Diablo 2 Steemit retro-gaming project! Steemcules the Strong Act 3, Episode 1 - Welcome to the Jungle!

Stay a while and listen! This is the tale of Steemcules the Strong. A Steem exclusive playthrough of the iconic Diablo 2 hack n slash game.

Last time on The Tale of Steemcules the Strong Steemcules the heroic and savage Steemcules ran into a bit of a Bug problem... not something that a can a bug spray will not help him with...

...so he used violence and two axes instead!

Seriously though, Duriel was a monster... check out the portal tricks.

Now it is time to fare into the Jungles of Kurast in order to trace the movement of the Dark Wanderer and stop him from... something... something... Deckard Cain talks a lot... to stop Diablo from freeing his Brother Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred.

So go hit him with an axe... got it.

The Quests

So the Quests I completed during this session are as follows:

• The Golden Bird
• Blade of the Old Religion

Let me tour you through them...

The Golden Bird

And by Golden Bird, they mean to find the Jade Figurine... which you then exchange for the Golden Bird from the sailor that brought you to Kurast in the first place. Turns out that he had it the whole time.

If Steemcules had known this, he would have simply taken it off Meshif's bloody corpse... I mean, I have the portal in town activated now... so who needs sailing?

Anyway, you THEN take the Golden Bird to Alkor the Alchemist who then... does something with the little statue in order to make you a potion. This potion you then drink to give yourself +20 permanent Health.

This quest does not need to be done at all, but really helps if you do!

Blade of the Old Religion

So apparently the village blacksmith is some sort of mage that can cast enchantments. He placed a kind of protective shield around the village in order to protect it from invaders. The shield, however, is failing and something needs to be done about that.

There is a magical dagger called the Gidbinn that has something to do with an old Religion and contains powerful magic that can be used to reinforce the spell protecting the village somehow... Steemcules is not sure... he wasn't listening.

This Act is really massive and I think that is easily the largest of the three Acts that I have played so far. Somewhere along the line, you will find these folks having a kind of spa session gone wrong:

Near this location, you fight some assortment of baddies and pry the Gidbinn from their cold, dead hands.

You then take the Gidbinn, a little dagger, not to Hratli the blacksmith you first spoke to, but to Ormus. Ormus is that tall guy in town who constantly refers to himself in the third person. He places the Gidbinn on a plinth you never really took note of until now and it lights up like a magical battery to power the villages' Gungan style shield.

On the subject of Mercenaries

At this point, you are told that some in the Iron Wolves mercenaries that were hired to protect the village is free up enough to help you. You would then be replacing your current Lut Gholein guard with a battle-mage with a sword, shield, and an elemental type attack. Depending on if you choose a Flareon, Jolteon or Glaceon... or something like that...

I have decided not to change my Mercenary because I picked up a Razortine. It's a legendary spear that does loads of damage... and then I found a poleaxe that does even more... Now I am questioning whether or not I want to keep him or not?

What do you think readers?

Next time on the Tale of Steemcules the Strong

Armed and armored with ever more powerful equipment, fuelled with Barbaric rage and an ill-understood handle on the plot of the story, Steemcules looks for more things to sink his axes into!

He will need to slog through masses of Jungle critters to get to several rather puzzling quests that require an understanding of words that the Barbarian is not familiar with!

He will let his axes do the thinking! Hopefully, that will be enough.

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