After spending the earlier part of the evening running around Act 5 in Normal, whacking Baal, then cranking through NM Den of Evil and Tristram and finding Cain, all in a day's work for Orchid's Screeching Banshee Assassins, I let my char, st_roch[1], retire for the evening (10 level-ups!) and hauled out pericat for walkies in Hell.
Wailwulf joined me with dieBestie, a lvl 92 Paladin, and we headed for the Countess' tower. I racked up three deaths on the way down, and Wailwulf two (I think), but we perservered through the MSLEB's and eventually clocked the Countess for somewhat less gold than we'd spent on reviving our mercs.
We continued on round the marsh, where dieBestie again bit it to Yet Another MSLEB, and thence into the Dark Wood, where LEBs were less thick on the ground. After clearing that (pericat owed Treehead a beating, and gave it to him this time, so there! ya big wookie), the underground areas and spending really quite a lot reviving mercs, we moseyed into Tamoe. Got about half of that cleared, and found another MSLEB, who was also fanatic, and physical immune, and of course lightning immune and something else, I forget what.
By this time Wailwulf was a-weary, and having died once more, elected to call it a night. No more dieBestie to tank for pericat. I thought about signing off then, but despite the deaths pericat was 2K away from leveling, and I was just a teeny bit annoyed at this last boss.
I thought I could take her. So with the valk at the ready, and Heremod, Boy Tank striding purposefully before her, pericat jumped through her portal and cast another before the boss, Rust Crow, chewed her way through both valk and merc and raced up to pericat's side. For whatever reason, it took several clicks before pericat, with about 10 life points left to her ball, could get through the portal, but she made it.
Line up the valk, get town portal ready on the right, revive merc—wait, out of gold. Damn. Never mind, it'd be a waste anyway. Back through my portal and there's trouble, right there. The valk is hanging on though, and I hit the potion keys pretty quick but my portal won't go up.
This is a hell of a time to run out of town portals, frankly.
Valk goes down right about then, and pericat is already running, with Rust Crow fast on her heels and the map displayed, looking desperately for the the entry to the Black Marsh. About halfway there she loses the boss and pauses long enough to recast the valk and waste the lone minion still chasing her. Through a few more bands of monsters and into the Black Marsh, where the waypoint is of course on the other side.
Wailwulf very considerately left a number of high-ticket items strewn over the lower end of the rogue's camp, so pericat carted it all (except for some gloves with Possibilities) to Charsi for merc-money, not forgetting to stop by Akara for scrolls this time.
Back into the Marsh, and found a spot we hadn't touched earlier and killed enough monsters to level. :) Re-entered Tamoe, cautiously retracing the path of earlier headlong flight—er, controlled retreat. Take out straggling minion. Peek around corner of house, then tiptoe from there to the fenced bit.
Yikes, there she is! Pericat gets due north of her and commences pasting her with Fire Arrow. The fat blobs are spewing out harmlessly to either side of her, but not to either side of the valk (Heremod bit it again, but that was expected) and before pericat can recast her, she's gone and there's Rust Crow right in her personal space. Retreat!
In camp, pericat's potions are well thinned out, but it seemed to me that Rust Crow's life bar had been thinned also, considerably. So through the Marsh waypoint, once again around the house, and Rust Crow target locks on pericat. Around and around she runs in a tight circle, and finally shakes the boss off onto the valk. Three more fire arrows does it—she's down and dieBestie is avenged!
On the bright side, we had found a three-socketed balrog blade in the Tower, and Wailwulf remembered the runeword for King's Grace. Pericat still has all those runes from her recent Lionheart quest, and so now she has a skookum sword no one can lift. :) Should Heremod live long enough to level another few times, he may be able to, or Beobear may, I dunno. Sure is a nice sword.
[1] Some of you may remember st_roch as a hardcore zon. I found HC not much to my liking, and gave her stuff away before suiciding her in a2 normal. She's now resurrected as a team assassin.