Irene, the Infirm

[NeoLunar]

Ok, so MongoJerry has a very good sense of adventure and stuff, but does ayone notice that he has ben slowing down? MongoJerry, you can't be so heartless to leave the adventure hanging like this...

[MongoJerry]

It takes longer than you think to sort through the screenshots and write these things. I worked on it for about an hour yesterday and some today. But meanwhile, I've been doing what everyone else here has been doing -- playing the final 1.10 release. My hardcore ladder enchantress just died at level 53. *sniff* I keep forgetting that when you're playing over a modem, you just can't be that aggressive.

An update should be coming soon. I just have to work on the final touchups.

[gekko]

We all know you're doing this just to keep us in suspense. Stop milking it and give us some real info! :D

You know, when I mentioned I'd prefer you started your characters in normal, fully untwinked, rather than in hell, I never meant you to go this far. That being said, I commend your patience -- assuming I stole the skill from someone else to do such a character, I'd surely have died from impatience some time ago.

gekko

[MongoJerry]

IRENE: ANDARIEL

"Die maggot!" screamed Andariel.

"Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?" responded Irene.

Before battling Andariel, Irene took an inventory of all the resources she had at her disposal:

109,886 Gold to pay for antidote potions, minor healing potions, scrolls of townportal, and Aliza resurrections
41 Light healing potions
9 Regular healing potions

The store of light and regular healing potions would be an important resource to conserve during the fight. They heal faster than minor healing potions and, most importantly, they can heal faster than Andariel's poison can damage a character, so they would be very useful in many circumstances during the battle. However, while fifty healing potions may sound like a lot, in fact it's not nearly as much as one would think. Those fifty potions were to be split by two characters, and this was going to be a long fight. It would be important to use those higher quality healing potions only in emergencies or when they would really prolong a skirmish with Andariel. Otherwise, it would be best to just use a townportal and get healed by Akara. Irene and Akara practically had an unlimited supply of townportals to work with, subject to their gold restrictions, so it was best to use townportals instead of their precious higher quality healing potions.

(Incidentally, the higher quality healing potions work better than rejuv potions, because rejuv potions only cure 35% of a character's health which in this case isn't that much. However, higher quality healing potions can cure both characters fully and quite reasonably quickly. Irene obviously can't cube up rejuv potions to make full rejuv potions, since she doesn't have a horodric cube, yet).



The battle with Andariel consisted of a long series of short skirmishes. Prior to returning to the Catacombs, Irene and Aliza would always quaff an antidote potion, which would give each of them +50% to their poison resists for thirty seconds due to the new and improved 1.10 antidote potions. However, 1.10s, in which Irene was played, had a bug. If you quaffed a second antidote potion, your poison resistance would go right back down to its normal levels. Subsequent antidote potions would also keep your poison resistance at its normal levels. This would keep happening until 30 seconds after the last antidote potion had been drunk.

So, Irene and Aliza were in a quandary. Do they use antidote potions mid-battle and cure the immediate poison attack but leave themselves vulnerable to the next attack? Or do they just use the antidote potions for the temporary +50% to poison resistance and use healing potions to counter the poison? They chose to use the second tactic. By the way, this bug has been fixed in the final 1.10 release. You can drink multiple antidote potions and your poison resistance will stay at its +50% level.

So during each skirmish, Irene and Aliza had 30 seconds during which they would have their poison resistances boosted. This turned out to be OK, because that was about as long as they could typically last in a skirmish before they had to return to town anyway.

A well executed skirmish would look like the one in the above screenshot. Irene acted as the bait and tried to get Andariel to chase her around the big pit in the center of the room. Meanwhile, Aliza would shoot arrows at Andariel and slowly whittle her down.



Of course, a typical skirmish was "well executed" for only 5-10 seconds before something would go wrong. For example, sometimes Andariel would decide to attack Aliza no matter what Irene tried to do to distract her.

The first time Andariel came after Aliza, Aliza seemed to tank her pretty well as long as she was fed a steady diet of minor healing potions -- with a light healing potion thrown in here and there. For a few seconds, this seemed like it might be a good tactic -- at least one that was good enough to take down a good chunk of Andariel's life before the higher quality healing potions ran out.



Then a full poison spray right in Aliza's face ended all thoughts of continuing to use that tactic. Aliza died instantly. Considering that Aliza had twice as much life as Irene and a higher poison resistance (68% vs 50%), this ended all thoughts of Irene ever tanking -- or letting herself get close enough to Andariel to take a full poison spray. Irene returned to town, resurrected Aliza, and got ready for the next skirmish.



Andariel chased Irene round and around the big pit in skirmish after skirmish while Aliza continued to flick arrows from as safe of a distance as possible.

[MongoJerry]

But one big problem with this plan was that Aliza would often miss the speedy Andariel whenever she was chasing Irene on the opposite side of the pit. Sometimes Andariel would get hit if she stopped to spit poison, but she didn't get hit often enough for this tactic to be effective.



The plan worked best when Irene led Andariel in straight lines either toward or away from Aliza. Also, it was best when she kept Andariel fairly close to Aliza. That way, all of Aliza's arrows would hit their mark.



The drawback to this approach, though, was that Andariel would often switch targets and go after Aliza instead. Aliza had to be resurrected often. However, after a little practice, Irene learned to time things well. Whenever Andariel went after Aliza, Irene would start up a townportal while Aliza continued to shoot at Andariel from point-blank range. Then, she'd wait until Aliza's life bar turned red and would then enter the portal just in time to save Aliza. This tactic allowed Aliza to shoot a few extra arrows at Andariel each skirmish and made a big difference in the speed that Andariel was being whittled down.

Also, it allowed me to notice one new thing in 1.10. No more mercenaries dying in town! It used to be that if your mercenary was poisoned, you'd have to race to the town healer to keep him or her alive. If his or her life went to 0 before you got there, he or she would die in town. But not anymore. Cool!



Irene and Aliza continued to battle Andariel. Of course, most of the screenshots show a nice orderly battle. That's the nature of screenshots. I was too busy running to take screenshots during the times things went bad -- and they went bad a lot. Sometimes, Irene and Aliza would get hit so hard right away that they'd have to return to town without Aliza being able to get even one shot off. In addition, Irene had many narrow escapes. Most skirmishes lasted about 10-20 seconds before Irene and Aliza would be forced to return to town. But slowly, Andariel's health bar was being whittled down, and about 25 minutes into the battle (about half of which was spent in town), Andariel's health bar had been cut in half.

But one skirmish went terribly wrong. It started like all of the couple dozen skirmishes before it had. Irene and Aliza quaffed antidote potions in town and stepped into the portal. But unbeknownst to them, Andariel was standing right next to the portal, so they landed practically on top of her. Andariel reared back to spray clouds of poison, and Irene ran. Aliza took the brunt of the poison cloud attack and died instantly. Because Irene had a couple of yards head start -- or perhaps because Aliza blocked some of the clouds -- Irene didn't take the full force of the attack. However, her life ball reading dropped to the low single digits. A stumble through a flame would be fatal.

Irene ran while quaffing health potions, because there was no time to start a townportal. If she tried to start one, Andariel would be able to get in another attack and kill her before she got to town. Her only hope was to get to the entrance room, duck behind the wall, and start up a safe townportal there.

But as Irene raced toward the doorway to the entrance room, Andariel started up a second poison gas cloud attack. The clouds screamed toward Irene. They were nearly on top of her when she was less than a yard away from the door...

UP NEXT: The Death Screen

[twentythree]

Whos death screen? Irene? or Andariel?

[NeoLunar]

NO...............

You can't do this to me...

Please let it be Andariel's...

*clasps hands together and prays*

[schizoidmime]

NO...............

You can't do this to me...

Please let it be Andariel's...

*clasps hands together and prays*

*joins in prayer*

[Refrigerator]

...and starts humming*

[gimlisam]

...lights candles and incence, joins prayer, starts chanting... Or something to that effect.

[MongoJerry]

UP NEXT: THE DEATH SCREEN

Let's see, now where were we? Oh, yeah.

But as Irene raced toward the doorway to the entrance room, Andariel started up a second poison gas cloud attack. The clouds screamed toward Irene. They were nearly on top of her when she was less than a yard away from the door,...

...and then the poison clouds reached the limit of their range and dissipated just before they struck their mark. Irene bolted through the doorway to the entrance room, ducked behind the wall, started up a townportal, and returned to town. *Whew!* (No, I didn't make this up. This actually happened. *pant* *pant*).



Irene revived Aliza, replenished her supply of potions, took a deep breath, and then returned to the Catacombs.



Irene continued to bait Andariel while allowing Aliza to shoot safely at Andariel as much as possible.



However, her near-death experience caused Irene to be more cautious than before. She kept her distance which meant that Aliza often had to take the brunt of Andariel's attacks. She had to be revived frequently.



In fact, when Andariel's life bar had been whittled down to the middle of the "N," Irene noticed that their stores still had 22 high quality healing potions left, including all nine regular healing potions. This prompted her to let Aliza do almost all the tanking and fighting. Irene, meanwhile, stood back, fed potions to Aliza (including high quality healing potions), and townportaled to town whenever Aliza got in trouble. This may sound cowardly and cruel on Irene's part, but in fact Aliza died less often during this period with Irene focused entirely on serving Aliza's needs instead of her own. Also, the regular healing potions healed Aliza very quickly. They might as well have been full rejuvenation potions as far as she was concerned.

[MongoJerry]

The tactic of having Aliza do most of the fighting successfully took down about half of Andariel's remaining life, but Irene and Aliza's store of high quality healing potions was running low.

"Look, I know you were shaken up by that surprise gas attack," said Aliza, "but I'm dying down there. Literally! We need that spunky and cocky Irene back -- the one who started this whole adventure, the one who beat Blood Raven solo with her bare fists, the one who tanked the Countess, the one who's brains and brawn got us this far on this seemingly impossible journey. We need her back to have any hope of finishing this battle and coming out on top. Are you ready?"

Irene had been staring at the ground while Aliza had been talking. She stood silently for a few moments more. Then she slowly raised her head and a grin spread across her face. The fire in her eyes that had been extinguished by the surprise poison gas attack returned. She looked at Aliza squarely in the eyes and said, "I'm ready. Let's send this Lesser Evil back to hell."



With renewed vigor, Irene returned to her duty of baiting Andariel, allowing Aliza to (mostly) safely fire arrows uninterrupted at Andariel.



She also led Andariel in paths that would allow Aliza to accurately shoot at Andariel, and at the same time, she protected Aliza from too much harm. In fact, she got so good at it this process that Aliza only died one more time.



Only a few more arrows to go!

And without further ado, I present Andariel's death screen.



"We did it!" screamed Irene.

"Yahoo!" yelled Aliza. "Ohhhh...."

"What's the matter?" asked Irene. "Are you OK?"

"I have a headache," groaned Aliza. "I'm going to have nightmares involving poison gas for weeks."

And so, Irene and Aliza were fated to defeat the evil Queen Andariel and free the Rogue Monastery and the surrounding countryside from the influence of Diablo. They managed to do a full clear of every monster in every area of Act I, except for five immortalized monsters:

Snot Blister the Howler, Tower Level 4 (Boss blood clan, cold enchanted)
Pitspawn Fouldog, Jail Level 2 (Superunique tainted, amp cursed, cold enchanted)
Pulse Tongue the Quick, Catacombs Level 1 (Boss tainted, spectral hit)
Blight Spell, Catacombs Level 3 (Boss ghoul, cold enchanted)
Sharp Hack the Flayer, Catacombs Level 3 (Boss tainted, lightning enchanted)

Aliza had to be resurrected 18 times during the battle with Andariel, and in the end our heroines had only two regular healing potions, no light healing potions, and 75,565 gold left.

Andariel dropped a rare long bow and a rare crystal sword.

"Should we sell them like we did most everything else?" asked Aliza.

"Nah," replied Irene. "Let's put them in the stash with the pair of Cleglaw's Pincers we found. Maybe one day we'll learn how to use 'em."

Irene and Aliza returned to the Rogue Camp to a hero's welcome. Akara shook her head in disbelief at the accomplishments of her young sickly apprentice. The Rogues packed up to move back into the Rogue Monastery, and life resumed a sort of peaceful normalcy.

However, Deckard Cain warned Irene and Aliza that Diablo was still out there looking for something in the wilderness. He beseeched them to come east with him to the desert city of Lut Gholein and help thwart whatever schemes Diablo was planning.

Irene and Aliza respectfully listened to Cain, but finally, Irene spoke.

"We understand the terrible danger that the world is in," she said. "But despite what we have done, we are still but poor unarmed and unskilled warriors. We have done everything that could be asked of us to help defeat Diablo's plans and more. Now, we need to help reestablish the Order and restore peace to the region. Also, Akara and Kashya have offered to train us in their respective arts. Perhaps someday, we will follow you to Lut Gholein and to points beyond. But for now, we're going to remain here and help our sisters in their time of need."

Aliza nodded her head in agreement, and Cain realized that there would be no persuading the two heroines to join him on his journey. For now, he needed to seek out other heroes to take up the quest. Still, Cain suspected that this was not the last time he would see Irene and Aliza, the young brash heroines of the Rogue Order.

The first part of Irene and Aliza's adventures have come to an end, and for now I will let our heroines rest. If time and inclination allow, I may once again take up their story. Will they remain unskilled and unequipped? I don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, my fifth character has been in stasis in Act I nightmare for a couple of weeks, and I would like to level him/her up. I'll begin writing up his/her adventures when he/she is ready to enter hell. However, I have to warn you that it may take a while to get that character's adventures started, because I'm likely to be playing the final release of 1.10 on bnet like everyone else. I'm just selfish that way. (No, I'm not going to write up the adventures of my bnet characters, because I play hardcore over a modem, and therefore the characters can't be that underpowered or interesting. However, if you're playing hardcore ladder games on USWest and see a javelin-throwing enchantress named Grizabella_hcld, be sure to say, "Hello!").

You can download Irene using one of the following links:

Zip file containing all Irene data files, including maps

Only Irene's .d2s file

I hope you enjoyed the show!

[NeoLunar]

Once again, I must congratulate you on your amazing achievements. I thought that Maldar the Magnificent was the most outrageous character ever, but you proved me wrong. My goodness! Are you good at this or what? I salute you, SIR MongoJerry.

[schizoidmime]

yay~

[bombcar]

I am in awe of your massive patience and power.

You win the award. Excellent writing.

Do you happen to know Irene's phone number? :D

[Professor Frink]

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...3/11/08/0122247

But then there comes the McDonald's tie-in. "Irene" bumper stickers. The T-Shirt.

--
Professor Frink

[aremgy]

BRAVO!!!!

[shadowfax]

props to you, MongoJerry - most people playing Diablo II don't have that kind of patience, it seems (including me)! :o this has been such an interesting thread that i felt that i had to register an account here. :) congrats once again.

[MaStAViC]

Hey, MongoJerry and Others,
How's it going? I have not visited the Lurker Lounge in over four years (I just returned to the world of Diablo after a four-year hiatus). Found this thread, started reading it, then registered just so that I could post this comment.

I am a fan of Irene, the Infirm. I've been sitting here and reading nonstop and am really enjoying her adventures. I am currently reading about Irene and Aliza on her way to the Dark Woods, and am thinking to myself that I am enjoying this story a bit too much... lol. I really like the tone of the story, the way it's written, and well, Irene is an awesome character =P

I don't know if you're still around and if you'll ever read this comment of mine, but I just wanted to write it anyway. Heck, the last reply to this thread took place over three years ago, but even now, I am enjoying the story. Thanks for writing it!

Back to reading about Irene's (and Aliza's) adventures,
-=MaStA ViC

[MaStAViC]

I posted slightly over an hour ago, and now I am posting again, since I just finished reading everything in one sitting! I don't know what to say, but just... wow. This would be a good story if it weren't real (by real, I mean you actually playing the game and these things actually happening), but for them to be real... wow.

I wish I were able to see the screenshots. I guess it's been too many years and all the files hosted online are now gone. If you read this and still have the files, would you kindly let me have them?

I noticed that Irene's entire adventure took place over nearly a month's time. I have no idea how others were able to read one or a few chapters at a time. Near the end, I was literally on the edge of my seat and almost prayed for Irene and her friend, Aliza.

Thank you for sharing Irene's and Aliza's adventure, MongoJerry!
-=MaStA ViC