An Amazon of Limited Means

ACT I

Day 1

Kitsilan entered the Rogue Encampment, happy to see so many of her Sisters again. Strange that they don't seem to recognise her as a Rogue. Might be something to do with these pointy sticks she's carrying around. She tried to explain to Warriv that she was only holding them for a friend, but he just kept on about his caravan. A touch miffed, she nevertheless paid her respects to Akara and accepted her first commission: wipe out the Den of Evil.

The pointy sticks proved to have some use after all, as Kits pounced on Zombies and Quill Rats alike in the front half of the Blood Moor. "Icky name for a nice field," she thought, kicking over yet another rock with nothing underneath. Pausing at the bridge to the far section, she counted her takings: 1 level-up, 2 gold pieces and a cracked sash. Not for the first time, she regretted playing the shell game with Adria outside Tristram that last night.

She found the Den of Evil after first tonguelashing Flavia for taking her kills. Fallen everywhere, skittering around like cockroaches. Concealing her disgust, Kits dispatched them with ease. She found she could throw the pointy sticks with some accuracy, nailing Fallen Shamans in one hit, and dodge out of the way of their fire bolts in the same move. Gargantuan Beasts, too, were no problem. "At least this lot's dropping more loot," she noted, stuffing crude caps and throwing knives in her pack. Corpsefire donated a pair of Bronze Heavy Gloves, which helped her AR slightly.

As the last monster fell, shafts of light streamed through the cavern, illuminating yet another dead Rogue. Dusting her hands after flipping the body over for the hidden object beneath it (fulminating potion. hmm.), Kits realized that, despite the new breeds of monsters, the rain, the odd people in the Encampment, the rain, her (temporary) abject poverty and oh look, it's raining again, not much really had changed. She was still slaughtering mistakes of Nature and robbing the dead.

If only she could find a bow, her contentment would be absolute.

Now level 4, Kitsilan gathered up everything she could carry and jogged back to the Encampment. Akara was kind enough to tutor her in some more of the finer points of Critical Striking, giving Kits two points each in that and Magic Arrow. By golly, when she finds her bow, she'll be ready! On the way over to the blacksmith's area, she was accosted by a peremptory Rogue with a stick up her butt about something. Several things, as Kits discovered. At the moment, her main stick had to do with someone named Blood Raven. Apparently she and Kashya, the pissy Rogue, used to pal around a lot together, till Blood Raven took to black masses and raising Zombies. Now Kashya has a contract out on her former friend, and wants Kits to make the hit.

"Yeah, fine, whatever," Kitsilan said, "I gotta go." Breaking away just in time to avoid listening to a rundown of Gheed's sins, she finally found Charsi and offloaded her gleanings. 393 gold pieces won't buy much even in a makeshift camp like this one, so it's back to the grind for Kitsilan.

Inside the Cold Plains, the waypoint popped up right away. So did Dark Hunters and Spearwomen. Kits punctured them and their boss, whose name she did not catch (but whose bright blue quilted armour she did snatch right up), and nosed around an abandoned hut where she finally found a bow. She was all excited till she noticed it was but a crude creation, damage 0-3. Chucking it in her sack, she continued south and east, popping Fallen and Shamans alike, till she ran across a whole nest of them, and Bishibosh in the middle. Shifting into fast gear, she raced around the group, trying to dodge fire bolts while still getting off her own throws. When the dust settled, she was the proud owner of a new, working, Socketed Short Bow, damage 1-4 (ohboy) and another level.

Bishibosh dropped a fancy axe of some sort, which fetched a nice price at Charsi's. Back to the Cold Plains, to see the true worth of Magic Arrow. It certainly looks pretty, but it does use mana at this stage. And the damage is not yet as high as what the pointy sticks would do for Kitsilan, so she's modifying her approach slightly. Run and gun. Run. Run. Gun? Run!

Charsi offered her an Iron Short Bow of Maiming for a decent price, and as it upped both AR and damage (1-7), Kits snapped it up.

Working her way through the Cold Plains, Kitsilan noticed that her dependence on those darned pointy sticks for so long had made her a tad rusty in the conjuring of arrows from Energy. Shucks. She decided to suppliment Magic Arrow with Normal arrows till she'd practised more.

The Burial Grounds appeared in the northwest corner of the Cold Plains. Kits decided to skip them for now and head down into a Cave she found. More Fallen and Dark Rangers. Hungry Dead appeared, as well as walking Skeletons. Not much trouble there. One of them dropped a rare Quilted Armour: +4 to life, +3 to mana, +1 to light radius and Defence of 14. It beat her current outfit, so she put it on.

Coldcrow was the northerly section of Level 1, and donated a Dirk of Flame to the cause of filling Kits' coffers. In Level 2, Kits ran through a small mob of Hungry Dead Champions and a second mob of a Hungry Dead boss and its minions, flipping back and forth between Magic Arrow and Normal. More Fallen, more Shamans. Picked up a nice Cap of Balance and a Glimmering Sash of the Jackal.

Back in camp once again, Kitsilan avoided the accusing glare of Kashya ("I'm almost to the Burial Grounds, I swear! Gottagobye!") and offloaded her leftovers with Charsi. Tiring of wearing clunky old Crude Boots, she resolved to purchase a nice pair, but Charsi was out of boots and suggested Kits try Gheed. Having heard Kashya on the subject of Gheed, Kits was more than forewarned, and approached his wares carefully. Sure enough, a nice pair of boots was front and center on the table, Beryl Boots of Pacing, Fast Walk and 8% Poison Resist. Gheed swore it was the rubber swooshes and the little airpumps, but Kits didn't care what did it—they were good looking and fit just right.

Kitsilan was just about ready to call it a day, but as she was shaking out her bedroll and tucking her new boots deep into her stash, Kashya walked by again, glaring from every pore of her being. Sighing, Kits picked up her bow, donned her boots and trudged over to the Cold Plains waypoint. "You'd think Blood Raven had cheated on Kashya with every Rogue from here to Tristram," she mused, as the lights flashed and the rain fell.

Once in the Burial Ground, Hungry Dead wandered out of the cracks in the walls, mumbling and muttering and then falling under Kitsilan's arrow barrage. Skeletons strode out as well, but offered no real threat. As Kits reconnoitered around the north wall, fire arrows mixed with normal flew in her direction. "Hmm… guess it's now or never. Might be able to catch a few winks before dawn after all." She walked closer to the wall and heard Blood Raven's invitation. "Join your army of the dead?" Kitsilan yelled, "Just like that? Whatever happened to dinner and dancing?" She moved closer to the fence and spied Blood Raven sprinting about, pulling Hungry Dead and Skeletons from their resting places. A few Normal arrows and it was all over. Mop up on stragglers and back to the camp for a little well-deserved rest. Kashya, after telling off one of her cohort to hang with Kits for the time being, wanted to chat about the good old days, when it was only Tristram that had to deal with a Prime Evil infesting its cathedral. Kits had to be firm with her. "Thanks for the sidekick, I think… Does she do coffee? Yeah? Okay, cool, see you in the morning!"

Before Kitsilan could finally close her eyes, though, she had to sit through Akara's spiel on going to Tristram and bringing Cain back. She tried to sort it out, but it was a bit much for her tired brain. "Go to Stony Field. Go underground. Find Tree of… Inifwus? What? What the heck kind of tree is… oh, sorry. Okay so I find this Enflux tree, then what? Yeah? Say, are there any serious monsters around? That many, huh? You sure Cain can't, like, portal his own butt here by himself? Okayokayokay, it was just a thought. Right, fine, I'm on it. Nightie-night!"

Kitsilan finished her first day as an ex-pat Rogue at level 6, with two Quests down, one to go and none further assigned as of yet.