After a long agonizing search we found the Temple of the Viper. There was no obvious way in but Stone said he had a plan.. Perhaps the intense heat of the desert sun was effecting my mind because I told Stone to try his plan out without asking what it was....

Stone, Pongo, Gork, Steve, and I were gathered outside of the immense stone doors of the temple. As we neared the door Stone slapped his hand against the wall as we'd seen the snake creatures do previously when they wanted the guards to open the door.

From within we heard a voice "What is the passssswod?"

Stone replied "Delivery for mr. Smith."

The voice replied "Smith. There's no Smith here. Wait...do you mean Sssmithorgla the Impaler?"

Stone quickly replied "Yes that's it.".

We could hear the voice inside the temple whispering back and forth with another voice then we heard it yell through the door "What are you delivering to Smmithorgla?"

Stone frowned "I don't know rats or bunnies or whatever it is you u big ugly green snakes eat. NOW LET US IN!"

I thwacked Stone with my wand and yelled "Uh excuse Stone, he's uh...new. We've got a large juicy package of bunnies for a..let's read this..ah I believe it's Sssmithorgla the Impaler." Looks like he paid quite a few gold coins to have these delivered."

The door opened up and one of the claw vipers stuck his head out "Ok, ok..but look we have procedures around here and from now on you'll need to...oh sh*t" Stone smashed his head like a grape and charged in howling at the top of his lungs with Pongo trailing close behind and yowling like a scalded cat.

I shook my head and looked at Steve "How many times did I tell those two idiots on the way here to be quiet and not draw too many of them in?"

Steve shrugged his shoulders "Wiccie, wiccie, lawooooo." I sighed "Ya, they're a couple of idiots." We stepped inside and saw several tunnels " Oh geeze they've already run off into the middle of nowhere. How are we gonna find them? It's a maze in here."

From way off in the distance I heard a shout "Come here snake boy, I got something for you!" Gork, Steve, and I walking down the hall towards the noise. If we were lucky and held back, maybe Stone and Pongo would be killed by the masses of claw vipers they were drawing with their catterwauling....

Stone was at the next talking to Atma and pounding down grog like their was no tomorrow. I heard him say "Then when I saw that the Necromancer was hanging back and letting us handle most of the fighting I knew that he'd finally come to realize what an asset warriors like us are to have around!".

I just shook my head. Well at least we got the job done. The darkness was gone, the claw vipers were dead and well...it was actually convenient to have some other competent adventurers around. Maybe I was being too hard on Pongo and Stone...hmmmm. I noticed Cain was walking over to sit down with me.

Cain sat down and said "My boy I have some fantastic news for you. I read the scroll the barbarians got from killing the mummy and"

I broke in "What scroll? They never mentioned anything to me about a scroll."

Cain continued "and the amulet they took from the claw viper cavern and now all you need is the Horadric cube and the Horadric staff and you'll be able to get to Duriel's lair.".

I was puzzled "Wait a second, you're telling me we need all those pieces so we can assemble one staff that allows us to get to Duriel?"

Cain replied "Yes." I raged "That's moronic. Why did they split all the pieces apart in the first place?"

Cain looked puzzled "Well you see my boy, that's to protect the artifact from being stolen and used by the forces of evil."

I grimaced "That's idiotic. Every monsters within a 100 miles is centered around these stupid relics. Hell, some of these monsters have built whole lairs around these things. So how much sense did it make to split these objects up in the first place?"

Cain shrugged his shoulders "I guess when you put it that way.."

I cut him off. "I don't suppose there are any maps to this things are there?" Cain was shaking his head no. I sighed "How did I know that? Listening to this idiocy is giving me a headache. I'm going to bed. Goodnight." I stalked up to my room in a foul mood. I left Gork and Steve guarding my door and laid down for the night. The mattress was lumpy but it still felt good. I was looking forward to finally getting as full night's sleep for once...ahhh.

I woke up after hearing a huge crash outside of my door.

Then I heard a "Wowieee, thats reallly, reallly, hurrt." It sounded suspiciously like Stone's drunken babbling. I opened the door. Pongo had staggered into the wall and Stone was talking to Steve "Ok, ok buddy. Are youu readyy?" Steve shook his head up and down and then the two of them locked arms and slammed their heads together as hard as they could. Stone dropped to one knee. A trickle of blood was rolling down his forehead and he was laughing "Ooooh, that hurts!! That was a good one skellie boy!"

I scratched my head and looked at Stone "Uh, what are you doing?"

Stone looked up at me "It's my friend the Necromancer. You avenged our family honor by killing Big Herc. I love you like a brother."

Pongo vehemently shook his head up and down, lurched over, and gave me a giant bear hug. I couldn't help but notice that Pongo had what looked like a chicken bone stuck in his beard. Then he started to slobber. I shoved him away.

Stone continued "You seee Necromancey, it is a custom of my people to prove our toughness by slammjing out heads together. Whoever can stand the pain the longerest wins. It pleazes our God. Have I told you Gothroga, the God of Tall Mounjin? You see..."

I broke in "Stone, Stone...Come in Stone" Stone's eyes seemed to focus on me again. "Stone, in case you haven't noticed, Steve is a skeleton. Steve..wave at the nice barbarians." Steve waved at Pongo and Stone. Pongo waved back. I continued "Skeletons are dead. The dead feel no pain. I work with them all the time so you can trust me on this. So slamming your giant melon sized head into Steve's serves no purpose because you can't hurt him."

Stone said "Yeahs, youu arre right Necromancey. It is the ultimate test of endurdrance. C'mere Stevie"

I cracked my knuckles and took a deep breath " Stone if you don't stop making all this noise out here so I can go to sleep, I am going to test your endurance by tossing you down the stairs, dragging you through the bar, and dropping you in the well outside. That would be good on two fronts. One, you'd drown to death and that would make you quieter and two, being dunked in water might make you smell slightly better than a heap of Troll dung. Also if you.."

Stone looked horrified "Are we keeping you up? Oh my God. I am so shorry Necromander. You are our friend and we would not keep jou oop for anyshing" Stone hugged Steve "I'm so sorry for hurtshing your heads my friend. So, so sorry. We'll go back downshairs now. I think I could use a drink." With that, Pongo and Steve tromped back down the stairs making more noise than a herd of flatulating wilderbeasts. Sigh. I'm sleeping late tomorrow. Duriel will have to wait. I laid back down, pulled the covers over my head and dozed off...

I finally managed to convince myself to climb out of bed late that morning. I walked down and had breakfast and prepared to head out. Stone and Pongo staggered donwstairs from there rooms. Stone immediately put his head down on the table. Pongo was hanging on to a post in order to stay standing.

I walked over and said "Hi Guys!!!" really loud.

Pongo fell straight on @ss and Stone mewled patheticly "Oh my head!" I shook my head "Listen, you two are in no shape to head out yet so we'll split up. Cain's research indicates the that the horadric cube is in the dry hills. You head out after that. We'll head out to the Far Oasis where Cain says the horadric shaft is."

Stone was barely able to stand "No necromancer, we must protect you." I laughed and headed for the door "Sit down Stone...you're in no shape to protect anyone right now. Besides if we split up and get both of these items, we'll be ready to go after Duriel that much sooner. Anyway, you guys have the hard job. We're going to an oasis. How hard can that be?"

I am covered in cuts, bruises, and scratches from head to toe. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would run into giant maggots in the middle of the desert. Apparently "sand maggots" are even more disgusting than their normal counterparts. I've never seen a normal maggot pop right out of it's mother, shake it's head twice and then try to tear out your liver. I spent all day smashing the things to bloody pulps while they did their best to gnaw on me. Then there were the sand fleas (I have since been told by Cain that these are called sand leapers). At first when we ran across these hordes of stupid little beasts they didn't seem that aggressive but we soon found that any creature that turns it's back on a group of sand lurkers was looking for an @ss stomping. The worst part was that we'd hit one of the ugly little beasts and it would seem that we'd knock it half way across the desert. If we ran after it, it would soar through the air away from us and showed no inclination to attack...until we turned our backs again. Then it would leap through the air aiming for our backs. These creatures were surprisingly hardy and took forever to die. After wading thru those little b@stards and more sand maggots than we could shake a stick at we finally got to some sort of lair the sand maggots had stored the shaft in. We finally carved our way down into the lair and killed the biggest, most disgusting, maggot you could ever imagine. Picture a bloated, orange, maggot the size of a sperm whale pumping full grown sand maggots out of it's rectum every 5 seconds and you have it perfectly. It literally exploded after we killed it covering every square inch of the cavern with gore. We recovered the shaft and started back towards Lut Golein. I noticed Steve trying to hide something from me.

When I walked over to get a closer look I noticed her was carrying a young, terrier sized, sand maggot. "D@mnit Steve, what are you doing with that thing?"

Steve whined "Wikoo, wikoo, rasp, chhhhhh."

I was ready to scream with frustration "Steve, that is not an appropriate pet." Steve stomped his foot on the ground and rocked the small sand maggot like a baby. In response it attempted to clamp onto his rib cage. "Steve we're running down Diablo. What are we gonna do with that thing?"

Steve put it on the ground "Wakoo, wakoo, wicca."

I shook my head no "Steve, that thing is even stupider than Pongo. There's no way we can train it." Steve whined again.

Steve grabbed a stick and tossed it a little ways. He looked down at the sand maggot "Wicckie. Wickie."

This was really starting to piss me off. "Steve it's too stupid to fetch anything." The sand maggot clamped onto Steve's ankle. Steve tried to shake it off but it wouldn't let go. Gork did a flying leap and landed on it. It exploded like a raspberry tart.

Steve started ranting at Gork "Gargle, wickie, woo, woo, woo."

My headache was coming back again "Steve it was trying to eat your leg you idiot, you couldn't keep it as a pet anyway. Now let's go back to town."

Steve flipped Gork the bird and turned to walk along with me "Wicka, wicka, rasp."

Again I shook my head no " Look Pongo would not be an appropriate pet either. Look when this over and we can settle in somewhere, we'll get a dog or something. Something normal. Now let's go." Steve, Gork, and I turned and headed back to Lut Golein.

After arriving in Lut Golein I cleaned up, got a meal and went to bed. When I awoke, Pongo and Steve were just arriving with the staff. I let them rest up and get a meal. I was a little worried about the two of them. They were very good but good enough to stand in with me against Duriel? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, tonight...Duriel goes back to Hell and I'll be one step closer to Diablo.....

Stone, Pongo, Steve, Gork and tore through the meek resistance we met and quickly made it to Tal Rasha's Tomb. We arrived and found what looked to be a pedestal. There was an inscription on it "Place the holy Horadric staff here and it will open the door to Tal Rasha's tomb" I placed the staff on the pedestal and a brillant, magical display of lights flashed all around the room. A passage opened then opened up in the far wall. Now was the moment of truth. As we walked over to the wall I noticed a brick poking out with an inscription above it. "If you do not have the Horadric staff, press in the brick and the way to Tal Rasha's tomb will be opened." I pounded my fists on wall "We didn't have to have the bleeping staff? I got covered in maggot goo for nothing? Stupid, frickin, frackin, bleeping, $%$%$#%$#%$#!!!!

A voice came from out of the darkness "ROAR. WHAT FOOLS DARE TO FACE THE WRATH OF DURIEL? COME INTO MY LAIR AND MEET YOUR DOOM MORTALS!" Slithering up out of the darkness was Duriel himself. He was immense, nearly 20 ft. of buff 1/2 demon, 1/2 maggot, 100% nightmare. Stone and Pongo quickly moved in front of me. Duriel chuckled "YOU PUNY CREATURES THINK YOU HAVE A CHANCE VERSUS DURIEL? COME AND DIE!!!"

Stone motioned me back. "Stay away Necromancer, we'll handle him." These two idiots were going to get themselves killed. As I tried to get around Stone and Pongo so I could cast a bone spear I noticed Duriel backing up. What was he doing?

Duriel spoke "WOAH! I MEAN woah...you're that necromancer I've heard about huh? The one that killed Andariel?"

A bone spear materialized in my hand "That's right and now it's your turn to join him in the afterlife!" Stone, Pongo, Gork, and Steve were moving into position.

Duriel spoke up again "Wait a second, I think that we have a little mix up here, I'm not Duriel at all. I don't have anything to do with this Duriel guy and if you and him have some sort of problem, well don't mix me into it. I'll just be going now." Duriel turned to slither back into his hole.

I called out "Where do you think you're going? What do you mean you're not Duriel?"

The giant creature started to shake "Oh I'm just a uh...simple farmer who walked in and uh...was cursed..yah that's it..cursed by Duriel and uh..I just want to go home to my family. I certainly have no problems with you at all..uh friends." Pongo was scratching his head.

Stone piped up "That's the biggest load of malarkey I've ever heard. You were yelling that you were going to kill us when we walked in." Stone looked at me "I say we splatter him Necromancer. What do you say?"

Duriel interrupted "Well I think there may be some confusion here. Ah..you see..umm...those things I was saying were because..well uhm...I'm Duriel's personal secretary. Yes, that's it..his personal secretary! He ah..cursed me..then turned me into a demon and made me his personal secretary! Then he had me yell that stuff. Ya know..uh...WHAT FOOLS DARE FACE ME and so on...uh..pretty..pretty good huh? Ya so..uh..he's in the back now. Here..uh...see he's there..listen...Uh Duriel..some people coming back..I'll be going out to grab lunch..ya know..lunch and uh..." All 5 of us were frowning. Pongo was limbering up. I was tapping my bone wand in my hand. Duriel gulped "You guys aren't buying this are you?"

Pongo screamed "GWAHAHAHAHAHA" and we all charged.....

I gathered the last of my things and headed down the inn. I had secured passed to Kurast with a local ships captain named Meshif. Duriel was dead now and Lut Golein was safe. Stone and Pongo were waiting for me when I came downstairs.

Stone immediately ran up to me with a large sack dripping blood "Necromancer. You killed Big Herc. You allowed us to accompany you. You did most of the damage vs. Duriel. I give you the honor of keeping Duriel's head." Stone kneeled and offered it to me.

I waved him away "No that's ok Stone...you and your brother hang on to that. Maybe it'll be worth something some day." Stone got choked up. Pongo's eyes were misting over. They both ran over and put me in a huge bear hug.

Stone was blubbering "You've been so good to us Necromancer. I'm going to miss you."

Finally they both let go and I could breath again "That's ok guys, it's no big deal." Pongo was biting his bottom lip.

Stone said "If you ever come to the Barbarian Highlands my friend, you have two friends there. I would also be proud to fix you up with my sister."

I gupled "Well that is uh...quite an honor. But don't worry my friends. If I ever pass that way, I'll be sure to look you up. Now we've got to go, evil doesn't take a holiday." With that, Steve, Gork and I headed for the ship that would take us to Kurast and Stone and Pongo started jogging for home. One more Demon, Mephisto to go, and I could head to Hell to take on Diablo himself.....

You can read the The Necromancer Diary: Kurast by John Hawkins by clicking here.