I was out of town on a business trip yesterday so I had a mailbox full of stuff this morning. Hmm, Lair of Death stories you want?....

My useful advice for the day is to all aspiring mages out there: never be the lowest-level mage in an adventure where you tie at Arwic.

A couple months ago Druss led a group to the Mite Maze (right next door to the LoD). It was a typical Source outing for the time w/ Caesas, Leggs, Mizu, (maybe Ping don't remember) plus me and Cronson as mages. Hakeem showed up later (I think that was the first time I met Monty actually). But for quite a while I was the lowest level mage in the group, probably L14 or so.

Man did I get toasted that day. I'd do my best to hide in the back and remain inconspicuous, but it did no good. Those Mites loved running at the mages and in particular the lowest-level mage: me. Cronson kindly pointed out later that he died almost as often and I think that is probably true, but still it was rather depressing. On top of dying a bunch, I couldn't navigate the dungeon alone because so people kept having to come up to escort me down. Then once we were down, the mites chewed on me too fast for me to cast war spells. Mostly what I was doing was buffing myself, healing myself and recovering my bodies. Hmm, that doesn't sound very useful. I think I signed off that day with kind of down and appologized for being a pain in the ass 'cause thats certainly what it felt like I was. Caessa responded very quickly and kindly that I certainly was not a problem and that dying was part of the game and everyone had a good time.

That helped a lot. Thanks Caessa.

I did get a copy of Branith's Staff and learned a lot about how I hate mites. But I obviously didn't learn the most important lesson: never be the lowest level mage exploring a dungeon with a group tied to Arwic.

So I sign on at about 10pm EST Tuesday and Rhodry and Rach' msg me to say that they're at the LoD and that they need help. Everyone is down 'cept Pain (Rimgar was there also). I was in Fort Teth so I hop in the Hilltop portal and begin running E to Cragstone for tapers. I load up w/ tapers and run to Arwic to attune working off the last 1K of vitae penalty on misc reedsharks, shreth and banderlings along the way.

I spent a week or so in the Mountain Pass N of Arwic so I know the area well and run straight to the LoD and msg Rhodry and Rach what I should do. They say they're recovering Rhodry's corpse and are just inside the entrance so I hop in. Indeed the group is right there so I fellow, don my items and do a couple buffs.

The LoD is a very neat looking dungeon with textured purple walls and a very dark sinister atmosphere. Further down in the depths are strange formations rising out of the floor with a glowing, smoking green goo illuminating the room and lending a feeling of other-worldiness. Its certainly no Yanshi Tunnels.

The entrance room is a large rectangle with several tunnels leaving each side all of which quickly slope downward save one which leads to a Surface portal just a few yards back. Near the entrance room Olthoi Nymph spawn and several folk are camped out in the entry way working on that spawn and the occasional Olthoi Worker that someone will bring up with them from the lower rooms.

Rhodry is naked having lost his Hoary Robe and so our first task is to recover his body. We run down a couple of corridors intermingling with several white dots along the way. If we met any workers they were quickly dispatched by the crowd and soon Rhodry is again decent (matter of opinion I suppose). Mostly the passages off the entry way seem to twist and turn and then end up back where we started. Then we find our way down to another room that has several passages leading off of it.

In this lower room, we dispatch a couple of Workers and decide to set up camp. Now is when my fun(?) begins. Whenever a worker spawns, they immediately run for me. Doesn't matter if they have to run through Pain, Rim and Rach to get to me. They run at me. I'm wearing Olthoi Obsession. I have "Olthoi Suck" written on my chest". I have been pre-seasoned with Italian Seasoning. Something. I can simply run back and forth in the room and Rach can eventually take them down but I know that it makes it hard (impossible!) for Pain and Rim to hit since the thing never stands still. Oh and Rhodry has to keep healing me. So some plan. Five of us down there and one person is attacking. Oh well.

Ertai shows up and Rhodry says he is a friend from the Mayoi beaches and wants to fellow. (Wasn't he running around when we were hunting Hoarys? I remember us saying, "Why would you want to name yourself after a really stupid card?" and then discussing what the card actually did. Anyone else remember that?) Ertai is a L29 mage who brings LIV spells to the group and makes sure that I (L22) will get no experience today (Pain L27, Rach L27, Rhodry L24, Rimgar L22). Oh well.

We fellow Ertai and discuss looking for the Olthoi Noble that is at the bottom. We head down a promissing looking passage that goes straight down to one of these green-gooey formations. Man is it packed. There were a bunch of people there. The Workers that do show up are quickly dispatched. I don't know if we got involved at all or if it was the white dots. I know I just stayed away.

Finally we get through another green-goo room to a sloping passage that leads to the final rectangular room. This is where the Olthoi Noble spawns (I think Ertai knew this). We set up in the room with a couple other white dots, one of which is an archer, Yummi(sp?). Noble spawns.

I'm not even going to be impressed if you've already figured out who the Noble comes after.

You guessed it: me. So I begin to run the diagonal of the room. I think a Soldier spawns too so that just adds to the fun. Now there are enough people and we all move quickly enough that it looks to me like the Noble jumps half-way across the room at a time. So I basically can't stop because when he does I get creamed for 30 and I can't tell if he's still really chasing me (he always was) or if he's actually engaged with one of the tanks. Nope he's chasing me. Great. So that eliminates Pain and Rim and of course Rhodry is kindly healing me. And Ertai can't hit the damn thing with a L4 spell because he's moving.

So Yummi with buffed Coord of 200 gets the kill. Oops. Sorry. I'm not even smart enough yet to realize all of this though so the next spawn goes much the same. Yummi gets the kill. Ertai of course knows that I'm lousing it up for all of us and begins to point this out to me. Finally it starts to dawn on me that I just can't be in the room at all if we want to get a kill.

Now I can't recall if we did 2 or 3 spawns that way or whether Yummi just left and we found ourselves alone or what, but we finally decide to wall off the passage way into the room putting the tanks in front and the mages behind. Somewhere here, another mage joins us, Morphius. I don't recall exactly his level but it was something like Ertai, probably 29.

So we settle into formation with each of us having a job. The two non-source mages are going to be casting L4 Shock Wave and so Rhodry is going to Imperil III to help the tanks and I'm going to try to Bludge Vuln III for the mages.

(Aside: Hey, does anyone know why I could easily get Imperil III to stick on the Olthoi but could never get a Vuln III spell to stick? Every Vuln III spell I cast was resisted and I must have tried 20 times or more over the course of the evening. Every time I Imperiled though it worked. My Life was 170-180 but it shouldn't even matter. I never thought that some spells might be more "resistable" than others. )

So we wait in formation for the Noble to spawn and with this technique we are able to take out the noble several times. The mages always get the kill, doing 100 with Force Bolt IV and Shock Wave IV (when its not resisted). But its not without practice and the damn thing still comes after me. One time the tanks attack and he gets through. Another time the Soldier spawns and comes around the side to take out Rhodry and then me in quick succession. Another time I started getting hit, panicked and ran into the room. He starts chasing me and I realized its happening again so I stop and take it like a hero. But the Noble is already dead and so I'm tanking for the stupid soldier. Dumb.

Vitae is climbing and the others occasionally die too. Rimgar once, Rach' once. Morphius died once because we weren't paying attention. The Noble spawned while we were running around in the room above and only Morphius was in place. After Morphius went down, the group came back and dispatched the Noble and then their attention to the Soldier who was chasing me in the big room.

At this point we suspect that someone came in and took our Noble loot. Rach says he saw an unarmed guy running around. Anyway it sucked having someone come take the loot off that one. In fact on the subject, I don't even know anything about the loot that night. I got none and asked for none. I don't even know if anything there was any good. I just picked up scraps that I sold at Teth for 10K and used that to buy 4 500 mana stones to replace the night's usage (man I love those stones).

It was kind of nice to dominate that room. A couple people came down while we were camped in formation. One time a visitor was standing right in the middle of our formation when a Soldier spawned and rushed the group. The Soldier went down quickly and our visitor walked away. Even better was when Yummi came back and we did our formation trick and got Morphius the kill. Yes. Haha. Yummi just walked away too. hehe. Nothing against Yummi, it was just nice to see our planning and practice pay off.

Of course I say our, but at this point I'm contributing 0 to the group. Just like the Mite Maze. I can't hit the Olthoi with War spells. I can't hit the Olthoi with Vuln. Except for Skill Mastery III, I can't buff anyone more than what they can do with their own jewlery ('cept no one else was buffing Endurance, hehe). In battle I didn't have time to heal anyone but myself. And I kept dropping my body.

Man that really sucks. What am I doing here if I can contribute zero to the group. So about the time I realize this and have recovered all my corpses, Rhodry opens a portal to Fort Teth. Don't even have to run out of the dungeon. I think I'm not going to spend any experience after L24 so that I can raise Item 70 points when I get to L26 and cast Summon Portal.

Overall I think it was a good experience. I think a couple people got Olthoi Claws. I liked seeing the dungeon and will be happy to return when my War exceeds 220 and can actually hit the Olthoi w/ L4 spells. But if I do, I'll remember to try and find a mage of lower-level to tag along. I've had enough of that.

-Chris (Khali)