Ironhide Ironman

**Grotug** · March 11, 2018, 17:21

DL11

I pick up another lantern, a scroll of light and 20 iron shots (+4, +1) on my uneventful journey to Orfax, son of Bolder, who confuses me twice in one turn. I rest a turn and he summons a green naga. I rest again and he summons me to him, putting me between him and the naga, and hits me, giving me a graze. I have 164/174 so I try my luck confused and miss orfax and hit him 3x. The naga crushes me. Orfax stuns me. 140hp. I !CLW, and the confusion clears. The naga crushes me and spits on me and orfax spends half his turn hitting me and the other half being very rude. Despite my low AC (11 now) my health is still at 140. I ?phase.

Apparently I was at the edge of a room when I encountered Orfax, because now I am in the middle of said room. A most terrible place to be.

The value of the lantern is clearly seen here. Had I still been holding a torch, I would have no idea which way to run. I take one movie northeast diagonal and 'Something mumbles. You feel yourself moving slower!' Fortunately it only lasts one full turn. I enter what looks like a checkered room and I can see two brown yeeks in hot pursuit. I move 3 squares north into the room and turn to fight the yeeks. They fall one after another. Bolder faces me again and I hear the most satisfying 'clank!' of my spear as it gets a critical hit. In a single round he is already[****------]. I hit him again and the spear rings true on all three blows, killing the yeek. He drops me a heavy xbow (+2, +3). I kill a few blue yeeks and explore the now empty room, save an orange mold in the corner. I pick up a brass wand and learn ?Magic Mapping from a stack of three scrolls. The stairs are just above me. Though it is a 3-1 level, I explore the newly mapped area and wind my way around to a row of healers and scouts that fall easily. I pick up 3 ?Detect Invisible, kill a red frog and gain level 15 and now have 182hp. I learn a wand of hold monster, which I drop, and I try a wand of wonder.

Wow, I just stopped to check my inventory before hitting the stairs and realize I never picked up the rounded pebbles I found earlier =[. Sometimes I do that. I see something I *know* I want to pick up, and somehow I manage to just not pick it up. Meanwhile, I'm holding onto rather useless things like a potion of sleep in the event I want to id FrAct.

My inventory:

I should actually try the main gauche out on something instead of just lugging it around.

Anyway, the stairs...

DL12
'I feel nervous about this place.' (In truth, only a little). Three steps forward I find a cloak [1, +2], some doors and some stairs.

The thing is, unless it's an umber hulk or a paralyzer, I stand to gain valuable experience (and possibly drops) by killing whatever out of depth monster(s) are here. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like Angband gives you quick exits for a reason.... I'm gonna explore a little. 5-1 feeling. I find another amulet (first one I found in a special room on DL11) and I kill a baby blue dragon; the dragon doesn't get a chance to let me know what sorta amulet I just found..

DL13 starts off with baby green and white dragons giving me more useless money. 3-1 level. I soon find the stairs but keep going to a room with snagas and black orcs. I swap to the DL11 amulet before taking on a baby black dragon but he tries to flee in terror and dies. As soon as I get bored of the level I conveniently find more stairs nearby.

DL14
I start out on the westermost part of the level. I learn a stack of ?Treasure Detection but there's nothing nearby on this 3-3 level. I come to Cirith Ungol who is apparently mortally afraid of spiders.

I start nuking Cirith Ungol with my xbow--just kidding! The iron shots just jam up the mechanism. So I 'hit' him with the wand of wonder. 'You have 10 charges remaining.' And? So? Did I do something to him? I see no discernible effect from the wand. Let's hit him again: fire bolt, one health * gone. Magic missile... heal... poison cloud.... spear of light... spear of lightning... and he's almost upon me with one * gone again. Some of the other orcs have also woken up. Let's confuse the whole lot. Everyone looks confused. =D But that doesn't keep Cirith Ungol from being effective. 30 HP he removes each round. His confusion wears off with [*****------] left. Or so I thought it did because his healthbar turned from brown to orange, but as I start fleeing he is slow to follow!

He can't follow after me but he can give me a proper beatdown.

Nevermind, he's after me and only two squares behind as I run back down a long passageway. The ?phase door options here are pretty lousy, but there isn't much I can do about that. I could keep running but I think I'll try my chances here. I'll -Confuse again since the whole mob is right behind Cirith. Wand of wonder *could* be useful here if I were to get a useful beaming effect, but I'm not gonna risk it since I can melee the rest without problems.

My HP has regenerated to 126. I confuse the whole lot again and stun Cirith. He has regained a * but after one round loses two. I stab again and the glorious sound of 'clank!' rinks out as my spear makes a critical hit; he's got two bars left and he misses during his turn! I still have 113hp. Another round and he's got 1 * and he is no longer confused. But it's too late for Cirith; one more round sends him fleeing in fear, wasting his turn so I finish him and gain level 16 with max 194hp. The rest of Cirith's consort wither before my spear. Cirith drops a quarterstaff (+5, +5) (??) but wielding it doesn't cause my hands to tingle so I leave the slow weapon on the ground.

I head back East and soon am blazing new trails once again. Something mutters, and I hear it blink... and mutter. I find the stairs but continue exploring. I kill a bandit in a dead end room; I return and something touches me and I am terrified, or so I am informed. I recover my courage and hit something. It dies and drops me a useless, slow swinging flail (+5, +4).

I come across a ring of protection [+13] (a welcome find) and a ring of teleportation <+2> speed, in a permanent 'open' oval 'room'. I take both and drop my ring of the dog. I also find a nickel-plated wand and drop my empty confuse monsters staff. The wand ID's to be confuse monster (6 charges left).

I find a ring of digging <+4> and eat three morsels of food and drop the other 5 to take the ring. I come to stairs but feel a 3-3 level at 700' very well could have FrAct item so I pass them by for now. I enter a new area of the map and do several rounds of battle with something I cannot see and kill it. I finish exploring the level but don't find anything of note.

bDL15
I replace [3,-1] gauntlets with [3, +5] ones. I'm a couple points away from level 17 when I kill a baby multihued dragon. Level 18 comes very quickly after two different packs of wolves foolishly try to take me on and shortly after some black orcs and a quasit die in a hallway of a four chambered 'window-shaped' special room. I now max out at 222hp. I find a rod in one of the chambers and aim it at a mouse and it activates but nothing seems to happen. I drop my wand of wonder and pick it up. It may disable traps. I try on a Flail (+3, +8) <+2> DEX, but it only does 30 dam compared to my 47.5 with the spear.

I finally remember to try the main gauche I've been lugging around on a uruk and @ "hmphs!" for learning slay orc. Pretty foolish of me not to try it earlier when I was taking on Cirith Ungol.

Oh good, it's Wormtongue. He's even more rude than Orfax, but never teleports away and dies easily. He drops a Great Hammer of Cold which I leave. I find another ring of reckless attacks but not sure I want to drop from 33 to 4 AC, to go from 47.5 to 60dpr with the spear. I decide to keep the AC=[13].

Oohh, one of the chambers has a large wooden chest! I love chests. They often have nice goodies. No traps on the chest. It holds only one item, a cloak of stealth [1, +6] <+1>.

Moving on, a small pack of half-orcs by the stairs take me to level 19.

DL16
I kill what I think is a crow, it's a creban. His friends let me know. I 'slowly' backpedal to the starting hallway and out of the room I just entered. Shrieking ensues and I kill a black orc who meets me back in the hallway. It's a 4-1 level. I find the stairs, but follow the light into a room filled with hill orcs, wargs, some manes and Golfimbul, yay--and Bullroarer the hobbit! =D

I didn't see Bullroarer at first. He chases me back into the hallway, and stuns me on the way. I keep running while taking damage, until the stunning wears off and then I turn to fight him. He dies in two short turns. I retreat to the end of the hallway where it meets with another room in order to fight Golfimbul at near full health. The proceedings start off slow, with Golfimbul winning the early rounds. Then the main gauche of slay orc rings out! 'Clank!' Golfimbul's health meter plummets from 9 to 5 or 4 in one devastating round. Golfimbul gets two more rounds before falling, one of which he spends trying to flee into the hill-orc behind him. I replace my small shield [5, +0] with a bigger one [12, +5]. I drop 2 shots and pick up 22 arrows (+2, +3). I learn slow digestion from a ring and hit the stairs.

DL17
I kill some lice, cutpurses, apprentices in a small room and then an earth hound in a hallway which brings me to level 20.

I kill some peeps who try to scare me and learn the level feeling is 5. I may use some scrolls of treasure finding. A cursed morning star of acid found in a room with forest trolls does almost as much damage to non rAcid as my spear, so I leave it.

An ochre jelly removes 2 AC from my gear, but my ethereal slippers are immune.

I come into more forest trolls and reach level 21 (252HP). I find a completely empty, but interesting looking special room with diagonal walls inside.

I find a staff of mapping.

I come into a hallway where I see two hummerhorns. I melee one, and shoot arrows at the rest. I finish mapping the level and still no good objects.

I carefully look over the entire map multiple times to see if there is somewhere I've overlooked, but there isn't. I consider that the rusty wand I tried on an orc may be drain life as I reckon it does not work on orcs. Oh well, to the stairs.

DL18
I go through some doors and up a passageway and an Umber Halk appears right behind me. He has 110 health, and I do 47.8dpr. I have a 75% chance to hit him. I could ?phase and try my ring of digging at it or I could just try meleeing it. I have 9 !CSW, 13 !CLW and 13 ?Phase Door. ?Phase doors are very rare and absolutely critical to my long term success. But I'm not sure ?phase is the best option. The Umber Hulk will just bore its way to me again, and likely will be upon me before I can see him. Now I wonder about my decision to leave the (possible) wand of drain life behind!

I melee him. He gazes at me 4X over the course of four rounds total. But that's all it takes for me to kill him in a confused state. My health is 219/252. I rest it off.

I finally remember to zap my {tried} rod at a trap and it is disables the trap.

Just as I am about to enter a room something touches me and I feel very clumsy. Fortunately we have a scroll for just such occasions. ;-) I ?Detect Invisible and kill the interloper who drops a ?Deep Descent. Things are getting boring enough around here that I may read it. First, let's fire some arrows at that umber hulk. He's pathetic. After the arrows soften him up, I nearly finish him in one round, and we dance across the room together as my right directional arrow moves me left until I'm against the wall, at which point I kill him. Nothing else useful in the room. How about that ?Deep Descent...

**Grotug** · March 11, 2018, 21:08

I read the ?Deep Descent and the floor opens beneath me...

DL23
Wow, it's a tame, sheltered place! Very rare for that danger feeling at this depth. And there are scraps of junk here. It's a cavern level. I wander around and replace my ring of teleportation with a ring of escaping. I find another ring. It doesn't activate. It could be Feather Falling, FrAct or rCold/rFire. I wander around to see if I can fine some fire on the level (maybe a trap). I see a baby red dragon and wait for it to breathe on me. The ring is not rFire/rCold. I discover !Toughness and become more stupid for it. I notice a brown trap near the beginning of the level. I fall into a pit! No message about avoiding spikes or floating down. Time to quaff the potion of sleep I've been carrying! The Sapphire ring keeps you moving!

I explore a little more, secure the area and then decide to walk onto a trap of dragonsong to hopefully drum up some excitement. I should have put on my ring of escaping first. There goes 42 health.

I ?phase favorably, !Neutralize Poison and move into position.

I fire two arrows, one hits the Wyvern and he is already upon me. I melee him. I hear a scorching roar. One of my scrolls of detect invisible burns up! The Wyvern cries out in pain. He bites and stings me. I melee him and in very short order he is fleeing.

At which point I hear an acrid roar and am hit with acid. I retreat up the little passageway and wait to the right of its entrance in favorable Knight's Move. I quaff another !Neutralize Poison. I kill the three dragons one after another without too much drama, other than my health falling below 100hp. I rest up by the trap door.

DL24 Danger feeling 6 -- I feel anxious about this place.
I walk left down a corridor, someone touches me, I feel my life draining away! You hit someone <3X> You have killed it. I enter a room, head south down a passageway and come to down stairs. I think I'll explore a little bit first. I kill some things, discover 3 treasure feeling, and more stairs....

DL25 Danger feeling 5
I walk a short distance to the edge of a passageway and start fighting wargs and cold hounds. Then one sickening roar after another starts hitting me from behind. But as is often the case in Angband, close attention is not being paid and I don't realize how much health I'm losing per hit of the poison, and I initially ignore the attacks in favor of trying to kill the cold hounds. It's not till about 125hp that I realize things are going south fast. I move out of the line of sight of the air hounds to finish off the cold hounds and reach level 22 as half-orcs rush me. I kill one of them but quickly see that I am overrun, my health now at 78.

I have a willow {tried} staff from DL23 that may be slow monsters or sleep monsters. But that probably won't be good enough. If I ?phase and land back in the air hound hallway or surrounded by orcs, that will likely be the end. I think !speed may be my only recourse. No, I will try to =Escape. I quaff !CCW that takes me to 122hp after the orcs have their turn at me. I put on my ring of escaping and make a run for it. I get passed the orcs with about 87hp before I start putting distance on them.

I could stop here, quaff a !CSW or two and fight, or try my chances to regen more and go around the bend. I decide to stay put. I quaff !CSW, I switch to Orc-Gauche, I quaff !Heroism. I switch to =Reckless attacks, and the black orc is upon me. I slay the first one, but the air hounds have followed! It breathes a sickening roar and my hp is going backwards again! I go into settings and set the movement delay from 11 to 40 since I'm using an arrow keypad (not a numpad). Diagonal movements are key. 40 is too high, I set it to 22.

I'm now at 106hp in just a couple rounds of turning to fight the half-orcs during my retreat. I kill another half-orc, and an air hound, bringing me to 89 health and still poisoned. I !Neutralize poison and resume fighting. I completely miss the first round of attacks and am back at 78 health with another air hound on the way. I should have created more space between me and the orcs. I really didn't expect the air hounds to follow.

The air hounds are simply murderous. The half-orcs are also very menacing. I retreat a little and then resume fighting, but another air hound moves in bringing me to the edge of death: I'm now at 23hp.

I quaff !CCW and the air hound moves away for a moment to let the half-orc move in. I move back one, against the rubble, and !quaff !CSW. I kill the half-orc and the air hound who returns to rend my soul with its venemous vengence. I send another half-orc fleeing for its life and quaff my last !Neutralize Poison. Reprieve! I'm at 83 health but can heal up at least a little bit.

I drink 3 !CLW and no one shows up. I rest. The fleeing half-orc returns to die. A cold vortex spooks me as I'm resting. I mistook its whooshing sound for another air hound. I rest to nearly full health.

I return to the room where the wargs, cold hounds, and half-orcs poured out of and kill one, lone sleeping half-orc. In the room I replace my [8, +4] (??) armor with [38, +4] (??) armor.

I explore the map some more and it is very quiet. I come to a rubble field and am eager to mine it for hidden gems. I secure the cavernous rubble room of one orc shaman who drops me 16 bolts (0, +0), and then go to work. About 3/4 through the work I find a main gauche (+6, +9) <+2> STR {??}. Also among the rubble is a rod of treasure detection and a scroll of "quam cer pum".

At the end of the rubble cavern is a passageway. I follow it to an interesting shaped cavern where I use my willow staff to put to sleep some waking lemures, and then kill them. I follow a long passageway leading out of the top of the cavern to a very large, illuminated cavern to the right. I enter the cavern where there is a clutch of sleeping trolls and I get hit with poison... I'm doing 73 dpr and have better AC, so this time should be different. Air hounds follow me into the cavern and they breathe some more, hitting the trolls. I kill the first air hound which brings me to level 23. And then the rest. Killing the trolls learns my gauche is *Slay Troll*. I drop my other two weapons.

I don't really have any reason to keep exploring this level, other than I think it has a really interesting layout. I follow some hill-orcs out of the cavern through a little passageway into a lesser cavern where more air hounds appear. I try to get them to kill invisible multiplying molds but they don't breathe at the right time and I end up being rapidly brought down to 100 health again, simply by mistiming my attack and then having a run in with an orc captain. The lesser cavern has another passageway that leads out the top and then to the left. It is the passageway I started in.

I saunter over the far other side of the map and there is another cavern with multiplying invisible molds. I find yet another passageway leading out of a small cavern and something blinds and confuses me. While I'm blinded someone steals my rod of disable traps, which has been quite handy.

I find a wand and then some more passageways, one filled with uruks and a couple hill giants. The wand shoots a beam of light down the passageway. Something wails at me and touches me three times draining my life each time. Terrified, I quaff a !heroism and it wails at me again, but this time I stand my ground. I read a ?detect invisible and a Banshee drains my life yet again before I finally can kill it with 130hp remaining. I see dark hounds in the connecting cavern but they don't give me too much trouble and soon all are slain. I follow another passageway up into a low wide cavern where I pick up a staff that teleports me.

I set forth again and find the brigand and take back my rod of disable traps. I drop the scroll "quam cer pum", pick up the rod and read the scroll on the ground. It enchants the to-hit on my xbow to +3. This very cool level is completely mapped and it's time to hit the stairs.

**Grotug** · March 12, 2018, 11:56

DL26
A boring cavern level. I pick up a short bow (+5, +6), I encounter a gelatinous cube so I _TS. I stone to mud through a single block of granite to get at two * which are more !CSW and a rod of curing. Killing some things including a hill giant brings me to level 24.

DL27 feeling 6-5
I run into Ibun, and he disenchants [-2] my gauntlets so I _TS. A cluster of treasure is detected nearby: something of a vault. Naturally I investigate.

On the way to the vault the passageway leads down into a small room where I start hitting something. We melee for several rounds and my health drops to 119. I'm guessing it's a spirit troll since I'm smiting it.

I ?phase and heal up some.

Again I'm down to 99 health so I ?phase again. I shoot bolts at his trajectory to me, but only one hits. We melee again and I'm missing a lot. Dang, he takes me down to 29 health and still doesn't die, despite him only having 3 bars when I detected for him. He still has two bars.

I ?phase and heal up more this time and send him fleeing towards the vault.

It occurs to me I could have done this without using any ?phases: =Escape at half health, heal up and wait for him, rinse repeat, till he's dead. I think I've killed him. 'It' is the best confirmation I'm going to get. All he drops is money. I'm impressed he is native to DL40. He moves at normal speed. I stone to mud into the vault and see an algaroth sleeping. So far this vault is tailor made for me. I enter, and there are 3 algaroth's in the first chamber and 5 gnome mages. As I back out of the vault to take on the waking monsters a wyvern comes out of nowhere and is first to taste my gauche. The rod of curing came at the perfect time as I had ran out of !Neutralize potions. After the first wave is all dead, I'm welcomed to level 25 (316hp). I cure the ailments with the rod. I'll retreat and return to heal up from 182hp. I start to retreat and more gnome mages and carrion crawlers pour out to taste my blade. A Vampire briefly returns me to level 24, but he's nothing. I retreat some more to bring my health up from 160. Angaimate of Umber confuses me. This could prove dangerous to my potion supply.

I put on my =Escaping, zap my curing and flee a bit. There's something of a cul-de-sac and I figure I can do battle with him here, chase him around, try not to use any ?phases.

It works great. I wait for him, get into knights move for the slight advantage and I get him to about half health and I'm about 1/3 health left so I =escape, he confuses me, I !CLW and start running around the cul-de-sac. I have to be careful not to get too far ahead or I'll run the risk of lapping him and he'll turn around and surprise me. So I swap the =Reckless Attacks and keep running to regenerate. I =Escaped too long and he turned around and surprised me. No biggy; I -cure confusion again and run the other way. He takes me to 99 health after I send him fleeing, but he falls and I get a slight upgrade in armor [40, +3] {??} a whopping +1 increase in AC but a more useful resist (the other one was lightning). The battle only used two or three !CLW, but the dungeon will not be providing me with anymore of them. I only have 3 left. During my lap I learn the armor is cursed and switch back to my rLightning one.

I return to the vault to do it all over again... these confuser brothers come in pairs. We battle it out at the entrance to the vault. About 1/3 through his HP he confuses me. So I put on my =Escaping, and -cure. He immediately confuses me again. Bastard. I have to !CLW. I =Escape back to the cul-de-sac and wait. It's starting to come down to the wire for both of us and then there is the sound of crunching bones as I get a great hit, sending him fleeing. I was going to use my wand of stun for the fight but I forgot. He drops me 17 (+7, +3) bolts.

I dunno if the vault was exactly disappointing but honestly I'd rather a good item than a potion of Strength, still it's the best stat potion to get. Also here is a rod of illumination, so I guess I'll drop my two staves of light for it.

DL28 6-6 level feeling
I walk a bit and discover another, smaller vault-like thing. You can't see me in this screenshot, but you might be able to spot my location nevertheless. I tunnel through the wall into the room closest to the passageway to circumvent circumnavigating the entire map to get to the vault.

I slay my way through some familiar trolls to the vault. In the vault: frost giants. I probably should use my !speed since they will probably destroy it if I don't. And it's likely I'll get good use out of it given the level feeling. Well, there were only three frost giants and a mind flayer; nothing else of note. What a waste of my only !speed. Two wands and [40, +8] armor in the vault. The first wand is magic missile. I miss a water hound by misclicking while trying the second wand. Upon successful use of the wand a water hound is teleported away and still has 8 charges. I keep my rLightning armor. I take the nearby stairs.

DL29
I take a few steps and stumble on an aggravation trap and so take on a chimera, ranger, champion and young white dragon. It's all easy work. I kill a young green dragon and an iron golem to reach level 26. I wanted to pick up another unIDd wand, but had to drop something so I dropped a whip of cold that does marginally better vs cold than the gauche does vs others. You know, in case of Hydras. Guess what comes at me right after I drop it.. three or more 4 headed hydras. So I _TS away to to go get the whip. I land near the hydra/naga/snake pit so I _TS again.. back to the 4 headed hydras. Brilliant. Now I'm down to 43 health. ?Phase takes me to a nearby room to recover briefly while the hydra goes around. I cast a beam of light so that I can see the hydra when it comes. The wand is lightning balls and I use all 4 remaining charges on the hydra. Another 4-headed comes along; injured from earlier, and my bolts are just enough to kill it before it tears my frightened face off.

Having used my last !CLW I pick up my 4 wands of stun monster and make it back to my whip of cold without incident. Then two more 4 headed hydras come and I try to =Escape but it's futile, they move at +10 speed. So it's _TS again. I get in trouble with a ranger who is in a line of various spell casters. He summons an umber hulk and quickly I'm overwhelmed when a ninja and umber hulk start bashing me. I teleport away confused, blind and poisoned. And I -cure. I have two rods now. =) I go back to the bedlam and finish off the injured umber hulk. I enter the channel he bored and a Creban shrieks and something scares me, so I TO a black knight that is upon me.

The whip of frost is good here, as nothing I'm fighting resists it. I also had swapped my =reckless attacks for a <+2> dex ring, but I went back to the =reckless attacks since it's slightly better damage. And right now damage is king. I quaff a coagulated potion someone probably dropped and it's healing. I head towards the pit and two 3-headed hydras are after me. While =fleeing I sort of stay health neutral, maybe gaining slightly. I lead them back down the umber hulk hallway, quaff a !heroism and turn to fight them. I kill them all but it's down to 100hp again. I kill a master rogue who keeps beating me up and stealing my money. He drops a rod of light. I head back to the pit and three more 3-headed hydras chase me away again. I _TS and use my rod of light to illuminate all the hallways as I make my way back to the pit.

I meet up with them and kill two but I'm in bad shape, so I ?phase and !CSW. The last one is about 5 squares away so I hit it with some bolts. But he is on me in just two turns. He takes me to 69 health, he has [**--------]. I whack one more time and he dies. I kill some nagas and snakes in the pit, which all die very easily. I am rewarded a cloak [3, +12] {??}. Probably rShards. I think it's enough fun for one level and hit the stairs.

DL30
I have 7 ?Phase left. I do not think I've picked up a single ?phase door this game. Marvelous. I see Brodda and pray he drops me something good. I send him a signal to come hither with my rod of light and he drops me the Star 'Uruth' (+4, +2) <+3> {??}.

I come to a mini-fridge vault. I use up two ?phases killing a 5 headed hydra. Lightning hounds inside one of the 'shelves' destroy an aquamarine ring. It was probably =damage.

DL31 feeling 6-4
Earth hounds welcome me to DL31 and let me know I'm wearing a cloak of Protection. I head to a room that looks like a bow-tie. A young red dragon scares me so I back up, waiting for the fear to subside. I don't want to ?phase cause I only have a handful of them. A firebat has just damaged my bow. I have arrows of venom I never use because swapping from xbow is a hassle. He ends up destroying a ?Phase door anyway, and two different staves and an arrow of venom. My Star resists fire, too. I quaff a !Constitution near the vault. I enter the little vault and a silent watcher is sitting on two scrolls "adius apus".

I take a break from the game and when I come back, I forget about the silent watcher, since all I can see is the scrolls. And I decide to go read a scroll but walk into the silent watcher and am frightened and hallucinate. When the hallucinations wear off cold hounds start pouring into the room, but I'm still afraid and have used up all my !Heroisms. So I _TS. I land in a small room with a ring of dam (0, +10) in it. Outside the room I discover I've found a shortcut to mushrooms. I take 3 second sight (and eat one to learn it); the same for fast recovery. I leave my wands of stun monster to make room.

I walk down a passageway and into an acidic cytoplasm. I grow old while I sift through the messages of acidic damage and makes me wonder why I'm wearing <+3> Infra amulet and not rAcid. And there goes another charge of TO. I come to a jelly/mold pit and melt the rock to see what the object inside is. Two scrolls of mapping. I put on my ring of escaping and bee line to the nearest stairs, lighting my way as I go. There's another acidic cytoplasm in the pit, but fortunately he is, at least for the moment, farthest from me blocked by other jellies and molds. I make it to the stairs without incident.

DL32
I kill Gorbag for a [+2] helmet upgrade and then I have a run in with with Farmer Maggot's dog Fang. He harasses me, but I have no time to play with dogs and I have no food to give him. I wish he'd leave me alone as I'm worried I might accidentally kill him. I can't shake the dog and I get bored of the level so I descend to

DL33
I find a potion of healing in the center of a special circular room I start in. I don't travel very far when I get scared by something that drains my exp. I _TS into a pack of Creban and an Umber hulk moves next to me.

I _TS again and I'm about 10 squares from where the ghost scared me. I only have two scrolls of detect invisible so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I see a Diamond ring and I take about 4 steps towards it and see that it is a ring of strength <+6> when something wails at me and drains my exp again. I _TS again right back into the creban. I _TS again and now I'm 30 squares north of the ghost's last known location.

I see a young blue dragon and a giant red scorpion. They're sleeping so I go into a corner of the room and wait for my fear to subside. But they wake up before it does and come at me. I quaff my only !heroism and start on the young dragon. It destroys my ring of damage; I forgot to switch back from ring of digging last level. Now the ring of strength is looking pretty good. Something wails at me! You got to be kidding me. Good thing I'm !hero! I read ?Detect Invisible and the Banshee moves into the wall, so that there is one square between me and him. This means when I move towards him I will no longer see him. I manage to kill him blind. On the way to the ring of strength, while killing a line of Uruks I hit something <3X>. It scares me again and drains my exp. I _TS back to the creban and the umber hulk confuses me. I _TS in the middle of a lit room about 12 squares west of the ghost's last location.

I head west towards the room I started in. I reach a larger lit room just east of the starting room without incident. I could wait here for the ghost to return, ?detect invisible and TO it, but I'd rather not use a precious TO. I look at my inventory and see that I have 3 mushrooms of ESP. I guess this could be a good time to eat one. Maybe I can kill this thing with bolts.

How about that. I eat the mushroom and the ghost has just entered the room! He's badly injured [**--------] and he's 8 squares away. First bolt I fire kills him. He drops a potion of healing.

I return to the ring of strength but it does not increase the number of blows I'm getting. The ring of damage was a very nice find. Interestingly the main gauche now does more damage to others than the whip of frost does to non-rCold. I'm about to hit the stairs when I chase after an unknown object that brings my !CCW to 6. I kill a black knight and run into the creban and some earth hounds. I'm not very worried about whoever the creban might rally as the level is only a 4 danger feeling. I head farther east and kill the umber hulk who is still in the room I _TSed to a million times.

More stairs to the SSW. I come to an oval room and find a smoky potion at the bottom of it. I step on it and a young white dragon meets me. I quaff the potion and it makes me wiser, but also stupid. I cannot complain. I send the dragon fleeing around a corner and I follow it. To my right is a earth hound and to the left is the fleeing dragon. I shoot the dragon, killing it. The earth hound breathes, shattering a potion of speed the dragon dropped. Ahh.. but at least I can still grab the money! I take the stairs.

**Grotug** · March 13, 2018, 10:58

DL34
I take a few steps around a corner and dark hounds blind me. I retreat to my starting position and start killing ghouls as my sight returns. I get blinded and frightened so I _TS. Nearby I pick up !Berserk Potions and quaff an !enlightenment to make room. Far away in a special room in the upper right corner of the map is a !healing and three scrolls of ?Phase Door. That's about as exciting as finding another wand of TO as I only have 4 ?phases left.

I enter the 4 chambered rectangle room where the ?phase doors are and am ambushed by a black knight, ninja and balance drake. I do some damage to the people and _TS. I land favorably in the passageway that led me to the special room, giving me time to regenerate and take favorable position to finish off the ninja and black knight.

I return to the corridor leading to the special room and bolts strip half the balance drake's health. I finish him in melee without incident. A master thief steals one of my shrooms of fast recovery. I go to pick up the ?Phase doors and they're not there. I go to pick up the !healing and it's not there. The mater thief will have to die.

I put on an amulet of resist acid {??} and hope the curse isn't teleportation ban. I find the potion of healing is gone, too. A colbran comes at me from one of the chambers as I'm about to enter it. I try to teleport away and learn the curse of teleportation ban.... I drop the amulet and teleport away.

I return to where I start and there are ghouls and dark hounds and the master thief is quick as lightning: blinking, surrounding me in traps, and trying to steal stuff. I grab hold of my backpack and he teleports away again. I kill everything else and enter the starting room to be ambushed by fire ants on either side. I now have two scrolls of phase door. Fire ants are annoyingly smart and destructive, so I retreat and they do not follow.

I wander around the level waiting for the master thief and he is on me again and gone before I know what ambushed me. I casually slay some young white dragons when one of them breathes on me twice in a row and I'm down to about 50 health. I melee him, immediately realizing I needed to have healed or teleported, and also that it's not young, it's mature. He gnaws on me and I'm at 17 health. I guess I'll !heal. I finish him off without any problem and he drops 3 scrolls of 'tenenius' that I will read when I'm ready to leave the level. I come to the thief again in a lit room and bolts take care of him before he can lay his grubby hands on me. I grab two !Heroisms in the special room and head back to the three scrolls. They are ?darkness. I hit the stairs.

DL35
A paladin drops me two !Strength. I use up my two heroisms, one on a Banshee and another on a young white dragon. I find a ring of see invisible. and the level is boring so... stairs.

DL36 Level feeling 7-9 -- Due to the dangerousness of this level I try to give my precise location at all times, as it changes a lot. You can see an image of the full layout of the map towards the very bottom of this post

I start out near a vault. I map the area and come into a room where I meet a greater basilisk (DL45) so I TO him away. I fire bolts at a fire hound and Nexus hounds start coming towards me as a doombat envelops me in claws and flame. I kill him and start firing bolts at a nexus hound who breathes and scrambles me. I melee him but another breathes, teleporting me into the lower far corner of the map next to a bunch of inertia hounds.

I _TS and land about 20 squares northwest of the location the nexus hounds TO'd me from. They quickly find me again and breathe, TOing me to the exact same square they just TO'd me to. Again, the inertia hounds do not react to my sudden appearance. I _TS to a horizontal corridor at the bottom of the level, about 22 squares southwest of the bottom of the vault. I start moving towards the vault and Shagrat the Orc Captain comes for me at which point my stats return to normal. He drops The Pendant of Mentumand <+3, +4, +1> {??} <stealth/wisdom> <tunneling/searhing skill> <light>. It activates for satisfy hunger, freeing up an inventory slot.

Continuing towards the vault a Fire giant starts burning up my inventory, including a staff of teleportation and a precious ?Phase Door (I now have 4), and black orcs start coming in behind me, blocking my escape from the P, so I _TS into a room with some 'lesser humans' and mirkwood spiders about 75 squares northwest of the top of the vault. I kill a spectre and it drops a _Detect Evil.

I start to head towards the vault down a cool 'horn-shaped' passageway, but I'm pretty sure we are not in Gondor. I notice a nearby * and make a last second decision to take a short detour to it. It's a large iron chest. Yes! I disable its gas trap and find inside Augmented Chain mail of Elvenkind [42, +21] <+2> {??}. Large iron chests are pretty much as good as ?*Acquirement*.

I get back to the room where the nexus hounds are and I'm about to backpedal into the hallway above me to get out of their LoS but there is a trap there (I had inadvertently disabled it when I zapped a trap above it). So I try my luck at firing animal arrows at them. The first arrow sends the nexus hound fleeing in terror, the second one pierces the hound and it yelps in pain. It's not enough; I'm hit with another nexus breath and again I land in the inertia hound room and this time they breathe.

I'm still at 316hp [-10]. I _TS and I'm plopped 25 squares west of the entrance of the vault in a long horizontal corridor intersecting the center of the vault. I illuminate to my left: 1 warg far down the hallway. I lluminate right, nothing but a rune of dragonsong and I feel myself speed up again. I am feeling pretty lucky.

I magic map to reveal the long hallway to the left actually intersects with a room. I start moving toward the vault when I see Bert, the Stone Troll appear nine squares to my left at the entrance to the room. He has 1100HP and I do 126 to trolls and he doesn't resist poison. I really want to fight him, but it might be costly to my consumables. The alternative of TOing him is lousy, though, since I need to save my 4 remaining charges for things I absolutely cannot fight.

I fire poison bolts at him and take him to half health in melee and he takes me to 140hp. I ?phase into the room he came from. I quaff a !CSW and two !CCW and he is before me, ready for more melee. Just as a black orc starts to gnaw on my arm Bert dies with me at 137hp. I quaff two more !CCW in case Tom or Harry are lurking in the shadows. He drops an iron helm that increases my AC by [+6] to 120.

Just noticed that my strength is 18/209 and my DEX is 15. That is one wonky-lopsided set of combat stats. I head out of the room towards the vault again. I don't dare illuminate the room. I reach some rubble near the entrance to the vault and _Detect Evil. This is pretty darn manageable. I love how Tom and Harry are not in the same room as Bert. Healing up still wasn't a mistake, as I have no time to rest. I must keep moving.

Dang... where did all these critters come from? Gauth (already killed before this screen capture) drains a charge from my wand of TO, but learns me rDisenchant on my amulet.

I really don't want to ?phase but I'm not sure what else to do. The werebear has 325hp so I cannot fight it and the fire giant at the same time. I think I have to ?phase. What would Darakon do. I ?phase

The bat of Gorgoroth breathes poison. Your Augmented chainmail of Elvenkind glows! Aww yeah!! Woohoo!!! The best resist that I could have hoped for! ... and did hope for! And pretty sweet ?phase. Will duck into that hallway tyvm. It is on. It is on like Donkey Kong.

Aww, man! It goes even better than I hoped! The fire giants only destroy a single arrow and my AC is really holding up the defenses. The werebere crushes me, black orcs come at me from above and below, and still I kill everything in the hallway with 266hp remaining. I just realized I should eat a mushroom of second sight now. And I still have 3 shrooms of fast recovery I should eat. I eat two of them. If I survive this vault, I will be powerful enough to take on Tom and Harry. I eat a shroom of ESP and set movement delay to 22.

A young multihued dragon wakes up before the closer, ancient white dragon does. This vault has a pretty nifty layout. I move into a protected position:

Even with movement delay doubled to 22 I still fail to press the two arrow keys close enough together to attack diagonally, and instead move down. I'm at 256 health. I'm tempted to =Escape across to the lower passageway to the left. Or maybe I should scoot two squares South and 7 squares East? I don't know how much I need to worry about those nexus hounds breathing on me if I go left. I put on the ring of escaping and no one takes a turn. I set movement delay to 40.

I reach the mouth of the lower left passageway and the ancient white dragon wakes up. I am definitely in LoS of the nexus hounds now. I make it into the passageway. Wow, the AWD moves fast! He's already pushed passed everything and is ready for TO.

40 delay is unbearable and I set it to 15. I engage in melee around the bend of the passageway; the mithril golem is first in line and brings me to level 29. But Bill wakes up and soon has pushed passed everyone. I have to _TS.

I land in a new room filled with earth hounds and three sleeping stone giants just southwest of the 'horned-shaped' passageway. I slay the earthounds where they are as they try to surround me, though =Escaping to the hallway and into 'knight's move' may have been wiser. They take me to 171 health. I _Detect Evil and see that the Ancient White dragon and Greater Basilisk are in "good" positions. The Basilisk is in the furthest upper left corner of the map and the AWD is about 32 squares directly south in a long, isolated vertical corridor.

The stone giants cause me a good deal of concern. They knock off about 30hp per round. When I start on the last one I am close to 100hp. He misses 3 out of 4 swings and I'm very fortunate to finish the fight at 100hp. Things could have gone very differently.

He drops a ring of open wounds which I happily put on for the one time activation good for 40hp. I drop the ring and a nexus hound comes into view in the connecting passageway. I !quaff two !CSW and a !CCW to 302hp, which was excessive since I was still inside the room in Knight's move to the connecting passageway with arrows of slay animal which nearly kill both hounds, easily finished off in melee.

I start moving towards the vault again and decide to take on a mature red dragon in hopes it drops something useful. Bill shows up and I increase movement delay to 33 and, because I'm nervous, inadvertently tap left key too many times while clearing -more- prompts, tapping slow enough to move left... not what I wanted to do. Having done it I feel a _TS is in order... but also that my luck surely must be running thin. I consider my position and figure it is about 8 squares left of center of the map and realize this just may be advantageous: my hope is that if I _TS I will go to the far right end of the map, where the vault is, and not the left side of the map where the AWD and Greater Basilisk are.

Awwwww yeahhh. I land in a new room at the easternmost edge of the level! Who knows, maybe that misclick to the left saved my life. I take the short horse-shoe passageway leading out of the room to the top of the vault and come face to face with another nexus hound. I stab him with my spear and shoot him with an animal arrow and eat my last ESP shroom. I kill a couple more nexus hounds, some fire ants, 'lesser peeps'. I walk to the center of the vault and ... it is as I feared: I see a deep red book of Transformations. Can't say this isn't a bit disappointing, even if the LF had me more than half expecting it. But I thought there'd be something else here, to, to make me at least powerful enough to kill Bert and Tom once I cleared this vault.

I know I should leave the level now, but there are 6 * that I somehow feel may hold something worthwhile. What a terribly stupid thought. I leave the vault and take the nearby stairs. Except that I don't. I stood on the stairs, fully expecting to take them. But I decided I should scan the known object list for the level before exiting--you know, 'last looks', and I see a scroll of "ma cus colus" in the vault and go back and read it. And? So? Yes? What happens???

**Grotug** · March 13, 2018, 12:40

Still on DL36
Back inside the vault, I read a scroll titled "ma cus colus", named such because it has the tendency to cause its unhappy reader to cus.

'You see no more scrolls of teleportation'.

Wonderful. Just marvelous.[/sarcasm] Wait, where am I, actually? Holy shit! This is actually, possibly, I shouldn't get too excited but... I am teleport to the room I wanted to go to when I had that 'terribly stupid thought'. Of all the places I could have been teleported, this surely is the best (unless, of course, something terrible is about to end me). Three squares to my right in a small room sleeps a young black dragon. I _detect evil: AWD is 21N, 6E. Also, all to my East, are a bodak, ninja, black knight, troll priest and a cutpurse. I ~map.

You fail to activate the Star <2X>
You hear a door burst open!
The Star shines brightly.

I start slaying the dragon. After the second round of melee I notice an Inertia hound in the entrance to the room. I cycle through the -more- prompts.

You hear a thrumming roar.
The inertia hound resists a lot.

The Inertia hound is already in the room, one empty square between me and it. (This has all happened in one turn).

I think the hound arrived after the first round of melee with the dragon and I didn't notice it. Or I noticed it but didn't heed it (it does camouflage nicely with the white granite). What happened to being careful? Getting excited is what. Interestingly, the Inertia Hound's breath completely missed me. I'm still at normal speed and full health. The dragon is already at half health.

Oh, what to do! I know what I *should* do. But I'm here! And I actually did want to come to this part of the map just moments ago. It's as if the scroll read my mind.

The stairs are 7N, 41E and I'm pretty sure west enough of a certain troll that I could make it to them unharassed if I decide to get out of my current predicament without self teleporting.

I just realized I am an idiot. I could have avoided this quandry I'm in, or at least improved my situation. I could have had my cake and eaten it too. Look at the first image. You can see in the lower left corner that I've been in that corner from the mapping dots; and more than twice. That is where the inertia hounds came from just now. Man, I should have noticed this. I should have made careful note of the inertia hounds' precise location when I was first teleported to that room, the way I made note of the Greater Basilisk and AWD. Why didn't I?

I should have bee lined to knight's move on the entrance to the room, and should have done so in a Northeast diagonal movement, as another exit to the room is more likely to be on the right side of the room than the left since we are so far west in the level. That would have been some savvy play. I would have seen the door in the room, and, provided it isn't locked, made a safe escape! Man, what's the point of having extra light range if I'm not going to take advantage of it? /sigh

Still, though, the layout of the map is such that I could still be surrounded on both ends by the hounds if I escaped the room through the door. Honestly, I'm tempted to ?phase, although the original inertia hound room is the most likely place to land.

I do have 17 slay animal arrows good for 70 damage. The Inertia hounds have 193 health. They move at normal speed so being slowed is like them moving quickly. They can breathe one in 5 times and who knows how many there are. Their breaths deal (32) damage on average. Soo..., if I'm in line of sight of five of them, I will be taking, on average per turn while slowed, 64 damage, but could be *much* higher or much lower.

I just noticed another small but crucial detail: the door at 3N, 5E is open. Although why is it open and not broken like the door at 11N, 15E? Shoot, I forgot to take a screenshot of the evil monsters' locations. There's enough factors working against e here that my only sane recourse is to teleport.

'You have 3 charges remaining.'

Now, to take my bloody time assessing my surroundings before taking an action! Yeesh! Firstly, I see no monsters and the stairs I was going to take before deciding to go back and read a certain scroll are 5S, 3W of my location, but would take me 23 turns to reach them. I'm in a small room I haven't been to yet, but only recently I was 7S,5E of my current position, so I'm most likely safe at this point.

I'm still tempted to take a southernly-most course west back towards the 'terribly stupid thought' items. I hate that I am not going to know what items are over there. I don't know why I'm hung up on them, but that's what happens when I spend too much time on a level. I start getting attached to it, especially to the slightestly remotestly interesting looking parts.

I zap for treasures, I hear a door burst open! I fail to illuminate the room. I illuminate the room, I head for the stairs. I hear a door burst open. I hear something slam against a door three times and I'm now 7 paces from the stairs. Something fiddles with a lock. I reach the stairs.

DL37 Omens of death haunt this place
Crap, my star is charging. Guess I'll burn a charge of detect evil. Very amenable is the image that forms in my mind: tons of trolls scattered about the region and 3 mature dragons, all different, and 1 young MH'd dragon loosely in a group, and a lone stone giant. I'm in a North/South facing hallway with a bend to the East 3 steps South. I head south and 14 steps east down a corridor I slay the dragons. Wow, something other than money drops for once! I pick up a scroll of 'reo parum'.

Cool dragon lair...

Gah, water hounds destroy my staff of cure light wounds (10 charges). I have just about the entire left half of the level mapped and no vault.

Slogging through a bunch of trolls takes me to level 30, signaling a warrior who has come into his own, even if he cannot kill much more than trolls. (At this level I gain protection from fear). 8 treasure feeling for the level.

--live updates will resume today after 3pm New York time--

I now have 70% of the level mapped and still no sign of a vault. Further west, trolls, orcs, ogres and champions. I decide to raid some of these caverns of squishable foes as it may be profitable. The first cavern drops me an ochre potion that, while not actually a potion of dexterity, effectively is, because a half-troll can only be so stupid.

The second cavern yields 4 shrooms of second sight. Finally, treasure detection picks up the eastern most edge of North/South running greater vault, shaped like a giant ship, on the westernmost edge of the map. Too bad I only have one charge left on my wand of TO.

There's absolutely 5 things here I do not want to fight, the tamest of which is an AMHD, and at least 6 things I don't want to fight, but might risk fighting for a good reward. The GWoChaos is the only one I must avoid LoS of.

**Pete Mack** · March 13, 2018, 19:23

In a pinch, you can use number keys (or numlock) for diagonal moves. Or you can use the rogue-style keymap (as I do.) Relying on double keypresses seems suboptimal.

**Grotug** · March 14, 2018, 03:44

I don't have a numpad and 1 is mapped for switching between melee weapons, but I could use 3, 7 and 9.

[b]DL37: LF: 9-8

--live updates proceed below as they happen--

I find the openings to the vault and decide the southern route is best: there's no deathmold blocking the way into the heart of the vault, and I can get deeper into the vault before running into D

I move through the Trolls and Champions; a colbran spooks me but doesn't give me any problems. I eat a SS shroom. I take on the first D and it's going a bit better than I expected. I send him fleeing with about 140hp left when Lugdush comes at me. He takes me to about 120hp. I get to regen a teeny bit when D comes back to die. A water elemental then crushes the drops. A Sorcerer is right behind and I start to whack away at it. I then see the other D closing in from behind. The Sorcerer blinds me, so I cannot ?Phase. _TS fails. The Sorcerer hits me a bunch more times. The D claws me. I'm down to less than 100hp. _TS Succeeds. I'm in a cavern I've already cleared and take a moment to rest and reflect on my rather reckless behavior.

I've actually cleared the whole level. It was a very tame level with the exception of the vault. The longer I can put off TOing anything, the better this will go as the rest of the level is very safe. The Sorcerer races after me and and it's back to 109hp. He's summons a mature black dragon that damages my crossbow. I _TS to the easternmost point in the map. One charge remains. Why does the sorcerer follow me??

I quaff a !CSW and rest a few turns and its back again. How is it moving so fast? I shoot an arrow of venom and it hits. Sorcerer destroys one of my ?Phase doors, summons a skeleton troll and blinks. Message history shows I then quaff my only healing but I don't remember doing this! Couple turns later a displacer beast suddenly is in view and is on me at the same time as the skeleton troll when the sorcerer returns. I kill the skeleton troll and the sorcerer destroys a !CCW. My arrow poisons the sorcerer. He casts a bolt of acid. Another arrow poisons the sorcerer and he screams in pain and flees in terror. Another arrow finds its mark and he dies. I recently swapped a cloak of protection for a cloak of stealth <+1>. I come back to the vault, I do battle with the D after eating another SS shroom. It's going well but he gets a lot of damage in when he's near dead and a shard storm breathes doing about 25 damage and causing a graze. The cloak of protection would have been significant because the graze means instead of regenerating I lose health for two turns while I finish off the dragon. I gain level 31 and now have 49 of 396 health. That healing would be useful now and more things now threaten to kill me: another displacer beast, a lightning hound, almost dead, a patriarch and the shardstorm.

On my first trip to the vault an ice troll dropped a ?Teleportation which I read now. I'm in another cavern that I thought I had cleared completely, but I see an ogre shaman hiding in a corner asleep. I take a few steps away from it and quaff a !CSW.

The lightning hound and displacer beast follow me, but not the Patriarch. The Ogre shaman drops an orange speckled potion that, while not actually a potion of strength, effectively is, because a half-troll can only be so stupid.

I go back to the vault but I've forgotten to switch back to cloak of protection. I keep making mistakes and thinking I'm going to stop making them but I don't. I swap cloaks midfight and the Patriarch summons a companion and a Lich and something I can't see are making fast work of me and I'm quickly down to 140hp and back to level 30 and so I _TS. I wait at the top of a corridor at the top of the map and the patriarch returns and 'looks healthier.' This time around he isn't quite so troublesome, summoning a brown yeek and a zorn. Fortunately he doesn't do much while I slash my way through the zorn. The patriarch responds well to my spear and soon I'm on to a mature red dragon. I get blinded a couple times during the fight and !quaff !CSW and !CCW during the fights. While killing the red dragon something hits me. After the dragon dies I detect with my staff a Dread. He does fast work on me and I'm suddenly down to 60 health so I use my last ?phase. I now have no more escapes of any kind. I quaff two !CCW and _detect evil again and he is next to me and I finish him off.

I forget the Lich drains energy from my pack and there goes my last charge of TO. The dread drops two !CCW. I have 193hp and detect evil and there is another lich. I =Escape down the corridor and light it and hope to get some decent damage in with bolts before meleeing. Picking up the !CCWs can wait. The sinking feeling that I am about to die has momentarily passed, but things are not looking too good now that all my escapes are gone. The good news is I *think* I've killed most of the worst roaming the vault. I think most everything else scary are in cubbies.

I quaff a !CSW, put on a ring of =DEX <+3> and drop my staff of detect evil and wait.

The lich dies very easily as he should. I pick up the other two !CCWs and the dread also dropped a cursed {??} battle axe of slay orc that will get 2.7 blows up from the current 2.3 while wearing the ring of dex, once I restore my dex which will happen very soon. But it's only really useful against orcs. Still, SI in a weapon swap is much better than in a ring swap. The curse gives me better AC at the cost of elec vulnerability. On my way back to the vault I run into a shadow and go from 593 till next level to 2761.

Well, I can't afford to make anymore stupid mistakes, which is hard given that I only have 3 INT. I have no more escapes and the AMHD is not in a cubbie but he is still asleep; same goes for the red and white ancient dragons. My plan is to go to the heart of the vault, hope to find some form of escape or something that immediately improves my power significantly and then respond accordingly. If I find neither, I'll take what's useful and head for the stairs, which are fortunately near the vault!

I decide to walk towards the entrance of the vault before ESPing. And I decide to switch to my non SI weapon because it does more damage. Really great decisions. Really smart. This is why I play warrior, because what it lacks in INT it makes up in strength. I should have remembered that the elder vampire can pass through walls, and that his cubby did not secure him. This was the monster I needed a charge of TO for, but I threw away that charge needlessly on the Lich.

So this is how it ends. It is a very sad end.

I put on my ring of escaping and...

I start to run and interestingly he isn't immediately on me invoking death. But I'm in his line of sight so it's just a matter of turns now. I have 74 health.

I start to run. He tries to drain my mana twice. I !CCW, he does nothing.

I think my next move is directly up and then continue diagonal. But while that buys me a turn or two out of LOS of Elder, he will again be in LoS of me. Still, it's not out of my way to move up, so it should be my best move. He moves back into LOS of me. He incants terribly and my body shakes briefly.

I guess now, the question is do I !CCW again or do I keep moving? I have 143hp.

I !CCW. He fires a nether bolt at me. I !CCW he moves next to me. I move, he moves. I move, he moves. I have 151hp.

I move and he moves and conjures up scary effects. I move he moves. I move and he smashes me with psionic energy, blinding and confusing me. I have 68 health.

I !CCW, The Elder Vampire drains your mana away. The Elder Vampire tries to cast a spell, but fails. I escape. I make it to the stairs, and descend.

**Grotug** · March 14, 2018, 05:36

DL38 No escape LF-4

--live updates proceed below as they happen--

Well, I thought it was over when I ran into that Elder Vampire. Not that it isn't over very soon. It's too bad I made so many mistakes last level. I was so close to getting at the heart of the vault. If I still had the one charge of TO, I probably would have at least gotten something in the vault before running away again.

While I have no escapes, other than my ring. I do have a chance to win yet. I only have 1 !CCW, but 6 !CSW. I have 137hp. This level being a 4 danger is very promising. Hopefully in farming the entire level I will regain some escapes.

The Elder Vampire set me back to 21,337 exp before I reach level 31 again. Here is the start of DL38.

I take three steps forward and there is a gravity hound in the room to the left. I guess I'll rest up in the little corridor beneath the room. I'll probably lose ESP, though, but I'll know a little more about what's there. Good thing we have 14 arrows of slay animal left!

9 gravity hounds, a ninja, a ranger and a black knight. These hounds aren't shy. They are on the move, as is the ninja. I am in knight's move, ready and waiting:

The Ninja drops a potion of brawn, my arrow finds the mark. I kill two hounds and they don't breathe, though two were in los of me while I was fighting them and my health as climbed to 173. I kill 4 more, and my health is down to 120. The one in the middle is fleeing, almost dead.
I fire an arrow at one, and melee another and get breathed on. Now I'm slow, 88 health and stunned. I don't know if I should kill the Wight or !CCW. I decide to kill it and the hound breathes again, and a pang of anxiety shoots through me. I am very lucky on my landing position. I have 57 health. Guess I'll quaff my last !CCW.

The hound returns, the arrow sends it fleeing. I regain normal speed. The two hounds come back to die. I drink the !brawn and... I'm not getting any smarter, folks! and I'm not getting any stupider, either. That is the third consecutive swap stat potion that effectively has been a stat potion. =D Actually, I'm wrong. My "Self" INT is 5, so I can still lose two more points of INT. I was looking at the overall value of my INT which has been 3 for awhile now since my class/combo removes 6 from 5 but the game won't let you drop below 3. I kill the ranger and black knight without incident.

Hey, I hope I find something cool soon! I don't want to die. I clear the level and pick up a !healing and the ranger from earlier dropped 4 shrooms of fast recovery. I also found my first identify scroll but I'll save it for later.

Actualy, there was one other region of the level I hadn't explored. I go back there and don't bother disabling a trap and a siren blares through the dungeon. I find myself fighting a line of white dragons and they breathe like crazy, but none of my potions get destroyed, and someone drops Gauntlets of Aegalmen [3, +27] <+3> {??}. I take the stairs.

**Grotug** · March 14, 2018, 06:41

DL39 LF: 5 No escape

As long as I have no escapes, I am going to label the levels no escape.

I kill Boldor and he drops the warhammer Utumen (3d3) (+9, +13) [+10] <+2>
Slays Undead Powerfully
Slays orcs, giants
Branded with weak lightning, resists lightning
Sustains CON
<+2> CON
Grants See Invisible.
Protects against Confusion

I just drank a red potion and it increased my INT at the expense of my DEX. My warhammer goes from 2.3 to 2.7 with +1 Dex. If I ever reach CL31 I will restore my DEX and will be doing decent damage.

I found two scrolls of phase door.

I come upon Lorgan and so I put on my ring of escaping and starting running to the stairs. He summons me to him a couple times and summons friends, but eventually I make it to the stairs where I am standing now. The question is, do I read my uknown scrolls now incase one is destruction or teleport level? or do I descend the stairs first?

Lorgan just had to summon a vampire lord. Now if I read the scroll and it's not destruction or teleport level, I will lose all the exp I've gained these passed two levels. I read a scroll and it's to-dam so my xbow takes it. Everyone misses me except for one hit by the Vampire Lord. And of course when you want it to be teleport level or destruction it's not. Well that experiment cost me 2500 exp. And I descend.

DL40 LF-6

I ~map and there is a small, wide vault to my right. I think I'm going to explore the rest of the level and then come back to the vault. Without TO, without speed, without _TS. It's pretty much guaranteed death.

I don't know if others have this problem, but when I fail disabling trap with a rod, I don't realize it, I expect the trap to be disabled and I walk into the trap, setting it off. This happens all the time. It's quite annoying. I don't see a way of preventing this from happening, though, other than extreme caution. Now I'm faced with a Crystal Drake and an ARD directly behind him and a MBD to my right.

I ?phase and have time to light the hallway and equip my bow to shoot poison arrows.

Melee is going much slower than I expected. Then I remember the dragon has 1848hp not 616. The ARD breathes fire and I'm down to 99 health so I ?phase but I shoulda just taken the stairs. Now what am I going to do. I did pick up a staff of earthquakes recently. Let's put on =escaping and try it. Let's reverse that order: quake, then ring.

Oh my word, did it work???

I =Escape to the northeast corner of the room, spotting some boots to the right. The Star is still charging. The GCrystal Drake only had 4 health bars left. What to do about Lorgan, though. He is a problem.

Well, it's probably been time to take a break from this game for a solid 18 hours for awhile now, but I don' wanna. Instead of putting on my ring of escaping I put on my ring of digging. Then instead of putting on my ring of strength to fight the mumak I put on my ring of escaping. Then I put my ring of digging back on instead of my ring of strength, and was puzzled why killing the mumak took so long. /facepalm. He took me to 50hp.

Not sure what to do about Lorgan. I wonder if maybe I can find a way around back to the dragons without having Lorgan be able to get to me. I need my star to recharge.

Funny, I saw the naga and I'm like "I should kill it" then I'm like.. wait, why? Not likely he'll drop anything useful. Well, I'm stuck in this room so I went over to it and killed it and he drops ?Teleportation. I kill another mumak and the star recharges.

Not only am I isolated from everyone in this room, if I go right down this long corridor and come back down the other long corridor below it I will come to the ancient black dragon, but the rest of the monsters will still be trapped. And.... I'm a little slow, but... would you look at that, by the Great Grace of God Lorgan is completely shut in!

Orrrr, maybe a better plan is to tunnel to the crystal drake and kill him. and then kill everything else here via Knight's Move.

I'm not going to detect evil again, but you can see the plan: shoot bolts. A Troll Priest last level dropped me 20 bolts (+5, +7). The G-Crystal Drake has half health and I resist shards so I think ranged attack will be fine. I'll melt the rock from distance and then swap my =Digging for =STR.

I wasn't expecting the ARD to come first. No matter.

The red dragon takes me to Level 31 again and my gauntlets protect me from the dragon's blinding flash. I should have been healing up while the crystal drake approached me, instead of firing bolts. I had to !heal during our fight when he rapidly took me down to 94 health in melee. He had regenerated from 4 health to 6 since I had last fought him. :-/ No matter, I slayed the great beast.

I quaff a potion of enlightment after finishing exploring the map to the west and there are some things of interest in the vault so tomorrow I will assess the risk level of the vault.

Gorlim and a ranger chieftain are there. The objects aren't worth the risk; a thief came out with two !Constitutions, there's an xbow, some good arrows, and _Teleportation but not worth it. I kill some things south of the vault and pick up another !Enlightenment and a potion of speed! Wow! It's like my second one all game. And a mindflayer drops a wicker shield of Elvenkind, rNexus at the top of a star shaped room.

DL41 LF-6

A young black dragon drops a wand of teleport other 10 charges. Oh, how sweet it is.

Can I use a rod of trap disable on a chest? The answer is: yes you can. Click! The chest is disarmed.

So right after picking up the wand of TO I encounter an emperor wight. He incants, he casts nether bolt and I'm suddenly down to 174hp. I deliberate for a bit, then decide to try earthquakes. I fail 4 times in a row. There goes level 31. And when it finally works, it does nothing. So I try to TO and that fails. So i say the hell with it and melee. He's doing very little damage to me in melee; and after all these turns I still have 165hp. He falls in two rounds. Wish I had just melee'd from the outset. Anyway, he drops a large iron chest with explosion device. Oh well, nothing useful.

DL42 LF-6
Mature black dragon dies and now I have 3?Teleportation, 3!speed. Feel like I won the lottery. I learn rLite on my Pendant and ?*Destruction*

I pick up two potions of restore life levels and then run into Adunaphel the quiet. I _TS away (I also just picked up another staff of _TS). When I run into him again I decide to fight him since I *Slay Undead*. I _TS away again when my health runs low. I am in some neat looking small rooms, lighting them when an Emperor Wight starts coming for me from one side and Adunaphel from the other. I start meleeing Adunaphel while the Emperor Wight approaches and starts meleeing me too, and incanting terribly. My health plummets to 122 and I ?Teleport. I am in a large room and I light it and go to the far corner and wait. I eat the rest of my ,Fast Recovery and quaff a !CSW. Adunaphel drops me artifact caestus that has +1 Light and activates to light a room. Terribly exciting piece of kit.

DL43 LF-5-5

I read a scroll 'dinus cor' and the short sword Elenor appears at my feet
(1d7) (+12, +20) <+2> Attack Speed {??}
279vs Evil. 353 vs Undead.

DL44 LF 6-
A whole bunch of mumaks in a hallway take me to level 32. I come to an AWD and I *slay* it in two rounds; and then *slay* an ABD in two rounds.

DL45 LF 5-4
I run into Bolg, son of Azog and he dies in two little turns, and misses me entirely. He drops the Zweihander 'Isilydh' which grants telepathy, but isn't good for much else. I read a couple unID'd scrolls and get Recharging and *Acquirement*. I was hoping the recharging was going to show up when I needed it, but I'll hold onto it for a bit. The Acquirement drops a fine cloak <+2><+3><+5> Speed/Searching/Stealth. And a low AC armor with rBASE, rLight, rChaos with <+3> Dexterity that I leave behind. I'm a bit peeved that my only source of FrAct is still a ring. --Yes!! My cloak resists exp drain. =D And probably rNether as {??} are still on it, though rSound and rDark are also possible.

**Grotug** · March 14, 2018, 23:28

DL 46 LF-7-7
I quaff another !Dexterity (discovered first one last level) and my blows soar from 5.8 to 6.5 I'm now doing 314 to evil. My ?Teleportation also increases to 5. I've clawed back from the edges of death to be back in this game. This is what Angband is all about. I almost gave up when I ran into that Elder Vampire. Glad I didn't! And moments later of saying this I find 5 !CCW and a ring of speed <+6>. I replace my ring of STR <+6> with it.

I nearly walk into a Hydra Pit and fortunately do the telepathy weapon swap in time and _TS across the level. I have two charges left of my 3 staves of teleportation so I attempt to recharge the one with 0 charges on it and it backfires. I eat a shroom of ESP from the floor and come across an Hydra/naga/snake pit. Easy street. Inside _TS (9 charges) and a !healing. I decide that the 7 item must be in the hydra pit and so take the stairs.

DL 47 LF 5-
I kill a school of multihued dragons and now have 3 !healings. I drop Uldor the Accursed and reach level 33.

I don't travel far after swapping back from Telepthy to combat when I tunnel into a room filled with hellhounds and a death drake and other nasties. I fail _TS twice and tunneling swaps for my speed ring (which makes me lament not taking a shovel of digging instead and dropping the ring of digging). Somehow none of the hellhounds breathed and I _TS'd to safety without any losses.

DL 48 LF 5-6 A short walk upon arriving on DL48 and I discover a staff of speed, which I take and leave my detect evil behind. I head up a corridor and come upon a patriarch, sorcerer and master thief whom I rush and attack all at once, trying to maximize my temporary speed. They all die so fast. I !Illuminate the level since it has a 6 feeling and there isn't much on it, so the magenta potion catches my eye. I'm feeling like it's probably Augmentation. And it is. I pick up another !speed as well. I switch to |Telepathy before hitting the stairs.

DL 49 LF 6-?
There is a small pit (5X7) with two 11-headed hydras in it. I love that I am a warrior with superb stealth. This is a pretty lethal combination, as stealth is meant to be a major sacrifice my class/combo makes for all his brawn and con. I'll just walk the other way, tyvm.

Oh come on. I was just about to switch back to |Telepathy when a beholder casts a bolt of lightning and destroys one of my wands of TO.

Dwarven or Elvenkind? A Ranger Chieftain drops me a wicker shield of elvenkind (rPois) and there is a <+2> STR/CON dwarven armor on this level. So I could swap out my shield of resistance/good AC with the low ac elvenkind and swap my elvenkind armor <+2> Stealth with the dwarven. Gaining <+2> STR would add a little to my damage as I'd increase my bpr from 6.3 to 6.5. I'd gain something like 14 dam to evil, not to mention the CON. But I'd lose <-1> stealth and 34AC, taking me from 166AC to 132AC. I really feel like high AC is so key if you have decent damage and that sacrificing a lot of AC for a little damage and CON isn't worth it. Losing some weight would be a bonus, though as I am slightly overweight right now lugging around a shovel of acid immunity <+2> extra attacks I just picked up (although it doesn't dig appreciably better than my other two weapons). I'm tempted to invoke "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and right now I like my @'s setup. Oh, wait. Doing this would allow me to wear my ring of <STR> and get rid of my FrAct ring. So now it's kind of a no brainer. I hold onto the shield of resistance and elvenkind armor and dropped the ring of FrAct and hit the stairs. A home would be nice right now.

DL50 LF 5-5
Find a long sword (3d5) of *slay dragon* with pBlind. I always think it's cool finding augmented dice non-artifact weapons. I find gloves of fire immunity with <+3> speed and take the stairs.

DL51 LF 5-5
Cavern level and nearby are boots of speed <+7> I now have +17 native speed.
While I do have a ?*Destruction*, the boots of speed come none too soon as I come upon a pack of nether hounds. I can easily outrun them and find advantageous position (not that much of one can be found in a cavern level). I kill them, though and reach level 34. 551HP.

I've cleared the level, including killing Medusa Gorgon and there is a ?DD here. Wondering if I should read it as I am very comfortable for my depth. If I take my time I can amass more consumables. If I dive, I can be careful and amass more consumables.... I only have 5 charges of TO, though. I think I'll just fall into this nearby trap door.

DL52 LF 7-? I sneak around a mini-vault with sleepy types like Dracolich and Ar-Pharazon. I pick up another wand of TO and kill everything in the vault except the Dracolich which I TO. Ar-Pharazon takes me to 158 health but doesn't pull any shenanigans. It's a straight melee affair to the death (his death) and I gain level 35. Ar-Pharazon kindly drops a ring of speed <+11>. We go'n win dis game. We go'n win. Ar-P was standing on the pendant Turos <+2> CON <+6> Speed. 28 native speed overweight might be a bit excessive. I lose rDisenchant swapping, but I think I will do it for now; the con is very welcome, too, although 572 to 609 isn't a huge gain. There are several unID'd scrolls on this level. The one in the vault is Teleport Level.

DL 53 LF 5-4
Very tame level. A dread drops an !Augment. and one of each body stat potions are quaffed, bringing HP to 662 and dam to 367 vs evil. Boring level thereafter so tunnel to nearest stairs.

DL 54 LF 5-?
Wow, just found my first !*Healing*. And Elvenkind boots <+1, +8> How much speed is too much speed? I have native 30 speed if not overweight. I just found a ring of dam (+13) and a few levels ago a (+9) ring of dam. If I wear both I get 452 vs evil and still 18 speed. What I really need is a good ring of power with not too much speed on it.

Since I have fire immunity I dropped all my drainables and took a beating from Balrog of Moria good for like 46K exp. He thumped me more than I expected, but I do have less AC now. He took me down to half health. I will leaving his artifact drops behind.

DL 55 LF 6-6
I gain level 37 slaying a *very large* troll hoarde.

DL 57 LF 7-8
Very large vault. Picked up a couple more wands of TO last level.
Just got assaulted by a very aggressive druj. Kept confusing me and obliterating my HP. I had to heal and finally gambled on _TS, which thankfully worked and took me to the farthest West in the level which is when I discovered the large vault to my East.
And a Dreadmaster drops !Enlightenment.

The vault looks like a Mayan totem or something. With 28 speed and 26 TO this vault is mine!

Oh well, Tensers is here.

Awww snap, Kavlax drops some very good armor. Tons of resists, <+4 CON> and pBlind. I put it on and then immediately put the Dwarven back on remember that it is my only source of FrAct.

I very recently just found my first !*healing*. I now have 4. Lotta junk in this vault. Quite disappointing. Did find a cap of telepathy, tho. Oh, there was one thing, the ring of Marie. <+4> STR, WIS, <+5> DEX, <+2> Stealth, Lightning immunity, rLite, rSound, rNexus, pBlind, FrAct. Now, about that Kavlax armor.... I thought Aggravation happened almost immediately? I took about 20 steps with the kavlax armor to a ?Identify and learned the rune of aggravation, not by wearing the armor, but by reading the scroll. I did find better dwarven armor that increases my AC to 160, though.

**Grotug** · March 15, 2018, 21:54

DL58 LF 7-?
I smite Itanigast and gain level 38 and take from a chest is the ring of Lonwe <+3> CON/WIS, <+2> Speed
protetion from blindness, confusion, FrAct, rLite, rFire, rLightning. Wearing it brings my CON to 902. Not bad for CL38. I kill a dark elven lord and he drops me 3 ?phase doors, bringing my total to 8.

Since I'm lugging around about 5 pieces of equipment I'm not yet willing to part with, I'm unable to carry two dropped !Enlightenments. So I quaff one and find a very small + shaped vault. In it Brigandine armor Elimlo [48, +14] <+5> Speed rChaos, rDisenchant, pConf and activates to destroy all doors around me. I will wear this. I am tempted to drop my ring of speed. Wearing the two rings of power and this armor brings my native speed to 25. That's fairly boss. My AC drops 18 to 141 and my hp drops 95 to 807. Now I should probably drop both the dwarven and the elvenkind rPois. Oh, and the ring Lonwe is still {??} after ?IDing pStun. With this setup, (which isn't great on dam) I resist and protect against everything except rShard and rDark (and still not sure about rNether).

I can't decide if I want to drop my rods of curing. And the Lonwe ring is now mostly redundant, meaning ring of Dam is probably better for most situations. I think what I'll do is main Lonwe and for certain fights swap it with the =DAM (+13). Should I drop the =Speed <+11>? Should I drop the -Curings?

I'm also going to drop an elfstone of pConf Beorn dropped me on DL56.

DL60 Yes!! I had my mind on finding a rod of TO and boom! Nether Wraith just dropped me one. !Enlightenments are up to 3 now. I'm still holding onto 4 artifacts that aren't useful to me, and 3 of them I doubt will ever be. I need to drop something to pick up this rod. rDisenchant pendant is going.

I know I got into trouble doing this early on in my misadventure, but just now I decide to use a staff of summoning since I have good HP, tons of resists and great speed. Charge 1: I get a Nightwing that I kill easily. Charge 2: Water troll blocking a Draconic Q. I kill the water troll and step next to the Q and kill it. Charge 3 & 4 are nobodies.

DL62 5-6 Found a ring of slaying (18, +8). Pretty cool (not useful, but cool). Passed by Eol but wanted to check out a special room first where I found a good helmet without Telepathy that I'll use as a swap for certain battles: *Acid, Chaos, Disench, Cold, slows metabolism {??} Useful enough against Eol who summoned a purple worm I happily ignored (shoots acid). In other news I now have 6 of each !Healing/*!healing.

Both rings cover pBlind and one covers rNexus. I have gloves with <+3> Dex, pBlind and rNex that I'm saving in case I get *Fire elsewhere (currently wearing <+3> speed *Fire gloves). Now I'm considering dropping the <+3> DEX gloves (they have great AC) for (+6, +2) thievery gloves <+3> <+6> that Eol dropped, but have terrible AC (10 total). While redundant now, not sure risking they won't be later is worth the (+6, +2) (not that I'll ever find a better source of *Fire, but I may yet in a ring). I guess I'll hold onto the artifact gloves.

DL63 8-5
I beat earth hounds to a !CON in the center of a very large cavern. Con is now maxed at 200 and I'm back to 902hp.

Think I'll clear this rubble. Sweet, just got a nice straight upgrade on my helm of telepathy [3, +8] to [7, +14] after the 4th rubble I dug into.

I'm about the take the stairs when I see a cool looking lava cavern so I investigate...

Quite scary, but I did just pick up a better xbow (X4) (+15, +17) and I am immune to most of what's here, though still very dangerous. Since I have a rod of TO I think I will take it on. The Horned Reaper summons and batters me to 294HP so I _TS. He has a little more than 1/3 of his health left. I also have 8 seeker bolts of slay demon I can use. He comes back for me as I'm tunneling a diagonal corridor in the northeastern nook of the giant cavern. I easily finish him off with the demon bolts before he reaches me and gain level 39.

I don't bother resting up before heading back; eager to crush more major demons. I recklessly start going down the corridor and more demons start summoning so I put on the speed ring, TO an Osyluth and go back into knight's move just south of the eastern entrance of the long corridor where two Mariliths drop a !*healing* and !wisdom.

I make an arrow shooting corridor to kill the lesser Balrogs but I'm too fast and they keep stop pursuing me.

I take out the Lesser Balrogs with bolts and then switch to the *Acid helm to take out the Bile Demons. I kill them all with 463hp remaining.

I sift through the drops and ?Identify rNether on the ring and read an unID'd rune of protection which isn't terribly placed now. I go to lure the other demons to my sword.

I don't think it's prudent to try to make use of the rune. This hallway is way too long. I prolly will take the stairs that are right here.

I misclick (I was just trying to click back on the game) but I hit the left arrow and osyluth casts a ball of frost and makes me more more sickly and a bile demon breathes poison taking me to 340 so I read what is becoming a rather thick stack of ?Teleportations and have 11 left.

4 squres from the stairs I meet one of the Osyluths I TO'd and my rod is still charging from a lesser balrog so I disappear him with my stack of wands and descend.

**Grotug** · March 15, 2018, 23:47

--live updates proceed below as they happen--

DL64 4-6

There are 13 gravity hounds just to my north but with pStun and 35 speed I think I may sharpen my sword on them, though maybe I should heal up a bit. I only have 370hp.

The level feeling is somewhat favorable so I !Enlighten and immediately see two more !Enlightenments. I see Ibun, son of Mim sleeping and think I should save him for Morgoth.

Mim wakes up but he is soo slow to my 35 speed that I quickly leave him behind and enter the gravity hound room through a magma vein where I get bounced around like a pinball and up the opposite corridor. I'm suddenly not so sure screwing around with this pack of hounds is wise at all.

With 330hp my options are not very good:

I decide to _TS and it fails, but no one breathes. I _TS again and land in the southeast corner of the map. I'd like to get the two !Enlightenments near the gravity hounds but it may not be worth dying trying. It's quiet and I start wandering north and stumble upon an explosive trap bringing my health to 252. I -Detect and it's very tame indeed so I rest up and regain normal speed. at 489hp I continue to explore (not much doin).

I get halfway back to the gravity hounds and one injured one has left the pack and when he senses me tries to hide in a corner of a room.

I walk up to the hound and kill it and the room and then go north and fairly casually kill a Dracolisk. Just 6k to level 40.

I drill a Knight's move shooting corridor and one hound breathes on me but misses. This should work...

37 speed and good bolts they don't know what's hitting them. To save bolts I kill the last 5 in melee and they don't know what hit them. I grab the !Enlightenments and since there is nothing left more interesting than money I hit the nearest stairs.

I start in a 9 cubbie special room where killing some things takes me to level 40 and I max out on DEX and increase my !*Healings to 8. Aside from my lack of damage output things are going swimmingly. I should probably dive a bit and find a good weapon. I say that but with my DEX maxed I get 7 blows regardless which rings I'm wearing. So if I have a power ring and =Dam I'm doing over 400 to evil.

Roguestyle I slaughter a sleeping pack of Hezrou and one of the last ones drops:
Lamellar Armour Hyamainim [58, +21] <+3> Speed rChaos, hLife, pBlind, rCold, rLite. While nice AC and resists, I think I'll leave it behind. :-/ In a normal game it'd definitely go in my home. Another Hezrou drops a ?DD and I read it.

**Grotug** · March 16, 2018, 00:42

DL 70 7-?

I start in a special room in the northwest corner of the map that looks a little bit like a cartoon monkey head.

While I'm killing a Dreadlord in one of four central compartments I see Time hounds enter the frame below. I do 406 to animals @ +26 speed and they have 330hp and only ~+10 speed.

Only a small handful come and they are dispatched very easily from knight's move as they enter my chamber (too bad I'm not wielding a rapier, otherwise I could make a reference about how too bad it's not Molly's chamber). I -Detect and see the rest of the Time Hounds. (@ is just offscreen Northeast of a Greater Rotting Q).

I walk down to meet them but they seem a bit shy to leave their room. Dwar, Dog Lord Waw comes through the door and I fail to TO twice and on the third one fumble with the keys and TO the air above me. Frustrated I _TS, not wanting to use a TO from my wand.

I land in the center of the map. I run away from Arien until my rod recharges and then TO him away. I fun away from a GWoB until my rod recharges and then I TO him away. I reconsider fighting Dwar on one of these squares of lava.

I wonder which square would be best. None of them are great but I decide to wait for him at 5W,1S. And move onto the lava 5 squares to my west when he is within striking distance. I _Hasten and quickly realize he is not going to pathfind to me so I beeline directly to him. On my way over he hits me with nether taking me to 750hp.

I reach him and this plan goes exceedingly well. I'm doing 500 vs undead and 36 speed so it's pretty quick work. He hits me with nether one more time but I only go down to 650.

He drops the Jewel Hyaras <+7, +1> Speed/Light and Caestus of Slaying (+3, +7). I wonder if I should drop the DEX <+3> gloves for these in the event I get *Fire elsewhere.

I explore a bit while I mull over my decision and see Ji Indir Dawndeath who I lure back to a lava square, but take him down a somewhat long corridor where he destroys one of my !*healings*. Once back on a lava square it's a damage free killing him.

I come make my way back to the Time hounds and see the GWoBalance again. This should be a cakewalk.

I take the Caestus and leave the artifact gloves.

DL71

I kill some lesser dragons and one of them drops a rod of TO bringing my stack to two.
I kill a g pit to get at a 'good' crossbow, but pick up a ?Phase door and *!healing* in the pit. ?Phase doors: basically I'm collecting these for the final fight at this point. I haven't used one in ages and only have 13. 30 would be nice. If I have decent damage output ?phases is the only scroll I need to kill Morgoth. If I had to choose between 30 ?phases or 6 ?MBans I'd probably take the ?phases.

I kill a pack of Brabrezu who take me to level 41 and reduce my con to 180. I come to a cluster of Hydra pits the likes of which I've never seen before:

The vault requires no strategy: I just walk around killing them. A great crystal drake drops my first ?Mass Banish, and some lesser dragons drop another -TO.

I discover my first ?Banish but decide to leave it in favor of keeping a ?Recharging for my staff of speed that has 2 more charges (though _Speeds are much more common). I don't really need banishment scrolls at this point. I've demonstrated that if I'm careful I can kill things that otherwise would require banishment. I quaff an !Experience, intentionally walk on an Undead rune, kill an eye druj and take the stairs.

DL72
I come to the queen ant and her brood and nearly kill her and then realize she'd be quite useful summoned during the M fight, so I flee and let her live. I see Fang and avoid him.

DL73

I reach level 42 and come to Gorlim. I don't know that I want him hanging around during the final fight. He probably does more damage per round on average in direct spell damage than Morgoth does.

I walk over a rune of summoning intentionally and get a Nightwalker and Ungoliant. The Nightwalker falls quickly but does some damage with a nether blast. I drop my rods of disable trap (my physical disarm is up to 81% somehow) and I pickup a ?MassBanish.

I then fail to disable an aggravation trap twice in a row.

DL74 I come to a Micro-mini checkered vault packed with treasures and am tempted to take on a Greater Titan inside since I do 412 to giants without the dam ring. But I don't think I have enough AC for the job (he has 12d12 crushing blows) so I TO him, but there only useless paper bound objects inside.

Hoarmurath of Dir drops the Band of Elladan, but it's not quite good enough compared to my current rings. It has pBlind, hLife <+3> CON, <+4> STR <+6> WIS and activates to hasten, has good resists including poison which I only have on my dinky elvenkind shield, but still I am not going to keep this. If it had <+4> DEX I might lug it around for awhile for when I get a heavier weapon.

I try to take on some nether hounds but they are crafty and some Istars from a Maia pit are after me so I retreat to Knight's move in the passageway and the 4th and last Istar takes me to 217hp and a nasty cut; right behind him is the Greater Titan but I _Hastened for these fights and the greater Titan disappears on first attempt with the rods. I suppose that was a bit unnecessarily risky as had the rod failed twice, but I'm pretty sure I'd get another turn before him had it failed once.

I suppose the nether hounds smell blood because they are coming for me now. Which is great. At 35 speed they die before they lay a claw, fang or breath on me.

I kill Ariel inside the room the hounds came out of and the Pheonix is about to enter the room. I guess he'll have to make him disappear for now. Maybe I should save him for the M fight, too, although I often give up immunities for more damage on the final fight.

I don't bother resting up and head to the A pit with about 400 or so HP. There's only a few Blue Wizards in it. It goes smoothly and I stand at Knight's move and wait for the entire pit to run themselves through my sword. I regen to 824hp during the slaughter. It's not unfruitful. 2 !healings, 5 ?phase doors, lots of stat potions (though my body stats are maxed), a rod of TO, a ?banishment, a ?recharge and a relatively junky iron crown. I'm about to read a ?Teleport level when I decide to try a new staff which *destructs* the area. I head southwest into an oval room and a Dreadmaster drops an (8d8) lochaber axe. it provides rPois and slays demons but nothing else useful about it. It does 340 vs others at 4.3 blows so if I could find a way to increase my dex it would be a good weapon. Or I could drop my caestus of slaying and take the axe. I read a ?recharging on the 1 charge _Speed and bring it to 4 charges. I drop the other ?recharging and take the weapon

I mindlessly drill through a pile of rubble on the way to the stairs and pick up another ?MassBan.

DL75 investigated a honeycomb special room and took the stairs
DL76
I easily take out a bronze golem with my new weapon and gain Level 43 and I increase my ?Phase Door stack to 21.

DL77 LF 6-8 An ?Acquirement conjures forth a big sibling to my short sword Elenor (also conjured forth by magic). Galen (2d7) (+8, +30) [9] <+4, +3, +1> WIS, DEX, Blows. Does 420 vs others. 539 vs dragons. Non rCold 480.

Also, there is a small/medium size open cubby vault to my east. !Enlightment shows there is a =Band not inside of one of the cubbies. On my way over Fundin is quite compliant, and does more damage early on than later. He takes me down to 408hp.

I enter the vault and kill the Sorcerer standing on the band. It is a very nice all rounder. A proper ring of power 'Tirimlach' (+5, +5) <+6, +4, +2, +1> STR, (WIS/CON/DEX), Speed, Light. Activation: restore stats. Now the question is, which ring to replace. I'll drop the ring of Dam for now to pick it up, but I need to figure out if I am going to try to kill the witchking of angmar now (bottom left of the vault).

Now I'd just like to make a point that I'm almost ready to fight Sauron and I didn't need to go to the bottom of the dungeon to get what I need. I'd say this is true for almost all games I win. By the time I reach the bottom of the dungeon I'm no longer finding good gear because I've already found it all on my way down. Just saying. And DL75 is significantly safer than DL95 if you are relying on TO that has a significant fail rate.

I haven't rested after killing Fundin. I bee lined to the vault. I decide to take on Angmar at the top of the vault (I use a wand of stone to mud to quickly get into position), even though I only have 660hp when we start fighting. I get a few bolts of slay undead before he even sees me and I'm doing 530 to undead now with 35-36 speed while hasted. He summons a pit fiend so I use a precious ?phase which is favorable. I quaff 4 !CCW as I have many now and finish off Angmar just as the pit fiend is next to me. I switch to the lochaber axe that now does 800 to demons, but even so the demon somehow gets me down to 387hp before dying.

I heal up with a staff of cure light wounds and by killing the rest of the monsters here. I pick up a long bow of extra might (+17, +25) so I drop my xbow of power (+15, +17) and all my fine bolts and pick up 28 arrows of slay undead. Also useful are a !*healing*, _Speed and _Teleportation.

Losing all the bolts frees up an inventory slot so I pick up the =Dam which is very good with Galen since it doesn't need the extra stats from =Marie. Galen, a short sword with 2d7 dice is doing 558 to others (but lose pBlind). I drop my helm of *Acid and pick up a rune of protection.

I hit a summon Undead rune and kill a druj and nightcrawler who drops another ?Rune of Protection. I gain level 44 and hit the stairs, more stairs, and stairs immediately.

Here is my character dump.

**Grotug** · March 17, 2018, 02:24

DL 80 LF 6-6
I kill Kamul who drops <+4> dex armor, another short sword but no extra blows and normal dice, (lots of slays and resistances/protections though) and a heavy xbow (X5) (+19, +23). Normally I would have stashed my best bolts in my home just for such an occasion.

I kill Wren the Unclean and some chaos hounds give me a little trouble, taking me down to 400hp. I foolishly don't rest up before trying to take on Puzazu and after a couple rounds have to _TS. I make my way back to him and on the way come across Saruman so I rest up and then kill him pretty easily. A nether Wraith drops me 22 bolts of slay undead. I take on Puzazu at almost full health. He gets me down into the 300~hp territory and he summons an osyluth and a bile demon. I TO the osyluth and ignore the bile demon (I'm immune to all but cold). Puzazu has *** left. I get him down to ** and he summons a Greater Balrog. I whack Puzazu again and he's down to * but I'm down to 229hp. I heal. I whack him again he still lives, more summons. One more round he dies and I gain level 45.

I TO the greater balrog with a wand and TO the bile demon with the rod and rip through the lesser greater demons with ease. I explore the special room Puzazu was in and quaff an !EXP and pick up a rod of speed and drop the staves since I don't often need to -haste (just for the occasional OOD unique like Puzazu).

Ironhide Ironman

Ironhide Ironman

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