Devotees of Skatsimi magic will surely hush and bow very low to the olde arcane wisdom given here. Others may chuckle ...
NOTE: This piece is part of a special Diablo II series which is being published on DiabloII.net. "Lam Esen's Tome" is well known out there.

 

Lam Esen's Tome
by Ted L Glines

Ah, a quest! Shiver me timbers. “Search the six temples in the Bazaar, Upper Kurast, and the Causeway for Lam Esen's Tome.” We were told, by the wizard, about this ancient Lam Esen, who studied Skatsimi magic and the effect of the three Prime Evils on our mortal existence. and only WE could save the world!

So the barbarian champion and a sorcerer rushed through all those temples, beset by giant spiders, killer skeletons and zombies, and all of this to find some stupid book written by an idiot, sought by an alcoholic wizard, and finally found and delivered by a fool.

Oh yes, like knights of old, we arrived bloody and battered with the prize in our hand, and with our last gasp and sigh, we saw the alcoholic wizard smile.

While we're at it, let us search for the Tome of Dread Georg and the arcane Storm-Spinning Tome of Karla, and the Tome of Santa Klaws by MistyDawn (yay, Becky!), or Patty's mystic Tome of Grinning Betty Boop, for these are the awesome witches of our trembling day, today. Feel their gaunt and ghastly claws boney-bending around your throat, and hear the croaks of toads ribbit-ribbit-ribbit all around you. Maybe not. More likely, they will kiss you and you will like it ... (what an awesome fate).

Come to think of it, by comparison, Lam Esen was a poop-butt, and if you found his tome and opened it, you would have found nine hundred and nineteen pages ... all of them blank (nope - not even invisible ink). You see, Lam Esen hired a New York public relations firm to get his tome on the New York Times Bestseller List and thus qualified his empty tome as a quest. And if you ran in search of it, you were more of a fool than he. Last I heard of him, Lam Esen had a palace in Pebble Beach ... and you (questing you) were homeless-poor.