after a gruesome, intense battle, the smith was down and we claimed the malus. charsi will be impressed when we return.



we entered the first level of the jail and were met by demonic goats. one was a champion and they went straight for hhannah. i howled at them, but the leader of the clan was not scared of me, and was wailing at her. she didn't stand a chance... i could not fend all 3 of them at once to save her.... i will not forget you hannah.



i made my way through the rest of the jail levels by myself, so the only ones to see the tears rolling down my face were about to meet certain death by my sword. i battled through and made it to the inner cloister waypoint, where i went back to town and return the malus. with the monsters getting stronger and harder to defeat by myself, i decided it was finally time to get a replacement for hannah. i picked visala. my walls were up and i did not want to get too close to anyone, fearing i will lose everyone i start connecting with. she looked like a slut wearing only a loin cloth -- but it was bedazzled...

we went through the cathedral towards the catacombs and met bone ash. he wasn't too difficult, but visala hardly even shot an arrow at him and was mostly just posing.

i had decided to go back to a sword and shield, as i was starting to take a lot more hits than i had been. i now wield a non-magical crystal sword and buckler. we made it through the catacombs and found the waypoint in level 2. visala was as useless as ever, and when i would walk through a door and explore to reach the next level, she would just wait in that room we cleared. i don't like this bedazzled slut.

level 4 didn't come fast enough, and i wanted to take a breather since i was doing all the swinging with hardly any help. i sat at the base of the stairs, and little ms bedazzled opens the door to the next room and gets herself surrounded by all of the shaman's little minions and a couple bulls. i couldn't help but laugh as she got herself killed.

i went back to kashya and told her she gave me a defected fighter and demanded a replacement. she gave me meghan. i was not going to get attached. we fought off the crowd that killed visala and entered andariel's room, fighting off crowds of monsters so we wouldn't get overrun when we fought andariel.



we cleared the room and started fighting andariel. HOLY TITS. i could feel myself getting weaker and weaker as time went on with the poison she used against us. many potions were used in battle until running out. we made a run for it and hopped through a portal back to town for a visit to akara.



akara didn't realize we were already on the quest for andariel so soon, and she mentioned she had antidote potions as well, which would greatly help me in the fight with andariel. i purchased more potions and a few antidotes and went back through the portal to andariel. the antidote potions definitely helped, and i did not need to use as many potions so quickly. the fight continued, both meghan and i staying fairly healthy.



This post was edited by tehtwitchy on Aug 10 2017 07:11pm

i wasn't even paying attention to the level requirement on find item.. i was thinking of it more mid to late game but i'm hardly putting skill points in, so that is a great idea, thanks! will put it at ~level 5 for now.




andariel's life was fading away and i remembered the gull dagger i had found previously. the +100% magic find would surely get me a new shiny toy! i fetched it out of my pack quickly and switched it out with my crystal sword. meghan died to poison as i was switching weapons. call me heartless, buit i didn't care. i began stabbing andariel with concentration. she was so tall that i had been only able to strike her waist down. she side stepped as i stabbed her and the dagger struck her in the crotch. she died to a crotch strike.. i guess i'd be pretty dead too if someone struck me with a dagger in the willy..



i was surprised with all the goodies that she had stored with such little cover-up.. and no pockets? i found a pretty cool belt that was a huge upgrade, not only for the faster hit recovery, but also to store an extra row of potions!



i threw away my non-magical crystal sword after deckard cain did me the favor of identifying a rare one, which was much better than mine!

Great storytelling!

"story?! this is my life we are talking about!" - chuckie

i spoke to warriv who offered to take me to the east to the next town, lut gholein. he says there any many more quests that lay ahead to the east. he then told me that even though i had slain andariel, she was still alive. not as alive as she was when i had battled her, but resurrected with a curse to staying in her throne, with different types of valuables. warriv told me that i could keep going to her throne to slay her in hopes of finding better gear and become stronger. but before re-slaying andariel, he recommended to obtain the horadric cube in the east to upgrade my gems so i could clear out some room in my stash since it was filling fast, and he would be happy to bring me back to the west. the townsfolk have always given me good advice, so i planned to follow it this time as well.

upon arriving to lut gholein, i acquired a guide, skilled in the arts of polearm combat. he wasn't quite as skilled as he praised, though he was brave and definitely was not a slacker. i did hire him as a guide though, so his pathetic damage compared to my shiny crystal sword did not bother me. he did provide me a nice defensive aura, though. we made it to the dry hills waypoint, and found ourselves both surrounded. azrael could surely stay alive a lot better than the ladies back west, but seemed to only tickle them. i fought my way through the cats and fought off the ones surrounding my guide.



we made it to the halls of the dead.. it did not sound like a fun place to be. it wasn't. there were groups of skeletons constantly, and they had multiple leaders that would resurrect them. when i started seeing the skeletons being resurrected, i figured out we must run through the mobs of skeletons and first slay their leader. it seemed hopeless trying to get through, their numbers were endless compared to just two of us. i yelled out to azrael to make his way through them to help me kill off the ones resurrecting the undead. he ignored me and just kept attacking skeletons as i howled, scaring some of the skeletons away, making a path for myself. azrael is such a dope.



continuing the technique of howling to make a path between the zombies and skeletons and slaying the leaders first and azrael's sitting in the back attacking one skeleton at a time that would just get resurrected.. (sigh), we slowly made our way to the third level of this creepy place. there was a giant chest in the middle of the next room, guarded by more of those silly cats. we fought them off, and it did not seem very difficult after dealing with all those skeletons and zombies being resurrected in the previous rooms. i claimed my prize that i had come for, the horadric cube and went back to town by portal. i thanked azrael for the guidance and nothing more and said goodbye as i went back to the west, upgrading the gems i had been collecting.

i wondered what kind of new shinies i would find from re-killing andariel. i started day dreaming. maybe i'll find a new shield to go with my sword or perhaps a cool helmet to replace the beanie i have been wearing.

Did warriv or Akara tell you about how it's best to take the portal Andariel opens for you and go straight to act 2 then save and exit so that when she returns she will have better loot for You? Perhaps that does not work in this land you are in?

My understanding is you don't need to S&E, and so far as I know it doesn't matter if you go to A2 or even take the Q portal, all that matters is whether you talk to Warriv before you exit the game, no?

That's not how I've always done it. I take q portal, talk to warriv, go to a2, save exit. Maybe there is an easier way but I know mine works. Still curious, Chuck, did it work for you?

You type a lot.