An Amazon of Limited Means

Day 9

Another sunny day in beautiful, downtown Lut Gholein. Kitsilan awoke and peeked in her stash. The cube was still there, so she figured maybe Cain wasn't as sticky-fingered about Horadric stuff as it seemed.

"Strong coffee they make here," she mused as she considered her options. There were some further instructions to this whole Horadric scavenger hunt Cain had sent her on two days ago. "Okay, so I need to go to the Far Oasis and…"

Fara caught her Malus and turned to find a very disturbed adventurer in her face.

"MAGGOT LAIR?!"

"Yes? What about it?"

"I'm supposed to hunt for this stick thing in a cave full of maggots?"

"Have you seen this lovely new belt I just got in?"

"Are you trying to change the subject?"

"It has 21% fire resist and Fastest Hit Recovery."

"Oooooh, that is nice."

Buckling on her new belt, Kitsilan next tackled Cain. "What's all this about a Maggot Lair?"

"The Horadrim designed these hiding places to reveal themselves to worthy heroes like you."

"'Worthy heroes', eh?"

"Shall I start from the beginning of my Horadric Speech? I can, you know."

"That's okay—I'll just be getting along now, got some maggots to smoosh. Bye!"

The Dry Hills waypoint was free of camping nasties, but they soon showed up as Kitsilan began clearing her safe zone. Cave Leapers, Undead Scavengers and Saber Cats all wanted a word, which they didn't get. A little way north of the waypoint, Kits was accosted by Flesh Shield (fire enchanted), a Saber Cat whose minions didn't appreciate Kitsilan escaping her death explosion. Then a bit west of there, by the cliff stairs Kits found a trio of Saber Cat Champions, who courteously approached her one by one and dropped a decent amount of gold.

After clearing the lower section of the Dry Hills once again, Kitsilan felt ready to move into the Far Oasis.

Itchies greeted her at the entrance, minions, in fact, and their boss Itchies, Dragon Widow the Slayer (spectral hit), which had to be the fanciest name Kitsilan had ever seen on a pack of bugs. She was laughing so hard, they actually got quite close to her before she remembered to shoot.

Sand Maggots were easier to smoosh from a distance than she'd feared. Their offspring, while annoying (not to mention creepy) were also handily dealt with at an arrow apiece. Undead Scavengers showed up from time to time, and Kits was careful not to let them get close enough to bite.

The lower section of the Far Oasis appeared to be shaped as a large rectagular doughnut. Kits headed clockwise along the southern canyon, then doubled back to do the same down the northern canyon. She met with nothing more durable than the birds and the maggots, and had begun to relax a little.

Then the beetles showed up. Minion Scarabs, and rather a lot of them. Kits dodged their bolts pretty well, and by the time the boss showed up was feeling cocky about her beetle scorecard. Flesh Wound (cursed) crawled over the remains of his minions and scuttled toward her. "Yeah, I'll bet a flesh wound's the best you can do, too!" she taunted, jigging backward and rapid-firing Magic Arrows.

She was right, and stirring around in his carcass, she came up with a Ring! A real, true, sure-nough Magic Ring. It'd been so long since she'd seen one, she could hardly believe it. This one had -1 to Magic Damage, one of her favourite attributes, and she put it on in place of her Akara ring.

She took a few paces forward, and noticed more Scarab minions milling around. They went down, and then there were yet more again. "This is getting ridiculous," Kits thought, "I wonder if…"

Beetleburst (magic resistant) crawled into view from behind a ruined wall. Luckily, magic resistance does not seem to apply to Kitsilan's arrows, and after leading Beetleburst a merry chase around a rock, she brought him down as well. He dropped a broad sword. She decided she liked Flesh Wound better.

About three-quarters of the way along that northern canyon were the stairs up the cliff to the other half of the Far Oasis. After clearing out the rest of the lower section, Kitsilan trotted up the stairs to see what she could see. She headed clockwise from the stairs and very quickly found first the Maggot Lair entrance and the waypoint. And not terribly far away from that seemed to be the entrance to the Lost City. Rather than enter, Kitsilan decided to go back to Lut Gholein and tell them she'd found their city.

For some reason, they didn't seem to care. Oh, well, Kitsilan stored away a socketed short battle bow she'd found along the way and went back to finish decimating the hordes of the Far Oasis.

Time to crawl inside the Maggot Lair. A stop in town to empty her pack, gamble away her current life savings on as worthless a pair of chain boots as you'd ever see masquerading as Treads of Cthon, and she was ready.

First room she came to, right at the entrance, had two chests full of potions and other useful things. Kitsilan's opinion of hanging around in maggot lairs began to rise just a bit. She melted the goop away from a passage and walked into it cautiously, casting SM every so often. Black Locusts and Rock Worms buzzed and skittered toward her, but the narrowness of the passageways proved to be a real boon as it forced them to come at her one at a time. Nevertheless, there were so many of them she had to watch her mana levels.

Someone dropped a ring and someone else dropped an amulet. Kitsilan took these as good omens for the future, even though they were all but useless baubles. Ring of Might and Amulet of the Apprentice.

Making her way through the corridors once again, she heard the chittering of maggots somewhere up ahead. Casting SM, she turned to fire and found herself facing, not maggots but Scarab minions! She backed up in a hurry, but the way was blocked by Black Locusts who had come down from a nearby corridor. Pit Drool the Grim (extra fast) had apparently heard her on the subject of Flesh Wound and wanted to discuss it in detail. Not really feeling up to it without a little more space, Kits blasted away at the Black Locusts, only to find they were backed up by Rock Worm Maggots and their young. With nowhere to go, Kits bit the bullet and fired point blank into Pit Drool's mouth, hoping against hope the charged bolts would go into the walls.

They did, and the minions went about the same way, with the maggots and remaining locusts on their heels. Wiping her brow, Kits bagged Pit Drool's drop (fancy chain boots. Not Treads. Just… chain boots.) and some other odds and ends and headed for town.

In the last section toward the northeast, Kitsilan rounded a corner and came across a boss Rock Worm, Wind Jade the Dead (magic resistant), which name Kitsilan thought very apt and did her best to make it true in fact. Wind Jade's minions were clustered so thick about her that none of them could do much more than spit at Kitsilan, though some of their hatching brood wriggled out.

The fancy chain boots turned out to be marginally more useful than the Heavy Boots Kits was wearing (both Fastest Hit Recovery), so she swapped out.

Not much left to level 1 after that, so Kitsilan went back to where she'd spotted the hole down and dove in. Level 2 was much the same as level 1, with the addition of a few Sand Maggots. Around the fifth or sixth one, Kits leveled up to 19, and betook herself to town for the second part of that three-part skill.

"What's next?" she asked Fara, who was paging through the instruction sheet and frowning.

"Looks like Cold Arrow."

"Say what? Cold Arrow?"

"Fraid so."

"Well… all right, then."

With that out of the way, Kits rummaged through Fara's magic counter and came up with a very pretty breast plate, Damage -1, 67 defence and lightning resist 22%. She'd been short damage reduction ever since she put Tarnhelm on, and this looked the perfect opportunity to remedy that, especially with the lightning resist on top. Well pleased with herself, she nipped back down to smoosh some more bugs.

Level 2, aside from Kits' personal level-up, was rather a bust in terms of boss monsters or even tough monsters. A few more locust clouds and Sand Maggots, and Kitsilan was ready to head down to Level 3.

Level 3 turned out to be almost an anticlimax. Kitsilan headed purposefully down the long tunnel leading away from the entry. A Rock Worm opposed her passing, and she gunned it down. For once, she could also target and destroy its eggs—some vile magic of the Maggot Lair had protected many of them from her arrows. She could see them. She could shoot at them, but they remained unharmed. She thought that was a pretty dirty trick.

She turned a corner and there, in a large room before her, was the biggest, ugliest Sand Maggot she'd ever hoped to avoid. Coldworm the Burrower (cold enchanted, magic resistant), it was called, and it was not alone. Many Sand Maggots crawled about, keeping it company. On the floor of the tunnel Kits noticed the remains of about twenty or thirty of their young. She'd been doing a bit of shooting in her first reaction to the sight of Coldworm.

Moving a few steps closer, she targeted the bloated form and fired away. Five Magic Arrows later, Coldworm was no more. Kitsilan prudently dashed back up the tunnel, to give it time to cease spewing poison chunks about the room. When she thought it safe, she went in and took out the rest of the Sand Maggots.

Coldworm's drop was a blue full helm, 9% cold resist, which seemed the sort of bitter joke a dying bug would play. But the glowing chest yielded up what Cain later swore was the Staff of Kings, so Kits put it in the Cube to keep safe by.

The rest of the level was almost empty, except for one room containing Puke Hack the Dark (spectral hit) and her minions. Puke Hack dropped nothing special, but did chase Kits around the room more than was usual for her. She'd been trying Slow Missiles on the lot of them and then dodging their poison spitballs. She's getting better at it.

Back in town, she gave the rest of her takings to Fara, barely noticing even what they were, let alone the price they'd fetch. Fara handed over the gold and asked, "How'd you fare in the Maggot Lair after all?"

"It was routine. Just a lot of bugs, really."

Fara smiled. "Good."