Hiya, I have composed the following for those of you that were so nice to have helped me out (See thread "Seem to be at an Impasse" for more details). Please understand that I'm not asking, nor expecting advice on how to play the game. This is just my personal experience with the game of Nethack so far. It is quite long (very much longer than intended), but once I started, I just got more and more into it. Most of it is reconstructed from memory and some notes, but I have put in a lot of time with this particular character and remember many of the turning points in the game so far. The game is ongoing, but temporarily on hold until I catch up with this (again, see previously mentioned thread for details). Also I type slow, so it may take several installements over a few days. If you enjoy this, then I'm pleased to have gone through the effort. Reagrds, Krysia's Krusader ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I used to play D&D (and later on AD&D) when I was younger. I've noticed that there are similarities in Nethack to this old favorite game. This has probably helped me with some of the monsters, from what I remember (I think the Oracle of Delphi has mentioned this to me also.). I also put in countless hours, years ago, on a computer game called Master of Magic. My favorite hero in that game was Ellora the Elven Archer. After acquiring enough experience / enchantments / equipement, she could kill big bad monsters with one shot from her bow. I think Elves are a slick race. They're intelligent, cunning, and sexy (to me anyways). So most of my games in nethack have been with this race. There are many times that passages, doors, AND traps are hidden. The "Guidebook for Nethack" describes Elves as: "Elves are agile, quick, and perceptive; very little of what goes on will escape an Elf." I remember that Elves had a better chance of discovering secret doors in D&D compared to other races, and I see that this has been carried to Nethack. I never liked playing characters that just bulldozed through everything (fighters, barbarians, etc.), instead prefering the thinking classes (magic users, theives, etc.), a Lawful/Evil female Illusionist being my all time favorite AD&D character. In Nethack, there are only three classes for Elves; Priest, Ranger, Wizard. Of the three, Rangers is where I would get the farthest on average. Probably due to being able to hit monsters with some stand-off weaponery (bow and daggers). Wizzards come in second (mainly with the force-bolt spell), and we'll not even discuss how quickly my poor Preistesses died. After getting used to how the game looked on screen and getting familiar with the commands, I found that I coulden't stop playing this game! I had become addicted... (groan). Often times I got killed due to making a mistake on the keyboard (over and over again), as well as not considering all my options (like running from, and avoiding conflicts in order to live another day). Hence, not thinking and/or considering things - which is what I pride myself on (!). After playing through many characters (at least a 120 of them), I was able to get to about level 16 - 20 of the dungeon and the bottom of the caverns (to make sure your at the bottom, just keep going till you can't dig through with a pick-axe). The puzzle/boulder levels (that go up instead of down), I can now get through about 1/3 of the time (if it is the easy ones to solve). So with anger at my own impatience, and new found determination, I swore that I would take my time and not rush things. Also to start taking notes and paying more attention. If a situation came up, I would just simply stop , have a cigarette + coffee, and for the love (hatred) of Mars - THINK! I fired up the game and entered the options (that I have seen far too many times): - Who are you? "Ellora" - What are you? Ranger / Elf / Female / Chaotic (no choice on alignement, but that suits me fine). Hokay... I'm the instrument of Mars, chosen from birth to be the one that gets him the amulet (just like the 60 other Elven Rangers before me), go forth and blablabla... So I make a little pact with Mars: "Fine Mars, I know your the 'Chaotic God of War' and all, but just be nice a little bit this time, eh? Hopefully, by now I've learned all the stuff that annoys you and will no longer do that. I know a few things you like, and will endeavour to please you - WHENEVER IT IS AT ALL HUMANELY (Elvenly) POSSIBLE! I won't bother you too often, but there may well come a few times when I "might" need a hand, put in some kind of effort to come through (or else I may take my characters to another god in the future) if you want the amulet so bad." That done; I take a look at my stats (I always write them down and see how I progressed at the end). Str: 14 Dex: 9 Con: 14 Int: 14 Wis: 14 Cha: 10 Hrumph. Another fumble-fingers, ugly (though I've had uglier ones in the past) Female Elf Ranger. I always remembered that Elves were good looking and dextrous in D&D (and pictures). < If anyone of you who programs this game ever reads this, I have a suggestion: Give Elves a better DEX (especially for Rangers, cause they're supposed to know how to shoot) and CHA (for whatever that affects - maybe charming monsters). Give them a hit in CON if you want to balance things out. Just my 2 cents. > Next I take stock of what I have in my inventory (remembering to only use my meager supply of +2 elven arrows in dire emergencies, as I have never found any in this game). Finally I chat with "Sirius" (my little dog), and set about on my journey into the Mazes of Menace... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 1: Journey to the Oracle of Delphi ---------------------------------------- Situation First Room on Dungeoen Level 1: - I find a Japanese sword called "Snikersnee", and a chest. - I immediately turn autopick-up to "off", as to not pick up the sword by accident (Once had a character die from picking up a sword called "Giant Slayer".). As a Ranger, I'm crap with swords anyways. Maybe Mars will accept it later on if I can find an altar to him. If not, it will probably be worth a few zorkminds at a used weapons shop. - I check for traps on the chest 10 times in a row. I don't find any. Normally I check 5 times, before trying to open it, but I'm just starting out and have very few hit points. Rangers have pathetic hit points. Even my Wizzards start with more I've noticed. If there would be an exploding trap on the chest, I would surely be killed. - I try to loot the chest. It's locked. I'm kind of releived. Traps go off at any time. I'll leave it for later when I have more hit points. Hopefully a crude dagger (to force the lock) or a lockpick will turn up some time. Trying to open locked chests with say, a battle-axe, just makes a big mess of things, AND will set off the trap for sure. - Step into the corridor. Yikes! Here come the grid bug horde! - Run back into the room and bravely hide behind Sirius. Stop moving Sirius, you have to start earning your keep! Sirius is faster than me and can attack several times compared to what I can do. If things go well, Sirius will grow into a large attack dog some day. I will get better too (hopefully), but for now, Sirius can take most of these guys out where I have a chance of dying. If only he would hold still... - Phew. Sirius dispatches the insectoids and I only lose a few hit points. Didin't have to use any arrows, although my finger was hovering over the "f" trigger. - Sirius picks up "Snickersnee"! No no boy. Put that down. I need to know where it is for the future. - Sirius wonders off into the corridor. Sirius! Come back here. I run after him. - Sirius drops "Snickersnee". Now look at where it is. In a dark corridor. Any lowly kobold or goblin can now find it. Chat with Sirius. Sirius yips! (I roll my eyes) - Kick "Snickersnee" towards the room. It stops at a corner. Can't kick it from this angle. Sirius gets by me. "You hear noises in the distance." - Peek around the corner. Sirius eats a sewer rat corpse. Don't see anymore rats about. Must have been only one. Good. Now back to the problem of this sword in the corridor bend... - You are hit by a potion! It breaks on your head. You can't see! - An emergency situation has just been declared in my brain. Okay. Take a breadth. Stop and think. Whatever you do; don't hit any keys!! - Whatever monster this was, It has to have arms, else it coulden't "throw" something. Since it has arms, it can pick up AND use weapons. I can't leave this square (I'm standing on "Snickersnee".), unless I want to face something weilding this sword while being blind. Also, if I move about, I may hit Sirius by accident. I already know where he is (Having a snack in the room while I'm in trouble in the corridor, if he haden't picked it up in the first place, I woulden't be in this predicament!). No choice. Have to use some of my sparse supply of elven arrows. Man, is this game starting out hairy or what!? - Quiver the +0 arrows (if I so much as feel something next to me - out will come the killer +2's!). Make sure I'm weilding the bow. Point it down the corridor. Start shooting. Shoot. I missed it. Shoot. I hit it. Shoot. I missed it. Shoot. Shoot. I hit it. I missed it. Shoot. I kill it! - Shoot again. In case there's more of whatever behind it. I'm blind, and I'll be damned if anything closes range and touches me (I hate that). No sound except for the arrow landing in the distance. - Wait 2 turns (hit the "s" key twice), and shoot again. Nothing... Repeat. - "You can see again." I walk over and see no corpse. Whatever it was, I'll never know. There's just a few arrows strewn about, of which I pick up. Take inventory. Lost three +0 elven arrows already (you always lose arrows when shot). Damn. But heah! I'm alive and can still carry on. Having survived this initial baptism, Sirius (who has picked up "Snickersnee" again) and I, carry on into the dungeon... We explore each level systemetically, killing monsters, gathering booty, discovering where certain features are, etc., until we reach the chamber of our old freind "The Oracle of Delphi", who this game was found on Dungeon Level 9. Dungeon Level 1: - locked chest - a sword called "Snickersnee" - sink - altar (lawful) - statue of a goblin - statue of a sewer rat Dungeon Level 2: - stairs to the Caverns - potion shop (with 59 potions) - statue of a newt Here I found a shop with 59 potions + 1 small mimic. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw that! Fifty-nine friggin' potions all in one spot! This was a situation just asking for a disaster. Like a mob of hill orcs rampaging through here and picking up all this stuff. Shopkeepers sure watch me, but monsters always have a free reign in shops (sigh). No way was I going to let this happen. I dispatched the mimic with about 16 thrusts of my trusty +1 elven dagger (Don't throw weapons in shops - you have to buy them back!). This is how I snuff shop mimics: - Search ("s" key) one square at a time (there's nearly always a mimic, especially in huge shops like this, sometimes 2 or 3 even). Eventually you'll get... - "Wait! That's not a potion (or whatever). It's a small mimic!" - Take a step back (one square only). Make sure you have lots of elbow room behind you. - Count how many turns it takes for the mimic to step next to you (usually it's 3). - Thrust with dagger (#1). - Thrust with dagger (#2). - Thrust with dagger (#3). - Take another step away. - Mimic steps up next to you again. - Thrust with dagger (#1). - Thrust with dagger (#2). - Thrust with dagger (#3). - Take another step away. Repeat till mimic either dies or turns to flee. If it flees, wait one turn before stepping forward and finishing it off. This works for me all the time now. Your almost gauranteed to go up a level also. This is now the easiest way to go up a level within the first 5 levels of the dungeon. Beats the heck out of facing a stampede of rothes or a wererat that calls in help. Trust me. So after dispatching the mimic (there was only one), I gather up all the potions and stack them in a corner. All in one pile. There's much less of a chance that a pack of monsters will wander unto just one tile at the far end of a shop. The prices ranged from 6 to 444 zorkminds depending on the type of potion (bubbly, murky, pink, etc.). I make a note to come back here if I ever get high enough in levels, or if I find a wand of death. Dungeon Level 3: - large box First few levels are a pain to make sure that I get into a room before Sirius does. That's where the rolling boulder traps are, all traps as a matter of fact (except for the caverns which are one big room). I have never encountered a trap in a corridor. I've had many pets squished by boulders in prior games (sad face). So by getting in a room ahead of my dog, I can quickly run around and set off (and hopefully avoid) those boulder traps. Usually enough time has elapsed by the end of dungeon level 3 so that Sirius has grown up from a little dog to a regular dog. At that point, he's on his own if he wants to go sniffing ahead of me. (By the way; I have no idea where Sirius has dropped "Snickersnee"...) Dungeon Level 4: - altar (lawful) Things aren't bad, though I would have liked an altar to Mars (chaotic) instead of those lawful ones. Like, they're diametrically opposed to him and all. Hmmm... Gonna have to rectify that situation eventually, lest he gets upset later on at me hanging around those of Mercury... Dungeon Level 5: - antique weapons shop (a morning star thats expensive - 49 zorkminds) Here I found a really out of the ordinary priced morning star. The rest of the stuff was uninteresting. I'm getting an idea of what gathers what price in weapons and armour, and have learned that anything more expensive than a battle-axe (40 to 50 zorkminds) is worth my attention. I don't run into this type of weapon too often at all, so I look at my possible ability advancements (#enhance), and see that I can progress in morning star. Rare, cause besides the battle-axe and pole arms, rangers have a sucky choice for melee weapons. I make a note of this item for future reference. Dungeon Level 6: - fountain - chest Dungeon Level 7: (nothing interesting) Dungeon Level 8: - fountain - beartrap (too dangerous for me to disarm at my level). Don't remember getting hungry too often. Had enough jackals, snakes, newts, iguanas, coyotes, ponies, etc., added to the food found along the way to sustain us this far. I don't eat icky things like spiders, nor any of the despised orc family (orcs, goblins, kobolds) being an Elf and all. I have learnt the danger of violet fungus (oh wow, man), and have barfed on eggs many times too often. I give the eggs to my dog (he loves 'em). Sometimes food is very scarce. As long as I know I haven't done anything to upset Mars, I pray if I'm starting to faint while weak. There I get a message saying Mars is well pleased (phew), and my stomach is now content. But only do this after starting to faint! My armour class has probably dropped down to around 2, and have gathered a few daggers, darts, and arrows to throw/shoot at monsters. I have enhanced my dagger skill to "skilled" by now and can sometimes get 3 off in one shot. I'd love to advance my bow skill, but there just aren't enough arrows to be found. Arrows (darts and bolts) also get mulched way too often when fired. Strangely enough, I can weild a bow AND wear a sheild. How that works out is beyond me. Just clearing out one level at a time and then moving down to the next, my experience level stays about the same of the dungeon level on average (or within two at the most), at this phase of the game. By being methodical on each level, it gives me something to do while waiting for Sirius to catch up. No monster was insurmountable along the way, but I run a lot now compared to my earlier games. I don't run to completely avoid fights, instead just to a spot where the terrain is more to my advantage. Since I'm going to fight, may as well be on the battlefield of my own choosing when ever possible. This is especially true with ants and rothes and killer bees. With these guys I emmidiately set to an action plan for the upcoming battle (as I can't outrun them for long AND they come in hordes). If you see one, you can bet there are more just around the corner (trust me on this one too). Sirius, doorways and corridors so that I have to face only one at a time mostly. Fun battles are against the hill orcs / mordor orcs. These guys usually have crude daggers that they throw (they always miss), and I pick them up and wait for them around a bend. When they pop out, I fling daggers at them point blank and take a step back so they can't retaliate with their curved swords. They fall for it all the time. Orcs are so stupid (laugh). Also they're good for some orcish helms, iron shoes, crude chain mail, red-eye sheilds that helps my armour class in the begining. I just can't get enough of these guys (laugh at orcs again). I now run a "clean dungeon campaign" in my games. There is so much clutter that accumulates after a while (it boggles the mind). I've realised that I'm gonna be here for a while, and want to know where everything is, as well as keep it out of the hands of gruby orcs and other assorted monsters (had a real bad experience with monsters picking up stuff in an earlier game). Also, you can carry only so much! Like Elves aren't known for their physical prowess. When I get burdened (and it happens often), I know it's time to ditch stuff (more on this subject later). I set stashes in what I call broom closets (one tile rooms with a door you find here and there) on each level. If I have a lockpick, I also lock the door. But so far this game, I haden't found one. Boxes and chests are good to, but again, only if I have a lockpick. Dungeon Level 9: - Oracle of Delphi - 8 centaur statues - 4 fountains On this level, I enter a large room and see a few centaur statues. Immediately I recognise that this is my freinds chamber (besides shopkeepers, he's the only one that welcomes me), The Oracle of Delphi. As I'm making my way around to the openeing of his inner chamber, I see a black unicorn hopping all over the place. Black unicorns are my freinds too (they're peaceful), so I take this as a good omen, the Gods are in a good mood at this time... Situation Centaur Chamber on Dungeoen Level 9: - Sirius runs ahead of me and starts to try and bite the black unicorn. Sirius is a large attack dog by now, and is pretty brave, but unicorns are really fast and can hop around at a fair clip. Sirius will get tired of this after he takes a few buts on the chin. I've seen this many times in prior games. - From around the top of the room, out pops a monster. I've never seen one like this before. It looks like a red rooster to me. - I do the look (";"), and see that it's a pyrolisk. I have no idea what that is. It isin't peaceful, and still quite far away. - I cautiously take a step sideways (neither advancing nor retreating), just to see how many times it moves compared to me. This is so that I can judge how many times I can throw daggers at it before it gets to close. - "The pyrolisk's heat gaze singes your skin!" (or something like that). I think either a few potions bubbled and exploded, or something burnt in my pack at the same time. - Woah! I look at my hit points and see that it hit me for like 1/4 of them! - Reacting (and without thinking), I take a few steps sideways to line it up for some dagger throws. Sirius is still playing tag with the black unicorn. - I throw a couple of daggers, the rooster is at extreme range and I missed. - "The pyrolisk's gaze burns you again!" Now I'm at 1/2 hit points! I turn and run to put the Oracles Chamber wall between me and the rooster with micro-wave eyes. At the same time; "Sirius eats a black unicorn corpse." Man. Sirius sure did a good job in no time at all. I'm impressed by his hunting skills. However, I realise that Mars will be upset at one of his creatures going down. (groan) There's gonna be hell to pay for this, I can feel it. But quickly I change my thoughts off of this track, I have a more pressing problem with the fire rooster (!). - I'm hiding behind a centaur statue next to the wall of the Oracles Chamber, desperately calling Sirius to forget about lunch so that we can high tail it out of here. I've recovered a few (very few) hit points when Sirius finally pops around the bend. Great! Follow me. Take a step towards the exit and the rooster pops around the corner. - "The pyrolisk's heat gaze burns you!" "The pyrolisk's gaze burns Sirius!" "Sirius yelps (or something)" I notice that on that last shot from the rooster that Sirius and I weren't lined up. So this thing has a wide dispersal angle gaze to boot! - Well that's it. My mind is made up completely. I'm in no way prepared to handle this. Gotta get out of here pronto. I curve around the Oracles Chamber and head for the door, Sirius is right on my heels every step of the way. Who says dogs aren't smart! Eh? - Get to the door and step in the corridor. Sirius, is right behind me. It's a long corridor. I have to close the door, else it will burn us again before we get out of range. I have a gut feeling that roosters can't open doors like some other monsters. - I move back and try to displace Sirius. "Wait, Sirius is in the way!" - Yeah, well if I don't get that door closed, we're gonna be shishkabobs. I try again. - "You displaced Sirius!" Great. I close the door. It didn't resist my efforts, thank Mars. - Before I so much as have a chance to catch my breadth. I see about 4 squares down the corridor a fire ant! - AW SHOOT!! (I said something worse than that actually) ** Time out! I step away from the computer and go have a smoke so that I don't do anything stupid, like hit any keys. After collecting my thoughts, and confident that I will take my time, I go back... ** - Okay, think. Fire ants are incredibally fast, that one will be here in two turns, that's for damn sure. So every move counts. - Without a doubt, there will be at least three more behind him. You can count on that too. - A wand of lightning would be just beautiful right now. But I have to stop fantasysing. - Opening the door and facing the pyrolisk while fire ants are behind us, is definitly out of the question. - I'm at 1/4 hit points. I can probably take 2 hits (which is like one round with these guys). The third hit will kill this game right here. - Sirius has been singed once for sure from the pyrolisk. He probably took a few unicorn butts as well. I make up my mind that he has probably a few more hit points than me, maybe twice as much. You get a gut feeling about your dog after being around him for many games. - Hit inventory ("i") and see what's available. Nothing that's a sure thing. Have some unknown scrolls and a few mystery potions. I have a wand that's been zaped a few times at monsters, no idea what it does. I make sure that my bow is indeed weilded. It always is, but this is no time for not making sure. - Okay, I come to a decision. Sirius is going to have to take the first one on. I quiver my best ammunition, the stellar +2 elven arrows. I make a mental note that when all hope is gone, I'll drink the bubbly potion. If that doesen't pan out and I'm still alive, I'll read the scroll called KERNOD WEL. After that, I'll see what everything is when the game asks me if I want my stuff identified... ** NOTE: All this has not taken any time on the clock so far! ** - Assuring myself that this is the best plan for the situation at hand, I chat with Sirius. Sirius whines. He senses the dire situation as well. This takes a turn. The fire ant has closed to two squares from me, one from Sirius. - Forcing a smile on my face, I chat with Sirius for what may be our last time. This has taken another turn and the fire ant has closed to melee range with Sirius. "You hear noises." The battle has begun... - Sometimes I can see the results of the battle, other times I don't. - After a few rounds, I believe that Sirius has killed the first one and is working on the second fire ant. Then all goes quite. - I fear that Sirius is on his last gasp. Okay, he's done his part, now it's my turn. I try to squeeze by him and take his spot (I hit key 6 on the numberpad). "You have displaced Sirius!" That worked well. - The fire ant must have been taken by surprise. It did not expect that Sirius and I would switch spots. I take immediate advantage and fire at it's ugly head. Two shots. Both hit! It's still standing. Damn. - It recovers and we both move simultaneously. I fire twice more and it lashes at me several times. It goes down, and I believe the last arrow hit another behind. I have tacken two hits, but not been damaged as much as expected. - I decide to stand my ground and face the next one for one round. Mars better take note of my bravery. - I fire. It lashes out. I've hit it but huge dammage has been done to me in return. - I step back and exchange places with Sirius. Sirius attacks and I hear noises for a round or two. - Things are quite again. Feeling sad for my dog's predicament, but realising that the game will end if I go down instead of him, I hit the "." key twice. (If only I could fire my bow above him.) - Sirius is still there but no noise is coming. Time to make a move. I reach at my belt and quaff the bubbly potion. It has no effect (I really don't remember it doing anything at all). Oh well, maybe it's one of those delayed reaction potions... - I displace Sirius again, and stand in front. The fire ant is at range three! I don't question this, but immediately fire! It stops and turns towards me, closing the range to point blank in one round. - I fire again. Three arrows spring from my bow. The first two bring the beast down and the last one lands in the distant darkness. - I wait two turns and fire another volley. Nothing. Repeat. Nothing. - I turn around and kneel in front of my dog, grabbing him with both arms in a long hug while he tries to lick my face. Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I chat with him and he yips. We have both survived! After a while, I gather my remaining arrows. I take a long look at the closed door to the chamber of the Oracle. All my zorkminds way heavy in my pack. There will be no consultations from the Oracle today, nor for many days to come. Until I have figured a way by this infernal pyrolisk, the road towards retreiving the amulet stops here. With a heavey heart, but a sense of accomplishment at surviving another lethal situation, Sirius and I, start to head towards the upstairs of dungeon level 9. There are other things needing to be done; like appeasing Mars for the accidental death of the black unicorn, and exploring the staircase that leads down into the Caverns... Part 2: The Descent into the Caverns ------------------------------------ Having been blocked from venturing further into the dungeon (See Part #1), Sirius (my pet dog) and I, proceeded to climb back up several levels and establish a base camp on dungeon level 4. It was about half way through what had been explored (8 1/2 levels), near the stairs that leads to the Caverns (level #2), but most importantly had an altar (important for verifying cursedness of accumulated booty). No lockpicks had been found yet, but an unlocked box and chest found at other levels provided respectable containers. These I lugged to the appropriate room where the altar was located. Next came the long tedious task of accumulating all the booty found thus far and bringing it to the base camp. This took several trips to all the different levels (another reason why dungeon level 4 was very convenient, being equi-distant from top to bottom). All the neat stuff went into the chest, while all the garbage went into the box. After a while, I divided it by really good stuff into the chest, okay stuff into the box, and 2 garbage piles (1 pile of weapons, 1 pile of armor) next to a wall in the room. One thing I'm particularly careful about when organising my base camp is; never to stow arrows and bolts, near bows and crossbows. Always keep the bullets in a seperate spot from the gun. What I do, is lock ALL the missile units (arrows, bolts, daggers, darts, knives, etc.) in a box or chest. That way, if an orc picks up a crossbow, I'll live with him swinging that at me instead of him shooting me in the back when I'm not looking. Now having everything neat and tidy and organised. It was time for some experimentation with some of the booty. Tried all the whistles I'd found again, just to make sure. No effect. Darn. Tried all the uncursed rings. One was a ring of levitation. First time I get one of these ever! Spent lots of time getting used to it, and how it worked in different situations. Not so great for combat, I found. Although it was a great discovery that would serve me well throughout the game. Tried zapping some wands at any monster that wandered into the room. Don't remember anything special here at all. I tried improvising on a flute. Made some noise. Tried to read a spellbook. I think I got a massive headache and became confused. It only went away after a long time, if I remember correctly. Looked at my collection of scrolls, saw that my favorite one (FOOBIE BLETCH) was not amongst them. So decided not to read any. (A personal note from my experience: Never read the scroll called READ ME. It's a trap designed to suck you in.). My favorite potion (effervescent) wasen't one I had found either, so decided to forego any potion testing for now. Stuff that might come in handy for the caverns was quickly assembled into a kit. We had found a candle somewhere, this would surely be handy. I applied ("a") all of my potions (found this out once by accident when typing the wrong letter trying to apply something else in a previous game). Luck was with us, one of the cursed potions was oil! Add that to the kit. The newly discovered ring of levitation. Two food rations for me and a couple of eggs for Sirius rounded out the rest. Plus my usual weapons and armor, of course. Left base camp, went to dungeon level 2 and descended the stairs to the caverns. The Caverns: Dungeon Level 3: - (nothing special) Only thing was that it was a lit level. Or one of them that gets lit when you walk around. Dungeon Level 4: - unlit level Used the candle sparingly as possible. Dungeon Level 5: - unlit level Fell through a trap door and landed on dungeon level 6. I recognised it right away as the town with the temple level, and was right near the upstairs. So I immediately went back up to find my dog again. The caverns weren't too tough so far. But yeilded surprisingly little useful stuff thus far. Just the usual gems and weapons and armor. No pick-axe, or any dwarvish mithral chain mail. I was dissapointed. I bought some candles and completely explored every nook and cranny up to and including dungeon level 6. Most useful was probably some daggers, and I was suredly now at expert level in them too. Gnomes go down with 1 hit from the dagger (very rarely do I need two). So when it's only a gnome, I punch "n1t" in succession in order to conserve ammo. If I see a gnome lord, that's another story. They carry wands sometimes, and must be dispatched immediately. I'll sometimes take a shot from a gnome at close range in order to concentrate on a gnome lord at a longer range. I always try to drop gnome lords on sight. The ring of levitation came in handy when trying to crawl out of pits. It was great, only one turn required and your out! Dungeon Level (Temple Town) 6: - food shop - general store - hardware store - candle shop - temple of Venus (neutral) Here, the town was different than any I'd seen before. It was laid out all half-hazardly. No logical sense in layout to me at all. Shops and rooms were just thrown together in a mish mash. The temple was to Venus (sigh). The preistess wanted a contribution, as usual. But I don't give money to other temples, lest I should anger Mars. Sirius had to be put into an empty room, and then closing the door. He was constantly taking swipes from the gaurdsmen when he'd bite them. Found a chest in a shop - it wasen't a mimic! Emptied the crap that was in it and the price dropped considerably (26 zorkminds I think - what a steal!). Set up a base camp in an empty room near the temple. With the way the town was set up, it took so long to get anywhere and do anything. Very aggravating, I found anyways. Nothing useful in the shops (tried the whistles - no luck). No lanterns. No lamps. No lockpicks. Lot's of looking glasses for sale, but I already had a few of those. Bought more candles for the levels below. Izchak (he's always in the candle shop), the only shopkeeper that talks differently, didn't say anything I haden't heard from him before. Went through the motions of discovering the cursedness of all the booty at the temple of Venus. Preistess kept getting in my way. What an annoyance she was. Then trying it all on. Then storing / piling it at the base. Nothing to exciting that I remember. Armor class was probably around -2 by now. I know that there's around 4 - 5 levels to go for the caverns now. The town is at about the half way point. So there may only be a few levels of easy gnomes left. Since I'm at expert in daggers, may as well start practicing some back-up weaponry skills. I picked out a few uncursed weapons to practice with from the pile; an axe, a knife, and somekind of polearm that didn't make me burdened when I picked it up. So made sure everything was tidy, got Sirius out of the room, and went for the downstairs. Dungeon Level 7: - unlit level Dungeon Level 8: - unlit level Dungeon Level 9: - (nothing special) Dungeon Level 10: - (nothing special) Dungeon Level 11: - Bottom. Can't dig down. - fountain Don't remember having problems, but it was long. The unlit levels used many candles. For all the stinginess of the upper levels, the lower one's made up for it. Here I found loads of potions, scrolls, dwarven mithril chain mail, and some pick-axes. I tested all of them at the temple for cursedness, and found one that was +2! Great stuff. My armor class improved considerably and would carry me far into the depths of the Mazes of Menace. It was probably around - 12, or - 14. Got the ability to advance in all the weapons that I had brought with me, but didn't actually do so. Only have so many boxes to check. Those are for emergencies later. Haven't quite figured it, but experience says that I can get to Expert in two of them, and basic or skilled in two more before dying usually. Daggers and the bow are the two I save expert for. Melee weapons just don't pan out compared to me being able to throw several daggers, or shoot several arrows in one turn. If anything is left over, then I see what's happening. I'm still curious about that morningstar back in the Mazes of Menace. But like I said, I know that the Caverns are finite, and the rest of the dungeon won't have easy monsters like here to practice on. Found a weapon that I never saw before. A boomerang. I can advance in it (!). Practiced with it also. Wasen't very impressed. Biggest thing with the caverns is that they're dark and loaded with traps. Being Elf helps a lot in that respect. Both for trap detection and infravision. Also the wide open spaces lends itself well to ranged attacks. Ranger is easy compared to a Preist or Wizard in this respect. So I cleaned up all the caverns, made all the trips with the booty back to my base at the town, organised it and set off with Sirius back to the Mazes of Menace. Ran into a pack of hill orcs and one of them was carrying an ice box. I coulden't lift it, but finally figured out that it was full of bodies (you have to loot it to find out). One of the bodies was some kind of giant. I had to take all my armour off and drop everything I had in order to be able to lift that body out of the ice box. Had incredible difficulty lifting it. Stupid thing. Why can't I just roll the box over to dump it? Anyways, I brought it back to the base in the town, and put in the extra food rations and such that I wasen't needing. Now they won't rot ("Blech. Rotten food. You feel sick."). Felt apprehensive about not being able to lock my chest or the door to my base. When is a lock pick going to turn up? So, loaded up with all the scrolls and potions I could carry and went back to my base on dungeon level 4 in the Mazes. Took a quick trip up to the potion shop on level 2 to make sure all the potions were still there. The shopkeeper woulden't let me in cause of the pick-axe I was now carrying. These guys never miss a thing! Leave the pick-axe outside and go look at the pile of potions. Yep, 59 potions still. Good. Pick up the pick-axe and head to base camp. Played with a few more wands, and rings, and what not. Don't remember anything special. Read a spellbook and memorised the spell of dig. Even with no armor on, it was at 100% failure. Oh well, run of the mill for a Ranger. I got a pick-axe now, any ways. I can dig with that. Part 3: Puzzling Out The Boulders --------------------------------- By now I probably had a few more levels and hit points (don't remember how many, but hit points are low for Rangers.). Haden't found an altar to Mars yet. So no easy way to fix that incident with the black unicorn. Nothing left to do but head back to the Oracle level and face that infernal rooster (pyrolisk). Everything else that I could think of had been done. Got to the door on level 9, it was still shut. Quivered my +2 elven arrows, took a breadth and entered the centaur statue chamber. There it was. Took a few rounds for me to line it up. Got burned by the microwave beam once, but 2 rounds at 3 shots fired each time, killed the red rooster. Pretty anti-climatic, I know. But I was skilled in the bow by now (finally) and had a few more experience levels. Seemed to make all the difference. Picked up the unicorn horn from the black unicorn that Sirius killed last time we were here. These things are handy. The Oracle had told me about them several times, and they cure lots of ills. I immediately adjusted the inventory letter of the unicorn horn to "u". I do that for certain things, that way I don't have to keep looking at what letter it is in my inventory all the time. Talked with the Oracle all we could (I had brought all my zorkminds with me), wrote all his wisdom down, and tryed to make sense of some of it. After this, we finished exploring level 9, and descended to level 10. Dungeon Level 10: - monster room + throne + chest - stairs to the boulders - statue of a rust monster Here we found a room full of monsters (bugbears, orcs, hobgoblins, centaurs, etc.), and when I moved out of line of sight, a throne and a chest would appear. The monsters didn't come after me, so I knew that they were gaurding the area. I decided not to disturb them for now and finish exploring the level first. In case I would have to run, and therefore know more of the terrain. Next we saw a statue of a rust monster. Uh-oh... Statues come to life sometimes when you get near them. And since I now run a clean dungeon campaign, I always move statues around to see if there's anything underneath them, or just to relocate them to a more appropriate spot. I hit inventory to see what could get affected by a rustmonster. Too much stuff that would be hard to replace; my mithral mail, helm, shoes, and weapons (although I just can't understand how mithral can rust - it still does). Okay. Sirius you stand gaurd for a minute, while I strip off some armor and put down my weapons. Cautiously I approach the statue with my bow and some crude arrows (expendable ammo in case they should rust) as my only weapons, with cloak and gloves as my only armor. Rust monsters can't hurt me physically, but if a horde of fire ants were to show up now, things would get pretty tense - pretty fast. Search one square from the statue - nothing. Step on the same square and search again - nothing. Pickup the statue - "A statue of a rust monster. You see a staircase up here." Okay, move the statue over a few squares, and go put my armor back on before doing anything else. I went back to the staircase, and after doing a "mimic search" saw that they were for real. I went up to take a quick look and saw the boulder/puzzle level. I decided to give it a try for now, as the monsters gaurding the throne and chest downstairs weren't going anywhere anyways. Also this area yeilds lots of differen't kinds of booty, often times real interesting stuff. Went back down, finished up exploring level 10, and got Sirius to follow me upstairs. Sirius just loves this area of the dungeon. We play one of his favorite games here - hide and seek! Theres often eggs and tripe rations strewn about, and Sirius is real quick at moving between the boulders and sniffing these out (lots of laughs). He's also always waiting for me to move a boulder out of the way to go see whats there. Although he gets in my way a lot in this area, I appreciate his presence. While I'm trying to figure out the puzzles, he's always on gaurd and intercepts many monsters for me (as I'm always deep in concentration and not paying as much attention to whatever is trying to sneak up on us). This is a good area to meet nymphs on. They can't teleport away. So Sirius and I have tons of fun with them here. I think we once got 8 looking glasses from just this area one game. Leperchauns get slaughtered here too. Which reminds me: Don't eat leperchauns! They give you a twitchy feeling or something, and you teleport around for the rest of the game! No fun at all, believe me. So the first level was easy (I've never failed it). The second level took some effort, but nothing too too strenuous. Big thing here was that we finally found a lockpick (!). The third level was real tough. I think it took me a day (in real life) to get it. Thought several times I had blown it. What happened was that there were like three mimics immitating boulders. So when I had drawn my plans and went to move some boulders, I would get; "Wait! That's not a boulder, it's a large mimic!" And THAT would screw my plans that I had laid out. Grrrr... All that time wasted. And it's impossible to go check all the boulders that are deep, or the ones that I can't get a line to shoot some darts (or whatever) at. Extremely frustrating. Walked away from the computer many times angry, I remember. I cringed as I climbed the stairs to see what the last level was like... YES! I shouted! It was an easy one. Well, not easy, but one that I had solved previously (the one with several horizontal walls). So I knew that since I had done it at least once before, I could do it again. Just had to think, and be patient. Also, you can access most of the boulders from the start and do mimic checks. Turned out much easier than the level before. Well, I had figured out the puzzles this time. But if I don't, and it happens, then I move all the boulders I can to get at whatever booty may be hanging around. Bring a pick-axe in case there are some that you can't get at and smash the ones that are in the way. What I found that helps me out in this whole area, is my experience in the game of chess. Although, I don't find that this area brings anything to the game. If I wanted to do puzzles, then I'd play a puzzle game, not a fantasy exploration game. Just my 2 cents. Went down the long hallways and checked the door for traps, many times - none. I unlock it with our recently found lockpick (All the doors are always locked in the boulders area.). Open the door, and take note of the monsters that I can see from my vantage point; cockatrice, mumak, dwarf king, centaur, soldier ant, ettin mummy, leperchaun, killer bee, etc. After a long time of considering things, I close the door and lock it again. I've decided to come back after having found something else that may give us more of an edge. Like a wand of micro wave heat, with a wide angle dispersion beam (remember the pyrolisk?). I gather all the stuff we found in the boulders area, and the stuff that I won't keep on me I lock it in a broom closet next to the stairs and the rustmonster statue on dungeon level 10. This takes several trips, of course. There's always lots of stuff from this area. I gather all the wands, rings, potions, and scrolls that I can carry and go back to the base camp on dungeon level 4. Dump it all there for a few minutes, and run up to that potion shop on level 2 (Yeah, he caught the pick-axe again.). All the potions are still there. Good. I lock the door to the potion shop with the lock pick. I feel a LOT better now. Back to base camp on level 4. Organise everything in their place, test for cursedness, try on rings, etc. Discover something new... There were a few monsters that came into the room during this time, don't remember what they were exactly, but I distinctly remember one of them was a lizard. So I went into the chest for my wand collection and started zapping them in order, just like usual: Zap - nothing, next wand; zap - nothing, next wand; zap - Magic Missiles! (the lizard croaks and leaves a corpse) next wand; zap - nothing, next wand; zap - nothing, but there's another lizard there (?). That's odd. Wait a few turns for all the monsters to come forward a few squares. Nope, the lizard corpse has definately disapeared. Hmmm.... Kill all the monsters with daggers. Pick up one of the corpses and throw it next to Sirius so that he eats it and thereby stays out of the way. Zap that last wand at the remaining corpses and, lo and behold, the lizard appears again! No corpse. (shrug) I name the wand "Lizard Lifesaver" and stow it in the chest with the rest while Sirius goes to play with the lizard. I can now lock the box and chest. I feel way better about this. Part 4: Two Missions -------------------- Now I'm starting to feel a little more confident in our abilities. So I set some goals for Sirius and I: #1). Keep exploring downwards until we start feeling that we've reached a depth where; the monsters we're encountering are an equivilant challenge to tackling that last room in the boulders, and if so, then we turn back and take them out. Failing that... #2). Keep going until we've found a device that will let us accomplish this. So off we go... Dungeon Level 11: - large box Dungeon Level 12: - leperchaun den - monster room with a throne - chest Here there was a room with a gang of leperchauns. We didn't take them out right away. I had a lockpick now, so was able to lock the door. We'd take care of them at a later time, or maybe on the way back up, depending how things were going. But acquiring a pile of zorkminds wasen't in the mission plan for now. What I did do though, was look very carefully throughout the whole level (did a lot of searching), hoping to discover an altar to Mars. No luck. Damn. Mars always asks me for leperchauns, and here was a gang of them all in one place. Nothing comes to my recolection about this monster room. So we probably just took them out looking to fulfill Mission #2. Dungeon Level 13: - large box - fountain Dungeon Level 14: - temple to Venus (neutral) - fountain I remember being very excited when I saw a preistess (I hardly ever see any in the Mazes of Menace). I was pretty dissapointed when it turned out this was a temple to Venus again. Like, come on. She already has one in Temple Town. Poor Mars. We have discovered two altars to Mercury, two temples to Venus, and nothing for him. I make a mental note that this situation will no doubtedly have to be rectified the hard way sometime in the near future... Dungeon Level 15: - statue of an ochre jelly - large box Glad that, that statue, stayed a statue (!). Dungeon Level 16: - portal to Home - fountain - statue of a coyote I have "portal to Home" marked here, but that's for you guys (in case your keeping track). I didn't discover it till much later. At this point in the game (and my Nethack experience), I didn't even know that these kind of portals existed. By the time we got to this level, I had noticed that Sirius wasen't fighting as much as he used to. Like he still did, but it seemed like he was picking and choosing the monsters that he would engage or not. I took it as a sign that things we're getting more dangerous, or Sirius was getting old. Or..., maybe Sirius had a premonition that we were getting near the following ghastly place... Dungeon Level 17 (Ghost Level): - Glen Wilkerson's skeleton This is the level that when you enter it says something like: "You enter what seems to be a very different world." Well they're right! It's like playing those games when computers first came out, and the windows operating system didn't exist. Dots, lines, letters, shading, and a black background on the computer screen. The whole level is eerie and lends itself well to being in a haunted place - just like in the old black and white scary movies on television. Lighting is different here as well. The rooms are never lit, and it's a good place to get taken by surprise. I can almost swear that my candles always get blown out on this level (lots of laughs!). So with extreme caution we enter. The only reason we did so, was cause we haden't fullfilled our mission parameters yet (though I had just about reached the threshold of my confidence upon seeing this place), AND we had a candle with us. Slowly were exploring each room. There's only one door out of each room, so everything is progressing in a linear fashion. Sirius sticks to me like glue. I eventually come up on one of the funny symbols and have to do the "/" command. It says something like; "You gaze upon the ancient bones of Glen Wilkerson." Next thing I hear is Sirius whimpering. Hokay. I've just lost my nerve. Time to go. I know what's coming up next. As soon as I see someones skeleton with all his equipement still on, I know he died a ghastly death - and I don't want to end up lying there next to him! I always come across someone who died on this level. It's truly not a place you want to hang out in. I'm sitting in my chair at the computer, and I feel cold. We quickly retrace our steps to the upstairs. Okay we exited (phew). Now what? I ponder a while, and figure that if I start hauling all the booty from each level back up to our base camp, that something will probably turn up in the way of fulfilling mission #2. Great, that's what we'll do. I'm not going down there again unless I have a lot better stuff and/or equipement. Sirius seems to be very happy with this plan as we start heading back up in the Mazes of Menace... We're lugging booty upwards, level by level, and at level 13 (I think, cause I remeber a fountain being right next to me), we get our big break. A throng of Uruk-Hai (orcs with white hands painted on their sheilds), are meandering their way along the corridor towards us. There must have been at least 8 of them, there were a lot. It was a long battle. Not cause they're above my capabilities, they ARE orcs after all, and I'M an Elf. But these guys are the "Old Gaurd" of the orc "Grande Armee Imperiale". They have decent equipement, and often a special item or two. But most importantly, they have the "poison tiped crude arrow" as a missile weapon. Those we definitely want for ourselves. I now realised that Sirius and I, were going to fulfill our mission after all. We had a killer weapon at our disposal. Just have to make sure not to get poisoned ourselves, and take them from these guys... The battle was long, but not complicated. Booty, appart from the poisoned arrows, revealed a wonderful whistle. The kind that when you tweet, your pet appears within two squares of you! Now I could use Sirius tactically at my desire for combat. Not to mention that moving from level to level would now be much quicker, as I no longer needed to wait up for my dog (unless he's eating). I immediately change the letter of the whistle in my inventory to "w", and name it "Sirius". What a blessing these Uruk-Hai were. My spirits were lifted quite high indeed! Several trips were made up and down the levels to complete the transfer of booty to our base camp on level 4. Part 5: Grand Finale At The Boulders ------------------------------------ So we're back at base camp on dungeon level 4. I go through all the motions of verifying for cursedness, trying stuff out, blablabla. Don't remember any major discoveries other than the previously mentioned poisoned arrows and the the wonder whistle, which is named "Sirius". Most of the Uruk-Hai arrows turned out to be uncursed (around 55 of them!). I would have been just as happy if they were all cursed, to tell you the truth. I then go to one end of the room (it's a long room) with the poisoned arrows, the +2 elven arrows, and my trusty daggers. I shoot some arrows, and throw some daggers several times in one direction. I count the number of sqaures they travel. I repeat this several times to make sure. I want to know what my maximum range is with my weapons. ** Note: What it was at the time, I no longer remember. I know what these ranges are now; 8 for daggers, and 9 with bow + arrow, but I'm at a higher experience level and now expert in the bow, I wasen't then nor as high in experience. So they have probably changed since that point in time of where I was in the game. ** Having figured that out, I prepare a kit for out next mission; clearing out that last room in the boulders. I've done it not too many times before, but there's always lots of stuff that comes from there - if I don't die, of course. I'm getting tired of all the booty trips. So I'm not going to be carrying lot's of stuff as say, when we go on exploration missions, in order to minmize the hauling trips back to base camp. So just the weapons, the wand of magic missiles, the wonder whistle, a couple of food rations, and a potion of extra healing in all likelyhood (as I carried one on me for the longest time in the begining I remember). And down the Mazes of Menace we went towards the boulders section. Went up the stairs near the statue of the rustmonster, and made our way to the last room on the uppermost level of the boulders. Made sure the door was still locked (it was), and I then counted the number of squares from the door up along the corridor that gave me max arrow/dagger range. I droped something there to mark the spot (probably some food). I then went to the door and unlocked it, ran to my spot in the corridor, with bow at the ready, and waited. And waited. I remember waiting long enough that I had to eat some food. Hmmm... No one is coming out. Okay, I'll open the door to make it easier for them. I went and did that, then ran back to my spot again to wait for the monsters to come out, whereby I'd shoot them as they did. And I'm waiting... Man, these guys aren't as stupid as orcs. Well... I'll have to go and bait them to come out. So down I went and stood outside the open door to the room full of monsters. Hit "." for several turns. Nothing. I took a step forward and stood in the doorway. Hit "." a few times again. Nothing. Not one of them budged !? I had to reconsider things now. Things weren't working out as planned (I hate that). I didn't want to throw any daggers in there, as I'd have to wait for the battle to be over in order to retrieve them, and I only had so many. I counted my arrows and decided to use a few up here, but not on the only creature that was in firing line of sight (I forget what it was, but certainly it was something that I thought was resistant to poison). Since the monsters weren't moving untill provoked, I would take a step in and line up something else, like that cockatrice over there. Then I'd run out of the room and down the hall, where I'd just pepper them all when they would follow me out of the room. ** Note: For some reason that I just can't seem to fathom at THIS present time, the above plan was very attractive to me at THAT point in time with the game (lots of laughs!). ** Here's about how things went... Situation Last Room of the Boulders Level 6: - I step from the doorway square into the first square of the room. Now I'm right next to three monsters. The top one is a cockatrice. - Decide that I would rather NOT be next to a cockatrice, in case it doesen't fail it's saving throw to the poison on the arrow tips. - I step one square down (now 2 moves from the doorway, 3 from the hallway, and way too many to be on the road to my spot up the corridor). As I do that, this message appears at the top of my screen: "You hear the sound reminescant of an elephant stepping on a peanut." - I go what...? Then the whole room literally EXPLODES into life! - A white beam of pellets goes ricoheting around the walls of the room. - Every single monster either; moves around, throws something, drinks something, reads something, or takes a swipe at me. - The message part of the game is just full of stuff. So much that it stops at "-- more --" and I have to hit "enter" to be able to read it all. Like lots of times! - Luckily; I've made my saving throw from what I now know what those pellets are - a wand of frost! Also the swipes and things they chucked my way, haven't knocked me down in hit points much - phew. - After reading all the messages, I notice that the cockatrice is now standing right next to me, and is now blocking the path to the door! - All I did was take a step down! I haven't even fired a shot yet!?! Where in the name of Mars is that clumsy elephant?!? When I find him - HE'S GONNA GET CROAKED SO BAAAD!!!!! ** Okay. Time Out! We have a "situation" here. Have to collect my thoughts and do some heavy thinking. I step away from the computer and go have a coffee + smoke a cigarette. ** - I come back, and go over all the messages again. Taking note who is doing what, and see if I can somehow extricate myself from this. - After much thought, I come to the conclusion that; I have to get to the doorway and back in the hallway. There I can fight everything one on one. Being amongst a mob in tight quarters, is not where a Ranger wants to be. - Okay, so first order of business is to drop that cockatrice blocking my shortest route to the doorway. - Quiver the poisoned tipped arrows and let him have it. - Another round of endless messages (as well as many, many more rounds to come). - No shot from the wand of frost, but lots of other stuff. - The cockatrice makes its saving throw and is still there. It hasen't attacked me, thank Mars I move faster than it, and got a free round on it. - More swipes are coming at me. I think a centaur is givimg me a hard time with butt kicks. - There's a killer bee stinging me, but I make my saving throw versus poison. - A leperchaun is picking up gold off the floor. - Nearly everybody has moved around. - I curse that elephant. - Shoot poisoned arrows at the cockatrice again. Still doesen't go down. - It bites me! I make my saving throw versus stoning. - Frost pellet beams are bouncing all over the room. - Something breacks on my head. I'm either confused or hallucinating now. - Message after message continually appears on the display. - It's a bar room brawl! - I pull out the wand of magic missiles. DIE COCKATRICE! And I start zapping it. Magic missiles ricochet all over the place. Adding to the general mahem. - I hear noises comming from the corridor. - Sirius! I remember the wonder whistle all of a sudden. Blow it and my attack dog is now part of the general entourage, somewhere in the room. - I switch to the +2 elven arrows, and just keep peppering whatever is on the way to the door. - Whenever something goes down. Another monster takes it's place. I can never take a step towards it. Argh! - The stuff around me is really hitting hard now. Probably that ettin mummy and the mumak. - Have to step away from them, thereby putting me still further from the door. - More arrows spring from my bow. - More noises. I have no idea how Sirius is doing. - More beams are bouncing all over the place. Amazingly, I'm making all kinds of saving throws. - I have a wall at my back now. There's an ochre jelly next to me on my left. I use +2 arrows on it. I no longer care about the future. Every round is a life and death affair. - When will the messages start to abate?? - Everything is blurry. This battle never ceases. I hit the fire button ("f"). I get a message saying I'm out of ammunition! No more +2 arrows. - I quiver the poisoned ones. - Something has got to give! I pull out and just keep zapping the wand of magic missiles until it's empty. - The frost pellets have stopped as well. No idea if that wand of frost is empty, or if I've killed the wielder. - Something next to me has gone down and nothing has stepped up to take it's place. - I blow the wonder whistle with all my breadth. Sirius appears next to me. Good. He's still alive. - A dwarf king is giving the leperchaun some competition in picking up gold off of the floor. Good. You keep that up for a while. - The messages just all meld together in one long blur. - Something rubs itself against my legs. What now? There's somekind of eel next to me. Strange, I thought the hallucinations wore off. Maybe not. - Sirius eats a corpse of whatever. NO! I need you now! But he won't listen. His stomach is number one priority. Always was. - Fire more arrows. - There's a mindflayer in the room! - How long have I been doing this battle? - No idea if anything has gone down to the poisoned tips. I ceased reading the messages some time ago. I just hit enter until I don't see "-- more --" anymore. Then I see if I'm still standing. Then I look at how many hit points I have left. Then I point my bow at something, and let fly. This is my new pattern of action for many turns. - There's an oppening in the front row. I can see the doorway! I step towards it. - Every time I step somewhere, I get a message saying; "There are many objects here." I'm constantly fighting the impulse to take a turn off fighting and pick up some arrows. I never do. - There's an umberhulk in the room! I'm confused from the gaze. - Keep firing. - Sirius and I are seperated again. Monsters have filled the gap between us. - The doorway! It's clear! I can step into the doorway! I do so. - Now step into the hallway. Something has kept pace with me and has stepped forward into the doorway I have just vacated. I start fighting it off. - There's a gang of carniverous apes coming down the corridor. Sure, I say. Just bring it all on. - I fire down the hallway. Round after round of poisoned arrows. I can hear the sounds they make when they embed themselves into the ape bodies (thump - thump - thump). - Something keeps dinging me from the doorway. - "You are hit!" "Your not affected by the poison." "You are hit!" "Your not affected by the poison." - I have no idea how I keep making all these saving throws. Surely I'll blow a roll sooner or later...? - The apes are on top of me now. Back to facing opponents at melee range from more than one direction. - I see some ants lining up behind the apes. I don't even bother checking what kind of ants. Won't make anymore of a difference to what's been happening lately. I scream into the computer screen: "Welcome to the party!" - I see on the status line that I'm hungry. No idea how long that's been there. - Nothings standing in the doorway now. But that square is full of bodies and stuff. I know that I can't close the door. But I try anyways. "There's something blocking the doorway." - Keep firing. - The ape besides me goes down. An opening. Is Sirius still alive? Tweet the whistle. He appears next to me in the corridor. - Hit points are low. Quaff that potion. "You don't have this in your inventory." Huh? Must have quaffed it earlier (shrug). Keep on fighting. - I hear noises. Sirius has engaged the ants. I concentrate on whatevers coming through the doorway. - Fire more arrows. I'm out of ammunition. Just daggers left now. - Black pudding! What's this thing doing here? It touches me. Something happens to something in my inventory. I make it eat daggers. - Step back into the room. Something stands in front of me (a barrow whight?). I fling daggers. - No more ammo of any kind. I hit "x" and start lunging with old faithful; the +1 elven dagger. - Lot's of bodies everywhere. I can see walls. - There's something slow moving over in a corner. I run towards it and just keep stabing it until it dies. - I turn around and scan the room. Only a few monsters left; leperchaun, dwarf lord, and some kind of mummy. - I pick up a stack of arrows and some daggers. I gun them all down. - The leperchaun is the last to fall. He leaves a mountain of gold. Looks like he spent all his time just picking it all up. - I faint. Fell to weak status at some point. - Wake up to a gecko nibbling on me. I kill it and eat some kind of corpse from the pile I passed out on. - Sirius is in the room near me. I go to look in the hallway. Don't see anything that's moving. - It's over. I save the game, switch off the computer for the night, and collapse on the couch. I'm exhausted... Part 6: The Death of Sirius --------------------------- The next day, I fire the game back up and start assessing the whole battle. I have 4 hit points! There must have been a chameleon amongst the throng somewhere. That would account for some of the really strong monsters I'd seen the night before. Someone must have created extra monsters somehow. There are way too many corpses here. And corpses are never a sure thing when you kill something either. Most every shot I fired was at point blank range. Though as I tried to, I don't remember ever missing once. There's one boulder inside the room, and two more where there should be doors. Suspicion besets me. I don't go near them for now. There's bodies and junk all over the place. I go and collect all the stuff in the corridor and in the doorway. Bring it all inside the room. Shovel the bodies out that are blocking the doorway, close and lock the door. I need to heal up and regain some hit points real bad. Sift through all the corpses in the room and find the cockatrice. The Oracle has told me about these. Also... I lost one of my best characters ever in AD&D many years ago to a cockatrice. That painful experience never left me. You can never be too cautious. If I were too pass out again, I woulden't want to use that as a pillow. Also, sometimes monsters just appear out of nowhere, although in the boulders they can't teleport and I'm locked in a room, I still wasen't taking any chances - ESPECIALLY after last nights battle! I lock it in the closet with "Elbereth" burnt into the floor. No choice, the other two closets have boulders instead of doors. There's an amulet there, and I suspect what it is, but am not 100% certain at this point. While waiting for my hit points to regenerate, I sort out the booty. Yep, more than I can carry. I was right before coming here. This will take several trips. Hit points are still low. I sit on the floor ("#sit") and lean my back against a wall. I will follow it with multiple "." commands. The game asks me: "Having fun sitting on the floor?" Oh yes, absolutely. I say. It's nice just to relax (wink). Hit points are back up, and so are Sirius's, I'm sure. Go to the boulder in the room and do a mimic check. Sure enough, it's really a giant mimic disguised as a boulder. I snuff it and then do the same to the two others blocking the broom closets. Sirius gorges himself on one while I start to haul some of the booty back down the stairs. During these trips, there were a few scrapes with wandering monsters. I didn't think that any were a real problem, but there was one point where I let Sirius handle four human zombies all by himself. I guess he got hit a few more times than I had noticed. I carry all the booty down to level 10 of the Mazes of Menace first. See how much I can carry while burdened, and lock the rest in that now popular broom closet at the stairs and statue of a rustmonster. We were heading towards the upstairs of level 10, when we entered a room and a few white pellet beams zoomed by me, bounced off of a wall, the ricochet hit me this time (I made my saving throw again), and then hit Sirius (I guess he failed his saving throw). Next thing you know, in came running some winter wolves. I spent a round dropping all the extra junk I was carrying, to be able to get more moves per round. Sirius engaged in combat right away. We dispatched the winter wolves fast enough (I seem to recall there were just two of them in all), but not before a few more frost breadth attacks. I was always making my saving throw, so that didn't really affect me, and Sirius had only taken that one hit. Battle being over almost as quickly as it begun, I went to reburden myself with the booty, while Sirius ate a winter wolf corpse. I took a step out in the hall, where the winter wolves had come from and saw that a lizard was just a few squares to my left. This was only a lizard, I thought to myself, I'm going to ignore it and just keep on heading to the stairs. Sirius will take care of it, he was just a step behind me. Sirius and I, had done this with far worst monsters than a lizard many times before. I never doubted what the outcome would be. Sirius would kill the lizard, and if still hungry, would eat the corpse. Then when I would reach the upstairs, I'd just blow the whistle. Then I would chat with him, and see if he was still eating before going up the stairs. The messages came up on the screen, like they had a thousand times previously. "Sirius bites the lizard." "Sirius bites the lizard." "The lizard bites Sirius." "Sirius is killed!" What?! I was dumb struck. I was staring at the message with my mouth open. I could not believe it! I looked at the playing area, and only saw the lizard picture. Sirius wasen't there. Can't be, I was trying to convince myself. Sirius must have gone back in the room. That's why I can't see him. With my fingers trembling, I blew on the wonder whistle named "Sirius." A strange whistling sound echoed through the dungeon... My dog did not appear... I killed the lizard, and stepped onto the square with it's corpse. Sure enough, there was another corpse there. It was of a large dog called "Sirius." I picked up the lizard corpse and threw it down the hall. I was in shock. I picked up Sirius and gently put him down one square away from me. Took a step back, dropped all the junk, pulled out the pick-axe and dug a pit at the spot where he had fallen. I then dug around the dungeon level to open up a path for a boulder that was some distance away. Once cleared, I brought the boulder nearby. I picked up my dog and held him in my arms for the longest time. Remembering all the things we did together. Never would I see that face of his anymore, nor his tail wagging in the air. No more would I hear him yip when I chatted with him. Gently, I laid him in the grave. I pushed the boulder over the pit, thereby covering it up. I engraved in the dirt: "RIP Sirius You were the best companion I ever had." I stared blankly at the screen for a long time. I deposited the wonder whistle named "Sirius" on the ground to mark the grave. Sullenly, I made my way back to base camp on dungeon level 4. I'm devastated by the death of Sirius. The recent major accomplishment; clearing out the last room of the boulders, now meant very little to me. I saved the game, and did not play Nethack for several days. Part 7: Lessons On Greed ------------------------ After several days, I was twitchy about playing Nethack again. I consoled myself over the recent loss of my companion by vowing that I would not let all his efforts go for naught. He had helped me tremondously in advancing on the journey of retreiving this so called amulet of Yendor. With even greater resolve to pay attention and be careful, I fired up the game, and once more typed in "Ellora" when prompted on who I was. I'd been away from the game a while, so didn't want to do anything overly complicated right off the bat. I dunno about you guys, but as you can probably see by now, my consciousness eventually melds into that of my character. The game then becomes very familiar to me, and I start to get a "feel" for everything in the dungeon. So in order to ease back into the fold, I sort some of the booty I had brought back from the boulders. Tested it for cursednes, and saw that the amulet was not cursed. I put it on, nothing happened. But strongly suspecting it may be an amulet of reflection, kept it on. I then adjusted the inventory of the amulet to "I". The letters "I" (capital I) and "l" (little L) confuse me in the game all the time. Since I may never access this item (the amulet) in the inventory for the rest of the game, I assign it this letter. Now I don't have to worry about typing in the wrong letter when the game asks me what I want to apply/wear/wield/put-on/take-off, etc.; [lI or ?*] or whatever. Are you all confused yet? I'm starting to be (laugh)! It's just something that you have to experience several times over, I guess. There are a few things that are confusing in this game - to me anyways - and that's one of them. Hokay, back to the story... With the amulet on (and adjusted), I decide to give it the old test. I rummage through the chest for that wand of magic missiles. Hmmm... It's not here. Oh yeah, I emptied it at that big battle at the boulders, and it's locked in the broom closet on level 10. And come to think of it, there's still a pile of booty there too. May as well start trudging back and forth to localise all the booty here. I'll get a few wandering monsters throughout the trips, which will get me going with the feel of this game again. Now having a mission plan, I want to travel light, since I'm just doing booty ferrying. So I only take 8 daggers for general combat, about 12 poisoned tiped crude arrows for emergencies, my +1 eleven bow, the old trusty +1 elven dagger, and off I go. Trudge - trudge - fight - trudge - trudge - etc., for all the trips it took. Every trip I made, I did it on purpose to take the long way around from the stairs and the broom closet on level 10. This way, I would avoid having to see Sirius's grave each time. Finally, I'm at the last trip I'll make from the broom closet on level 10, to base camp on level 4. I load up, burdening myself in the process of course, and heading back the long way to the stairs when a little kitten appears. I really didn't want a pet again, being no where near over the loss of Sirius yet. I pretend to ignore the kitten. In the back of my mind, I knew full well this woulden't work. Being burdened, it got to attack me several times in quick succession, but for hardly any dammage at all. I keep walking. It keeps trying to bite, but invariably just misses me all the time. My armor class is really good, and this is just a little kitten. Walk. Miss. Miss. Walk. Miss. Bite!. Walk. Miss. Miss. Urgh... This is annoying having to see this in the messages all the time. What a pesky little critter. Walk. Miss. Miss. Walk. Miss. Bite!. Walk. Miss. Miss. Okay. I can't put up with this anymore. It's now going to be added to the list of killed monsters at the end of the game. Not bothering to unburden myself for such a pest. I start to fling daggers at it. Round 1: "You hit the kitten!" "You hit the kitten!" "The kitten misses." "The kitten misses." Round 2: "You hit the kitten!" "You hit the kitten!" "You hit the kitten!" "The kitten misses." "The kitten bites!." Round 3: "You hit the kitten!" "You hit the kitten!" "The kitten misses." "The kitten misses." Wow. It took seven daggers from me! What a totally tough little kitty this is. I know for a fact, that I'm no slouch when it comes to dagger flinging either. And it sure has a lotta spunk too. Look at the way it's still coming at me! Hmmm... Okay, you proved your worth. Who knows, maybe Mars put you in my path as a gift / test or something. I look at my inventory and see if I happen to have anything to feed it. Woulden't you know it, I don't. So I pick up my daggers, while this thing is still trying to jump all over me, and start roaming from room to room on the level, looking for something that it will eat. Walk. Miss. Miss. Walk. Miss. Bite!. Walk. Miss. Miss. Where is a wandering monster when you need one, eh? Finally something suitable shows up. I forget what it was. I killed it, picked up the corpse, and threw it at the kitty. It devoured the corpse, and the little heart showed up next to it's picture. I checked to see how badly gnawed my ankles were, and called her "Missy Prissy". "Prissy" for the spunk she had, and "Missy" for all the times she missed me. Sounded good to me at the time. So now I have a pet kitten. With all the roaming I was just doing on this level, I noticed that we were pretty close to that room full of monsters with the chest and throne (Refer to "Part 3: Puzzling Out The Boulders" for details.). So decided to reconoiter it a little more in detail. I'll then form a "plan" to take it out once I've dumped all this junk I'm carrying at the base camp. I approach the room. The kitten is still eating somewhere behind me. Remember that these particular monsters don't move, even though I'm in their line of sight. Also I'm still burdened. The room is 5 squares vertical, by 4 squares horizontal. There's 15 of them in there, three vertical rows of five monsters each. The middle back row monster, on the far right, is covering the throne. The chest, at the middle far left of the room, doesen't have a row of monsters covering it. The entrance (no door), is at the top left of the room. The corridor is quite wide, three squares that eventualy taper into 2 squares that taper into a one square wide corridor at the entrance. Like a big funnel. Hmmm... An idea begins to form in my head. (I can see all your eyes rolling - laugh!) I approach and stop right at the entrance. Hit "." a few times. Nothings happening. I step into the first square of the room. I'm now standing right next to a bugbear and something else. I hit "." once. Nothing. I hit "s" once. Nothing. Hmmm... Okay, I sure as hell hope that 'Dumbo the Elephant' isin't hanging around these parts (Refer to "Part 5: Grand Finale at the Boulders" for details on how elephants can ruin your day.). I take two steps down and am now on the same square as the chest. Three rows of immobile monsters are on my right, a wall on my left. I check the chest for traps - ten times in a row. I don't find any. I loot the chest. It's locked, of course. I pick the lock with my lockpick. I loot the chest again. It's full of loot! Don't remember what it all was, but it looked very good to me at the time. Scrolls, potions, a wand, and a ring probably. But the game won't let me. I can't take anything out. My pack won't hold anymore! Huh...? I look at my status and suddenly remember that I'm burdened. I look at my inventory and see that I'm jam-packed with booty. Darn. I don't want to drop ("d") anything, in case it makes any kind of noise. I sure as heck am not going to drop a whole bunch of stuff simultaneously ("D"), cause that will surely cause a clamor. Stop and think a minute.... Got it! I loot the chest and put "in" a few items from my pack. Now I have some free spots in my inventory. Man, am I able to think things out or what (grin)!? I then pick-up the chest. "You have great difficulty trying to pick up the chest. Continue?" Urgh... I don't feel so smart anymore (sad face). I hit "y". I'm now strained. Deep in a room full of monsters. Hardly any weapons on me. What could possibly go wrong? I take a step up towards the exit. This consumes at LEAST 2 ticks on the clock. My new kitten suddenly pops in the entranceway of the room (Oh Nooo!). I'm talking to the computer screen in a low soothing voice: "Nice kitty. Don't make any noise kitty. Please turn around kitty. I'm coming back out kitty. Gooood kitty." Gingerly I press the number 8 key on the numberpad, therby taking another step towards the exit... "Missy Prissy misses the bugbear." "Missy Prissy misses the bugbear" "Missy Prissy bites the bugbear!" "Missy Prissy misses the bugbear." AAAArrgghhhh! The message area of the display fills up. More of this "-- more --" stuff. Crossbow bolts are flying my way. What ever monster is next to me lashes out. Why did I tame that kitty again, I ask? I step diagonally up and left, squezzing by the kitten while exiting the room. Something breaks into shards on my head, but I'm not affected. One square out into the corridor I'm still hobbling with the chest and all my booty. I can get away with all of this, I wishfully try to convince myself. They can now only get to me one at a time. Just a few more steps sideways... "You hear a zap!" Okay... what happened? I look at the screen carefully. I don't see anything different. Another step sideways and now I'm next to a... mumak!?! Where did you come from?! I have infravision, and the corridor tapers outward. I would have seen it coming along the corridor at least two moves ago, of this I am absolutely certain. "You hear a zap!" There's that noise again? Now I have an orc shaman next to me too! And there's a crocodile behind him! And there's a human mummy two squares away! And a black naga besides it! And a G-cube (what I call a gelatinous cube, it's a holdover from my D&D days) is in the entrance way I just vacated two moves ago!! I see a bugbear (yes, the exact same one that "Missy Prissy" attacked initially) back in the room, is the one that's zapping a wand of monster creation! (Long drawn out moan.) Why, oh why did I not just dispatch that kitten when I originally wanted to?! Hookaaay... ** I hang my head. Swivel in my seat. Make a pot of coffee. Have a smoke. Have more coffee (it's going to be another long night). Another cigarette. Sit back down in front of the computer. Put my head in my arms, and stare at the mess my character is now in on the screen... ** It's not the kittens fault. It's squarely my fault. In fact, this was downright stupid. I should have known better. Actually, I do know better. I got greedy trying to do everything at the same time. I already had a mission plan; finnish hauling the booty and THEN form a plan for taking this room out. It's not like I was catapulted into this predicament, like falling through a trap door, or being teleported amongst a throng of monsters. I recalled the promise I made, and determination I had when starting this game. Then I renewed it after Sirius passed away. Stupid, idiotic, greedy, selfish, numbskull. I chastised myself. I'm a disgrace to the Elven race. Okay. I got my character into this, I'll get her out of it - no matter what. The rest of the night was spent fighting the battle. I was now surrounded by very mean monsters in the corridor. Everything was considered before I would hit a key. I tapped into all my knowledge about the game so far. I played it out like a very complex game of chess. The night wore on, but I did not notice time going by. All my efforts were focused to what was developing on the screen. I cannot recall all of the battle. Was concentraing to hard on it, I guess. What follows are the instances I can recall... In one fell swoop, I dropped ("D") everything that was not nesccessary to my immediate survival. My movements were no longer restricred due to encumbrance. More monsters kept appearing. There were many that materialised in the corridor; an air elemental, a fire elemental, a vampire, a black pudding, a leocroutta, a burning sphere, a kobold shaman, a raven, plus the previously mentioned ones are what I remember. I was engulfed at least two times. Things got so bad, that I actually prayed. Mars surely must have felt my determination to carry on no matter what. As he restored my health during this crucial periode. There was an invisible monster, but it wasen't a stalker. Somehow I lost a level of experience, but don't believe it was from the vampire (?). I regained it immediately upon killing the next monster though. I played with auto-pickup being either "on" or "off" each and every single round, in order to pick up ammunition, so as to not lose time in picking it up. Upon killing the air elemental, I was able to retrieve all the daggers I had flung at it while engulfed. Sometimes (not often) this would backfire. I would pick up a corpse and/or a suit of armor amongst the junk on the floor, burdening me in the process. Then I would have to figure out if I should spend a turn either dropping it again, moving, or firing. From time to time, different monsters would turn to flee. How this came about, I do not know. Perhaps things were just too crowded for them to execute their programmed tasks (I'm no good with computers or how games are programmed. This is just pure speculation on my part.), and fleeing was a default recourse for them to follow. These instances would allow me to concentrate on monsters that were not fleeing, giving me occaisional respite. The G-cube ate the chest and eventually all of it's contents, as well as, other objects that had fallen to the ground from the battle. Miraculously, it never hit me. Although I spent many turns next to it. As in the big battle at the boulders, I nearly always made my saving throw. Only against some kind of level drain, and blindness did I fail. I never fought any of the monsters that were in the room with the throne. Besides that bugbear in the entranceway, nothing ever came out. Noises in the distance were amongst the messages all the time. So I assume that the kitten was quite busy in there. Eventually, my battle in the corridor came to an end. That bugbear with the wand was the last to fall. Having picked up whatever was left of my daggers and arrows, cautiously I made my way back to the room. Out from the room, a beast popped into the entrance way. Ready I was, to slay it there as it stood. My finger hesitated above the fire button. I hit look (";"), and discovered it was a large cat called "Missy Prissy". Incredibly, my kitten had grown all the way up in one engagement! I went to look inside the room. Only corpses and objects were strewn about. I was immensely impressed with her. I knelt down in front of her and chatted. "Glad to have you along", were the words that came from my mouth. "Missy Prissy purred." Part 8: Consolidation --------------------- Wrapped up that adventure, and sorted out what was left of the booty at base camp on dungeon level 4. Okay now, consider what to do next... The Oracle has been tapped, the caverns have been rifled, the boulders had been solved and looted. We have penetrated as far as the ghost level, and after that last outing, cleared out everything except the leperchaun den on dungeon level 12. Still haven't rectified that incident with the black unicorn either. Okay, we'll go and see if we can find somekind of place of worship to Mars around that level with the little green poppers again. Who knows, maybe we've missed something there. Although base camp on dungeon level 4 was great, it's getting to be a little far to walk back and forth to now. If we don't get lucky there, we'll try and breach the ghost level. Maybe we can then find someplace appropriate beyond that. (If your keeping track, and wondering why I don't consider setting up a base camp where the temple of Venus was, on dungeon level 14: It was cause that was a very small temple, no room to move around in there. And I didn't want to be constantly having to rub elbows with a preistess not of my own alignment. No use risking angering Mars needlessly just cause I was getting lazy. There weren't any staisfactory rooms nearby the temple either. It was one of those levels with hardly any rooms, doors, and probably no broom closets either. Just lot's of horizontal corridors back and forth.) Mission plan now defined, Missy Prissy and I, set off and headed down the Mazes of Menace... We had no luck with finding an altar around dungeon level 12 again, so we forged ahead (downwards). Okay, we're again back down to the Ghost level. Let's see how it goes... Down the stairs. Light a candle, and keep our eyes peeled. I have infravision, but if the monster doesen't disengage any heat, I can't see it until it's on top of me. Missy Prissy is a cat, therefore able to see in the dark. She goes around doing her own thing. Not like Sirius, who stayed closer to me I seemed to recall. So we're winding around the level. Came up to Glen Wilkerson's skeleton. Gave it a wide berth by hugging the opposite wall of the room. Then it touched me: "The ghost of Glen Wilkerson touches you!" Oh! Ick! I hate it when something touches me. (I'm an Elf and a Ranger.) ** At the computer, I freeze. I'm now in my; "don't take any time off of the clock mode". ** I look at my hit points. They're fine. I hit inventory and see if anything's been affected. Nothing that I can notice. Ponder... I've been touched by ghosts from this level about twice in prior games (now you know why I call it the Ghost level). These prior incidents, doesen't make me feel any better about it happening to me now though. What can this possibly do to my character? I come to the conclusion that the spirit must be aging me somehow. I seem to recall that from my D&D days. I see nothing on the display that records my age. So then how would this be reflected in Nethack? Okay... Elves' have no souls. Everybody knows that. That's why we live longer than most other races. Since this ghost is harming me by aging me with every hit, I'll die from old age faster (if there's a time limit at some point), or at least become more susceptible to dungeon sickness (poison, rotten food, spores in the air, rheumatoide arthritis from the dampness, etc.). That's it! It's lowering my saving throw with every hit. In Nethack, it's usually something, or a combination of things, that weakens you for the next monster that comes along to off you. Just look at all my games to date, and how I've mostly died in them (except the ones that I hit the wrong key by mistake). I gotta get away from this thing. But it can travel through walls, and I'm at a bad spot for getting touched again if I keep going forward. It's slow though, if I can just line it up for some dagger flinging... I fling quite a number of daggers at the ghost. Wow. It sure can take a lot of punishment. Maybe I should try some poisoned arrows instead... THEN I realized what the problem was. Of course (slap forehead). It's non-corporeal! Poison won't affect it. Only magical or blessed weapons can affect this thing. Why didn't I think of that before? (shake head) Hit inventory again and see what we have in the blessed and/or magical weapon category. Got them stellar +2 elven arrows, but not too many left, although I've been pretty good with them so far. Only used them like 3 times this game (In the begining, they'd be burnt by dungeon level 5 or 6). How deep is the dungeon? Will I have enough to last me? What if this thing doesen't get killed by the time I've used them all up? Then what? Okay... What else? Got the +1 elven bow. Dunno how effective bashing it with this will be? I have bashed with it on occaision, but ususally cause I forgot to hit the exchange command. Means I'll have to stand next to it though... Urgh. What else we got? Just the ol' trusty +1 elven dagger. More standing next to it while thrusting. Uh - uh. I got nothing that's blessed on me. Don't remeber if that battle-axe back at base camp is blessed or not. Still means I have to stand next to it in order to do some hacking. Not much different than bashing with the bow, or thrusting with the dagger. I have no where near enough blessed missile weapons back there either, that I keep much better track of then melee weapons. While I'm thinking of weapons... I Just recently went through two "really" tough battles, now this ghost, and who knows what lies farther below. I don't usually get too far past this level come to think of it... Go read the guidebook to Nethack again. The following applied to my situation: "Objects can also be blessed. Blessed items usually work better or more beneficially than normal uncursed items." Okay. I've just come to realise that in order to become more effective (and thereby have a chance at retrieving the amulet of Yendor), I need better weaponery in my arsenal. Blessed ones will do the trick! Retreat... (Or should I say; strategic withdrawal?) Trudge back to base camp on dungeon level 4. I'm sorting through my junk, when an owlbear comes waltzing in the room. Hmmm... I think that Mars likes creatures such as you. You would be a good addition to his army in the sky (or where ever he resides). Hokay, while I'm at it, I'll take this opportunity and try to desecrate this lawful altar to Mercury... Lured the owlbear close to the altar, and killed it. Good, it left a corpse. Dragged it towards, and heaved (and I mean heaved) it up onto the altar. These rituals are tricky, so we need to do some preperation here... ** At home, I put a Black Sabbath CD in the drive. ** Lit a candle then wielded it. Now I stripped naked, save for my +2 elven cloak. Droped all the stuff in my inventory, save the +1 elven dagger, and the lit candle. Next, I performed a decadent dance of debauchery. It's the chaotic thing to do for your chaotic god. Held my breadth and offered the corpse (#offer). The following appeared... "There's a struggle between Mercury and Mars." ** At home, I'm cheering for Mars. Get him Mars! You can do it! ** "Mars wins! You successfully changed the altars alignement!" (Or something to that effect.) Yipee!! No more hanging around an altar to Mercury. I'm proud that Mars saw I was worthy, and that gave him incentive to fight well for control of the altar. Went to the large box and pulled out the figurines I had collected so far. Placed them on the altar with some other miscelaneous stuff that I figured would be appropriate. This makes the area look more like a shrine (it does to me anyways). Once satisfied with my decorations, went back to working on the arsenal... Took a hard look at what we had discovered so far, hit the ("\") button. By this point in the game: I've been hit by lots of potions and; had lots of scrolls read at me or read near me; and seen wands zapped by monsters, plus my own experiments with them. Therefore, I had quite a list in the display. So far, I've only played Elves. If you remember what I wrote in the prologue, I have some idea of what the arcane arts is like - namely spell casting, books and scrolls. Probably have played around 40 Wizards and 20 Preists already. I've seen lots of scrolls. I haven't yet tried them all, but I've seen them all (unless there's some super special ones that I'm unawares of), if you know what I mean. Furthermore, here's what the guide book has to say: "One of the most useful of these is the scroll of identify, which can be used to determine what another object is, whether it is cursed or blessed, and how many uses it has left. Some objects of subtle enchantment are difficult to identify without these." As far as I can tell, they're right. Now the big thing, is identifying this particular scroll. Especially for the position that I'm presently in. Remember In Part #1 Journey to the Oracle ? There I had found two shops, and had mentioned some prices of different things (potions and a morning star). Well, this is what I discovered about this particular scroll: No matter what it's called, it's always the least expensive. Yes, it's even cheaper than the blank scrolls (the ones with nothing written on them). How come? I dunno. No clue why that is. This applies to both for buying and selling. I would venture to say that it's never above 30 zorkminds. The most I've ever had to pay for one has been 26 zorkminds. That's what I have marked on my lists, anyways. Since it's cheap; you would think that it would also be the most plentiful, eh? No way. Those happen to be the scroll of teleportation. In my games anyways. Now, in this particular game, the shops have been pretty scarce. Besides the ones in Temple Town, I've only discovered that potion shop on level 2, and the weapons shop on level 5. Only way I can get some idea of how much each scroll is worth in zorkminds, is either at; a scroll shop, a book shop, or a general store (these deal in everything). Only general store in the game so far, is back at Temple Town, in the caverns. I groan at the prospect of having to trek out there. But not more than that. I just look at it as a nesscessary step towards fullfiling my present mission - upgrading my arsenal. Now I'm trying to figure out which one of my remaining scrolls in the collection could be the ones I'm looking for. I have a list besides me of the few I've been able to get appraised when I was back in the caverns. Yes, I do keep notes. Also I have the ones that have been revealed through my discoveries list ("\"). So, through process of elimination, I grab the possible ones (as well as a few other things I'm curious about), and start heading for the only place I can get them appraised. The general store at Temple Town. Anyways..., all that to say that I've got a system (laugh). You might be wondering why I just don't read some? Two reasons: #1). I'm trying to play smart. And the above system, although it involves quite a painstaking process, has worked for me with the least pain to any of my characters. I'm trying to get somewhere in this game. #2). Sometimes you get a gut feeling about things, and even though I have a favorite mystery scroll (FOOBIE BLETCH), I still see no reason for taking any unesscessary chances. Remember - I'm an Elf! (Note: I'm well aware that my two recent major battles don't reflect what I just said. However, I sure would not forget the lessons learned from them.) Got to Temple Town. I was very happy that none of my stuff had been stiffed while I was away. I locked the chest and the door to the room at my base camp. Had everything I could get appraised done so. And for some reason (probably either cause I dislike the way this town is set up, or I had a brain spasm), came back to base camp on dungeon level 4 in the Mazes of Menace right away. Sorted out all the junk from the trip, and started to get myself organised for some magic dabbling. In the meanwhile, a white unicorn came prancing in the room. Woah! My eyes lit up. What incredible luck. We now can fix that accident with the black unicorn (See Part #1: Journey To The Oracle). Had a tough time lining it up for dagger flinging, but eventually killed it and dumped it's corpse on the altar. Okay Mars; I offer thee this white unicorn as compensation for thine black one... (#offer). It got consumed in a burst of flame. Next, I got one of the following messages: "You are definetly chaotic!", or "You are deemed chaotic!", or "You are aptly chaotic!". Or something like that. I wish I would have written it down at the time. Although I'm not looking for anything that will ruin the game for me: If anyone of you who is reading this has experienced this as well; I would be very curious to know what this particular message implies and/or means. Thanks (smile). I'm sure I know which one is the scroll of identify now. Went to the chest, and saw that I had a couple more of those. Great. Gather up all the unknown scroll types in my inventory, and try an identify scroll. I got two choices this time! Found the enchant weapon scroll on my second choice, don't remember what the other was. Oh boy. Now I'm excited. Saw that amongst the enchant weapon scrolls I had accumulated, two were blessed, one was uncursed, and one was cursed. Now had to figure which weapon and scrolls to use for my goals. I don't get to do this kind of stuff too often. A big decision now has to be made. ** Went for a smoke + coffee... ** Mentally tried to recollect all my games of Nethack so far. Reasoned out, and came to the conclusion that; my dagger throwing was what really got me this far. Even though I'm an Elven Ranger and all, arrows just get mulched too often. Melee weapons aren't too great for my role either. So daggers it will be. Went to the chest and pulled out the biggest stack of daggers I had. These turned out to be uncursed ordinary daggers. 18 of them in all. Now make sure I do this correctly... Wield the daggers (Yes, you can weild all 18 in your hand at the same time!) and read a blessed scroll of enchant weapon. The daggers glowed blue for a while. Great! Go and drop them on the altar. No amber flash. Damn. They didn't become blessed. Okay... Let's try again. Read my other blessed scroll of enchant weapon. Same result as the first time with the blue glow. Dropped the daggers on the altar, and no amber flash again. Ah man... Go read the guide book again... Came across this part: "Clear potions are potions of water. Sometimes these are blessed or cursed, resulting in holy or unholy water. Holy water is the bane of the undead, so potions of holy water are good things to throw (`t') at them. It is also sometimes very useful to dip (``#dip'') an object into a potion." Oh, oh, oh! Of course (slap head). Why didn't I think of that before?! Go rummage through the chest. Lucky again, I have one blessed clear potion! I understand that chucking them at undeads may be neat. But I'd rather be able to chuck daggers at them over the course of the game. Once you throw a potion at something, it's gone. Just look at what the monsters have been doing to me so far (wink). Now I dip the daggers into it and... They glowed amber (or something like that)! Dropped on the altar to make sure, and nammed the stack of daggers "BDD" (Blessed Deadly Daggers). Corny I know, but heah; I didn't know I'd be telling this story here at that time (laugh). Now I won't get them mixed up with anything else. A mob of hill orcs decided to make an entrance on my celebrations. Lucky you, I said. Your gonna be test subjects (evil grin). Wow - wee! One "BDD" dagger per hill orc was required to put them down. Har - har! I was like a child loose in a candy shop. What fun! A few left some corpses, I think three of them. May as well give them to Mars. Now that we have this spiffy altar to him and all. Mars gave me the same response as in so many other games for the first two hill orc corpses. "A four leaf clover appears on the ground near you." I dunno why he keeps wanting leperchauns (?). He must be organising a lawn bowling league where he is, or somethin'. (shrug) Sorry Mars, only got hill orcs for you at the moment. I offered the last one, and a voice boomed out from above! "Use my gift wisely." And a dagger named "Sting" appeared at the altar! Oh-kay... This I had found once or twice in priore games. Didn't know it was one of Mars' weapons. A gift from Mars! I'll do just as you ask. Uh... Do you have an instruction manual for this thing? I suppose not. Well, near as I can figure. This must be some kind of 'dagger of venom'. My reasoning is: "Sting" = scorpion tail stinger = killer bee stinger, hence it "stings" when it hits. I just can't find the latch to release the poison though...? I tried applying ("a"), invoking (#invoke), rubbing (#rub), etc. Nothing. I never notice anything about monsters having to make a saving throw like, when I hit them with poisoned arrows. Oh well. Thanks again Mars! I better keep this thing on me, lest he thinks I'm ungrateful... All right. With all of this figured out. I realised I have to go back to Temple Town. I left a pile of scrolls back there! Man, this game is tough enough as is. What is my problem with being absent minded? Oh well, look on the bright side. Maybe have some blessed water there too, plus other scrolls. Still have to transfer stuff from there back to here, anyways. It will also let me get a hang of these new daggers named "BDD". Tidied up our base camp, and headed up for the stairway to the caverns (dungeon level 2). Man - oh - man. I'm just slaughtering everything along the way with these "BDD" daggers. Incredible. Everything just goes down sooo much faster. I'm just tripping on these things (!). Something that we encountered along the way left a ring as booty. I tried out "Sting" a few times here and there. Wasen't impressed. Got to Temple Town, and started going over the stuff I had left there. There was a lot of stuff still. One was another scroll of identify. Since I still had an unused one back at base camp in the Mazes of Menace, I decided to read this one here. I just had to know what these "BDD" daggers were like! I tell you again - I just had to know! "You can identify an object from your inventory. Which one?" I chose ("d"), of course. "Blessed +4 dagger named BDD." Was the revelation!! Woah! And I had 18 of them! Rummage through the chest, looking to see if there are any scrolls of enchant weapon here. Nope. Oh well. Don't get greedy! Be thankful for what you have! Didn't want to "press" my luck with any more scroll reading. So switched to the list of spellbooks that we're here. Let's see what this one is (green, I think)... Oups! Where am I? I was just at my chest in the room. Oh there I am. On the other side of town! (laugh) I didn't try that book again. Let's see now, I'll try... The white one. "You memorise the spell of healing!" Well. It was doable. With no armor it was like a 63% chance. From then, to the point I'm at now in the game, I've used it successfully no more than 6 times. Only worthwhile when the battle is over, and your in a safely locked room, due to having to strip all metalic - including mithral - armor off. The ring was uncursed and turned out to be a ring of +2 strength. My strength naturally was now 18. I'd never seen a character go beyond this. When the ring was being worn, it would increase to 18/02. Great. I assumed this was better. Okay, pack things up, lock up this base camp, and head back to the Mazes of Menace. On the uppermost level of the caverns, between both of the staircases, there's an outcropping of rock. Although this is a lit level, it still obscures my view between them. I had just curved around it, when I heard noises coming from behind me. Missy prissy had found something to play with, obviously. But as you saw in the previous chapter, and in all the encounters thus far, this was one tough cat. I wasen't concerned at all, but after taking a few more steps, this message appeared: "You get a sad feeling for a moment. But then it passes." I've had this message in previous games. It appears when your not in the direct line of sight when your pet dies. Which was the case here, unlike when Sirius died. Oh no... My cat just passed away. I cursed the game. Amongst other things, it haden't given me a leash. I turned around to go take care of my cats body. When I rounded the rock cropping again, all I saw was an ice troll standing some distance away. An ice troll? Your pretty powerful for this level of the caverns, I thought. I was quite surprised that Missy Prissy would want to scrap with it, but didn't put it pass her. I stood there and waited for quite a while. I was kind of thinking that maybe something invisible was around also, and the ice troll was merely a bystander. Although the ice troll was moving about somewhat, it made no effort to come towards me. My anger at losing such a valuable pet was also building up inside me. Eventually I started heading towards it. It seemed to sense my anger, and made no effort to close the distance between us itself. I deliberately held my fire till the range was point blank. I wanted it to see the anguish in my eyes. The daggers named "BDD" made very short work of things. Too short. I took a few steps back from the corpse and bided my time. Nothing that was invisible ever made it's presence known. Soon enough, the troll regenerated. When it saw me still there, it feebly tried to escape. It never had a hope. This was a wide open lit level of the caverns. An excellent battle ground for one very pissed Ranger. One round of thrown daggers named "BDD" was now excessive force. It fell to the first one or two, the others flew on to land in the distance. On the way to pick up the daggers that had overshot the troll, I kicked it's miserable corpse towards them. Resurection after resurection ensued. The ice troll was now locked in an inescapable loop of a thousand deaths. After a while, I resorted to kicking and pummeling it with me fists. During one of these episodes, I had taken off my gloves. It would die by me tearing it apart with my bare hands. After an unknown amount of deaths, it left no corpse. I see there is even a limit to the amount of punishment a troll can endure. Missy Prissy had left no body. I did not know the exact square upon which she fell. I pulled out the pick-axe and smashed a bolder. With the rocks it yielded, I formed a square on the ground in the general area of her last battle. In the center of the boundary, I piled the rest. "Goodbye Missy Prissy Wherever you are, you give them Hell" These were the words I engraved in the ground. Put on the ring of levitation, and after assuring it was done correctly, floated out beyond the boundary of her monument. Little did I care if Mars had bothered to notice my encounter with the troll or not. I had become a force that would refuse to be taken lightly. As long as I did not do anything stupid, I now knew that I would go far this game. Part 9: Breaching The Ghost Level --------------------------------- Made my way back to base camp alone. It was strange not having to wait for Missy Prissy on each and every level. I busied myself, with organising my base camp and the new shrine to Mars on dungeon level 4 of the Mazes. This form of activity had now become customary, yet a comfortable routine. You can compare it to doing something usual, in order to keep your mind off of other things. A few more denizens had wondered by. Aside from occaisional clovers or the calling for leperchauns, Mars seemed content with the additions to his army in the sky. Although the Oracle had told me that the gods may favor those worthy with named blades whose powers echoed throughout legend, no new discoveries were made concerning the gift of "Sting". Still I carried the blade amongst my possessions close to my body. Perhaps it's secrets would become evident in some future time. I gathered together enough objects from the multitudes within the chest and the large box. Next mission was going to be one of deep exploration. I was preparing to venture beyond the Ghost level. Strangely, I felt no apprehensions as I'd felt in the past. The last few days of consolidation, seemed to have bolstered my confidence beyond what I had ever felt before. One last look behind me as I left base camp. Would I see this place any time soon again? Strangely, though I knew not why, I felt that the answer was no... Suredly I made my way down. Level by level, all creatures fell before the onslaught of my daggers named "BDD". Down the stairs from dungeon level 16, I was now immersed in the darkness of the Ghost level. I had been here twice before, and had retraced my steps out as well. This time I went forward boldly. From room to room I forged. Looking. Searching. Actively seeking. I found myself actually hunting. Finally, I was being a Ranger. Came upon the remains of Glen Wilkerson and his possesions. Sifted through them but left it all there for the moment. A short time later, his ghost materialised from the darkness. With hands upon my daggers named "BDD", one step sideways was required to line it up... Perhaps two, but no more than three, were the number of rounds it took to send it on. Yes, blessed weapons sure hurt spirits from the netherworld. I picked up my BDD's and made my way towards the next unexplored room. One after the other until at last, I came upon the downstairs. Refering to the display, the path from stair to stair formed one huge "U". With the upstairs located at the top left most end, and the downstairs at the top of the right. Diligently I searched for a secret door. Hoping to unveil a passageway more direct between the two. Seemingly, none was to be found... No, no, no. I muttered to myself. This long extenuated path will never do. Before even penetrating down to the next level, I had decided right then and there to cut out a short cut. Pulled out the pick-axe and proceeded to cut straight accross from stair to stair. I no longer feared this level as such. But I knew that eventually I'd be required to return to base camp on dungeon level 4. Many times would I have to make the trek through here, even if only to bring the booty further down throughout the Mazes of Menace. Having satisfied myself with this new tunnel, I turned back and headed to Glen Wilkerson's remains. I picked up the objects and named each one "GW". What these were, I now forget. Armor plate, weapon, helm, perhaps a miscelaneous object as well. Now off to the downstairs. The Ghost level, with all of it's ghastly manner, had finally been breached... Dungeon Level 18: - gigantic beehive - fountain I made a discovery while exploring this level. There are random dungeon sounds that crop op from time to time. Here, I kept on getting; "You here a low droning sound." Or was it; "You hear a buzzing echoing through the corridors." (?). Now some sounds are pretty familiar to me: "chiming of a cash register", "someone cursing shoplifters" = some sort of shop on the level; "a crunching sound" or "You hear crashing rock." = a dwarf with a pick-axe somewhere; as examples. I discovered a secret door, at the end of a very long corridor. Upon opening the door, I got this message; " You enter a gigantic beehive!" And they weren't kidding. I've seen these in some other games, but never this big. I counted the dimensions of the room. It was 13 squares by 5 squares - exactly the same dimensions as that potion shop on dungeon level 2! I saw the queen bee amongst the pack. Excluding her, that meant there was 59 killer bees here!! (The vertical row next to the door was empty.) Woah... I closed the door and locked it, of course. This hive would require a "master plan" to take out (or so I thought at the time). Then it hit me: "droning" and "buzzing"... Bees "buzz" when they fly around. Drones are male bees. They only hang around a hive till the queen bee is fed up with them (then they get fed to the pupae). Therefore... These particular sounds "signify" a special type of area located on that level (!). In this case, it was a "beehive". Maybe they are not all random after all. Hmmm... Now I would pay more attention to what was happening and start including some of these messages in my notes. Acquired a silver dagger somewhere, and somehow on this level. Only thing I remember, was that it was very soon after having breached the Ghost level. Dungeon Level 19: - beartrap - fountain - large box x2 Here I put in "beartrap' for those of you who are keeping track of things (this will become apparent later on). Normally I don't include the different kind of traps in my notes. But for beartraps, I do. Reason being that beartraps can be disarmed (You have to be adjacent to it - NOT caught in it - and use the #untrap command.). And much to my satisfaction, they can be picked up and re-armed again at a different location. I do this often enough. It's great for training with unskilled weapons when a monster gets caught in one, and can't move about. Also, if I'm in a hurry and don't have a box or chest to hide booty in; I stack all the stuff in a pile and set a trap amongst it. This really works! They are also quite heavy, I've found out. Since I was on a 'breach the ghost level and exploration' mission, I wasen't going to lug this trap around with me all the time. I locked whatever I found around thus far, including the stuff now named "GW" from the ghost level above, into one of the large boxes here. The beartrap, I had set up on the way to the stairs in the corridor. So anything walking, would get nailed by it. In order for me to get by it, I was using my ring of levitation. Dungeon Level 20: - 2+ swamp rooms - statue of a trapper This whole level was, from what I remember, really dark. Many rooms were unlit. My supply of candles was starting to get low. So much exploration was done where you only see the 8 squares directly adjacent to your picture on the screen. That's why I have the "+" written after the "2" for the number of swamp rooms. "You enter what seems to be some kind of swamp."; were the messages I seem to recall. Maybe also... "You hear the sound of a cockatoo", or something (?). Cockatoos are exotic birds found in tropical climats. Since I am now paying much better attention to the random messages, this seems to make sense. When I got close to the edge of the water sqaures that were scattered about, something would leap out of the water and try to bite me. A shark? A piranha? It was some kind of fish with big teeth. Anyway, I haven't yet completely explored this level, so don't know if there are more than 2 swamp rooms, nor how large these rooms are, but there are definetly two that have been discovered so far. The trapper statue was moved only after extreme precautions. I know what these can do from D&D - so this was no time for lackadaisical behavior. Dungeon Level 21: - general store (spellbook is really a small mimic) - statue of an ettin zombie Here we had found a shop. Yes, I knew about it before I had actually uncovered it; due to the sounds of the cash register. That's why I kept on looking in areas that seemed appropriate for secret doors ("s" command). It was difficult to find. Really well hidden. At least 2 secret doors had to be discovered that eventually led into a hallway that stoped at a dead end. Then more searching just to uncover the door to the shop. I knew that I was close to it at the dead end, because on the ground was engraved "Closed for inventory." It was stubborn in revealing itself, at least 24 attempts. Good thing I'm an Elf! While busy trying to uncover the door. A cackle of chickatrices came down the hallway. I killed them all quite easily with BDD's, picked up their corpses and dropped them on the square where I was doing all the searching for that shop door. Finally I uncovered it. It was locked, of course, but my lockpick solved that problem again. The shop was really small. Only 3 squares by 3 squares. Dunno why he (the shopkeeper) needs to do any inventory (!?). Didn't see anything interesting in the merchandise either. Only thing that aroused my curiousity was a spellbook - which turned out to be a small mimic (figures). I took a step back and let the mimic live for now. Maybe I can use it as a guinea pig for some experiments later on. I know it won't leave the shop. Picked up the chickatrice corpses and flung them to the back of the room. It will give the shopkeeper something to contemplate when he completes his inventory (wink). I locked the door again on my way out. This lockpick is incredibly handy. Dungeon Level 22: - leash stuck in a web - grave of Og Immediately upon descending the stairs to this level. There was a small skirmish that involved around 3 or 4 monsters. What they all were is unimportant except that one was some kind of icky spider (I hate spiders in real life). After dispatching them all, my Elf trap detection ability kicked in. That's where the whole screen goes dark except; for the square where the trap is located. That one stays lit. Then when you hit a key (any key, doesen't matter which one), everything is back to normal. I got the following message "You detect a trap (web) hidden under the leash." I didn't go in that square for a number of reasons: - I didn't have a pet presently. Although I did mutter a few choice words at the game for making me have to come all the way down here - just for a leash! Look at all the work I'd done with leashless pets so far this game (mutter, mutter). - When you enter a web-trap, you just keep getting tangled in it. Every time you try and disarm it, or should I say "untrap" something from it, you invariably just spread the web to the adjacent squares. I know this for a fact. I've already spread one to include 8 squares near the bottom level of the caverns when Sirius got caught in one. - It was located right next to the upstairs of this level. As long as I had no pressing need for it, I wasen't going to risk spreading the web "onto" the stairs. Now that would be a pain in the buttocks every time I wanted to travel through this level! Woulden't it now? - I've never seen a monster use a pet (except for wererats/jackals/wolves). So it was safe where it lay for the time being. Near the downstairs, in a darkened room. I found the grave of Og the Caveman. Pulled out the pick-axe and dug it up. Found some armor (studded leather, helm and boots?) and a weapon (a club, or a mace?). Named all the objects "Og" and locked them in a nearby broom closet. There may have been a ghost that showed up. Memory pretty vague here. Could be thinking of a prior game, if not. However, if one did materialise, I obviously had no problem dispatching it to the ethereal plane of existance. Dungeon Level 23: - fountain Dungeon Level 24 (Base Camp): - temple to Mars (chaotic) - shattered unknown statue - chest - sink Here was another level with very few lit rooms. There was a statue here when I first came to this level. But somekind of accident with a wand of striking, weilded by a monster not me, shattered it before I ever got to see what it was. The chest was in the same room, so without the identity of the statue, I coulden't figure if it's contents was related to it or not. Oh well. These levels had more traps per area than I had been encountering (or had discovered, perhaps) above the Ghost level. I found myself spending more time searching while exploring the last few levels, not because of monsters, but due to not wanting to be victimised by teleportating/polymorphing/water traps and trap doors. Doing this in darkened rooms seemed to take way longer. Anyway, half of the way through exploring this level, I saw a priestess in the distance with my infravision. When I hit the look (";") and saw the word "chaotic" in the message, I nearly fell out of my chair. I made a bee-line for her, without finishing my explorations. Stupid move, I now see. I could have triggered something on the way. But I was just so happy (laugh). Descent summary: The descent from the Ghost level (level 17) to here (level 24) was not particularly difficult with respects to wandering monsters. Although their average relative strength is suredly stronger than those found above the ghost level, I can't really recall having any real difficulty. That was mainly due to the BDD's in my arsenal. They absolutely made all the difference in the world. Bad luck, as well as, bad thinking got two of my BDD's corroded by an ochre jelly along the way. There was something, probably an air elemental that was giving me a slight cause for concern at some point (Yeah, now that I think of it, that's what it was.). After killing it, I found myself in a dead end corridor with the tapioca pudding (ochre jelly) blocking the way back out. I really didn't want anything to happen to any of my armor. So I fired off a round of BDD's at it without thinking that "they" might become corroded (sad face). I finished it off with the silver dagger. Of which I took a chance at wielding, cause it had not been verifyed for cursedness yet. Silver weapons aren't affected by corrosion (and rust); "Your silver dagger seems not to be affected by the ochre jelly." I do remember that during this phase of exploring the Mazes of Menace, brought on a really higher proportion of unlit rooms within all the levels. Having to rely only on candles for a light source, was begining to take it's toll on my supply. Few candles are left at the candle shop in Temple Town, the only source of candles so far. But I will eventually have to journey back there to replenish my stock. Having infravision is great, but like previously mentioned; unless the monster gives off some kind of heat, I don't see it unless it's on top of me. I had left many piles of booty scattered amongst the boxes and broom closets of these levels during my decent. I was on a scouting mission, therefore no need to be burdened. I'll have the oportunity to burden myself later on once I knew where I was going to relocalise - if anywhere. Dungeon level 20 was the best I had ever acheived in all my previous games. This was now the deepest point I had ever descended so far in Nethack. So wasen't really to sure what was happening around this depth. I can tell you all one thing though; I was extremely happy when I discovered the temple to Mars on level 24! I like the concept of having a base to stage missions from. Part 10: Snow Boots ------------------- So last we left off, we had just met the Preistess of Mars. I was so happy to see her. If the game would have allowed it, I would have given her one great big kiss! Right near her, in the darkness, was the altar to Mars. Finally. A temple to Mars! Upon chatting with her, she asked for a donation towards the temple. Sure! I'll gladly donate. Here, take everything I got. She thanked me for my contribution. No problem, I said, there'll be lots more where that came from. Just wait and see. I finished exploring the room of the temple. Now this was a real temple to Mars. It was a big room; about 11 horizontal sqaures by 6 vertical ones. Lots of space. Lots of openings into it also; 5 doors (!). To add even more towards the chaoticism of it all, it was an unlit room. Yup... I'm gonna like this spot. Gonna take a little getting used to maneuvering around in the dark and all, but heah! Who am I to decide what pleases Mars in his place of worship? Okay... Now where am I going to set up shop in here? Can't keep all my booty containers too close to the altar. The preistess might not like that, having to constantly avoide my junk and all. Preistesses are very devoted to their gods. They never hover far away from the altar. Never more than 2 squares. Hmmm... Okay, I'll put my stuff up in the top left hand corner area of the room. There's a little more space on this side of the temple if we consider where the altar is compared to the boundaries of the room itself. I went to get that chest I found earlier on this dungeon level. Lugged it over to the appropriate spot. Took a few steps back and down, to start dropping some stuff, and... "The (forget which kind) giant throws a boulder!" "You are nearly hit by a boulder!" I sure was. Actually this thing (the boulder) was on top of my picture on the screen! I'm mad. This big moron has the audacity to litter a temple to Mars!? I move out from the boulder and start heading towards the opening where this thing came in from. Hands on my BDD's. Don't worry Mars. I'm going to handle this. It's slice n' dice time. But, before I can make it the door, another boulder comes screaming into the temple! Not from the original direction, but from a perpendicular one. Not only that, it also had just narrowly missed the preistess! I got the message saying it did that, before the message saying it had missed me again. That's how I knew the direction even though I'm in a dark room. Oh no. That would be absolutely horrible if the preistess got offed!! Would kind of ruin the whole temple thing and all, no? Okay. Quickly now. Gotta get those doors closed to prevent more boulders from getting in here. I'm closest to the door from the initial boulder point of entry, so I go to close and lock that one. I then proceed towards my right, locking every door along the way towards the right hand side of the room. I get to the second to last door. The one where the boulder that missed the preistess came in from. I see the giant standing there in the hallway. BDD flinging keels him over. I step out into the hallway and start rounding the corridor along the perimiter of the temple. I'm going to take them out here so as not to risk anything happening to the preistess. "You hear a loud crashing sound." I look back into the temple. One of the big galoots has just bashed in a door to the temple to Mars! What's the matter with you? You got no manners!? I step back into the temple and start heading his way. I'm boiling mad now. Angle of attack for a BDD flinging session is just about here. One more step and... the giant turns to flee! Gawd. What a baffoon. You cause all this turmoil and when time comes to crunch, you can't even follow through! Your dead meat. I follow him out into the corridor. Line him up, and BDD him to death. I'm now making my way around the perimeter from the other direction of my first attempt. I know these giant types. They like to travel in groups of three to five. Sure enough, another one of them is hanging out here as well. BDD's away! Thud. The boulder he was carrying fell on top of him when he croaked. Ha! Coulden't have happened to a nicer guy. Teach you to mess around a temple to Mars when I'm around. At least they died outside of the temple. Won't have to put up with their corpses in there untill they rot away. Scavanged their bodies for booty, and one of them had a key. Big stupid knob. Had a key and still broke down the door (mumble grumble). Went to see if the preistess was okay. I think she was impressed. There will be no questioning my devotion to Mars. Chatted with her and she gave me 2 zorkminds for a couple of beers. I didn't want to accept money from her, so gave it back while we finished our drinks. Pushed the boulders out of the room, and went back to my business of setting up base. Okay. I got my area of the temple staked out now. I'm on the left side of the room. I've decided where the chest and the piles will be exactly. Now I finish exploring the rest of the level (dungeon level 24). Of all the wandering monsters I encounter, not all want to off me. Some are peaceful. You have to look (";") first to make sure. After a while, you get to know which ones will always be aggressive (like despicable orcs), and those that are always peaceful (like fellow Elves). The tricky ones are those that are AC/DC (can swing both ways). Ogres, bugbears, and some type of giant, are what come to my mind at this moment concerning the AC/DC's. On this level, there's an Elven king hanging around the hallways. Now I like talking with fellow Elves (you have to chat with them), we curse orcs all the time. I customarily exchange pleasentries with the king whenever I cross paths with him, which turns out to be a lot, as he's on my new base camp level. Find the stairs down to level 25. Go take a quick look, just in case there's anything hanging around the staircase (there often is). Find another dark room. Don't feel like starting to explore yet another dark level. Head back up to base camp. Tell the preistess that I'll be back soon enough, and head back up in the Mazes of Menace to start hauling and centralising all the junk from above, down to here. Now then, for those of you who've kept up with the story so far: The dungeon is pretty tidy from the Ghost level (17) on up. My last big push into the depths has been from this area on down. Therefore I climb back up to level 18 and start picking up the junk scattered amongst my hiding places here and there. I'm well aware that this will require many trips. The problem with being burdened isin't with going "up" the stairs. It has to do with coming "down" the stairs. What happens is you "fall" down the stairs. I don't know what effect this has in the game, but I imagine that anything fragile has a better chance of getting broken. Now we have to be extra carefull whenever we are about to descend. Have to make sure we're not burdened for that. Then run back up and make several little shuttle trips. I did not have this concern before, as base camp was usually higher up in the dungeon, unlike the situation that I am now in. Knowing this (from past experience), I start by picking up all the most interesting stuff first. Well... what I find interesting any ways (laugh). During my first few booty retrival trips, I had ammassed some interesting objects at my new base camp in the temple of Mars. (For some reason, I did not find the preistess of Mars annoying at all. Compared with the ones from the two temples of Venus.) Out of everything, what I remember the most, were a pair of snow boots, and somekind of cloak (ornamental, opera?). These turned out to be uncursed for the snow boots, and blessed for the cloak. The boots I was really interested in. So tried them on first. After a few moments, I got over my intitial dissapointment at not feeling any speedier (sad face). I tried jumping around (#jump), but that was a no go also. Hmmm... I coulden't remember what other kinds of boots (if any other) that I had discovered in prior games. Oh well. But the good thing about these snow boots was that they were +3! So I chucked my +2 iron shoes over in the pile of armor that was starting to take shape in my corner of the temple. The snow boots didn't improve my armor class any. In fact it was exactly the same as before. But I assumed that they were lighter, and would also not clang around as much as the iron ones did. Besides, I'm an Elven Ranger. It just looks more befiting wearing snow boots than iron shoes. Next was that blessed cloak. This was not a mystery to be uncovered once I tried it on. Cloak of protection! And with a humongous +4 to boot! My armor class shot right up (er down) to about - 17 or 19. Depending on what type of sheild I wanted to tote along. Sadly, I added my old +2 elven cloak to the pile of armor in the temple. I always kinda liked the way it looked. More conforming to what a Ranger should be wearing. It had served me well up to now. The only original piece of armor I've had since the begining of the game (sigh). Oh well. Have to keep upgrading with the times. Can't stay stuck behind with nostalgia! Well, with the fine booty figured out. Now began the major hauls of booty back and forth from the ghost level to base camp at the temple of Mars. Many trips ensued. Sometimes I would let a weak monster get close to me. Just to test out my new armor class some. That combined with my BDD's was increasing my confidence. Funny how that happens (laugh). I was also trying a new tool here and there - the key I got from them obnoxious giants. I've had and used keys in previous Nethack games. Just I never noticed any difference using it compared to the lockpick. I never failed to pick a lock in any of my Nethack games. So not too sure what the difference is. In order to save both on weight and inventory slots, these are required for major booty lugging, I travelled lighter and lighter on every trip back from base camp at the temple of Mars. The lockpick was left behind, as I was trying out the key here and there. I gradually started leaving more and more BDD's behind as well. I had 16 regular ones, and 2 corroded ones. Which was a pain as they now took two inventory slots instead of one. Hardly anything lasted more than a round of flinging from BDD's anyhow. So no use having to lug so many. And since they were so phenominal at dropping monsters, I wasen't using any arrows either. So no need to carry those. May as well as stash the +1 elven bow while were at it. The +1 elven dagger, potions I never used, scrolls I never needed, wands, etc., all went into the chest at the temple of Mars. I even left "Sting" there finally. I figured Mars woulden't mind as much since it was in such a sanctified place. I ended up carrying; 1 pyrimidial amulet, 6 BDD's (main guns), 1 corroded BDD (melee weapon), the silver dagger (jelly, pudding weapon), my armor, 1 potion of extra healing, 2 scrolls of teleportation, the ring of levitation, the ring of +2 strength, the unicorn horn named "black", and the key. I felt fine with just that. And it seemed sufficient for anything I encountered between level 17 and 25. Now, if your doing exploration / penetration / clearing missions, I would advise carrying a more versatile arsenal and miscelaneous objects. But for just booty retrieval missions, I found this very good. Some of you may be starting to wonder why I'm talking so much about doing mundane stuff like this. Well... What I'm doing here is trying to play smart. I've just adavanced to an area of the game I've never acheived successfully before. I'm trying to get a "feel" for this area of depth before moving on to the next - whatever that is (and I would find out soon enough). Also, I found that just to be willing to take my time and finish an area before going on to the next was fitting right in with my methodical approach to playing Nethack. Some chapters are written longer than others. I just keep writing till I've reached the end of what I'm trying to convey was either; a lesson I learned, an accomplishment, a discovery, and/or event for me in this game so far. I don't want to start sounding like I'm giving anybody lessons here (laugh) - far from it in fact. Just want to give whoever has been patient enough so far, a glimpse into my thinking process (and maybe have a few chuckles while were at it - laugh!). Anyhoo... That preceeding paragraph is a good introduction to my next act of brilliance. I was collecting stuff around level 20, the level with the swamp rooms. I was just passing by one of the doors to one of these, when I glimpsed a square of water. I stoped for a minute, and started wondering if boots of water walking existed in Nethack. I know they do in D&D, seems like many things are carried over to here. Hmmm... I walked up to one water square near the door. It was somewhat isolated from the more numerous ones that had been uncovered while I was in here with the candle a few days before. I stood next to it for quite a number of turns (hit the "s" key several times). Soon enough something came over and tried to take a bite out of me. I think it was a pirahna. I killed it by stabbing it with the corroded BDD I was weilding. Had no problem, and don't believe it even hit me. I didn't want to fling any BDD's at it, in case they would get rusted falling into the water. Note: How I was supposed to retrieve them after, never came to mind (laugh)! Now, I consider myself quite educated. I know that pirahnas come in huge schools. So I wait for the rest of the little fish to show up. And I waited... Nothing. Okay. Guess there was only one. Coast is clear, I tell myself. Next thing I do is hit the number "8" key on the numberpad (to take a step forward)... Sploosh. "You fall into the water!" "You can't swim!" "Luckily you are able to climb out the other side!" Or something like that. Then there was a list of what was affected by the water, and what was not affected by it. My heart skipped a beat. I wasen't really concerned with the list of what the water affected. But the: "You can't swim!" part sure caught my eye! That is "exactly the type of message" I get just before the one that asks if I want all my possesions identified!! Oh man. What was I thinking?! Pheeeew... Well. Sure learned a valuable lesson there. This is now on my "Things to never do again in Nethack" list. But really; my character should be aware wether I can swim or not? They can at least put that in the guidebook somewhere. And if any character class does know how to swim - how come Rangers aren't included among them? Makes sense to me, being the "outdoors type" and all. Just my 2 cents. Now I'm on the other side of the water, and the fish start to come. I wasen't carrying the pick-axe with me, so coulden't dig through the wall of the room I was now next to. Sure as heck wasen't going to step in that puddle again. The water sure gets deep fast for a swamp (!?). That ring of levitation I found way back when, came in super handy yet one more time. I put it on, and floated back accross the water to the other side. Had to take a couple of bites from another pirahna or two, but it was a small price to pay considering I just nearly got killed. Good thing most of my armor wasen't affected by the water either. Now, I also know that snow boots don't rust. Glad I don't have to worry about that for the rest of the game... Eventually finished bringing the booty down to the base camp at the temple of Mars. Well, almost. I left a lot of armor, weapons, food, and gems in the different hiding places. But all the rest, including projectile / missile weaponery was carried down. Near the end of these excusions, I was coming up to the temple of Mars just rounding the corridor from the upstairs of the level, when one of those overgrown grid bug types came at me. You know, the monster that sticks its antenae into your boots (?). I forget what it's called. It has the same letter as grid bugs, is it "x"...? Now these things are awful, well to me anyways. They don't do too much dammage hit point wise, but they hurt your feet and it slows you down. They're also very, very fast! You can't run away from them, not even with speed boots. So here I am burdened, and since they don't show up with infravision, I don't know it's there untill its already poked some holes in my boots. Heah! My brand new snow boots! Grrr... I drop everything and kill it eventually. But now my feet are hurt, and the unicorn horn don't work on this type of ill. It only passes with time. Okay. I can't help not running into stuff like this while I'm on excursions. That I accept. It's part of the job description for Amulet of Yendor Retriever of Mars. But that don't mean I have to put up with it while I'm at base camp. I know I'm going to be hanging around here a lot. Since Mars likes dark temples, he hasen't said anything about dark corridors leading to them... Went to the chest, dumped the booty I was carrying in a pile, and fished out a wand of light I picked up somewhere (Yes, I discovered it when I zaped it at a monster somewhere.), as well as the pick-axe. Went out of the temple and started digging out a 5 square swatch of corridor all around the perimeter. Then I went along the middle row of this excavation, and zaped light along it. Light from a wand has a 2 square radius. Great. Now even though the temple is unlit, I can now see beasties that don't emanate heat while I'm inside. Now satisfied with that job done, went back to sorting and organising while my feet finished healing. I was sorting all my stuff out in their respective piles when I noticed that my 2 corroded BDD's no longer melded into the same inventory slot. The one I had on me got rusted when I was testing how deep swamps are! Now I had three different kinds of BDD's; regular, corroded, and rusted corroded (groan). Wonderful. And now that I look at all my potions, I have one potion of extra healing that's dilluted. Uh-oh. I better give all my piles, as well as my inventory, the once over. Yeper, my two scrolls of teleportation are now blank as well. I better exchange them with some spares. Imagine the look on my face if I ever had to use one in an emergency and get the "This is a blank scroll." message! Is my unicorn horn rotted? Nope. Good. Now I've learned something else, while I was trying to imitate Jesus. Scrolls get blanked and potions get diluted when exposed to water. Hokay. Tidy everything up and go to lock the chest... "Apply what?" "k" "There is a chest here. Do you wish to lock it?" "y" "You lock the chest with a rusted key." You know. There really ought to be something in the guide on wether my character can swim or not... Okay. Lets go see what's on the next level. Anything to take my mind off of this. Dungeon Level 25: - barracks Another dark level. I'm down to one candle and what's left of another when I came here. So it was pretty slow going cause of the searching in the dark. Here I got; "You hear snoring" as the random dungeon sound. Hmmm... That could mean anything. First thought in mind was an ogre den. I remember the ogre on the muppet show as a classic snorer. Fine by me. Most of the ogres I've met were peaceful so far. I opened a door (it was not locked) and got this message; "You enter what seems a barracks." Seemed about right to me. It was a long room with two rows of soldiers all in line. Good to know. I'll be back another time when I have more weapons and a wand of lightning. The Oracle told me a few times about them. They carry wands and something else or another. I locked the door with my rusted key. Betcha this key is gonna break on me some time now. I make a mental note to get my lockpick back into the inventory next chance I get. I finish exploring this level, but the only thing on my mind is this rusted key. Why would Nethack bother to have keys rust? I'm starting to appreciate all the attention to detail that the designers have put into this game. So it must have a function somewhere... It's going to break in the lock when I try to open my chest. My lockpick is locked in the chest. I'm then gonna have to bust the lock. Then I'll be in a fix. An unlockable chest. Boy is that handy. May as well just pile all my valuable stuff on the floor then. I can't work without a lockable chest. I'm going nuts! I better rectify this now. Can't be exploring at this depth while my mind is somewhere else. This is just asking for a stupid mistake and/or bad key pressing on the keyboard. Okay. Time out. Stop before doing something I might regret. I look at my notes for where the next closest chest is located. I'm sure I'm going to need another one. Great, the game is pretty cheap with chests I see. Closest is on dungeon level 12. Well. Let's go see if this key breaks or not. Back to the temple of Mars lugging whatever booty I could from below. I'm going up the stairs burdened this time. So only one trip required. I'm making my path to the temple, wave on my way by the Elven king, enter the darkness and next thing you know I get a message saying that something has missed me, or I'm not affected by whatever it was. Okay, what now? Can't it wait? I need to know if this key is gonna bust in the lock or not!? I'm going to ignore it for a turn... Now I make a mistake. Well, an additional mistake. My first mistake was ignoring whatever just happened. Instead of going straight up ("8"), I went up and right ("9"). That put me inbetween whatever was outside the entranceway (It used to have a door. But a stupid giant who was carrying a key decided to bust it down. Of which I'm now carrying. Which got rusted because my character has no clue if she ever took swimming lessons or not.) to the temple, and the priestess. It sent something our way, missed me, and hit the preistess. The preistess got burned by acid or venom or something. Okay. This can't wait. I have to handle it now... It must have been a snake (cobra?) or a naga of somekind. I think it was black if that fits any of their descriptions and it can send something at a distance. That's not really important though as compared to what was going to happen next. Since it hit the preistess, that made me mad. Since it was interfering with my latest obssesive behavior, that mad me madder still. I chucked a round of BDD's at it. It was still there, but got a move on me cause I was burdened. So now it was out of my line of fire. I had to move over to line it up again. This must have taken a couple of rounds. Monsters start fleeing when they step inside a temple (altar with preistess), unless they're peaceful. This thing obviously wasen't, it turned to flee. So there was some jokeying happening at this time, which took more time off the clock. Finally I got it in my sights again. I chuck the BDD's. It died, but one BDD flew on... "You hit the elven king." "The elven king gets upset." Oups. I thought you always got the message saying: "Do you really want to hit the elven king?" But I guess not. Or it doesen't apply to thrown weapons. With all of the jokeying around, and me being burdened; the elven king must have had time to wander near the engagement. Oh Well. He'll just have to get over it. It was an accident. I have a more pressing problem: I need to know if this key is gonna pop the lock to this chest, or pop in the lock. I get to the chest and it unlocked just fine. Good! Now that that has been settled, I can pay attention to what's happening in the game! I drop all the junk I've been carrying near the chest. I then head back towards the Elven king to see what's up with his new attitude. I think that he picked up some of my BDD's on the way towards the temple entrance. Oh oh. I don't suppose that means he's going to be kind enough and hand them back to me. If he did not pick them up; then I got a message saying he was weilding some kind of weapon that scared me. In either case, the result was the same: I wasen't going to approach him anymore. Therefore, I needed more ammo. Went back to the chest and pulled out all my BDD's. Will he flee when he enters the temple? He's no longer freindly (peaceful). I waited to see, but stayed out of direct firing line, lest I get nailed by either; BDD's or whatever he was wielding. Nope. Not fleeing. Maybe he's not afraid of the wrath of Mars (?). Then it hit me. He's an Elf. Just like me! This is his temple too. Oh wonderful. Okay, let's see what happens when I take a swipe from him. Maybe that will calm him down. I really didn't believe that this would work. Although I'd never had a scrap with an Elven king before, I figured I could take him on - as long as he didn't use magic or any other special attack(!). I have a lotta respect for Elves, you know... Well; no magic, no ranged attack, and nothing else out of the ordinary that I could notice came forth, save he attacked about twice as much as I could. No serious dammage, but not something I could keep up with forever either. Hokay... Sorry king, but I'm on a mission from Mars. If you can't get over the accident from before, I'm gonna have to settle this for good. No way I can avoide you forever anymore. This level and the temple are now my base camp. Nothin' doin'. He wasen't listening. I tried to chat with him, and he wasen't inerested. I took another couple of swipes from him. Well, at least I tried all I could... BDD's away! Couple of rounds later, he had crumpled to the floor. Went to chat with the preistess to see what she had to say. She wanted to drink more beer. Okay! Sounds good to me. Better than her being mad at me too for what happened. Since she's "in the know" with how ol' Mars feels about things, I was pretty confident that he wasen't too upset, if at all. Part 11: Dark Rituals --------------------- So me and the preistess are havin' a few brews at the altar to Mars. While sitting there, I'm looking at the corpse of the Elven king and whatever he dropped to the floor after our little misunderstanding. I start thinking again (I can't help it, it's just the way I'm made - laugh!). Hmmm... I picked up his loot and verifyed it on the altar. Nothing was cursed (Nothing is ever cursed from Elves, but this will be for a later chapter.). He had one or two special items. I named it all "Elvis" and did whatever I usually do with them. But, here's where my thinking was really going... This guy is way up there in the chaotic hierarchy of things. He's both Elf, and a king. Mars could probably use someone like him. Maybe give him a position in some kind of bureaucratic office in the sky. Allright. Decision has been made. Dump the corpse on the altar, and offer... "Blood runs all over the altar!" "Your sacrifice is consumed in a burst of flame!" "Jubilex appears before you!" (The following best describes my immediate reaction upon reading the result...) !!!!!! ** I'm in shock. My brain is overloaded. All I can do is laugh uncontrolably. I take a break from the computer. Have to come down a bit... ** Hokay... Jubilex, eh? I'm resigned to my fate. The game is about to end. I know I'm dead. There's no question about it. It's like right next to me. Only have one or two turns left to live - if that. I've somehow summoned this thing. If not, then Mars is really peaved at me. I'm just shaking my head back and forth. And I was doing so well this game (argh)! Never encountered him in that game that Nethack is not. But sure as hell new I would never survive such an encounter there either. I know this name. Actually this isin't even his real name. No one knows it, and even if they did, no one could pronounce it. He's really known as the 'Faceless Lord'. That's because he's just a mound of putrid slime and guck. He's a demon lord (chaotic/evil). Demon lords, as well as demon princes, each have a plane in the abyss. There are 666 planes to the abyss. His specific plane is just a swamp of slime and guck also. Ochre jellies, slimes, puddings, etc., are what inhabit it. Nothing in it's right mind worships this guy except... WAIT! What did I just say? He's a demon. He's chaotic! Nethack makes no distinction between good or evil (Rangers are good. I'm an Elf. Therfore I'm chaotic/good in the game Nethack is not universe.). Could he be freindly? I do the look (";")... He's peaceful! He's peaceful! He's peaceful! My spirits rise a thousand fold. I might get out of this! Stay calm now. Think... Gawd... It's been so long ago since I played that other game that Nethack is not. How does demon summoning work again? Hmmm... You need a pentagram drawn on the floor. You have to stay within it. It has to be drawn with what again...? You need candles or somekind of substance burning in a dish on all the points. That's to keep the demon at bay. You need blood from some kind of pure animal for the ritual (?)... You have to know the demons true name in order to get it to do your bidding. But no one knows this guys true name. Jubilex is his nickname... (groan)... Just can't think of it all. Demon summoning wasen't for the faint of heart. And even the best of magic users often got killed summoning lower demons. No one in his right mind ever tried to call in a demon lord. Well... Since it's peaceful. Let's see what it has to say. I know that this thing is super intelligent... (#chat). "Jubilex gurgles." (laugh) Obviously, it is beyond my pityful ability at comprehension. Hokay. What's the preistess got to say? She should be able to have an idea what to do here. This is her domaine of things after all, no? The preistess wants to have some ale. Good plan! That will just about wrap everything up just nicely here. Isin't that what got us in this mess in the first place? I'm starting to think that the preistess has a drinking problem. Hokay, gently now... I take a few steps AWAY from this thing. I can still see it. So now I know it's warm. I go to my chest and see if I happen to have any wands of teleportation. I got one. From now on, I'll keep this on me also. Just in case. It seems to be just sitting there. Hasen't moved an inch. Hmmm... Maybe it is bound to the altar somehow? It's chaotic, after all. I take a few more steps, start heading around it. Now, I'm tracing a circle around the altar. Okay... It is definitly not moving. This may not be as bad as I had anticipated. Perhaps I over reacted (If such a statement is sensical when a demon lord shows up next to you!). All in all, as far as I can tell, it's eerily kind of cool. A dark chaotic temple, surrounded by light, with it's very own resident demon lord. What a happening place this temple is turning out to be! I make a note to eventually get the ice box from my base camp in Temple Town over to here. I'll use it to store some potions of booze for us all. A black pudding showed up at one of the temple entrances. For a moment I thought that Jubilex had summoned it. But upon further consideration; If he would have, shoulden't it have showed up near him? Like inside the temple at least? Jubilex was right next to the altar. But then I remembered that black puddings don't show up with infravision. Could he have summoned a whole bunch and now the temple is infested with these things?! Carefully, I start searching the temple all over the place. It was clear. So I went to my pile of assorted weapons and pulled out a club. You have to use blunt weapons on these things or else they might split in two, then you have a whole pile of problems. Walked up to it, and eventually clobbered it. It left a corpse. I thought about offering it to Mars. But then ol' Jubilex might take somekind of offense to that. Ponder... Came to the conclusion based on everything I could recall on 'demenology'. These demon types kinda get off on weird and whacky things. Life has no meaning to them. Torture and things getting hurt and/or mutilated gives them a big kick - even if it's to their own kin. Unlike devils (which is the study of 'devilry', by the way). They're lawful/evil so I'm assuming if any show up in Nethack, I'll be in trouble. They abide by a different code of conduct. They have an organisation to their nastiness, which does not include offing their own kind without a logical cause. Okay. Now that I have satisfactorily rationalised that out; I heave this big pile of black goop up onto the altar. With Jubilex and the preistess next to me, I offered it to Mars... "Use my gift wisely." was the big booming response. "Orcrist" appeared at the altar! Another gift from Mars! Oooh... This one is some kind of sword. But I can't use swords (except short ones). (I look at #enhance again.) Now I can! Thanks Mars! Big thumbs up for thinking of everything! Since I've mentioned the above. He gave me "Stormbringer" in a few games already. It's a sword also, and I was able to get to basic weapons skill with that. But since I'm doing so great this game. He's giving me new stuff. Or maybe he felt I had done all I could do with "Sting" already, and I needed a more prestigous weapon (shrug). Well, let's see if it does anything special... Tried all the apply, rub, invoke commands. Coulden't discover anything. (sigh) Really could use instruction manuals with these things... Or at least the Oracle could give out some kind of clue. Even if it's in the 'major consultation' price range. Trust me, I would pay! Now, through one of the right hand doors of the temple, I see a mob of orcs appear in that room with the shattered statue. There's something about that room. Lots of monsters materialise in there. Or perhaps that statue signified something about it? Over the course of the game, I would spend many turns looking if there was some kind of portal, or a monster generator in there. So far, I haven't found any. So these are just plain ordinary orcs. Excellent opportunity for unskilled weapons practicing (grin). And there's a whole mob of them to boot! I start heading for them, cause I know that they'll turn and flee if they come into the temple of Mars. Everything is going so great. I've never had a better game going. It seems I can't do no wrong. Everything just falls into place. My strategy (besides a few bumps here and there) is working out beautiful. This was my ultimate high in Nethack to date! As soon as I was nearing them orcs, Jubilex teleported right next to me. In fact, he teleported right in front of me. I walked into him by mistake! "Really? You want to attack Jubilex?" (y/n) I looked real hard at the keyboard to make sure I pressed the "n" key. Phew! But before I can start figuring out why he teleported here... "The orc turns to flee!" "The orc turns to flee!" "The orc turns to flee!" "The orc turns to flee!" "The orc turns to flee!" Wow. Jubilex sure puts the old fear of impending doom in them I see. He must have an 'aura of cause fear' as an inate speacial ability. Even though they're lowly orcs, I don't blame them. I'm still kinda getting used to him myself. Now why did he pop here? I'm not surprised that he can teleport. He's a demon lord, after all. These types have loads of special abilities. He's peaceful, not tame. So it's not cause he's like a pet. Wonder if it would be possible to tame him? Hmmm... Naah... Why would a demon lord ever want to be my pet? That's ridiculous. Maybe he's watching me like a gaurdian or something? Could Mars have sent him to watch over me...? Naah... Gods send minions to do that. Not demon lords. Besides, I'm not important enough for them to bother with anything like that. Allright. Whatever. Maybe I'll figure it later. Okay. Side step Jubilex and go to round up them orcs. I'm kinda curious to what this "Orcrist" blade is all about. Man oh man... I ended up chasing them all over the dungeon level. Jubilex just kept on popping in all over the place. And whenever he did, which was like nearly all the time, the orcs just ran like hell. What a pain he's turning out to be (urgh). Especially when I'm in a corridor that's only one square wide. He has the knack of popping in the exact same square that I want to enter next. Have to be careful. Have to be very careful, actually. I had to hit the "n" key several times when I kept on getting asked wether I wanted to attack him or not. Needless to say, that unless I knew exactly where Jubilex was, there was no BDD flinging at all. I gave up on the orcs before I had finished hunting them all down. Things were becoming impossible to do. How am I supposed to kill anything that's not a jelly or a pudding with him constantly around? Even worse was this constant teleporting right in my face. How am I even supposed to be able to get anywhere? I start feeling a little depressed at the computer desk. Jubilex may have ruined my game. This looks like it's going to turn out like that game where I had found a cursed ring of polymorphing (Which is also on my list of "Things to never do again in Nethack", by the way.). I coulden't do anything anymore in that game (sad face). (Sigh) What a let down. Time for a break... ** I saved the game, and took a day off to mull things over. ** Well... If I carried a pick-axe with me all the time, then I could dig around him. That would be feasible, I suppose. Still an incredible pain though. That would really make the game long also... As if it isin't already... The permanently fleeing monsters will have to be dealt with missile weapons. Have no real problem with that, considering my role and these BDD's I now use. Makes melee weaponry even more useless for me.... I considered the beartrap trick, but decided against it since Jubilex had no legs... Too bad locking him in a room won't work. His teleporting ability cancels that... Wait! He has never moved except by teleportation. Leperchauns and nymphs can't teleport while in the boulders! If I could get him to a level in the boulders, that will be it for his teleports. I could then ditch him there! Besides that, I'll just have to banish him when I get to be an 80th level Ranger (You can't kill a demon lord unless it's done on his own plane in the abyss. Best you can hope for is to banish him from this plane.). I'm going to have to start an offering list also, I now see. Better put Elven kings down in the "hold off for now" category. Allright. Now I have a plan with a very solid basis for success. Well, it all seemed so to me anyways. Fire up the game again... Make my way back to the temple of Mars. I'm approaching my chest. Jubilex pops in right in front of me again. Right on the same square as my chest! Damn. If he has any g-cube abilities, that will disolve all my valuable booty! This could be disasterous. I try to push him off the square with the "m" prefix to the direction. Nice try, but no go. Okay..., all the paths from stair to stair on each level have been swept for traps and cleared. Glad that I adopted that 'clean dungeon' philosophy a while back. I'll trek out there with what I have in my inventory. There won't be any problem, I'm sure. I head for the upstairs of dungeon level 24. Jubilex pops near, but not next to the stairwell. Hmmm... How am I going to get him up the stairs? My perfect plan seems to have a fatal flaw (laugh)! I go up the stairs. Of course, I'm now alone. I go back down. Jubilex is still sitting (or whatever) in the same spot. I move around the stairs, search the entire room, and just use time on the clock. I'm hoping that he pops next to them. He doesen't. Then I realise that only my pets have ever followed me up and down any stairs. He's not tame. He's peaceful. No peaceful monster has ever followed me anywhere. Even when next to me in stairwells. There are lots of peaceful types that I pass by all the time in my travels, even in this game. Allright... He can't change levels I guess. But I better make sure. I go up and toodle around level 23 for a while. Even go up to level 22 for a bit. No Jubilex anywhere to be found. Back to level 24 and head straight for the downstairs. Jubilex pops near but never next to the stairs. Down I go for a little while, and actually do some touch-up explorations of the level. I was a little pre-occupied last time I was down here, if you recall. Fine. Problem solved. Jubilex can't teleport between levels, or use stairs. Just have to be careful when I'm around base camp. Especially with BDD flinging. That's how we got him in the first place. I engrave "Jubilex No BDD's" on both squares that have stairs on the base camp level. That way I'll be reminded as soon as I enter. No matter where I come from. Back at base camp, I managed to fool Jubilex as to which square to pop into by deliberately staying two sqaures from the chest untill he poped in. So at worst he could be next to it, but not on it. I also discovered that as long as I did not change my actual location, Jubilex doesen't pop. So I could search, rest, loot, throw, put on, etc., and use all the time I wanted from the clock safely. So long as I did not move, Jubilex did not pop. Okay. The game seems like it can be manageable again. Ha! Demon lords may be supra-geniuses, but I'm an Elven Ranger (wink). Part 12: Chain Reaction ----------------------- I have now completed what I had set out to do a while back; breach the ghost level, and find another base to stage missions from. The Mazes of Menace are pretty well cleared from dungeon level 25 on up to the surface. There's a few pockets of monsters scattered on a few levels, but I see no reason for clearing them out yet. They're not going anywhere, I'll handle those at my leisure. As far as I can tell, I'm able to handle whatever I run accross at this depth. As long as they're alone, even air elementals don't scare me anymore. I ponder a bit on what I should be doing next... I'll stick to the general strategy thus far. First, I'll see how I can strengthen up my character a little. Then I'll penetrate deeper into the Mazes until I start feeling uncomfortable. By then, I'll maybe have found some more fine booty, and/or make another spectacular discovery. Then, in any case, I can turn back and see what, if anything, those special monster areas contain. Fine. Mission defined, I set about to the task. Rummaged around my loot and assessed what was available to improve my character. By now, I have a whole bunch of stuff identified. My discoveries list ("\" command) is so big, that I have to actually scroll down it to see it all. Never had so much with any character before! I also have my own lists I keep myself with pen and paper. I won't explain the whole procedure, but through a little bit of examination, cross note comparing, previous games experience, and deduction, I was able to figure out what was the scroll of enchant armor. Well... close enough. I got it on my second try (laugh). My orcish helm (Yes. I know it's orcish and I'm an Elf. But it was +3!) had rusted when I was testing some snow boots at an earlier time, so wanted to improve things in the armor class departement. I had two scrolls of enchant armor available. I looked at my inventory and decided to enchant my gloves. All the rest of my armor had an enchantement of some kind already. Who knows? Maybe if I give my gloves a "+", I'll do more dammage when I hit something. In the game that Nethack is not, magical armor gives some bonuses to different things; saving throws, missile defence, etc. Besides, they stood out in my inventory list. The first scroll got them to +1. Good enough. Now my armor class was back to what it was before I took a dive in that puddle. Everything had an enchantement, and my list looked nice and even when displayed. One scroll of enchant armor left. Where should I apply it? Hmmm... Concluded that my +2 dwarven mithral chain mail was the most valuable peice of armor that I possessed: - It gave the biggest improvement to my armor class per inventory slot. If you consider everything at base +0, it gave me a net of 6. I know that plate mail, and crystal plate mail (of which I had in my booty stash) gave better, but they're just too darned heavy. (see note 1.) - It is mithral. Mithral has magical properties in the game that Nethack is not, as well as in the other game I mentioned in my prologue. - Dwarves make the finest armor in all the games I've played. Here's what the guide to Nethack says: "Dwarves' most notable trait is their great expertise in mining and metalwork. Dwarvish armor is said to be second in quality not even to the mithril armor of the Elves." So I read the scroll and the armor became +4! I never had armor increase more than one "+" before. So something in the analysis above must be correct. Either the magical properties of mithral, the fact that it's made by dwarves, or perhaps a combination. I dunno. But what really counts; is that dwarven mithral is worth it's weight in gold many times over. With my best sheild, my armor class was now -22. This was a phenominal amount to me. ** I also took this opportunity to do a complete clean up of all the papers that I had accumulated to the game of Nethack near my computer. It's amazing how it just all piles up, eh? Cleaned up all my pen and paper lists, recopied just what wasen't identified with a few notes here and there, and threw the old ones away. After all I had nearly everything available in the discoveries ("\") list. This was done at the end of a session on a Wednesday night. Garbage pick up in my neighbourhood is Thursday morning. I'm giving you this completely insignificant peice of information now as it will become apparent soon... ** Now I put together a real kit of objects for a deep exploration mission. I'm not going to list it all, but although my backpack was loaded, I was not burdened. I wanted to penetrate another 8 levels. I was aiming for dungeon level 34 at the time (lots of laughs). So I bid goodbye to the preistess of Mars and headed for the downstairs of base camp level 24. In the last room I waved goodbye to Jubilex, and descended to the recently explored 25th level. Confident and with my head held high, I marched towards the downstairs of level 25. I was well armed. I had bullet proof armor. I was capable. I was resourceful. Here's the stairs. Now down we go... Oh yeah, It's a dark room. I better light a candle... Heah! I have no candles!! Ah man... Okay. Let's see how it goes... Explored the first room with the stairs in the dark. One exit only. Followed it to another room, It was small. Only opening out was to the left. Next room I found some stairs. When a mimic search proved them to be real, I decided to go see if there was anything in the first room downstairs... - Whole bunch of messages appear on the screen. Among them: "(Something) throws a boulder at you." "You are hit by a boulder!" "The titan casts a spell at you." "You reel from (something)." "You are blinded." "You can't see!" - A titan? What's that? Where's my picture? Where are the stairs? - Apply unicorn horn named "black". - "Nothing seems to happen." - "(Something) hits!" "(Something) hits!" - Look at hit points. - Apply unicorn horn named "black". (Come on!) - "Nothing seems to happen." (groan) - "You are hit!" "You are hit!" "You are hit!" - Okay. What's the story? Am I on the stairs or what? - Hit "SHIFT" + ">" - "You can't go down here." - Oups. Okay, stay calm... - Hit "SHIFT" + "<" - "You can see again." "There is a stairway down here." - Look at the dungeon level. It says 26. Ouf! That was close. But wait... - Something is wrong with me. I think I'm halucinating. - Apply unicorn horn named "black". - Now I'm confused!? What's happening? - Take a step towards exit in room. - Try again. - And again. - Walk into wall. - I notice that I'm burdened. Why? My strength is down to 14!? - Okay. This isn't working out too well. - Look at inventory. Make sure unicorn horn is the letter "u". Yes it is. - Okay. One more time. Slowly now... - Press key "a" - Press key "u" - "You feel sick." - I'm now ill. How many different kind of ills can show up on the status line? - Somethings wrong with my unicorn horn. I think it's broken. - Look at inventory again. Look very hard at everything that is written on the screen. I don't notice anything different... (?) - (scratch head) This is no good. I think I'm dying... This reminds me when I ate something rotten and developed food poisoning once. Only, this is worse. I'm also confused and halucinating and whatever else. Is it for real? What happened with the unicorn horn? Nothing is showing up different on my inventory. Could there be other things affected? Did I get hit by something that reversed the polarity of all my objects? It's like, working backwards...? Something walks into the doorway to the room. I'm halucinating, it could have been anything. I'm in no shape to face anything stronger than a gnewt, and I can't move safely because I'm confused. I don't even know if I'm deathly sick or not. I may die before it kills me anyways. Okay. Time for Mars to come through. I pray... Mars came through. Good, I'll make it up to him when I get back to the temple. But first I have to get away from this Olog-hai that's now standing next to me! I take a step back from it. My Elf secret door detection ability kicked in and a door revealed itself. Unlock (Yes. I ditched the rusted key for the lock pick.) and open the door. The Olog-hai hits. I'm surprised cause I have a super armor class. Move into the hallway. Can't close it back, this Olog-Hai is too fast, or I'm too slow. The encounter with the titan just before has saped my hit points some what. Since I don't yet know what the story is with the unicorn horn, I don't dare try a potion of healing. It also may work backwards. Would be nice if I could regenerate a little more before having to fight this thing at melee range. Turns out to be a long hallway. I'm exploring and running at the same time. Bad position to be in. I haven't cleared this level yet. This is not good either. Probably full of monsters just about to all converge on me. I have to make a stand soon. Hallway opens into a small room. At least it's lit. The Olog-hai is keeping pace with me exactly. Hit points are back up a little. Show time... I turn and fire a salvo of BDD's. At the same time I hear the sound of a door being broken into. Oh great. There are giants on the level. Fire again. Only one BDD launched. Damn. Don't want to take too long dropping this thing. It's hitting back stronger than I had expected. Is my armor working backwards? Are my BDD's okay?! Fire again. Again only one launched. Luck is bad. This is not good. Fire again. Only one BDD again!? Have to change something. The computer is always giving the same results. Have to fool it somehow. I step down and left. There. Now everything will be different. Fire. Finally, 3 or 4 BDD's flew. It may have tacken all of them to bring the Olog-Hai down. It's about time. Now pick up the BDD's and the Olog-Hai booty, burdening me in the process. Let's get out of here now. Step towards the doorway... "You step on a polymorph trap!" "Your dwarven mithral mail breaks asunder." "Your cloak of protection is torn apart." "Your boots are pushed off of your feet." "Your gloves fall from your hands." "Your helmet clangs onto the floor." "You are polymorphed into a winged gargoyle!" "Your movements are no longer encumbered." "You may lay an egg." "Type #sit to lay an egg." Now get this: There is also a blue dragon in the doorway! Time out. You know, this game can drag on for days. Nothing really happens for thousands of turns. Then in just a few, the whole game takes a twist. My brain is overloaded. Too many things are happening all at the same time. Have to assess all of this now. Best to just take it slow. I have gotten pretty good at not hitting any keys in stressed situations lately... - I've been polymorped in previous games, so this was not a completely new thing. Still. No fun when it happens. That's what happens when you don't properly search an area before venturing into it. - There went my super dwarven mithral and that cloak of protection. Damn. That was a tough blow to swallow. Combined, they were worth 17 points to my armor class. - How come I'm no longer encumbered? Oh yeah, all my armor is either brocken or on the floor. Still, I didn't think it weighed that much? I see that my strength is now 18/**. That probably has something to do with it. - Are any of my other attributes changed? Not that I can notice. Funny, my charisma is the same (laugh!). - Armor class was surprisingly better than I would have imagined. Was nothing compared to what I had a turn ago. But better than anything I could recall from previous transformations. It was in the negatives, maybe -2 or something. - Winged gargoyle, eh? Although I can kind of figure out what it is, I never ran accross this type of monster in Nethack. Gargoyles yes, winged no. Well, I figure that I'm made of stone and masonry. Guess I can fly. I'll have to test that out if I survive long enough. - That "laying an egg" message sure made me laugh. For some reason I found it extremely hilarious! Coulden't stop laughing for a long time. So much so, that tears were forming in my eyes. So far, that's the most I've laughed for any one particular message recieved. And I've seen lots of funny ones - to me anyways. - That blue dragon was a first also. Didn't know what it was till I did the look (";"). To me the picture looked like a blue pelican. But my vision was probably a little blury at the time (laugh). Was almost hoping it would be freindly (peaceful), since I was now a monster. But it wasen't. Hokay... First order of business is to survive untill I can figure out how to play properly as a winged gargoyle. That blue dragon is in all likelyhood a direct threat to that. It was sitting at a range of two from me. What's so special about blue dragons again? I tap into my knowledge of that game that Nethack is not... All dragons have 2 claw attacks and a big bite. Depending on their size and age, that is the amount of hit points they have. Had no idea how far Nethack would go into detail for dragons. So since it didn't say anything like; large, huge, small, etc. I'll assume it is middle aged. The reason they have different colors, is to differentiate their breadth attack. For example: Red is fire, Black is acid, etc. So then blue is probably either frost or lightning. In anywhich case, the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to fight it. Even small dragons are super tuff and very intelligent. Especially against a winged gargoyle that has no clue on how to act like one! Also... I think that I'll forego the #sit option for now. Laying an egg would have to wait for when I had more time and was alone (laugh!). Super lucky that there was another exit to this room behind me. Now how fast am I compared to this thing? I picked up (",") all the stuff that fell to the floor during my transformation. It did not move. Good. Now I know it's not faster than me. Took a step down and right, towards the other exit... Breadth attack! The lightning zoomed passed me. Bounced off the wall behind me. Hit me on the way back. Reflected off my amulet. Bounced on the wall behind me again. Missed me this time. And finally stopped when it hit the blue dragon. The blue dragon seemed not affected by it, was the last message given. Wow! Dunno about the rest of you. But on my computer screen it was pretty spectacular how that lightning bolt was zinging around! This was my first experience at blue dragon breath attack. Now I learned a lot from what just happened... - Dragons don't move when they use their breath weapon. It was still in that doorway. Now I had increased my distance from it to three. - Blue dragon breath attack is at least able to range out to three. So, since I'm assuming that Nethack will have other colored dragons, they may do so as well. - It does not have a wide angle dispersion beam, like the pyrolisk I had encountered way back (See Part 1: Journey to the Oracle). I was now in direct line of sight of this thing, from that step I just took. - That pyrimidial amulet I've been wearing all this time has been revealed. Remember the one I got from that crazy fight back at the boulders? I completely forgot about testing it way back when. So now it's a confirmed amulet of reflection. - Based on this and previous games; seems that an amulet of reflection is always there when I clear the last room in the boulders area of the dungeon. Okay... Now I'm next to the other exit. I can step out and be out of this things line of sight and run (or fly) like a winged gargoyle outa hell! I'm exploring as I'm runing again. Trying to make my way back towards the upstairs of dungeon level 26. But with the titan encounter, folowed by the Olog-hai encounter, folowed by the polymorph trap and the the blue dragon encounter; I have to head into unknown territory again and hope that an alternate path leads to that room with them stairs. Boy. So much for my plans on reaching level 34 (laugh!). Along the way, I discover that I can put what's left of my armor back on. After every peice that was to be put-on, I was glancing at the status line to see by how much my armor class was improving. That's when I noticed how many hit points I now had... 42! What!? I had twice that amount as an Elven Ranger! (groan) I have to stay out of fights, unless it's against something really weak. Great, now I have something else to worry about. As if I don't have enough already. I ended up in a very long corridor that stretched across nearly the whole distance of the map. It was a dead end, of course. I searched for quite a while, but since I was now a winged gargoyle instead of an Elf, I coulden't find, discover, or detect anything worth a crap. Eventually I knew I would transform back into my old self. Since I was at the end of a really long corridor and haden't met anything, I figured I was safe from any wandering monsters for a few turns. So I decided to lay an egg. Didin't want to miss this opportunity in Nethack. It may never happen to me again. So I hit the "#monster" command. That's what I was able to do in prior forms in past games for special monster abilities. I got the message that if I could do anything, it was purely reflexive, or something like that. Oh yeah! The game told me to #sit (slap head + laugh). This was my first time at this (laugh). Anyways, I sat and an egg poped out. Forget what it was called, "an egg from you" or something. Now what am I supposed to do (scratch head)? Keep it warm so it can incubate? Ponder... I know that winged gargoyles reside at the top of buildings. So maybe they have nests like birds. Maybe they incubate them the same way as birds in a nest - they sit on them (?). I really had no real experience and or knowledge about this. This was just pure conjecture. Well, let's try. So I sat on the egg... The game told me it wasen't very comfortable. Sure. Makes sense to me. Lucky I didn't break it, now that I think about how ridiculous I must have looked (laugh!). So I picked it up and laid another one. I had no idea how often I would be ovulating. So may as well do another in case something should happen to the first one. Hokay. Now that I've been able to experience that event in Nethack, I headed back along that long corridor. Halfway through, one of the eggs fell from my pack and a gargoyle appeared with a little heart next to it's picture. It said "Mama" (Laugh!) Two more steps and the same happened with the other egg. Looks like I have two pets. Only thing I found strange was that they were 'gargoyles', and I was a 'winged gargoyle'. Maybe they're like kittens, little dogs, and ponies. They eventually grow up with time (?). Hmmm... I decided to do what has become a regular habbit when something new or wierd happens in Nethack: I consulted the guide. Here's what I found in the pet section... "Like you, your pet needs food to survive. It usually feeds itself on fresh carrion and other meats. If you're worried about it or want to train it, you can feed it, too, by throwing it food. A properly trained pet can be very useful under certain circumstances. Your pet also gains experience from killing monsters, and can grow over time, gaining hit points and doing more damage." Didn't pertain to what I wanted to know. But it explained something I had witnessed earlier this game. Remember when "Missy Prissy" grew up from a kitten to a large cat in that other really big fight (See Part 7: Lessons On Greed)? Now I knew why: Pets grow over time, eating, AND killing monsters. Although I have read the guide, I don't know how many times, I always seem to come across something I either missed, or something that finally "clicks" in my head. So now I figurd that these gargoyles would grow into their mothers' type by; feeding them and getting them to kill some beasties. Just had to get them heading in the proper direction now. Since they were behind me, I had to displace them forward so that they would go out the proper direction from this corridor we were in. I got to re-experience all the joys of herding pets with no leashes or a wonder whistle again (roll eyes). It's bad enough with just one, but when your dealing with two, the problem is many times more exasperating than by a factor of 2. If I would have known this before hand. I would have laid only one egg... Eventually, we finally got to a section that on the screen, was just above the room with the upstairs. There was no alternate path I had discovered that led back directly to it. I really, really did not feel like having to go back all the distance through the winding way from my original direction. Besides, there was still a blue dragon to contend with on that road. Well then. Can I use a pick-axe? Yes I can! Great. I dug a passage downwards on the display to the room with the upstairs. Came back and herded my two babies towards it. Remember, it's a dark room... I'm trying to get these two babies of mine to be next to me on the upstairs. I don't know how the messages were worded exactly, but I was suddenly attacked 6 times in one turn. Every attack said something about my helmet protecting me in some way. Two of these said something funny I never saw before. Also the thing was invisible, cause it showed up as a question mark on the display. Could have also been mentioned in the messages that it was invisible, I don't remember (actually that's funny that "I don't remember"!). Now, I have never been hit by one of these before. Whenever I saw one, it got killed from a distance. Trust me, I know all about these things from the game that Nethack is not: Mindflayer. And it was invisible to boot! Never new that about them. Actually, I was surprised that I wasen't dead. Really thought that if you failed your saving throw, your brains got sucked out your nose. In any case I was totally grossed out. If you haven't figured it out by now... I absolutely hate being touched. I'm an Elf and a Ranger. Having tentacles trying to grope their way up my nostrils was completely revolting to me. No need to think or ponder about my next action. I have to get away from this thing! I moved left (it was on my right), directly away from it. I assumed it had steped up with me. One of my babies was now next to me. I'm going to use it as an obstacle for the invisible mindflayer. I keep moving around, and away from where I think the invisible mindflayer is. I'm then going to start spraying the room with BDD's in order to localise, then kill it. Next step brings me right next to a hill (or stone) giant! How come I never saw the giant? What happened to my infravision? I do the look. It only says "seen with normal vision". So now I know that winged gargoyles don't have infravision. Wonderful. I'm going to have to get out of the "Elven Ranger" mind set and into the "winged gargoyle" mind set quick, or else I'm going to get killed by doing and/or assuming something stupid. Now the problem just got compounded very bad. These giant types come in groups. I'm in the dark with no infravision, and there's an invisible mindflayer in here too. Man. I'm just running from one disaster into another. This all started with me just going down the stairs to level 27 for a quick look! (lots of laughs) A battle raged between me and a few giants. I got hurt for over half of my hit points. Found out that attacking with my claws AND bite wasen't too bad as weapons. At one point, I reached for my wand of teleportation. Funny... I don't see it in my inventory under wands. Thought I had picked it up back when Jubilex first appeared? Must have put it back when I was reorganising my stuff. Oh well, I'll get it back if I survive through this. I eventually got them all, and was able to form some kind of obstacle combining the boulders they dropped with my babies. I blocked off an area of the room I figured the mindflayer was at. Finally found it again by pushing a boulder and getting the message that something was behind it. I then just kept on flinging BDD's till I got a message saying "You kill it." My babies never attacked anything. I was wondering why. Sure weren't up to par with my two previous pets (Sirius and Missy Prissy) in the bravery departement. Found a leash amongst all the junk scattered through the room. That was a welcome sign that maybe my luck was changing for the better. Put it around the neck of the closest gargoyle and herded the other next to me on the upstairs. Finally I was able to ascend... "You feel that you've been here before." Was the message that greeted me. Huh? What do you mean? And heah...! What happened to the map!? It's all black! What the frag is this?!? Is the competer brocken? I go back down to level 26. Everything looks normal here. Go back up the stairs. There's something wrong... The computer must be tired or something. This happens from time to time. Although never when I've played Nethack. Let's see. I go back down to level 26 where everything was normal. ** I save the game and exit. Reboot the computer. Fire up the game again. ** Okay. Up to level 25 and... Ah man... What's the story? Start exploring for the upstairs to this level again. The one gargoyle that is not leashed is a real pain. I don't even have infravision to help keep track of it. Finally, I herded them through level 25 towards the stairs to level 24. Pulled too much on the leash once. "It screams!" was the message in response to that action. Wow. That scared me. I could almost hear it. Up the stairs to base camp level 24. "You seem to vaguely remember being here." What do you mean? How can I forget? This is where the temple of Mars is! The engraving on the stairs was still here as well. So I absolutely knew that I was at this level (!). Now I have to explore this level again as well?! An elven king was in the room. I did the look, and saw he was peaceful. Great, but I didn't take the chance of chatting with him. I should have at some point. Would have been interesting if he would have had a different response than "cursing orcs". Found ol' Jubilex pretty shortly after. Verifyed to see if he was still peaceful. He was, and with him I chated. Figured that if anybody would get a kick out of me turning into a winged gargoyle, that it would be him (laugh). Good thing it was base camp, I remembered most of the general layout. The area around the temple to Mars was lit already from the works I had done with the pick-axe and wand. Still, that didn't make me feel better about it. The preistess of Mars didn't seem to mind the difference in my appearence. Gave her the few zorkminds I had acquired. Sorry, my excursion got cut short. Ran into a few unforseen problems. I'll have more zorkminds for you after I figure out a few things... Droped the unicorn horn named "black" on the altar to Mars. A black flash appeared. It was cursed. Hmmm... Cursed unicorn horns work backwards then. Titans can curse things I see... Okay. Take everything off, and I mean everything. Drop it all on the altar. Nothing else was cursed. Maybe something that was blessed was now uncursed, I can't recall. But my only unicorn horn was now worse than useless... Rumaged through the chest for another leash. Nope no luck. But from my notes, I knew there was one caught in a web on level 22. Okay, I'll head there soon. These baby gargoyles are really bad at following me around. Cats and dogs seemed much better I recalled. Started sorting out all my stuff into the different piles and the chest. It was an activity that I had done many times before. I was now very good at manipulating the #loot command while puting stuff in and out of the chest. But for some reason, I was getting all confused this time. It was like some things just no longer fit, and objects were completely mixed up...(?) Heah... Where is my +1 elven bow? What are all these scrolls labeled; KERNOD WEL, VENZAR BORGAVE, and GRAVEN DEH doing here? I had nearly everything identified... The potions were all wierd too... And the wands! And everything else in the chest!! I steped onto my two different piles of weapons and armor. Pressed the "," command and looked at the screens that appeared... There is something very wrong! I take a good look at my inventory screen ("i"). Things are all out of place! In a panic I looked at my discoveries screen ("\"). Oh no no NO NO! NO!! ARGHH! My computer has corrupted the files to Nethack. All the data has been garbled. All those months of time invested in playing this game... I slump in my chair. I'm holding my head with my left arm. The way it is positioned, I see the bottom left portion of the screen only. There on the status line I notice that my intelligence is 12. That's odd. I thought it was 14. I even checked everything after I got polymorphed. After that I didn't notice anything... Wait... I got hit twice by the invisible monster. There were two funny messages... Then it clicked. Mindflayer. At least I have my notes, and all my lists. I glance to my right for where I usually keep them. There is only one piece of paper. The cleaned up version. Oh my god! What day is it? (It was a Thursday night.) Awh geeez... Mindflayer. I now hate these things. Okay... Try and remember what all these potions, scrolls, wand, etc, were. It was impossible of course. That's why I coulden't find my wand of teleportation before, I had forgotten what it was. Joted down a few notes on what was likely what. I was pretty depressed. Even Elven weapons and armor were forgotten. I layed six more eggs and stored them in the chest. They may come in handy later. Now that I know you can get pets from laying eggs; it was too bad I wasen't polymorphed into a blue dragon. I know that dragons lay eggs. That would have been neat! Next thing to be done was getting that other leash. These baby gargoyles were both slow and not very good at keeping up with me. I set out towards dungeon level 22 where I knew one was located. Bumped into Jubilex a few times inside the temple of Mars and around the level. Having no infravision is horrible once you have gotten used to having it. As I climbed the stairs to level 23, I reflected upon the last days' events... Well. The game sure has taken a few unexpected turns lately. The effects of the encounter with the mindflayer were extremely aggravating. I would have to see if I could make the best of it... * Note 1: Talking about weight, being burdened, encumberance, etc. I would like to see something concerning how much certain things weigh. Maybe put it in the guide under a 'players' handbook' section or something. It would really help people like me figure what to carry and not. Only way I've been able to do it, is by seeing what makes me burdened or not when I pick it up. Like how many daggers are equivilant to a battle-axe, and so forth. My character should be aware of this, no? Just my 2 cents. Part 13: The Long Dark Ascent ----------------------------- "You have a sense of daja vu." Was the next message that greeted me when I climbed to level 23. The map was also black, of course (groan). Did I forget all the levels? All that time spent painstakenly exploring all those levels since the begining of this game... I was pretty discouraged, to say the least. Found the stairs up to level 22. Same crap message and darkness greeted me again when I climbed up. Search the level for the upstairs. Here we go. And there's the leash in the web. Well, hope I don't spread it around too much... I went to untrap it. Somehow that didn't work. No choice, have to step in and go through the process of trying to untangle it myself. Just have to be careful not to spread it onto the upstairs... "You rip appart the web with your bare claws!" The web disappeared from the screen. Woah! That never happened to me before. There's one advantage of being a winged gargoyle compared to an Elf! Picked up the leash and slung it around the other gargoyles neck. Great! Now I don't have to chase them all over the place. They were now both leashed. Good. Although I found that getting anywhere with them took an excruciating long time, at least they woulden't be able to stray too far. Since we were right next to the upstairs of level 22, I decided to take a quick look and see if the above level was forgotten... "You have a sense of daja vu." Gawd... Mindflayer. Those are truly an evil monster to let get next to you... By this time, I noticed that my babies were not eating anything. Like nothing at all. I would even linger around a fresh kill for a while in order for them to have a chance at devouring a corpse. Still they never did. Sometimes they would actually pick up the corpse, but not eat it. Okay, what's the matter with these gargoyles? Don't they eat? I went back to read the guide again. Coulden't find anything addressing this situation. In fact according to it, they should be eating (?). How will they grow into winged gargoyles if they don't? Oh well. Maybe I'll figure it out later. Hokay, lets get back to base camp and figure out what we'll do from there. Somewhere, and somehow, on the way back down to base camp, I got seperated from my two babies. Don't remember how exactly. Some kind of teleportation trap in all likelyhood. But what I do remember was being extremely upset that I had fallen victim to a previously known trap that was no longer detected... Mindflayer. Took me a while to get back to the level where my babies were. I was like 2 levels away from their last location, and probably had to search for stairs again. During this time, I transformed back into Elven form. Darn. I had forgotten to test if I could fly. Oh well, at least I got to discover quite a few other things on being a winged gargoyle monster (laugh). When I entered the level where my babies were last known to be at, I heard some noises in the distance. Allright, they're having a scrap with something. Good, this will help make them grow. As I closed in on them, a gargoyle appeared next to me. I knew it wasen't one of my babies, as it had no heart next to it's picture. I saw one of my pets a little distance away. The gargoyle next to me lashed out and hit me easily, as I now had an even worse armor class than when I was a winged gargoyle. These things are slow, so I was able to step back and kill it easily with BDD's. Sliped a leash over the baby I found, and started looking for the other one. Where is it? I searched the whole level, thereby exploring it all over again. Did it fall victim to a trap also? Could it have been the one I killed? If so, how come it became wild? I thought they went peaceful, not hostile if you stay away from them for a while (?). Eventually, I gave up and headed back to base camp with only the one gargoyle. I called him (it) "Grunt", as that's all it would ever say when I chated with him. Said high to Jubilex so that he would have a few more chuckles at my transformation again, and went to my piles of booty in order to re-organise my armor situation. Hmmm... I had something compared to what I had before. Another dwarven mithral mail, but it was only +2. Not as good as the one that got ripped apart. Still I was glad that I had another available. Picked up my old +2 Elven cloak. It felt comfortable having it back on again. The green color made me feel more Ranger like. Okay. Now I need another unicorn horn. Only other one I had was back at the base on dungeon level 4. Have to go back there, and while I'm at it, I'll pick up a bunch of stuff from there to transport it down to this base. Picked out one of each type of unidentified scroll and a few wands. The potions I would bother with at a latter time. And off we went. Pretty soon we ran into a dwarf lord or was it a dwarf king? Don't really matter, I killed it handily. However, it left some dwarven mithral mail as booty. Oh good. I'll run back down and verify it for cursedness at the temple. I wasen't far, and who knows, it may be better than the one I have on currently. This is the best mail in the game after all. Back to the temple of Mars, and discovered it was not cursed. I took off the suit I had on and tried the new one. Dropping the +2 suit in the process for some reason. It turned out to be +0. Okay, good to know, and it was worthwhile taking the time to check it out. Next I went to the chest for something or other. While I was rummaging through it, Grunt picked up the +2 dwarven mithral mail. Nothing out of the ordinary, he picked up things from time to time. He was on a leash, so I would just get it back when he dropped it again. Then I got this message; "Grunt puts on the +2 dwarven mithral mail." !!! Heah! Give it back. That's my best armor at the moment! Nothing doing. Grunt meant to keep it on it would seem... Okay... So then that's why my mail broke when I changed into a winged gargoyle. There was no room for the wings. Probably same reason why the cloak of protection ripped apart. Grunt had no wings. But if he should ever decide to grow into the type of monster that his mother was... Would it not break apart also? Is this a sign that he will never grow up? So then could it be possible that he can wear other stuff? I laid out some other armor on the floor for him to browse through. He didn't seem interested. Okay, maybe he'll like what I have at base camp on dungeon level 4 better. Or he can wear only one peice of armor maybe (?). I had no idea. Well, since Grunt was now better armored, I was hopping that he would do a little more fighting. He'll have to earn that dawrven mail (laugh). Allright. Organise everything nice and neat here. Said good bye to the preistess of Mars and ol' Jubilex, then started to head up in the Mazes of Menace... At level 21, had to rediscover where that general store was again. But since so much effort had been required to find it the first time, it wasen't too hard to remember where it was. Avoided the small mimic and had some objects appraised. It was disheartening to begin this proccess from scratch again. Every stinkin' level on the way up had to be re-explored. I didn't bother rediscovering the entire lay out of each level. Just enough till I found the stairs. I'll map them all out again sometime in the future. For now, I just wanted to get to the old base camp and organise a few things. On level 19, I was heading along a familiar corridor. Yeah, this is the way to the stairs. I remember something about this area now. We're almost there. Then... "A beartrap closes on your foot!" "You are caught in a bear trap!" Argh! That was the beartrap I had set myself! (See part 9: Breaching the Ghost Level.) Gawd dang darn it! I was fuming with anger... Mindflayer. Eventually got out of it and continued on up to level 18. My notes told me there was a gigantic beehive here. Well... While were at it, maybe a good opportunity for Grunt to get some experience at monster killing and grow a bit. Since he was made of stone, he should be impervious to poison. So we explored the level till I came upon the familiar area where the gigantic beehive was located. Unlocked the door and gazed upon the 59 killer bees and their queen. Removed the leash from Grunt, displaced him into the room, then closed and locked the door. I heard some noises. Okay, he felt big enough to attack these guys I concluded. I spent my time waiting and re-exploring the level a bit. After a while the noises stoped, so went back to see how he'd done. I knew he was still alive, as I did not get the "sad feeling" message. Unlocked and opened the door. Grunt was at the door with that same stupid blank look on his face that he always had. Most of the bees in the hive were still there (?). What's the matter with you? I saw that the remaining bees in the hive had not moved. They were all still in their original locations. Hmmm... Put the leash back on Grunt. Walked into the Hive. Closed but did not lock the door. Took a few steps around. Not one bee moved. Hmmm... Led grunt up to a cluster of bees. He attacked and killed one. The rest of the hive did not stir. Repeated this process till every killer bee had been killed. Sometimes Grunt missed and the bee would strike back. He never, ever, got hit what-so-ever. Not even once! Man, that dwarven mithral sure worked wonders on him! Grunt would not attack the queen. I killed her with a barrage of BDD's. Collected all the royal jelly from the hive. 32 packets is what I recall. This stuff tastes delicious. So Grunt killed 59 killer bees and did not become a winged gargoyle. Guess there was a mix up in his DNA. He wasen't going to grow into a winged gargoyle like his mother was. Oh well, he's hard to hit, and doesen't eat much - like not at all. Even though he had an ugly face and a stupid blank look, I was his mother and loved him all the same. Back to climbing up in the dungeon. Re-exploring the levels untill we found the stairs. Came upon the Ghost level again. This place I knew where the stairs were exactly. I had previously dug a channel directly accross to them (see part 9). Good thing I had the foresight to do so at that time. It saved me some aggravation now. Next event was the leperchaun den on level 12. I had no need for zorkminds. But figured, it would help Grunt gain a little confidence in fighting. I used the same methode as with the bee hive for here. Problem was, that at one point, Grunt picked up some zorkminds and a leperchaun taped him for it thereby teleportating away. We finished trashing them in their room. Grunt killing nearly all of them himself. Again, I never ever saw him get hit once, save for the time he had some zorkminds on him. Eventually, we located the one little green popper that had teleported away previously. BDD'ed him, picked up the zorkminds and continued our climb. The blacked out levels were relentless. Man, was I ever discouraged at this. It took so long just getting back up in the Mazes of Menace. At level 10, I put in some effort to rediscover the grave of Sirius. I had spent a fair amount of time, and had a few memorable episodes on this level in the past, so remembered it pretty well. Everything was still in place as it should be. Remembered Sirius for a little while, and proceeded on up. At dungeon level 5, an idea came to mind when I heard the "chime of a cash register". Since Grunt can wear armor, will he use weapons? We explored the level untill I had found the antique weapons shop again. I left Grunt outside while I went in. Picked up all the stuff and piled it into a corner. Only peice of equipement I did not do so with, was that overpriced morning star. Went back out and leashed up Grunt. Came back in and stood next to the morning star and waited... Grunt picked up the morning star! I walked back towards the door. The Shopkeeper did not say anything. I had no bill to pay! I nonchallantly walked out of the shop with Grunt in tow. Not until I had closed and locked the door to the shop did I jump for joy! YES! We had pulled a fast-one on the old shopkeeper! Ha! It was easier than I had ever possibly imagined. Gargoyles were kind of quirky, but neat as pets (laugh!). Since Grunt was leashed, he would not be let out of my sight. I knew that if he should ever drop that morning star, I would be told. As of yet, he never has. So now Grunt had +2 dwarven mithral mail, and a morning star priced at 49 zorkminds. Must be worth +2 at least. Morning stars are very ominous looking weapons. Monsters would be quivering in their boots when they would catch sight of him. He must have looked very scary (laugh!). Dungeon level 4 was the first one that we got to where no message greeted us upon climbing the stairs! It was still maped out. Small consolation. Since I knew it so well, it would have been easy to map it. Would have been nice if a harder level would have been in it's stead. Groan... Mindflayers. Finally. Base camp on dungeon level 4. Went through all my junk that had been left here from so long ago. I did not recognise most of it. That forgetting about stuff was really awful. I laid out more stuff for grunt to mull over. One was a blessed battle-axe. Was curious if he would be interested in it. If so, maybe drop the morning star. Since the begining of the game, I was always interested in that morning star for myself (!). Nope he didn't want it. Only thing he took was a +2 orcish helm. Oh well, at least the morning star was in his hands and not anyone else's. I see that Grunt was pretty fussy in what he wanted for himself. Just stuff that was at least +2 (!). He reminded me of his mother (laugh)! Okay, tidy up the place here, and pick up that other unicorn horn from the white one that we had offered to Mars all that while back. Picked out also some more unknown scrolls. The general store at Temple Town was closer than the one on level 21 of the Mazes of Menace. I would go and have them appraised there. Besides, I had another multitude of booty located at the base camp there. Was also curious if the forgetfulness applied to the caverns area of the dungeon as well. I was just two levels away from the stairs anyways. After having done 21 levels of re-discovery, what were a few more? So off we went. Level 3 was the same excercise at remaping a path from stair to stair. But level 2 was thankfully remembered. Headed straight for the humongous potion shop. Rummaged through that pile of 59 potions I had stacked in the corner. Lucky! He had one clear potion that was more expensive, and that did not meld with the rest. Don't remember what I paid for it, but it was well under 60 zorkminds for sure. A bargain considering what I needed it for. Went up the stairs to level 1 for a quick looksie. It was black. I came back down immediately and headed back to base camp at level 4. Verifyed the clear potion on the altar to Mars. I had figured correctly. It was blessed! Dipped the uncursed unicorn horn in it. The horn glowed amber. Made sure by dropping it on the altar. Adjusted it's letter to "u", and named it "white". There now. If I ever have a titan curse it again, it will still work. As it will go from blessed to uncursed. By then, hopefully I will have killed it before it has the chance to curse it to cursed. Satisfied, we proceeded back to level 2 and the downstairs to the caverns. So out of 25 levels of the Mazes of Menace previously known, only two had been unaffected from the vilest of creatures imaginable... The mindflayer. On the first level of the caverns, we headed for the monument to Missy Prissy. It had been undisturbed as well. We paused for a few moments as we had done for Sirius. The cavern levels to Temple Town proved to be a mixed blessing. The lit levels were forgoten. However the unlit levels were remembered. Thank Mars. At least that was bearable. Having to re-explore the darkened caverns would have been hard on my already dampened spirits, especially since I had run out of candles long ago. Ascent Summary: The climb back up through the Mazes of Menace can be summed up best with the following words; long, discouraging, tedious, exasperating, sad, interminable, aggravating, disheartening, boring, excruciating, and frustrating. It took many days in real life. Only a path from stair to stair is what I really only have on each level. Mapping out the rest will have to be done when I'm more up to it. I just can't bring myself to do so at this time. Too discouraged, I guess. Many caches of booty have also been forgotten along the way. As well as the location of all the traps. (sigh). This combined with having to re-identify nearly all of my booty, nearly compeled me to quit. Only all the time invested into this game, and having reached a depth never achieved before, was what kept me going. Though, with not as much enthusiasm as I had had before the encounter with the invisible mindflayer... All through these days of ascent, I was thinking how I could avoid the effects of this again should I encounter another one. One thing would stay with me for sure. If there was one creature that must be avoided at all costs; this would have to be the: Mindflayer. Part 14: There's A New Kid In Town ---------------------------------- "When I get that money, I'll buy the old ladies home and kick them out. I'll tear down the orphanage and fire the police department." - Yosemite Sam So I'm back in temple Town again, with my pet baby gargoyle Grunt. And... Yes, the town layout had been forgotten... We're exploring through it again, encountering the watch along the way. I anxiously watch for Grunt's reactions, as both Sirius and Missy Prissy had to be locked up when exposed to these guys. No such problem with Grunt, I soon discovered. Although he had both +2 helm and dwarven mithral mail, as well as, an expensive morning star; he was not going to hit any of them. Hrumph... Now I know why he came from an egg - he was a big chicken! Ah well, saves me the trouble of having to lock him up. I untied the leash from him and set him loose. At least I didn't have to be held up waiting for him, he was slow, when I wanted to go about my business here. I'll just grab him later when I'm finished. Went to start organising all the stuff at my base in a room between the general store and the temple. Assembled all the scrolls and went to have them appraised at the general store. Made lots of notes. Did lots of figuring and thinking. Got some of them pretty well figured out. This was frustrating to me, having to go through all of this again. But, I'm trying to not mention the name of that most despised of all creatures there is in Nethack: The mindflayer. So after quite a while at busting my head and getting stuff re-identified, I was ready to head back to the Mazes of Menace. Loaded up with all the booty I was able to carry, then noticed that I had forgotten about some booty that we had acquired along the way to here. Okay. I'll just test this booty for cursedness at the temple to Venus before setting out. The priestess to Venus was just as annoying as she'd always been. Always getting in my way when I wanted access to the altar. Also she only wanted my zorkminds so that she could spend it on furthering the power of her own god. Take a hike, I told her. I only serve Mars. She was not happy with that reply. She said I would regret my decision or something. Bah. She could go to hades for all I cared. Anyways, I was trying some stuff on when I made a big mistake. First time in all the time that I'd been playing this particular game. I was thinking of how obnoxious the preistess was, and not paying attention to what I was doing. I put on a cursed peice of armor. Some kind of helmet that turned out to be -2 also. Ah crap... Just what I needed. I was really upset with myself. This was one of the stupid mistakes that I had wanted to avoide doing in Nethack this game (see prologue to this whole story). Ding dang darn it! I lost my temper... I took out the pick-axe and started punching holes in the temple to Venus. After that, I started punching holes in some of the spots that annoyed me. The whole town was set up really bad. You coulden't get anywhere without having to take such a round about route. This had always annoyed me the whole game as well. Coupled with all the frustration of forgetting nearly everything I knew and had mapped - I needed an outlet for my anger. After a while, I managed to calm down... Now I needed to get rid of this stupid cursed helmet. I went back to the base, dumped the booty that had been verifyed at the temple, and searched through my stuff for a scroll of remove curse. Woulden't you know it, I had forgotten which one it was. Of course. Why should I be surprised at that (mutter, mutter). Well. Narrow it down to a few scrolls, and read a scroll of identify. The whole message area filled up and then "-- more --" appeared. Wow... All the stuff I was carrying on me had been idenified! Never had that before! Most of the time I get one, sometimes two choices. This was great! What a stroke of luck. Got the appropriate scroll and got rid of the cursed helmet. Gee... The gods must be smiling. Upon that thought, my mind began to turn to more sinister thoughts... I hate the way this town is laid out. I hate that there's a temple to Venus here. I hate that preistess of Venus. I hate the greedy gruby merchants. Had another scroll of enchant weapon just recently idenified. Took all of my remaining blessed +4 daggers named "BDD" and wielded them. Read the scroll. They became +6! And I did not have to identify them again! That's the way they now appeared in my inventory screen! Wonderful! Now I named these "BDDD" (Blessed Death Dealing Daggers). The gods are smiling indeed. My luck is turning. Mars must be giving me a sign. Fine. This town needs a new mayor. I'm taking over in the name of Mars! Marched up to the temple of Venus. I tore down the whole west wall of the temple with the pick-axe. Preistesses never move more than two from the altar. Let's see if she moves when threatened. I waited till she was lined up... Fire! The priestess got mad or something. I was happy for her. Fire! I don't remember her living past this point. Something came up in the messages saying something about me not supposed to that, or something. Like I cared how anybody here felt about things. Since when is a takeover agreeable by all parties concerned? Okay then. Who wants to make something out of it? A town watchman came along to answer that call. I was in the midst of sifting through the Priestesses booty when he came over to hastle me. Lay off Elf, I told him. Your working for me now. Next he made a bad decision concerning his well being. He hit me with his weapon. Fine. I stepped back and let him have BDDD's. He fell right away. Good. Maybe now people will show a little more respect when they see his corpse as well. No such luck. It's like the whole town watch was alerted or something. But the way this towns' layout was made, they coulden't all converge on me simultaneously. They all came around one at a time and with a time lagg between them as well. Made for easy pickings. During the fight with the town watch, a white unicorn got caught in the crossfire and fell. Good, I now have another unicorn horn. Also a ghost appeared. Who's it was, I don't remember, maybe the preistess of Venus. But it sure didn't last long to the onslaught of BDDD's. Only the watch captain was a little tough to take down. He actually got off a swing at me with his sword. The whole battle was fought in and around the temple to Venus. Messages would crop up from time to time about me getting some kind of eerie feeling. But my character showed no fear from this what-so-ever. Next, I dumped all the bodies on the altar to Venus and started offering them. The first one converted the altar to Mars. I was not surprised. Actually I was fully expecting it. Once you have a determined feeling about something, it usually turns out the exact way you thought. The unicorn gave me that "appropriately chaotic" message again. Glad to be of service Mars (wink). Also had a few messages about blood running all over the place. (shrug) There's always going to be bloodshed in a coup. Mars was so ecstatic, he gave me another gift: A sword named "Dragonbane". Another gift from Mars! My pleasure Mars. No reward nesscessary. I was sick of this place myself. But heah! I'll take good care of it (Finally, I think I can figure this one out.). With all of the contestations to my authority now settled; I then proceeded to cut clear paths throughout the town. Those shopkeepers that weren't pleased with my expropriation of their property for the new superhighways, were put out of business - permanently. This was done the same way as; the preistess, the white unicorn, the town watch, and the ghost went: BDDD's. Only ones that survived from the original town council were; Izchak from the candle shop, and what's his face who had the general store. I renamed the town: "Marsville". From here on end; this is by the name it shall be refered to. Had to put my plans of going back to base camp dungeon level 4 in the Mazes of Menace on hold for a while. With my impromptu coup, there was much work to be done here... Collected all the booty from all the bodies and now ungaurded shops, and tested for cusedness. Lot's of different stuff was discovered. Can't remember it all, at all. But it was quite a looting! Thousands upon thousands of zorkminds were piled in a heap. A bunch of wands. A slew of rings. Weapons and armor galore. A few spellbooks as well. And the mace that the preistess of Venus had, was cursed (har har)! Much time was spent trying on all the different armor. After that I had a pile of it, along with a pile of weapons, that were added to the existing piles I already had at the base. What am I going to do with all of this? It has no use just sitting there. I got Grunt to hover around the piles for a while. But he was being fussy again. So I made several trips to the guy who still had the general store. Armor, weapons, and a ton of miscellaneous stuff. I just dumped it all on him in one gigantic fire sale. This brought on another few thousand zorkminds into my purse. I'll tell you again: I had a lot of stuff. And there's still way more than that scattered in my caches in the Mazes of Menace (!). If I ever need some of it back; my BDDD's will assure me of a great big discount on their purchase price (wink). Went to see Izchack and bought out his remaining stock of candles. Hopefully he'll get a new shipment in by the time I come back. Hokay. Now that Marsville was all set up to my liking, and all the garbage was swept from the streets, I left a mob of gremlins in charge of running the place. You ever chat with these guys? They're a riot! Loaded up with all I could carry. Don't know how many zorkminds I had; 18,000 to 23,000 ? I dunno. It was more than I had ever acquired in such a short space of time before (laugh). Headed off to base camp level 4 in the Mazes of Menace. Didin't feel like checking if the levels below Marsville were forgotten or not. I had no real reason to go back there. Got to base camp dungeon level 4. Dumped all the booty that I did not need for now. Picked up all the zorkminds that I had accumulated since the begining of the game that was stored here. Combined with those from the sacking of Marsville, I now had like 43,000 zorkminds !! I was loaded. I had a plan that was now going to blow this game wide open for me (or so I thought). With grunt still in tow, I made my way to the Oracle of Delphi on dungeon level 9. Along the way, whenever a wandering monster poped out, all I had to do was drop all my zorkminds ("d$") and was now unencumbered to face it. But that was only if I was kind of concerned with it. If I wasen't, the BDDD's just dropped anything - and I mean anything, like never seen before. If you thought that BDD's were good, BDDD's were better. This was now the most powerful weapon I ever had at my disposal in Nethack. Combined with the Ranger ability of being able to fire in salvos, these were beyond deadly. BDDD's plus the ease I had with sacking Marsville brought my spirits way up again. I was feeling the same as when I had breached the ghost level. Funny. This game sure had it's ups and downs (laughs). Got to the Oracle and started just showering her with gold. Okay. Let's go. Gimme all your major consultations. I just kept going till she either told me she was through, or she started repeating stuff all the time. Don't remember, but I had written them all down, and then started with the minor consultations. This took quite some time. Two full sessions actually. I filled up three sheets of notes just from these! I think I stopped cause I got tired (laugh). And a lot of these were pretty useless I found. Just goes to show: You get what you pay for (laugh)! Now, at this point, I took a day and a bit off from playing Nethack. I had sapped the Oracle of her knowledge. I was going to reflect upon all of this, and combine it with my experiences in the game. I also read the guide to Nethack once more. It is good to take a break and absorb all the recent knowledge gained. That way I may be better able to apply it for the future... Part 15: Qualifications ----------------------- If you can just get your mind together Uh-then come on across to me We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise From the bottom of the sea But first, are you experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Having reflected upon my experiences, knowledge, and discoveries from the whole game thus far; I fired it back up after a day and some. Okay... What to do next? Not much really. Mars was super pleased with me. Him and I were working out just fine this game (See the pact I made with him in the prologue before starting this game.). So, no reason for concern there. Most of the dungeon was cleared out now up to level 26. Including most pockets of the special monster areas. I was still testing out "Orcrist" here and there. Wasen't impressed by anything it did. "Dragonbane" was tested a few times here and there also. But the closest thing I could find to a dragon so far was an iguana. I had an open box for broadswords now in the enhance screen. But untill I could figure if these were worth it, I was going to still keep my options open. (shrug) Besides, nothing stood up to the best weapon I had ever experienced: The "BDDD". Still had all the mapping of the levels to do, due to me forgetting them from the most despicable creature put on this plane of existance: The mindflayer. But with a cleared path to each stairwell on the levels, I was okay for now. I had just spent two days of writing down what the Oracle had to say. So was in the mood for something a little more exciting. Hokay. We'll get some stuff from base camp level 4, and move it up to base camp level 24. Once there, we'll explore level 26. If nothing special comes up, we'll either check out that barracks on level 25 or see what we can do against the titan on level 27. Good. A mission was now defined. With Grunt in tow, headed back up to base camp level 4 from the Oracles level. Assembled all I could carry that I felt was important. Made special sure that I had the candles with me (laugh). Also brought all the gold left over from the shower I gave the Oracle. About 8,000 zorkminds. Was going to give it to the preistess of Mars. I owed her some from my previous promises I had made to her. I no longer was worried about having to buy anything since I now knew that shopkeepers were push-overs. At dungeon level 16, one of the wandering monsters that appeared was a grey unicorn. Unless they're orcs, I don't stop to kill all wandering monsters, else I would never get anywhere. But for some I do go out of my way for. Unicorns are one of these. Especially after that encounter with the titan, which was always hovering in the back of my mind... So these things really hop around at a good clip, Grunt and I had to go in some of the black sections that were caused by me forgetting the lay out of the levels. All of a sudden the leash went slack and Grunt dissapeared. Some kind of trap that I had never seen before became visible. It was called "Portal to Home" I think. I finished dispatching the grey unicorn and circled around this new discovery. It looked like a teleportation trap, but was slightly different in appearence. It had an extra squigely line through it. Hmmm... Well. I assumed Grunt was still alive somewhere. Else I would have gotten a message saying something else to that effect. Although he wasen't that useful, he was kind of neat looking with that morning star and armor and all. Besides, he was my baby. I had to make an effort in rescuing him. This was dungeon level 16. How far could this portal bring me? It must be similar to the stairs that lead to the boulders and the caverns area. Hence, it can't be as dangerous as compared to a lower level, now could it? Okay. Decision has been made. I'm going to step into it. First I'll drop whatever I don't really need. I don't want to go through encumbered. Just in case there's a horde of monsters waiting on the other side. I want to be free for immediate battle action. I drop the stuff in a pile in the corner of the room I'm in. I searched it all carefully and completely before doing so. Checked my inventory. Made sure I had all the proper weapons wielded and quivered. Took a breadth and steped into the portal... I got a story on the screen. Something about being back home (?), and seeing the ancestral forest of my village (?). Clicked "okay" and the screen appeared before me. There were some centaurs in the distance and there was ol' Grunt just a few squares away. Okay... Did I exit the dungeon? Am I still in the Mazes of Menace? I looked at the dungeon level indicator. It said: Home 1. Good. At least I'm not embroiled in a fight for my survival right off the bat! I have time to look things over and such. Lots of open space on the right side of the screen. Excellent area for a Ranger to scrap in. Too bad most of the Mazes of Menace are in cramped quarters. The left of the screen has something new. Trees! After doing all the looking I could, I ventured towards them... Had to knock off a few centaurs, and levitate over a pit in order to find that this was some kind of maze. Centaurs were shooting bolts and arrows through somekind of iron grate. A few scorpions were hanging around also. Too bad I didn't have "Sting" with me to run a test on these. Okay. This doesen't look too tough. Let's go see what lies within this maze. I left Grunt outside the forest. I wasen't going to force him through the pit. If he would at least have grown up into the same monster as his mommie, I would have brought him along. Besides, he was okay where he was. He tried to stay near me and hugged the edge of the forest. So I wasen't worried about him stepping back through the portal. After a while, I saw that the path was made even longer than just slow closing circles. These iron grates served as a way to extend the tedious length of the path. Okay. Forget this. I'm just going to cut my way through. Pulled out the pick-axe and started hammering away at the trees... It woulden't let me. Okay... How about these grates? Same story. Urgh. Fine, I'll do it the long way... What made it even longer was that not all the centaurs were out to get me. Some were freindly. So I had to constantly do the look before firing. Lest I should kill one by mistake. Nearing the middle I found a minotaur. Figures. These guys always inhabit the middle of a maze. I remembered that from watching Hercules on TV when I was a kid. Also from my experience with that game that Nethack is not. I dropped the minotaur with just two salvos of BDDD's. I don't think he ever got to take a step towards me. Next were two arrow traps. Side by side. I got a bunch of arrows from disarming them. But, except for poisoned ones, I had ceased using arrows long ago. Nothing could compare to BDDD's. All these hunters were moving all over the place. Amongst them was a big guy called Orion. Made it tuff to get anywhere. And once I had disarmed those arrow traps, they just started filling the maze all throughout. They told me that Orion was having a hard time of late. Some mountain centaurs were hassling them with incursions into their forest. Somebody called Scorpious was the brains behind it all. He stole the longbow of Diana, and without it they coulden't stop the nasties. Everybody was doomed unless a hero (like me) could go and fix his clock. Allright. Now I figured out what the random dungeon sound on level 16 of the Mazes of Menace was all about. "You again here the call of help from Orion." That means there is a portal to the home level somewhere. Another big discovery for me! So I told Orion: No problem. In fact, it just so happens, I was kinda looking for something to do! But Orion got all dissapointed like. Said I still needed to learn a few things. I had to go and seek out teachers before I could help out. What? No no. I'm ready now! Trust me. I just took over a town. I can kill air elementals in one salvo of BDDD's. I have cleared the Mazes of Menace for 25 levels! I can suredly handle a few mountain centaurs and whatever this Scorpious guy is..., no? The answer was no. Hokay. So where are these teachers then? I asked every stinkin' hunter there was on the screen. Nobody was telling me. Fine. Since they weren't here, obviously, they must be in the Mazes of Menace somewhere. Trek back through that maze of trees. With the hunters and freindly centaurs now all over the place, and blocking the path; it made for a long trek. Yes, I tried levitating over them trees as well. Made a note that I was going to come back here with an axe. There was so much booty from killing all these monsters in the maze of trees, that I coulden't carry it all. I just made piles of it here and there. But I made sure to keep all the missile weapons on me, though. If they wanted to pick up a bow, or crossbow to wield against me; fine. But all of this shooting at me wasen't going to happen no more. Anyways, I had to come back here eventually I figured. I would pick them all up then. Got back to the portal and hesitated, in order to think, before stepping back through... Who and where are these teachers? Only one(s) that came to mind were the Oracle, and possibly Izchak from the candle shop in Marsville. The Oracle for obvious reasons, and Izchak cause of the different things he would sometimes tell me. Besides those two, I had never run across any other teachers...? There was Mars, who once told me that there was a tune to play somewhere in a past game. But he's a god. He's way, way above being a teacher. I just can't imagin that Orion was talking about him. The preistess never told me anything that was "teaching" either... I just coulden't think of anything else (?). Okay. It must be some kind of switch being thrown within the game: I talk with Orion, switch is thrown. -> Now the switch is open to talk with the Oracle -> Now I can go back to talk with Orion, cause the other switches have been opened. Just like in some of them old NES games way back during the '80's. Fine. I'll go through the motions. Okay Grunt. I'm just going to zip down and chat to the Oracle for a minute. You stay here (you'll just slow me down for something I can do more quickly without you.), I'll be back in a jiff. "Grunt grunts." was the reply. So I stepped through the portal and was wisked back to dungeon level 16. Went to pick up my stuff I had droped previously. Then waited for a few turns to see if Grunt was going to come through the portal. He didn't. Must be the same as when I leave him at the stairs on another level. Okay, let's zip to the Oracle... Wait! I'm burdened! Urgh.... Can't zip around while burdened, and where can I ditch all this booty? Besides the base camps, I forgot where all my caches were. Okay. I'll go down to base camp on level 24 first to dump all this stuff. It's just 8 levels away. Then, I'll go see the Oracle. Makes sense. So down I went... Gave the preistess of Mars my pile of zorkminds. She said that my genorisity was selfless or something. No probs, I said. Me and big guy Mars have an understanding this game. I do everything for him, and he comes through when I ask. I've been promising you a ton of zorkminds for ages now anyways. Just spend them on some gaudy decorations befiting a temple to Mars (wink). Sat around for a bit at the altar to Mars with the preistess and Jubilex. Had a few beers and told them the story about me taking over Temple Town, then naming it Marsville in honor of our god. Then I showed them my latest gift from Mars; "Dragonbane". They ooed and awed. After some comaraderie, and a few chuckles, set back to the task at hand... Sorted out all my stuff. Picked out "Sting" to keep on me. This would be a good test for it. If there were more scorpions at this "Home" area, it may reveal itself. Who knows? Maybe it's the bane of this "Scorpious" dude? Maybe I need it to prove my heroism to Orion in order to convince him I can take on Scorpious? (shrug) This thing has to have some use, no? Bid goodbye to the preistess and Jubilex. Then ziped up to the Oracle at dungeon level 9. Had a small problem when I got to the Oracle. I had no more zorkminds to talk to her (!). Oups... Ziped up to base camp dungeon level 4. Loaded up with all the crap armor and weapons from my piles that I thought would fetch a good price. Ran to the antique weapons shop on level 5. After a couple of trips I had enough zorkminds for a major consultation from the Oracle. I figured best to go for the major consultation concerning this particular case about Orion. Why didin't I just off the shopkeeper you ask? (shrug) I didin't know if he would still come in handy for any weapon or armor appraisals in the futur yet. I can come back and rob his cash register whenever I wanted. Just figured I'd keep my options open for now. Finnally. Back to speak with the Oracle... It was a no go. She had no idea what I was talking about (groan). Well... Maybe I better go check with Izchak then. Just in case... Off to Marsville in the caverns. When I got there; the gremlins were having a ball with the town! They were all over the place (laugh). What an absolute pleasure it was to have a direct path to the candle shop (grin). I camped out in the empty candle shop with Izchak (he haden't recieved a shipment yet) for quite a while. I listened to all the stories he told me until he was just constantly repeating himself. Fine. See you later Izchak. Thanks for all the info.! Loaded up with yet more stuff from my base here at Marsville. And back to the Mazes of Menace. Base camp dungeon level 4. Dump and sort the booty. Picked out an axe from the pile of weapons. Now off to dungeon level 16. "Orion is calling to you for help." Was the message I got when entering the level. Okay! I'm ready (I hope)! Step into the portal and get whisked to the planes of Home... Grunt had lost his little heart next to his picture. He was now peaceful. Aww... Sorry Grunt. Took a little longer than I had anticipated. I'll get you back. Just sit tight for a while. "Grunt grunts." With axe in hand, I walked up to the tress and started chopping... Clang! Ah man... This forest is composed of modern day christmas trees; they're made of steel... (major groan) Made my way through the maze. It was even longer than the first time due to all these hunters blocking the single paths. Okay Orion. I talked with the Oracle and Izchak. They taught me everything there is to know! Orion still thought I had yet much to learn... Wait! Look (I wielded "Sting".)! I have a weapon given to me straight from the gods! It is for the express purpose of sticking it into Scorpious! Orion wasen't impressed. Aw no... I dunno what you want me to do then!? Hmmm... Okay. Gimme the story about the mountain centaurs and Diana's bow and Scorpious again... There's something I'm missing here, obviously. I got the story from all the hunters again. Then I started thinking about everything I could remember from my old mythology classes. Which wasen't too much, since they were even before I started playing that game that Nethack is not. Next I consulted the encyclopedia. Things started to make sense on a few things. Here's the condensed version... Orion is a hunter (that I knew already). Sirius was his dog (!). Diana was the godess of the hunt, the moon, and chastity. Diana and Orion had a thing going. Dianas' brother (I forget who he was) didn't approve. He tricked her into killing Orion when he was having a swim. Diana put him in the sky (the star constelation of Orion), so that she could see him for eternity. Yep. A wonderful trajedy. However it didn't do much to help my particular situation. I got no info on Scorpious, or what he has to do with things (?). And even less on these mountain centaurs. Only thing was that they somehow discovered a tonic to poison. Found out that titans were the children of the gods, also. So that would mean they were going to probably be pretty tough. Felt kind of bad that I no longer had Sirius with me. Maybe Orion would have been more lenient with my qualifications... Hmmm... Since Orion and Diana were both hunters with bows... Maybe that's how I have to prove myself...? I have to show how skilled I am with the bow? Okay, worth a try. Seems rational to me. I went to the enhance screen and checked the box next to "bows". That now put me at expert skill level with bows. I approached Orion again. Look! I'm an archery expert! Nope. That did not seem to work either. (shake head). What do I have to do? Shoot something with a bow and arrow for you? Is there supposed to be an archery contest somewhere for me to prove myself? That must be it! But I had no bow with me. I went to pick one up from one of the piles of booty I had made along the route in the maze of tress. I was just about to wield it, but then I thought to myself: What if it's cursed? What if once I enter the archery contest I can't go back to one of my bases and get it uncursed? I may trigger a chain of events and not be able to exit this area untill it's accomplished... Hmmm... I better just go get my +1 runed bow (Yeah. I forgot what an Elven bow was too.). Why take the chance. Although everybody here is lamenting about the dire situation; It's not like Orion is in any hurry to let me go fix everything up. Hallright... Back we go through the maze of trees. Back through the portal. (Good thing Grunt don't eat. He'd of starved by now.) Back to base camp dungeon level 24. Fish out the +1 runed bow. Exchange pleasentries with; the preistess of Mars, Jubilex, and both (yes there was now two) Elven kings on the level. Back to level 16. Make my way towards the room with the portal. And... "The wraith touches you!" "You seem unaffected by the wraiths' touch." Ahk! I hate being touched! Lucky, though. I made my saving throw versus level drain. Wraiths are double dangerous in this regard. They cause you to lose two levels per draining! No foolin' around. It's BDDD time. Fire! And down it went. In the same message sequence, I went up a level. I was now a level 14 Ranger. This is the first time I mention a definite number as to what my level was in the game at a particular point. Reason being that I don't remember what my level was during the other episodes of the story, is cause I never paid attention to it really. After a while, when the level comes, it comes. It's just a bonus. Plus I didn't know I'd be telling all of this in a story to the rest of you (laugh). Else I would have kept track of it better. The reason I do remember it "at this particular time", is because that's the level I'm still at now. Okay. Through the portal. Hi Grunt! "Grunt grunts." Make my way through the tree maze. Wait for people to get out of the way. Wield the +1 runed bow. Quiver the +2 runed arrows. Get to Orion. Okay Orion. Look. I got my gear. Where's the archery range? Orion said he felt bad about having to ask me to do the dirty work. But unless he stayed where he was, the forest might get overun by the next mountain centaur raid. So it was all up to me to get Diana's bow off of Scorpious. A secret door, then appeared nearby. Finnally. I was heroic enough for him. So it must have been the experience level then. Orion could have explained it better. Like he could have said; "Sorry, but you are not yet experienced enough." Instead of "Seek teachers throughout the land that you may learn from them." (shake head + roll eyes). Boy, Orion. Your lucky. If this wasen't going to work this time, I was going to give up on you and go clock a titan. By the way; what's in the chest? I checked for traps, then unlocked it and found two rings. Wasen't particularly inclined to taking Orions' stuff at the moment. So I left everything there for now. Went to the door and entered a small chamber. There was a stairs down within. What lay below I wondered? Whatever it was, I felt a thrill of excitment as I started to descend... Part 16: The Trees ------------------ After a short battle with some centaurs, that thrill I had sensed upon descending was quickly dashed away... All around me, I was surrounded by tress. Oh no... Am I going to have to be funneled around again like the level with Orion? I better found out right away. Pulled out the axe and started chopping at the nearest tree... The tree got choped down! Great! And some kind of fruit appeared when I did. Hmmm... Choped down a few more. Got all different kinds of stuff; apples, pears, eucalyptus leaves, bananas, etc. So now I had a source of food supply - not that I needed one. But good to know in case I ever decided to tame a pony. Horsies eventually starve to death on me cause, except for lichen, they don't eat corpses. By the way, the pick-axe also worked as a tree chopper. Okay. I won't be restricted as before, on this level, it seemed. So things looked up again. I'll list the Home area for you and tell you what I discovered... Home Level 1 (Maze of Steel Trees): - portal to level 16 in the Mazes of Menace - Orion - chest Here, I started a cache in the small room with the stairs. I could lock the door, and the surrounding tress were impassable. This was a handy spot, for the entire Home area would eventually yield piles upon piles of booty! Home Level 2 (Trees): - trees which may yeild fruit when axed Here there was one of them grey stones you see hanging around from time to time. But when I picked it up, I got stressed! Oh oh. What's this? Then I coulden't drop it (laugh). I tried throwing it also. No go. I had to drop a whole bunch of stuff just to get unemcumbered again. Guess it was cursed. So then maybe some of these grey stones increase your load bearing capacity (?). Hmmm... I'll have to look into that in the future. Went to drop all the stuff in the cache on level 1. Chopped a direct path through the trees from stair to stair. I would be needing to do many, many, many trips of booty caching now that I coulden't carry as much without being "overly" encumbered. Discovering a scroll of remove curse became a high priority at this point. Home Level 3 (Cavern): - cave of the wumpus Here the opening message upon descending the stairs was something like this: "You have entered the cave of the wumpus... bla bla bla... You must use your meager supply of arrows conservatively in order to have a hope at defeating the masses of monsters which now surround you." At the last part I laughed! Don't worry - It won't be a problem. I don't hardly ever use arrows! I've discovered that daggers is the most intelligent way to play a Ranger. I used to try and play them with bow and arrow. Believe me. I did this lots and lots of times. But besides poisoned tipped crude arrows, and some of the +2 ones in the beggining of the game; they just can't compare to dagger chucking. Especially once they have been blessed and enchanted up a bit. (See Part 8: Consolidation, for further explanation.) A few tough monsters were here; vampires, vampire bats, and an ochre jelly being the most fearsome. Notable booty recovered from this level were; a blindfold and two towels. I mention the blindfold, cause as soon as I picked it up; a yellow light appeared. Haha! I said to myself. I put on the blindfold and waited a few turns... "It explodes." " You seem unaffected by it." Was the message that soon followed. He he. Yellow lights don't hurt you, but they blind you. No problem when you have a unicorn horn. Big problem when you don't and are fighting other monsters at the same time. I would keep this on me now. These are handy. The wumpus was a big let down. He went down very easily. Don't know why Orion was worried about my experience level... Home Level 4 (Stone walls): - unlit level - beartrap Good thing I had some candles. Hope the Mazes of menace aren't too much deeper. Don't think I'll have enough. I do not keep candles burning continuosly either. Never! Only till I've uncovered a certain area of the level. Then to go back to another uncovered area, I extinguish the candle till I've reached it. In long single lane passages, I don't have them on either. What's the use? Half way through exploring this level, I found a scroll of remove curse. Goodbye grey stone. I also was very careful in picking up booty now. I did not have auto pick-up turned on. This was in case a monster should pick it up and drop it after I'd kill it. Home Level 5 (Stone walls): - unlit level - polymorph trap - chest - beartrap Discovering the chest here was fantastic. I brought it up to the cache room on level 1 right away. Now I had a secure container for all the valuable booty. As you can now see: Since the encounter with the mindflayer, my notes now include traps I would like to avoide. That's why the polymorph trap here is listed, and these weren't in my previous notes until now. Next stupendous discovery was not one, but two (!), brass lanterns! Finally. I no longer had to depend upon candles. What a long game that turns out to be. First one where I had to do soooo much exploring in darkness. And, as you can see, I explore everything pretty thoroughly. Don't get me wrong; infravision, and candles are great. But go back over the story and see all I did thus far. This seeming mundane peice of booty (a brass lantern), was quite a boon to me. Believe me! Throughout all the levels, I had to be careful not to hit the freindly centaurs. Sometimes I thought I had identified one as being peaceful, only to have it hit me when I passed by it (laugh). "Sting" proved to be just as ineffective against scorpions as anything else I tried it on. Home Level 6 (Palace): - Scorpious' hideout - throne - chest Hokay. The room with the stairs had 4 doors going in the major compass points. It was a small room. I had a sensation that there was going to be close-in action. I hate fighting in tight quarters. Really reduces my ranged weaponery effectiveness. Tried to cut through some walls. The game woulden't let me. Okay... I took this as a sign that I was maybe getting close to an objective and/or encounter of some kind. Prepare for a major engagement: I made sure everything was in place. I wielded my +1 runed bow. "Sting" was in my off hand. The silver dagger, an axe, "Orcrist", and "Dragonbane" remained available. Quivered the +2 runed arrows. Poison tipped arrows were also available. BDDD's would have to be thrown ("t"). There now, I have a deadly - yet versatile arsenal at my disposition. I can fire arrows and/or throw BDDD's without losing any ticks on the clock. Quivering uses no time. I'm now expert in both bow and dagger. Depending on the missile, salvo fire will result in; 1 - 4 BDDD's launching, 1 - 5 runed arrows launching, or 1 - 4 poison tipped arrows launching. As things worked out, I started by clearing the area in the top and left part of the map. Next was the bottom and left. I was leaving all the doors open as I went along. I wanted to be able to move quickly in case I ran into something big - like a dragon. That way I could run through and close the door on it, if I needed some time to figure something out. The different areas would open up with a mob of monsters just waiting behind the door usually. Next I opened the door that led into a narrow hallway heading to the right. Another door at the end of it opened into a room with a bigger mob of monsters than previously encountered so far on this level. I didn't move until I was able to do a complete look (;) scan of what I could see. Centaurs, spiders, bugbears, scorpions, orc shaman, orc captain, and Scorpious is what I could see. Fine. Nothing tuff here at all. I'll just step back and pepper them all when they file into the corridor. This will be easy. Scorpious' picture looked like just some overgrown scorpion to me (shrug). I won't bother wasting poison tipped arrows on him, that's all. I took a step back leaving the door ajar. Scorpious immediately dissappeared from the room and reappeared on the stairs! I could see his changing of location, as I had left all the doors opened on the level thus far. I had a clear line of sight to the stairs from my current position in the hallway. Okay... I'll handle him later. That's all. So I started opening fire on whatever stepped into the hallway from the room. Scorpious then poped right next to me! He insulted me, then hit and stung me. I was sick, maybe deathly sick. My strength took a hit also. Well. I was glad that he had some character. Only thing was that I had him on my left, and other monsters were on my right. Not what I was really planning on! Another thing that concerned me, was that running and closing a door on him would be tough. He can teleport! This being sick was not good either. Didn't know how bad it would get from turn to turn. Especially if every successive sting from him would make me feel worse. I had a bad feeling that it would become like; when I was getting worse with that cursed unicorn horn at the encounter with the titan... A decision had to be made now. Do I fire on Scorpious? Or do I fire on the other monster on my right? Will Scorpious teleport away again? Thereby making me waste a turn on him. Do I heal myself with the unicorn horn? But then I'll lose a turn eliminating something that's hitting me now and draining my hit point reserve... - Throw BDDD's at Scorpious. - Scorpious insults me and teleports away to the stairs again. - The other monster hits. - Heal myself with the unicorn horn. - Scorpious is still at the stairs. - Quiver poison tipped arrows. - Fire into mob of monsters at my right. - One or two monsters dropped. - Scorpious is back. More insults. Stung and sick again. - Fire to my right. A centaur was there. It was hitting me too often. - Scorpious is still here. He's pretty fast for a big scorpion. Hit me two times that turn. - Can't take a chance. I apply the unicorn horn. - Scorpious strikes again. I'm sick yet again. - Other monster is hitting as well. Okay. Two things hitting you at the same time is enough to worry about. This sickness sting of his and strength sapping is definetly a concern. While I'm healing myself. The rest of the hits just keep coming. Quickly I realsise that this will be a battle of attrition that will eventually have but one outcome. Scorpious has to be dropped. BDDD's wil be reserved for him... - Throw BDDD's at Scorpious. - Scorpious insults me and teleports away to the stairs again. So that's the pattern. When Scorpious takes a hit, he splits out. Fine. Let's try and make it work against him... - I count the range to the stairs. - He's too far away from my current position for any type of my ranged weapons. - Step towards the stairs. - Apply unicorn horn. - One of the monsters amidst the throng in the room, a bugbear I beleive it was, starts zaping some kind of wand. - Wonderful! Let's throw that on top of my current worries while were at it (laugh!). - Fire to my right. - Fire to my right. - Fire to my right. Scorpious has been hanging around the stairs for quite a while (?). What's he up to? - Oups! Here he is again! More insults. His stinger missed! - Throw BDDD's at Scorpious. - Looks like he can take some punishment. And he's still here!? He didn't teleport away this time! A thought invades my good judgement. I have to try something. I have to know if it works... - Exchange ("x"). - Scorpious hits. Scorpious stings. I'm sick. Other monster hits. I'm getting low on hit points. - Quaffe potion of healing. - Take some more hits from both sides. Okay! It's now or never! Will it work? ... - Thrust with "Sting"! - "You hit Scorpious." - That's it!? (laugh!) Now I know. - Take more hits from Scorpious. - Throw BDDD's at Scorpious. I'm now out of BDDD ammo. - Scorpious teleports away to the stairs again. - Apply unicorn horn. - Exchange. - Quiver poisoned arrows. - Fire into mob of monsters. - Fire into mob of monsters. - Fire into mob of monsters. - Scorpious is back. He hits and stings. I'm sick. - Quiver +2 runed arrows. - Fire at Scorpious. Scorpious tells me that he curses me with his dying breadth, and that I will never leave his palace alive. Good. He's dead. I looked at my inventory screen. I could not see anything that was cursed. Could he have the same power as a titan? Good thing I had blessed the unicorn horn a while back. At worse it should only be uncursed now. I had another potion on me, and haden't asked Mars for any help in a long time. So I was safe to try it. I applied the unicorn horn. It worked fine. Good. Now I just had to mop up the rest of the bad guys around me... I eventually finished off the rest of the monsters in the hallway and the room. Applied the unicorn horn till all my strength was back. Forget what that wand was. It wasen't any kind of ranged attack. Nothing ever bounced off my amulet of reflection. Maybe it was invisibility or monster ceation. There were a lot of corpses after that battle subsided. Seemed to recall somekind of orc being invisible also. But that could have been from a potion. Who knows. Didn't matter. I was very powerful compared to what I had faced. Started sifting through all the booty. I discovered the bow of Diana where Scorpious had fallen. As soon as I picked it up, I got a message: "You have recovered the Bow of Diana. Orion needs this to stem the onslaught of the mountain centars. You must return to Orion and give it to him immediately." Okay. But can't it wait a few minutes? Can I at least check what else is around first? Like what's in the chest at least? That word; "immediately" sounded pretty definite in that message. But heah. If he could wait this long for me, he can wait just a few more turns till I see what's in the chest. There was a whole bunch of booty lying all over the place too... Anyways. Risking the wrath of Orion, I picked up all my; BDDD's, +2 runed arrows, and poison tipped arrows. Then, I checked the chest for traps 10 times in a row. I think there was one. I failed trying to disarm it, but wasen't affected by whatever it was. There was a silver bell in the chest (?), amongst other things. This was something I'd never seen before. I grabed it and, leaving everything else as is, hurried off to go see Orion with the Bow of Diana. Soon enough, along the way, something wierd had developed. I could see monsters...!? It was like when I had quaffed a potion of monster detection in a previous game. Only, it applied outwards to a range of about 8 - 12 from my position on the screen. And it stayed with me all the time. In other words; when I moved, they also moved with me...!? I looked at my status. Everything looked normal. Wasen't sick, ill, stunned, halucinating, or confused... I did a look (;) on a monster that was on the other side of a wall. It said: "Seen with telepathy." !? I dropped the bell. Nothing changed. I dropped the Bow of Diana. No more monster detection. I picked up the Bow of Diana. Monster detection was back. Wow! I took a chance: I wielded the Bow of Diana. Didn't notice anything. It did not weld itself to my hands (not that I would really have minded at this point - laugh!). While wielding the Bow of Diana, I fired all the different kinds of arrows I had available. Everything seemed normal. I invoked (#invoke command) the Bow of Diana. Arrows appeared in my inventory! Wow Wee! I tried to invoke again. "The Bow of Diana seems to be ignoring you." Oups (!?). Could this thing be intelligent? How come it just didn't say; "Nothing happens." ? Hmm... I tried chatting (#chat) with the Bow of Diana. Nope. I tried #apply, etc. None of that worked. I tried all these commands with the arrows that the Bow of Diana gave me. Nothing came of that either. This thing is super neat! I could realy use something like this... I headed back towards Orions' location again. I was moving my character mechanicaly on the screen. All I had on my mind was the Bow of Diana. Do I have to give it back? I tried to remember what the messages had said exactly. Also the whole story I got when trying to prove my heroism in order to qualify for the entrance to this area. Yeah. I think I have to. Damn. Like this telepathy monster detection thing would be super handy. Upon that thought I stopped again... I put on the blindfold. I could still detect monsters. I dropped the Bow of Diana. Monster detection ceased. Oh man. This thing is truly amazing. I picked up the bow of Diana. With the blindfold still on, I made my way back through the cavern of the wumpus (!!!). I was even able to tell what was freindly or hostile! I killed monsters blindfolded on purpose! I did not even have to wield it! I could use other weapons and still have this ability!! This is beyond anything that I ever had or experienced. My Oracle notes talked about stories of mortals seeing what their eyes cannot see. But that was refering to an amulet, the one of ancient Yendor. Could this be similar? If so, then this bow was one heck of a powerful artifact! As I made my way back to Orions' location, I kept on thinking about how I could somehow keep this thing. Only way that seemed plausible was that I'd have to kill Orion! Geez... I already knew that Diana is gonna kill him later on in life. Poor Orion. His fate is decided any which way you look at it. That's probably why the 'Seven Sisters of Fate' (The Plaeides) reside within his constellation in the sky. Man. What a dillema I was in. Well. Here I am. Back at Home level 1. I'm approaching Orion. The Bow of Diana is clutched in my hands. I can see everybody in an 8 square radius around me. Whadya think Mars? Think it's okay if I kill Orion? At home at the computer, I'm starting to sweat. I can't decide which way to go. Do I give it to him? Or do I kill him? The hunters are all glad to see me. They keep on saying; "Ellora!" "It's so great to see you!" "How have you fared?" I have to remember that this is my home forest. I embarked on this mission in order to save these people. These are my freinds... I'm their Hero... ... Oh fine... Fine. Fine. Fine. Here. Take the stupid bow. I'll be content with what I already have: "Dragonbane", 'Orcrist", and (cough) "Sting". I step up to Orion and give him the Bow of Diana. Orion is so happy that I made it back. He thought he'd sent me to my death. I've not only survived, but killed Scorpious and brought back the Bow of Diana. The forest and it's inhabitants are saved! Yeah. Well. All in a days work. I say. Orion considers a few things. He knows that my main mission is to recover the amulet of Yendor. "Here Ellora." "Take the Bow of Diana with you." "It may well help you on your journey to recover the amulet of Yendor." !!!!!! ** Without a moment of hesitation my fingers dash amongst the keys. I immediately save the game and exit. ** ORION GAVE ME THE BOW OF DIANA! YIPEEE!! I fire the game back up. I'm all excited! I look at the inventory screen. There it is. But it has changed! It is now called the: "Blessed Longbow of Diana"! This thing is blessed! What a bonus! I can also use it to kill ghosts, undeads and such. I think the silver bell may have also been revealed at this time. It changed to 'The Bell of Opening', I think. If not, then it happened shortly afterwards when I had a whole bunch of stuff identified all at once. Okay. Now back down to level 6 and finish clearing out Scorpious' palace of some remaining monsters. Sift through all the booty and start hauling it all back to the cache on level 1. Many, many trips required. I had brought the other chest up from his palace as well. Now I had two in the cache room. I was using the Longbow of Diana to kill almost everything. Wanted to see if anything else was special about it. Didn't notice anything. It seemed to behave as a normal bow for shooting arrows. But from time to time, I was able to invoke some arrows out of it. These came out blessed as well! Finally, I had assembled all the booty in the cache room. Loaded up with what I thought would be interesting and read a scroll of identify. The Longbow of Diana turned out to be +0. Good enough. I never missed anything with it, as it was. Read another scroll of identify. I wanted to see if I had a scroll of charm monster to get back Grunt. Everything got identified in one shot! Didn't have to pick any one object. Just like what happened to me back in Marsville. No scroll for Grunt. But a cloak turned out to be one of displacement. Never had one of these in Nethack. Wondered if it worked the same as the ones in the game that Nethack is not? Wearing it meant losing 4 to my armor class. I'll test it out later and opted to keep my Elven one instead. Tried to teleport with both a wand and a scroll. I used a charge on the wand, and the scroll dissapeared when I read it. Besides that, nothing changed. I was still in the same spot. So this area is the same as the boulders then... Yepper. Looks like the long way is the only option... (sigh) Okay. load up with all the stuff I can carry and start negotiating the maze of steel trees. Almost all the way near the end, some giants showed up. I didn't feel like dropping everything, so just threw BDDD's at them from a distance. They fell easily of course. Except I had an unforseen complication develope. When they died, they dropped their boulders. Problem was that two of them died one behind the other. So two boulders were now side by side in the path. Coulden't push them out of the way. No problem, I thought, I'll just use my pick-axe to bust them apart. But wait! I didn't have it on me. I had left it behind in order to save on weight and an inventory slot for booty (groan). Had to walk all the way back through the maze of steel trees, and all the peaceful creatures that were in my way. Grab the pick-axe. Then go through the same excercise on the way back. No, I did not have a wand of striking. Believe me, I would have used it. That maze of steel trees does not bring anything to the game except to excercise my patience. After editing the previous sentence many times; that is the nicest way I can put it (leer). Passed by and chated with Grunt. Promised him that before embarking on any other missions; I would get him back. In fact, that was my next mission plan: Finding a scroll of charm monster. Down to base camp on level 24 in the Mazes of Menace. Said high and chit-chated with the preistess of Mars, Jubilex, and both Elven kings. Sorted out my booty and rummaged through the chest for a scroll for Grunt. No luck. Left just about everything behind except for what I needed to do booty retrieveal trips. There was piles on the Home level. Wanted to travel as light as possible. I exchanged my elven cloak for the one of displacement. This would be a good time to start testing it. Experience told me that booty retrieval trips give lots of opportunities with wandering monsters to test new equipement - excluding snow boots (laugh!). Said goodbye to everyone and headed back up to the portal on level 16. Back in the home area. Stood at the entrance to the maze of steel trees. Started to think how I could do this without taking a week in real life. Hmmm... Only way that would speed things up would be to kill all my freinds in the forest. The centaurs, hunters, and Orion. That way, they woulden't be blocking my paths anymore. Then I would not have to wait for them to finally decide which way they would go. Hmmm... That would not be very nice. I just recently saved them all from Scorpious and the mountain centaurs. Orion even gave me the Longbow of Diana (which belonged to his girlfriend). To kill them all now, after what I had done to help them, was just something I could not have on my conscious. Okay. I'll just do it the long way. But I put a time limit on how much I would bring out: 3 days with an option to 4, depending on how well my patience was holding. No more. The rest would have to wait for another time. So off to the task at hand... Many trips of hauling booty ensued between; the cache on Home level 1, and base camp on dungeon level 24 of the Mazes of Menace. Part 17: Revelations -------------------- One thing that kept on bothering me about the fight with Scorpious was that death curse he put on me. What was that all about? I never noticed anything that had been cursed in my inventory. I had verifyed everything on my first trip to base camp level 24 in the Mazes of Menace. I dumped everything I had on the altar in the Temple to Mars. Everything was fine..? In fact, even my unicorn horn was still blessed. (shrug) Dunno what, if anything, will be eventually revealed about this. That other sentence from him; the one about never leaving his palace alive, didn't make any sense either... Since I'm thinking about it now, it obviously didn't work out the way he told me (laugh). Could I have missed something on that level? The last trip I had made there, I looked all over the place. Even checked around for hidden big monsters with the Longbow of Diana's monster detection ability. No dragons, titans or anything else that might be able to stop me where discovered... Another mystery that probably won't reveal itself either... The chest near Orion was eventually brought out to near the portal that lead back to the Mazes of Menace. I already had two in the cache room. Another would have just made things to crowded in there. In fact having it beyond the maze of steel trees was handy. I could then make a booty trip from the cache room, through the maze of steel trees, levitate over the pit, and then deposit the booty into the chest near the portal. Then I would go back and levitate over the pit, through the maze of steel trees, and into the cache room. After a while (and a while is quite a while), monsters had spread out throughout the whole area. Most got killed by me sooner or later - whenever I had to absolutely move through them in order to continue. But the next generation that would crop up, would have some freindly types amongst them. the more time wore on, the more peaceful monsters were abundent. By the time of my last few trips, the whole area was rife with this type of infestation. Things in the maze of steel trees was really crowded. traffic jams of freindly monsters just slowed the whole process like you would not believe. Even distinguishing Grunt from the rest was not as easy as it once had been. There were that many! When I got tired of that monotany; I would make a trip down through the Mazes of Menace to base camp level 24 from the chest near the portal. Just encountering different wandering monsters was a relief (laugh). I've pretty well had my fill of centaurs now! Eventually, somewhere along the multitude of booty trips, I acquired two scrolls of charm monster. Upon coming back to the portal to the Mazes of Menace on my last trip out of the steel forest, I charmed Grunt. He was back to being my pet again. Finally, all the; scrolls, rings, wands and such were out of there. Still had piles of weapons, armor, gems, food, and miscellaneous stuff that I left behind, including both beartraps. It will have to wait for another time. I was fed up (laugh!). We proceeded down to base camp on dungeon level 24. Chated with our freinds; the preistess of Mars, Jubilex, and two Elven kings. Then I sorted and organised all the stuff. There was a lot to go through! I had acquired two towels from the home levels. Time to run some tests on a dungeon feature... I proceeded to the sink that was located on this level. Tried all kinds of different commands with the towel wielded while in the same square as the sink. Coulden't figure anything. The Oracle talked about rings and the reflection from them. So tried a few things with a looking glass and some rings around it also. Nothing came out of that either. Finally, I kicked it out of frustration and hurt my foot (laugh!). So, I left a looking glass and a towel in the same square as the sink. These may eventually reveal something in the future. If not, then at least we had a proper washroom (wink). A glance at my notes said that there was another sink on level 1 of the Mazes of Menace. I had a spare towel, and multiple looking glasses to try there also. I now also remembered that I never went back to check what was in that chest from the first room when I entered this game (see part: 1). I could also bring down some more junk and such from the base on level 4. Since it was just 3 levels away, I'd do a quick run there while I was at it. I had figured out, or should I say assumed, that that silver bell the Oracle had talked about was the Bell of Opening I now had. I tried putting it in the chest for safe keeping. "The Bell refuses to be constrained in such a container." Or something like that. Okay. But I wasen't going to be carrying it around. From what the Oracle had said, I had no use for it for quite a while. Not till I needed to go to Molochs' sanctuary - where ever that is. Since it didn't want to go inside the chest, I left it next to it. It was in the temple of Mars with the preistess and Jubilex anyways. Should be safe for whenever I need it. I can't imagin that I have to carry this thing with me for the rest of the game, do I? (shrug) We'll see... Packed up, bid goodbye to everybody here, and with Grunt in tow, headed up through the Mazes yet again... I've tried not to mention the Longbow of Diana too much, cause I didn't want to bore you with constantly repeating how I felt about this. But... The Longbow of Diana was absolutely amazing. Not so much as a weapon, but for it's permanent monster detection ability. Unless a monster was generated right next to me (hardly never happened), I would always have warning of it's intentions and/or whereabouts. It also helped find / locate previously unkown rooms throughout the Mazes of menace. All I had to do was watch how the monster reacted to my movements. I learned a lot on how monsters tracked and converged on your position from it. With the Longbow of Diana, I tried to find my other baby gargoyle, from that time we all got seperated. But to no avail. It would then seem, that I had unknowingly killed it when I was attacked that other time... One monster that was now fun to play with was the ol' stalker. I got to see how they behaved and it was fun to play with them. The stalker slowly sneaks up on you cause he thinks you can't see him. Then he stops when you start to get near him. He waits for YOU to step next to him. HE won't step next to you. I have stopped at range two from a stalker and waited (".") for many turns. He refused to come next to me. Then when you are next to him, and he attacks, he will stay there until you hit him. As long as you don't hit him, he'll stay next to you. As soon as you land a hit on him, he steps away. Probably thinks that you now don't know where he is. Pretty smart monster. That's why they had always hit me by surprise, I now see (laugh!). Had figured that the Longbow of Diana didn't like being bothered too often for arrows. So I kept notes on it and discovered that 860 turns between invocations was good. Never failed at that number of turns. Of course, the next thing was to remember to invoke it all the time (laugh!). To me, the blessed arrows it would chunk out; did not seem to get mulched as often as other arrows. Not too sure yet about this. It is still under investigation. But the guide says that blessed objects work better. I was able to see that with them BDDD's - that was for sure! And that blessed battle-axe I sometimes toted around with, sure seemed to attest to that also. Cursed stuff works backwards - look at the unicorn horn + titan incident. Big time revelation, that was. Anyways... More may well be revealed on this when I start playing again. The cloak of displacement had become a regular peice of my wardrobe by now. I had found that it was pretty good as long as I moved (changed squares) after a monster would actually land a blow on me. As long as I was moving through a cleared area/path of the dungeon, I kept it. When I would venture into an unexplored section - and even if just one square - I took it off and substituted my elven cloak for it. Can't take chances with polymorph traps. Took a while to find the sink again. It had been such a long time ago since I had been here on dungeon level 1. Went through all the motions, as I had on level 24. Nothing. Oh well, must not be too important. But it bothered me that the Oracle would mention something if it wasen't... Left the towel here with a looking glass. Maybe it's just some kind of joke in the game or something (shrug). Found the first room to the Mazes of Menace again. The chest was still there. Checked it for traps 10 times, just as I had done way in the begining. None were to be found. Picked it's lock with the lockpick. Looted it, but as much as I would like to tell you what was in it; I just can't remember. Obviously it was nothing special considering the point I was now at. But even a food ration in the first room when starting a game is what I consider "treasure". Oh well. At least I had survived long enough to have finally done this... On the way back to the downstairs, I took a different path. Was just re-exploring a little bit due to having forgotten everything cause of that mindflayer. (Even though that maze of steel trees on Home level 1 is a big bummer in this game - the mindflayer is still at the top of my "Things I hate in Nethack list".) Coming along a darkened corridor, I came upon a sword called "Snickersnee". My mind was immediately filled with the memories of when I first started this game (see part 1). I smiled as I recalled how Sirius had picked up that sword and I had chased him. I never knew what had eventually become of it. So this is where he finally droped it. I shook my head as I picked it up. I had come and progressed a long way since those days. The things I feared then, pale in comparison to now. I was afraid of even touching this sword. Now I thought nothing of it (laugh). I had wanted to either sell it or offer it to Mars. But I found out that Mars only accepted corpses. And zorkminds have now become the least of my worries. Out of curiosity, I wielded the blade. Tried all of my normal routine of invoking, etc. Nothing came from it. But I was not really expecting anything would. Then the Longbow of Diana told me that some Uruk-hai had just materialised not too far away from me. Oh yeah. Good ol' Uruk-hai, we'll get some poisoned tipped crude arrows again. Our stock was getting to be quite diminished. I'll just relax and let Grunt do some work here. As it was, I was in a relaxed mood, due to the nostalgia with finding "Snickersnee" again. After taking a few steps and maneuvering for position, I saw that this was quite a mob of Uruk-hai. They were spreading out throughout the passages to get at me. This real time monster detection was great. Sometimes the game tells me what a monster is wielding before it closes range with me. Those that had bows, I would leave for Grunt. Even though I was far superiore to these Uruk-hai, I still didn't take the chance of getting killed from a poisoned arrow! Grunt never, ever got hit by any monster. Only once, when a leperchaun tagged him for some zorkminds. Being also made of stone, made him impervious to poison, I was sure. Those that had a melee weapon, I took on myself, when ever convenient. I was kind of curious what this "Snickersnee" was like. I know that I had no ability with it, but I was able to hit monsters with other weapons that I had no ability with either. Also Uruk-hai are just about the best type of unit that the orc hordes can feild. So chances are that they won't go down in just one strike. As long as I did not use daggers, arrows, or a killer weapon - like a blessed battle axe - I could then maybe gauge how many swipes it would take per Uruk-hai, per weapon utilised. So with "Snickersnee", I needed from 1 to 2 smacks per Uruk-hai. Most of the time it was 2 smacks. Lucky that most didn't have bows in one sense, in order to be able to try it out on a few. Okay, only a few Uruk-hai left. Lets try another weapon before they're all dead: I wield "Orcrist". "The Uruk-hai turns to flee!" Heah... That's strange. I didn't even hit him yet (?). How come his morale broke so readily? I waited for another to come around a corner. When he saw me, he fled also. Hmm... Last time I saw something similar, was when I was chasing monsters around with Jubilex next to me all the time. I closed my eyes and tried to remember some of the details... (See Part 11: Dark Rituals)... Okay... It wasen't Jubilex. It was "Orcrist" that the orcs were fleeing from. Uruk-hai are orcs as well. All orc-type monsters have the letter "o" associated with them. So then; this sword has a 'cause fear' effect with orcs. Jubilex was merely a coincidence and happenstance. Besides, the fleeing monster problem hasen't reappeared since I figured out that he coulden't leave the level he was on. I was so concentrated about his presence at the time, that I didn't consider all the circumstances. "Orc-rist". I get it! (laugh!) It's funny now. But at the time I did not think so. I had thought that the game had been ruined (laugh!). Now. How about "Sting"...? Nope. Can't make a correlation. Oh well. Let's go smack some Uruk-hai while they have their backs turned (laugh!)... Stopped and did my normal routine with booty and such on level 4. The chest contained a few of those grey stones. Since they were in here, none were cursed obviously. Those that haden't been tested for cursedness, I dropped on the altar to Mars that was here. None turned out to be blessed. So it was kind of hard to figure if any were able to increase my load bearing capacity. I tried them all with just being over the line of being burdened. No effect was detected. Well, if I ever come accross one that's blessed, I'll see how it affects things. One more time, I made my way back down to base camp level 24. Next mission was to fully explore level 26. Since that enconter with the titan on level 27, and the subsequent chain of events that followed it, it was never explored properly... Dungeon Level 26: - polymorph trap (?) - troll room + chest That polymorph trap that got me last time I was here, was no where to be found (?). Funny, cause I knew exactly where it had been. Other such traps in previous games always stuck around. This time it was gone. I searched from every square that was adjacent to it - many times. I wanted it to become visible again. It never did. I did not dare step back into that square, though. I engraved "poly trap" in all adjacent squares to it and then moved on... The Longbow of Diana told me about the blue dragon soon enough. What an indispensable ability that is. So I was able to be in an advantageous position when it came around a corner. I was careful to leave Grunt in a safe place beforehand, lest he get killed from the lightning breadth attack. As it turned out, it didn't matter. The blue dragon never got a breadth attack off. I started chucking BDDD's from a range of 8 and it died before it got close enough to be able to breathe on me. So now I knew that it could not breathe beyond range 6. Yeah, I know what your thinking: Why didn't I use "Dragonbane"? I forgot all about it (laugh!)! I'm just so used to these BDDD's and dropping things from a distance with them. As you can see, it worked quite well. It died and I never got hit or hurt. "Dragonbane" would require me to stand next to it. I don't like standing next to something that is actively trying to kill me. Just have the "Ranger" mentality so well engrained in me, I guess (shrug). Last thing uncovered that held interest, was a room with 10 monsters (2 horizontal rows of 5) and a chest in it. It was a real mix of monsters, but 5 were trolls. All kinds of different ones; rock, ice, and regular trolls. I left Grunt outside the room while I went in to check things out. None of them were moving again. I was starting to become familiar with this pattern. As long as no elephants were around, and you killed a monster in one shot/salvo, the rest don't budge. I killed one or two of the non-troll monsters, but was getting constantly interrupted by the door to the room opening. I had to go back and actually lock the door from the inside. Grunt is able to open doors, and does so in order to stick near me (laugh!). I killed all the five non-troll monsters individually. All fell in one salvo of BDDD's. I didn't take the chance of firing on a troll. As I figured it might just take more than one salvo to fell one. Also, they tend to regenerate and I didn't feel like fighting so many at one time. I collected the booty, and the chest, then let the 5 trolls be. I closed and locked the door, of course. I'll come back to finish them off when I'll do the barracks on the level above also. I'll save those for a special mission. I was equiped for exploration, not special area clearing. So back up two levels to base camp level 24 we went. Said hi and chated with everybody there. The priestess of Mars was getting all my zorkminds that I collected from now on. Mars must have been happy. Sorted and played with all my stuff in the booty piles and chest. I had by now expanded my area in the temple of Mars a bit. I had dug three alcoves in the back wall for piles of booty. I was getting to be pretty organised there (laugh!). Hokay... Now what to do? Four options: 1. Clear the two remaining monster areas; 2. Go get the titan blocking my way down into the Mazes of Menace; 3. Go get the ice box from Marsville for here. 4. Re-explore all the forgotten areas in the Mazes of Menace. Hmm... Well, after what I had been doing for nearly a week in Nethack, I opted for a little excitement. I'll kill the titan, and on my way back up, we'll clear those monsters out. Then, we'll see about the rest. Great. My mind set to the task of forming a plan... Next mission would be to go clock that titan! Part 18: "Burrrp!" ------------------ Last time I went down the stairs to level 27, I only got a glimpse of the titan. From what I remembered, there must be somekind of giant around as well. They were the only monsters I knew that threw boulders. There was something that made me blind also. It could have been the titan, but it's best to figure that there may also be a raven there. No use in underestimating things. I also took a few hits in quick succession from whatever. So I'll again assume another monster was doing that. Hmm... So then I'm looking at 4 monsters in the room with the stairs as soon as I descend. Not good. I don't like being surrounded. Since those two really big fights where I almost died (parts 5 and 7), I've been pretty good at trying to avoide another repeat of those situations. What I'll do is stay on the stairs, once I've descended from level 26. The Longbow of Diana will tell me what's there with it's monster detection ability. I'll then gauge what exactly I'm up against. Then try and kill a monster or two, while keeping an eye on my status and hit points. Thanks again to the Longbow of Diana's monster detection ability; even if I'm blinded immediately again, I'll still be able to fight. As soon as I'm starting to feel uncomfortable - I'll go straight back up and recuperate. Then I'll repeat the procedure. That way I'll face less and less monsters each time untill I'm fully confident that I can handle what's left. I had decided to bring Grunt down to the upcoming battle with me. Though, he didn't engage anything unless it was wimpy, he would still occupy a space next to me once downstairs. At least it would be one less space for a monster to occupy next to me! I'll bring that left over scroll of charm monster. Maybe I can get another pet - like that titan! Yes. That's an all round excellent plan, if I do say so myself (laugh!). Allright. Let's equipe ourselves properly: Bring an extra unicorn horn. The extra leash. A few potions of healing. Make sure I have both a wand and a scroll of teleportation. All the different types of arrows. And my best sheild. Even though it's heavy, I'll come back here and re-equipe for exploration later on. It's a dark room, I'm bringing a brass lantern as well. Well, with my baby Grunt in tow, we bid goodbye to our freinds at base camp level 24, and made our way to the downstairs of dungeon level 26. One more look at the inventory screen. Better to make sure that everything is equiped properly, and that the proper weapons are wielded. Lit the lantern, and... Assured that all was well, and confident in my brilliant plan of action, we went down the stairs... The whole screen went black except for one spot where my picture was. I was surrounded by that red perimeter; which could only mean one thing - I have been engulfed by something! "You have been engulfed!" "Your brass lantern goes out." "The leash goes slack (or broke)." "The purple worm is digesting you!" My mind explodes with one thought: PURPLE WORM! They have this in Nethack!? Oh my GOD! Okay... Relax. I told myself. Part of me was trying to, but another part of me was begining to panic!! I've been engulfed before. Air elementals being the worst. But I'm able to kill them if I can get a decent salvo with BDDD's off. Question is; how many hit points does a purple worm have compared to an air elemental? From the game that Nethack is not, purple worms had a ton (!). How many turns before one was digested again? That I used to know... I think it was 4... Look at hit points. I'm hardly hurt. Okay. I'll make an educated guess that a purple worm has 2.5 times the hit points of an air elemental. That means I'll need around 10 BDDD's to bring it down. Three salvos minimum. Boy, that's a lot considering I'll have just one turn left to kill it after that... Okay. let's see how the first one does. Fire BDDD's. Three lauched. "The purple worm is digesting you!" That message gave me a feeling that things were getting pretty urgent. Mmm... Not good. Now I need seven BDDD's in two salvos... What if I guessed wrong? What if it has more hit points than what I assumed? Aw man. That was kind of stupid in wasting a turn then. My mind is now racing to consider other options... Look at inventory. Look at everything at my disposal real hard. Another thought enters my mind. What if it isin't four turns to digestion? What if it's three? What if it's less!? Panic is starting to take over again. Not a good time for clear thinking. At least I'm man enough to admit this to myself... Time out! ** Go for smoke + coffee. ** I have to get out of this purple worms' digestive tract ASAP. That is the first thing I now conclude. The second thing is to kill it before I get engulfed again. So it will be my number one target when I have a chance to shoot something. I don't want to be coming back down these stairs into this things mouth again...! Fine. Then, I'll zap this wand of teleportation at myself. Never tried it while engulfed before, but it sure made sense to me... When I hit "." for the direction, nothing happened. I don't remember anything here. Only that it didn't work. Oh no. Should I try again? Did I hit the key hard enough? Did it register in the computer? What now? Let's read the scroll of teleportation. At least it will tell me that the scroll disappears, wether I get teleportated or not... "You are ejected!" Yipee! And the screen came back to normal. I could now see everything with the Longbow of Diana. I'm in a dark room with grunt and several monsters; a titan, a zruty, a mindflayer, a baculathrium, a lich, and a purple worm. There are other monsters a little further out; jellyfish, and eels. !!!!! Oh man. Look at these monster types! I don't want to be here (panic)! I'm also no where near the stairs anymore. I start taking a careful look at everything. The purple worm has a little heart next to it's picture!? I look at my inventory. The scroll of teleportation is still there. I read the scroll of charm monster by mistake! The purple worm is now a pet of mine! (laugh!) I'm in quite a predicament though. I still want out of here. The titan is quite a formidable opponent, from what little I know from it already. I never met a lich in Nethack either, but from that game that Nethack is not; I know these monsters very well. They are deadly with a capital D! The baculathrium, I'm hoping is just as slow as what I remember about them. But that mindflayer, from what I know it can do, is a very big concern! The titan is the farthest away. The mindflayer is the next furthest. At least Grunt is still nearby. He will serve as a blocker. I'm going to try and make my way towards them stairs... I take a step. Some monsters moved, some did not. Notably the eels were the ones that seemed to change spots the most. Nothing is next to me except for the purple worm. Although he's tame, I still feel kind of scared being next to it (laugh!). The mindflayer has stepped towards me. It is below the purple worm. I'm going to drop this thing so hard if it ends up in my line of fire next turn... Okay... Let's try taking another step towards the stairs. I hate this. I don't know if any traps are around either... Lots of stuff moved. But most notably, the purple worm ate the mindflayer! "Burrrp!" Is what I remember seeing in the messages. Amazing... (laugh!) That was one huge worry taken care of (big grin)! For some reason that is beyond me at this time; I wanted to see with normal vision as well. I turned the brass lantern back on. A whole bunch of messages followed. What they were is now beyond my ability to recollect. But I do remember, that I was not yet seriously hurt. However - something happened to my sheild! It got disintegrated! The purple worm ate something else. Think it was the zruty. Something summoned some extra monsters. There was a pudding and/or jelly. Some kind of shaman. And what I thought was another zruty. It got crowded. Wasen't sure who was summoning, maybe both the titan and lich were. I now really wanted out. The room was rectangular, as far as I could tell. No doors and obviously surrounded by water. This was noticed due to the sea monsters movements. Started fighting towards the stairs. Launched some BDDD's at the lich. Took a step and spent a turn chucking BDDD's at whatever was standing on the stairs. Grunt was like two squares away from me. Next to that lich. The titan stayed further out, but directly north of the location of the stairs. Figured that I wasen't going to get a chance at picking up any spent ammunition. Made a big decision: No more BDDD chucking for now. I didn't know if I was going to be able to eliminate everything, and wanted to have my best weapons available after escaping from here! Let's live and fight another day. Let's be able to also have the capability to fight well when we do! The lich got next to me and touched me. Gawd - I hate being touched! It had some kind of cold touch. The game told me I wasen't affected by it. Same way that that wand of frost didn't affect me back at the big battle of the boulders. Quivered the +2 runed arrows and let the lich have a salvo. I know that these things are already dead. So poisoned tiped arrows would be worthless. I wanted this thing dropped also. The lich moved away and cast something. Don't remember what it was, but it didn't affect me personally, as far as I could tell. Lich was now out of the direct line of fire, so switched to poisoned arrows and shot at the titan. It was still lined up to me. A xan came around and pricked through my boots. Okay. It was a xan - NOT another zruty, I now realised. Great, my feet were hurt. I knew I would be slower now. The monsters will start getting extra moves on me. I got onto the stairs and fired poisoned arrows at the titan. Figured the xan coulden't hurt me anymore. I was already slow. The few hit points it got me for were not a worry. The lich was hiding behind some other lesser monsters. Whatever was next to me, was not as worrisome as that lich, titan, or baclathrium. I fired another salvo at something. Come on Grunt! Get next to me. Grunt had finally gotten next to me on the stairs. Got the leash around his neck, then turned my attention to try and lasso the new purple worm pet. I was taking hits again without dishing back any dammage. Attached the leash to the purple worm, and tried to go upstairs. "The purple worm is still eating." Was the response I recieved trying that maneuver. Fine. One at a time then... I went up and unleashed Grunt. Rested a little while and regained some hit points. Wait a few minutes, Grunt. I'll be back. "Grunt grunts." Back down the stairs. The xan pricked through my boots again (groan). Them snow boots won't be waterproof anymore. Quickly, put the leash around the purple worm before he swallows anything else. Please, Lord. Let me get up before this thing eats again! Something cast a spell. I reeled from something. Think I was stuned. Took a round of hits. That hurt. No time to lose... I went up the stairs and the purple worm appeared beside my picture when we changed levels. Well (pant, pant). Finally got out of there. There I was, having just escaped with Grunt and a new pet - a purple worm! Titans and liches are tough! Have to recuperate some hit points. So much for my initial brilliant plan (lots of laughs!)! I leaned back in my chair. While waiting for my heartbeat to slow back down, I reviewed that last engagement... Obviously I wasen't calm enough after having taken that break earlier. - I had punched the wrong letter when reading the scroll. - I lost my best, although heaviest, sheild. - I wasted two turns releashing my pets at the stairs. As long as they're next to me, they will follow me up. I knew that. - I left some of my valuable BDDD's, as well as, some non-replenishable +2 arrows behind. (shake head) I better smarten up. Else I may well lose this character and this game, if I keep up this type of behaviore... Thanks Mars, for looking out for me back there. Guess I owe you one. We'll leave the titan and company alone for a little while yet. This left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. This was now my second encounter with it. Only thing that I was learning; was that it was getting tougher and harder to get by it... Hokay... Let's run a few tests with this new pet. Maybe it can be used to advantage in some particular situations? This 'eat anything whole' attack it possesed, sure was intriguing! I applied the blessed unicorn horn. Everything seemed okay with it. Good. Only thing was to wait for my feet to get better. But that would come eventually, soon enough. Started heading back towards the upstairs of level 26. Ran into something. Grunt and I just stood around while we watched the purple worm swallow the thing whole and; "Burrrp!" After a few more encounters on our way up, I got the hang of a few things about this purple worm and how it acted: - It was slow. Very slow. - It swallowed anything. Wasen't afraid of any wandering monster. - The victims possessions were left behind once the purple worm moved away from that spot. - It took a while to eat; depending on how big the victim was. Okay... Then. Let's see how it does in a multiple target enviroment. We went to the barracks on level 25. I opened the door and pushed the purple worm into the room. It swallowed the first soldier there. I also pushed Grunt into the room, then stood at the door. I wanted the soldiers to head towards me. None seemed to inclined to do so (laugh!). I stepped in, then down. Fired a volley of arrows down the line. That got them all moving, throwing, and performing all kinds of actions. I took some steps back which eventually put me into the hall. The soldiers were trying to get to me, but had to step around the purple worm and Grunt... "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" etc. After I had stopped laughing, went in and started collecting all the booty. Made several trips up to base camp, one level above. In order to save on time; I would leave my two pets unleashed on the level below when going up the stairs. I was confident that they could handle anything that they came accross. During these trips, I sometimes heard "Burrrp!" in the distance. Eventually, I would come across some stuff that had been dropped to the floor by some hapless victim. (shrug) More booty to add to my piles (laugh!). Okay great. After finishing off the soldiers in the barracks and then organising all the booty. I releashed my two pets and went back down to level 26. I had an idea concerning what to do with those 5 trolls remaining in that room... Got to the room where they were, unlocked and opened the door. Unleashed the purple worm, and shoved it into the room. Closed and locked the door. I then waited and counted each belch... "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" "Burrrp!" Went back in and saw stuff was strewn all over the place. The purple worm was all alone - no troll corpses! Yes. That worked out just fine (laugh!). I now named my newest pet "Burp". No explanation required, I'm sure (grin). Only thing dissapointing about him was that; he said nothing whenever I chated with him... (sad face) Next, we proceeded up through the levels of the Mazes of Menace - with Burp eating all the monsters along the way. I had discovered that naming the individual leashes, made it easier when trying to figure which one belonged to which. Thus they were named "Burp" and "Grunt" for lack of a better system. There were quite a bit of freindlies along the levels. Notably; ogres, ogre lords, all different kinds of elves (I know, but heah - it wasen't me. It was Burp!), some giants, and bugbears. These monsters yielded a whole bunch of loot. Notable amongst this, were some neat Elven mithral, weapons, miscellaneous objects and such. After considering my experiences with how booty is cursed or not; I started testing all the armor and weapons that the elves would drop - on the spot (!). Nothing from them ever welded itself to me. I tried lots of different kinds, not just a few. One suit of elven mithril turned out to be +2! I exchanged it with the dwarven one I had. Since Grunt was wearing the best one we had (dwarven mithril +2), this improved my armor class by 1 immediately. So my theory had now been confirmed... Elven booty is never cursed. So we continued on up through the Mazes of Menace. Burp was eating all kinds of monsters, both peaceful and aggressive. Up to an including, the Ghost level (dungeon level 17). Here we turned back around, and started back down towards base camp level 24. I would ferry my pets to the lower level, then go back up to bring down the ammassed booty. Burp, and neither Grunt for that matter, grew into another type of monster. Grunt I had given up on already a while ago. But for Burp, I was holding out some hope. He ate all the time. I mean; all the time. I really mean; all the time! (lots of laughs!) Okay... So now we've made it back to base camp level 24. I unleashed Burp and Grunt in the room with the upstairs, then scooted back up to start ferrying the piles of booty towards my cache in the Temple of Mars. By the time I had finished, must have been at least 6 trips, Grunt had managed to find his way around to me. I had given all my zorkminds to the preistess of Mars as expected. Had said hi to Jubilex and the Elven kings, and was busy sorting out all my booty, as per usual. All the while, I had in the back of my mind, been forming another plan on how to take out that titan on level 27. Boy, was it proving to be tough or what? Perhaps Burp could help out, if I could get him in just the right position...? While this was going on; Jubilex was standing right behind me, as usual, as always. He liked hanging right next to me. Strangely enough, I felt secure about this. I would often chat with him during these periodes. It was like being at home with your family members around you. Him, the preistess of Mars, and occaisionaly the two Elven kings. Like, we had been together for quite a while now (laugh!)... "Burp swallows Jubilex!" "Jubilex is killed!" "Burrrp!" OH MY GOD! Burp just killed Jubilex! He must have slinked over while I was busy and not paying attention. I was stuned! There I was standing right near him. A space between us, where Jubilex had been. He had that big stupid grin on his face with the little red heart next to his picture. My mind was racing. What's Mars going to say about this? What are the demons from the abyss going to say? How am I going to explain this to any one!? Oh my Gawd... Oh my Gawd... Oh my Gawd... I have to get a leash on him! Drag him away from the temple! I took a step towards him. The preistess of Mars did so also. As did an Elven king. There were now three of us right next to him... Oh... No... I had a real sick feeling starting to develope in my stomach... I put a leash on him. "Burp swallows the elven king!" "Burrrp!" Oh geez... Go away Preistess of Mars. Now's your chance. He'll be eating for a round. I tugged on the leash. Was trying to pull Burp away. It woulden't budge. The preistess held her position... "Burp swallows the preistess of Mars!" "Burrrp!" NOOO! Cough her up! You big overgrown purple pupae! I ran into Burp with the "m" prefix. Hoping it would somehow expel her. I tried it again. Burp moved down a space. I then knew nothing could be done. She had been digested... Oh Burp! What have you done? What shall we do now? What shall become of all this? I'm sorry Mars! I'm truly sorry.., sorry..., sorry... (sad, sad face)... "Burp swallows the elven king!" "Burrrp!" Sure... Why not...? Make it a clean sweep while your at it... ... Time passed... My mind was numb... ... Sullenly, I gathered the booty. Tested for cursednss then sorted and stored it away... Never once, did I look up while in the now ex-temple to Mars... I feared Mars' gaze of discontent all about me... I did not want to meet his gaze in the form of his wrath... All was silent, as I went through my motions. Thoughts were kept to oneself... No use trying to explain, nor offer amends... Nothing to be said would ever right what had just transpired... ... Sadly, I reflected on what this place had meant and been for me... The ice box would no longer be required... All my freinds, my family has vanished. No more laughter and gay cheer would this place know. No more comraderie over some beers. This place was now dead and but a place to store my things... Having now finished, I gathered my battle apparel. No use being overly loaded with extra things. Weapons were prime, above all else. A couple of very special objects I had been saving, were also added to the arsenal in my pack... Words could not fix what had been done. Deeds could now only suffice. Action would now be my only salvation. Checking my inventory to make sure all was there. I now had but only one mission to persue: The titan and his cronies will fall. Now only that was blocking my path in retrieving the amulet of Yendor. One last look over my shoulder as I left this place... Darkness, silence, and emptiness is all I was leaving behind... With both pets in tow; forward and down, now we would go... Part 19: The Battle - Engagement -------------------------------- Normally I would had spent some time mulling through a plan, but this titan sure seemed to put a kink in any I had made so far. Also the repercussions of meeting it, would draw me into other adventures as well. This time I was sure that things would be different. Though I took no real length of time in devising anything - I had come up with something that would surely force the issue. The debacle with Burp at base camp level 24, had created a situation which gripped me with sheer determination... I stood at the downstairs to level 26 in the Mazes of Menace, and paused for a minute... A glance into Grunts long stoned face. This told me he was as ready as always. I turned and faced Burp. Okay... I have high expectations of you. I lit the brass lantern, then went for my special objects... Pulled out a wand and zapped both Burp and Grunt. They both started to move faster. Held the wand and turned it towards my chest. Upon trying to zap it, it refused to unleash it's magic. Fine. I dropped it to the ground. Quaffed a potion of speed. Then down we went... Chaos and mahem were the immediate greetings. Unsurprisingly yet strangely, this was what I was fully expecting. A smile formed upon my face; lets roll! Battle was engaged at close quarters. Burp lost no time in devouring a creature. The xan, was my first personal opponent to fall. Otherwise, it would ruin what effect that potion of speed would benefit me. I circled around Burp, felling easier monsters with bow. Leaving the larger and more fearsome ones for him to swallow whole. Grunt was hovering around near by. Never too far, could he stray on his own, thanks to the leash. I wanted to drag Burp towards the titan. It was hanging out in the top right hand corner of the room. But every time Burp ate something, he would stay in place till he finished digesting. Then... The lich! I have a clear line of sight to the lich! I pulled out another wand and zapped towards it. The lich was now slowed. Occaisionally BDDD's would be thrown. But only if I felt that the target would fall in a slavo. For the rest; my poisoned tipped arrows, and the +2 runed ones would be used. "Burrrp!" I glanced back towards my pet purple worm. The baculathrium had been swallowed whole! Great, but at the same time bad! This creature would take some time to digest. Of this I was sure. This would take Burp out of action for some time to come. This dancing around Burp, continued for quite a while. To the point even where I thought that we may prevail completely without having to scurry back up the stairs. The cloak of displacement was fantastic. I was hardly taking any hits. Up till the point where the lich had interposed itself between me and the path unto the stairs... Something would summon monsters constantly. It was a battle of attrition. No question about it. But as I had just said, though ammunition was getting low, I felt we were gaining the upperhand. Verifying my ammunition, I had but 8 BDDD's left available in my inventory. These I would save for now. Can't take a turn off to pick up some more. Must keep dropping monsters. Must keep dancing... Must keep my distance from that lich. Desperately I maneuvered about Burp. Absolutely did not want to feel it's touch of cold. Come on Burp! Finish eating already. Take a bite out of this thing, would ya!? Burp did swallow something, but it was not the lich. Great. Now he would be busy digesting something for a while again. Another creature had come up on my other side. I had to step out and away from my current location around Burp. No choice, risking the lich's touch was too much of a chance I was willing to take. I stepped up and away from them. Grunt screamed as I tugged upon the leash. Sorry ol' buddie, but too much is at stake. Come on. Keep along with me. I need you as a blocker... The titan had finally started to venture from the top of the room and towards me. Great. I was not yet finished with the lich. Will the lich move towards me? If not I'll concentrate on it, till it falls. The lich stayed put as something else came up to interpose between me and it. I zapped that wand at the titan this time. No effect (!). Great, is there a magic resistance saving throw accorded to some monsters in nethack as well? I wondered... Zap the wand again. And again. Finally, the titan was slowed. Fine. This blasted titan, will now be mine... Stop. Plant my feet. Hold myself straight and erect. I aimed the Longbow of Diana and let fly salvo after salvo of poisoned tipped arrows. Round after round of arrows found their way into the titan. Never once did it seem affected by their poison... The lich is closing again. Damn. I must move still again. Back and left one step I took. The titan followed suit and obliged. He stepped into my line of fire again. Fine. Taunt me some more. Again I let fly a volley of poisoned arrows. As I went and drew back upon the string of my bow, my quiver signaled an end to the reserve of poisoned arrows. No... A round was required to invoke. A few blessed arrows came fro like magic. One or two more salvos is suredly all it can take. This titan had absorbed so much already. But wait! That lich is here again! Has the effect from the wand worn off...? A step back again I took, and my back was now against the wall. My Elf secret door detection ability kicked in and a door was revealed. But where could it possibly lead? Sea creatures were detected just on the other side... I must know and see for myself. Upon opening it, water was there. No solid ground. What a useless exit this was. Could it be the only one...? My attention must return to the battle at hand. The titan had moved out of my line of sight. Damn. I used some of my meager supply of arrows upon another creature. Once it had fallen, I searched for the titan. There it was, I can step up and right to close and be in line. Hopefully the lich will stay put for just a round or two more. Something happened. I was spelled or had a potion thrown at me. Blind I now was! No problem. The Longbow of Diana's Monster detection ability would carry me through. The titan was in line. Fire! It's still standing! Amazing! How much punishment can these things take. The Lich has come up behind me again. The effect of slowness has suredly worn off then. I step forward and towards the titan. I shall finnish it with my remaining BDDD's. Then I shall move forward and pick them up. Then turn on this infernal lich. Okay, take a step... I fell through a hole! The leashes both broke! NOO!! The titan was almost finished. I could almost taste it! ARRGH! Okay where am I? This may all yet be salvaged. If I can find the stairs up quickly enough, I may be able to finish it off before it recuperates too many hit points. Can't I...? The Longbow of Diana tells me of quite a few monsters in my vincinity. One of these is an other lich! Another lich? It seems to be quite close, yet too far to have fallen through with me (?). Or has it? Could it have volantarily stepped into the same hole or trap? The lich has made monsters aware of my presence!? What is this? My eyes narrow as I stare upon its picture on the screen. You will be turned to dust. Just get in my sights... Something has touched me! Ack! I hate being touched! How come it had not been detected? Of course. I am still blind! Whatever it is, it has no mind. I must get my sight back. I apply the unicorn horn. I can now see... A jelly of some sort. Step back and away. I need some distance between it and me. It is now obscured in the dark. Many monsters are around as well. Crap to it all! I have no ammunition. Just 8 BDDD's is all I possess presently as missile weapons! I'm in unfamiliar, unexplored, and uncleared territory. I can very well step unto another trap! I need that lantern back on as well... I'm now able to make out my immediate surroundings. I am in some kind of maze. Only single lane paths exist. On one side this is a good thing. With my limited amount of ammunition, at least all these monsters cannot converge on me at the same time. The lich has summoned monsters! Vampires! Decisions concerning the tactical situation have to be made. The jelly will stay for now. It moves slow. It will serve as a blocker for those monsters behind it. I turn, but dare not to take a step. Lest I should trigger another trap. But what to do? I have no ammo, yet don't wish any of these vampires to get near me... I know! Fire BDDD's at the vampires. Fire again! And again. They have been dispatched. Now put on the ring of levitation and move back. Stop over the largest stack. Take a chance and drop to the floor. Pick up the BDDD's that are here. The lich has summoned more monsters and made them aware of my presence! I study every one that moves. Yes every monster. I also check every single message. Each and every turn. Taking notes on wether they triggered a trap in the square they have just entered. Eventually I will be able to discern which squares are safe... I fight the impulse to bash through a wall with the pick-axe. I don't want to create another point of entry for all these monsters around me. The lich has appeared next to me! It can teleport as well!?! It touched me! Argh... I hate that! Eat BDDD's lich! At point blank range! It teleportated away again. Step forward and pick up my BDDD's. The jelly is upon me. A weak monster is coming up from behind. I'll let the thing behind me take swipes. This jelly must now go. Wield the silver dagger. My bow is now useless as I have no arrows. It will be many turns before I can invoke some again... Stab. Stab. Stab. Step back. Now I am sandwiched. Stab. Stab. Stab and it melts into its death throws. Phew... No dammage done to my armor or weapons at least... The lich is next to me suddenly again! My sheild has now been disintegrated! Curse you. You vile creature. I fire BDDD's at it yet once more. Then it is gone. Back to it's favorite place beyond the wall. Monsters are aware of my presence, I am told. Like how can that not be? I mockingly ask myself... Step forward and pick up BDDD's. Strong monster coming down the corridor. I do not want to allow it to close... Fire BDDD's. I have but one left now. Can I pick any up? No... My ammunition is strewn about in too many different places... My hopes to finish the titan above, are quickly being dashed. I am embroiled in another fight. This one will take too long to conclude. I never finished the one on the level above. I look up at the ceiling. Anger wells inside me. Curses upon you titan above! If I can but survive this - I will be back and make you suffer like this world has never known! That strong monster coming down the corridor will close. I will soon be fighting hand to hand, this I know. Wield remaining BDDD. Exchange. Wield blessed battle-axe. No more sheild. I will use whatever I have to advantage... Wait for it to be one square away and hold my ground. I draw the battle-axe back and above my head. Come on you big galoot! I haven't got all day. There's more coming up behind me! Prompted or taunted; it steps up to me... Hack. Hack. I'm Hit. I'm hit. Hack. Hack. It goes down. Think it was an ettin or something... Turn on my heels. It's a mob of Uruk-hai that has just recently appeared. Hope I'm still lucky... There will be saving throws versus poison coming up... Hack. Hack. Step forward. Hack. No saving throws are required. They just keep on missing my form. Figures. Orcs you know (wink). Hack. Hack. The lich is behind me again! My gloves have been disintegrated! Turn and swing with all my might at the lich with the blessed battle-axe! It took a full blow! It teleportated away. But wait! It has gone to the end of the hall, just before the bend. It is still in my line of fire! Fire remaining BDDD! "You kill the lich!" How that can be (?), I dunno. It's already dead. But as long as I don't see it's picture no more, I'll accept it as it being gone for good (laugh!). No time to relish that victory. Still much that demands my immediate attention... "The arrow missed you." "The arrow missed you." Pick up poisoned arrows. Take a hit. Hack. Hack. Minotaur now coming up from behind... Exchange. Wield Longbow of Diana. Fire poisoned arrows. Minotaur failed it's saving throw! Har har! Lots of gremlins around. I count at least six. Good. They're freindly. They will at least hamper the rest of the monsters ability to come around through the maze... Eventually the horde of assorted monsters within the maze started to abate. Desperate fighting at close quarters was shifting towards; selection of targets which were destroyed in my more traditional way - from a distance. I travelled to all the spots were my BDDD's had landed in order to collect them all. They were, after all, my only real weapon for ranged attack. The few arrows I had just recently acquired, were quickly all mulched during the fighting. Yes every last one was gone! That lich had done a good job. For all the monsters that it summoned, this ability at drawing whatever else was close by, sure made for a long fight! But what is this? Only 6 BDDD's was all I could find!? I retraced my steps several times. Going back over the areas that I knew they could only be. Still the other 2 never did come into view... Could they have been disintegrated as well somehow? This was something that never happened to me before. Believe me: As you have suredly noticed by now - my BDDD's were always kept well track of. Smart fighting, and taking my time during every move, allowed me to progress through the maze. Never did I step on a trap, though I discovered a few. Beyond, and to my right, there was a lot of activity and movement. Sharks and eels were moving through water. A wall with a drawbridge (?), lay just beyond the water. No solid path led to the monsters beyond these walls and within... Both up and down next to the maze I ventured. Still water would block the path. Occaisional monsters had to be dispatched from this area. But the mob of gremlins made it difficult to line them up. Within the walls were quite an assortment of monsters for sure! Liches (again!), giants, nagas, xorns, and many soldiers were detected. These are to name but a few. Yuch... I don't have the ranged weaponery to handle this mob. I don't even know how to reach them anyways... Back into the maze I went. Let's see if there are any stairs within. Though, I had already searched for some... The entire maze was thuroughly explored and searched. All booty had been collected and put in a pile in one of the dead ends. Still, my other 2 BDDD's had not been discovered. I'm now reduced to 6. Of this I must now make do. But also, and worse still... No stairs were to be discovered either... I was begining to worry. If things lasted much longer without me finding a way up... My pets would become peaceful. Concern at this possibility started to weigh on my mind... Allright. I guess the stairs must be somewhere over to my right. Just to make things worse. They were probably within this fortress of some sort. (Groan) Could there be a way for me to enter and avoide all these creatures to escape on up the stairs? I must look at the surrounding area a little more... Back into the open area I ventured. Going near the water, but staying one square away. I wanted to uncover as much of the area as possible, before venturing too close to danger. Nothing. No way to go anywhere beyond here unless it's over water. Boy. Looks like I'll have to depend on that ring of levitation again. Lucky I've found that, this game. It has come in handy on a few occaisions. Beyond the barrier of water and within the walls. Xorns were phasing in and out. Monsters were also crowding up from within the fortress. Pressing into a congested mob, wherever I moved along it's perimeter... This is undoubtably some sort of special area. I hope that this fortress is not too large. Hopefully there will be stairs on the other side of the map beyond it... Hopefully, I won't have to fight all those monsters within... Part 20: The Battle - Maneuvers ------------------------------- Fine then. There seems no other way. I'll levitate around this structure. But first I must rid the waters of their creatures. I stay in place and count how fast they move compared to me. Wield a BDDD in hand and step forward to the waters edge. Stab for as much as I dare. Then step back when I figure it's their turn to attack. Wait and count again. Then step back forward to repeat the stabing. Too bad I don't have a pole-arm handy. It would have saved me a little trouble here... I stay at a juncture where ground and water meet. But at such a place where only one shark, or eel can reach me. Gremlins are hopping all about. They seem to be becoming more numerous...? Finally, after many turns have passed. I have rid the waters of all the creatures that the Longbow of Diana has told me about. I stand at the waters edge. Just to the left of the top left corner of a tower from that fortress. Xorns are constantly phasing within the walls of this structure. Must I eventually have to enter this place? Wish I had some arrows in order to dispatch them... I put on the ring of levitation. Hover over the water tentatively. I'll go around the top and North. For some reason I feel more secure than the South... Up and around to my right I go. Along the top of the screen. The xorns are keeping pace with me all along the structure. I can see the open mouthed gaps at the top of their bodies. Yes, I convince myself. I must acquire some arrows. Else it will be impossible should I need to enter this place. A long strip of land comes into view. I float gently to the ground. Some monsters are here. Nothing to threatening as long as we're both on these land squares. Some sort of troll stays a little ways away. I chuck BDDD's at them and they fall. Then I walk over to pick up my weapons. Must be careful at retrieving these. These are all I have left. Booty is sifted through but not carried aloft with me. I don't know where this will all lead. I will only keep what I think may help me in the very near future. I kick the trolls body into the water. Hope this water is as deep as the swamps located back up in the Mazes of Menance... As I venture along this thin strip of land. Many a monster from within the fortress keep pace with me. But what was that? Could it be? Did I see correctly for a moment back there? Was that some sort of a dragon!? Perhaps a chameleon... The liches, yes I could now see two for sure (!). Were calling upon monsters and making them aware of my presence. Yes, they were. Even though I was out here. Gawd.... This will indeed be a monstrous fight - should I have to engage them all... Eventually I come to the end of dry land. The water is again before me. My, my... This is quite a citadel. It nearly spans the whole of the map! I wait to see if more sea creatures come along here. Nope. There do not seem to be any. Perhaps liches cannot summon these types? At least we'll take advantage of this... I levitate again and see a jut of land similar to the other side of the fortress. Yes. It is the exact same as the other side of the map. Good. Perhaps then, within this maze there will be some stairs. A sense of hope comes up inside of me... More fighting ensues. Long and careful I am with every turn. I am in a place that I now sense is special. The Mazes of Menace have never looked like this before. Just as the Ghost one was, and is. This is indeed a unique level... Slowly and methodically I make my way through this other maze. Thankfully there is no lich here, on this side. I explored the maze fully and completely. Unfortunately no stairs were found. Neither up. Nor down... Of all the monsters that were here, and of which I had fought. Only one type is all I can recall. Some type of Elves. Yes they were freindly (peaceful). But I knew that they would certainly have some arrows. In all likelyhood some armor as well. Perhaps a sheild or some gloves... Hmmm... Nonchallantly. With smile upon my face. I appproached then stoped before them. I chated, and we all cursed orcs. Took a few steps away, as we parted. Then when their backs had turned; I swung around and flung BDDD's ! Remorse at such vile a deed, I did feel. However much was at stake. With no way either up or down. I now knew that I would have to enter the fortress. Without arrows I could not eliminate the xorns from accross the water. These Elves' lives would be taken for the sake of insuring my own survival. After all... There was something much more important than all of our lives: The amulet of Yendor must be retieved for Mars... Arrows and an elven sheild were found and quickly equiped. The rest of their booty was added to a pile I had made on this side of the area. From all of the booty found along my travels through this level, thus far. I had the foresight of retaining the missile weapons on me. Daggers, knives, and even axes. These I felt would soon be required... I went and stood at the jetty of land. The xorns were phasing in and out in the walls immediately across the water from me. I wielded the Longbow od Diana and let fly all the arrows I possesed. Of these, enough I had, for dispatching two of the xorns. I let fly the one or two remaining at the last xorn. Then I began to throw the daggers at it. Next came the axes. Finnally with the last of the knives I threw; that last xorn had perished. Phew... Strange thing though. My projectiles showed on the screen where the wall had been. Could I have somehow created an opening...? I did the look, then the question commands. Embeded arrows and the other weapons as well; was the response. Can I somehow extricate them, I wondered? Eventually, I may very well see... No drawbridge on this side. But I strongly suspected that a secret entrance would exist. I levitated again over the water. Approached that area of the wall I was sure of, and began searching. After a short while a door appeared. Ten rounds of searching, detected no traps. Without trying to open it, I applied the lockpick. Yes. I was correct in my assumption. The door was indeed locked. Ha! Once open I floated within. There was some sort of creature in the hallway a short distance away. I floated to the ground immediately on the first square inside the door. Threw a salvo of BDDD's and slew the creature. Great. That was easy. And at least the door did not open up into one big huge room. Though I could see some other creatures milling about. These were on the other side of walls. I felt safe for a little while inside this area. Okay. Now let's pick up those BDDD's and see exactly how this place is laid out... I took a step forward and fell through a trap door! My mind was racing immediately again! Wonderful. I have not finished with the level above. Nor with the level above that (!), for that matter. And now I am projected into yet another place?! I may very well have had just two BDDD's on me, at this time as well... Somekind of message said something about a place of death. There were mummies, vampires, and a wight all around me. I dared not move. Fearing stepping unto a trap. I lit my brass lantern. I did not want to miss anything with any of my different sight senses... Could this be the place that Izchak had told me about? Is this where the gateway to another plane is to be found? If I were better equiped I may have considered looking more into this. But as it was, I just wanted to get back up. Back up two levels even. Hell! Three levels to level 26 would be ideal (lots of laughs!). So here I was. Dungeon level 29 was what the status area told me. Creatures of death closing in from all sides. I took a break and consulted my notes. After which I went to the guide, yet once more... This is from the section with stairs: "In general, each level in the dungeon will have a staircase going up (`<') to the previous level and another going down (`>') to the next level. There are some exceptions though... ... When you traverse a set of stairs, or trigger a trap which sends you to another level, the level you're leaving will be de-activated and stored in a file on disk." Okay. two things here... - Maybe I'm in a part of the Mazes of Menace that falls in the exception category. Though I hope not. I may have to prepare myself to continue the game with only what I have in my backpack. That would be a challenge! Not one I relished at all, though... - The other thing comes in the second line above. So the previous level is deactivated... Then all levels must be deactivated except for the level I am presently on. Then I don't have to worry about monsters moving all over the place on these other levels. Then caches must be safe when left somewhere else. This may well reduce the time I spend trying to secure everything. Again I see something that has made my mind click. Yet another example of discovering something new, no matter how many times I've read it already! I make a note to test this once, and if, I make it out of here alive. Hopefully in the near futur... Allright. Let's hope there are stairs on this level. Start searching while fighting off these monsters... The wight, and both vampires were dispatched. My remaining BDDD's and that blessed battle-axe coming in extremely handy. The mummies were slow, so I had time to search while recovering my cherished few BDDD's. What's this? Are those stairs I see!? Do they go up? Yes they do! Lucky. They were but a few squares away from where I was. Great! Do a quick mimic check before the mummie is on top of me... They're real. Up I go... I appear in the maze on the right of the screen on level 28. I move off the square but the stairs do not show up...? I just came up them. What gives? I go back and step on the square. No indication that I'm on the top of the stairway... I do the look. Nothing. I try to go down. I can't. It's as if they have vanished... (groan) Are there teleportating stairs in this area? This will make things hard indeed! Oh well. I'm back up to the fortress. Let's finish what I had started. Surely then, there will be stairs up within it (hopefully...). I go back into the hall with the secret door. This time I stay levitated until I have cleared that pit. I descend to the floor right after it. The Longbow of Diana tells me of 4 dragons nearby. As well as the rest of that mob of monsters and soldiers. I take another two steps towards my left... I fell through another trap door! I'm in about the same spot I was just before on level 29! (major groan) Fine. When I get back up there. I'll start checking for traps quite consistently. (mutter, mutter) At least the mummies are near the stairs. Considering what I had just realised from reading the guide before. Ha! So I start slowly heading back towards them. Ever so careful to search here and there before taking a step. Lest I should trigger another trap on this level also. Had to fight two mummies. Blessed battle-axe combined with their slowness works great. I'm starting to consider checking the box next to it on the "enhance" screen. But I hold off for now. I may need something else once I'm inside that fortress above... Back up the stairs. Exact same situation again with the vanishing stars on level 28 from before... Hmm... Okay. Now I know that they are there. Thing is that these are one-way stairs. Only can come up from level 29 to here. Can't use them to go back down. I engrave "up only" on the square. Back through the secret door again. I stay levitated till I have cleared the second trap door. Upon landing, I start to search. Saquare by square. Sure enough, I have detected another trap door next to me. Hmmm... I count the number of squares. Could there be trap doors at every other two intervals that there are here? I levitate beyond the third one, which I have just discovered. At least I have not fallen through again (laugh!). Now I have retrieved my BDDD's from before. Good, back up to six. I feel much more secure. Levitation and searching has proved my suspicions correct. A pattern has emerged. There are 5 trap doors to be had in the corridor. Hmmm... Why so many traps just here? Why would they want to gaurd this area so well...? The door at the other end of the corridor is mercifully closed. It is locked I am sure. There are too many monsters on the other side of it that can open doors. Still. I go and make sure that it is indeed locked. The liches are summoning and making monsters aware of my presence. Okay stop it already, I say. The intruder alarm has been going on non-stop from the time I fell into here from the titans level above. Stop the claxons. Stop the wailing. The whole level knows where I am. My sensitive elven ears are begining to smart... I noted all the different types of monsters around me. Man... There sure were a lot. More than I had ever, ever seen in one spot before! I wish I had some arrows... I started making my way back to the rear exit again. Keeping track of how all these monsters were moving, as well as, their speed. I had hardly any ranged weapons. I would have to fight everything using tactics. But beforehand; I was going to collect all the intel I possibly could on them. Understand something; I was not afraid. Concerned and concentrating; yes. Fear; no. Let's just fight smart. Let's make it through this in relative good shape. I have a titan upstairs which must eventually meet it's fate... After doing this assessment, I noticed that the dragons were not part of the general pack. They must be limited by space constraints somehow. Also, they were seperated into two groups of two. One on top. The other below. Fine. I'll handle them first. Maybe find out what these things were gaurding. Perhaps a dragons' horde awaited me..? Dragons always have a ton of stuff in their lairs (!). So. I went for the top two first. A grey and a blue. What could a grey possibly breathe? Never knew of their existence in that game that Nethack is not... Opened the door. Started chucking BDDD's. Took a lightning breadth attack that reflected off the Lonbow of Diana - another new discovery, by the way...! The lightning bolt ricocheyed all over the place! An idea had just formed in my head. The other door to the two bottom dragons was in direct line of sight... Closed the top door and waited for all four dragons to be placed one space away from both doors. The bottom two were a blue and a red. Opened the bottom and then the top door. Braced myself for what would surely be: An undoubtably super laser light show! Lightning bolts flashed all about! Ricochets and bounces from my position, as well as from the back walls, just extended all their paths. Two rounds later, the red dragon from below would fall. It never breathed nor had a chance to move. The blue from above and below, had unwitingly been it's demise... Chucked another round of BDDD's - killing the first dragon. Steped up. Picked up the BDDD's and chucked them at the next one in line, the grey this time, and it fell too. I was quite amazed with the little amount of force I had used... Turn around and fire two salvos before the bottom blue can move up. An anguished cry filled the hallways as it fell. All four dragons gone in but 8 rounds! Satisfaction filled my essence. Six BDDD's to kill a blue dragon. These were truly wonderous weapons. Or these dragons were not fully matured. Either or. I'll see if I run accross any more with this character. But that's five dragons I've killed now, using no more than this amount of force. The Longbow of Diana also gave me reflection like the amulet of reflection! This too is truly a wonderous weapon / artifact. Well. Four dragons out of the way. I was just about to start checking out those rooms they were gaurding when I got hungry. I never tasted dragon meat before, so decided to give one a try. I went for the last blue I killed. As it was the nearest, after picking up my BDDD's. I also figured that drinking dragons blood confered special properties. So was eager to see if this was part of Nethack also. Only message I remember getting about the whole thing was that I had a hard time getting it all down. I was also satiated. Just as well. I figured there would be a long fight ahead of me, if the stairs were located in the room, beyond the door were the big mob of monsters and soldiers were hanging around... The four rooms turned out to be; a weapons locker, an armory, food storage, and... I forget what the other was (laugh!). But I went and stepped on every square, in all these rooms. Did the look here command (":"). Hoping there might be some stairs. No such luck... (sigh) Things I can remember that I would find useful were; a silver sheild, a silver spear, some throwing spears, and an angled pole-axe. I say "were" cause I haden't picked them up yet. I just made note of them for now. Well. Not much left to do... No stairs around these parts. Guess I have to go beyond that door at the western end of the hallway with all the trap doors in it. I levitated towards it and stood there for a while. Gauging which would be the most likely opponents to step through it first. After having figured I was ready, I unlocked the door and opened it. The horde, which was gathered on the other side, now had a way through... Part 21: The Battle - Clash Of Arms ----------------------------------- First one through was a soldier. I wasen't going to start chucking my valuable, yet very limited supply of BDDD's out into that crowd. So I started hacking with the ol' blessed battle-axe. A few swipes later and he went down. But not before everybody and their sister that were behind him had thrown; daggers, knives, spears, javelins, and potions my way. Most of these projectiles landed / hit the others that were in line. By the time that anything got through to me, it would invariably miss any ways. Another faceless soldier steped up to take his place. Same thing happened with this guy as the first. Then the same for the next guy as had happened to the first two... Then something else stepped in. It was a big thing. Was able to land a few blows on me. Hmmm... This is no good. I don't have enough potions of healing to duke it out like this. I remember having but one. This is going to be a looong fight. At least I was faster than it. Put on the ring of levitation. And hovered back over the trap door that was immediately behind me. I landed and turned to see its reaction. Ha ha! You can't reach me. What are you going to do now? The big slow thing just kept walking up to me till it fell into the pit! Big on size and dammage. Slow on movement and ability to think (laugh!). I was going to levitate back over to the other side again. But the rest of the mob had filled in behind it too quick. There was no room for me to get a foot hold again on the other side. (shrug). Can they all be stupid enough to just all fall through the pit? Let's see... Yup. The next three monsters just walked towards me and fell into the pit (laugh). Then I started thinking... The level below is going to get crowded if this keeps up... I'll have to clear that level eventually. With all these numbskulls, just gathering down there, due to falling through here, will make whatever it's like below - a real pain when I go to clean them out! Pause. More thinking... At least up here I have the terrain to my advantage. They are all required to funnel towards me one at a time. It would be better, in a strategic sense, just to kill them all off here. Yep. Decision made. That's the best course to take. Considering everything about this game, and its future... Okay, let's get a weapon better suited to the task at least. I went into the armory and got the angled pole-axe. Came back to where I had left the crowd. This took a few turns. I imagin another 6 or so monsters, must have fallen through the hole again, already... Well. Here goes... I took a chance: I wielded the angled pole-axe. It did not weld itself to my hands. Good. I let out a sigh of relief. Not cause if it was cursed I would be stuck with it. It was instead because; since it was not cursed, then it did not have a negative enchantment! Even with the blessed battle-axe, it took more than one swipe to bring these guys down. At least two and more than likely, it was mostly three. I don't know of too many weapons that can do so much dammage as it (a battle-axe) can. Certainly, an angled pole-axe is okay. But not as good I'm sure. Also I did not know if it was blessed or not. So chances were that it would not work as well. Anyhoo... The big thing with the angled pole-axe is that it can be used at a range of two. So standing on one side of the pit and thrusting/chopping with this thing; I could hit them and they couldent hit me. Which, by the way; is one of my favorite ways of fighting (big grin)! After trying to fight this way, I soon discovered that I was correct in my earlier assumption. With the angled pole-axe, it took even more hits than the battle-axe. This weapon required; three and more often than not, four hits to kill a soldier. Too long, as it turned out. For often before I could finish one off, it would fall down through the pit, as it stepped forward to get next to me... Hmm... I am no better off than before. This is with regards to what I was hoping to avoide. Allright. I have to get back over there. Too bad. This way of doing things, though I had thought ingenious, was obviously flawed... Throw BDDD's! And down the soldier went. Throw BDDD's at the next in line. I needed to cause a gap of two within the line. Then the soldier stoped to pick up some booty instead of stepping forward. My opening was now at hand. I put on the ring of levitation and floated accross the pit. No time to exchange to another weapon, nor do anything else. Time was of the essence. I had to get accross in the least amount of turns possible. Else I would lose my chance. Made it! I now occupied the square on the other side of the pit. Remove the ring and float back to the ground. The amount of objects thrown at me from along the line was relentless. Too bad none were arrows... I'm hit by the soldier in front of me. I look at my hit points. Nothing too damaging. I pick up the BDDD's that are here on the ground. I'm missed. Good. At least my armor class is still decent enough. I know that my cloack of displacement will not be able to help me much here. Due to the nature of the restricted terrain; I do not have the luxury of being able to dance. I'm missed again. Fine. I'll continue to use the angled pole-axe. I will strike at the soldier beyond. As long as the one in front of me is not too skilled; I'll use him as a buffer from the mob behind him. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Soldier is killed. This pattern would go on and on. Always keeping a watchful eye on my hit points. Never once did I miss in landing a blow. Though I was unskilled in pole arms, I was impressed with my ability to always hit with them. Come to think of it. I never missed with the battle-axe either... I was doing pretty good. But slowly losing the battle of hit point regeneration, to the one of, hit point loss. I must find a way to either speed things up, else I'll have to retreat to regenerate some hit points... I know! I reach for my wand of slow monster. Point and zap directly to my left. Nothing! The wand is empty... I mentally struggle with the idea of trying to force the last charge out of it. Just as the Oracle had informed me. No. That is what I decide for now. I cannot take so many rounds off. I'll just get hit more often than not. Keep fighting for now... Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Soldier is killed. Many rounds of this never ending pattern; has brought me to one third of my hit point reserve. I glance at the amount of monsters that still are crowding in my view. There are still way, way too many monsters in the room beyond. I cannot continue as I have been doing. Fine. A tactical redeployement is now the smart thing to do. I levitate back over the pit behind me. Upon landing again, I go to the enhance screen. I check the box next to pole-arms. Now I am at basic skill. There, hopefully I will be able to do a little more dammage per hit... While being relatively out of harms way. I restart my familiar pattern with the angled pole-axe. Carefully I keep track of the number of hits required, on average, for a soldier to fall. No real difference. Is what I can make out. Though a leutenant and some other type of monsters have also stepped up. So I did not have enough of a pool to test everything as well as I had wanted. Unless they stopped for a while to pick up some objects. I did not have enough rounds to kill them before they would fall through the pit. But I must wait for my hit points to go back up. Before I will venture again beyond the other side of the pit... Fine then. Back to the armory I go for now. I pick up the throwing spears and the silver sheild. I will hope that it improves my armor class better than the elven sheild I have presently. Although it is not elven armor, I equipe it while taking another chance it is not cursed... Lucky! It is not. I believe it did improve my armor class by one. For I remember having it with me from this point on, up to now... Good. Now my hit points are getting back up to near full. On my way back to the front, I wonder if I should try going through one of these walls with the pick-axe... Nah. I'm doing fine as it is. No use letting them in from another angle. I'm doing okay. When I need a rest, I can take one. Such as I am doing now. Just have to be patient that is all... Back at the front. Next to the pit. How many have fallen through in my absence, I do not know. I'll count the amount of soldiers there are on level 29. Once, and if, I ever get there (laugh!). Oh! I'm fighting with two-handed weapons. Why did I try that sheild? Stupid move. Wasen't thinking. Or I should say, I was thinking, but thinking along crooked lines. Come on - I tell myself. Concentrate on the task at hand. A mistake like that can very well set me back, quite a bit... Take off sheild. Weild blessed battle-axe. Okay. Have to clear some of these guys out so that I can get back accross... Throw BDDD's! Throw BDDD's! Two whatever type of monsters have fallen. Now to create a little pile for them to stop and pick up... Throw spears! Throw knives! Levitate across the pit. Touch down on other side. Pick up my BDDD's that are here. Hit soldier in front of me with blessed battle-axe till he falls. Another immediately takes his place before I can step forward. I want those extra BDDD's that are there... Swing with the blessed battle-axe once more. Keep it up till he falls. Still yet another steps in front of me. Damn. Do I use another box on the enhance screen for the battle-axe...? Ponder... I decide against it. But just for now... Swing with the blessed battle-axe till the soldier falls before me. Nothing has stepped forward this time! Good. I have my chance to get at my remaining BDDD's. Lets see how this goes though... Step forward (now into doorway). Massive amount of messages coming in. Many line of sights I am now exposed to. Something reflects off of my amulet and goes careening back into the crowd. The ray was purple - whatever that signifies. Many objects thrown. Many monsters hit by these. Few even make it to my position. Those that do; none hit. Several swipes taken at me. I'm now exposed to three opponents. Cloak of displacement is working like a charm here. I have just changed positions from one square to another. Pick up remaining BDDD's. Another round of many messages to sift through. One said that I was missed by a lance (!?). It was not thrown. So then lances are range two? Same as a pole-arm...? A hit from something adjacent has landed on me. Dammage is minor. But can I stay here for long? Do I dare stay this exposed? No... I will step back again. I have what I wanted - my remaining BDDD's. Let us just be patient and do what works best... Step back. Exchange. And re-assume my previous pattern... Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Soldier (or whatever) is killed. I again resume counting the number of turns required to fall a soldier. That is when one has appeared behind the one that is in front of me. Many different monster types were present. But soldiers, by far, outnumbered all the rest. Still not enough dammage is being dished out. In order for me to bring the rounds required to kill a soldier, down to three. I toy with the idea, to enhance pole-arms to skilled. It may be enough to gain that edge in dammage. However the best benefit; being able to swing to any target at range two, would be negated as long as I stayed within the corridor. I'll hold off for now. I'll have to see how long I can last in the exposed position of the doorway, before I commit to checking another box with pole-arms. I feared that I was now running out of boxes (see Part 2 for why I thought so), and was still considering the battle-axe for enhancement... Back to the routine for now... Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Apply the angled pole-axe. Pick target. Hit the "." button. Soldier (or whatever) is killed. In order to make the monotony of it all go by a little faster; I started to associate the commands with how it would translate into a more realistic battle... Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Soldier is killed and falls to the ground. There! That makes it more interesting (grin)! If you have ever fought a long battle with a pole-arm; you know what I mean (laugh!). A lot of fun comes from what you yourself can put into the game. The mind and imagination is what makes it all worth while. To me any ways... (wink) So. This went on for a while longer. Then somebody threw something and it hit the black naga that was just outside the doorway. It shattered on its head and broke into peices. I thought nothing of it at the time. Just another failed attempt, like so many others, at trying to get me. But then after a few turns; I noticed that the naga was attacking soldiers around it (!). I looked at it. It was not peaceful. It must be confused. Hmm... This may be an opportunity that I can take advantage of... No use for me to keep hitting it. I can use it as some kind of blocker. Nobody can step into the doorway as long as it's going to stand outside the door. Threw BDDD's at soldier in front of me. But I was careful. I hit "n2td". Did not want to over send any BDDD's and hit the naga. Exchange. Chop with blessed battle-axe. He died. I stepped forward. Picked up weapons. Everything missed me. Cloak of displacement and all, you know. Exchange. Then started using the angled pole-axe on whatever was behind the naga... Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Stick 'em with the angled pole-axe. Twist the blade in the wound. Withdraw blade and stand ready. Soldier is killed and falls to the ground. After a few soldiers had fallen. I thought that it would be nice if I could kill some other monsters that were not directly lined up at range of two from me. In other words, something else that wasen't right behind the naga. Like the mumak. Or an other naga. Or that wight. Ot that funny looking blue monster. Or one of them liches, if they ever got close enough. Hmm... Took a little time out at this point. This was going to be a big decision... Yep. I figured that this was the best course of action. I went to the enhance screen. Now I checked the box next to pole-arms. I was now skilled in them. All the boxes that were next to other choices dissapeared. I nodded my head. I was right. My enhancement capabilities were falling within the paramters I had just about figured. (See part 2 again for how I figure the boxes.) Okay. I'm now commited to these weapons skills. For better or worse. Let's make them count! Since I'm skilled with pole-arms. I can now swing to any target at a range of two from my position. Not just the 4 major compass points. I will now be able to pick targets that I do not want to ever get beside me. The confused black naga and the other two soldiers will serve as blockers. The cloak of displacement will help as long as I can dance back and forth from time to time. What I have to try and do also, is protect this black naga as long as possible. Have to try and hit the guys with wands and/or that are throwing spears. So I was basically doing just about all that I had just described. The battle got a little more interesting. Most times I only needed three hits with the angled pole-axe to bring a soldier down. That was great! The confused black naga lasted for a very long time. It absorbed many errant spears and knives. Occaisionally a blast from that wand of purple beams as well. I was able to dispatch all the big mean monsters at a range of two quite effectively. Albeit, it took a while. But I don't remember any big meanies getting next to me. The liches had summoned quite a variety of monsters: Ettins, ettin zombies or mummies, cockatrices, wights, mumaks, stalkers, different elementals, yetis, ogre types, some kind of big cat, and a disenchanter (whatever that is), are what I can remember. Eventually the black naga fell. After trying to hold my position in the doorway for a while, my hit points had gotten low. I retreated a step and fought the mob where just one soldier would now face me. I went back to killing whatever was staying just outside the door. For within a constrained space; the angled pole-axe can't span out. When I got really low. I quaffed that potion of healing I had. That was the only time I needed it for the whole battle. So all in all, I held up pretty darn good. Or, I should say, the tactic employed to fight this huge battle, required it only once. I eventually got back into the doorway. And having dispatched the liches, the battle started to wind down. As no more monsters were getting added to the mob. Other things I did, but won't go in detail about were: - I chucked all the cursed weapons that came my way back into the mob. Often these would be picked up and subsequently be welded to my opponents hands (laugh). - Any of them that I noticed was wielding a lance (yes, after the battle I had found five strewn about), I let them get next to me. I knew that they could cause hardly any dammage. After all, that's what happens when I try to hit something at range of one myself. But the dammage I would take confirmed this. Most of the time either zero or one hit point. - Dancing back and forth so that my cloak of displacement's properties would kick in. This required very careful planning as to when to do this. As I did not want a soldier to step into the doorway when I stepped back. - I threw a lot of spears, and throwing spears. I was able to get an asterix "*" next to them both in the enhance box. - Was able to figure out a pair of gloves that were not cursed. After I threw them into the crowd and whatever monster put them on, didn't have them welded to its hands. This part of the battle took two seesions for me to conclude. Yes. It was that long and there were that many monsters... So after the last monster had fallen in front of the door to that big room, it was now time to explore the rest of the fortress and mop-up the stragglers... Part 22: Enlightenment ---------------------- Time to finish the exploring and cleaning this place out... Dungeon Level 28: - Fortress with drawbridge. - chest X2 - large box - throne - fountain - trap doors only way down - one way stairs up from level 29 ** Note: I know I haven't given you what's on dungeon level 27. I can't give it to you, as I don't know what's in it yet. To those that have followed the whole story - I haven't been able to clear it. Hopefully that will be soon when I start playing the game again... (!) ** The large box was empty. Don't remember what was in the chest in the big room. There was a chest in the South-East tower. "Elbereth" was engraved in the floor on the same square as it. Inside was a wand. When I zapped it at the next monster I saw, it asked me what I wanted to wish for! Oh boy! A wand of wishes! Never had one. Another big discovery! After a little thought... I asked it for; "death to mindflayers". The game told me it could not find that or something. Not knowing how to ask for a wish, I pressed "escape" till I was out of it. I'll figure something out later. Once I find the stairs and can get back to base camp... Having now finished completely exploring the interiore... I had not found any stairs! (big long sigh) Perhaps I'm in that special level with no stairs the guide talks about... I tried to liberate the arrows and other weapons that were enbeded into the walls with the pick-axe. The game told me that I could not dig there, or something (shrug). Okay, they will stay inbeded then... I approached the drawbridge and started chopping with the battle-axe. It's made of wood, right? The game said the same thing as with the inbeded arrows, I think. (shrug) Looks like I'll just have to use that back door. Well then... I collected all the booty from within the fortress. Brought it to that central room. Then started sorting it out and classifying it within the chest and large box. Of which I had transported nearby to the throne. Man-oh-man... Was there ever a lot! So much that I have big humongous piles of it (laugh). Don't know how I will ever be able to bring it to a base camp. We'll worry about that another time as well. I have to find a way up and out of here... Some other kind of monster materialised. Think it was an Olog-hai. Yeah, that was it. I pointed another newly found wand from the pile of booty towards it. When I zapped... "This is a wand of enlightenment." And then followed a screen. I will try and remember some of the stuff for you and how it was displayed... - You are piously aligned. - You are cold resistant. - You are infravisioned. - You are shock resistant. - You are poison resistant. - You are automatic searching. - You are sleep resistant. And there were a few others I now forget... Now this was truly amazing as well as revealing. I sat there and looked at this screen for a long time. Oh yeah. A lot longer than you could imagin (laugh). My intuition told me that this was a big thing here. I was on the threshold of another big discovery... I went through my Oracle sheets. There was something that had clicked in my brain... "The meat of enchanted creatures often times convey magical properties unto the consumer." I consistently make certain saving throws; versus poison, and versus frost. So then I must have eaten some type of magical creature that enhances my resistance to these. This wand gives me the results! I have never fallen asleep. I discover secret doors without searching sometimes. I have infravision. These are all due to me being Elf. So if I were to be polymorphed into another creature - I would lose that. Just like when I was a winged gargoyle, for a while back there. Mars has been pretty happy with me all this game. Since I'm so pious... That's probably why I have gotten so many gifts from him (3 so far). And the reason why he has come through when I have been in great need a few times (when I've prayed). It was all starting to come together... (!). This is a very powerful wand to have at my disposal. I will keep it on me and use it when I'm in big trouble, therefore I'll have a better idea as to why! Okay. Now I killed this Olog-hai. Then went off to see if I can find some stairs... Back out through the back door. Only one place on the map still uncovered: the lower part of the map over the water South of the fortress. I assumed it would look the same as the top part of the map. Sure enough it turned out that way exactly. There was an eel that came around. Obviously never showed itself when I was killing them all a few days ago. I tried to croak it while still levitating. That didn't work too well. Floated back to dry land. Finished it off the same way as I had got all the other sea creatures before. Back to uncovering the bottom of the map. What is this? Do I see some weapons over there? I landed on the long strip of land. And there were my two other BDDD's! I thought they were lost. From when I first fell through here and had that initial engagement with the lich in the maze (see part 19). So then liches' can also teleport stuff away (!). Wow... These are formidable monsters. I wonder what else they can do that I have not yet discovered... (?) Great! Now I have 8 BDDD's. And the Longbow of Diana has given me a few arrows as well. Could have come in handy earlier - like during that humongous battle! Ah well... I got through it just fine any ways. Just had to do a little more thinking, that was all (grin). Now then... Let's keep looking for stairs... Nothing. No stairs. I have checked the whole level (28). I am certain. Now I'm stuck... I want to get my pets back. Grunt, and especially Burp; would have been super handy with my situation down here. I want to make that titan on level 27 suffer for all the grief it's caused me. I've ran into it three times now. It's still alive... It's the first and only thing, that has given me such a hard time to get past it. (Mindflayers are still my most despised monster, though...) My remaining BDDD's (those super weapons) are still on level 27 with that titan. All my poisoned tipped arrows as well. It would be nice to get those back again. I really don't want to continue with just what I have on me. Although I have just acquired quite a number of things from the fortress also; I have quite a cache on level 24 as well as some others. I would like to have access to them again. Have to find a way up... Ponder and think... Nope. I'm really stuck. Okay... Let's see what the website that I downloaded this game from has anything to say or add... I find nothing that I think applies to my situation. There were a few links for further information. One of them was here (Google). Also had a FAQ under the same link. Section 3.4 of this FAQ was the closest that applied to me. So after reading that part... I went through the motions of looking for stairs - again! Did not want to look stupid by asking a stupid question then finding out I was too stupid to do a proper search... (roll eyes) Met another mindflayer while doing this. I knew about it through it's psionic residuel emanations. A little bit of hunting - and it was careful hunting, believe me - brought it into my sights. BDDD's away! When it died, I kicked it's corpse into the water. If pirahnas ever materialise here, they'll have something to munch on (big grin). There are now a veritable horde of gremlins. All mostly on the left side of the map. Coming back across the map, I ran into an incubus. He wanted to get it on, and was presumptious enough to think I'd fall into his arms! Get real. I told him. I'm the female here. Not you. Since when do you think you get to make those decisions? Especially on; where, when, and wether it's yes or no? Go away before I clobber you. I have other things more important on my mind for now. He was persistent. Thought I would eventualy fold. Well okay. Here's my number: "4 t d 6 t d 6". And that was that... (hrumph!) So finaly... Didn't find any stairs yet again... Registered with Google and posted my question. I'll see if I can find the original thread and post a link... http://groups.google.ca/groups?q=Seem+to+be+at+an+impasse+group:rec.games.roguelike.nethack&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.games.roguelike.nethack&selm=26ccd8a4.0402101120.669c2b90%40posting.google.com&rnum=1 Well. There it is. You can refer to that thread now to see how I found the stairs. Not much of a story really. Just ended up looking stupid like I didn't want to (laugh!). But that's where I'm at now... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So then Ladies and Gentleman; that concludes the story on how I got here. The prologue in my first post of this thread explains the reason for having started this thread. I have gone back and re-read all the chapters. I find that they are easier to understand if one reads through them slow. It makes assimilating the information easier - well, to me anyways (laugh!). I also noticed that I was able to convey, through my writing, how insecure I was when starting this game. Then how my confidence grew as I progressed throughout. Especially after that part on consolidating my character, followed by the breaching of the ghost level. At the point I'm at now, I just can't wait to get my hands around that titans neck (grin)! I think I've tied up any loose ends that were left hanging. If not, or for any other questions, I'll be happy to reply to any querries. I'll check back here from time to time. Thanks again to those of you, from the other thread, that helped me find the stairs. Thanks to those of you, from this thread, for your help and suggestions with the game. (I've learnt a lot more than what I could have figured out on my own. I may have to give myself a handicap to compensate...) To everybody; hope you had a few chuckles at my adventure (laugh!)! Regards, Krysia's Krusader