Bodiccea (Chapter 5)

Template:Bodiccea nav The sun shone faintly over the Rogue camp palisade when Bodiccea opened her eyes. Last night was exhausting -- wow, the Rogues know how to put on a pillow fight. Amazing how they'd all managed to save their best lingerie when they fled the monastery, too. Of course, Bodiccea's was even better: genuine Amazon spider-silk so sheer, you can hardly see if it's there at all. After one last snuggle under the warm blankets, she threw them off and rose to her feet. A long, languorous stretch pulled silky whispers excitingly over her bare skin. Her leathers were where she'd left them. Slowly, she fit them to her body: buckling, tightening, adjusting straps and pulling on her high boots and gauntlets. A final shake of her hair and just a touch of red, red lip gloss, and she was dressed to kill.

Outside the tent, Heather was looking at her funny. "Um... what was all that for?"

"Fan service," Bodiccea smirked. "Let's hit the trail. Oop, gotta talk to Akara first."

Heather nodded, and walked with her. "Lady Akara was really happy to hear you got Blood Raven. She thinks it's kind of her fault Andarial took over the monastery, like she didn't see it coming so she's to blame for it."

"Nah. Nobody saw it coming, that's the way it was set up."

"You think it was planned?"

Bodiccea rolled her eyes. "Uh, yeah. The queen of Succubi shows up, and your sisters start killing people naked? And there's all those other demons she had with her..."

"Oh," Heather laughed a bit. "Yeah, duh. But who planned it?"

"Diablo."

Her eyes widened. "So you think the rumors are true?"

"Uh-huh. He's the man of the hour." Akara was pacing back and forth in front of her tent, looking less mournful than usual. "Hi, Akara!"

"Hello, daughter," Akara smiled warmly. "Your defeat of Blood Raven was truly remarkable. I feared that she, who I raised from a child, might be the death of all of us."

"Yeah? So, why's she called that? I mean, who would name their kid Blood Raven?"

"I am afraid I do not remember. More pressing matters occupy my mind. It is clear that we face an enemy who is difficult to comprehend, let alone combat."

Bodiccea shrugged. "It's not that hard..."

"My knowledge of demonkind was inadequate; I did not recognize the signs. I fear we may be lost without the advice of one wiser than I."

"Nah, just whack Andarial. Diablo put her in there, so we kill her and --"

"Your confidence is laudable, brave Amazon," Akara intoned. "I suspect that what you say may be true, but could not bear to send you to our monastery without being certain. There is one who may know the answers to all of our questions: Deckard Cain, the --"

"Oh yeah! Mr. Stay-a-while-and-listen." Bodiccea grinned.

"You know him, then. That is only natural, his reputation extends to the four corners of the world. He lived most recently in Tristram, where many of our sisters went when rumors of the Lord of Terror's reawakening began to spread. No word has come from Tristram for some time, but if Deckard Cain still lives, his learning would be invaluable for our cause."

"Not to mention free Identify. So: how do we get to Tristram?"

"In a stony field not far up the pass, you will find a cairn of five stones, set in a ring."

Bodiccea nodded. "You do know that a cairn is a pile of rocks, not a ring?"

"Yes, child," Akara said with barely detectable annoyance. "The ring is enchanted to form a gate when the stones are touched in the proper sequence."

"Which you don't remember either, right?" Bodiccea smirked. "I mean, we can't make this easy, now, can we?"

"The ring has not been used for some time," Akara said as Heather elbowed Bodiccea in the ribs. "The code is recorded in the bark of the Tree of Inifuss."

"Which is in the middle of a dark scary forest?" Bodiccea said, rubbing her side and glaring at Heather.

"Yes. You may reach the forest more quickly by means of an underground passage. The entrance is in the cliff wall near the stone ring."

"Got it. Ok, that's enough to keep me out of trouble for one day. See ya!"

As they walked to the waypoint, Bodiccea hissed, "Hey, what'd you hit me for?"

"Akara is wise and good. You should be more respectful." Heather frowned. "She's been like a mother to all of us!"

"Yeah, boring," Bodiccea stuck out her tongue. "Ok, ok, she's trying to be nice. But this quest has got to be the most irritating one in Act I. We've got to clear the Stony Field, the Underground Passage, and find both the Tree of Inifuss and the Dark Wood waypoint before we can take a break. And get through Tristram."

Now Heather looked confused. "Um..."

"You'll see." Bodiccea stepped on the Rogue camp waypoint. "We'll come out on the Cold Plains. Don't attack anything, just follow me to the Stony Field. Ok?"

"Ok."

The Stony Field entrance and the Cold Plains waypoint were almost on opposite sides of the plains. Bodiccea actually had to stop and rest, so she and Heather killed Corrupted Rogues to pass the time. Bishibosh threw fireballs on their way past, but they didn't stop again until they found the Stony Field. Just inside the entrance was a house full of Carvers.

"These little guys are all over the place, aren't they?" Heather asked as she put an arrow through a Carver's eye.

"Yeah, either Andarial or Diablo brought in a whole bunch of the little whiners. Don't know why, they're so pathetic."

"Did you see that green one? He didn't look pathetic."

"That was Bishibosh. He's pretty nasty."

"Oh! Some of them were saying that before we killed them."

"Yep." Bodiccea looked around at the now-dead Carvers. "And Colenzo, and Rakanishu."

"Who are they?"

"Haven't met them yet. We will, though."

Heather blinked, then thought about it. "Oh, because if they're calling for one of them, the others are probably around too, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Bodiccea said, turning over the rock northwest of the house. "Hmm, socketed leather. You want to try this on?"

"Sure." Heather retreated inside the house to change while Bodiccea looked around some more outside. "Don't go too far!"

"I won't. Hey, here's another rock with stuff under it."

"Yeah," Heather called. "When people came through the pass, a lot of them used to hide stuff under the stones around here."

"Cool. Used to be when I turned over rocks, all I'd find was worms or ex-boyfriends. You have a boyfriend, Heather?"

"No... we're not allowed to."

Bodiccea paused, waiting for elaboration that didn't come. "Yeah, but did you?"

Heather came out of the house, wriggling and brushing a little dirt off the leather. "No, I never had a boyfriend."

"Never even tried?"

"Nuh-uh." She looked a little bashful.

"Ever thought about it?"

"Well..." Heather shrugged. "Not really."

Bodiccea shook her head. "We've got to get to work on you, girl! Everybody's got to have a boyfriend. They're too much fun not to have at least one!"

"There's not a lot of boys around here..."

"Gawd, I know. I'll buy you one when we hit Lut Gholein," Bodiccea grinned.

Heather nodded, more than a little confused, and quietly followed as Bodiccea moved off.

Just past the house was a unique Foul Crow pack, whose boss had the Holy Fire aura. "Holy my ass," Bodiccea thought, "that's a demon," but they probably didn't want to change all the aura names just because they were giving them to demons now. Beyond the crows was a small group of Skeletons, and the waypoint. Foul Crows never appeared again, and Carvers were scarce too. There were plenty of Skeletons, Hungry Dead, and Moon Clan Goatmen. They were kind of a disappointment. Goatmen looked a lot better in Diablo I.

While Heather was plinking away at some encroaching Zombies -- they sat up and noticed HER, anyway -- Bodiccea found the Moldy Tome, and read up on the Countess. "Say, do you think they based the Countess on Countess Elizabeth Bathory?"

"Who?"

"The Countess! Bathed in the blood of a hundred virgins."

"Oh!" Heather shivered. "The Bloody Countess. No one knows what her name was, it was stricken from all the records."

"It probably was Elizabeth, she was nasty. You know, there are a lot more evil females in the Rogue pass than anywhere else. There's Blood Raven, the Countess, and Andarial."

Heather came over and looked at the book. "Is the Countess alive?"

"Yeah, Andarial raised her from the dead." Bodiccea closed the book. "The only other female superboss I can think of is Battlemaid Sarina. No, wait, I guess there's the Maggot Queen. It has to be a female thing, but I dunno..."

Slowly, Heather said, "I'm sorry, but sometimes, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Bodiccea smiles, and patted her on the shoulder. "I'll explain later. There's too much to do today. Promise."

The rest of the fields went by smoothly until they found the circle. "These stones serve some magical purpose," Bodiccea found herself saying. Ok, so the Assassin doesn't have a monopoly on crappy in-game dialogue. Heather moved in to the center of the circle, and found Rakanishu on the other side. Her first arrow set off a spray of sparks, which wouldn't have been too bad if either of them had significant lightning resistance. A voice in the back of her head reminded her that Sigon's Shelter has 30% LR... but she ignored it, and ran in to deal with li'l sparky herself.

As she ran up to Rakanishu, an experience shrine came into view. A wave of fond nostalgia came over her, remembering back to the days when those were actually valuable. For old times' sake, she hit the shrine, and then Rakanishu. The life leech from Sigon's stuff almost took care of the lightning; she was only half-dead when he fell. His reward for her? A magic ring with lightning resistance. Bastard.

The Underground Passage was long and boring. There were Misshapen and Corrupted Rogues in the cave. Bodiccea had fun using Jab to make sure the Misshapen never got a chance to run, and when she reached level 12, got to put a point in Impale. That skill would have been really handy for Rakanishu, but too late now. On the lower level, she and Heather met a boss Rogue named Sin Skin, an even more unlikely name than Blood Raven. Maybe Andarial renamed her. The Golden Chest of Joy yielded up some Necromancer heads. They weren't that good, but heck, a girl can get to like a little head every now and then.

At the entrance to the Dark Wood, Bodiccea said, "Heather? We need two things: the bark from the tree of Inifuss, and the waypoint."

"Ok. What do we do then?"

"Go back to the stone circle, make the gate to Tristram, and go rescue Deckard Cain."

Heather nodded. "And somehow, you know he's still alive."

"And needs to be rescued."

"But how do you know he's still alive?"

"'Cause it would be completely depressing if he wasn't. The world doesn't work that way. Now we go up into the woods. Watch out for wolves."

"The kind that throw fireballs?"

Bodiccea grinned. "Yep."