Part 22: End of the Road

Update 22: End of the Road



Last time, we dove through the final dungeon levels to just above Sauron's abode. It's time to face a demigod in single combat.

I withdraw half of our Potions of Speed; Sauron drains charges, so our staves aren't much use. Similarly, I pull a Scroll of *Destruction* for emergencies. I also discard our Wands of Teleport Other; we have 4 rods, and the wands just aren't necessary any more.

For our equipment, the only change I make is swapping out Amras in favor of the Heavy Crossbow of Extra Might. The Seeker Bolts of Holy Might we found awhile back are going to come into their own in these fights, doing almost 100 damage/round more than Amras despite its faster shooting speed.

Here's Freude's inventory prior to going in:



We have Weaponmastery as a swap here for the resistance to disenchantment it gives, since otherwise Sauron is liable to nuke our gear. Our normal amulet is Evenstar, which is covering resistance to darkness and nether.

The Potions of Berserk Strength aren't likely to make much difference, but they won't hurt us; the extra bonus to-hit will translate into a slightly higher damage per round in the very long term.

Next, his equipment:



Finally, here's Freude's ability coverage:



Our biggest problem is a lack of extra speed; we can't switch to a better weapon (like that Holy Avenger Scythe of Slicing) because it'll lose us Aglarang's speed bonus, dropping us below +20 permanent speed. We need +20 permanent/+30 temporary speed to match Morgoth. So we're stuck with Aglarang. Don't get me wrong, Aglarang is fantastic -- it's getting us 550 damage/round, which is more than enough. But a little more speed and we could be doing even better.

Otherwise, resistances matter surprisingly little in the final fights. The only resistable elements Sauron and Morgoth use are darkness, nether, and disenchantment; everything else will only help against their summons. It's a bit annoying that we have to wear the Weaponmastery amulet when meleeing Sauron, thus losing darkness/nether resistance, but oh well. We have Free Action, ESP, and protection from Blindness and Confusion; those are the most helpful abilities now.

One last scan of the stores turns up a Potion of Healing and a Scroll of Mass Banishment from the Black Market. Thanks, Lo-Hak the Awful! Us half-trolls have to stick together!

Here we go!

Are you sure you want to descend?
You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 4950')



Sauron's here -- the purple p. We don't have much time. Magic Mapping and Detection, go!



There's no way we're fighting Sauron outside of an antisummoning corridor. Let's create some space.



From here, we can wait for Sauron to enter LOS...



And then teleport him away. Sauron is no less vulnerable to Teleport Other than any other monster in the game.

Sauron, the Sorcerer disappears!

Now we dig antisummoning corridors everywhere!



Oops, spotted Sauron again, as well as the edge of a vault. Fortunately there's some rubble in the way, so he can't reach us directly.



Huan and Carcharoth are in the vault, of course. Somewhat more worrying, that black D to the south of the vault is Ancalagon the Black. Flavor text:

"Rushing Jaws" is his name, and death is his game; the greatest and most terrible of all dragonkind, his power dismayed even the Valar for a time.

Ancalagon is the most powerful dragon in the game, and we don't want to tangle with him and Sauron at the same time. Unfortunately, using our second Rod of Magic Mapping reveals that they're in the same connected component of the dungeon:



The best we can manage is to keep the one out of LOS while fighting the other, and use Teleport Other to separate them if possible.



Man, that's some vault, huh? Looks like the name is "Curlicues One". Could be some nice stuff in there, but we have bigger fish to fry now.



From here we should be able to separate Ancalagon and Sauron. First, haste up, and ditch our staves back a ways.



Perfect.

Ancalagon the Black disappears!



Now, we fight!

He is Morgoth's most powerful servant. Mighty in spells and enchantments, he created the One Ring. His eyes glow with power and his gaze seeks to destroy your soul. He has many servants, and rarely fights without them.

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (80). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (78). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (100). It was a good hit! You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (69). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (74). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (79). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (76). Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you.

A good start, but it'll take many more rounds to wear away his 10500 HP.

Sauron, the Sorcerer summons major demons.


Excellent; he got nothing more than a Hezrou; we were killing those things 10 updates ago. And now he has no room to summon anything more, like, say, an Archlich.

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (76). Sauron, the Sorcerer casts a ball of fire. One of your Scrolls titled "propera" of Phase Door was destroyed! One of your Arrows of Slay Evil was destroyed!

We've taken off a star of health! ...come to think, I don't think I've mentioned the healthbar before.



This yellow bar is how I've known that a monster was e.g. 40% dead. Every star corresponds to 10% of the monster's health, so we're 10% of the way there! The stars will also change color if the monster is suffering from a status ailment: blue for stunned (which, for monsters, acts as short-term paralysis), and brown for confused/slowed.

Another two rounds of combat, and Sauron's melee attacks all whiff. I didn't think our AC of 183 was especially impressive, but monsters do seem to be having trouble hitting us. Good.

Sauron, the Sorcerer casts a bolt of plasma. You have been stunned.

Not a big deal; the plasma bolt only did about 150 damage and the stunning can be cleared up with Cure Critical Wounds.

Sauron, the Sorcerer points at you and screams the word 'DIE'! You resist the effects!

That's Cause Mortal Wounds in action; in addition to damage (about 200 HP worth, in Sauron's case) it can cause heavy wounds, like deep cuts, that do damage over time. Freude's 64% saving throw was up to the task, apparently.

Two more rounds of melee down, and Sauron's at 70%!

Sauron, the Sorcerer summons some friends.


That's just a Werewolf, buddy! Though, fun fact, apparently Sauron once took the shape of a wolf to fight Huan, and lost. Maybe this particular Werewolf is a buddy from Sauron's furry days

You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you.

Lest you think Sauron's all bluff and no action, those four hits hurt. He has 2x disenchanting 10d12 hits, and 2x charge-draining 8d12 hits. We're safe from disenchantment thanks to our amulet, and safe from charges drain because we're carrying no charged items (rods don't count), but since all four attacks have special abilities, we get no damage mitigation from our AC and have to take the full brunt; that's nearly 300 damage for us in this case, leaving us at about 750.

One more round of melee takes us down to 587 HP, which is too close to the danger zone (where a single spell could off us instantly). Time to heal up! Potions of Healing restore a whopping 415 HP (35% of our max HP) for us, which is frankly absurd -- most characters only get the minimum 300 HP heal because their max HP is too low to do better.

60% left!

Sauron opts to stick to melee attacks, which is fine and dandy as far as I'm concerned; scary as they are, his spells are potentially far, far worse. We use up two more Healing potions, but he's at 50%!

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (76). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (81). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (85). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (79). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (81). Sauron, the Sorcerer invokes a storm of darkness. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***

Case in point. Now we're at 239 HP, and could easily die next turn if we don't get our health back up. Fortunately Potions of Healing still take us out of the danger zone, if only just. We have to drink three in a row to get a decent buffer back up; we only have 5 left in our pack. I, uh, forgot to withdraw the extra 14 we have sitting at home

Sauron, the Sorcerer conjures up scary horrors. You resist the effect!

...really? Sauron. Buddy. Why do you have that spell?

40%!

Sauron, the Sorcerer smashes you with psionic energy. You avoid the effects!

Oh thank Eru. Freude's shitty saving throw pulls through! That was Brain Smash in action, the spell I've bitched about previously that causes temporary slowness. Even when slowed we maintain a slight speed advantage over Sauron, but the same won't be true against Morgoth, who also has that spell...and far fewer dud spells to throw at us, too

30%!

Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***

Sauron: still hitting like a truck. Freude: still hitting like a herd of Ferraris.

You feel very good. You have 4 Viscous Pink Potions of Healing. Sauron, the Sorcerer casts a ball of nether. You feel your life force draining away!

Sauron's nether balls are oddly weak, listed as only doing 250 damage. The experience drain is aggravating, though, since we just lost level 50 again. But!

20%!

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (77). Sauron, the Sorcerer invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***

And there's his biggest spell. Manastorm hits for around 600 damage and is totally unresistable. We're now at 212 HP, which is just high enough that a Potion of Healing will pull us out of the danger zone (in case he decided to manastorm twice).

You feel very good. You have 3 Viscous Pink Potions of Healing. Sauron, the Sorcerer summons major demons.



I don't get how he keeps having room to summon more creatures. Not a big deal though; he just pulled an Osyluth. They're only kind of annoying.

10%!

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. Sauron, the Sorcerer tries to teleport away.



...hey. Hey! GET BACK HERE!



Fortunately he hasn't run far, and we've cunningly prepared several extra antisummoning corridors to fight him in.



Here we go. He's momentarily stymied by a locked door, but no mere assemblage of wooden boards can stop the mighty Sauron for long!

Sauron, the Sorcerer fiddles with the lock.
Sauron, the Sorcerer fiddles with the lock.
Sauron, the Sorcerer fiddles with the lock.
Sauron, the Sorcerer slams against the door.
Sauron, the Sorcerer slams against the door.
You hear a door burst open!

There ya go, buddy.



Our speed finally ran out, but fortunately we still have 8 Potions of Speed in reserve. And those Potions of Berserk Strength that I forgot to drink.

You feel yourself moving faster! You have 7 Pungent Potions of Speed.
You feel bold. You feel like a killing machine! You have 7 Orange Speckled Potions of Berserk Strength.

You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (76). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (78). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (80). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (76). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (115). It was a great hit! You miss Sauron the Sorcerer. Sauron the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you.
You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (85). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (80). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (77). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (79). You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (73). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You hit Sauron, the Sorcerer (71). You have slain Sauron, the Sorcerer. Welcome to level 50. A magical staircase appears...

And so Sauron died, with a wholly non-canon katana stuck through his face. We have the way to go forwards. More importantly, we have Sauron's drop!

• A Flail of Extra Attacks (2d6) (+16,+17) <+2>.
  
• A War Hammer of *Slay Evil* (3d3) (+13,+14) <+1>.
  
• A Set of Mithril Gauntlets of Power (+2,+1) [6,+13] <+4>. These boost your combat stats (+2 to-hit, +1 to-damage) and STR (+4).
  
• An Awl-Pike (Holy Avenger) (1d8) (+15,+20) [+3] <+3>.
  
• A Main Gauche (Holy Avenger) (1d5) (+20,+19) [+4] <+2>.
  
• A Bloodstone Ring of Speed <+8>.
  

Somehow, a very impressive yet totally useless drop. Much as I complained about our inadequate speed, it's not worth losing the Ring of Damage +13 we have to get a bit more speed. The weapons all have impressively high numbers, but not as high as Aglarang gives. Oh well!

For posterity's sake, here's what we learned about Sauron during the fight:



He has several more spells, including several lesser damage spells (ice bolt, water bolt, mana bolt) and all of the dangerous summoning spells (greater undead, ancient demons, uniques, ringwraiths, etc.), but he neglected to cast them.

I decide to check the room Sauron had teleported to, and find this:



Cute. Useless, but cute. More interestingly is an Amulet of Weaponmastery that gives +5 to-damage (compared to our current amulet's +1). That's enough for an extra 28 damage/round!

Enough delaying. Nothing for it but to...

recall to town and empty our stash

You feel yourself yanked upwards!

Aaaand I just realized I left our Staves of Speed and *Destruction* in the corridor with Sauron's corpse . That's seriously annoying since it cuts down on our spare *Destruction* scrolls by one. Don't play hastily, kids!

Okay. We're about as ready for Morgoth as we can be. Freude's inventory:



We have more than enough healing. The real question is if we'll be able to keep Morgoth's summons under control.

And Freude's equipment:



For now, I'm assuming that the extra damage/round from the Weaponmastery amulet is superior to Evenstar's nether resistance, but I have it ready to swap in if needed.

And, for old time's sake, I read one last Scroll of Word of Recall to return, instead of taking the stairs. The other scrolls can remain at home; we won't need them. One way or another.

Are you sure you want to descend?
The air about you becomes charged... You have no more Scrolls titled "co abitat" of Word of Recall.
You feel yourself yanked downwards!



Morgoth's nowhere in sight. First things first: let's try to get to a corner of the map.



Let's try to get to a corner away from the Graveyard. They should leave us alone as long as we stay away -- monsters that are too far from Freude get "deactivated", with some notable exceptions.



Here he comes! We're not quite ready yet!



He is the Master of the Pits of Angband. His figure is like a black mountain crowned with lightning. He rages with everlasting anger, his body scarred by Fingolfin's eight mighty wounds. He can never rest from his pain, but seeks forever to dominate all that is light and good in the world. He is the origin of man's fear of darkness and created many foul creatures with his evil powers. Orcs, Dragons, and Trolls are his most foul corruptions, causing much pain and suffering in the world to please him. His disgusting visage, twisted with evil, is crowned with iron, the two remaining Silmarils forever burning him. Grond, the mighty Hammer of the Underworld, cries defiance as he strides towards you to crush you to a pulp!

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears!



As you might have guessed, Teleport Other is going to be no less key to our strategy against Morgoth than it has been in any other fight since we first got our grubby mitts on it, way back in update #10.



Right, this should be good. We're in the bottom-right corner of the map.

Really read 4 Scrolls titled "no per" of *Destruction*?
There is a searing blast of light! You have 3 Scrolls titled "no per" of *Destruction*.



Unfortunately we're out of charged Mapping rods at the moment, but this blasted terrain is the ideal location to fight Morgoth in.

Oh, and remember how I said there were some exceptions to the monsters-get-deactivated thing? Morgoth is one of them; he'll chase you down no matter where on the level you go.



He's not in ESP range yet, but you can see him breaking through the walls to our west, in line with that up staircase. That useless, useless up staircase.

You feel yourself moving faster! You have 13 Pungent Potions of Speed.
You feel bold. You feel like a killing machine! You have 6 Orange Potions of Berserk Strength.



Here we go! As long as we have Bolts of Holy Might we might as well use them up.

Your Seeker Bolt of Holy Might (4d5) (+22,+21) pierces Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (378). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness laughs off the attack.



Well, if we have to chop him down one sliver of health at a time, then that's what we'll do!



You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (83). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (80). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (87). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (83). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very weak for a moment, but the feeling passes. You feel very clumsy for a moment, but the feeling passes. You feel very sickly for a moment, but the feeling passes. You feel very stupid for a moment, but the feeling passes. You feel very naive. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness touches you.

Morgoth's melee attacks are, naturally, the most dangerous in the game. His first two cause earthquakes and deal 20d10 damage apiece. Remember that earthquakes can crush you if you don't have open space to dodge into? That's why we're fighting in a destructed zone instead of an antisummoning corridor -- in the tight confines of the corridor, we'd be at serious risk of getting crushed each time he hit us. His third hit drains all of your stats. Fortunately we have the ones we need sustained. This is one reason why the Shield of Anarion is an endgame piece of gear; it gives sustains for all of your stats. It's also why I'm carrying along all those Mushrooms of Vigor, which restore our stats when eaten.

Finally, his touch attack drains charges, and is why we didn't bring any staves with us. We could have used a Staff of *Destruction* at the beginning of the fight to set up the terrain, but oh well.

Also, he did 250 damage there, and he was rolling low. Ouch.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons ancient dragons.


And suddenly a Great Wyrm of Law, a Great Crystal Drake, a Great Ice Wyrm, and an Ancient Multihued Dragon have joined the fray. Freude would be a fool to fight all of these guys together!

(Also pictured: a Ghost has wandered into the party)

You have 39 Scrolls titled "propera" of Phase Door.



Because of the destructed terrain, Phase Door will almost always take us out of LOS of everyone. Morgoth is tied for being the fastest monster in the game, and can bore through rock, so he'll always be the first to catch up to us...



At which point we teleport him away.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears!

Then we can deal with his summons at our leisure. Normally at this point I'd run to my Staves of *Destruction* that I'd stashed earlier, but I dumped them on the previous level (). Instead we teleport away the Great Wyrms and kill the other two. The AMHD lasts 5 rounds; the Great Crystal Drake 4. One of them drops a Potion of Enlightenment, which doesn't really reveal anything interesting.



Morgoth doesn't take long to come back. Annoyingly, I fuck up the LOS rules and

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons major demons.



The Barbazu and Glabrezu are no threat, but he pulled Pazuzu, and only one of our Rods of Teleport Other has recharged. We play hard-to-get for a bit:



And get seriously cheesed off when Phase Door keeps taking us north, out of the destructed zone



Oh well, our rods have recharged.



Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears!
Pazuzu, Lord of Air disappears!



Right, let's try this again.

Your Seeker Bolt of Holy Might (4d5) (+22,+21) pierces Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (831). It was a good hit! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness sneers. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons ringwraiths.



Argh dammit! Stop summoning things! Fortunately, none of these guys are unique; I think it's time we broke out the Mass Banishment.

Really read 6 Scrolls titled "aedo cone" of Mass Banishment?

One scroll and 28 damage later, every non-unique in our area has been deleted. Banishment deals a piddly amount of damage to you for each monster it removes -- I think it's 1d3 or 1d4. Yes, it's possible to kill yourself this way.



Also, that bolt brought Morgoth down to 90%! Morgoth has 20000 HP, almost twice what Sauron had. This is going to take awhile!

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very etc. but the moment passes.

Especially when he keeps hitting us and we have trouble hitting him. We're down at 582 HP; 600 is the danger zone, time to heal up...

You feel very good. You have 15 Viscous Pink Potions of Healing. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The cave quakes! You are pummeled with debris! You are crushed between the floor and ceiling! You have been stunned.

Ouch. That's what happens when you fail your save against earthquakes. Oddly enough, we took very little damage; I guess Morgoth rolled poorly on his attacks. Stunning's no joke though, so we phase away and clear it with one of our vast stash of Cure Critical Wounds potions.



You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (77). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (82). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (84). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (83). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness casts a bolt of raw magic.

His least dangerous spell, Manabolt just does something like 200-400 damage.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.


Ohhhhh, bleep.

You can see 5 monsters:


That was Morgoth's Summon Uniques spell. The Tarrasque I believe I mentioned earlier as one of the most offensive-oriented monsters in the game. Flavor text:

The Tarrasque is a massive reptile of legend, rumoured to be unkillable and immune to magic. Fear its anger, for its devastation is unmatched!

Cantoras we've seen before, and while he's not really more powerful than Vecna, we left our undead-slaying gear at home and this really isn't the time anyway.

Azog and Ulfang are here to get revenge on us for killing their sons Bolg and Ulwarth, respectively.

Anyway, we can't handle this group, nor do we have the Teleport Other resources required to deal with all of them. Destructing now, though, would delete Morgoth from the level, undoing all of our progress and forcing us to hang around until the random monster spawns recreate him. So phase away again...



And teleport away Morgoth, again...



Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears!

Also teleport away Cantoras, since he's in range. I'd have rather pulled the Tarrasque but oh well.

Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord disappears!

And then blow everyone else the fuck up.

There is a searing blast of light! You have 2 Scrolls titled "no per" of *Destruction*.

And there goes the Tarrasque. If we'd had one more charge of Teleport Other left I'd have tried to teleport it too; monsters that are currently on the level can't be summoned by Morgoth, and him not being able to summon the Tarrasque would be a very good thing indeed. But oh well. Having only 2 scrolls of *Destruction* left is seriously bothersome; there's a lot of fight left to go through.



A few more rounds of melee culminates in

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons ringwraiths.



A Nightwing, an Elder Vampire, and a bunch of chumps. We're able to teleport away the Nightwing, and then kite Morgoth around for awhile, staying away from the others. His earthquakes help, blocking off LOS after he creates tunnels. It doesn't last long, though.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.



That was Summon Greater Undead, and he pulled an Archlich, another Elder Vampire, and a bunch of chumps. Phase away again (you see why we brought 40 scrolls of Phase Door?) and then create space by running away on foot:



This should buy us a few turns before the big boys show up again. Morgoth's at 80%!

The Master vampire gazes at you with psionic energy. You resist the effect! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.


Argh, cut it out, Morgoth! Things are getting crowded here; time to burn another Mass Banishment scroll.



Much better. A few more rounds of melee and Morgoth's down to 70%! Progress is being made! We get bashed around by the ceiling some more, and Morgoth's melee hurts like hell of course, but he kindly refrains from casting spells for awhile.



Phasing away to heal up brought us back to the edge of the destructed zone I chug Healing, move into LOS for more ranged combat, and

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***

There goes 600 HP. Manastorm is Morgoth's strongest attack, beating out even his melee with perfect damage rolls. Well, we have 13 *Healing* potions; might as well put them to good use.

You feel very good. You have 12 Grey Speckled Potions of *Healing*. You feel yourself slow down.

Oops, and our speed ran out. 12 Potions of Speed left! Well, 11 now.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness casts a ball of nether. You feel your life force draining away!

Netherstorm is less threatening than manastorm by a considerable margin; we only took 220 damage from that.

A couple of bolts brings Morgoth to 60%. We're doing this!

You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (79). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (83). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (77). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (79). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (78). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (82). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.


Y'know, teleporting away Cantoras actually worked out nicely, since if we'd destructed him, he'd have been resummoned by now anyway. Oh well, phase away...



We're still in the destructed zone at least, if near the edge. Attempting to run back towards the middle, I give Morgoth another turn in LOS in which he summons even more greater undead...but they can't see us.



Two more bolts and a round of melee, and Morgoth's at 40%. 40%! He's over half dead! I burn a Mass Banishment to ditch the undead in celebration.

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness smashes you with psionic energy. You avoid the effects!

Man, Freude's saving throw is pulling through for us! Once again we have avoided getting slowed by Brain Smash.

Phasing away to heal takes us out of the destructed zone again:



But I don't really mind, because Morgoth's in the red!



He summons ancient dragons!



And we phase away to dodge them, landing in a nondescript corridor.



Times like this I wish I had more Rods of Magic Mapping; they take 400 turns to recharge apiece.

A little artful dodging and lucky phasing buys us some space, but we're out of bolts!



We take him down to 1 star! Just 2000 HP to go!



He summons ancient dragons again,



but we just banish them!

He brings the ceiling down on us, but we persevere!

His melee strikes break us down, and we chug a Potion of Life to stay in the fight!

You feel life flow through your body! You feel your life energies returning. Welcome to level 50. You feel less naive. You feel very good. You have 4 Yellow Speckled Potions of Life.

He summons major demons!



But we just phase away and leave them in the lurch.

You see Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (almost dead).


It's poetic justice time! Fingolfin, you get a second chance to kill Morgoth, buddy.

You activate it...Your Set of Caestus grows magical spikes...A magical staircase appears... *** CONGRATULATIONS *** You have won the game! You may retire (commit suicide) when you are ready. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness dies.



Freude, mighty Half-Troll Warrior, stands battered but victorious over the corpse of the fallen god. He has won. But what is there left to do, now? What do you do after killing a god?

You dig through his drop of course!



Grond is one of Morgoth's two guaranteed drops, and is patently ridiculous. Weighing in at a spine-collapsing 100 pounds, it will quite literally pulverize just about anything you fight. If you feel like cleaning up the remaining uniques in the game, Grond's your buddy. It is also, in my opinion, the only earthquake-causing weapon that's worth using.



Morgoth's Crown is his other guaranteed drop, and is only slightly less ridiculous than Grond. For some reason it's also permanently cursed, not that you'd ever want to take it off.

(Pause for a moment while we banish the demons and teleport away Pazuzu, who finally managed to walk back to the scene of battle).



Junk.



A nice launcher, but not that nice.



Junk.

At this point, there's not much left to do. We could keep playing, trying to kill uniques and find artifacts. The dungeon keeps going down to level 127, with increasing likelihood of vaults and graveyards as we get deeper. However, as the game implied, at this point we also get a new option. Normally when you do the Q command, the game prompts you for if you really want to commit suicide, but now...

Do you want to retire?





It's implied that your character returns to town, settles down somewhere, maybe takes over a local country or something. But I like to think that Freude just stayed down in the dungeons until he died of old age, because nothing else down there was remotely a threat any more

From the gravestone, we can check out Freude's final stats:











Finally, we can also make a text dump of Freude's file, which basically replicates the above in text form, plus a handy little history section:


94750 standard turns is a pretty good time; that means that Freude took 94750 actions (including resting or other repeated commands). Anything under 100k means you didn't spend much time lollygagging about.

And that's it! Thanks for sticking with me for Freude's adventures! Next time?

Next time...

Character creation!