Well! As they say after the parachute finally opens, that was fun!
Earlier today in the agd game Mickey deigned to make with the ha-ha upon
learning that my reborn bowazon, pericat, was all of 24, long in the
tooth, practically doddering and mumbling over her milk, and had yet to
go on a Khalimbits hunt, let alone die a zillion times to the Ancients,
which is apparently what he was expecting her to be doing right that
very minute. Instead she was stubborning and slowly levelling in the
Canyon, gritting her teeth at the appearance of Yet Another Swarm of
Death Scarabs, Apparitions, and Preserved Dead. The latter seemed to be
the ones who hung behind to get in the last swipes, so that even her red
screens lacked dignity: pericat was killed by Preserved Dead. pericat is
a luZ3r. pericat has not even enough gold left to rez her merc.

And then there was the lag. The lag yesterday was responsible for at
least three of the six or seven or twenty-three deaths pericat suffered
against Duriel, when she and a most valiant and capable sorceress,
Z-something (I did try to memorize it. I suck.) went on a rampage down
the Palace, through the Arcane Sanctuary and the Summoner, and thence
into the Truly True Tomb.

We didn't have a plan. Duriel did, Duriel's plan was to wear us down
with lag, and between times to charge. After he was dead, and the
celebratory dancing petered out, Z-something had to point out an
extraneous corpse pericat had left on the firmament. It was sticking
half in and half out of the wall of Duriel's lair, testimony to how hard
he'd hit her when she emerged from her portal and then, apparently,
stood dazed, naked and stupid beside it waiting for the server to chat
with my Mac.

So today when that Breeze fella wanted to tiddley-wink with the Council
in Travincal, and was giving away waypoints right and left, pericat
partied up and fired her Duriel-bow (Duriel dropped a pretty decent rare
composite bow, for a change) earnestly at Council-folk, then accepted
the Durance 2 waypoint along with her new fav tank and party-bud,
Z-summat, and spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes dying to Meph
before the portal to Hell came available and they sallied forth to the
Outer Steppes and so on, waxed Izual, did for Hephy, and mowed their way
through to the Chaos Sanctuary.

The three Seal packs were but melting putty in the blizzards of
Z-something. Izual had dropped Razorclaw, so pericat was now shooting
exploding arrows all over the place. Both died a time or two to OK's,
and so used up a fair bit of banked gelt just getting back in the game.
Eventually, though, it was us and the big lizard.

We'd died once or twice, and Diablo's life bar not budged more than a
couple of pixels,  when that Breeze fella offered to join us with his
pally. I said we'd pay him if he partied, though as Z-sorc noted, we
were actually broke so it was but a gesture only. We proceeded to die as
a trio, and after a bit of that (I would sometimes nip back through a
portal, find my corpse, and then spend a noticable amount of time trying
to find Diablo again; we were running him all over the CS. I've never
seen him so mobile.) a higher level sorceress, perhaps weary of having
her muling screen obscured by death notices, offered to static him.

We could have nobly refused, of course.

We're not stupid. We may have been dead, multiple times, but not stupid.
"Yes, please," is what we did say, "that would be really quite splendid,
thank you very much."

Diablo dropped a rare staff that paid for all of our merc rebirths, and
off we went to touch base with Larzuk, burn in our victory, and lick our
wounds. Pericat is a level away from being able to use the Blastbark bow
that EvilBill was kind enough to drop on her head yesterday, and is
looking forward to the kind of happy leveling and killing sprees A5 is
so famous for.

jill