Maurice Greene the half-Orc Rogue (long)

[mightbecactus]

Hi Angbanders,

Am a long time player first time poster on oook, started playing about '98 and have come back to the game on and off ever since. Have only ever beaten the game properly once, with a Vampire mage in Zang sometime in '02 or so. I tend to be averse to knowing all the spoilers and tend not to probe as much as I should, just in case my narrative seems off the mark in places

A couple of weeks ago I started a little journal of my current adventure and thought I'd share the progress of it so far. I'm hoping this guy will go all the way but he's had some uncomfortable close calls already...

Am on Vanilla 3.0.9

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Maurice had learned of the unfortunate death of his brother, Asamoah Gyan in the dungeons of Angband and decided to take up the ongoing struggle on behalf of his family.

His ancentor Carvalho, the first great Rogue of his tribe, had begun the campaign of the Half-Orcs against Morgoth. Carvalho was intelligent and ambitious, and had managed to learn difficult spells like Lesser Recharging and had dove early to find quality items and resists. His most fortunate find was a Gnomish Shovel of Earthquakes which massively boosted his fighting ability. Carvalho delighted in swatting his enemies aside with his little magical shovel, granting many more blows per turn than he would get from his previous weapon, the ice-clad dagger Nimthanc. Ultimately, Carvalho reached level 32 and on dungeon level 42 met his demise. A Basilisk stormed his position and began breathing poison and Carvalho unfortunately chose to phase away, intending to jump out of the corridor. He instead ported next to the monster which breathed again. Carvalho's staff of teleportation then failed him, and the beast finished the job with a final blast.


Carvalho's son Drogba was the mightiest Orc ever to undertake the campaign against Morgoth. Much stronger and more dextrous than his father, though less cunning, 'Droggers' as he was known in the town followed his father's philosophy of diving hard, and focussed on merciless hand to hand combat as his means of bringing the dungeon dwellers to task. Droggers was fortunate to discover Holhenneth which replaced his need to continue casting his detection spells, which he always found troublesome. He acquired the spectactular Full Plate of Isildur and the Long Bow of Bard, and found a choice of quality weaponry, of which his favourite was a masterfully crafted short sword of venom. He easily destroyed the basilisk that killed his father, going on to brutally murder the creature's entire family. Drogba ultimately met his end on level 38 and dungeon level 50. While clearing the level, Droggers detected a Great Crystal Drake nearby and chose to proceed with the clearance of rooms near it. Though lacking in shards resist, Droggers was sure he could avoid the beast or absorb a blast of shards anyway, at 600+ hit points. The Drake did indeed breathe from a distance, surprising Droggers who dropped to 290 hit points. The Drog teleported away, landing in a pit of monsters led by Saruman of Many Colours. By the time the pit had done it's work, Drog was on 90 hit points and still bleeding profusely from the shard attack. The next teleport was unsuccessful, and Droggy dropped to 25 and bleeding. Finally teleporting away, Drog then bled to death in an empty room before his recall could trigger. There are rumours that Drogba must have been delirious at the last, as he could have used the spell Cure Light Wounds to possibly survive the wound, though he strangely did not attempt to.

Many years passed before the tribe would see another as virtuous and mighty as the great Drogba. Two brothers eventually rose to challenge that legend, by names of Asamoah Gyan and Maurice Greene. Gyan was like in stature to the D but was more finely tuned to the ways of magic. Choosing to take up the mantle, Asamoah's journey into the dungeon came to an unlucky end as he was paralysed by some foul spore and then murdered by a 3-headed Hydra.

Maurice Greene was enraged at the news of his brother's death, and vowed revenge on the beast that killed him so dishonourably. Maurice was identical in stature to Asamoah, and began his journey in earnest. He struggled greatly to obtain equipment that was suitable for the long campaign, and was stuck with mundane armour and manually enchanted weapons for some 25 character levels, with but exception only for the Metal Cap of Thengel, whose virtues seemed largely wasted on one such as he. He made sure to purchase a ring of immunity to paralysis from the black market so as to avoid meeting a similar end to that of his bro. During this time he had to scrap for every advantage, managing to kill Azog severely out of depth using the phasing technique taught to him by his brother, but was painfully unable to quickly kill Wormtongue or Smeagol who stole coin from him and successfully evaded his arrows and blade. Maurice however gave no quarter to the minions of the dungeon that could not escape him, and he found the cursed Hydra and slew it, going on to destroy beasts of even fouler heritage with even more heads. By level 29 his luck had turned as he had found on the bodies of his enemies both the Phial of Galadriel and the Shards of Narsil. The broken sword of legend played in his hands, almost leaping into the bodies of his foes. Maurice realised that this weapon, though a shadow of it's former power was still mighty indeed, and weighing little more than a dagger, was perfect for his fighting style. Narsil would serve him well into the depths should he continue to fight cleverly.


On dungeon level 27 Maurice happened upon a minor vault, and detected a strange, powerful armour inside it. It was Gold Dragon Scale Mail. The suit however was guarded by a devilish beast not witnessed ever by even the great Drogba; a Hellhound. Maurice knew there were creatures that could breathe fire for massive damage in the depths of the dungeon and that he still had as yet no protection whatsoever from the deadly element. Weighing his choices, he decided to permit the beast to see him for one turn, liquifying the wall from a distance of 50 paces. The hound emerged, and breathed. Maurice was cautiously happy to suffer only 25 hit points from his 310 total, and decided to test the beast's constitution with his rod of Cold Balls. Two stars came off as the Hellhound grunted, but it breathed again, dropping Maurice to 230 and destroying his last junior spellbook. It was time to draw this beast away from the vault and so Greene ran around a corner and the beast followed. With the hound eventually suitably isolated, Maurice then teleported, and making use of the superb stealth bestowed upon his line, stole his way back to the vault, and donned the great armour. Glittering like a God, Maurice strode through the town to sell the remaining booty of the vault and replace his burnt inventory, before recalling back to the depths.

His next find was a star-ID scroll, and using it Maurice was somewhat shocked and humbled to discover that his broken sword was in fact bestowing on him a permanent resistance to fire and was also particularly tuned to the slaying of orcs and trolls. What might have happened in the vault had he not been wielding the weapon when the Hellhound emerged? Trying to put that uncomfortable thought behind him, Maurice gratefully hefted the weapon in his hand and began again sweeping through the levels.

Maurice happened upon a set of seemingly non-descript levels that yielded a plethora of fine armours, The Chain of Arvedui, Thalkettoth, Caspanion and the gloves Cammithrim. He also stumbled upon to his delight, a Ring of Speed (+9) on dungeon level 37. Before long he had made various adjustments to his set-up, now wearing Caspanion instead of his Gold DSM. Maurice was also fortunate to hit the right types of stat-gain as he pushed below Level 40; quickly pushing his Strength and Dex above 18/80, with Con not far behind (Intelligence remained somewhat elusive). Narsil was now yielding the maximum 7 blows per turn and Greene was dishing serious damage in hand-to-hand combat with it. His ranged power was limited however to his 6 rods of Fire Bolts, and one each of Fire and Cold Balls; his Long Bow of Power unable to produce the same level of carnage. During this time he got in several nasty scrapes with Ancient Multi-hued Dragons and various uniques. Many of these encounters ended with Maurice teleporting either himself or the opponent, and several potions of speed and healing were consumed for no benefit. Kavlax proved particularly troublesome and would have to wait until Greene could absorb more damage.

[debo]

lol this is great! How's Maurice holding up since then?

[mightbecactus]

Thanks debo, here are some more adventures of Maurice after spending most of the weekend with him.

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Maurice continued to enjoy success, managing to slay several very high profile dungeon dwellers as he pushed down to level 55; including four Ringwraiths, Shelob and a number of particularly nasty nether casters/breathers. Anything that was too prickly in hand-to-hand was dispatched from a distance with the Heavy XBow of Power Maurice had found to replace his Long Bow. Mundane monsters were more fortunate to die quickly as dictated by the famous Sword That Was Broken. As he progressed, Maurice's strength and dexterity quickly maxed out, and he was forced to consider the possibility that he was becoming too strong to use Narsil anymore, as he recovered the Glaive of Pain and a Two-handed Flail of Fury. While the Glaive was perhaps too massive and mighty for even Greene's capabilities, the flail complemented his strength neatly and for each blow he struck it almost seemed to swing itself again, humming as it bludgeoned Maurice's enemies into paste.

By this point Greene was in serious need of a Hold Life power, as perhaps the most annoying creatures he had yet encountered had began accosting him - Ethereal Hounds. However in all he was beginning to feel that he had attained a power that Drogba had not reached. He was faster, and could now reliably conjure mystical shields and resistances to the elements; in truth in both these respects he had now surpassed the Legend.


Greene decided that he needed to continue his aggressive diving in order to find the resists he still required, but was beginning to sense a higher risk as the dungeon began to cough up some nasty adversaries. On level 58 he detected a Graveyard packed with various horrors, including various Druj creatures. He had heard that these beings were worth a lot of experience to kill but were also extremely dangerous. The 'yard also contained two Dracolichs, and Greene had heard tale of the heros of yore who had been consumed in their powerful nether blasts. Deciding to opt out of this potential date with oblivion, Greene instead decided to assault Ar Pharazon; who was wandering about on the same level. The ancient king forced the consumption of Greene's last Healing potion, but was then subjected to some severe blunt force trauma, and was ultimately bludgeoned to death under the humming Flail. Maurice looted the body and found the Cloak of Thingol. The cloak unfortunately did not possess any interesting abilities but was at least superior to the one Maurice had been wearing for most of the adventure up until that point, and granted a sixth blow from the Flail due to it's bonus to Dexterity. Having increased his mana pool to about 200 points, Maurice decided he was now smart enough to begin replacing several key actions primarily with spells instead; including identify, spear of light, teleport self and haste self. This allowed Maurice to free up some room in his backpack as he no longer needed the various rods, staves and potions, though he would now be carrying instead two low-level spellbooks he'd previously never bothered with.


Before long Maurice had stumbled upon two more excellent armours, a Multi-hued Dragon Scale Mail and the armour made famous by the great Drogba of old; the Plate of Isildur. Maurice pondered as to how it could have come into the possession of Eol the Dark Elf, who now lay dead in front of him. Greene decided that the bonus hit and spell points being granted by Caspanion outweighed the incredible dragon breath powers bestowed by the Mail, and he could not use Isildur as to do so would expose him to a potential death by poison. In truth the Mail was probably superior to Isildur but Greene would keep his ancestor's armour in his home for a while at least.

With this continuing set-up Maurice dove to level 62 and began to encounter some serious opposition. On a single floor he was pitted against Uriel, Angel of Fire, the Learnean Hydra, Saruman, the Balrog of Moria and Dwar, the Dog Lord. Greene managed to annihilate the Balrog with relative ease, but had no choice but to abandon the missions against the others. It turned out that the Dog Lord wasn't actually a dog at all but a Ringwraith that could summon dogs. As such he needed to be dealt with in an anti-summon corridor, but could touch to lower xp and Greene was out of Restore potions, so there was no point really killing him at this stage. Uriel, like Baphomet (who Greene had some history with) turned out to be a mana bolt caster and he just didn't have the Healing capacity required to cope with either that spell or for that matter the other two most nasty attacks he seemed to be facing; plasma and nether breath. Saruman teleported out of his date with the Flail of Fury and Greene decided that hunting him would probably not be profitable. The Learnean Hydra, last to be approached for a liaison with the Flail, summoned several nasty helpers who were then scattered along with their master by Greene's now overheating Rods of TO. Greene would savour the death of that foul beast, sire of his brother's killer, when the time came. Bellowed Maurice across the dungeon: "You'll never feel greater Misery: Master of my Enemy!".


Wiping the virtue from his eyes, Maurice began to push toward level 65, and after suffering some disenchantment effects to his beloved Flail (damn Sharkey), he decided to begin honing his skill with the Glaive of Pain. He was now able to swing four blows per turn with the mighty weapon, and had also managed to improve the to-hit enchantment naturally provided by it. The Glaive got stuck in to some heavy hitters, including several super-dragons that Maurice managed to sneak up on. Great Hell, Swamp and Storm Wyrms were felled alike as Greene's prowess with the massive polearm grew to legendary proportions. It was about this time that Maurice discovered that Hold Life power did not insulate one perfectly from the effects of life drain, which he found rather annoying as the heroes of old never had this problem, at least according to legend. The Evenstar gemstone he discovered would be some alleviation at least.

Greene was accosted by a second Great Storm Wyrm which opened with a cruel shock, destroying his only rod of Cold Balls. Maurice was extremely ticked off at this and promptly murdered the creature, which then dropped a spellbook he had not yet encountered: 'Tensers Transformations'. Browsing the pages Greene gaped with delight at the new spells at his disposal, as he could now add Heroism and Berserk to his pre-combat preparations (which already featured Sheild, Resistance and Haste Self); increasing the average damage he could dish with the Glaive to a heavily armoured opponent by a whopping 30%. The book also allowed the conjuring of elemental brands to any number of shots, bolts or arrows which he considered to be an extremely tasty development.

[mightbecactus]

A bit more of Maurice - he is still alive but only just!

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Not long after Maurice once again encountered the Learnean Hydra. Crafting an anti-summon corridor, he cast his various buffing spells and waited for the beast to approach. The LH announced its arrival with a thunderous roar, its 12 foul heads barking and fuming as it crashed into to the narrow passage. Greene leapt at the beast and swung the Glaive in deep, accurate arcs, inflicting lasting and horrific trauma. Though the Hydra coiled violently and snapped its venomous jaws down at him with a terrible anger, it could not hope to survive the relentless punishment of the almighty Glaive, wielded as it was with such magical ferocity. The beast finally succumbed, its scaly mass crashing to the floor, most of its heads now severed and steaming. Climbing atop the foul carcass Maurice cried out to his fallen brother; "Thou art Avenged!!!".

Emboldened by his accomplishments thus far, Greene decided to dive to level 68. On that floor he detected the presence of the Mouth of Sauron. Figuring him for a sorcerer easily slain in an anti-summon corridor, Maurice set up for the kill. The Mouth entered and set to work disenchanting Greene's equipment. To his horror, he watched his Glaive drop to +29 damage (from +30). Disgusted with himself, Maurice teleported the cur away and began to sweep the rest of the level. As he moved on, he was accosted by Tselakus the Dreadlord. Having recently executed the last of the Witch King's colleagues, Maurice decided it was probably ok to get in a tangle with him. Unfortunately, Tselakus turned out to be very nasty, and summoned a horde of seriously powerful creatures, including Thurwengwithel. Having significantly damaged the great horror, Greene decided to teleport the others away and continue wailing at Tselakus; this was a serious mistake as the remaining forces converged on him and the 'ported ones moved through the walls to again attack him. Greene teleported himself away, and while clearing the room he landed in, was a few turns later attacked once again by the Mouth of Sauron whom he had earlier sent packing. The fell sorcerer was now really ticked off and had room to manoever, and opened combat with a whirlpool attack followed by a plasma bolt straight to Maurice's orcish head. Sick on less than half his life total, Maurice bared his teeth at the menace and pointed a rod of TO squarely at the chest of his foe. The rod sparked and fizzled. Looking up in terror, Greene gaped as the Mouth then conjured a huge Mana Storm. The sorcerer laughed with delight as Greene was engulfed in the un-resistable storm, dropping to just 50 hit points out of his 733 total. Maurice, now panicking, opted to quaff his last Healing potion rather than teleport to a possible death at the feet of Tselakus, and braced for the conjurer's next move. Rather than continue his devestating barrage, the Mouth decided to paralyse the struggling hero, so as to prolong the punishment. But in this he made a mistake, as Maurice could not be paralysed while wearing the gloves 'Cammithrim'. Taking advantage of the lapse in the sorcerer's crushing attacks, Greene teleported himself away with a fail-safe scroll. He mercifully landed in the corridor outside the room full of Tselakus' friends. He zapped his Recall and then brandished his rods of TO, smacking them against his boot in the hope they would work properly. He then thankfully managed to send the queue of visitors away until he was finally yanked up to town.


Maurice spent several days in town recovering from his near-death experience at the hands of the Mouth of Sauron. The sorcerer now had a special place of hatred in Greene's heart and he swore he would redeem his honour in their next encounter, having been brought to his knees by the filth so easily last time. Looking mournfully at his slightly disenchanted Glaive, he swore revenge.


When Greene returned to the dungeon, he was invited to destroy a number of less difficult uniques and Wyrms and enjoyed several boons as a result. Glaurang bit the dust and dropped the Engagement Ring of Tulkas (...?). The dungeon also yielded the elfstone Elessar. These two items boosted his profile to 936 hit points, a fifth blow from the Glaive of Pain, a 500 hit point heal activation and +11 base speed. With this new status he began to enjoy an easier time of things, though the execution of his first Greater Titan proved somewhat hairy, as did his humbling and unsuccessful first encounter with Ungoliant the Unlight. Before long he discovered a Shield of Preservation and with it was able to trap and murder Saruman in close combat without fear of having his gear disenchanted. This also would no doubt bode well for the next encounter with the Mouth of Sauron. Maurice finally destroyed Gabriel the Messenger, though the mighty angel still forced the consumption of two healing potions on its way down. Growing in confidence and now lacking only chaos, nether, sound and shards resists, he decided it was time to push down to level 85.

Before long Greene recovered a copy of the most rare spellbook in existence, 'Kelek's Grimoire of Power'. It was dropped by a Storm Wyrm, and recalling his delight at the discovery of Tenser's, he gingerly opened the ancient pages. The text at once appeared strange and foreign to him, and he began flicking hurriedly through the book in concern. Every page was almost completely illegible to the orcish thug. He could only decipher one spell, something to do with conjuring a confusion-ball that did no damage in it's own right. Such a spell would be next to useless in his arsenal as there were no hordes of creatures both threatening and dumb enough to be usefully confused at such treacherous depths as he was now exploring. Now at character level 49 and close to his prime, he realised that if he was going to kill the Lord of Darkness and the powerful minions that were still alive and under his sway, he would have to chiefly rely on good old orcish muscle and the Glaive of Pain, or a better weapon if such a thing existed in middle-earth.

[mightbecactus]

More progress including another could-have-easily-been-death experience

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On level 81 Greene was attacked by the son of Eol, who turned out to be a pretty worthy opponent in hand-to-hand combat and much more powerful than his father. Boring through the walls to get to Maurice, the dark elf's attacks were heavy hitting and designed to disenchant. The Shield of Preservation held up however, and Greene finished the tough little fellow with a crushing blow from the Glaive. Looting the corpse, he recovered an array of very fine items, including the bow 'Belthronding', the armour of Celeborn, the shield of Thorin and the Pick Axe of the Dwarves. On the same level he was able to destroy the Witch King of Angmar, thereby augmenting his loot with a RoS +10. With Maurice's strength now sustained, Tselakus also met his end not long after.


At this point Maurice modified his set up so as to obtain +20 base speed, but this came at a cost of 100 hit points off his total life. Blindness and confusion resistance were proving a sore spot as the excellent helm of Hammerhand had to remain in his home.


On level 85 he decided to attack a Great Wyrm of Chaos, as he was now packing chaos resist from the small metal shield of Thorin. The Wyrm at once surprised him by summoning two companions, a Great Wyrm of Balance, and one of Law. The Law wyrm was positioned behind the Chaos, with Balance around the corner. Greene had never fought any of these beasts so decided to make himself an anti-summon corridor to stop things getting out of hand. After liquifying the wall on his right-hand side, the Law wyrm breathed.... shards. Maurice, like Drogba before him had no resist to this terrible attack and dropped to around 190hp instantly. Starting to panic, he swigged a star-heal potion and prayed. Fortunately there was no more breathing and his +30 speed kicked in, allowing him to phase away from danger, isolate the chaos and balance wyrms and destroy them, before sending the Law one packing with a rod of TO.


Before long he once again detected the presence of the Mouth of Sauron. He was creeping about in a room not far from Greene's position. Hefting his trusty Glaive, Maurice began boring through the walls toward his arch-enemy, crafting a suitably narrow area to lure the cur. Hasted, shielded, resist-buffed, heroic and berserk, he liquified the last block of wall and fired an arrow at the sorcerer. The Mouth flicked the arrow away, bellowed with patronising laughter and turned toward him with a worrying look of superiority and certainty. Greene retreated to his rocky defensive position and, when the Mouth rounded the corner, he pounced. Slashing the Glaive in quick, perfect arcs, he tore at the fell sorcerer, his blood hot with anger. The Mouth was stunned by the ferocity of the attack, and screamed as the Glaive struck with lasting pain through his ancient robes. Finding his form, the sorcerer managed some relief from the punishment with a whirlpool attack. Maurice once again was swept away, and became disoriented and suffered significant damage. But amidst the maelstrom he reached through his mithril plate for the elfstone Elessar. Clasping it, with a word he was healed, found his feet and was now ready to strike at the Mouth with renewed fury. The Mouth gaped in terror at the pure speed of the orc's movement as Maurice brought the Glaive down in a series of devestating blows. Wound after crushing wound he suffered, until doubled over, bleeding and almost dead, the Mouth conjured a mana bolt which sent Greene flying with a severe wound. Maurice grimly swigged a precious Healing potion, and with the renewed strength it gave him, leapt with undeniable speed to stand over the prone cur. The Mouth looked up balefully at the Rogue, a countenance of pure hatred affixed upon his bloodied face. His eyes red with rage, Greene bellowed a gut-wrenching cry of victory as he forced the Glaive through a final crushing sweep, obliterating the Mouth from the world and leaving his carcass broken on the dungeon floor.


His veins pumping with adrenaline at having destroyed his nemesis, Greene soon after detected another monster he'd long been giving a wide berth. Azriel, Angel of Death had been a regular presence on many of the dungeon floors Maurice had explored, but the rogue had never dared challenge him in combat. He decided he was perhaps now ready to test his mettle against the mighty angel, who had executed so many adventurers in the legends of old, and began boring his way to an engagement with him. Fully buffed, in the most controlled environment he could engineer, but lacking a resistance to nether, Greene stood ready to receive his foe and liquified the last block of wall. Azriel immediately filled the chamber, his deathly visage truly terrible to behold. The holy foe set to work with blinding speed exploiting Maurice's weaknesses, casting nether bolts and balls. Greene found himself reaching for the elfstone very quickly and a grim sense of his own impending death was beginning to grow within him. Renewed, he set to work hacking and slashing as only he knew how. The Glaive did it's work and Azriel was now gravely wounded. But in this he had made the mighty being very mad. Azriel stepped back, and raising his huge arms, began to breathe the very essence of death. Maurice was consumed in the terrible wave which engulfed the chamber, dropping to a quarter of his life total. He blinked with dismay at the power of his enemy and reached for one of his most precious star-healing potions. And then, he attacked. Azriel finally went down under a hail of blows from the Glaive, his deathly spirit extinguished; and Maurice sank to the floor in exhaustion.


Maurice pushed down to level 95 and on the way executed Drauglin, Oramax, Gothmog and Ungoliant, utilising his now honed technique of anti-summon chambers, buffing to the gills with spells, +30 speed, elfstone activation, healing potions and the Glaive of Pain. For his effort he recovered a number of powerful artifacts including the Palantir of Westernesse and the Ring of Power 'Narya'. He would need several star-ID scrolls before altering his setup however, so continued with the routine murder of Great Wyrms, activating the genocidal tendencies of the armour of Celeborn whenever the dungeon coughed up enemies he didn't like. Though mighty in stature he knew there were ystill more fell foes between him and the Dark Lord, including Carcaroth, Huan, the Tarrasque, Cerberus, Kronos, Atlas, Vecna, Cantoras, Ancalagon the Black and Sauron the Sorcerer.

[sethos]

Maurice may need to rethink his strategy for a few of the upcoming battles - KraEv Rik IV has found that dancing around a single pillar of stone can often be far more effective, so long as you are faster than your foe, and take the time to learn when to strike, and when to move.

You'll need those lovely healing potions when morgoth comes calling, after all. Such paltry tricks mean little to the Lord of Darkness.

[mightbecactus]

More Maurice progress, getting close to the end now...(gulp).

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Greene stumbled into a suite of nasty combats with the very uniques he had on his list. Huan proved to be a complete pain in the backside, as when he wasn't breathing shards (which Greene could only resist by dropping to 4 blows per turn with the Glaive) he was covering Maurice in frost and taking out healing potions as he went. Late in the combat he even breathed light which Cammithrim thankfully mitigated. Though his foe was a noble creature Maurice took particular pleasure in gutting him with the Glaive and hacking his carcass to pieces long after death. The Tarrasque proved to be an even more irritating and terrifying encouter; breathing something horrible one time in two, and never once pausing to try a useless attack like staring deep into Maurice's eyes or something lame like that. For the first time in his adventure he decided to risk a 'hit and hope' on 600hp with no healing left, with the Tarra down to two dark red stars and having invested about 8 healing potions in the combat. Figuring the low life of the beast would translate to weaker breath attacks, thankfully the monster tried to flee in terror at just the right time and he was able to conduct his trademark execution. Maurice learned from these fights to always stock a load of crappy potions that can be destroyed instead of his precious healing. He wondered why he didn't think of this earlier. Atlas was quite pleased with the fact he was fighting Maurice in an anti-summon chamber, as he let fly with a shattering attack that brought about 500hp worth of rubble down on Maurice's head. He was a bit shaken at this but had sufficient Life potions to continue wailing at the great Titan until he went down. One lesson to take from this was that Morgoth himself may have a similar power.


Greene made it down to level 98 and began using stair creation to flick between levels. His intention was to destroy as many legendary unique monsters as possible prior to facing Sauron the Sorcerer on level 99, whom he knew was able to summon any special opponents he had not slain. He also hoped to generate levels with large vaults that might harbour some powerful items.

On the sweeping of one of these levels, Maurice walked in to a checkered pit full of trolls, and began swinging the Glaive lazily, not bothering to pay attention as to what he was attacking or how much damage he was taking. As the trolls fell about him in hopeless contest to the Glaive, the orc suddenly suffered a nasty shock as he was blasted from the side by a bout of poison stronger than any he had encountered since battling Ungoliant. With no temporary poison resist enabled this dropped him to a terrifying 1/4 of his life total. Carcaroth, the Jaws of Thirst, his black coat eluding Greene's detection, had been in the pit the whole time, patiently waiting for him to kill enough trolls so as to move through the checkered pit to get to him. Greene snapped to attention and gulped at a star-healing potion, phased out of the pit, and drew the great Wolf into a deathly encounter. The second engagement was ironically also very one sided, as Maurice put on the ring Narya, and now immune to the burning attacks of his foe and resistant to the nether blasts he could produce (and paying attention), managed to easily win the combat.


Greene then happened upon a small chamber containing a greater draconic quylthulg. He blundered in without looking, and the room was instantly filled with huge wyrms of various terrifying lineage, including chaos, balance, and 'many colours'. He phased away and began killing these huge beasts one by one, except for the wyrms of Law and Balance (which he had found out the painful way also could breathe shards) which were TO'd. Under the giant carcasses on the floor he found a second Ring of Power, 'Nenya'. He realised that, as he was on a search for better gear, he could continue pestering the fleshy summoner and murder whatever came out, in the hope that the wyrms would bring with them a continuing stream of quality booty. Implementing his plan, the quylthulg summoned even more huge opponents, but this time the horde included the greatest dragon of them all.

It turned out that Ancalagon was mainly a breather of the four primary elements, against which Maurice had very strong defenses. He almost felt like the fight was unfair as no healing potions were required, just a single elfstone activation, to bring the legendary foe down under the Glaive of Pain. Ancalagon had been guarding a very special item indeed, the light crossbow 'Cubragol'. As Maurice practically never used missiles, he happily swapped out the bow of Amrod for his new acquisition and found himself now at +32 base speed.


Greene went on to sweep though several versions of level 97 and 98, exploring vast vaults containing hordes of both weak and strong monsters. Relying on Banishment to avoid unnecessary fighting, he soon found the excellent boots of Thror and a cloak of Aman which gave resist confusion. This allowed the swap to Hammerhand and the accomplishment of what would probably be the orc's final stage of development. At 1069 hit points, 227 spell points, +32 base speed, resist everything except shards and nether, swappable immunities, with elfstone activation and 5 huge blows per turn, the adventurer was now ready for his final task (hopefully).


As fate would have it the dungeon threw one last spanner in the works prior to Greene's descent to face Sauron. Clearing a small vault with no serious opposition inside it, he stepped over a plain gold ring lying on the floor. Thinking it a mere trinket, he bent over to pick it up. As he clasped the ring in his hand his mind was suddenly blasted with visions of massive towers and a pervading sense of doom. Through the ether to the ends of the world he travelled before a giant burning eye filled his vision and he cried out in terror. Maurice dropped the ring and reached with trepidation into his backpack for a star-id scroll. This was the One Ring and it would bestow on the bearer powers beyond measure. The scroll filled with the incredible virtues that the bearer would enjoy but ended with the price that must be paid. He would never be able to remove the ring, and would finally be consumed by it. His mind rushed at the possibilites. By wearing the ring, he could wear the Soulkeeper armour and inflict significantly more damage with whichever great weapon he chose, granting him undeniable power to vanquish Sauron and Morgoth. He scooped the ring quickly into his backpack, taking care not to hold it for too long. He decided that he would now face Sauron, and if the situation became desperate, he would put the ring on his finger.


On level 99 Sauron introduced himself from offscreen with a mana bolt. Greene winced at the pain and teleported himself away. He prepared a long tunnel with various defensive chambers, and was relieved to observe that Sauron could not bore through walls and also did not move particularly quickly. His backpack stocked with his collection of potions, scrolls, staves and rods, Maurice followed his time honoured plan and liquified the last block of wall before retreating back to his defensive position. Sauron entered the chamber and was immediately attacked by a hasted, heroic, berserk, resistant and shielded maniac swinging a massive, deadly polearm. Greene struck with awesome power at +41 speed, linking the Glaive through a series of combo moves that left the dark lord staggering in pain. Sauron attempted to summon help, but there was nowhere for his servants to emerge other than behind him. Maurice could feel the One Ring burning into his back but he forced himself to ignore it as he drove the Glaive home repeatedly. Sauron cried in anger and threw everything he had at the orcish bully, but even a great mana storm had no lasting impact as the Rogue simply healed himself, barely breaking his stride to do so. Finally, Sauron collapsed.

The ring went cold and Greene knew he had passed the ultimate test of will. He would never wield it. And now he would take his mighty weapon downstairs, and with it murder the Lord of Darkness.

[mightbecactus]

Morgoth already knew Maurice was coming. His agents had been fleeing past him in to the depths of Angband following the death of his greatest Servant. Like he battled and crushed Fingolfin so long ago, again he knew that he must meet this hated foe himself. He could sense the hero now stalking around his personal throne level. With a grunt, he hefted his mighty hammer.


Greene crept around level 100 in trepidation. He had brought for the final battle a light crossbow of the Haradrim and around 100 exotic bolts of various virtues to shoot with it. With this weaponry he hoped to weaken Morgoth from a distance before finishing him with the Glaive. His palms were rivers of sweat and his heart thumped like a wild thing in his chest. Where was his enemy? After what seemed an eternity, something switched off in Greene's ESP; and he realised that whole walls were now disappearing on the other side of the dungeon. Now the earthworks could be heard - and now... they could be felt! Morgoth was boring through his lair at blinding speed toward the Rogue. Greene put his back to the wall of the small room he was in and levelled the crossbow at the direction of the sound.

Morgoth smashed into the room, bellowing in terrible anger. Maurice cringed at the mammoth size of his mighty enemy and pulled the trigger. The crossbow whipped shot after deadly shot into the massive armoured body but Morgoth shrugged each as though it were a wasp's sting. He made straight for the little orcish thug, swinging his hammer in huge arcs. Greene phased and continued firing, just like he had so long ago as a fresh faced explorer against Azog. After several phases, a star came off of Morgoth's life and Greene began to feel like he may have a chance of winning. But Morgoth grew tired of this game and so summoned a horde of greater demons. Greene cracked out a scroll of mass banish and the fight continued. Morgoth continued to summon and/or cast nether balls at Maurice and this quickly drained Greene's resources. He was now out of bolts and banishment, but Morgy was crippled on about 60% of his life. The hero phased, swapped in Cubragol and hefted his mighty Glaive.

Morgy sensed that his opponent was running low on options and brought some severe pain down with his great hammer. Greene grimaced as the blows struck home, bringing rock tumbling down on him for massive damage. He began phasing and wailing in a pattern so that whenever he became surrounded, he phased. This resulted in an interesting problem for Morgoth, because the blows he struck would tend to damage the allies he had summoned; but more importantly blocked them from getting line of sight to Maurice. In addition, Greene could use Morgoth's speed against him by phasing and luring him away from his summoned allies as needed. As this struggle continued, he realised that so long as at least one square next to him was empty and the summoned monsters nearby were weak, that he could remain locked in combat with Morgoth in relative safety. At one critical point, Greene was surrounded by relatively crappy opponents and opted to destroy the weakest one rather than phase away. By continuing to do this, he was able to severely damage Morgoth with relentless Glaive blows, pausing only to quaff Healing potions or activate his recharged Healing staff, even in the face of mana storms or the most shattering blow from the great hammer. He phased one more time and managed to collect up several of his fired bolts from the beginning of the fight. With this small arsenal he again subjected Morgoth to a flurry of nasty shots at super-speed.


Greene and Morgoth finally squared off in melee once more. The giant enemy, creator of all orc-kind was almost spent, his huge frame grievously wounded and pocked with crossbow bolts. Defiantly he raised his great hammer as the orc now lunged in a final furious effort. One, two, three superb strikes from the Glaive finally brought Morgoth crashing to the ground. His iron crown banged and rolled, and his black blood washed across the dungeon floor. Greene placed a sturdy orcish foot, clad in a dwarven boot, on the dark one's neck and with both hands flashed his staff of destruction. With a searing bang Morgoth's nearest helpers were gone, and those that remained fled terrified into the depths. Maurice picked up the crown, the hammer and the cesti of Fingolfin that had dropped from the stricken frame. Victory was his!


------------

Well that's it, so the story ends. With relief I can say that this is easily the greatest achievement of my computer gaming career.

Maurice came pretty close to death a number of times, obviously the Mouth of Sauron was the worst one but also the little event with the shard-breathing wyrms could have easily been an insta-death had they worked together a bit better. Also one really shouldn't hold down the attack button on level 98 while watching TV at the same time...

I found the Glaive of Pain to be preferable to everything else that came up, including Deathwreaker (only 4 blows possible) and Doomcaller. I never found Ringil but I'm not sure if I would have used it instead anyway.

My main complaint about the adventure was the huge waste of time I spent building up a savings account. The black market didn't have a single exceptional item from about char level 25 upward that I wanted (ie that was better than what I was wielding). I instead just bought the odd pile of teleport scrolls, the odd healing potion when it came up etc. I realise the newer versions (I was on 3.0.9) may have tweaked the way the shops work of course.

On another note I was sure the One Ring could only be found below level 100 - I guess that must have changed at some point over the last 10 years. I found the temptation to put it on a really fun and characterful part of the adventure.

If anyone's interested I will figure out how to do a char dump - I can't bring myself to commit suicide with him but probably won't play any deeper anyway.

I had fun writing it up, thanks for reading if you've made it this far.

mbc

[Storm-Sky]

To dump character just go to your character screen press (f) for file, it dumps the character into your lib/user/ folder then go to angband ladder and click submit your dump, you type in your characters name then upload it from your lib/user folder then click submit, and your done!

[debo]

Congrats and well-played!!

[sethos]

Fantastic! Congratulations and all such good things your way.

The story was great, and I'm glad that maurice made it through to the end!

[mightbecactus]

Thanks guys! The dump is here:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11976

cheers
mbc

[Gockel]

yeah, was a fun read every time! congrats on the win!!

[Storm-Sky]

Great run, and wonderful story to go along with it! congrats.