[PWMAngband] A necromancer in Middle Earth

[Pete Mack]

Why are you so concerned about the last dungeon book? You're having no trouble slaying deep uniques like Carcharoth, so Morgoth and certainly Sauron should go down without it. Especially with Mana(!) resistance...

[PowerWyrm]

Why are you so concerned about the last dungeon book? You're having no trouble slaying deep uniques like Carcharoth, so Morgoth and certainly Sauron should go down without it. Especially with Mana(!) resistance...

The last dungeon book contains two powerful spells: one that allows to turn undead vs other monsters instead of just pacifying them, and one that grants extra critical hits to melee attacks. My current weapon does 471 vs evil, which is probably enough even vs Morgoth, but the extra crits would surely help.

Concerning mana resistance, it's unreliable just like all other high resists, so it's nice to have, but not that nice. Even more considering that the few items that grant it are quite crappy. My concern is the level 120+ postgame uniques that can cause manastorms for over 700 damage. Since you cannot keep your regular artifacts after you kill Morgoth, I'll have to add mana resistance somewhere on randarts, but it'll have to be rare. TomeNET has mana resistance on Crystal DSMs, but that's probably too common to get. Maybe add it to randart Crystal DSMs.

[Sky]

you sure find a lot of artifacts ..

[PowerWyrm]

you sure find a lot of artifacts ..

Yes, in PWMAngband you have both normal artifacts and random artifacts if you have ALLOW_RANDOM_ARTIFACTS option set, so you find twice as many artifacts as a normal Angband game if you play solo. With multiple players, you would get less since you have to share the normal artifact set with all other players.

[PowerWyrm]

We get a message from the dungeon master about new updates. In particular, we are told to check our randart crystal DSM if we have one. And it's the case, so we do so:

o) the Crystal Dragon Scale Mail of Laquenya (-2) [20,+23] <+4, +3, +1>
     Dropped by Fundin Bluecloak at 4700 feet (level 94).

     +4 intelligence.
     +3 constitution.
     +1 light.
     Provides resistance to light, sound, shards, chaos, mana.
     Sustains constitution.

     When aimed, it allows you to breathe shards for 150 points of damage.
     Takes 170 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 94.1%

This has changed... Before the update, this was giving +5 speed instead of +1 light, and didn't have resistance to light, chaos or mana. This is a straight upgrade to Incanus, so we equip it. We recall to 1000ft to look for the Icky Queen. And after stairscumming between 1000ft and 1050ft for a while, we find her. Of course we get nothing from killing her, but now our list of uniques is pretty much filled, as only Ancalagon remains before Sauron. We recall to town then back to the dungeon... and Ancalagon is there at 4950ft! He's alone in a corner of the level, which is quite empty except the big dragon and Sauron. Of course, Sauron is awake and manages to find a path to us, even if he was generated far away at start. We teleport him away so we can fight Ancalagon one on one. Haste, Shield, Shadow Touch and we're ready. We don't forget to stun him while meleeing so his own melee is less deadly. This should spare us a few healing potions during the fight. We even manage to land a *GREAT* hit on him with our 30lbs lance. We have to empty our staff of healing and zap our two rods, but otherwise we only have to use one potion of healing. He flees, and we kill a great wyrm of many colours he summoned before he recovers. A few more hits with our lance and he is no more. His loot: a lot of squelched items, an ego dracolisk scale mail, a scythe of slicing (Holy Avenger) that is almost identical to the one we have stored in our house, and the last spellbook... of the rogue class (Great Shadows). We go back to 4900ft, where we get these artifacts from a vault:

r) the Metal Cap of Elweth [3,+20]
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4900 feet (level 98).

     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Grants telepathy.

s) the Whip 'Nimlorion' (4d3) (+17,+26) <+3, +1>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4900 feet (level 98).

     +3 intelligence.
     +1 constitution.
     +3 stealth.
     Slays animals, giants, dragons, undead, demons (powerfully).
     Branded with fire.
     Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, poison, dark, chaos.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Sustains strength.
     Slows your metabolism. Grants the ability to see invisible things.
     Grants the ability to sense demons.
     Grants the ability to sense giants.
     Grants the ability to sense dragons.

     Combat info:
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 296.4 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 400 vs.
     creatures susceptible to fire, 261.6 vs. animals, 296.4 vs. giants, 296.4
     vs. dragons, 296.4 vs. undead, 365.6 vs. demons, and 227.2 vs. others.

t) the Sling of Lamfada (x3) (+28,+29) <+3, +1>
     Dropped by a master lich at 4900 feet (level 98).

     +3 strength.
     +1 shooting speed.
     +1 shooting power.
     Provides resistance to lightning, fire, cold, light, sound.
     Provides protection from fear.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things.

The sling is nice, but again it has only one extra shots, so our bow does more damage. We clear an ainu pit for more consumables and these artifacts:

s) the Wicker Shield of Elros [2,+20] <+1, +4>
     Dropped by a greater Maia at 4950 feet (level 99).

     +1 intelligence.
     +1 wisdom.
     +4 constitution.
     Provides resistance to lightning, shards.
     Provides protection from confusion.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Sustains your life force.

u) the Dagger of Araith (1d4) (+7,+28) [+12] <+1>
     Conjured forth by magic at 4950 feet (level 99).

     +1 dexterity.
     +1 attack speed.
     Provides resistance to acid, dark.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things. Prevents paralysis.

     Combat info:
     5.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 263.

We switch levels and find more vaults. We quaff a potion of *enlightenment* we got from a maia... and it is there. Few steps northeast in the biggest of the two vaults on the level. The spellbook of necromancy (Darkest Magic). We take advantage of the full enlightenment effect of the potion to check what monsters are inside the vault. The book is under a giant roc in a compartment with a some baddies and a nexus quylthulg, but no (book) threat like elementals. We go immediately to that area (the compartment is the first area when entering the Jigsaw vault from the north), teleport away Sauron (yes he was in that area) and everything else I don't want to lose time fighting, and enter the vault. We manage to get our next turn before the nexus quylthulg and kill him. There's also a greater rotting quylthulg inside, but he decides to teleport us to him so we can teleport him away before something nasty happens. In fact, we grab the spellbook before anything prevents us from having it safely in our bakpack. And with this, we can learn the last seven necromantic spells: Rune of Protection (we can get rid of our scrolls now), Cloud of Draining (the ball variant of the drain life effect), Attack (turn undead versus other monsters -- time to get an army of black reavers to fight for us!), Darkness Storm (same spell monsters use, but half as good at level 50), Death (mostly a joke spell), Mass Horrify (stuns everything on sight, but also frightens them -- I prefer Ice Storm for more reliable stunning), and the mighty Touch of Death (increases the chance of getting critical hits).

Then something horrible happens... Checking our inventory, we see we picked up an algroth corpse, so we drop it and decide to try that new Attack spell. We raise dead, getting a mummified orc (shouldn't it be a mummified TROLL?), and a skull druj from a skeleton on the floor. We command the skull druj to attack with our spell... and the game crashes.

[PowerWyrm]

We're back after another update from the dungeon master. Fortunately, our game was properly saved before the crash and we're back outside of the vault near the skeleton with the algroth corpse in our inventory. We try again to raise some undead, but this time we don't get any drujs, just a flying skull and a nightwing. We command the nightwing to attack and open the other part of the vault with stone to mud. We stay quietly outside and watch the carnage that ensues... At least, we won't have to deal with the greater quylthulgs inside. When our nightwing ally finally disappears, his duty has been fulfilled: the second part of the vault is empty, minus a troll skeleton and a troll corpse. We try to raise dead again, but we only get a weak grave wight and... a skeleton troll. At least the raised undead are consistent now... We find a scroll of mass banishment and use it on the vault: and just like that, two thirds of the vault are now cleared. We finish clearing the rest, and look at the goodies we collected: a stack of seeker bolts of Holy Might (in case we find a good xbow), a randart sword, and this mace:

s) a Mace of Disruption (Holy Avenger) (5d10) (+19,+21) [+1] <+1>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4950 feet (level 99).

     +1 wisdom.
     Slays evil creatures, demons, undead.
     Provides protection from fear.
     Sustains strength.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things. Blessed by the gods.
     Grants the ability to sense undead.
     Grants the ability to sense demons.

     Combat info:
     This weapon should be wielded with both hands.
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 452.4 vs. evil creatures, 587.2 vs. demons, 587.2
     vs. undead, and 318 vs. others.

Sounds like we found our replacement for Stormspire once we kill Morgoth.

r) the Bastard Sword of Fuintarn (4d4) (+16,+24) <+4>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4950 feet (level 99).

     +4 intelligence.
     +4 constitution.
     Slays animals, trolls, demons, undead (powerfully).
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Grants the ability to sense animals.
     Grants the ability to sense undead.
     Grants the ability to sense dragons.

     Combat info:
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 276.8 vs. animals, 321.2 vs. trolls, 321.2 vs.
     demons, 410.4 vs. undead, and 232 vs. others.

We go check the other vault before recalling, but there's nothing interesting inside. We drop our new found mace in our house, clear some inventory space, and get ready for the final pre-Sauron dungeon: Mount Doom.

[PowerWyrm]

Sign: "Welcome to PWMAngband 1.1.12 beta 8"

So there's a new release with all past updates. Good... Now's the time to weaken Sauron by going to Mount Doom and killing his most powerful servant: the Balrog of the Sammath Naur. We recall to Mordor and head southeast. We soon arrive at the base of the Orodruin volcano and enter Mount Doom. We recall to the last level, as we don't want to spend too long in the lava heat. The Balrog is here... as well as a funny vault filled with aether hounds. Since we probably don't need what's inside, we skip said vault and head to our target. We are still far away and the Balrog wakes up already. We wait for him and soon he finds a path to us. We haste up and start shooting, teleporting away any nightcrawlers/walkers/black reavers he summons. Once he's next to us, we stun him, switch to melee and finish him off. He drops a nice short bow of lothlorien, and this armor:

o) the Partial Plate Armour of Beromur (-3) [40,+20] <+3, +2>
     Dropped by The Balrog of the Sammath Naur at 4900 feet (level 98).

     +3 wisdom.
     +2 stealth.
     Provides resistance to acid, poison, light, sound.
     Provides protection from stunning.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Sustains wisdom, constitution.
     Grants telepathic awareness.

Decent, but not great. And while clearing the area, we get this random drop:

q) the Pair of Leather Boots 'Noegrim' [2,+7] <+3, +4, +6>
     Dropped by a bronze Thunderlord at 4900 feet (level 98).

     +3 wisdom.
     +3 dexterity.
     +4 constitution.
     +6 speed.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Prevents paralysis.

Good stat boosts, but we don't need those boosts so we'll keep our +10 speed boots. Our journey here is already done, so we recall back to Carn Dum and get ready to take on Sauron.

[PowerWyrm]

For Sauron, we pick up some arrows of acid we stored in our house, as well as normal/big healing potions, a potion of enlightenment and a couple scrolls of banishment/mass banishment just in case. We recall to 4950ft, quaff enlightenment and check the level: no vault, an ainu pit and a gold dragon pit. We'll destruct the pits to avoid interference during the fight with Sauron, and get a potion and rod of healing that were revealed by enlightenment. We make a small antisummon corridor with some runes at the end of a long corridor, which we will use for shooting those acid arrows. We start shooting, stopping a couple times to heal the damage he's dealing to us with his spells, soon switching to mithril arrows of slay evil when our stack of acid arrows is depleted. Once we're out of high damage arrows, we retreat to our little antisummon area, buff up with Shield, Shadow Touch and Touch of Death and switch to melee. He's already half dead, but has still some tricks up his sleeve... like teleporting away. We wait for him to come back and resume smiting. Unfortunately, he summons the worst possible monster at this point: an ancient ethereal wyrm. We cannot deal with this passwall dragon at this time, so we simply use one of our banishment scrolls and get rid of all other ancient dragons at the same time. We continue stunning and punching Sauron, not even stopping to heal, thanks to our shadow touch. When Sauron falls, we've only lost 30% of our hps from a final ice bolt/nether ball combo. We rest for a while and inspect Sauron's drops... Only two items managed to survive squelching, and they are these artifacts:

b) the Seeker Arrow 'Bullseye' (4d4) (+20,+0)
     Dropped by Sauron, the Sorcerer at 4950 feet (level 99).

     Slays demons (powerfully).
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Returns when thrown.

     Combat info:
     3 shots/round.
     Hits targets up to 120 feet away.
     Average damage/round: 730.2 vs. demons, and 273.9 vs. others.

Worse than our main randart one, so it'll get donated.

t) the Broad Axe of Queth (2d6) (+8,+17) <+2, +1, +4>
     Dropped by Sauron, the Sorcerer at 4950 feet (level 99).

     +2 intelligence.
     +2 wisdom.
     +1 infravision.
     +4 tunneling.
     Slays evil creatures, undead (powerfully).
     Branded with fire.
     Provides immunity to lightning, fire.
     Provides resistance to acid, cold, chaos.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Sustains dexterity.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things. Blessed by the gods.
     Grants the ability to sense undead.

     Combat info:
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 249.6 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 343.2
     vs. creatures susceptible to fire, 218.4 vs. evil creatures, 312 vs.
     undead, and 187.2 vs. others.

Two immunities, but not enough damage. We collect the arrows of slay evil we used in the fight (the arrows of acid can stay behind), find the closest stairs and generate a level at 5000ft before recalling. We go back to our house and pick up enough consumables for the fight against Morgoth.

[PowerWyrm]

Time for the big fight against Morgoth. We recall to 5000ft and find a level that doesn't seem to be crowded. We quaff a potion of *enlightenment* we found on the level where we fought Sauron, and we see that indeed we're on a very tame level. We immediately teleport away Morgoth that was generated almost on sight and head for a corner of the level where we start destructing. When he's about to come back, we put a rune under ourselves, cast Shield, Shadow Touch and Touch of Death and we wait.

We start striking with our lance, he responds by summoning greater undead. We land a critical hit, he responds with a mana storm. Thanks to our protective crystal DSM, we get a lucky roll and only suffer around 300 points of damage. We quaff our first heal and get four free turns, thanks to our rune. We get another lucky roll with a 100 dam nether ball, then he summons some random monsters. One turn later, he breaks our rune and the ancient wyrm he summoned gets in sight, so we phase away, teleport him away and destruct the area again. We take the opportunity to heal up, rebuff and reestablish a rune.

We resume the fight, he summons greater demons. We teleport away a pit fiend, he summons some random (harmless) monsters. We hit him, finally removing his first 10% hps, but he breaks our rune and lands a quaking blow. We phase, heal up, reestablish rune. Our speed runs out, and we quickly haste ourselves again before we can get double moved. Unfortunately, it seems our runes now last only one round and we have to phase again. I remember the lone scroll of holy prayer in our inventory and read it to improve our accuracy a bit. He summons more greater undead, this time pulling out a black reaver that has to go. Again, phase, teleport Morgoth, destruct.

Round three. Morgoth is still at 90% health. He summons more greater undead, but we ignore them for a couple rounds where Morgoth casts a mana bolt and a nether ball. He's now at 80% health. We phase and heal. We get two rounds where he stands out of melee range, so we shoot a few arrows of slay evil at him. He's now at 70% health. With Touch of Death, our lance does 656 per round vs evil. He breaks another rune and we use our last scroll. From now on, we'll have to cast the spell. We shrug off another bolt of raw magic and continue hitting. Now at 60% health. He summons a nightwing/nightcrawler combo, and we have to use TO/destruct again.

Round four. We get some free turns, then he casts a nether ball. Two more free turns, and he's half dead! He summons greater demons, but the only dangerous one is behind him out of sight, so we don't bother doing anything and resume hitting. We take a 400 dam manastorm in our face and take a turn to heal the damage, during which Morgoth wastes his own turn trying to smash our brain. Another nether ball and he breaks our rune, leading the horned reaper behind him in sight. We phase, heal up and reestablish the rune. Now at 40% health. He summons a black reaver again and we teleport the dangerous undead away. We heal another 400 dam from manastorm and two manabolts with potions, and he's now at 30% health. Then I horribly discover that our speed buff ran out two turns ago... so I recast it. And also put up another rune. And again. Morgoth sticks with melee for a while, and soon he's at 20% health. We heal up again after another nether ball (still didn't have to use big heals or banishment yet). Then we get hit by a big manastorm, this time dropping us from more than 800 to less than 300 hps. That's why mana resistance, like all other high resistances, is nice to have, but not too reliable. Not only we got a high damage roll on manastorm this time, but a low resist roll too. Time to use one of those big heals. But he's now at 10% health! He summons more greater undead in desperation, and this time we simply use one of our scrolls of mass banishment to get rid of all the summons around us. At this point, he has drained our DEX quite badly (the only stat we don't sustain), so our damage output has decreased a lot and we have to eat a mushroom of vigor. We phase, rebuff, reestablish a rune, and deliver the last blow...

[PowerWyrm]

When Morgoth falls, the fortress of Angband crumbles down... and we have to say goodbye to all our non-random artifacts: our missiles, our cloak, our shield, our crown, our mattock and our lance bid farewell to us. We grab Morgoth's drops, which only consist of his crown and hammer, and recall immediately. We now have a bit of reequipping to do, since we're half naked. The first thing to do is put on the massive crown of Morgoth for stat maxing and resists, and of course donate all our randart crowns. We equip a holy avenger mace of disruption and swap our randart ring of fire for a randart ring of firmament with speed/immunity to lightning/disenchantment resistance. In the process, we lost acid immunity and protection from stunning, but gained +4 speed. We'll carry a randart amulet with acid immunity that we can swap with our fire immunity amulet in case we find big acid breathers. We leave our cloak slot empty (we have no cloak to equip), as well as our shield slot (we only have a crap randart) and our tool slot (nothing useful there either), and reintialize the squelching menu for these slots, so we can find something useful again. This of course drops our AC by a lot, so we need to avoid melee until we can improve it again.

Oh and by the way...

t) the Mighty Hammer 'Grond' (9d9) (+5,+25) [+10]
     Dropped by Morgoth, Lord of Darkness at 5000 feet (level 100).

     Slays evil creatures, animals, orcs, trolls, demons (powerfully), dragons
     (powerfully), undead (powerfully).
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things. Sometimes creates earthquakes
     on impact. Aggravates nearby creatures.
     Grants telepathy.

     Combat info:
     This weapon should be wielded with both hands.
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 804 vs. evil creatures, 804 vs. animals, 1086.8 vs.
     orcs, 1086.8 vs. trolls, 1651.6 vs. demons, 1651.6 vs. dragons, 1651.6
     vs. undead, and 521.6 vs. others.

Yes, that's still an amazing weapon, even more when you add the crits from Touch of Death:

t) the Mighty Hammer 'Grond' (9d9) (+5,+25) [+10]
     Dropped by Morgoth, Lord of Darkness at 5000 feet (level 100).

     Slays evil creatures, animals, orcs, trolls, demons (powerfully), dragons
     (powerfully), undead (powerfully).
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Grants the ability to see invisible things. Sometimes creates earthquakes
     on impact. Aggravates nearby creatures.
     Grants telepathy.

     Combat info:
     This weapon should be wielded with both hands.
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 1028.4 vs. evil creatures, 1028.4 vs. animals, 1398
     vs. orcs, 1398 vs. trolls, 2136.4 vs. demons, 2136.4 vs. dragons, 2136.4
     vs. undead, and 659.2 vs. others.

Seeing how hard the postgame uniques are, it's good to have such weapon available to take them down... Speaking of postgame uniques, we still have four of them to kill, and two postgame dungeons to explore. But first, let's finish clearing the ruins of the Angband fortress.

[PowerWyrm]

We pick up three scrolls of deep descent we were keeping in our house and read them to go back into the dungeon at 5800ft. At this point, we will only stop if there's a big vault on the level, as we don't have any (normal) uniques left to kill or experience to gain. Destruct will be our friend, as we will start to meet annoying deep monsters more frequently: ancient wyrms, death golems... Speaking of which, there's actually a big vault on the level, and we're gonna check it. We kill some stuff, including a wyrm and we raise the dead to make slaves to clear the vault faster. To our surprise, a dracolich joins us against our enemies. That seems to be new. Also we manage to raise a skull druj, which becomes our living machinegun for a while. We find a few consumables in the vault, as well as a new shield (small dwarven shield), and this body armor:

v) the Hard Leather Armour 'Minumen' (-1) [16,+11] <+3, +4>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 5800 feet (level 116).

     +3 strength.
     +4 constitution.
     Provides resistance to fire, cold, light, dark, disenchantment.
     Provides protection from fear.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.

The last item we find in the vault is a scroll of deep descent, and we read it to dive to 6050ft. Next levels are boring, and we find some stairs quickly to reach 6200ft, home of the first "spirit" monster we will find, Angband's final boss, Tik'srvzllat. We recall to grab some consumables for the fight, as he can pull out level 124 manastorms, and back to 6200ft we go. Next to Tik'srvzllat. We quickly teleport him away and detect our surroundings. Unfortunately, we can't detect him anymore with telepathy -- he's weird-minded -- so we have to give up for now. We go to the nearest stairs and generate a new level. This time, we can detect him, so we quaff enlightenment and prepare for the fight: antisummon corridor, runes under and next to us, haste, shield, touch of death. And then I discover that I forgot to pick up Grond for the fight... so our mace of disruption will have to suffice. We do 842 dam per round against undead anyway while touch of death is active. While we wait for him to come, we get interrupted by some death golems and a death wing -- very bad news. The only thing to do if we don't want to give up is to use one of our banishment scrolls to banish golems from the level. Tik'srvzllat is now in melee range and we start hitting him with our mace. He starts immediately by breathing disenchantment twice, so we have to heal, and then he casts a manastorm, which leaves us at 261/982 hps. And that's WITH mana resistance... We quaff a big heal and resume the fight. Here, we MUST maintain the rune under us at all cost, as his melee attacks not only can drain our experience (and we lost Hold Life when we swapped equipment -- losing our level 50 here from experience drain would mean losing our death touch and a lot of melee damage), but they can also inflict unsustainable stat drains (as per the "time" effect). Another manastorm and we have to use a second big heal. And a third... the next round. Fortunately, he has less hps than Morgoth, and we manage to deal a good amount of damage with our mace the turns we don't spend healing. Already half dead. We suffer a fourth manastorm the same round our touch of death wears off, so we heal ourselves before recasting our buff. This fight is costing us a lot of potions, but we're slowly winnning. He's at 20% health. We continue hitting, and soon he's becoming afraid of us! We phase away, as we want at least a few drops from him (remember we're in a rune-filled antisummoning corridor), heal up, and wait for him to recover from fear. A few more hits and we manage to destroy him. We used 13 heals and 8 big heals for the fight, way more than we had to use against Morgoth. We collect our drops, which consist of some squelched items and the following artifacts:

t) the Silver Dragon Scale Mail of Elenor (-2) [24,+21] <+3>
     Dropped by Tik'srvzllat at 6200 feet (level 124).

     +3 stealth.
     Provides immunity to cold.
     Provides resistance to light.
     Prevents paralysis.
     Grants telepathic awareness.

     When activated, it allows you to randomly breathe frost or inertia for
     150 points of damage.
     Takes 200 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 93.6%

u) the Chain Mail 'Gwingron' (-2) [32,+18] <+2, +5, +3, +4>
     Dropped by Tik'srvzllat at 6200 feet (level 124).

     +2 strength.
     +5 intelligence.
     +3 wisdom.
     +4 stealth.
     +4 tunneling.
     Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold.
     Provides protection from confusion.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Speeds regeneration.

     When activated, it grants or extends haste (+10 to speed) for 75+1d75
     turns.
     Takes 424 to 520 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 97.3%

v) the Broad Axe of Cuilor (2d6) (+7,+14) <+1>
     Dropped by Tik'srvzllat at 6200 feet (level 124).

     +1 dexterity.
     Slays animals, orcs, trolls, demons (powerfully), dragons (powerfully),
     undead (powerfully).
     Branded with acid, poison.
     Provides resistance to acid, nexus.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Sustains dexterity.
     Makes you float just above the floor. Grants the ability to see invisible
     things.
     Grants the ability to sense undead.
     Grants the ability to sense demons.
     Grants the ability to sense orcs.
     Grants the ability to sense trolls.
     Grants the ability to sense dragons.

     When activated, it inflicts 120 points of damage on all monsters within
     line of sight.
     Takes 360 to 440 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 97.6%

     Combat info:
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 340 vs. creatures not resistant to acid, 340 vs.
     creatures not resistant to poison, 292 vs. animals, 340 vs. orcs, 340 vs.
     trolls, 436.4 vs. demons, 436.4 vs. dragons, 436.4 vs. undead, and 243.6
     vs. others.

Nothing we will use, but they're not bad. Before recalling, we'll check a vault on the level for some goodies we detected with enlightenment. Now we're done with the fortress of Angband, and our next destination will be the Nether Realm.

[PowerWyrm]

For the next dungeon, we'll only have to explore a couple floors, so we keep our consumables and just pick up Grond for the big fights. Its 100lbs weight drops our speed by 5, but we're still at +23 unhasted and the two bosses we'll have to face are only at +30. We don't have any recall point near the Nether World, so we recall straight north to the Helcaraxe and start the long journey east. For this part, I disable the "Disturb whenever monsters move" option to avoid stopping every step because of harmless stuff fleeing from us in the wilderness. I just have to remember setting this back when we reach the dungeon... After a long journey involving a lot of teleporting, we finally arrive to the mountains of the far east. Here we find the entrance to the Nether Realm, but we decide to recall directly to 6250ft, where we will be able to find our first target, the sorceress Senyakaze. We cannot detect her on the level, but it doesn't mean she's not here because she can cloak her mind, so we use our arkenstone and quickly head to the closest stairs. This dungeon is particularly dangerous: high demons, dragons and undead abound, as well as death golems and the dreaded death wings, who can shriek for help and render magical spells and devices totally ineffective. We climb back to 6200ft... where we find a HUGE vault. It would take ages to clear it without a mass banishment spell, and we want to keep the scrolls we have for the fights against the final bosses. This is frustrating, but we have to leave the vault behind. After a bit of stairscumming, we generate a level where Senyakaze can be detected by telepathy. We quaff enlightenment and discover a quite tame level, with a small Pigeonholed vault. This should be good for crowd controlling her summons, so we head there. As with Tik, we use one of our banishment scrolls to get rid of golems, as we don't want to see death golems/wings interrupting our fight. We manage to blow up all three staves of healing we were carrying while recharging them, so we'll have to rely on potions (and a couple rods) now. There's no time clearing that vault, so we simply destruct it. The blast created some walls inside the little permawalled areas, so we choose one and simply put a rune under us. We buff ourselves, equip Grond, and wait...

And there she is. First turn... and she casts haste self. This will make the fight even more interesting... Her spells are more diluted than Morgoth, so it seems at first sight that she will be easier to kill. She starts indeed with mind blasting and a spear of ice, but soon her true power unleashes: experience drain, stat drain, mana storm, and quite a bit of melee damage when she breaks our rune. And at +34 speed vs +40, we don't have any free turn when we don't stand on a glyph. Our Grond deals quite a lot of damage, but also causes earthquakes which reshape the terrain around us, allowing her to summon some unwanted help. And there's always a free spot in sight... At one point, a great swamp wyrm is pulled out, so we cast Resistance to avoid taking extra poison damage. She's now at 40% health... but casts heal self and regains 10%. Then a mana storm... We use a big heal and resume the fight, and finally her speed buff runs out. To compensate, she takes a few turns healing herself, so all the damage we do is in vain. After a while, we manage to bring her down to 30% health, but she decides to cast haste self again. And to worsen the situation, her draining attacks finally brought us down to level 49, so we forgot how to cast Touch of Death. Fortunately, we have two rods of restoration, and we use a turn to zap one. We bring her down to her last 10% health, but she continues healing herself. Then she simply teleports away...

It doesn't take long before she's back, but we use that time to heal up, rebuff, and get rid of some summons that were left behind. However, her power is slowly waning, and soon we are able to deliver the final blow with Grond. We get rid of the remaining summons and collect our loot... which only consists of an Aman cloak that is slightly better than our current cloak and many squelched items. We look around to see what survived from all the destruction on the level and find a few consumables as well as a +14 speed ring that will replace our current +13 ring. We also find two scrolls of *enchant armour* and now Morgoth's crown is enchanted to +5. We could take the stairs and probably kill Xakaze right now, but it's probably better to recall, wait for rods of healing and restoration to recharge, and see if there aren't any supplies in the shops, as we won't use our money for anything else now.

[PowerWyrm]

Time to go kill the master of the Nether Realm. We recall down to 6250ft, activate our arkenstone and look for the closest stairs. Unfortunately, before we can reach it, we're again bothered by a death golem and we cannot do anything as there's probably a death wing nearby preventing us from using magic. We have no choice but waste another scroll of banishment on golems. We reach the stairs and stairscum for a while until we detect Xakaze with telepathy. We haste, buff up, lay a glyph and equip Grond. No need to destruct around us, Grond will do that for us.

The beginning of the fight is easy and we wipe 10% of his health while he casts minor spells or tries to break our rune. He manages to do so and then summons some greater demons. We teleport away a horned reaper, just to see a death golem coming at us. I'd like to keep the banishment scrolls for emergencies, so we use a mass banishment instead. We're now badly injured and we heal up before resuming the fight. His melee is devastating, as he can pile up to 600 damage per round when he breaks our rune. For a while, he sticks with spells and we have to heal damage from darkness storms or ice bolts. Our rods of healing are now discharged and we need to use potions. At this time, he decides to teleport away, giving us time to fully heal and rebuff.

We resume the fight and wipe some more of his health, now down to 40%, and he decides to bring forth the big dragons. And an ancient wyrm of power is definitely not something you want during a boss fight... We'll use banishment this time. He summons more greater demons, and we leave them around for a turn until he breaks our rune. We phase, teleport Xakaze away, and destruct.

He comes back and heal self. Now back to 40% health. And finally he decides to haste self too... He summons nasty greater undead and we respond with mass banishment. A few uninterrupted hits and he's down to 20% health. More major demons, we use teleport away/destruct combo. We restore our lost experience with one of our rods and reestablish our defenses. Back to the fight, he summons greater undead and we teleport away a nightcrawler that has nasty acid melee attacks (we're not immune anymore). He summons MORE greater undead. We continue hitting and finally Grond quakes and gets rid of half of the summons, putting most of the other ones out of sight. Now the rune is gone again and we better phase to heal/TO/destruct. He comes back to throw a manastorm, but this one is relatively weak (only 300 damage). Down to 10% health. And with three consecutive critical hits, we finally fell him. We have conquered the Nether Realm, and our title has now changed from "King" to "Emperor"!

Before recalling, we examine Xakaze's drops, but we only find junk egos/spellbooks and they get all squelched. There's a speed ring on the level, but it's only +13. We recall and go back to Carn Dum.

[PowerWyrm]

We banished Morgoth into the Void and conquered the Nether Realm. We could go back home and enjoy our new glory, but there's one last thing to do. In the depths of Morgoth's old fortress Utumno lies a portal to the Void. We cannot be sure that he won't use it to come back. We'll have to go into the Void ourselves and destroy Morgoth there once and for all. Unfortunately for us, he has regained all his Valar powers inside the Void, and it is not Morgoth we will have to face, but Melkor, Lord of Darkness. He has twice his former health, he's faster, he's got devastating melee attacks with nasty side effects, and he added more spells to his arsenal. And he can call the spirits of the Void at anytime. At least, we took Grond off him...

Looking at our speed and supplies, we're probably not a match for him. We used a lot of healings and banishment scrolls during the last three fights. We should probably take some time to replenish them by diving at the bottom of the ruins of Angband. Maybe we'll find a nice speed ring, although getting one better than +14 is far from guaranteed. We recall at 6300ft and start looking for goodies. The first thing we find is a kolla of the Teleri, which gives one extra AC and hold life. We also find an unlife pit, which spawns death wings, death golems, death vortices... We'd like to collect the goodies inside, but this means using a lot of teleporting and destruction. We don't wait long before the nasty golems come to us and we manage to destruct the death golems and death wings before the latter prevent us from casting the spell. Waiting a bit more, the vortices also find their way to us and we destroy them. We make our way to the pit, and a bone golem comes out first, which we promptly order to attack what's left inside the pit. We clear the pit, but there's nothing helpful inside. In fact, except supplies and a better speed ring, there's probably nothing else useful to find at this point... We can still find some interesting artifacts, like:

the Law Dragon Scale Mail 'Pelwe' (-2) [36,+20]
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6300 feet (level 126).

     Provides resistance to acid, fire, cold, sound, shards, chaos.
     Provides protection from confusion.

     When activated, it allows you to randomly breathe sound or shards for 230
     points of damage.
     Takes 205 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 91.5%

the Long Bow of Gilorien (x5) (+13,+11) <+1, +4, +2>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6300 feet (level 126).

     +1 strength.
     +4 intelligence.
     +2 dexterity.
     +2 shooting power.
     +1 light.
     Slays undead.
     Provides resistance to acid.
     Provides protection from confusion.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Makes you float just above the floor. Speeds regeneration.
     Grants the ability to sense evil.

     When activated, it shoots a radius-2 acid ball that inflicts 70 points of
     damage at the centre and grants temporary resistance to acid for 20+1d20
     turns.
     Takes 369 to 451 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 96.0%

the Ethereal Dragon Scale Mail of Hingor (-2) [28,+31] <+5, +3>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6300 feet (level 126).

     +5 wisdom.
     +3 dexterity.
     Provides resistance to nether, disenchantment.
     Provides protection from fear.
     Sustains your life force.

     When aimed, it allows you to breathe nether for 200 points of damage.
     Takes 205 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 92.9%

the Dagger of Lonar (5d4) (+7,+10)
     Dropped by a vampire lord at 6300 feet (level 126).

     Slays evil creatures, demons, dragons (powerfully), undead (powerfully).
     Provides resistance to poison, nether, disenchantment.
     Cannot be harmed by acid.
     Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration. Grants the ability to see
     invisible things. Prevents paralysis.
     Grants the ability to sense evil.
     Grants the ability to sense dragons.

     Combat info:
     4.0 blows/round.
     Average damage/round: 246 vs. evil creatures, 299.6 vs. demons, 406.8 vs.
     dragons, 406.8 vs. undead, and 192.4 vs. others.

That little dagger once enchanted to +15 would have been a great weapon for a warrior.

the Pair of Leather Sandals of Celoki [1,+18] <+2, +10>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6300 feet (level 126).

     +2 searching skill.
     +10 speed.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.

A little lighter than our current boots, so we'll equip those for an extra 2 mana (and 2 less lbs when we recall) at the cost of 1 AC. We continue clearing vaults and pits, teleporting away ancient wyrms and other nasties, occasionally finding an outstanding item. Or something original...

Power Dragon Scale Mail of Speed (-3) [60,+39] <+3> {cursed}
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6350 feet (level 127).

     It occasionally makes a loud noise.
     It paralyses you every now and then.
     It makes your skin harder to damage, but conduct electricity.
     +3 speed.
     Provides resistance to acid, fire, cold, poison, light, dark, sound,
     shards, chaos, disenchantment.
     Provides protection from confusion.

     When activated, it allows you to breathe a random element for 300 points
     of damage.
     Takes 205 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 87.9%

Hmm that's a tough choice. We could uncurse it and use it for the extra speed and resist "balance", but that would mean losing resist mana. Without resist mana, we would have to stay at a minimum of 750 hps at all time against Melkor. Of course, we would gain a ton of AC... We also find an artifact crossbow, but it has neither extra speed nor extra might:

the Heavy Crossbow of Findilme (x4) (+17,+15) <+4, +3>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6350 feet (level 127).

     +4 strength.
     +3 dexterity.
     Slays giants, undead.
     Provides resistance to acid, dark, nether, disenchantment.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, fire.
     Speeds regeneration.
     Grants the ability to sense undead.

And here's one interesting randart DSM:

the Shadow Dragon Scale Mail 'Valin' (-2) [32,+26] <+3, +4>
     Found lying on the floor in a vault at 6350 feet (level 127).

     +3 dexterity.
     +4 speed.
     Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, poison, light, dark,
     shards, nether, disenchantment.
     Provides protection from fear, blindness, confusion, stunning.
     Speeds regeneration. Grants the ability to see invisible things. Prevents
     paralysis. Sustains your life force.
     Grants telepathic awareness.

     When activated, it allows you to randomly breathe light or darkness for
     200 points of damage.
     Takes 175 turns to recharge at your current speed.
     Your chance of success is 92.2%

Even more speed, all protections including stunning and many resists. We recall and try to uncurse the power DSM, but we fail, making it fragile. Then we look again at the curses... We will use Grond, so the siren curse is pretty much pointless, we have multiple sources of lightning resistance, so the steelskin curse is also pointless, and the paralysis curse, well... We decide to remove our randart ring giving cold and lightning immunity and use a plain ring of speed instead, since we now have protections and resists elsewhere. We pick up all our consumables and head to Utumno, where the final challenge awaits.

[PowerWyrm]

We recall to the Nether Realm and walk northwest past the mountains to reach the ruins of Utumno. We enter and set directly for the last level, where we will find Melkor. The level is an arena level, which means a big open level without any vault or pit. With a few destructs here and there, it should be a good playground for the last battle. Remember... either we kill Melkor and it's a total victory, or we fail and it's also over. We destruct a large area near the northwest corner of the level, buff up and wait for Melkor.

And he doesn't wait to turn things nasty: first round and he summons a bunch of level 100+ monsters, second turn and he manastorms for maximum damage, so we're at 201/982 hps and surrounded. Time to quaff a big heal and get rid of the summons before resuming the fight. And we didn't hit him once yet... He steps into melee range and we start hitting him with his old hammer. His melee is really painful, so every time he breaks the rune under us, we need to reestablish it immediately, or, if we are wounded, phase, heal and recast the glyph. We manage to land a few critical hits with Grond and wipe 10% of his health. That's 4k hps, he still has 36k left... We continue the fight, keeping our hps as high as possible, using big heals each time he pops up manastorms. He's now at 70%, and shrieks for help. Fortunately, we only have a few harmless undead around that we kept to fill possible summon spots. We have to mass banish them though when he summons nastier friends. The big manastorms hurt, and he pulls them out frequently, but we still have a good supply of big heals, and he's now down to 60% health. He hastes himself, but at +50 speed vs our +46, he doesn't really have that much of an advantage. Now we have used our 6 rods of healing, so we will have to use potions for the rest of the fight. Which is now at mid point...

After a while and another broken rune, we are under 500 hps with quite a lot of experience drained, so we decide to use one of our potions of life. Using a destructed area for battleground allows us to phase safely when Melkor breaks our rune, heal, recast any buff that wore off, reestablish rune and even recharge our staves of banishment when we have to. He's at 40% health, and we should have enough supplies to win this. Then we get a lucky streak of free hits, while the rune we cast lasts longer than usual... and quickly his health is down to 10%! A few desperate spells force us to use more of our supplies, but the fight is almost over. And surely after one last good hit with Grond, we manage to get rid of Melkor once and for all. Our mission ends... and we shall become the new Lord of Darkness!