Bodiccea (Chapter 24)

Template:Bodiccea nav Kurast is a neat place. There are lots of holy cities in computer games, but most of them are based on Vatican City, not Angkor Wat. But first, they had to get through the jungle. Softly humming "One Night in Bangkok" to herself, Bodiccea led Heather up the trickle of water that was probably supposed to be the Argentek. The Argentek is the biggest river on the map in the world of Sanctuary, but maybe Sanctuary is that small. You can explore the trackless wastes of Aranoch in a few days. Near the docks were two bodies, one on each river bank; they didn't have much loot, but their presence got Heather wondering.

"I mean," she mumbled, "why did Blizzard put them there? There's even one on each side of the river, to make sure you see one."

"Oh, you know," Bodiccea laughed. "It's the classic 'Found On Road Dead' trope, a staple of bad fantasy writing. Whenever the mighty heroine walks into a dangerous place, the first thing she sees is a corpse, warning her of the gruesome dangers which lurk in the shadows up ahead. If the Blizz programmers were really on their toes, the F.O.R.D. would have been alive enough to gasp out a vague yet horrific warning, then gurgle and die."

"Maybe they thought that would be too nasty."

"Hey, they did it in Diablo I for the Butcher quest. Besides, they don't mind nasty: there's dead bodies and tortured bodies and cooking bodies all over the place in Kurast."

"Cooking?"

"Yep. Boiled, then left to get moldy. Nasty."

There were two kinds of monsters in the Spider Forest: Jungle Hunters (green ape guys) and Fetishes. Despite the name, they weren't dressed up in little leather suits with zippers over the mouths and eyes, and none of them carried whips, riding crops, or paddles. They did carry plate mail, pikes, and poleaxes, which is almost as bizarre as getting treasure from a cloud of gnats. The little ankle-biters gave Bodiccea plenty of chances to test Fend's utility on Flayers. As expected, it pwned, and with all her increased speed gear, chasing down the blowpipe Fetishes was no problem at all.

It took a while to find the jade statuette. Until then, they had plenty of time to check out new items. Specifically, helmets.

"Wow, that is ugly," Heather shook her head as Bodiccea modeled a bone helm.

"GAWD, yes." Bodiccea threw the helm to Hratli, who put it back on the shelf. "No one but a Necro should be forced to wear one of those. They look so disgusting it's actually an improvement. There's one that's worse, though."

"Which?"

Without a word, Bodiccea put on a great helm. Heather actually laughed out loud. "Ok, that is worse. Maybe if you'd kept Sigon's armor --"

"Don't even think about, Heather. Sigon's helm is a great helm -- I'd be wearing it now if that stupid Mule had his way. I just can't go for the 'knight in shining armor' look, especially on me, and guys look way better when you can see their muscles."

"The men in this game don't wear anything skimpy."

"No, damn it! Except Babas, and they're all bald. Come to think of it, Babas can pull off great helms. The silly horn thingies look kind of good on them. Did you know the exceptional great helm is an Amazon helm? It's got +2 to Amazon skills."

"That's pretty good."

"Not good enough. What I really need is a tiara. This circlet's good, maybe I could get it upgraded..."

Heather smirked a little. "They'd call you Barbie even more."

"I wanna be Barbie! That b!tch has everything. Except it's all pink. I like red. And gold. Ok, pink isn't so bad, but as an accent, not the main color. And it's got to be a nice pink, like rose or coral or peach. Barbie-doll pink is so PINK."

"Are you still thinking about Asheara?"

"Oh, sure!" Bodiccea grinned, eyes bright. "It'd be fun to talk with her! Let's go."

Eyes wide, Heather sputtered, "But... I didn't..." But Bodiccea was already gone. She ran after her as quick as she could.

Bodiccea bounded into Asheara's house and said, "Hi! How's it going?"

"The same," Asheara said, looking up from her tally book. "You're back quick. Figured out that you need a new merc?"

"One of your mercs?" Bodiccea guffawed. "Nah, just dropped by to say hi."

"Hey!" Asheara snapped, glaring. "My Iron Wolves are as dangerous as anything you'll find in the jungle out there. Don't piss them off, or me."

"Um..." Bodiccea thought about it, then shrugged. "Ok, I'll take your word on it. Sorry."

Turning to face her, Asheara snarled, "Who do you think's been keeping what's left of the dockside safe all this time?"

"Ok! Jeebus, I said I was sorry." About this time, Heather came running up, panting. "Hi, Heather!" Bodiccea said. "We'd better get going. Talk to you later!"

"What... happened?" Heather gasped as they ran away. Well, Heather ran; Bodiccea was still walking.

"I think somebody's having a really bad period," Bodiccea rolled her eyes. "We'll come back later when she's in less of a mood."

A lone champion Fetish dropped the jade statuette not long after they got back into action. Bodiccea traded it with Meshif, said goodbye, and trotted the golden bird over to Alkor, who was very happy to see it. He always is, for no good reason; maybe he just likes the chance to put human remains in what other people drink. After she'd gagged the stuff down (hey, 20 life is worth it) Bodiccea went to Cain for the long lecture about Khalim's Will.

"... to destroy Mephisto! You must prevent their meeting at all costs; should The Three be reunited, they will be unbeatable, and our world doomed forever!"

Bodiccea was leaning on her spear, gently snoring, until Heather tapped her on the shoulder. "Huh? Oh, yeah. So, it's like this: collect all the saintly bits, lay the smackdown on the council to get a saintly flail, cube, and whack the compelling orb with the resulting unsaintly-looking artifact."

Frowning and plainly annoyed, Cain said, "So far as your part goes, yes. Though I cannot overemphasize the urgency of your mission, and its importance both for our world and the Heavens above. All of our hopes rest with you. Have you any questions or doubts?"

After thinking about it for a minute, Bodiccea nodded. "Yeah, I have a question. How do you know all this stuff about Khalim?"

"I have spent a lifetime studying Horadric lore, and --"

"No, no, no. You said Sankekur took over after Khalim got killed, so unless he's 400 years old, all this happened after the Horadrim were gone. How do you know Meph's possessing Sankekur? How do you know to use Khalim's body parts? How do you know which bits are still around, and where they are? And how do you know the cube can make this holy flail? You were supposed to be farting around in Khanduras when all this went down, and 'no word has come out of the east for years.' So, how is it that you know now?"

"Ah..." Cain's eyebrows furrowed, then rose, then fell again; his mouth hung open, but no sound came out.

"Wow," Bodiccea's eyes went wide. "He's not making a sound."

"Um..." Heather whispered in Bodiccea's ear, "I don't think he knows."

"You're probably right," Bodiccea whispered back. "Cain? It's ok, you don't have to tell us. We know you're the man."

"I don't understand," Cain mumbled. "I... must have heard about it in The Rising Sun one night, from one of the many travelers who stopped there."

"Sure. That's gotta be it. Anyhoo, we're heading back out. Don't strain your brain too much, ok?"

The Spider Forest twisted back and forth, and up to this point, they hadn't found either of the side areas at all. In fact, the first side entrance they found was to the Great Marsh. There was a Monster Shrine right next to the entrance, so Bodiccea lured a Drowned Corpse to the shrine; it turned Fanatic, and dropped a maul when it died. Bodiccea picked it up and took a few swings. She never could stay away from a mall.

Back in town... or rather, on the docks, Hratli asked them to find the Gidbinn, to help power the magic dome. Everybody wants something. Bodiccea nodded while she was looking at axes. Great axes looked ok on her, giant axes not so good. According to one source, in olden times Amazons used a one-handed double-bladed axe called a labyris, but yet another game bug made using one-handed swinging weapons kind of impractical. Pity, but Blizzard was pretty quick about fixing bugs that might make Amazons good melee fighters.

Finally, three turns after they left the docks, Bodiccea and Heather found a side entrance, and Bodiccea got to Jab her first Flayer Shaman to death. Sticky spiderwebs covered the whole area, including the entrance to the Spider Cavern. No waypoint, but at least she'd find the eye. Inside, they found Poison Spinners, Fiends (lightning bats) and finally, Szark the Burning, or whatever he was. Bodiccea got level 28 from a pack of champion Poison Spinners, but most of the dungeon was quite dull.

After tugging aside some weapon, Bodiccea opened the golden chest of joy and grabbed Khalim's eye. "Ok folks, that's a wrap."

"You used that joke with the mummies."

"It works with spiders too. Wow, Khalim had red eyes. Weird. How sure are we that this guy was a saint?"

"Everybody says he was. Do you know what that spot of colored light is?"

"Huh?" Bodiccea looked over at a patch of magenta light glowing over a pile of webbing. "I dunno, you see those randomly in both Spider dungeons. They don't match up with the monsters, or any items."

Frowning, Heather nodded. "You don't think there could be anything buried under all the webbing?"

"I don't think so. Let's look." It took a few minutes, but after some hacking, tearing, and slicing, Bodiccea and Heather were looking down into a vast, empty void. Neon green alphanumeric characters in dozens of different languages flowed past in infinite, orderly, constantly changing columns. "Hmmm. I don't think that's what we're looking for."

"Do you see Keanu Reeves?"

"I wish. I don't even see a Windforce. Let's close it up and go."

The Spider Forest continued to twist around and around; this was the most complicated map of the area they'd ever heard of. The entrance to the Arachnid Lair side area was teeming with Flayers, so many Bodiccea wondered if they'd really found the entrance to the Flayer Jungle. It wasn't; they went in, got the waypoint, and went on to explore the rest of the Spider Forest. The river ended in a dead end not far from the waypoint; they'd have to go through the Great Marsh anyway.

"Ok..." Bodiccea contemplated the Arachnid Lair entrance. "Since the waypoint is right here, how about we take care of that in the morning?"

"Sure," Heather said. "I was wondering if I could get a new bow, too."

"You not doing enough damage?"

"Well, I'm doing ok. But even normal Flayers are taking me two shots to kill."

Bodiccea laughed! "Oh, poor baby! Let's go look at the uniques collection."

Outside, Bodiccea and Heather wandered into what looked like a reliquary. Besides a bronze cathedral bell which dominated the western half of the room, there were several pedestals of red brick, each with an artifact on it. Tearlach, Mizor, Kasim, and Khaleel were sitting at a table, playing some dice game. Thaddeus was in a corner, reading a book, while Amanita was reading a tabloid newspaper.

"Hi guys," Bodiccea said. "Where's bows?"

"Over there," Thaddeus mumbled, not even looking up.

"Thanks. Hmmm... you're what level, Heather?"

"27th."

"Ooh, not good. Riphook takes level 31. Kuko Shakaku is level 33. And the normal unique bows suck."

"How about set bows?" Heather asked.

"All we have is Vidala's and the Arctic bow," Amanita said.

"Bleah," Bodiccea made a face. "Sorry, babe, you're not big enough yet. Probably not 'til we're through with the Flayer Jungle."

"Darn," Heather said. "Is there anything else?"

"Hmmm. I think bowazons like the Face of Horror for the monster flee. I need them to stay where they are, though."

"Huh. It looks like a plain mask."

"Yeah. With a name like that, you'd think it would be an evil clown or a smily face or something."

"Yeah," Heather nodded, looking at the game. Kasim had the biggest pile of cash in front of him, which annoyed Tearlach more than the other two. "Hey, where's Paige?"

Mizor: "Awowroooraolds."

Heather blinked. "Did anyone understand that?"

Khaleel shook his head. "Sorry. So, what do you think of Flayers?"

"Hey," Bodiccea said, looking around, "where's Xany?"

The room went quiet. Everyone looked at Bodiccea, then looked away, most laughing a bit or visibly fighting smiles. "All right," Bodiccea said. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Thaddeus said, getting up. "Excuse me, I left the iron on in the other room."

"I gotta put my winnings away," Kasim said, also making a fast fade.

Khaleel leaned over and whispered to Heather, "Hey, we've been waiting for you on the south docks, by Natalya."

"You were?"

"Yeah. We figure nobody ever goes there, so..."

"Ok, guys," Bodiccea said a little louder, glaring around the room. "What's going on?"

"Around here?" Amanita said, breaking into a grin. "Not a thing. Why?"

"Then what's so funny? What did Xany do?"

"Uh... I don't know exactly what she's done. I hope it's fun."

Frowning, Bodiccea said, "What are you talking about?"

"Well..." Amanita's grin widened. "After you outed Jerhyn, little Xany was so sad."

"Yeah? It's not like I was happy about it."

"She was sitting around moping, so I said, 'Look, maybe he is, maybe he's not. Why don't you go ask him about it yourself?' So she went to the palace. That was back when you were in the Canyon of the Magi. She still hasn't come back yet."

Bodiccea frowned in confusion. "What's she doing in there?"

Amanita wasn't restraining her laughter very well. "Boddy... she's in the palace. You know from Meshif that Jerhyn wanted you to stay out. Two. Two. Put them together, see what you get."

For long seconds, Bodiccea stood there. The sound of gears grinding was faintly audible in the quiet room. Then, her eyes went wide. "No..."

"That's what we're guessing," Amanita grinned wide.

"NO..."

"Hey, we might be wrong. They might be playing cribbage in there. Want to walk in on them and find out?"

"NO! Come on, Heather, let's go... Heather?!"

"She left with the other mercs."

Face crimson, Bodiccea glared around the almost-empty room, then stamped her foot and growled, "Aw, fuck you!" at Amanita.

"Not in a million years, Barbie. Maybe you should go home and sleep it off."

"I... I... shut up! Fine. If Heather ever comes back, tell her I'm sleeping. ALONE!"