Ballad of the Hamster, Part 1.08

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Coldcrow


Hamster II hadn't been sure what to expect out of life. After all,
he'd dropped into it, fully-formed and complete with baggage, from -
as far as he could tell - absolutely nothing. It was difficult to
expect much, given the starting conditions. But he'd found a lot of
what he'd seen to be dispiriting and silly, and he'd spent a lot of
time being unhappy about it to varying degrees. If anybody had asked
him, he supposed he would have liked to say that, as life progressed
and things began to happen to him in meaningful ways, the silliness
and irritation would begin to fall into context. He'd realise that it
was him, and not the world, that was mixed up, and things would start
to make sense.

However, this didn't seem to be happening yet. So far, things had been
continuing in a way he found annoying and pointless, and he really
couldn't think of anything good to say about it at all. And he fancied
himself as a man with some imagination. He could, after all, raise
skeletons from next to nothing, and clay golems from loam.

Now he was picking his way through what ought to have been a
pitch-black cave, but wasn't. It was, in fact, quite well-lit, but
there were no cracks through to the overcast daylight above, nor were
there luminous fungi. Occasionally he'd come across groups of devilkin
or carvers that had hung their caverns with torches, but that couldn't
account for it all. It had taken him a while, but he realised that the
light was in fact coming from himself.

This small inexplicable and annoying fact was dominating his mind,
because he would much rather think about it than the other annoying
facts in his life at that time, such as the fact that he was still
running around and getting his knees dirty on the whims of the
collection of bossy smoozes at the Rogue encampment. He'd explored the
Stony Field as far as he cared to, and had even backtracked to
Bloodraven's graveyard and looted a couple of the larger crypts there,
but hadn't managed to achieve anything beyond postponing the
inevitable. So he'd sighed, and climbed into the tunnel.

And here he was. Somewhere underground. And down here, in the lichenny
twilight amidst the tree roots and the stifling lack of space and
oxygen, there were...

Huge gorilla bear sorts of things.

Did that make sense? They weren't even hibernating. In fact, if
anything, they seemed to be looking for a fight. Only no force on
Earth could goad them to attack the devilkin or their annoying,
jabbering shamans. Oh no. They would only attack him.

In an unfair world, Hamster II was forced to increase his Barry
complement to five. Murph, his golem, took a beating at the hands of a
collection of 'champion' ape-bear things, but Hamster II was able to
bring him back as soon as he collapsed. At the end of the fight,
Hamster II loaded himself down with gold and strange potions, and
almost came out of the whole thing, on balance, feeling quite good.
Champions, as well as being harder to kill and a lot faster and
stronger, also had a better quality of loot. This was an
almost-logical mathematical point, and restored a little of Hamster
II's equilibrium.

Coldcrow lurked in the lowest reaches of the tunnels, for reasons that
escaped Hamster II, and everybody else besides. She was at least as
daunting a prospect as Rakanishu and Bloodraven, she had a nice
collection of minions and a devastating icy attack. Why these powerful
enemies hadn't teamed up long since, and swept the Rogues of the
Sightless Eye into the pages of history, was a mystery. Why one of
them hung out in a graveyard, and another deep in a hole in the
ground, was another mystery, and one Hamster II didn't feel qualified
to deal with. Why a cave-dwelling demoness had embraced as her weapon
of choice a long bow was something Hamster II was willing to overlook,
since he and Fiona were both guilty of much the same thing.

After a halfhearted attempt at cutting a deal, Hamster II was
compelled to kill her, or at least watch while Murph and Fiona did,
while he shot aimless bolts at her milling minions. Then he searched
her rather rank-smelling body, and found a warhammer. When he'd
searched the long-bow-wielding Bloodraven, he'd found a crossbow, but
a warhammer just seemed to be adding insult to injury, and he would
have dropped it back on the floor and walked away if it hadn't
occurred to him that the stupid thing might fetch a good price.

These activities had given him ample opportunity to get completely
lost in the tunnel network, even though he'd been casually sketching
himself a map as he went, lit up as he was by Hamsterlight. He
eventually located the way back to the surface, but it was a long way
away, and he wasn't in the mood to go all that way just so Charsi or
Akara could give him one gold piece for Coldcrow's amazing
bow-that-was-a-warhammer, and then send him away on another stupid
mission or talk to him more about Deckard Sstupid Cain. So he explored
a side-passage, and eventually crawled his way up to the surface after
all.

"Well Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Fiona and Murph," Hamster II
looked around, "we're not in the Stony Field anymore."

This could only, as far as Hamster II was concerned, be a good thing.



C&J

--
Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads.

- 13 & 13b of 12, the CMM Collective.
- www.afrj-monkeyhouse.org
 
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Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo (More info?)

Hamster II is back! I thought he may have become a part of history.

Good work :)
 
G

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Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo (More info?)

Once upon a time - for example, Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:50:26 +1200 -
there was this guy, or something, called "~misfit~"
<misfit61nz@yahoot.co.nz>, and they made us all feel better by saying
the following stuff:

><snip>
>
>Another sterling effort! Love the word lichenny. :)

Hee hee, cheers.



C&J

--
Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads.

- 13 & 13b of 12, the CMM Collective.
- www.afrj-monkeyhouse.org
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo (More info?)

Once upon a time - for example, Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:39:54 -0500 -
there was this guy, or something, called "Rod Runnheim"
<rodr@lmcg.wisc.edu>, and they made us all feel better by saying the
following stuff:

>Hamster II is back! I thought he may have become a part of history.
>
>Good work :)

Thanks! He's hanging in there. One of these days I might even get him
through Act 1.





C&J

--
Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads.

- 13 & 13b of 12, the CMM Collective.
- www.afrj-monkeyhouse.org