that seems to matter is if the shaman can see you and therefore can "attack" you by reviving devilkin, carvers, etc.

There were two shaman bosses in the Barracks, and one of them was lightning enchanted as you can see in the screenshot. Irene didn't even try to risk tanking for Aliza. Instead, she got Aliza to stand in a good spot that would allow Aliza to shoot at the shaman boss and yet keep both of them shielded from the shaman's lightning. It's a good thing Irene didn't try tanking the shaman. During the battle, she got hit by one glob of lightning and it took away 2/3rds of her life.



But on the whole, Irene and Aliza were able to methodically clear the Barracks with judicious use of obstacles and architectural features. As Irene and Aliza were battling a couple of devilkin/shaman packs, though, Irene's "danger sense" started tingling. This place seemed too familiar.



Yikes!