Seven brave adventurers gathered at the Lifestone N of Zaikhal: Rach' mann, Ping, Rimgar Redsun, Khali, Beryl, Rhodry, and Pain corp.

(If you don't know them Pain corp (L13 Unarmed) and Rimgar Redsun (L14 Axe) recently pledged to Rach' mann. Pain adventured with us on the Hoary hunts as Nan toi and pledged Pain into the group when we said we needed some more fighters to adventure with us. Rimgar hooked up with us just by chance in the Hunter's Leap dungeon and has been adventuring with the group ever since. He just last night worked off his experience penalty for breaking with his former allegiance and pledged to Rach' mann. Welcome to both.)

So we seven headed N up the road to the entrance of the Hall of Helms. All we knew about it was that it had undead and some liches and that the Helm was at the bottom. We entered and quickly explored the upper areas. Any zombies we happened to encounter fell before our awesome power. Us seven at full strength took out three or four zombies with hardly any healing work for us mages. Even the occasional Lich didn't really present any danger.

The biggest danger was loosing our way and loosing members of the group. We did some stumbling around, but eventually jumped down near the entrance and later jumped down again. Neither jump was bad, but you never jump down casually if you don't know how to get back out. So we took our time and cleared out most of the areas, steadily working our way down. Found a couple of black rats, but their lair was just a red herring. The real passage is to the left...

Finally we found some stairs that emptied out into a large curving room with some zombies and a couple lich or undead inside it. We dispatched the creatures and rested a moment, healthy but a not at 100% strength. We knew we must be close to the bottom.

Which we were. A short curving passage without doors connects the outer chambers with the lair of the Guardian. The Guardian caught us by surprise while we were spread out and he with his full complement of Zombie guards.

What with the high magic resistance of the dungeon inhabitants and the size of our group, I had not been casting War spells this whole time, focusing instead on healing and on the occasional buff. I was still outside the room in the corridor when someone ran by, Zombie in tow. I started running through the fellowship list and saw Rach'mann at 21/76. I quickly tried to get my focus on him so I could get a heal off.

Your fellow Rach' mann has died.

Damn. Oops Zombie in my face...hits for 4...for 3...Good Beryl is here. Can't worry about the zombie--gotta make sure no one else dies. I see the zombie go down.

Oops 'Nother zombie here. Ouch.

Guardian of the Helm slices you with Whirling Blade V for 37

Damn, thats no zombie. I run into the outer chamber where we had come from hoping perhaps his interest is in guarding his space...Um, nope its in taking out any magic user...shoot.

Heal Self II, Heal Self II, you're too busy! (ARRGH), Heal Self II

I can't heal myself fast enough to stay alive though. I was hoping to tank because I could clearly see about three chars in the vicinity and I was hoping that he was almost dead and I could just keep him busy. Of course later I would find out that he'll chase you around as long as you are a mage and totally ignore the others who are kicking his ass, so I should have ran, but that is what pressure does for you: I panicked and just hit HealHealHeal.

Anyway the tank thing kinda worked because the ones left hadn't taken much damage if any and he did go down soon afterward. Of course our big disadvantages in this battle were that (1) we entered the room too spread out and unprepared and (2) he had all his zombie cohorts to keep us busy while he decimated the three of us with high level spells.

So we had one helm.

Oh yeah, I think I must have missed the message where Rhodry died because as soon as I've finished putting a nice shine on the lifestone Rhodry is a few paces away, naked as the day he was born. So Rach', Rhodry, and I are back at the entrance trying to remember how to do this again. Our hope was to run through quickly enough to get back before respawn.

Of course this always what we try to do and it always fails miserably because all you have to do is get a little lost by yourself and you're in trouble. So indeed our first attempt down, Rhodry and I got separated from Rach--mostly because Rhodry and I didn't know where the hell we were going--and I managed to have a Zombie cast Weakness III on me, putting my burden over 200%. When I investigated the stats on my burden, it informed me that being this overburdened reduced my Defense, Jump, and Run stats by 100%. So its kind of hard to move when you have 0% Run. Fortunately at about 20 health, 20 stamina, and 20 mana, Rhodry and I took out the last zombie near us and we limped up a ramp to safety. Rach came back to find us, but the damage was already done.

So anyway, we were delayed. Then respawn happened. The first message we got was Pain corp going down. Rach, Rhodry and I decided we'd get back to the entrance to meet Pain corp. Then not to long after we saw Ping and Rimgar die in quick succession. I just knew we were going to see Beryl come across any minute.

Your fellow Beryl has died.

Yep. K, time to try this again. Rhodry and I are still lost and manage to not find our way out. Eventually we stumble upon some green dots, only they're about 30 feet below us on the flor. We overcome our lack of directional sense by jumping off the ledge to join the others. Of course I manage to land directly on top of Rhodry threatening to leave another of our corpses on the floor of the hall.

But all is well and our party is together again, our bonds strengthened by the that angry little yellow sun on the red field that mocks us while we watch our attacks evaded and our enemies land criticals. Ah, the sweet curse of vitae. Oh, where was I...drifted off for a moment...

Oh yes, we were descending over the second jump heading toward the depths where that accursed Guardian would get his.

I think this second time down it was a little bit dicey. I think this is probably where I got him on me again and I just decided to run back and forth around that outer chamber. At first I was kinda scared of his magic slamming me in the back so I was circling, but once I got Rhodry tuned in to healing me and I got up from 20s to 60s, then I started doing straight lines to try to help the archers. So eventually the Guardian went down.

Helm number 2. And I think this is where we got the first Fiery Shield (see pic). I never got a helm or a shield (I didn't want one) so I never got a pic of the stats, but Rhodry had the stats and now a number of people have one or both items. I'm not even sure at the end of the day how many of either we ended up with, but I think if anyone really wanted one, there's probably an extra somewhere.

Well, at this point it becomes somewhat anti-climactic because once we knew the Guardian was there and could be better prepared, and once we had eliminated all the zombie support that had nagged us the first time, well it actually got pretty easy. And I started playing with buffing everyone with L3 Creature spells. And we started taking him down with him doing just a little bit of damage to one of the mages.

So we took a bunch of screen shots, had some fun and got ready to go. Then we had a minor mishap. We hear "Pain corp died". Then another "Pain corp died". WTF? Apparently the second one was coming over the second jump...must have had three zombies waiting for him at the bottom of the jump. Man, ok. Lets just leave out the back and all come back down again. Ping? Rhodry?

We managed to leave out the back exit without Ping or Rhodry. I think Ping must have been casting Item spells and I think Rhodry started going out the way we came in. Pretty soon we got word Rhodry died. I started to run back down the stairs toward the Guardian lair, even though once the gate closes you can't get back through that way. I meet Ping on the stairs, "Oh great, glad you made it..."

Your fellow Ping has died.

What? There is a black rat standing next to me. Blast, blast. No more rat. Shoot I was standing right here ready to talk and not paying any attention to his health. Dumb. Here's a tip. If you're searching for someone, click on their row in the Fellowship tab and check on their health. Kind'a important. *shake head*

K, so up and down again.

We all meet at the entrance and go down again. This time we all know where we need to go and what we need to do and we quickly return to the bottom, picking up Pain corp's second corpse on the way, and recover bodies. We camp some more.

At some point an approx L30 mage came down, won a kill and then left the prize, portalling out. A few others ran through but the sheer size of our group I think intimidated others, causing them to think they'd have to wait 8 respawns to get a helm.

There was also an archer (L25-30?) with all pyreal equipment that had the group oohing and aahing. He took down the guardian once. Gave me the corpse, but it didn't have a helm. Actually think that was just before we went up and down to get bodies. He stuck around with his friend (PK, don't remember name) to take another kill and then left. I think we left shortly after.

All in all it was a great adventure. I picked up a ton of magical loot, burned through almost all of my comps (thx for the copper scarabs Ping and Rhodry) and had a blast. Rach'mann did a great job leading the adventure and keeping the group together. True our group overpowered the dungeon, but I didn't mind not having to go nuts recovering bodies or worrying about loosing stuff. It was nice to have the fighters join us and made a big difference. Other than the Guardian's lair, I think I had Zombies nick me twice along with a handful of annoying rats. It really helps to have a couple chars block the passage up front.

Thanks to all for coming. And the obligatory "I can't believe you're still reading this" disclaimer that awards anyone a silver star for making it through the whole thing.

See you in Dereth,

-Chris (Khali)