The great adventures of Nimlorn

[Sky]

DL17:

a magic mushroom, an ochre jelly, and three trolls. Which turn out to be five trolls, and a whole bunch of orcs. But i'm not scared. I approach the trolls, without lighting up the room, and find a ring <+4> {??}.. ermagherd, yass.
My first ring of Escaping.

I stone to mud my way to the trolls, nuke them one by one while they are sleeping with Acid Bolt, and they repay me with enough XP to level up.

Ding!, CL19, 107 HP and 86 SP.

I continue to explore to get the level feeling, and i get a 4-4 just as i'm about to kill some healers for a spear of *Slay Giant*, +2 STR to carry more goodies.

I nuke a snake and go down the stairs.

[Sky]

DL18:

level feeling 4-2, and i lose a point of STR to a trap, with 1400 Xp to go. A lurker tries to eat me, but i detect a fault in his strategy (i.e. remain still like an idiot) and use the ancient technique of "step back and nuke" and make away with his XP. A group of Wargs generously offers their lives for my XP and i graciously accept.
I fail a ridiculous number of castings of Acid Bolt to kill some Light Hounds, and need to recover several times in a corridor, because this animal will hurt you but will not chase you. I wonder how they evolved this way.

I get ready to recall, and drop a book of beginners magic to grab a rod, and decide to test-cast a scroll; yes, you guessed right, it's a scroll of teleport level. i sink down to ..

[Sky]

DL19:

i have no Beginner's book so i want to leave this place asap.

i have appeared in a single square, with walls all around. i cannot move, so i cannot identify doors. i decide to TS. No spell of light, either.

The level feeling turn out to be 4-1, so without hesitation, i cast recall.

[Sky]

Seventh recall, DL0:

the BM has a lantern of true sight, but it's 19.000 gold ... and not much else to spend on.
i decide to take a brief pause for some food, and go home to drop some more mushrooms.

[Sky]

DL19:

one of those new "cave" levels. i recall to a huge room with uruks in it, i didnt realize the room was so big so by casting Light i wake them all up. I have to hide in a corner and pick them off one by one. Some trolls and an orc captain follow. I level to CL20, ding ding!, 118 HP and 90 SP.

These cave levels are really dangerous, and this one has level feeling 6-1, so i'm keen to get out fast. A quick DM and yes, it's full of mobs everywhere. I dont want to get sandwiched but i do want the XP.

I ID a potion, it's restore mana. shame. Some more orcs, black orcs, and trolls die. My ring of escaping is proving too strong for them. I finish a den of ogres and level up again .. ding!

CL21, 124 HP, 95 SP. I find a room full of orcs and, more important, rubble. Rubble is basically a small chest, so i spend some time clearing it all, but alas, no luck - nothing drops. I find an amulet of searching <+6>, for when you *really* need to find, but it's not enough to hold my attention so i head for the stairs.

[Sky]

DL20:

this is where it gets interesting. In most Randart games, it's where you start finding artifacts.
I carry one !Enlight, the second one is at home, so that once quaffed i get a free slot.

Hmm, level feeling 4-1 ... a ranger, a paladin, an easterling champion .. nothing that poses any challenge. I think i spot a 3-headed hydra ...
Nope, it's 2-heads. Oh well. I nuke her and a bunch of ogres and make my way to some conveniently-located stairs.

DL21: is a level feeling 4-1, so i kill the ogres i have in the room, ding! to CL22, 132 HP, 99 SP, and recall.

[Sky]

eight recall, DL0:

looks like one of the wands i just picked up is a wand of TO, as it sells for 3299 gold. good. i can now do minor vaults.

i sell everything else, including my longbow of power and arrows, and reach 21.000 gold. The BM is selling one potion of CON (along with 5 potions of WIS) for 24.000, which i might be able to make in one trip.
I also drop at home my now rather heavy stash of CCW, keeping 4 CCW, 17 CSW and 15 CLW on me.

i'm on a mission to get those 3000 gold, so i rush down to the dungeon.

[Sky]

DL21:

empty room, rod of light. next room, a bunch of uruks. the most unexciting dungeon level ever, i can't even find anything that would motivate a 4. a Tengu, a bunch of bears, a baby dragon. i take the stairs. After all, i'm just here to get some gold. And to find my brother, of course.

[Sky]

DL22:

sasquatch, baby dragon, wyvern. level feeling is 3-2, i'm out.

[Sky]

DL23:

two soldiers, a druid .. the level feeling comes as 7-4. i'm rushing to find enough gold for that potion of CON, despite the fact that it might well not give me any HP boost. I see a ogre shaman on DM and i go to kill it. I run into a room with two illusionists, who make me blind. damn.

I pull back, unleash a halistorm of acid bolts, and lay waste to the living, but i take a bite from a vampire that drains me of some XP. Without Restore Life, i am forced to kill everything and take the XP loss. Fortunately i find a haul of magical polearms, and i head back to town.

[Pete Mack]

You are recalling a lot. I find that mage characters do best when they dive fast and hunt for individual high value targets (mature dragons, then weak Higher Demons like Nalfshanee.) Rely heavily on detection and avoid nearly all at-depth monsters. That said, See Invisible quickly becomes a necessity, as does good distance vision, from either ESP, or some combination of light rods, light radius, and infravision.

[Sky]

i'm selling, so i recall whenever i get a substantial amount of money. once egos start showing up, i rarely recall and squelch everything else.

now, back to the dungeon.

DL23 .. CL23. my xp requirements have gone up, so my CL will be chasing the DL from now on.

blink dogs on recall. they don't do any damage so i just nuke them. A DM shows me there's little to hurt me, and the level feeling is ... 4-$ !!

yayx, my first artifact. Probably the Phial or similar. I'm using a ring of Escaping so any melee weapon is wasted, but it might come with a resist or two, or even See Invisible. I quaff my potion of Enlightment.

I move to the room next to mine and find a lantern and some other useless gear. The next bunch of mobs is black orcs and Gorbag, neither of which can stand Acid Bolt. In a corner i find the necklace Renenel, +3 STR, +1 Infra, Hold Life, rChaos, rLight, activates for slow monster. I can now clear magma veins, but it's not quite as effective as casting stone to mud.

One of the rooms is a kobold pit. with my 112 SP i fear nothing, so i go and murder them laughing. Half of the dungeon is devoid of life, and objects, so i gather my loot and head back to home base. There's a potion of Enlightment i need to grab ...

i can now cast Teleport Other. good, this is a major stepping stone for a mage, and while my fail rate is 44%, i can still reliably use this on sleeping uniques inside a vault.

[Sky]

Ninth recall, DL0:

nothing to be found in the BM. i cast frost ball and TO for the XP, but ponder whether i actually need to lug around the 4th mage book, as i have a wand of TO and will never be using the frost ball spell until .. well, never.

[Sky]

DL23:

DM shows some black orcs, some master yeeks .. nothing worth mentioning. I'm probably OOD to them, because i could be around DL30 right now, but i still have no Free Action, no See Invisible, and there's a ton of other goodies i could wish for.

I grab two new wands and a staff, and massacre the orcs. There's a huddle of uruks up ahead, that's my next target.

Once i'm in the uruk room, i start to unleash fire bolts, and kill most of them. I didnt notice Lugdush is also there, and i dont want to use my consumables, so i TS with plenty of mana and HP to spare, and then rest.
I see a room with some elven priests, some air hounds .. i know i will get blinded and so i dig a corridor with S2M, taking care to rest every couple castings. And i break into the room and i get blinded, but a quick CLW and i'm back to unleashing acidic hell on the mobs. The same happens to a bunch of uruks next door.
Time to go kill Lugdush. A quick zap of TL reveals a huge pile of treasure up ahead, but the level feeling is 5-3 so i'm not expecting much. Once next to the treasure, i DM and see Shagrat .. 300 Xp. cool.

I S2M a tunnel to nuke him, and when i breach into the micro-vault the 2 fire hounds in it burn up 2 unknown scrolls. Shegrat goes down easy.
I find a couple magical weapons i want to sell, so i try to make room in my inventory by reading to ID a scroll .. it's a enchant armor scroll. i casually enchant my .. gauntlets???

I hit myself on the head really hard.

Looks like i was wearing these just as a way to carry them to town, and forgot to take them off.
My mana jumps to 157 SP. This is why Angband is just too complicated for the average human being to notice everything.

Anyway, let's go murder that orc dude. There is nothing between me and him, so i just mercilessly nuke him with acid bolt. I find a ring of damage which i cannot use, and a wand.

[Sky]

tenth recall, the BM still has nothing to sell. i drop my loot and head back to ..

DL23:

elves and ochre jelly. don't like to fight either, so i move along and find trolls and black orcs, which i love. I nuke them without hesitation.

The level feeling is 4-2 and i see Bolg, son of Azog. He's worth 600 XP so this will be a nice test of my newlyfound mana. I also have a single potion of speed, as he moves fast.

I invistigate the layout, and find him in a corner. He wakes up fast and i blink, ending in a large room .. perfect. Bolg hits me once, for 60 damage!, but i keep blinking and he succumbs to my acid bolts. he drops a cutlass of slay dragon, which goes in the money pot.

Time for some stairs.