Shikha’s tale, or how Alcippe got her groove back

Shikha rose early that morning and breakfasted alone, ignoring the questioning glances from the other rogues. “They’ve noticed it too,” she thought.

It was undeniable now: her boss Alcippe was depressed and badly off her form. Ever since they’d entered this Hellish plane of existence, they’d been having a thoroughly rotten time of it. Despite all Alcippe’s skills at dodging attacks, her life-leeching equipment, and her impressively dextrous shield blocking, she simply couldn’t tank it any more. And, in Shikha’s opinion, the amazon was relying far too much on her sidekick’s cold and fire arrows to get the job done against the all too common lightning-immune monsters.

The expedition against the Countess had been an unmitigated disaster. Not only had Alcippe become foolishly obsessed with a lightning immune, physical immune MSLEB goat demon in level 3 of the tower dungeons, dying more times than Shikha cared to remember and wiping out a full quarter of a level’s worth of experience, but the Countess had dropped absolutely nothing. No runes, no gold, no items, nada. The smoke had curled around the Countess’s chest but it hadn’t bloody opened. Shikha had seen the bitter, bitter disappointment in Alcippe’s eyes, but neither of them had said anything.

As Shikha ate her gruel she cast her mind back to the defence of Tristram. She had once gotten blocked at a nasty staircase trap in the caves, she remembered. Despite all the magical abilities she had enjoyed in those days before the pollution of the Sightless Eye, she simply could not get past those demons thronging the stairs. She’d had to hone her skills and get better kit before she could face them, and most importantly she’d had to regain her confidence in herself. Shikha rose from the refectory table. She knew what she had to do.

“Morning. You sure got up early.”

“Yeah, I felt like a bit of exercise, but this weather isn’t helping. You know, I was thinking how much crisper the air is in Harrogath. Waddaya say we go back to the Bloody Foothills and spill ourselves a pint or two of demon blood?”

Alcippe’s eyes brightened. “Pack your kit,” she said.

Shikha never tired of astral travel. There was something uniquely exhilarating about it: a visceral surge of raw acceleration as stars screamed by faster than arrows. “Players 8,” she whispered as soon as Harrogath swam into focus.

“Now this is more like it,” cried Alcippe, as lightning fury rebounded from the walls and another pack of Death Maulers turned up their toes in perfect unison, leaving a rather bemused barbarian in the middle. “It’s a thing of beauty. Mind you, they’re a bit tougher than usual, don’t you think?”

Shikha reddened. “About that. Since we’ve come all this way, I thought we’d make things a bit more, ah, worthwhile.”

“You didn’t! You can’t!”

“Actually, I can. Akara taught me the chant. It’s a chant, not a spell, so anyone can invoke it who knows the proper intonation.”

“How much?”

“Eightfold.”

“Blimey. I’d have guessed about fourfold. I must be getting better after all.”

Shikha turned away and smiled.

“Well, Shikha, this was the best idea you’ve had in ages.”

“I still wonder whether you should have sold Langer Briser.”

“Nah, it’ll always be javelins for me. Besides, I already deal plenty lightning damage enough. C’mon, I’m just short of a level up. Let’s hit the Crystalline Passage.”

Back in the Hell world, Alcippe stood in front of Akara’s mirror and reviewed her kit. She knew now that she still had it in her, but something had gone badly wrong with her tanking ability in this new world. Since her attack rating, defence, life leech and blocking were fine, even for here, it had to be her resistances. Sure enough, they were all negative when she wore her Rhyme shield and only a couple were just barely positive with her Ancients’ Pledge shield.

Hmm. Goldwrap, Venom Grip and Gore Rider. She wasn’t likely to better those any time soon. She had two sets of very high damage javelins, one of them with a substantial bonus to attack speed, so no immediate chance of improvement there.

But her helm and armour! How could she have been so stupid? She’d chosen them both when she was finding it hard to get enough mana, and that simply wasn’t an issue any more. She threw off her jewelled Bahamut’s Circlet of the Locust (+15 max damage, 5% life steal, +106 mana) and put on the dusty Lore sallet that had seen her through so much of the Nightmare world.

“Well, Shikha, that helps the lightning resistance at least. But I think I’m stuck with this Iceblink for now, even though it doesn’t seem to be freezing them much in this world. At least it has a perfect skull in it.”

Shikha meanwhile had been rummaging around in the stash. “Remember this?” she said, pulling out the Mahim-Oak Curio.

“Sure I remember it. An ordinary skeleton dropped it in the NM Lut Gholein sewers. You don’t forget a drop like that, but you’re not seriously suggesting that I substitute it for Beast Beads?”

Alcippe had crafted Beast Beads herself and was justifiably proud of it:

“Try it on, Alcippe. Just for me.”

Alcippe’s jaw dropped as she looked in the mirror. She actually dealt more damage with the Mahim-Oak Curio than with Beast Beads, and the overall benefit to resistances outweighed the loss of fire resistance, of which she already had enough, and poison resistance, about which she didn’t care so much. When she swapped to her Ancients’ Pledge shield, her resists became quite viable, if not exactly what a girl might wish for.

“Rogue, you’ve just earned yourself lunch at Atma’s. Then we’ll come back here and kick some demon arse.”

Thus renewed, Alcippe screamed though the Black Marsh like a chainsaw through butter. She considered clearing the Hole, but there was work to be done, so she pressed on into the Tamoe Highlands, where she had the misfortune to encounter Moon Shifter the Sharp (skeleton archer, multishot, lightning enchanted, cold enchanted, immune to poison) lurking in a carver camp.

Before Alcippe realised it, her lightning fury, while taking out practically everything else in two shots, had provoked a storm of bolts from Moon Shifter that instantly did for Shikha and left Alcippe with just a sliver of life.

Alcippe had a teleport amulet in her stash and could easily have parked him, but this had become a point of honour. She returned to camp and equipped Ancients’ Pledge and her highest physical damage javs, leaving Shikha safely dead. With much use of Slow Missiles and Decoy, careful throwing of her javs and a great deal of footwork, she eventually wore Moon Shifter down, although it took about half an hour, and several visits to Charsi to replenish her javs. His drop was predictably unremarkable.

“Nice to be back. You know, you didn’t have to do that,” said Shikha, stretching her newly-remade muscles in the afternoon sun.

“Yes, I did. You got me my groove back, and I’ll be damned if I don’t avenge you and prove your faith in me before your fellow rogues. If I’m not mistaken, you’ll be dining at the high table this evening.”

“Alcippe, we rogues are in exile. The high table is a plank on two trestles, just like the other refectory tables. And you should think seriously before trying stunts like that: I mean, you wouldn’t see your friend Morgana or your sister Hippolyta taking such risks. I’m not worth it.” Shikha regretted these words even as they left her mouth.

Thunder flashed in Alcippe’s eyes. “It’s still the high table. And I’m not Morgana. Never forget that.” Alcippe’s expression softened. “Do you have older sisters, Shikha?”

“No, I’m the only one.”

“Then you don’t know what it’s like always to walk in someone else’s shadow. Enough of this. I think we can leave the Pit to your fellow rogues: it’s time to assault the Monastery. One other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Morgana is not my sister. Hippolyta is my sister. Do not mention them in the same breath.”

“Got it.”

“What’s that you’re writing in your diary, Shikha? Show me.”

“Nah. S’private.”

“Show me that.”

“Nah. Ow. Hey. Ow.”

“Ha! Let’s see...”

“Shikha.”

“Yes, boss.”

“You need to work on your spelling. For one thing, it’s Tran Athulua.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Shikha,” said Alcippe, more gently this time.

“Yes, boss?”

“It is a crap armour, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t suit ya for this world.” (Shikha may be slammed out of her head on Harrogath ale, and dying to crash out, but she still knows that this question is the amazon equivalent of “does my bum look big in this?”)

“Any ideas?”

Shikha forced herself to focus. “Urgh. Well, there’s that double-socketed superior chain mail that we found. Why not make a Smoke out of it? You have a Lum rune, and I’m thinking maybe someone else you know might be willing to give you a Nef. You talked about an ‘Ethernet LAN’ chant you could use for that.”

“Shikha, ‘Ethernet LAN’ isn’t just a chant. It’s a very involved ritual. It means summoning a second, independent world into existence and binding it with ours. We’ll have some help from the priests of MacOS but even for them, the casting of the TCP runes must be done very precisely. Shika?”

“Zzzzzz.”

As Shikha slept, Alcippe performed the Ethernet LAN ritual and visited her faithful family retainer Noxambula, a retired assassin whom she and Hippolyta had hired, mostly to annoy Morgana.

“You know, you just missed your sister Hippolyta,” she said. “She got your chant and sends her best wishes. She dropped off this Nef rune for you and left with the Crown of Thieves [1]. Apparently her Act 2 Might merc is having a bit of trouble staying alive.”

“Uh-huh. Where do I sign for this?”

“Here and here. Got lots of good triple-socketed armours here if you ever want to make yourself a Lionheart.”

“I wish. Well, you have my talisman, so chant me if anyone drops off a Fal rune. Meanwhile, look after this Iceblink for me. Til next time.”

“Morning. Oh. Is that what I think it is?”

“Yup. Chain mail with added Smoke. Get the resists on this.”

“That gunmetal look kind of suits you.”

“You think?”

“Oh yes. And I also think it’s time to smash through the Smith and Andariel and blow this gaff for Lut Gholein.”

“Let’s go, girl.”

With her new resists, Alcippe could mostly use her Rhyme shield rather than her Ancients’ Pledge, and fairly stormed through the Barracks. At one point she conjured a Valkyrie with a rather interesting-looking blue pike, but she didn’t last.

“Nice pike, outlander. Let me know how she does.”
“I don’t rate her chances much myself. Shikha?”
“With that colour sense, I can’t see how she survived the first time around.”

Before Alcippe knew it, she’d found the Smith. “I’ll make weapons from your bones” he bellowed, as he cursed both her and Shikha.

“You’ve not the stones to break my bones!” cried Alcippe, “And I’ve got a curse of my own!” Falling back, she touched her mind upon the red glow that shone dully between the runes in her new armour. An unearthly force seized her lungs, and as she spoke words that she could not comprehend, gouts of yellow fire formed above the Smith’s head.

Alicppe switched to Jab and laid into the Smith while Shikha poured in cold and fire arrows.

In seconds the Smith was dead.

“Gotta love cursing things.”

“Wait till Charsi hits you with the repair bill.”

“Cheaper than resurrecting you, babe.”

All the Smith’s groupies had been hiding out in his forge room. Alcippe cleared them out with only two well-placed lightning furies and returned the Malus to Charsi. Taking a rain-check on Charsi’s reward, Alcippe pressed on through the Jail and Inner Cloister to the Catacombs.

“Hey, Cain, what sort of large charm is this?”

“This, Alcippe, is a Flaming Large Charm.”

“I can see that, you fool. I’m the one who’s been carting it around. Now what sort of flaming large charm is it?”

“No, Alcippe. This is a Flaming Large Charm. It adds 20-36 fire damage.”

“Well, some elemental damage at last. Not a lot, but I suppose it’ll help.”

“It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. No offence.”

[1] Not the Undead Crown as previously reported. Morgana has that. Noxambula wasn’t hired for her book-keeping skills. Back.

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