Mizor (Chapter 11)
Template:Mizor nav Well, if Mizor had begun to feel too sure of himself, lower Kurast changed his opinions. The area looked easy, relatively easy monsters and lots of magic items for the taking. Mizor was idly kicking baskets open as he waited for some green vultures to come down, not noticing that one was a unique, and both his wolves and Paige were in a nearby building, bumping up against the wall. Minions do that a lot; they get lost easily. Then the vultures came down, completely surrounding Mizor, and the unique got the first hit, instantly draining Mizor's mana reserves. Ah, extra fast, and mana burn. The unique and his crowd bunched up tight around Mizor and began swatting as fast and as often as they could.
The unique had a lot of hit points, so Mizor started thinning the crowd, taking out minions one by one. As the fight dragged on, and Mizor took more and more hits, something that he'd begun to think about in the Flayer dungeon was becoming painfully clear: Goreshovel simply wasn't doing the job anymore. It was nice, it was fast... it did more damage than any of the Great Axes he'd found, and he didn't want to fight with anything slower than that. The fight got so bad that Mizor was seriously considering drinking a purple potion, when the Great Bear saw his plight, and came to his aid just in the nick of time! (He really just hit level 30, and got his hit points and mana back.) Running out of the circle, Mizor stomped out a shockwave, and mopped up the stunned vultures easily. But that was much too close.
Paige got another deduction in pay. She mumbled some excuse about the door being stuck, but Mizor would have none of it. He also unsummoned both wolves, even though it made Paige cry. At least he wouldn't have to listen to any more "where's my puppy-wuppy?" talk, the Great Bear realized that Mizor could have a real pet now. So, he summoned his bear. Ah, much better, a bear worthy of the name; big as a house! Well, big as a room. Maybe big as a sofa. But bigger than a wolf! A much more proper fighting companion.
Back in town, he did some more shopping. Hratli had been making weapons in his magic forge, but had nothing worth using. Ormus had nothing, Asheara had nothing, and he hadn't found a single useful thing in Kurast. Maybe he should take something to Charsi, she said she could imbue an unenchanted item with magical properties... no, better save that for an emergency.
Mizor, Paige, and Bear returned to Kurast, and cleaned up the rest of the lower city, much more carefully. Bear was wonderful, smashing demons around; sometimes, they'd bounce off walls and Mizor could smash them again on the rebound. Moving in ever further, they came to a huge marketplace, and saw Zakarumites for the first time. Supposedly, these were warriors of faith and the light. They were ragged, starved, and empty-eyed, but died easily. Some small temples stood at each end of the bazaar; inside were huge hairy beasts, ghouls that summoned fire from the heavens, and hordes of mostly-naked women who attacked in a suicidal frenzy. Mizor wondered if they'd been nuns or something. In one temple, a black book stood on a lectern, though none of these people seemed up to any heavy reading. Alkor was happy to have it, though.
Under the bazaar were sewers, wide and extensive, but only one level deep. On a trip back to town, Hratli presented him with something that might replace Goreshovel: a Brutal Maul of the Bat. The weight felt good in his paws, but Mizor kept Goreshovel handy, just in case. Down in the sewer, a horde of burnt-black skeletons attacked, with one of those huge mummies, like the ones from Lut Gholein. Mizor charged up Maul bashing skellies, then ran around, took a swing at the Horadrim Ancient... and watched its head pop off and bounce into the water. Oooh. Mizor began to like this new maul. Onward they went, and Mizor began to like his new maul more and more; sure it took forever to connect, but the things it hit tended to go away very quickly. In a sump, a golden box contained a well-preserved human brain, firm to the touch. Ew.
By now he was thoroughly lost, so Mizor went up the first sewer outlet he could find and came out in the upper city. More Zakarumites attacked zealously, with priests who healed them and summoned cold blasts. All were quite undernourished, and died easily. The priests disintegrated in a puff of skin and bone fragments when struck down; Mizor wondered if any of them were really alive at all anymore. The upper city also had two little temples, with nothing especially exciting about them or the city itself. The center of Kurast was called Travincal, a city within the city, built on an island in the center of a large lake. A bare stone causeway led out over the water to the center of everything, where Mephisto had been imprisoned, and now ruled his captors.