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The crackers went down with enthusiasm. Having finished my scratch breakfast, I hit the bed again and made myself comfortable on top of the blanket. I checked the chat and the inbox and tried sending a few messages. No way. Everything was blocked. I went into settings and after some fiddling around, got access to
 
the Wiki. Thank God for that. Having said that, why shouldn't it work—it was part of the in-game service, after all. And now was just the right moment to sit down and finally study everything from cover to cover. Great stuff.

First things first. Time to choose class and distribute talent points. This was what we had:

Class: basic, Warlock

Level: 30

Strength: 10

Intellect: 72 (mana=720)

Agility: 0

Spirit: 37

Constitution: 14 (hits=140)

125 Characteristic points and 23 Talent points available.

Excellent. A caster worth his salt was obliged to have superior intellect and spirit numbers. Choosing High Elf with his racial bonus was already bringing its first rewards: his "plus 1 to Intellect" had already earned me 30 extra points, almost half of all my mana.

Choosing a class was pretty straightforward. A Warlock could only specialize as a Necro or a Death Knight. Just in case, I decided to look into it deeper to be sure I hadn't missed some detail or other. So I got stuck in the Wiki until lunch time. I could hear them heave off the hound's chain, bring in breakfast and change the water in the pitcher. All the time I just sat there, going through dozens of open Wiki pages, guides and character calculators. As I did so, a
 
plan
 
started to form.

My initial choice, Necro was more or less clear. An ideal choice, really. Its limitations: fabric armor and not enough hits. Also, his class-specific items with intellect and summoning bonuses were expensive and highly sought-after.

And as for the Knight... Being a hybrid class—a cross between warrior and Necro—he was initially weak and hard to level up. Which made sense, really: imagine a caster who'd spent ten levels doing pure magic, and then he was told: 
you're a warrior now, here's your sword and heavy armor, time to do some tanking
. At that point, his pet's and necro branches would slow down, blocking access to new spells right until level 30. Instead, he had two warrior branches and a debuff branch while his class bonus switched to strength and constitution.

And despite it all, Knight was one of the hardest chars to level. You really struggled to go up, using every Talent point the moment you earned it. The first 100 levels, Knight kept gaining momentum until finally his spells and skills hit the critical mass threshold, turning him into a very dangerous opponent indeed. Which was why normally Knight was either a high-DPS tank or a group debuffer so valuable in raids. I hadn't seen any mentions of pet-controlling Knights. Which got me thinking...

Why weren't there any Knights leveled up as Necros with maxed-out summoning branches? I could see three reasons for that.

One was narrow-mindedness. If you wanted a Dark pet controller or a zombie master, then you went for a Nec. If you wanted a warrior with some magic skills and if you hated the powers of Light but still wanted to be a paladin—choose Death Knight and level him up to tank.

Second. In between levels 10 and 30, Knight absolutely
 
had to spend all his Talent points. That's why by the time the summoning branch opened again at level 30, there was no way he could catch up with Necro as far as raised pets' levels were concerned. And if you still decided to go for it, you stopped developing as a warrior but remained a lousy pet controller for a very long while.

The Admins tried to fight that balance discrepancy the best they could. There were lots of Knight-restricted items available with Intellect and summoning bonuses. And still every new level widened the gap between Nec's and Knight's pets.

Finally, Intellect had its problems, too. A hybrid tank had enough item and initial bonuses to invest his class bonus and precious characteristic points into strength and constitution.

None of those three made any difference to me, literally pushing me into taking Death Knight.

I played with the calculator and items database, cladding the resulting char into various gear and picking the stuff with pet bonuses. I had to admit, I loved the end result.

Based on my current situation, I drafted a level 200 character. I distributed his talents and points, chose the right epic items for him and checked the outcome.

My jaw dropped. I'd created a unique char with plenty of life, enough strength to wear heavy gear, several yummy class abilities and some uber items with top intellect and summoning parameters a Necro could only dream of. In total, this behemoth of a Death Knight could raise a pet a good ten or even twenty percent higher than a Nec. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't come up with a similar combination for Necromancer.

Phew. Time to take a break and let the information settle in. I shook my head, closing all the opened windows and forcing myself to focus on the outside world. The sun was already high and warming my cell quite nicely. Time flies when you're having fun. I poked at the cold gruel in a bowl, cringed and pushed it away. No way I was going to eat that. It wasn't the third world, after all.

The chain clanged. I looked up to where the hound stood in the corridor studying my bowl and sniffing the air.

"You don't mean you would eat
 
this
, do you?" I asked, incredulous.

The hound didn't answer, its eyes fixed firmly on the bowl. I shrugged and pushed it toward the monster. The creature stopped it with a deft paw, sniffed it and sneezed, just like any dog. Then it gave me a look of silent indignation and shoved the bowl back to me.

"Well, I'm sorry. I warned you. I suppose, you'd rather have some steak, would you?"

Was it my imagination or did the thing really nod its agreement?

I made a helpless gesture. "With all the abundance of choice, steak is something I haven't got. Sorry, babe."

The hound heaved a sigh and walked past. Did they starve it or something?

After a couple hours, a squeaky cart arrived with our dinner. A sergeant started to distribute the meals from cell to cell.

"Listen, chief," I called out to him. "How about some human food? Even rats won't eat what I've got."

"Absolutely," the man brightened up. "Know the rules?"

"Sure. Three servings for you, one for me," I paused and glanced in the direction of the chained hound. "Actually, make it two. A steak, some decent bread and some veg, whatever they have. A big steak, rare. And something to drink."

"Alcohol's not allowed," the sergeant stopped me. "I could get you some herbal tea. It's good," he added.

"Will do. How much?"

"A silver piece per serving plus an extra one for a complimentary pitcher of beer for the guards. Six silver in total."

"There you go, smooth talker. Wait. Here's the same for tomorrow's breakfast."

I did a quick bit of math and realized I'd be out of pocket in six days flat. Never mind. I'd have to go on a diet starting tomorrow. One meal a day should be plenty.

He was back with my order double quick: I've known restaurants with slacker service. The chain clanged again as they dragged the hound into a far corner. The guard hurried to carry a large trayful of food into my cell and rushed off, apparently not trusting his messmates.

The chained thing was back just as fast, sniffing the meat in the air. I took one look into its hungry eyes. Good job I ordered some extra to avoid its drooling gaze.

I picked an enormous steak, just gold and brown on the outside, and hurled it at the dog. Teeth clattered. I heard happy chewing in the dark.

"That's it, babe. Off you go. Let me eat my share in peace."

The hound gave me a meaningful stare.
 
Thank you, the Dark One,
 
resounded in my brain. I started and spilled my tea. It couldn't be telepathy, surely? Jeez. Mutants everywhere.

I was having my late dinner mulling over the info I'd gathered. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of a pet-controlling Knight. I just couldn't find fault in my logic. But if so, how was I the first to come up with the idea? Or could it be because no one before me had hit the lucky combination of a Warlock of Light having a free ride to level 30? Never mind. Someone always had to be the first, so why not me?

I put down the pitcher of herbal tea—quite decent, I had to give them that—and opened the character menu.

You've chosen specialization: Death Knight.

You can use any kind of armor, shields and weapons.

Skill Tree available: Strength

Skill Tree available: Weakness

Skill Tree available: Fury

You've reached level 30! Summoning Skill Tree is now unlocked!

You've reached level 30! Blood Skill Tree is now unlocked!

You've reached level 30! Death Skill Tree is now unlocked!

Strength skill tree was all about using various weapons, aggro hits, combos and such.

Weakness skill tree: various parameter-lowering debuffs, both single and group ones.

Fury skill tree: mainly personal buffs, including attack speed buffs, impact buffs and such.

Summoning skill tree. My main area of interest, it was virtually identical to that of Necromancer.

Ditto for Blood and Death ones, albeit they were lagging 20 levels behind Necro's. Nothing you could do about that. You couldn't beat Nec at his own game. But even so, my recent Hummungus experience had shown that a high-level pet could easily power-level his own controller.

Very well. I turned to characteristics. My lack of Strength was becoming somewhat of an issue. The 10
 
points I had were an insult: just three or four armor plate items could send me into overload. I had to have Strength at 40, at least—50 would be even better. One way would be to bluntly invest a few points in it. But then I would be no different from any other Knight and all my meticulous point-saving would have gone down the drain. Logically, if both constitution and the class bonus kept growing, then all I needed to do was wait another thirty levels or so for the misbalance to rectify itself. By the time I was level 100, Strength would naturally reach level 80 and that was where I wanted it to be. I wasn't going to do much blade-rattling, anyway.

All this meant I had to take a different route—which promised considerably more pain in the back but offered the best returns once I reached top levels. I wasn't going to invest anything in Strength, although I might buy a few rings with a Strength modifier. God knows I needed them.

Now, Constitution. On one hand, it was almost a carbon copy of Strength. On the other, though, the more hits you had, the higher were your chances of survival in battle. The misbalance was obvious: at level 30, my 140 Life could last me three hits, four max. I gagged my screaming inner greedy pig and invested 25 points in Constitution.

Agility. If I was meant to be a bull in a china shop, so be it. The most useless parameter at this stage, it didn't deserve a single point.

Last but by no means least: Intellect and Spirit. I poured everything I had left into them, two to one. Now my character panel looked like this:

Class: Death Knight

Level: 30

Strength: 10

Intellect: 139 (mana=1390)

Agility: Spirit: 70

Constitution: 39 (hits=390)

Much better now. Phew. Enough for today. Lights-out time. Tomorrow we'd see.

I spent the next morning lounging in bed. The blissful weekend feeling was back. Nowhere to hurry to, no business scheduled and a nice big breakfast to look forward to. The closest thing to a pleasure cruise. Talk of the devil, I heard chow coming.

The chain clanged. The bars slammed. A trayful of food on the stool by my bed started wafting its flavors. The guard didn't look very happy when he heard that there wouldn't be another order until tomorrow morning. The bastards were spoiled rotten. Soon they wouldn't fit through the door frame.

The hungry-eyed hound made her appearance just as I lifted the lid off a fragrant roast.

"Listen sweet, if I indulge you now, what are you going to do in a week's time when I'm not here anymore?"

Food!
 
echoed in my head.

"You've got a cheek, you," I chuckled. "Think you could learn some manners first?"

Food! Me! Hungry!

What would you do about it? "There, take it. It could have been my dinner, mind you. You think you could show me some secret way out, by way of gratitude? Once free, I could get you a whole deer, what would you say to that?"

A wave of ruefulness flooded my brain—vague images of an endless plateau covered in folds of solidified lava.

"Is that your home? Sorry, babe. Didn't mean to rake that up."

Mechanically I reached out and scratched the hound behind the ear just as I'd do with any other dog. The fact dawned on us both at once and we both froze, scared of upsetting the fragile balance. Then the monster tilted her head. The armor plates covering her neck parted exposing her anthracite hair.

"Want me to scratch you some more?"

Gingerly I fluffed up the scruff of her neck praying that it wasn't the last time I'd seen my hand. The hound growled like an oil generator. My head was flooded with images of a warm nest full of blind pups and the enormous dog mother licking clean the still-soft joints of their future armor.

"Feels good, eh?" I almost envied the beast.

I indulged her for a while, then nudged her head away. "Enough. Let me have some breakfast too. Pick up your steak now before the ants have it."

After a hearty meal, I got some quality shopping time in spending my Talent points.