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SWEETSPEARGIRL'S LAST GASP

Chapter 2: "Foremost of USWesterners"

Cast:
SweetSpearGirl, She Who Shakes Ugly Bosses Off Onto The Valk
Euyfura, the Sarcastic One
Lady Valk, the Valk

TAKE HEED AND BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTHS THAT LIE HEREIN, FOR THEY ARE
THE LAST LEGACY OF THE HORADRIM...

SweetSpearGirl and Euyfura, having slept solidly the night before,
awoke in the morning glow to go forth and lay the smackdown on the
minions of evil once again. Having sold off the two-socketed
Sharktooth armour the day before, but also having Smoked a Cuirass for
Euyfura, SweetSpearGirl hefted her Stealth Gothic Plate, summoned the
Valk (who had been busy trying to examine Akara's magical cauldron and
getting little but smoke in her face as a reward), and took the Cold
Plains waypoint.

Straight away, trouble ensued! The first boss, who raced up as soon as
our trio stepped off the waypoint, was Doom Eater the Tainted, a mana-
burning Dark Spearwoman who was possessed of a Teleportation ability
(which she didn't use once) as well as being Extra Strong; however,
after the first dicey moment when SweetSpearGirl had to down a purple
and quickly cast her Decoy, the boss went down easy.

Dark Hunters, Fallen, and their Shamen, were all swift prey for the
Amazon's spear and the Rogue's bow; while Euyfura was slain by a pack
of Champion Dark Spearwomen who ambushed SweetSpeargirl unexpectedly,
the spearazon avenged her Rogue and swiftly resurrected her (33,660
gold this time, ugh!), before picking up the gold and purples the
enemies had let fall and continuing onwards.

"Someone's resurrecting those Fallen over there," Euyfura commented.

"Yes," SweetSpearGirl said, "and I hear a Blessed Aim aura going off.
Wonder what's next."

A couple of minion Fallen approached, followed by their boss Shamen,
Ash Wound the Slayer. His surname was patently untrue, his being
merely Extra Fast with a Spectral Hit in addition to his aura, and he
bit the grass quickly. Through another pack of Fallen they went, the
fireballs of the Shamen barely singeing their skin.

Back to town to sell off the loot, and then back to the fray.

"Another day, another gold piece?" Euyfura commented.

"Shame it's not *more* gold pieces, Rogue," SweetSpearGirl said.
"Between resurrecting you and repairing my gear, this Hell world is
expensive!"

"Always is," Euyfura said. "Let's just make sure we kill more than we
die!"

"That's the plan!"

"Except for me," the Valk said.

"You almost never die," SweetSpearGirl said. "I wish I had as much
life as you do!"

A magical ring with 11 to all resistances dropped, as well as a death
mask with 10% faster hit recovery, but neither of these were keepers:
Tal Rasha's mask and SweetSpearGirl's existing rings provided her with
far more interesting mods.

SweetSpearGirl picked up an Experience shrine which she put to good
use slaying beasties, and they worked their way through the Plains,
slowly but surely.

A Dark Hunter boss, Gore Fester the Hunter (lightning enchanted, fire
enchanted, extra strong, immune to both lightning and cold) hove into
view; her minions were easily dispatched while the Valk kept the boss
busy, and with "Dork" Fester (as Euyfura christened her) distracted by
Valk and Decoy, SweetSpearGirl pounded her into oblivion with three
swift Jabs, healing up at the convenient Refilling Shrine not three
steps away.

"Well this is an improvement over yesterday," she said, relieving a
Shamen of the inconvenient burden of his life as well as a quiver of
bolts (which she left lying beside his corpse). "Maybe that nasty
Fallen was an exception."

"You'd better hope so," Euyfura said. "Resurrection for me might be
expensive; resurrection for both of us is expensive and *dangerous!*"

"If I want my gear back, yes it is!" SweetSpearGirl said. "I still
remember Coldworm's chamber way back when I couldn't get to my body.
Had to retreat and try again that day!"

"Damn maggots," Euyfura said. "After that, I started to realise why
you hate bugs!"

"Always have, always will," SweetSpearGirl said. "Spiders are okay.
Well, except the ones that are twice the size of me and bite."

"Not looking forward to Sszark, huh?"

SweetSpearGirl snorted. "That one's always a pussweed. It's the random
bosses I worry about."

"Well put it this way," the Valk said. "You don't have to worry about
MSLEBs any more!"

"There is that."

Gore Fester's drop included a fat purple and an amulet, which
SweetSpearGirl dropped into her Cube for later identification, before
taking out the next Shaman by use of a nearby Exploding Shrine. Fire
immunity did not seem to apply to the shrine's effects, oddly enough.

Near the entrance to the Stony Field, the trio encountered Black Hack.
Yet another Spearwoman boss, she was a lightning enchanted mana burner
with teleportation (again, an ability she did not use!) and she and
her minions surrounded Euyfura while SweetSpearGirl was under fire by
a Shaman! She had to run back to the Refilling Shrine to replenish her
health and decide her next move: thankfully, she was alive, even if
Euyfura had gone down. A lone Fallen approached SweetSpearGirl's
position, followed by Black Hack herself - no longer accompanied by
her minions and distracted by the Valk. As soon as the boss went down,
SweetSpearGirl recovered Euyfura once again. Healed up and repaired,
the trio returned to deal with the minions.

(Gore Fester's amulet turned out to be 22% poison resist.)

SweetSpearGirl ventured into the Stony Field, since it was neaby, in
the hopes of tracking down the waypoint before dealing with Blood
Raven.

"You know that'll annoy Kashya," Euyfura said.

"Well considering all she does is stand around in camp arguing with
Gheed, and I don't see *her* coming out to fight the spawn of evil,
she can go and sit on something."

"How rude!" the Valk commented, to an eye-roll from Euyfura.

Cautiously, they stepped into the Stony Field, to be met by Hungry
Dead and Dark Rangers, one of whom dropped a Grand Charm. However,
only a few steps further ahead, the boss packs suddenly started
appearing. A boss Foul Crow, Sin Fist, was lightning enchanted
(causing SweetSpearGirl to quickly back away to summon a Decoy) as
well as spectral hit and teleportation, but just as she turned she
found a Hungry Dead minion in her face. Wrath Bender was fire
enchanted, extra strong and - again - teleportation, which seemed to
be a recurring theme with the bosses that day! SweetSpearGirl moved in
to take out Sin Fist, who was already down to half his life, but
suddenly as she did so a curse rang out! Neither of the bosses were
cursed so she knew something else had to have joined the fray! The
charged bolts were spraying out of Sin Fist and something was hitting
SweetSpearGirl hard: it had to be another boss! She backpedalled fast
but another Hungry Dead minion, swinging a punch, took her life down
so fast she couldn't even react.

Swearing angrily as she resurrected herself in the Rogue camp, having
lost over forty thousand gold, she roped in the Rogue and recast the
Valk. Having no portal standing she had to run from the Cold Plains
waypoint, avoiding the attentions of a Fallen Shaman and three
Spearwomen, right across to the site of her fall.

While Sin Fist had expired at the same time as SweetSpearGirl, the
boss responsible for her fall was in fact not one extra boss pack, but
*two*, both Foul Crows: the Cursed boss was Pulse Tongue the Unclean
who was also Extra Strong and Spectral hit, but as she cast a Decoy to
distract him, a Decoy which died in less than three seconds as Pulse
Breath set off his curse, up behind SweetSpearGirl flew Mind Maw the
Slasher, who was enchanted with a Conviction aura, lightning
enchanted, and stone skin! Thankfully he wasn't physical immune,
although when he hit SweetSpearGirl *hard* in the back while she was
still under Pulse Tongue's curse, her life dropped almost to zero!
Hurriedly she backed up; thankfully, Mind Maw was fragile and the Valk
and Euyfura punctured the beastie in a few hits. A stray charged bolt
hit SweetSpearGirl in the leg and dropped her health even further, so
she backed off to try to take stock.

Euyfura and the Valk took out two Hungry Dead minions as
SweetSpearGirl opened up a portal and cast a couple of Decoys ahead of
her. Scouting the ground for drops, she scavenged a small purple and a
fat red from Mind Maw's trove and hurriedly drank them, restoring her
health to full. Casting another Decoy near her corpse she attracted no
monsters except for Wrath Bender, the Hungry Dead boss, who was far
enough away for her to sweep in and recover her corpse and potions.

Wrath Bender died quickly, but it wasn't more than a few steps on that
yet *another* boss pack showed up: another Hungry Dead, sporting a
second Conviction Aura. A Foul Crow minion hit SweetSpearGirl and
poisoned her at the exact same moment as she was backpedalling, the
swirly green wrapped around her feet, and somehow she'd also gotten
chilled from somewhere but in the heat of battle she couldn't tell
how!

The boss was Blade Bite, and in addition to his aura he was also
Cursed and Cold Enchanted. "A minion must have hit me," SweetSpearGirl
muttered, throwing up another Decoy to take the heat off Euyfura while
she spitted bunches of Foul Crows and Hungry Dead with arrows.
SweetSpearGirl downed another large red potion, moving back towards
the pack. Even cursed, the Valk was more than a match for Blade Bite,
who dropped Magnus' Skin ("makes up for things," SweetSpearGirl said),
and then it was onward, to meet the final boss of this happy little
group: Bone Vex, holy fire aura enchanted, cold enchanted and magic
resistant, immune to bold cold and poison. However, he expired before
she could even touch him thanks to two blows from the Valk, so
SweetSpearGirl was left to clean up a straggling couple of minions and
have done with the insanity of six boss packs in one small area!

"That," Euyfura said with feeling, "was un-fucking-believable."

"You're telling me!" SweetSpearGirl said. "I have never seen that many
bosses in one place before and I've seen a lot of bosses in my time!"

"I didn't get my ass kicked!" the Valk said in surprise.

"Nope," SweetSpearGirl said. "You did good. Both of you. I'm afraid I
was less than helpful with these guys. I really am getting old, I
think."

"Horseshit," Euyfura said. "You just need better gear. Like some
armour with resists on it and higher defence."

"Good gear isn't exactly falling like Harrogath snow," SweetSpearGirl
said.

"Well, we'll just have to do our best," Euyfura said. "I haven't lost
faith in you, you know."

"I'm glad to hear that," SweetSpearGirl said.

As the adventurers reached the Cairn Stones, Rakinishu (lightning
enchanted, extra fast, cold enchanted, mana burn, immune to cold,
immune to fire) and his gang trotted out, flinging themselves on the
Decoy and the Valk, but thankfully like so many of the local bosses,
Rak and his boys were fragile, dying in a few hits, although his death
blast was surprisingly strong.

"Ouch!" was SweetSpearGirl's only commented as she scavenged his
remains for a healing potion.

The Grand Charm dropped earlier was +5 to dexterity. Selling that and
an equally unimpressive ring one of the bosses had dropped (some
miniscule bonus to life and poison resist), SweetSpearGirl resumed her
search for the local waypoint. Pausing only to eliminate Puke Lust
(Hungry Dead, extra fast, mana burn, spectral hit) and his band - the
Valk having acquired some sort of chance-to-cast which spat out hefty
bolts of lightning which helped - they continued their journey through
the Field. Fortunately, aside from Steel Maul the Wraith (easily
disposed of Foul Crow, spectral hit, magic resistant, lightning
enchanted), Puke Face's pack was the last boss silliness of the area
and a few more bands of monsters and an Experience Shrine later,
SweetSpearGirl gained the waypoint.

She realised that in her search, she had cleared the entire Field:
reading the Moudly Tome ("I could still do with the bathing in blood
thing") and noting she had almost reached level 68, she returned to
the Cold Plains, intent on beating a level-up out of Blood Raven.

"All right," she said. "Level up first, or Blood Raven?"

"You like the level ups before handling the quests," the Valk said as
SweetSpearGirl rammed her weapon up Dragon Wing (Fallen Shaman, fire
enchanted, extra fast, lightning enchanted).

"That I do, Valk," SweetSpearGirl said. "How about you, my lovely
Rogue? Fancy another level before Blood Raven invites us to join her
army of the dead?"

"I'm not saying no!" Euyfura said. "You are like... one boss pack away
from levelling."

"True, that," SweetSpearGirl grinned.

Stopping only to pick up a flawless sapphire and cube three small
purples into one fat one, SweetSpearGirl charged onward and, well,
onward. As the trio encountered Bishibosh (magic resistant, fire
enchanted, cursed, holy shock aura enchanted) SweetSpearGirl levelled
to 68. Disposing of him and his friends (the drops weren't all that
interesting, aside from a Gothic Plate of the Squid, and neither were
the remaining monsters in the Plains), SweetSpearGirl plugged her
points into Dexterity, raising it to 198, and boosted her Decoy to
slvl 20.

After circling the outside of the Burial Grounds, SweetSpearGirl
decided to swing into the Crypt to see what loot she could scrape up.
After clearing much of the area, and drawing out Bonebreaker (extra
strong, magic resistant, teleportation, spectral hit), Euyfura
levelled to 68 and SweetSpearGirl popped the glowing chest to find,
well, not very much actually aside from the gold piles. She shrugged
and loaded up her pack and Cube anyway. A rare Barbed Shield turned
out to be quite nice for a shield, but SweetSpearGirl sold it anyway
for thirty-five grand and carried on regardless. The remainder of the
Crypt was uninteresting except for a kick at the end: a boss Hungry
Dead, Haze Burn the Axe (teleportation, lightning enchanted, cold
enchanted).

"What IS it with these guys and teleportation?" SweetSpearGirl
wondered over the sounds of fighting.

"Beats me!" Euyfura said. "They never actually teleport, the
dumbasses!"

"Their loss," SweetSpearGirl grinned, stabbing a minion.

The boss hit hard, but not hard enough to slay our heroes; he kissed
concrete and then, with the exception of a few stragglers, it was all
over.

Blood Raven went down easy, easy at least once her multitude of Hungry
Dead and skeletons had been taken care of. She dropped a pile of gold
and a blue Full Helm: nothing of any use, but it did pay for repairs
and for once, Kashya was pleased.

TO BE CONTINUED...