I was up to my waist in Diablo 2 items. I could not move my legs and my arms were slowly being incapacitated as well.  I had been in the business for a few years, and although it had always been quite labour intensive, it had never been anywhere near this level. Business was good overall,  and I had reinvested a lot of money into it. I had bought $50K worth of Diablo 2 items from two independent chinese suppliers. One a duper, the other a boter. Both dollar thirsty. Additionally I had invested around $10K in computers and labour to take advantage of a short-lived public dupe method. All in all it had left me with around 1500 accounts or  12000 characters overloaded with items. The characters even had items placed on the cursor.

The investment was, of course, complete madness. The boter in particular had shoved items down my throat, and I had accepted them for no reason other than not caring about money. No sooner than I had aquired the items, Blizzard started deleting accounts on bnet due to the public dupe, and I was forced to mule everything over to new accounts. We are talking about 1500 accounts worth of items to move under time pressure. And not only that, I had to perm them as well due to the changes imposed on bnet. From that point on no accounts were safe unless they were regularly played on permed characters. It was nothing to it but to do it. And I did it. And did it.  Over and over again.

It was a job that never ended, and for every character bumped I could feel my soul being eaten bit by bit until nothing remained. In the end even my skin burst out in flames. I cursed the Coh, the Hoz, the Enigma and the Shako but little did it help me. I was beyond redemption as it turned out, and despite all the love I had given them, the ungrateful items did not give a shit. I was alone and I was burning.

Had I come too close to the sun, melting my wings in the process, or was I actually licked by the flames of hell? I am currently convinced I was in hell, and I am not talking about act IV in the game. I have stood face to face with the real Diablo down in the deepest pit of hell, and it has marked me for the rest of my life.

Although I no longer labour in hell, my mind and body will never recover from the experience I had there. Allergy to electricity. Screen dermatitis. Mouse arm. Like the wanderer I must now hide my appearance and stagger towards a dark future.