Diablo 1 Quest: The Magic Rock

While I was wandering around Tristram selling precious loot, the blacksmith offered me a new quest asking me to find a magic rock. He promised to forge something special out of the magic rock. The frustrating thing about quests in the original Diablo in general is how it is almost never specified where you have to go to find the item or kill the boss that the quests requires. You are just supposed to wander around and hope to run into the special item or enemy. Although this makes things a bit more nonlinear, it ultimately proves frustrating if you just want to play a short session of the game to complete one quest as it gives you no direction whatsoever.

Another difference in the way this game handles quests compared to the sequels is that you have no option of denying a quest. If an NPC offers you a quest, you have to accept it. Quest givers do not have an exclamation point over their head, so you're basically offered random quests if you start talking to the short group of NPCs in town. It feels a bit sloppy, but Diablo was really Blizzard's first game with a heavy RPG quest structure that would later become more refined in games such as Diablo II or World of Warcraft.

I stumbled into the magic rock on the fifth floor. It was on a pedestal. Not wanting to return to Tristram quite yet, I explored more of the fifth floor and was overjoyed to find a special staircase that took me back to town. It created a new point around the village that was the entrance to the Catacombs (level 5 of the dungeon). Not quite as convenient as the waypoints that come into play with Diablo II, but still better than working my way through all the floors without having to use a Town Portal scroll.

The blacksmith forged the magic rock into an Empyrean Band, a ring with some fun stat bonuses. I also used all the extra gold I had been saving to buy a Valiant Helm of Brilliance to increase my character's armor stats.

Diablo 1 Quest: The Curse of King Leoric

The loss of his son was too much for King Leoric. I did what I could to ease his madness, but in the end it overcame him.

Shortly after completing the first main quest involving the Butcher, I received a second quest involving the departed King Leoric, who is now a skeleton king. He resides on the third floor of the dungeon. Another quest with the structure of "go and kill a boss monster." A bit direct, but at least this one provided guidance as to what floor the boss was on.

The first time I tried to complete this quest, I entered King Leoric's Tomb, a tiny separate part of the dungeon packed with all sorts of skeleton archers and warriors. I defeated King Leoric and instead of returning to town, I became greedy. I decided to venture down to Floor 5.

The tougher monsters of Floor 5 really kicked my ass and wiped out my character. My last saved game was before the fight with King Leoric, so I had lost all my progress. This was Diablo's way of reminding me to save constantly as there are no automatic respawns in town when you die, unlike in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3.

For those wondering about the armor and weapon I have equipped on my character, take a look below.

Looks like I should level up my character a bit before venturing back down to Level 5 of the dungeon!