Sherarax
Spoiler Warning: This page contains spoilers which may affect your IVAN experience negatively
Perhaps the most feared opponent in the game, Sherarax strikes like greased lightning and will kill you just as fast. Incredibly fast on her feet to start with, she is also permanently Hasted and Invisible. She is amazingly skilled at using her dual-wielded, highly-enchanted whips to dismember foes with terrifying ease even with high-level armor. As little as single turn's worth of combat with her can leave you weaponless, polymorphed, missing a limb or all three...and that's assuming you survive in the first place. On top of her unreal combat abilities she wears an Amulet of Life Saving meaning you technically have to kill this one-woman army twice.
Sherarax is quite arguably more dangerous than Ischaldirh even though she possesses no spellcasting abilities due to her preference for face-to-face combat; with her high intelligence and perception she can spot you a fair distance away and will rapidly close the distanced. Worse still is the fact thatshe will almost always get spawned in the course of a normal game. By contrast you may not encounter Ischaldirh even after defeating the final boss Oree and although he can spot you coming farther away he prefers to stand off and pound you with his many spells and a well-protected player can endure multiple rounds of his magic attacks.
Spot and Survive (SOS)
The only reliable ways to spot this femme fatale are with ESP or Infravision. If regular mistress monsters are already spawning, keep a close eye out for her because confusing Sherry with a lowly novice mistress can quickly be your last mistake.
Once you HAVE spotted her (pity on you), the general rule is to run to the nearest level exit. Straight-up confrontation of any kind is suicide. She will carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey in short order even if you've beaten every previous named boss-monster like a drum. You cannot zap enough wands while she charges at you to do more than tickle damage. Trying to tame her will fail even if your Charisma and Intelligence are 9999. And of course, she is immune to being polymorphed. The bottom line is that unless your strength, agility, and dexterity are all at or above her levels and you have literally every piece of equipment except your amulet enchanted to +5 levels...just freaking run.
If she's too close to run away from or is within eyesight of the level exit (and would thus follow you to the next level) your only hope is a scroll or wand of teleportation or having your teleportitis status kick in. Of these, the wand is the best option as it takes the least time, can be used on-demand, and you can either teleport yourself away from her or teleport her away from you.
...well then how DO I beat her?
- Chain-Reaction: The only reliable way to take down this ferociously formidable female, a large number of explosions chain-reacting is guaranteed to work IF you have a sufficient number of wands (fireball and lightning), Mines and Backpacks. Of note is that backpacks are a renewable resource as they can be 'harvested' in unlimited numbers from the Dwarves who regularly spawn. At least two dozen explosive devices are recommended and they must all piled within 1 tile of each other. Set off the trap by either planting active mines where Sherarax will have to step (beware you don't set them off by accident) or zapping a Wand of Fireball when she is right in the middle of them.
- Zombie Swarm: Tame at least three Master Necromancers on another level and bring them along. The swarm of zombies they raise will NOT take her down but can serve as distractions and even potentially give Sherarax a nasty case of Leprosy.
- Powerful allies: Viable and potentially the least time-consuming, but only a few allies will stand even a few rounds against Sherarax. Resurrected unique enemies such as Ur-Khan and Vladimir stand the best chance but will still likely lose limbs and/or die. Best practice is to bring along a Wand of Resurrection and a few bottles of healing liquid and troll blood to revive slain allies and patch everybody up if you go this route.
Stats and Equipment
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stats | Equipment | |||
| Arm Strength | 32 |
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| Leg Strength | 32 | |||
| Dexterity | 64 | |||
| Agility | 62 | |||
| Endurance | 32 | |||
| Perception | 48 | |||
| Intelligence | 32 | Abilities | ||
| Wisdom | 32 | Masochist, Sadist. | ||
| Charisma | 64 | |||
| Random Stats | - | Permanent States | ||
| Size | 180 | Haste, Invisibility, ESP, Infravision | ||
| HP | 253 | |||
