First, I'll select a map. Ah, here's one -

A tattered, deviously drawn treasure map, no doubt yearning to cough up its treasure to me. :P

I guess I'd better check to make sure I have sufficient skills to solo this - I am a bardic treasure hunter, using provocation and magery to vanquish the guardian spawn.

Ah, that looks sufficient for my adventure tonight. Certainly, lower or even different skills would work just as well - but not too much lower. Lich lords are difficult to provoke. Now, I'll decode the map -

Fortunately, I'm already standing in a treasure hunter's rune library, so I recall to the spot. I wield my newbie shovel - ah, I love my newbie shovel - and start digging. I've found it on the first dig, lucky me, so while I dig I precast invisibility.

Just before the treasure chest is fully revealed I cast the invisibility spell on myself.

The guardian spawn is awakened. They look mad at the disturbance. Fortunately, they can't see me, so I have time to drag off all 4 status bars for the 2 demons, an elder gazer, and a lich lord. I provoke two, and recast invisibility, and then provoke the other two.

Time's wasting - I must pick the lock quickly and set off the trap.

Time is pressing - I look for a large item to drag around. Ah, a chainmail tunic will do nicely, though I usually prefer to drag shields. As I drag the tunic from one side of the chest to the other, it "snaps back" with a rude message -

But that's sufficient to taunt more guardians from the chest.

As the monsters fall, I stir the chest for more monsters. We've now added a blood and a poison elemental, but one demon is down.

Well, ok, it's not perfectly safe. As you can see, the poison elemental bit me before I provoked it, and I've healed 12 pts of damage. Let's add another blood elemental. Er, I've lost track - that's 7 monsters, I think.

This blood was mean. Not only did it bite me, but it mana drained me so I can't heal. If I fail a provoke now, I'm probably dead.

Another demon to added to the pile. That's 8 monsters.

Time to start killing monsters. If I stir up too many at once, corpses will decay before I can loot, or too many corpses will make it difficult to collect all the gold. As the monsters fall, I collect their loot. Note that except for stirring the chainmail tunic, I haven't looted anything. I like to stay nimble on my feet and not get overloaded.

It's important to keep the damage between the monsters balanced since I'm using provocation. The demon is nearly dead, but the poison and one of the blood elementals are still healthy, so I'll provoke those two onto each other.

And now the poison elemental onto the demon...

Even when they're almost dead, they're still dangerous. Something just cursed me, but I'm not sure who at the moment...

Ouch, something bit me.

Three beasts left, I've balanced their damage well. Chain lightning finishes off all three of them at once.

I have about 3800 in monster gold, so I grab the 5000 gold from the chest - warily, in case something spawns and i have to drop it back into the chest.

Time to go make a deposit. Oh wait. Something unusual. Seems like I'm always gathering people like this around me, fodder for my stories. Jon, the "Intelligent Moron," according to his guild title, asks me a goofy question.

I give him a helpful answer.

Where was I? Oh yes, to the bank�

Then back to the chest. Good thing I marked a rune before I left. I grab the chainmail tunic again - I figure there's 4 or 5 more monsters inside, so I start stirring. The first monster I'll lure a screen away to give me time to find a buddy for him -

Dang monsters are everywhere again, but the ground is clean - the previous corpses are gone.

Looks like I'm down to a single elder gazer once this blood falls. I summon some earthies to help.

All the spawn is dead. Ta da! I tell my earth elementals to park themselves out of the way.

I've almost emptied the chest�

Oops. Dang, where was this blood hiding? He'll make short work of 2 earth elementals, so a combination of explosions and earth elementals is called for -

I'm overloaded, and there are still items in the chest. As I've been looting, any good items I drag into my main pack, junk is tossed into a "Sell Agent" bag for the provisioners.

All done. Junk jewelry the provisioners don't want are tossed onto a nearby convenient corpse. Once I remove the chest, it's like I was never here.

Did we get anything good? Lessee� a neon blue, spell channeling, use best weapon skill double bladed staff maybe�. And I really like that Ring of Focus� and the gold is always nice�

Total time about 20-25 minutes. Time to do another one. :)

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Dizzy of Stratics THB
Sphyr of Lake Superior THB
August 26, 2003