Mizor (Chapter 12)

Template:Mizor nav Approaching Travincal, Mizor saw several tall buildings that had once been grand. Neglected and falling apart, they surrounded a black tower that had fallen down long ago; Mephisto's soulstone was kept below it. Hratli had wondered why the Horadrim built a tower to house the stone, when they had every intention of burying it in a deep vault. Mizor just shrugged; he had seen too many things that made no sense to him, in so many parts of the world, to wonder at an unneeded building. The raised causeway had two small temples, filled with some of the same serpent people Mizor had seen in Lut Gholein. This land had supposedly produced the cat people who plagued Lut Gholein; how did the monsters get across the sea? An interesting question, but Mizor had more pressing matters before him.

The causeway led into the middle of Travincal, where 4 blood-stained altars had been raised before the symbol of the sun's light. Mizor doubted that the light appreciated them. More zealous followers of Zakarum filled the city, but these looked well-fed and muscular, not the half-starved wretches Mizor stomped so easily. Not that this saved them, or their priests. Also in the city were ghouls, who brought more burning rocks from the sky; if nothing else, they provided convincing proof of the corruption of Zakarum, to see them at war alongside the faithful. They went through the city, smashing religious nuts left, right, and center, and finally approached the blackened tower.

The high council of Zakarum itself was in the tower, ready to defend... what? They would not come out until Mizor approached quite close. After getting a look at them, Mizor was sure the reason was nothing less than shame. None of them even looked human anymore. Their bones and flesh were twisted in chaotic ways; limping and flailing grotesque limbs, making bizarre hooting noises, they rushed out with fearsome speed. Smashing them would be a mercy, and Mizor felt quite merciful, looking at them. It wasn't easy, their twisted bodies were tough and resilient, but with Paige's cold arrows chilling them, and a few well-placed shockwaves, Mizor and Bear broke their bones and sent them to their reward.

Inside the tower, a glowing glass orb sat on a short stand. Mizor didn't look too closely at it. Going over the bodies, Mizor found a flail, surely belonging to Khalim, and noted that only 3 of the dead things had high council medallions; weren't there more of them than that? Ormus confirmed that the number of councilors was 7. Sankekur, head of the church of Zakarum, now embodied Mephisto, so 3 council members were unaccounted for.

The flail was Khalim's, and Cain suggested putting it in the Horadric Cube, with the eye, heart, and brain. Together, they created a flail with spiked golden skulls for balls; an odd look for a weapon of light, but Mizor wasn't sure if anything wholesome could come out of the church, even if it was Khalim's. But the flail could be used to smash that orb, which was apparently what kept the Zakarum faithful from rising up against their masters. And here Mizor had thought they were all just nuts, they were actually being compelled by this thing. Well, maybe organized religion couldn't completely wipe out common sense, if Mephisto needed magic to control the church.

When he returned, Mizor tried bashing the orb with his Maul; it wouldn't break. Even Goreshovel's edge couldn't crack the glass. But Khalim's flail did, and as the orb shattered into a million pieces, the flail vanished in a flurry of golden motes of light, which rose up to the sky and spread out to the horizon. A vast groan went up, and a sigh as great as the land itself shook what was left of the tower to the ground. Outside, trees and vines were dying back everywhere, falling off the buildings and collapsing into little piles of earth. Good, clean earth, it looked like too; Mizor normally wasn't happy to see plants dying away. Then he noticed a hole in the back wall of the tower, where a stairway led down; it had been blocked before. Mizor was sure Mephisto would not wall up the way in before his brothers arrived; he was probably late again.

The vaults below were deep, and full of danger. The worst were the Flayer skeletons, with their habit of exploding; Mizor learned to let Bear handle those, with the help of a few shockwaves. Bear's fur must be thicker than Mizor's, the flying bone fragments didn't seem to bother him. On the lowest level, Mizor found the last three members of the council, the powerful ones; each attacked alone, but occupied his full attention. A group of Vampire Lord champions gave him some real trouble, before they found Mephisto himself.

He looked strange... misty and only semi-substantial, with a rotted torso, huge spindly arms, and a ragged spinal column hanging below as he floated along. Sankekur had seen better days. The mists around him seemed to be poisonous (poisonous hate?) and strong enough that Mizor couldn't eat hit points back faster than he lost them; strong stuff. Paige, for once, was wise enough to hang back and fill him with cold arrows, and Bear took the main brunt of Mephisto's attack; Mizor just had to re-summon him between blows. The lord of hatred died, after only two greater healing potions, almost a textbook battle.

Concluding thoughts:

1. Ok, Werebears aren't invulnerable. Get your mana drained, and you're in trouble.
2. Shockwave is your friend. It doesn't seem to improve in range, but you can change the spread of the wave by clicking closer to or further away from your character.
3. Some gauntlets with Increased Attack Speed would come in really handy, but I haven't found any good ones yet. They may be more important for making the bear fun to play than a good weapon or armor.
4. Players 8 does seem to increase elemental damage. When I'd played the game normally, I didn't even notice that undead Flayers explode when they die; on players 8, the damage is substantial.