Yeah, that was awesome. Sticking a Pan with two Drain Health I, the first for 60+ HP. Stupid broken Life Magic. This event caused me to reflect on just how far we, both as a group and as individuals, have come such a long way from our beginnings late last year.

Khali DT is L22. When Khali HG was L22, I was still primarily hunting around Mayoi still trying to perfect the Vuln/Bolt tricks I had learned from Sudden Season and trying to avoid Shadows which were, for my purposes, untouchable. The Dires were some fantastic myth where the monsters were fierce and people who were in their 30s(!!!) got silly vitae (and silly XP). Oh and Teth had these vendors that would give you better prices than Yanshi and people were starting to pull in big money (and bigger loot). I still didn't have item (got it at 26) and so I had no way of
getting out to the Dires unless I was part of a group thing and at the end of the day I had to run through the Hilltop portal to get back to safety.

I think my second trip to the Dires was for the trip to make Josh PK. Druss' story is a classic and of course contains the classic line "SHANT SAVE YOU". Read it here:
http://www.2deck.com/thesource/lib/druss/000126_nicest_pk_ever.html. I was probably about L22 at the time and the highlight of the adventure was Druss and Mizu taking out that double Pan spawn.

Now keep in mind that we'd seen Tuskers that ID to L126 but *I* certainly had never seen anyone kill one (and I did see several of us die to them later that
afternoon) so having a Shadow that was L126 was something on the order of the hardest thing in the game I could imagine. Remember Umbris didn't exist yet. Neither did Diamond Golems, or Great Skeletons or about a hundred other things that are harder than Pans. Taking them out seemed to be the sort of heroic
fantasy that only a group of us would even think of attempting. And even then it was risky.

Oh, and remember that the whole buff-the-robe tech that came out of Sudden Season hadn't become so ubiquitous that every mage wore a robe. I wore a Matty
Coat till L26. There were no stinkin' robes. And I didn't even really buff all the protects and stuff either. I probably just wore Armor III and maybe Bludg
III over my Matty Coat with maybe AL90 Legs or something. I mean I was so close to getting 1-hit by a Pan that I was, quite properly, scared to death of this guy targeting me. So I very tentatively healed Druss as he tanked the Pan and had a great day. I was glad to have lived.

Fast forward two-thirds of a year to Khali DT. Khali does all his hunting in the dires. Khali DT takes out Copper Golem pairs that Khali HG couldn't land a spell
on until L28. Khali DT knows the activation range of all the Dires monsters, knows which ones hide off radar, knows the general density of the spawns around
Teth, and aggravates very few Wasps and Ash Gromnies compared to what Khali HG used to do. Khali DT can imp and bane his clothes so that he can tank drudges
instead of running. Khali DT still dies plenty of times, but the risks he takes offer greater rewards than the ones Khali HG took.

So yesterday, Mhali and Quexle and I stand before a standard Dires Shadow spawn that is guarding a corpse I stupidly left at their feet: 2xUmbris, 1xPan, 1xLt,
1xShadow, a configuration that is very familiar to me Quexle used the now standard tech of yielding the Umbris and then we all ran, which is of course the biggest development made in fighting the shadows. After the first Umbris went down, the Pan was drawn and thats where I got my two drains in. I guess I should call the Drains tech too, because I sure as hell never would have thought to try and drain the Pan those many months ago. Of course my puny life skill against his normal resistance would have been futile but Khali DT's spec'd/buffed Life (196) vs. a yielded Pan gave me two drains in four tries.

I think it is really an amazing contrast in my knowledge of the game and my approach to hunting plus an interesting summation of how much we've learned
about living in the Dires to think of these two incidents. I also think it is interesting to remember how relatively tame Dereth was back then.

Perhaps the biggest change is our sense of relative size. Back then, L20 was pretty big to me. Now its more like L40 or L50, probably higher now that Aerlinthe arrived. I can remember at L28 feeling like I was about as big as I needed to be. I can remember feeling like Garurumon had ridiculous levels. And then I find out the other day that he's only like L42 which seems really small now. I mean Khali HG is L42 and I certainly feel small there.

-Chris (Khali)