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I play this game too much. I dunno why; but I just enjoy it so.... I'm still playing 4.1.2. I haven't even tried the new classes branch.
Anyway, just had a nutty ride on the severe swinging pendulum of fortune and damnation that is Angband RNG.
Playing forced descent, I picked up a good dagger on DL34 +2 speed, lots of slays, rNexus, rPois, SI, FrAct, pFear. So I soon found myself on DL42. I !illuminate to discover 9-9 vault of the worst kind: the one that is all open, with tons of doors at the end. Just a nightmare of a vault. Even with a wand and rod of TO I was debating passing it up. But I see sandals of speed <+8> and a MoD so I decide, oh what the heck, where's my sense of adventure!
I'm venturing forth, getting my inventory destroyed by all the breathers (fire mostly) who won't come out of the vault to fight me. Filled with Zarens and Elementals, too,
but by some small miracle don't have seemed to have destroyed anything too important. Before entering the vault, two Time vortices breathed on me but I regained a level taking on some dangerous foes, restoring all the reduced stats.
So first, with the bad luck. (That is correct, I haven't even gotten to the bad luck yet). I see a Storm Giant. I debate, at 241 to evil and +2 speed if I should fight it or TO. (I bought a rod of TO in the shop! very recently). I have 4 charges of TO left. I decide, since the rod is still charging, to risk fighting it, to just see how it goes, since two more showed up and I don't feel I'll be able to afford TOing all of them. I see a message about TO while fighting him and my heart jumps: phew! It was just telling me my rod recharged. But guess what the very next message is? You got it! Your rod of TO has been destroyed! Yay!
I was so pissed I quit the game. I then reloaded it and decided I wasn't going to bother TOing the others; I had received my bad luck from these giants (plus, surely I cannot afford to use 3 of my 4 TO charges on them?) Second giant destroys my ring of escaping and my wand of TO. I tease committing suicide but am not really quite serious about it. I calm down a little, and decide I'll die trying to take on the vault. However, when I first detected evil in the vault the only really dangerous thing I saw was a Great Wyrm of Poison, which brings us to our good luck:
I read a scroll I pick up inside the vault near the western entrance: I ID it as ?Banishment. I decide I better read it ASAP since I am being breathed on by fire by so many different things, and given the horrible layout of the vault, there just isn't that much I can do about it. I decide, while I'm feeling rather confident there are probably some greater Qs hiding in the vault, I will banish according to the information I am presented with, though, which is that the most dangerous monster is the Great Poison Wyrm. So I ?banish it along with a Ancient Multihued Dragon. And, amazingly, there is nothing else really dangerous in the vault that I can't handle.
Just northeast of the entrance were two helms. So I made it my first priority to check the closest helm for Telepathy. And would you believe it, it actually had it!
The Winged Horror I TO'd earlier I killed when I _TS'd back to it to get away from a beholder. I had to drop my staves to kill the beholder and a lesser balrog, but neither was much trouble. I used my only !speed (the other 3 got destroyed) to kill the Lesser Balrog. I ended up killing everything in the vault except an inertly positioned deathmold.
But I just can't believe I actually killed everything in the vault after banishing just two dragons. That is pretty much unheard of in my experience playing this game, in a dangerous, high prize 9-9 level vault. It's super cool. I have had a lot of games where I was super frustrated about how things were going that I just expected to die and went forth with my best effort but very little expectations, only to somehow come through, and go on to win the game.
The drama of the vault was worth it. I found some super nice loot. A Morning Star of extra attacks <+2> and cold immunity that does 352 to others and 425 vs non-lightning resisters. A good Blade of Chaos Holy Avenger that does 370 to evil and a MoD slay evil with hLife already doing 315 to evil. But the greatest item was what Castamir the Usurper relinquished to me: an X5 +29 long bow of cold brand and pConf! When I went into the vault my mindset was that I wasn't going to kill anything I didn't need to, that I was going to rely on the actual items in the vault, since they were looking very promising (the sandals of speed <+8> for instance). . So often these vaults are disappointing, giving armors I already have or books I can't read, but this one really delivered, though a drop (as is almost always the case) was, of course, the best item.
Anyway, just had a nutty ride on the severe swinging pendulum of fortune and damnation that is Angband RNG.
Playing forced descent, I picked up a good dagger on DL34 +2 speed, lots of slays, rNexus, rPois, SI, FrAct, pFear. So I soon found myself on DL42. I !illuminate to discover 9-9 vault of the worst kind: the one that is all open, with tons of doors at the end. Just a nightmare of a vault. Even with a wand and rod of TO I was debating passing it up. But I see sandals of speed <+8> and a MoD so I decide, oh what the heck, where's my sense of adventure!
I'm venturing forth, getting my inventory destroyed by all the breathers (fire mostly) who won't come out of the vault to fight me. Filled with Zarens and Elementals, too,
but by some small miracle don't have seemed to have destroyed anything too important. Before entering the vault, two Time vortices breathed on me but I regained a level taking on some dangerous foes, restoring all the reduced stats.So first, with the bad luck. (That is correct, I haven't even gotten to the bad luck yet). I see a Storm Giant. I debate, at 241 to evil and +2 speed if I should fight it or TO. (I bought a rod of TO in the shop! very recently). I have 4 charges of TO left. I decide, since the rod is still charging, to risk fighting it, to just see how it goes, since two more showed up and I don't feel I'll be able to afford TOing all of them. I see a message about TO while fighting him and my heart jumps: phew! It was just telling me my rod recharged. But guess what the very next message is? You got it! Your rod of TO has been destroyed! Yay!
I was so pissed I quit the game. I then reloaded it and decided I wasn't going to bother TOing the others; I had received my bad luck from these giants (plus, surely I cannot afford to use 3 of my 4 TO charges on them?) Second giant destroys my ring of escaping and my wand of TO. I tease committing suicide but am not really quite serious about it. I calm down a little, and decide I'll die trying to take on the vault. However, when I first detected evil in the vault the only really dangerous thing I saw was a Great Wyrm of Poison, which brings us to our good luck:
I read a scroll I pick up inside the vault near the western entrance: I ID it as ?Banishment. I decide I better read it ASAP since I am being breathed on by fire by so many different things, and given the horrible layout of the vault, there just isn't that much I can do about it. I decide, while I'm feeling rather confident there are probably some greater Qs hiding in the vault, I will banish according to the information I am presented with, though, which is that the most dangerous monster is the Great Poison Wyrm. So I ?banish it along with a Ancient Multihued Dragon. And, amazingly, there is nothing else really dangerous in the vault that I can't handle.
Just northeast of the entrance were two helms. So I made it my first priority to check the closest helm for Telepathy. And would you believe it, it actually had it!
The Winged Horror I TO'd earlier I killed when I _TS'd back to it to get away from a beholder. I had to drop my staves to kill the beholder and a lesser balrog, but neither was much trouble. I used my only !speed (the other 3 got destroyed) to kill the Lesser Balrog. I ended up killing everything in the vault except an inertly positioned deathmold.
But I just can't believe I actually killed everything in the vault after banishing just two dragons. That is pretty much unheard of in my experience playing this game, in a dangerous, high prize 9-9 level vault. It's super cool. I have had a lot of games where I was super frustrated about how things were going that I just expected to die and went forth with my best effort but very little expectations, only to somehow come through, and go on to win the game.
The drama of the vault was worth it. I found some super nice loot. A Morning Star of extra attacks <+2> and cold immunity that does 352 to others and 425 vs non-lightning resisters. A good Blade of Chaos Holy Avenger that does 370 to evil and a MoD slay evil with hLife already doing 315 to evil. But the greatest item was what Castamir the Usurper relinquished to me: an X5 +29 long bow of cold brand and pConf! When I went into the vault my mindset was that I wasn't going to kill anything I didn't need to, that I was going to rely on the actual items in the vault, since they were looking very promising (the sandals of speed <+8> for instance). . So often these vaults are disappointing, giving armors I already have or books I can't read, but this one really delivered, though a drop (as is almost always the case) was, of course, the best item.
I totally didn't see the ring of ice.
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