Irene walked into the cemetery to find Blood Raven raising the Rogue dead from their graves. Blood Raven had already raised a small army of zombies, but she nonetheless charged forward out of the pack of zombies and began shooting at Irene. This was Irene's chance to get a few punches in before the zombie army could join the fray.



After that small melee, it was time to get down to business. Irene led the zombie army out of the cemetery to the entrance to the Burial Grounds. It was too much to try to take on all the zombies at once, so she took a page out of Grizabella's book of tactics and positioned herself so that the zombies had to walk around the stone wall to get to her. This allowed her to take them on one or two at a time. They were killed in short order.

Then Irene tp'd to town to buy 32 healing potions for use in the fight with Blood Raven.



When she returned to the Burial Grounds, she was able to fight Blood Raven one-on-one. Luckily Blood Raven does not heal, so she was still damaged from the initial melee.



The battle raged all over, and Irene quaffed many potions. Blood Raven dealt damage more quickly than Irene's healing potions could heal, so Irene had to back away from Blood Raven often to give her potions time to work. Blood Raven gradually rebuilt her zombie army, but Irene ignored it as long as Blood Raven could be singled out.

Whenever Blood Raven had raised about a half dozen new zombies, however, Irene would lead the new pack away from the cemetery and kill it. Then, she would return to again fight Blood Raven one-on-one.

Night came, and the hit-and-run battle continued to rage. Sometimes it was Irene who was running, and other times it was Blood Raven who was running. Irene used up her entire stock of potions and had to go to town to buy another set of 32 potions.



When Blood Raven's life bar was nearly gone, she made the mistake of running into a corner. Irene blocked her in and, while quaffing potions vigorously, Irene finished off Blood Raven.

Irene and Aliza took the waypoint back to the Cold Plains and found Bishibosh all alone.



With Irene tanking and providing some up-front power while Aliza flicked arrows at Bishibosh from a safe distance, Bishibosh was taken down quickly.

MongoJerry,Oct 15 2003, 08:35 AM Wrote:Irene didn't hesitate with her answer.  "I want to adventure with my friend Aliza," she said.

Quote:are healing potions the only type of potions that will be allowed? thawing/antidote potions would be very helpful at times. and i'm sure you'll need to do some running the hell away so stamina poitions might be of use too. i'm guessing though that you won't use throwing potions.

In The Cave, Irene and Aliza had their first encounters with archer type monsters (dark rangers), so they had to move much more carefully than they had needed to move before. Still, progress was steady for the most part against normal monsters.

But that changed when they ran into a multishot dark ranger boss with her minion pack. The fight was nasty and Aliza died once (queue a collective 'awww...' -- no, there are no rules against resurrections). The only way to fight the pack was to break it up, and even then it was touch and go. But in the end, Irene and the newly resurrected Aliza were victorious. I took a few screenshots during the fight, but none of them turned out to be any good. Oh, well.



But that fight was nothing compared to the fight against Coldcrow and her minions. Imagine Blood Raven -- only there's six of them and they all shoot cold enchanted arrows. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration -- but only a slight one.

The first thing Irene had to do was break up the pack. She ran around corners, trying to get some of the pack members caught on various cave protuberances while goading one of them to chase her. Leading archers away from their friends is different from leading away most monsters, because how different their AI is. They'll chase you if you get too far away, but if you get too close, they'll run away. So, if Irene just ran up to a ranger, that would cause the ranger to run back to her friends. To isolate a ranger, Irene had to lead the ranger away from her pack a little ways and then run around to the other side of the ranger. That way, when the ranger backed away, the ranger would move even farther away from her pack.



The tactic worked well, and by happenstance, the first pack member to be isolated was Coldcrow herself. Even better, Irene and Aliza successfully cornered her. Coldcrow delivered damage faster than minor healing potions could heal Irene, so Irene had to back off frequently. This worked out well, though. Coldcrow would hit Irene a few times, Irene would back off, Coldcrow would switch to shooting at Aliza a few times, Irene would charge forward, and Coldcrow would attack Irene again, allowing Aliza to heal. This went on for a bit, and Coldcrow was eventually taken down. Her minions were taken down similarly.



Irene went down into The Cave Level 2 and found two zombie boss packs. *cackle* Zombie boss packs = good experience and not much danger. Still, I found out something interesting. I don't know how well you can see it, but the mana burn zombie boss above has an orange life leech swirl going. When I first saw that the boss was mana burn enchanted, I laughed, because I was thinking that it didn't matter if the boss took Irene's mana. But then I realized that the zombie was turning the mana he drained from Irene into life for himself. Irene and Aliza dealt damage faster than the zombie could heal himself, but there was no doubt that he was being healed by his attacks. I never knew that mana burn monsters did that.

Irene and Aliza managed to do a full clear of The Cave and emptied the gold chest down in level 2.

Quote:Aside from that, one small question - Where did you get all the gold to pay for those potions? Did you constantly find awesome items or some such thing? Did you ever have any spare gold?

Irene and Aliza fought their way through the newly resurrected monsters of the Cold Plains to the entrance to the Stony Field. Along the way, Aliza finally turned level 6, and they paused momentarily to admire Aliza's new cold arrow (Woohoo!).



Irene and Aliza made their way counter-clockwise along the Stony Field perimeter and soon found the waypoint and the entrance to the Underground Passage. After some discussion, they decided to enter the Underground Passage immediately and leave the rest of the Stony Field monsters alone for the moment.

They were greeted by some skeleton archers, which were dispatched quickly. No problem. Then around a corner came this friendly welcoming committee.



Yikes! Luckily, by the time this boss pack arrived on the scene, Irene and Aliza had already found a loop in the cave paths. (You can see it at the bottom of the faint minimap in the screenshot above). They ran around and around this loop in an effort to break up the pack, but the tactic didn't work. At times, they were able to isolate a minion, but by the time they'd get the minion to about half its life, the rest of the pack would come barreling down on them, rescuing the minion, which would then heal. It was time to change tactics.

Irene started up a townportal near the loop and then lead the bulk of the pack up toward the Underground Passage entrance. Just when the pack was upon her, she exited the Passage, ran through the Stony Field to the waypoint, took it back to the Rogue Camp, and returned to the Passage via her townportal. The misshappen boss and most of its pack was safely parked by the entrance.

So was that it? Had our heroine finally met an opponent she could not defeat? As Vincent in the Princess Bride would say, "Not remotely!" Most of the pack had been lured up to the entrance, but two minions hadn't been. By running around the loop again, Irene and Aliza were able to separate them and dispatch them individually. Then, our heroines proceeded to clear out more of the Underground Passage to get room in which to maneuver and to make sure that they wouldn't be surprised by new monsters when they were dealing with the remaining members of the misshapen pack.



With more room to maneuver and with the pack reduced in size, Irene and Aliza were now able to more easily break up the pack. Irene had to quaff many healing potions to take down Seethe Burn the Dead, but in the end, he was taken down.

While creating room to maneuver in, Irene and Aliza had found the entrance to the Underground Passage Level 2, so they headed there next. Level 2 has a fixed design. The map is one medium-sized loop. Two fallen shamans with their fallen minions greet you at the entrance, and there's always a vile hunter boss pack of some sort to the left (in the clockwise direction).

Irene and Aliza quickly dispatched the fallen shaman and their minions while carefully avoiding the left side of the entranceway so as not to wake the vile hunter boss pack. They then proceeded in the counter-clockwise direction and killed all the regular monsters in the loop.



When they had nearly completed the loop, they found the boss pack, as expected, and the fight was on. Irene and Aliza ran around the loop in an effort to break up the pack. The loop has many corners and jagged edges, so it was easy to leave pack members behind. All Irene and Aliza had to do was run completely around the loop. The pack got completely strung out, and Irene and Aliza were able to pick members off one-by-one. A full clear of Level 2 was quickly achieved.

After clearing Level 2, Irene and Aliza decided to do a full clear of Level 1 as well, if possible. There were many monsters, but there was also a lot of space in which to maneuver, so they managed quite well.



They ran into one more boss pack, but it was also easily broken up and dispatched.



I had never realized how huge the Underground Passage was. In order to show all of it on the automap, I had to create a composite image and shrink it down so that it could fit in a browser window (shown above). It took some time, but Irene and Aliza cleared the whole thing. In the end, however, Aliza was still only level 6. Irene was midway through her ninth level.

In the Dark Wood, Irene and Aliza had to be cautious. Monsters could be deceptively dangerous here, and skeleton archers could make any fight an adventure. As much as possible, Irene and Aliza used terrain features to their advantage. For example, the above screenshot shows how they broke up what would otherwise have been a dangerous skeleton archer boss pack into smaller chunks that could be dealt with more easily.



I have a vision of the future! Are you thinking what I'm thinking? (If it's Madonna and Britney Spears kissing, you win!)



Irene and Aliza circled the perimeter of the Dark Wood. The scariest moments involved carver camps, because Irene got lured by the appeal of the seemingly easy kill. She'd see a carver shaman all alone and race to him, leaving Aliza behind. But while Irene hit the shaman, carvers would come swarm her and deal damage faster than even Irene's light healing potions could heal her. (The higher the quality of the healing potion, the faster it heals). This happened twice and luckily both times Irene managed to kill the shaman or one of the carvers before she died. The other carvers then fled, allowing her to escape. After those two harrowing experiences, Irene was much more cautious around carver camps. She and Aliza would stay close together and kill many carvers before taking on the carver shaman. Even though those carvers would get revived, this strategy still ensured that Irene and Aliza would have plenty of time before they got swarmed, and most importantly, it ensured that they stayed together and could rescue one another if necessary.

Irene and Aliza lead Treehead Woodfist's pack back to the corral I had alluded to earlier with an incredibly subtle use of foreshadowing. With all the corners, fences, and walls in the area, it was easy to break up the pack.



Then, our heroines killed the minions using a simple tactic. They'd get a minion on one side of a fence and themselves on the other. Aliza would shoot over the fence while Irene punched through the fence. Of course, if Irene was close enough to punch the minion, the minion was close enough to punch Irene back. But that was OK, because all Irene had to do was step back a couple of steps, quaff a healing potion, let her life ball refill, and rejoin the fray. Dean minion. All of the minions fell this way.

Then it was Treehead Woodfist's turn.

In short order, Aliza took Treehead down. (In truth, I saw that I had gotten Aliza to stand in a perfect spot -- close to Treehead and yet far away from fence posts, which would block her arrows. I didn't want to move Irene for fear that Aliza would also move).



With Treehead's pack eliminated, Irene and Aliza casually walked over to the Tree of Inifuss and grabbed the scroll. Then, since they had already explored most of the Dark Wood by that point, they figured they might as well finish the clear.

Once they were confident that the Dark Wood had been cleared, they returned to the Rogue Camp and got an astonished Akara to translate the Scroll of Inifuss for them. It was time to return to and finally deal with the Stony Field.

After the Underground Passage and the Dark Wood, the Stony Field seemed almost quaint. These monsters weren't dangerous, so Irene and Aliza were able to quickly complete the circle around the Stony Field's perimeter.



They ran into one lightning enchanted skeleton boss, but like most skeletons, he moved slowly, so Aliza was able to take him down using run-and-shoot tactics.



Originally, Irene and Aliza had planned to use the same tactic on Rakanishu that they had used on Treehead, using the small corral in the Stony Field. However, as they were taking out Rakanishu's minions, Aliza took the opportunity to shoot a few arrows at Rakanishu himself. She was damaging him a lot with run-and-shoot tactics, and it became clear that they didn't need to do anything fancy to beat him. After killing his minions, they lead him into the corral, and while Irene stood safely outside the corral and fed Aliza a stream of healing potions, Aliza took Rakanishu down.



Irene and Aliza finished the clear of the Stony Field and opened the portal to Tristram.

Irene and Aliza entered Tristram and went north. (I've found that going west tends to result in getting swarmed whereas going north gives you a lot more room in which to maneuver). They took out some skeletons up there and made their way around the perimeter of Tristram.



Four champion night clans bore down on them and hit hard. However, Irene and Aliza were able to break up the pack by using the rectangular stone ruin in the upper-right corner of Tristram.



After finishing most of the loop around the perimeter of Tristram, they moved into Tristram's center and took on the boss packs there.



When they finished that, the only monster left was Griswold. Many people have speculated about how Irene would fare against Griswold. After all, he hits hard and has that nasty amp curse. The solution was simple. Don't let him hit her! Griswold moves and attacks slowly -- really slowly when he's chilled. So all Irene had to do was run round and around him to keep him busy while Aliza shot at him from a safe distance. Every time Griswold cocked back to take a shot at Irene, she would keep running around him and would be long out of the way by the time he took his swing. In the end, he only managed to hit Irene three times and Aliza twice during the entire battle -- and never when either of them were amped.

]

After Griswold died, Irene rescued Deckard Cain. In case you're still keeping score at home, this means that Irene and Aliza have completed full clears of everything up to the entrance to the Black Marsh. Irene is now a mid-11th level sorceress, and Aliza is an 8th level Rogue.