Maldar, the Magnificent

[dudearonymus_32]

Actually I think that Sirens use Blood Star, not Fireball.

[MongoJerry]

Actually I think that Sirens use Blood Star, not Fireball.

I was being descriptive rather than technical in this case.

[Deadpan]

I bet I wasn't the only one who thought your post was going to be the next instalment, Mongo. We're getting withdrawal symptoms back here.

I'm sure you know this trick but being able to cast Bone Prisons on top of Bone Walls makes facing up to the Ancients a very easy battle. ;)

[MongoJerry]

I'm sure you know this trick but being able to cast Bone Prisons on top of Bone Walls makes facing up to the Ancients a very easy battle.

I'm afraid not in 1.10s. The Ancients move right through bone walls and prisons as if they weren't there -- kind of like ghosts. I was planning to post an update this morning, but the file I e-mailed to myself from home to work seems to not have made the transit across cyberspace. You'll have to wait until this evening.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE ANCIENTS

There I was on the Arreat Summit, fresh from a muling session where Maldar received the "council's" shipment of full rejuvenation potions. The only other time he had been twinked potions was when he got a shipment of twenty potions at the start of Act IV. I wasn't going to fool around. I gave him sixty this time. Incidentally, Maldar has never had to be twinked cash.

Before describing the strategy I used to fight the Ancients, let me discuss three strategies that may sound reasonable but nonetheless would not work or at least in one case would be much more risky than one might think. How do I know that they don't work? They were the first three strategies I tried against the Ancients in 8-player nightmare difficulty. If they didn't work then, I didn't expect that they would work in hell, even in 1-player mode.

1. The most obvious strategy would be to bone prison the Ancients and fire bone spirits at them from a safe distance. Only Korlic, the leaper, could get to you and he could be battled one-on-one.

Unfortunately, much to my surprise and consternation, I discovered that the Ancients in 1.10s move right through bone prisons and bone walls as if they don't exist. They don't jump over them, teleport around them, or weave their way through a kind of maze. They just move right through bone walls and prisons -- like ghosts . However, players get stopped by prisons and walls, so casting them only makes it harder for you to dodge the Ancients yourself. Yikes!

2. OK, forget the prisons. You have a good stack of potions on the ground and you've got bone armor. Why not go toe-to-toe with the Ancients? They mostly do physical damage which the bone armor can absorb. Why not get in the face of one of the Ancients and use a "bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor, bone spirit, bone spirit, bone armor..." pattern. The bone armor will absorb most of the damage you take and you can take out at least one of the Ancients pretty quickly.

Unfortunately I found out in nightmare difficulty that when you have all three Ancients wailing on you, they do a lot more damage than your bone armor alone can absorb unless all you do is cast bone armor. Plus, a couple of Ancients typically spawn with some sort of elemental enchantment and that elemental damage does not get absorbed by the bone armor. Finally, there are plenty of times when the Ancients will put you in hit recovery or disrupt your casting, so your rhythm can easily get disrupted. This strategy just doesn't work.

3. Let's go to the opposite extreme, then. Let's play chicken! Your character runs fast, so let's run a distance, fire some bone spirits in the Ancients' directions, run some more, fire more bone spirits, and repeat as long as necessary. Bone spirits don't need to be aimed, so they can even be fired blindly. Surely, this would be a safe and effective way to take out the Ancients.

Maybe. But it's a lot harder than you may think. First, the Ancients move fast, especially in hell. Even if you could keep decrepify on all of the Ancients all the time, Korlic, the leaper, can catch up to you quickly with one leap attack. Plus, Madawc can throw his axes from a long distance. You have to keep moving, and the more you move, the less you can fire. When I tried this in nightmare, I was able to average two bone spirits fired for every running stint. It was taking a long time to dish out any significant damage.

That's fine, you may say. You're patient. As long as you can kill the Ancients safely, that's OK with you. Unfortunately, when we think of theoretical strategies, we often make the mistake of believing that we will play perfectly and that nothing will go wrong. But we don't play perfectly and things do go wrong. Despite my best efforts to dodge and keep away from him, Madawc was able to hit me with his throwing axes from time to time. Plus, sometimes I'd get tripped up on a rock formation and Korlic would be able to get a swing on me and trap me for a second or two. Sure, I would then quaff a potion, move away, recast bone armor, and get back into my rhythm. But that meant that I had been forced to quaff one of my precious rejuv potions while simultaneously I was not dealing much damage per unit of time.

And that gets to the last problem. The killing speed is so slow that any potions you have on the ground are likely to be cleaned up long before you get a chance to use them. So you're basically stuck with only being able to use the potions in your belt and in your inventory. You're not taking much damage per time, but you're also not dealing much damage per time, either. Which will run out first: Your potions or the Ancients' life? With practice, you might be able to make this strategy work, but all I can say is that I tried this strategy for a little bit in nightmare and decided that I didn't like my odds of winning the battle using it.


I knew going in that these reasonable sounding strategies wouldn't work individually, so instead I decided to try a combination of all three! You'll see what I'm talking about in a moment.

The first thing I did was create two stashes of rejuv potions near the altar. With Grizabella and Gunter, I had made my stashes out of the way so that I could run over and pick them up while not being simultantously attacked by the Ancients. But this led me to constantly fret about when those potions would be cleaned up. Drakken at diabloii.net made a good suggestion. If I had instead put the potions near the field of battle, I could have picked them up at more regular intervals and would not have worried so much about when the potions would get cleaned up. I could guarantee that whenever they did get cleaned up, I'd have a mostly full belt of potions to work with for the remainder of the battle.

The clock would start ticking on the potion cleanup routine the moment I dropped the first potion, so I wanted to create my potion stashes as quickly as possible. I first filled my cube (which I carried) and eight inventory spaces with full rejuv potions. It meant sacrificing 22 life points worth of charms to carry those extra potions, but I felt it was well worth it. That meant I'd be carrying 36 full rejuv potions into battle (16 on my belt, 8 in inventory, 12 in my cube) -- and that's without counting the ones I'd drop on the ground.

With my belt and inventory full of rejuv potions, I returned to the Arreat Summit, and removed my belt and put it back on. Poof! A 12-potion stash instantly appeared on the ground. I tp'd back, refilled my belt with rejuv potions from my stash, returned to the summit, and removed my belt again, creating another stash of 12 potions. I tp'd back, refilled my belt, returned to the summit, and got ready to touch the altar.



"Professor MongoJerry?"

Yes, you in the back.

"Uh, you said that the Ancients can walk through bone walls and prisons as if they aren't there. Why did you cast all those bone walls and prisons around Madawc before you hit the altar?"

Ah, excellent observation! You are correct that I said that all of the Ancients can walk through the bone walls and prisons, but bone walls and prisons can still block Madawc's throwing axes. Not only that, but Madawc doesn't seem to realize that! As long as you don't get too close to him (which would cause him to back away) or too far away from him (which would cause him to chase you), he's perfectly content to stand in a field of bone prisons and throw his axes at you despite the fact that they get harmlessly absorbed by the bone prisons surrounding him. This is the part of the plan that was like strategy #1.

Yes, you with your hand up.

"Yeah, I'm wondering about the golem. It's a 1+2 point clay golem with 1+2 point golem mastery, right? Won't it die in like two seconds? Why bother?"

It'll die in one second, actually. I'll discuss the golem in a minute. Now, if there are no more questions, let's begin.



I hit the altar and backed off to get a chance to check the Ancients' mods. My plan was to take on whatever Ancients came out as long as none of them were fanatacism, holy freeze, or might aura enchanted. They weren't. I drew the following set of Ancients instead:

Korlic (leaper): Cold immune, Extra Fast, Amp Cursed
Talic (whirlwinder): Fire immune, Extra Strong, Spectral Hit
Madawc (thrower): Lightning and cold immune, Spectral Hit, Cold Enchanted

It was a pretty normal draw. The spectral hit enchantments meant that my bone armor wouldn't be absorbing all of the damage I would receive, and the extra fast and amp cursed combo on Korlic wasn't nice and I wouldn't want Talic, with his Extra Strong mod, to hit me very often while I was amp cursed. But on the whole, it wasn't a terrible draw.



So what's the deal with the clay golem? He couldn't really act as a tank, because he typically died in one second -- maybe two if only one Ancient attacked him and that Ancient was decrepified. Why did I bother casting him then? He wasn't a tank, but he was a distraction. It took time for Korlic and Talic to move to him, attack and kill him, and then switch targets and move toward me. So even if the golem only lived for a second in a battle, he really bought me about three seconds during which time I could safely fire bone spirits. What's more, I didn't have to run nearly as far to get away from Korlic and Talic as I did when I tried the "run and shoot" method without the golem. Instead, I only had to cast a new golem, take a few steps back, and start firing again. This was the part of the strategy that was like a modified form of strategy #3.

Incidentally, the bone prisons in the above screenshot were not for Korlic and Talic. They were there to intercept Madawc's throwing axes. Madawc was just offscreen to the lower left.



Having determined that I would fight this set of Ancients, I led them back to the altar to give me maximum maneuvering room and also to let me be closer to the potion stashes during the battle. I bone prisoned Madawc and started a long battle with Korlic and Talic that I waged while circling around Madawc. I made sure to stay close enough to Madawc to make him stay put, and I refreshed the bone prisons around him whenever part of his prison fell.

It was amazing to feel the difference during the moments when I wasn't able to get my golem up (like in the above screenshot). Talic and Korlic would chase me relentlessly and it would feel like they were constantly on my heels.

[MongoJerry]

Then I would finally get a free moment to cast the golem and I'd feel this overwhelming sense of relief as the golem distracted Korlic and Talic and I got the chance to fire some bone spirits.



Many times, the golem would distract Talic while Korlic would pass or leap by it and attack me. During these times, I tanked for a bit. I could take the pounding of a solo decrepified Korlic. This was the part that was like strategy #2.



On some occasions, though, they'd reverse. Korlic would attack the golem while Talic attacked me. Again I would tank, but I continued to fire at Korlic. With the extra fast Korlic out of the way, I figured I could easily take on the slower Talic. Plus, getting rid of Korlic meant that the golem and I would stop getting amped.



Round and around Madawc we fought. Whenever I'd quaffed a couple of potions, I'd refill my belt as I passed the potion stashes. Korlic was almost dead and I still had about a dozen potions left on the ground.

[MongoJerry]

Almost there...



One down, two to go!



Now, it was Talic's turn. Soon after this screenshot, I ran over to the potion stashes to refresh my belt. I picked up one potion, and the rest got cleaned up right under my feet. That was OK, though. I had 14 full rejuv potions in my belt plus all of the ones in my inventory and cube. This was going to be a cakewalk.



Since a 1+2 point decrepify only lasts a few seconds in hell, it had been hard keeping both Korlic and Talic consistently decrepified in the chaos of battle. But now that I only had to deal with Talic (neglecting the need to cast the occasional bone prison on Madawc), it was very easy to keep Talic decrepified all the time. The now unamped golem was able to tank the now very slow Talic (slow both because of the decrepify and the clay golem's slow effect) for 3-4 seconds at a time during which time I could nail Talic with a barrage of bone spirits.

[MongoJerry]

Round and around Madawc, we continued to fight, and in a short amount of time, Talic was taken down.



Finally, it was time to take on the hapless Madawc. It was sad to see someone so admired and revered by the barbarians being so humiliated.



I think there were a few angles at which Madawc could get some of his axes through when the prisons weren't too thick, so he managed to take out the golem. I didn't bother recasting it.



The combination strategy worked like a charm. When Madawc finally fell, Maldar still had fifteen full rejuv potions left. The experience reward almost allowed him to level. I wish I'd run nightmare Baal a couple more times now.

It had been a hard fought battle, but Maldar passed the test of the Ancients and was granted entrance to the Worldstone Keep. He raced inside. Could Maldar find and stop Baal before it was too late?

[schizoidmime]

do you think that trading in some skill points for a higher level decrepify would have been worthwhile? perhaps no golem and skimp out on bone wall/prision? or was the golem and that high of a level bone wall/prision necessary?

[MongoJerry]

The two points invested in the golem has paid off a hundredfold -- not only against the Ancients, but also against champions as well. I actually still have four unassigned skill points in case I need them, and I was very tempted to place them in decrepify before I took on the Ancients. But I worry that I'll need to put them in Terror instead to herd monsters around in the Throne of Destruction. If I don't, I'll put the points in decrepify before I face Baal, but for now I want to keep those skill points in reserve just in case.

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE WORLDSTONE KEEP



After refreshing my potions and readjusting my hotkeys back to "pacifist configuration," I entered the Worldstone Keep. I felt pumped about beating the Ancients, so I had to keep reminding myself to be careful and not get too cocky. Luckily, the game started me off with ghoul lords, vile witches, and unholy corpses in the first level of the Keep. These were easy to blind and run around.



The second level had cadavers, black souls, and horodrim ancients. The sight of gloams/burning souls/black souls always gives a little jump to the heart, but there was plenty of room to maneuver and the blinded black souls behaved themselves. When I found the waypoint, I took a break for a while but left the game on. I wanted to keep going.



The third level had storm casters, horror mages, and demon sprites. Again, it was fairly routine to run past all of these guys. At the entrance to the Throne of Destruction, I paused, tp'd to town to refresh potions, came back, took a deep breath, and went in.



And found death lords, burning souls, and hell witches. Ouch.

Maldar had made his way to the Throne of Destruction. Would he be able to get past all of Baal's minions and enter the Worldstone Chamber?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, THE THRONE OF DESTRUCTION

Death lords, burning souls, and hell witches it was. I'd just have to make do.



The first thing I needed to do was establish a couple of places in the Throne of Destruction to park monsters. I blinded and ignored the monsters that were waiting for me at the entrance and immediately ran around to the bottom right corner. There were no champion or boss monsters there. Bingo. I would park normal monsters here.

Using alternating casts of Terror and Dim Vision, I pushed the monsters back to the far corner of the room. I then proceeded to herd other normal monsters into the room and always tried to also push them back into the far corner. I wanted to be able to park as many monsters in the room as possible.



The first non-normal monsters I found were two champion burning souls. At first, I ignored them and just accepted the hits while continuing to herd normal monsters to the bottom right corner. In time, however, they grew to annoy me, so I decided to create another parking space.



I went up to the upper left corner and again found no champions or bosses. Good. I used Terror and Dim Vision to clear the space of normal monsters and then lured the champion burning souls into the upper left corner and bone prisoned them there. In the process, I ended up waking up a death lord boss pack, so I bone prisoned the death lord boss up there as well.

In my adventures with Maldar, I've learned that it's much easier to park monsters when you park bosses and champions in separate areas from the normal monsters. If you park them together, you run a much higher risk of a "jail break" as you try to herd normal monsters back while simultaneously avoiding or trapping bosses.



I ran into a small bug in the process of parking monsters. One death lord near the entrance stairs got stuck on a lamp. Nothing I did could get him unstuck, including letting him hit me. I didn't have anything that caused knockback and it was clear that he wasn't going to get free, so I finally just left him there.

[MongoJerry]

I walked through the whole level and moved all of the normal monsters to that bottom right corner chamber. It didn't take nearly as long as the parking process for the Chaos Sanctuary did. I didn't watch the clock, but I would guess it took about fifteen minutes to complete the whole process.



Along the way, I found a boss hell witch pack and in the main throne chamber, there was a champion hell witch pack. I again parked boss and the champions in the upper left corner chamber.



Leaving one normal hell witch in the main throne chamber, I double checked to make sure that the rest of the monsters on the level had been safely parked. I then herded the hell witch out of the chamber to her rightful parking spot in the bottom right corner. As we left the main throne room, my computer gave that distinctive pause indicating that Baal had summoned Colenzo the Annihilator.

Up Next: Baal's Minions

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, BAAL'S MINIONS



I knew that parking Colenzo's carver minions would be fairly easy, although it turned out to be slightly harder than I thought it would be. The carvers start on a "tether" linked back to Colenzo, so at first they refused to follow me whenever I got too far away from Colenzo. Then, after about twenty seconds passed, the tether "snapped" and the minions seemed willing to follow me as far away as I wanted them to go.

I didn't see any reason to use up a new parking spot, so I parked the minions with the rest of the normal monsters in the chamber in the bottom right-hand corner. Then, it was time to find out if Colenzo could be lured out of the main chamber or if Maldar would have to break down and kill Colenzo for the sake of the greater good.



It took a while, but I finally coaxed Colenzo down to the bottom part of the chamber. It seemed like if I kept him just on the edge of the screen, he'd take a few steps toward me in order to launch his fireball attack at me.

Once Colenzo got to the bottom of the chamber, Baal started laughing and a distinctive pause indicated that Achmel the Cursed had been summoned.



I led all of the death mages out of the chamber to the usual parking spot in the bottom right corner. Colenzo took the opportunity to take a couple of potshots at me as I passed.



Achmel's horodrim ancients minions were easier to herd than I thought they would be. Achmel was "Extra Fast" and minions inherit a boss's "Extra Fast" property, so when I cast Terror on the minions, they really moved! I parked them with the death mages.

[MongoJerry]

While herding Achmel's minions, a "jailbreak" broke out among the bosses and champions parked in the upper left-hand corner. Their bone prisons had long since fallen and they saw me as I passed, so they came charging out. I coaxed them back into the upper left corner as best as I could and bone prisoned them in again. However, I didn't coax all of them as far back as I would've liked and knew I'd have to be careful when going near that area again.



When I returned to the main chamber, I made a disturbing discovery. Colenzo had wandered back up to the top of the chamber. Argh! Oh, well. I needed to take care of Achmel first.



He also turned out to be a lot easier to coax out of the room than I thought he would be. By keeping him on the edge of my screen, I was able to quickly move him around to where I had parked the other bosses and champions. I was starting to run out of room on the left side, though, and even the normal monsters had the look of wanting to stage a "jailbreak" at any moment. I might try to park a few more monsters on the left side, but I would need to start using the empty areas on the right side and near the entrance soon.



I walked back into the main chamber and again tried to coax Colenzo down to the bottom of the chamber. It took a lot longer this time and at one point he actually walked to the very top corner of the chamber. I tried various tricks to get him to move toward me, but none of them other than the "keep him just barely on screen" trick seemed to work -- and it worked only very slowly.

However, he did come down eventually to the bottom of the chamber, and I bone prisoned him. "This time, stay there!" I thought. Baal laughed again, and Bartuc The Bloody came out.

Up Next: Bartuc the Bloody

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, BARTUC THE BLOODY



Bartuc and his council member minions came out, and this was the first time in the Throne of Destruction that things got a little chaotic. I didn't want to blind the minions, because I wanted them to chase me so that I could park them. But this also meant that they were able to cast hydras and take some swipes at me, so I had to run around to dodge council members and fire balls cast by hydras. Like Colenzo's minions, the council member minions started off on a "tether" tied to Bartuc which then snapped after about twenty seconds. I'm beginning to think that this always happens with minions who start off tethered to their bosses.



I led a couple of minions down to near the bottom left corner where I had parked the normal monsters. I could've just as easily parked them near the entrance or on the right side, but I figured that as long as there was still some space on the left side, I'd put monsters there in order to give me as much room to work with as possible when dealing with Ventar's and Lister's minions.



Unfortunately, bone prisoning the council minions there started a massive jailbreak from both sides. Normal monsters saw me and came out en masse and kept coming even after they got blinded, and Achmel came down from the top.



I blinded and bone prisoned the monsters and retreated. I managed to lead some more council members down here and bone prison them in with Achmel. However, I figured they would be the last monsters I would park in the bottom right area.

In the process of reparking Achmel, I confirmed something that I had suspected before. Blind burning souls/gloams are still able to see bone prisons and walls even when they are far enough away that they shouldn't be able to see them. For example, you can see the lightning bolt shooting through Achmel's prison above. That is coming from a blind burning soul that is well away from the prison itself. Previously, I had seen gloams shooting at bone prisons from off screen, but I couldn't be sure that they had been really blinded by the Dim Visions I had cast on the edge of the screen or not. But this time, I actually saw a blind burning soul shooting at a distant bone prison. So this means that it can be dangerous to put down a lot of bone prisons in areas with many gloams/burning souls. You might get caught in the crossfire.

I forgot where I parked Bartuc himself, and I didn't take a screenshot of bone prisoning him in. I think I parked him in the upper left area with the other bosses and champions.

I returned to the main chamber and Ventar the Unholy appeared.

Up Next: Ventar the Unholy

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, VENTAR THE UNHOLY

Ventar the Unholy's minions were also tethered to their boss, and again the tether snapped after a little bit of time passed. A group of his minions chased me, and I thought, "Why not be greedy?" I knew there was still a little parking room left in the upper left portion of the level, so I figured I would park these minions there and then lead Ventar himself and any minions left to some other place -- like near the entrance or something.

I had another reason for doing this. I hadn't liked how the monsters in the lower right area (e.g. the council members I had imprisoned with Achmel) were poised to spill out into the lower corridors down there. I figured that while parking this group of minions, I would also draw up the monsters who had been part of the original "jailbreak" and more firmly park them so that they would be less likely to escape the left wing of the Throne of the Destruction.



So with a group of Ventar's minions hot on my tail, I entered the left wing through the upper passage without casting Dim Vision.



Once I saw that the mass of monsters from down below had seen me and was charging at me, I cast new Dim Visions on everything, circled around, and cast bone prisons behind me as I booked it out of there. The plan had worked. The monsters were more securely parked in the left wing of the Throne of Destruction.



My intention was to then lead Ventar and the remaining minions down to the entrance. However, when I passed the lower passage to the left wing, I found out that I had done an even better job of clearing the lower-left area than I had thought. I decided to be greedy once again and park Ventar and his remaining minions there.



As I traveled back to the main chamber, I came across Bartuc the Bloody again and bone prisoned him in the passage to the upper-left area of the level. It turns out he was Teleportation enchanted, which explained why I lost track of where he was.

I returned to the main chamber and heard Baal give his hearty laugh. I took a deep breath and waited for Lister to show up. I had the entrance and the entire right side of the Throne of Destruction in which to find spots to park Lister and his minions. It's not that I'm paranoid about facing them.

Yes, it is.

Up Next: Lister the Tormentor

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, LISTER THE TORMENTOR



The first thing I noticed when I saw Lister's pack appear (after noticing the massive dinosaur-like monstrosities bearing down on me) was that Lister was holy freeze enchanted, or as I called it, "Holy s--- enchanted." I ran out of the room.

I thought for a second and said, "Hey, two can play that game!" I had saved all four hell quest reward skill points just in case I would need to place them into Terror to herd things around in the Throne of Destruction. Well, obviously I hadn't needed to do that, so I placed those points in decrepify instead, significantly increasing its duration. Muhahahaha! I wished I had done that before facing the Ancients. Oh, well.

I carefully walked back into the main chamber and induced Lister himself and two of his minions to chase me. I also cast decrepify and bone prisons on some of the minions in back just to make sure that they stayed behind.



I led Lister and the two minions to the small chamber in the upper-right portion of the level. Just when they thought they had me cornered, I cast decrepify on them, ran around them and bone prisoned them in. They were trapped.



I used the same tactic on the remaining minions, and every member of Lister's pack was quickly parked. All of the monsters in the Throne of Destruction had been successfully parked, and the entrance and the lower-right corner hadn't even been used. Woohoo!

I ran back into the main chamber and waved good-bye to Colenzo, who was still hanging around in the back of the room.



Then I got ready to enter the Worldstone Chamber.

Maldar got past Baal's minions and entered the Worldstone Chamber. Will he be able to defeat Baal?

[MongoJerry]

MALDAR: ACT V, BAAL



After refreshing potions, I entered the Worldstone Chamber, ran over to Baal, decrepified him, and bone prisoned him. Then, I pummeled him with bone spirits. The strategy was pretty simple. The bone prisons didn't do much, but they did protect me from Baal's ring of fire attack as you can see above.



The most annoying attack Baal had was his mana burn attack which would cause me to have to quaff mana potions. However, since he was decrepified, he didn't attack often, so it was only a minor annoyance.

Baal also cast his clone a couple of times in the fight, but I would just get on the other side of the real Baal and stay out of range of the clone. The clone doesn't teleport, so it wasn't a threat. I also bone prisoned the clone sometimes just to make sure it stayed put.



I caught a huge break when I noticed in the course of the battle that Baal and I were on opposite sides of a rock. The rock blocked Baal's mana burn attack, but I could shoot bone spirits around the rock and continue to decrepify Baal. I ended up emptying six super mana potions worth of bone spirits into him before I had to return to town to refresh my potions.



After that pummeling, Baal only had a small amount of life left, and Baal was taken down quickly once I returned from town.

For the first time, Maldar got something halfway useful from a monster drop. The only unique item was an Atma's Wail which was OK, but the most interesting item was a rare maul with the following stats:

+20% Increased attack speed
+240% Enhanced damage
+117 To attack rating
+21 Poison damage over 4 seconds
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds
+50% Damage to Undead

That brings up what I think is really cool about the cube upgrade recipes. Normally, one would see Baal dropping a rare maul and say, "What a piece of junk!" But now you could upgrade this thing twice to an ogre maul, socket it with a Larzuk quest reward, and have a pretty darned nice weapon.

The echoes of Baal's dying scream had barely died away when Tyrael floated down through the ceiling of the Worldstone Chamber and landed in front of Maldar. Tyrael congratulated Maldar on his tremendous achievement of banishing all three Prime Evils from the mortal realm. However, he also gave Maldar the regretful news that Baal had managed to corrupt the Worldstone. If the Worldstone was not destroyed, eventually the barrier between hell and the mortal realm would collapse. Tyrael said that even he couldn't predict what would result from the Worldstone's destruction, but he knew that it had to be done.

Maldar looked suspiciously at Tyrael. "Oh, ho!" Maldar thought. "So this is what you've been up to, Tyrael. You wanted to destroy the Worldstone while keeping your reputation as the benefactor of the mortal realm. You are clever, but you are also playing a dangerous game. You have won this round, Tyrael, and have successfully used me as your pawn, but know that I will be watching you closely, and if you threaten innocent beings, you will have Maldar the Magnificent to contend with!"

Maldar returned to town and told the townspeople of Harrogoth what Tyrael had said. He was heartened to learn that he was not the only one suspicious of Tyrael's actions. Anya thought it was strange that her people's prophecies had never mentioned anything about the Worldstone being destroyed.

But there were more immediate issues to deal with for there was still the matter of what do with the tens of thousands of demons that had infested the lands of the free peoples. Upon the deaths of the three Prime Evils, demons had begun to slink away into the darkness, but many people, the barbarians chief among them, wanted to hunt them down and exact revenge for the destruction they had wrought.

Maldar summoned the Council and reminded them of their promise not to not allow any innocent demons to come to harm. Representatives for various demon species were called in, and talks were held to divide Sanctuary between the demons and the free peoples. Maldar acted as the official arbiter. For the most part, the negotiations were surprisingly easy, since the lands that each side preferred were largely different. The free peoples got most of the arable grassland and plains along with the coastlines near good harbors. The demons, on the other hand, got most of the jungles, swamps, dark forests, deep desert areas, and dank caves. The biggest bone of contention revolved around city sewers, but Maldar worked out a carefully worded compromise that gave the sewers to the demons to live in but allowed city workers to safely enter them at regular intervals to make improvements and perform routine maintenance.

When the treaty was signed, celebrations were held all over Sanctuary both in the cities of the free peoples and in demon lairs. Esmerelda, the head of the sorceress order, was quoted as saying, "Many may fear living so close to demons, but the fact is that they are an integral part of our lives. Demons provide drama and excitement to our children's fairy tales. Without them, what would our children's stories be populated by? Purple dinosaurs and sponges?"

Peace and tranquility settled on most of Sanctuary, but a group of demon cows refused to give up their choice grassland and would not go away quietly. People who did not like the treaty used the demon cows as examples of "typical demon intransigence." The situation had the potential to derail the entire treaty, and the Council and Maldar discussed what should be done. Many members of the Council felt that the only solution was to kill all of the cows as a warning to demons not to violate the terms of the treaty.

But Maldar intervened and said that the real problem lay with the Cow King who kept his followers riled up. If he alone were killed, the rest of the cows would likely go away quietly. That would demonstrate to other demons the seriousness with which the free peoples took the treaty while also demonstrating to other demons that the free peoples are willing to show reasonable restraint.

After much discussion, the Council finally agreed to give Maldar the opportunity to try things his way, but it warned Maldar that the Council would eradicate the cows if he failed.

Maldar left the Council meeting, shouldered his equipment, and began the journey to the Moo-Moo Farm. Would Maldar be able to defeat the Cow King without harming any of the Cow King's minions?

[Deadpan]

'Course he will. The question is will there be another play at home game, Mongo?