Act 2 Nightmare: Walking among the Dead
The first order of business in Lut Gholein was to say goodbye to Hazade and hello to a new mercenary, Pratham. This mercenary, I was fortunate enough to be able to buy at level 34, came with the standard might aura. After equipping him with the gear Hazade had used, we ventured into the Sewers. Again, I found the second level immediately and skipped the first one. The first group I came upon was led by a lightning enchanted burning dead archer. He was kind enough to drop me this which quickly replaced my rare gothic plate. The cannot be frozen mod would become invaluable for the remainder of the act, despite the low defense it offered. Pratham and I crushed a good deal of skulls before finding both the waypoint and the stairs to the third floor. Fanaticism was quickly replaced by redemption as my main aura as we did. When we found Radament, I led the bulk of his minions out and began to inch through them while redeeming their corpses. When I was able to get to Radament, I found him to have some pretty bad mods. Pratham had initially been standing in a "sweet spot" but found it necessary to move and was quickly killed by the charged bolts. Radament didn't leave me any wonderful presents this time though, besides the book of skill of course.
I went back to town, resurrected Pratham (something I would be doing a lot of) and continued onward into the vast desert. Well, I didn't get very far, no more than three steps out of town a fanaticism enchanted group of sabre cats came charging at me. Pratham thought it would be a good time to visit the afterlife. I walked back into town, again, reviving him, again. This time, however, I didn't go back out to fight them. I turned on vigor and made a run for it. I didn't slow down until I found the Far Oasis in fact. After getting the waypoint I entered into the Maggot Lair. Pratham decided to take the lead in here; mowing down the ever annoying lightning spewing scarabs while I "led" from behind a corner. After several minutes of my life I would like to have back and more wrong turns than I've ever made, we reached the staff of kings. Ignoring everything in the room this time I made haste to town as well.
I waypointed back to the Far Oasis and ran to the Lost City. Normally people joke about the Lost City not being very lost. However, as this shows Pratham did in fact get lost looking for it. After I cleared well over two thirds of the Lost City myself, he managed to wander back onto my screen, just in time to see this goodie fall. While I wasn't yet level enough to use it, I was hoping its charges would be of some use for me when I could use it. My dreams were quickly shattered; not only did it spawn with a low number of active charges, no, it had the guts to spawn ethereal. Just to spite the programmer who allows ethereal items to fall in single player games, I sold it for 968 gold.
*rant* Why do class specific items fall in single player for classes that you don't play? Why do ethereal unique's have to fall as well, has anyone ever found a zod rune on single player, still having a Larzuk socket remaining to use it with?
Obviously flustered as I wasted a good thirty minutes of my life finding the valley of the snakes, which ended up being about four inches from the entrance I used from the Far Oasis, I went into the claw Viper Temple. The Hawkmail found earlier was a wonderful help here, as I was not frozen on a consistent basis. To make up for it though, the game spawned no shortage of Pratham Killers, better known as lightning enchanted monsters. I revived him twice, got sick of doing it and got the amulet of the Sun by myself.
I journeyed through the palace and eventually reached the Arcane Sanctuary. I came to the realization I would need a body blocker here after the first three specters I encountered nearly ripped every limb of my body off. Partially ashamed and worried revived him. It was a good choice, he managed not to die again the entire act. I also noticed his minimum damage was more than twice my maximum damage, so the killing went a lot faster.
Once again, the Summoner had the nerve to spawn on the bottom path, which, as always, is the last one I do. He was much easier this time, partially in thanks to salvation and Hawkmail. He went down pretty much without a fight, dropping exactly 666 gold too. I examined Horazons Urinal and noticed he had left the shape of a Triangle. This tomb was my next destination.
Finding the orifice wasn't so easy though. Most of the tomb was populated by the extremely quick moving and fast attacking apparitions. Gorebellys and burning dead made up the rest of the monsters. Eventually I found the orifice and opened it up, my next task, Duriel. Initially I went in thinking I could use holy freeze on him to keep the speed even. However, he seemed completely immune to it, though he should not have been. I switched to fanaticism and watched my merc dig in from Duriel's rear. While I was more than helpless to assist him, I did make a good decoy who drank my whole belt along with half an inventory of greater and super healing potions. Duriel, as always, left me a phenomenal pile of town portals and gold to pick up as I began the sea voyage to Kurast.
End Stats
Level 37
Str - 86 (85)
Dex - 86 (85)
Vit - 85
Nrg - 15
FR - 18
CR - 80
LR - 52
PR - 47
Life - 338
Mana - 69
return to the Main Page or continue to Act 3 Nightmare