The Battlenet Robe
Wisdom of the Ubers
By Daywen
The night seemed calm as the moon shone in the horizon. A slight breeze made the water in the ocean ripple little wave as the water splashed softly on the sandy beach. The city of Lut Gholein is a savior for people that have traveled days without food and water through the desert.
Our story begins with a seeker, out to rewrite the uber system and find his own way of doing things more quickly. Finding himself in Rogue camp via a product bought at a local mart store, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction is one of the most played games of all time. The money coming from much begging at his parents and friends, because he is unable to hold a job in the current mental state of addiction.
From Act 1, the seeker finds himself traveling down the many depths of floors in the tower until he comes to the last level. He encounters a skimpy dressed lady. The lady, known as the countess, has many a time tricked countless souls from valuable runes and hoarded them on her body. With a swift move, she throws a spear at the seeker. The nick on the face with her spear is a small eye opener to the seeker as he dodges the next attempted stab at his heart. With blood rolling down his cheek onto his neck, he finds the urgency to stay alive and survive this desperate death trap. With a quick smite thrust he catches the leader on the head and knocks her out. Picking quickly through her pockets, he finds a few cheap runes and a secret key. He picks up some gold and then quickly portals to town to assess his findings. He tries to put the key around his neck, but nothing happens.
Continuing trough Act 1, the seeker picks up many items. Some are worthless and others are descent for his level. With no more space available and time moving on, the seeker has to make some decisions. Without any knowledge of a mule, the seeker sells items to the local merchants and finds happiness in the gold obtained from the sale.
The seeker lays down at night and prepares himself for sleep. As he slips into the timeless sleep, he ponders the key in his mind. "What is it for?," he thought. Unable to go away into quietness, his mind battles the body's weakness. With a quick dash to the computer, the power is sent flying through the circuits and connection is created in the realm. With a sip of coffee, the eye's begin to open. Other longer sip awakens the beast of addiction and the day of waste lays ahead.
As the seeker goes to the desert and finds the many challenges ahead. He hears about this great area of teaching called D2JPS. He quickly gets an account and begins the many hours of readying tips and guides. Particular interest lays with him in the most challenging part of Diablo, the ubers. Reading all the guides and learning the many ways, the seeker follows the readings of a few of the top educators on doing the ubers.
The seeker does not know that learning and understanding something are two different things. While the seeker may have the eye of the tiger and a strong desire to do the impossible, he lacks the wisdom that Battlenet has for him. If the seeker only knew that there is an unknown, he would surely show signs of wisdom, but this is far from his young mind and lack of pain.
The seeker continues with the story that unfolds within Diablo. He completes many a quest and long hours of play. As the game progresses, the seeker collects all the keys required for the organs. He makes the portals and easily collects the organs. "How easy can this be…," he thinks, as yet another sign of the wisdom that eludes him.
With his greediness at hand and ready to lay quickness to the level jobs, Battlenet has the greatest lesson to the seeker ahead of him.
The seeker chooses the method of ubering by using the bonewall method. In the bonewall method, the minions are spawned by the release of a wall of bones anywhere in tristum. These spawned minions are released in massive quantities on a special glitched character within tristum. During this release, those hanging around in tristum will get the experience needed to level to the next level and beyond.
The game has progressed from the red portal now and continued by trapping Mephisto carefully into one of the building. All the leechers are brought into the game and are put safely in the safe building, away from the spawned glitched character. As the bonewalls are cast, the minions are killed by two hammerdins that are sitting there casting their hammers in beautiful circles. Bonewall after bonewall is cast and the uber guild is working as it said it should. Yet, battlenet and its sponsors are awaiting the lesson of a lifetime to share with the seeker.
In the sixth bonewall cast, one of the walls in the safe building begins to flicker. It flickers for about 15 seconds, then stops. The wall that was there, is no longer there…and the experience on the leechers continues to allow the leveling to go with ease. The next few bonewalls that are cast aren't done as perfect for maximum spawn. This allows fewer minions to spawn but keeps the game going and no game interruption has occurred.
The seeker wants to rewrite the books and push the envelope by being the first player to get a level 85 within 30 minutes, which is unheard of and will surely make his friends think highly of him. On the ninth cast of the bonewall, another wall disappears. Now reaching level 50 on the level job, and trying for a new record in leveling, another bonewall is thrown and the spawned minions seems very small. A barbarian comes to the area and gives some battle orders and shouts at everyone. The barbarian notices that not many people are around and relays that to the leading commander. The information is ignored. The Necromancer is unable to see himself and those around him. All that is there is a green grassy field with a few brown spots. Bonewall number 20 is thrown and the frames freeze. Maybe 1 frame per 10 seconds. Unable to exit or move, the seeker tries to keep fighting. No action is recorded, and the seeker tries to escape. Still froze and unable to escape, the seeker reaches over and cuts his internet connection…
Meanwhile in the game, it has not been recorded that the connection has been lost. The Merc struggles with fighting and soon is overtaken by the hundreds of minions. The seeker sits there, unable to do anything as the minions slowly chump away at his life. The seeker's heart thumps faster and faster as the unknowing is at hand. He wonders if his character is now alive.
Trying to log back on to battlenet, the seeker is unable to get on. When he finally does get on, the first thing he sees is an advertisement on one of the banners from AT&T. How ironic he thinks, as the worlds leading communications provider and the worlds biggest online game producer team together to produce such lag. He shrugs his head as he looks for his character and seeks out his fate.
From the many showers, to the cold nights, putting on a robe made the body feel extra warm and comfortable. The cotton robe was very nice next to his body, but the robe he was looking at now wasn't a robe of friendly sight. Why did his character have on the Death Reaper Robe? He followed the guilds as they explained. Why did my character have to meet such agony? Why did my character die!?
The seeker sat there sipping on his coffee. With tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he has lost his character that he has spent many hours on. One this day, 7 characters died in a senseless act of greediness and ignorance. Even though he read about cool downs, no impact or lesson is greater than death.
The barbarian, slowly awakening from lag, survived the death because he was in town. He told of the horrible attack from Battlenet. He explained that everyone froze in the game. Something held his arms and legs still and he could not move no matter how hard he tried. It was as if the servers couldn't handle the continued heavy spawning by Mephisto. The barbarian shakes his head as his friends and newly friends are now gone.
The seeker sits and stares out his window. The sun is peaking up in the horizon as it rises. Within a few minutes the sun's light shines on his head. A small smirk forms on his lips and then turns to a smile. A dash back to his computer as a new addictive beginning forms. He opens up his internet browser and types on his address bar: www.d2jsp.org.
Note: This is totally fictional and did not happen. Events using bonewall are partially fictional and are used to create theatrical images. Also, this is my first short story, so be gentle.
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Cheers.