The Let's Play Archive

Angband

by TooMuchAbstraction

Part 48: The Sacred Finger of St. Hippopotamus

Update 48: The Sacred Finger of St. Hippopotamus



Last time, Friar Tuck nearly got killed by a pit of his brethren, and engaged in an extremely ill-advised fight with Lorgan, Chief of the Easterlings, and his considerably-more-imposing Lesser Balrog friend.

But hey, at least we got a lot of EXP out of it!

Exploring further, we find ourselves an Ancient Gold Dragon in a small special room:



We happen to have sound resistance, courtesy of our new Shield of Elvenkind, so Goldilocks shouldn't be a problem. More dangerous is the Death Quasit that engages us while we're walking to the room:



Death Quasits have an imposing name, but they're mostly dangerous for moving very quickly (+20 speed) and having melee attacks that drain DEX. Our Amulet of Trickery sustains our DEX in addition to everything else it's doing for us, so this guy's a chump -- at least, once we lure him out of the wall so he can be hit by Orb.

Back to more important matters:



The Ancient gold dragon is hit hard. <x4>



Hm, he's more durable than the Blue and Green dragons we've fought in the past -- 880 HP instead of 633. Still, nothing that Shoot 'n Scoot can't handle.

He manages to land a Confuse spell on us, but our Cure Critical Wounds potions clear that up easily -- we still have 23 in reserve. Soon after, he dies. His drop includes a Scroll of *Destruction*; excellent! Like Bryson II, we will eventually be able to cast Word of Destruction, but in the meantime this scroll will serve as an excellent insurance policy. For example, we could have Destructed that Lesser Balrog (and Lorgan, and everything else in the area) instead of risking casting Portal.

For our last trick of the level, we attempt to paint the walls with troll again.



Water Trolls are considerably more durable than the Forest Trolls we used last time, though, and we roll poorly for damage to boot. They absorb five Dispel Evils without getting seriously injured, and we have to switch to Orb for MP considerations. Stupid unreliable 1dX damage formulae. Anyway.

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 2100')



Always nice to have a level entry that doesn't immediately want to kill you. The first turn on a new level can be very dangerous, especially when you're dumped in the middle of an unlit room.



A couple of interestingly-shaped rooms, plus another Ancient Gold Dragon to the southwest. We head for the Aranea to our east first; they would die easily, but they have a guard:



A Nine-Headed Hydra behind a Disenchanter Mold. Hydras with 9 and 11 heads are fire-elemental, so our dragonbreath is no help; we'd have to Orb away all 650 HP, which would take something like a dozen castings. And it's fast, and the firing lines here suck.

On the other hand, it hasn't woken up yet.

The Disenchanter mold disappears!
The 9-headed hydra disappears!

Problem solved Or at least, until we run into the now-awake hydra elsewhere on the level.

Problem delayed

The Aranea die like chumps (dangerous chumps that can cast Fire Bolt and Cause Critical Wounds, but chumps); we grab a Potion of Restore Life Levels, but the other items aren't worth picking up.

The next room really needs the attention of a janitor.



All the black j monsters are Black Puddings. They're mobile (moving at normal speed), have 4 acid touch attacks per turn, and have a whopping 350 HP apiece. Not much fun to fight, but they are loot pinatas too. And it's not like we can easily teleport them all away. Well, we could -- there's only 7 of them, so we have the SP assuming the RNG favors us on failure rates -- but we might as well kill them all now.

We back up, open fire, and 8 Orbs later



Gah! Kill it kill it kill it!

You breathe fire. The Black pudding resists a lot. The Time vortex is destroyed.

Phew. Stupid Time Vortices. At least it didn't breathe on us. Unfortunately, in the time we spent dealing with the Vortex, the Puddings reached melee range.

The Black pudding squelches. The Black pudding flinches. The Black pudding fiddles with the lock.


I can't help but thing that puddings shouldn't be able to operate doorknobs. They have no brains! Anyway, we resort to Shoot 'n Scoot, which works perfectly since the Puddings have no ranged attacks.

They do however have friends.



Oh well. Open fire again!

Total loot: a Potion of Dexterity, some more Potions of Cure Critical Wounds, and a Rod of Slow Monster (junk). Oh well. Also in this set of rooms are a Potion of Constitution (HP goes from 258 to 266 as our effective CON score hits 18/10!), and a Potion of Restore Mana, putting our reserve at 8. Not a bad haul.

We engage the Ancient Gold Dragon, and two turns after he wakes up, he's joined by a companion.



I knew putting off our problems was only going to come back to bite us in the ass! More seriously, we Blink away, cast Resist Heat and Cold, and then discover that hydras can push past dragons:



The 9-headed hydra disappears!

Putting off our problems triumphs again!

The dragon dies easily, and we move to continue exploring...



The 9-headed hydra disappears!

Someone adapt "The Cat Came Back" so that it works with multiheaded giant lizards, please.

As I said, we move to continue exploring...



AGH WILL YOU JUST GO AWAY

You sink through the floor.

What? No! I didn't mean to cast Teleport Level! Teleport Other! Teleport OTHERRRRRR

Our stash



Well, shit. We just lost:
This isn't game-ending, but it hurts. It really hurts. I think maybe we'll do without the stash from now on. If we can't carry something with us, then it gets ditched.

Anyway, new level time, I guess. We're at 2150' now.



A pack of Dreads to our east, a Troll Pit to the south, a Death Knight to the north, and a bunch of White Dragons of various stripes to the west. On the plus side, there's a new Potion of *Healing* here in the room.



These Dreads are a problem. We need to kill them now, while we're undistracted by other threats, but as soon as we open fire they're going to move into the walls where we can't hit them. We can either try to blink into the eastern room and pull them into the open, or try to pull off one at a time by clipping them with Orb, then backing away. The latter seems a much safer strategy, but if they wake up prematurely then we could get surrounded.



They woke up prematurely. Whelp. Time to drink one of our 4 remaining Potions of Speed!

Fortunately they don't pursue super-aggressively, so we don't get too badly swarmed.



Also fortunately, with good damage rolls we can make a Dread flee in terror after only two Orbs, which is a big help for keeping the pack on the defensive, so to speak.

Welcome to level 33. You can learn 13 more prayers. The Dread is destroyed.

270 HP, 199 SP, and we can learn Glyph of Warding now! Of course, it's at a 50% failure rate and costs 55 SP, so it's not exactly a key component of our arsenal.

Having mopped up the Dreads, we dawdle around for a bit, completely forgetting about the Death Knight to the north...

Something mumbles. You are hit by something cold! You feel your life force draining away. You have forgotten the prayer of Glyph of Warding.

Oh crap! Blink time!

The Death knight casts a bolt of nether. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** You feel your life force draining away!


Down to 50 out of 266 HP, between the chained Nether Bolts. Death Knights have plenty of other spells, but he seems to be favoring this one. We could risk the 2% failure rate on casting Heal, but we do still have our old Potions of Healing, and now seems like a good time to use them.

Oh, and regarding Heal and other prayers in the fourth spellbook:



If you learn a spell, and then your level drops below the minimum level for that spell, then it becomes "forgotten". It's automatically re-learned when you regain the level. In other words, you can't decide you don't like the spells you've learned and intentionally get your experience drained so you can respec. Realistically that'll never be an issue anyway, since past the very early game you should have more than enough spare spell slots to learn everything anyway.

Similarly, your HP and SP gains are "locked" for each level, though I'm pretty sure that happens at character creation as opposed to when the level is gained.

Anyway, after healing up, we shove 5 Orbs into the Death Knight's shadowy helmet and it topples over. Then we get to use that Potion of Restore Life Levels we nabbed last level.

You feel your life energies returning. Welcome to level 33. You have remembered the prayer of Glyph of Warding.

The Death Knight's drop includes Black Dragon Scale Mail of Craftsmanship (which just gives it unusually high AC) and a new wand, which we test out on a hapless Killer Slicer Beetle.

You have 1 charge remaining. The Killer slicer beetle dies.



Heyyyyy! Dragon's Frost! It's a shame we don't have a recharging spell; we can't abuse these babies anywhere near as much as Bryson II did. That one charge will need to be saved for a rainy day. Say, the next time we encounter a Nine-Headed Hydra



A Vampire Lord and his underlings, and an Ancient Black Dragon. The dragon should stay asleep while we deal with the vampires, fortunately. The important thing to remember about vampires is that they're all vulnerable to fire.

You breathe fire. The Vampire lord catches fire! 2 Vampires disintegrate! The Vampire lord points at you and screams the word 'DIE!'. You have been given a nasty cut.

...the other thing to remember about vampires, specifically Vampire Lords, is that they're fast and can cast damaging spells. Ouch. We blink around and Orb the Vampire Lord down, but we have to drink some Cure Critical Wounds potions to patch up the holes it punches in us with Cause Mortal Wounds. In retrospect, the Vampire Lord could have killed us if it had decided to cast twice in a row and cast one of Cause Mortal Wounds or Brain Smash both times. Fighting it was ill-advised.



Fighting the Ancient Black Dragon, however, cannot possibly go wrong.

...and it doesn't Its drop includes a Mithril Wand, which we ID-by-use as being of Polymorph, in a rather boring fashion:

You have 6 charges remaining. The Mature gold dragon maintains the same shape.

On the plus side, check out that dragon's drop!



On the minus side, it's just another copy of Ethereal Openings

On the plus side,



it's revenge time!

You have 0 charges remaining. The 9-headed hydra is badly frozen. The Olog cries out in pain. The 9-headed hydra misses you. The 9-headed hydra bites you. You are enveloped in flames! The 9-headed hydra bites you. You are enveloped in flames! The 9-headed hydra misses you. The 9-headed hydra bites you. You are envolped in flames! The 9-headed hydra bites you. You are enveloped in flames! The 9-headed hydra misses you. The 9-headed hydra bites you. You are enveloped in flames!

That was unsatisfying. Also, it did nearly 100 damage to us with two turns in melee. Ouch. We Blink away and cast Resist Heat and Cold, and then start Shoot 'n Scooting it to death.



The 9-headed hydra grunts with pain.
The 9-headed hydra grunts with pain.
The 9-headed hydra squeals in pain.
The 9-headed hydra squeals in pain.
The 9-headed hydra shrieks in agony. The 9-headed hydra flees in terror!
The 9-headed hydra dies.

That's what you get! That's what you get for...being a monster I didn't want to fight and so accidentally teleported us off the level.

Let's stop talking about stupid things I've done. Did you know there's a vault on this level?



Who knows what non-evil monsters are in there, but it's still worth checking out. First, though, is one minor obstruction:



Seriously, they're everywhere. What the hell. We get in 10 Orbs before it reaches melee range, and that's enough to make it flee. Good thing it spawned in the corner of the room. Also, that's another Potion of Dexterity, putting our internal DEX score at 15.

A Storm Giant breaks out of the vault, and drops a new scroll: Recharging! We try using it on our Wand of Dragon's Frost...and it works! Incredible. We now have 4 more charges' worth of icy boom to throw at monsters that annoy us.

There's a problem with this vault, though:



The northern entrance is guarded by two trapdoors. We could try to work our way around to the southern entrance...but I'm sick of taking things slow, so we try to disarm one of the trapdoors instead. And succeed! Our Disarming skill is "46%" right now, but I have no idea how that translates to "chance to accidentally set off a trapdoor while you're standing on it for some reason".

The items in the northeast section of the vault have been disappearing, so we wander over there, and discover it's just a Blubbering Icky Thing that's been getting stuck to everything portable in the room. It dies easily, paving the way for an Ancient Red Dragon and another hydra:



Fortunately just 3 heads this time. Those guys are easy. We have to Blink away anyway, but that's just because the dragon's melee is too painful.

None of the other monsters in the vault bear mention; in fact, there aren't any more non-evil monsters present, so we tear through them all with Orb. Unfortunately, none of the items bear mention either -- aside from a stack of {magical} Arrows that we equip just in case we decide to use our Longbow for something.

The last room in this part of the level has, you guessed it, another Nine-Headed Hydra.



He blows up one of our 2 copies of prayer book #1 before dying. Asshole.

Heading back over to the dragons we detected when we first arrived, we tear through the lesser varieties and come face to face with the Ancient White.

The Ancient white dragon breathes frost. Some of your White Potions of Cure Critical Wounds were destroyed! All of your Black Potions of Healing were destroyed!

And this is with temporary and permanent resistance to frost up! I mean, sure, "all" in this case meant "two", but that's still really shitty luck.

Bleh. After that, I need some catharsis.



This should serve nicely. Eat Orb, trolls! Midway through we run out of mana, and chug a Restore Mana potion, because fuck running away.

Alas, the rewards are paltry.



We do get a new Ring of Free Action and Amulet of Wisdom <+3>, replacing the ones we lost last time -- but those were only really kept around just in case of finding some really weird piece of equipment that would enable major swaps, so finding new ones isn't that exciting.

En route to the stairs, we blast apart a Glabrezu (basic "greater demon") and get a Potion of Enlightenment. Well, that'll simplify the next level a bit.

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 2200')



Hmph. Dull dull dull. The item list shows 2 pieces of equipment, a Potion of Healing, and a Mushroom of Vigor, and nothing else worth mentioning. The immediate environs are a bit more interesting:



The basic Lich just north of us is too fragile to last long, but the pack of Hezrou are more dangerous -- 450 HP apiece and they can summon demons, which at this point I'm assuming means Lesser Balrog Incoming.

Before we can deal with them, though,



Oh you son of a bitch. Eleven-Headed Hydra. Thanks to our inherited monster memory, we know all about these guys:



All's I know is, 950 HP means we're using Dragon's Frost on you.

You have 3 charges remaining. The 11-headed hydra is badly frozen. It cries out in pain.
You have 2 charges remaining. The 11-headed hydra is badly frozen. It screams in agony. The 11-headed hydra casts a bolt of plasma. You have been stunned.
You have 1 charge remaining. The 11-headed hydra freezes and shatters!

So deserve all members of the hydra clan

(Why no, I'm not still bitter. Why do you ask? )

(Incidentally, that monster we were clipping while fighting the hydra was a Gryphon)

As for the Hezrou, this position should serve us well:



Orb currently deals 49+3d6 damage; with the doubling against evil targets, that means 4-5 Orbs per Hezrou will do it in, less for the ones that have eaten splash damage. We just have to hope the summons stay more or less under control.



Me and my big mouth.

The Lesser Balrog disappears!

Incidentally, Teleport Other is down to 8% failure rate. And Teleport Level was at 36% when I accidentally selected it, meaning we had a 1 in 3 chance of not fucking ourselves over. Naturally the RNG saw no reason to intervene.



The first half of the pack is dead; the second half dies easily without casting any spells. We hit level 34 (274 HP, 205 SP) off the lot -- if nothing else, packs of greater demons are major EXP pinatas. One of them also drops a {splendid} Main Gauche that increases our WIS by 2 but is nonetheless not blessed (and thus not a Holy Avenger either). I think this means it must be *Slay Evil*, but I'm not going to waste the Identify uses to find out.

We clear the rest of the level (somehow never encountering that Lesser Balrog again), grab the Mushroom of Vigor and the Potion of Healing, and head onwards.

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 2250')

2250' starts out horrifically dull. The only thing that bears mention is this special room:



It's an ammo dump, full of bolts.



We don't bother identifying them. On a related note, we ditch the arrows we found -- they'd deal 83 damage/shot with our bow, which isn't bad, but our hit rate is probably abysmal and they're taking up a precious inventory slot.

Shortly after the ammo dump, things get more interesting:



The dragons are all multihued, so yes, that's an Ancient Multihued Dragon there, and yes, it could kill us in a single turn. Somewhat more urgently, Adunaphel the Quiet is making her way through the walls at us. A bit nasty for our first ringwraith, but if we can keep her in the open, we should be able to kill her. It'll cost us one of our few remaining Potions of Speed though.

We run back down the corridor to our west, casting Call Light at intervals as we go. Adunaphel eventually catches up with us:



First we quaff Speed, to avoid any potential double-casts; then we Blink. Unfortunately, we blink away from our conveniently-lit corridor:



Oh well, that's random teleportation for you. Fortunately Adunaphel hasn't moved into the walls yet when we head back south.



Adunaphel the Quiet tries to make you stop moving. You avoid the effects!
Adunaphel the Quiet is hit hard.
Adunaphel the Quiet is hit hard. Adunaphel the Quiet points at you and incants terribly. You avoid the effects!
Adunaphel the Quiet is hit hard. <x4>



She's in the part of the corridor we haven't lit yet, but that's okay, spells never miss.

It grunts with pain. <x3>

And we can see her again. She's about half-dead; not bad! Adunaphel has 2100 HP, for reference.



Blink keeps taking us away from our conveniently pre-lit zone. Bah. More blind-firing time!

It grunts with pain. <x2>
It grunts with pain. Something mumbles. You avoid the effects!
It cries out in pain. Something mumbles. You are hit by something cold! You feel your life force draining away!

Nether bolt. Hers are pretty weak though -- only about 100 damage. We aren't in instadeath range, but by casting Heal now we can ensure that we don't have to drink our one remaining Healing potion.

You feel very good. Someone tries to cast a spell, but fails.

I wonder how we can distinguish between something trying to cast a spell, and someone trying to cast. I'm pretty sure there's different messages!

It cries out in pain. <x2>
It writhes in agony.
You hear a scream of agony!

And Adunaphel dies, unceremoniously. We net 16k EXP off of her (for comparison, we currently need 64k to level up), and her drop: a {magical} Soft Leather Armour, a Short Sword of Lightning, a {magical} Robe, and this:



Very nearly amazing! If only it boosted WIS instead of INT. +4 stealth, decently high combat power, and resistance to darkness and disenchantment vs. +1 stealth, an admittedly-redundant CON sustain, and regeneration...bah. This is impossible to quantify. However, big darkness breathers are pretty thin on the ground right now, and big disenchantment breathers are rare period, so mostly this comes down to stealth vs. regeneration. And you know how much I like regeneration.

You drop the Dagger of Gatauglor (1d4) (+13,+10) <+4>.

The rest of the level is full of multihued dragons, and I think there's also a Dark Elven Sorcerer over there. Let's not go that way. Next level!

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 2300')



Heyyyy, a vault! With nothing too threatening in it, that we can detect anyway. The most common un-detectable threats right now are hydras, quylthulgs, and zephyr hounds. Quylthulgs in particular are going to be a major thorn in our side; even the ones that summon undead are not themselves evil.

The one problem with this vault is that it currently takes us an estimated 533 turns to dig through solid granite. That's only necessary for the bottom third of the vault though, fortunately enough. Magma veins we can whip away no problem.



A Ranger Chieftan and some lesser adventurers. Ranger Chieftans are decently durable and fast, but they have no big nuke spells, beyond the ability to summon animals (including e.g. zephyr hounds). Their melee hurts, though -- 3x 5d5 hits, which considering his speed adds up quickly. After a few turns, we have to Blink away and cast Heal. When he catches up,

The Ranger Chieftan grunts with pain. The Ranger Chieftan summons animals. The Ranger Chieftan casts a phase door.



He pulled a Greater Basilisk! They can breathe poison and nexus for good damage. Ordinarily I'd like to fight this one, since they're also evil and worth a lot of experience, but now's not the time.

The Greater basilisk disappears!

We Orb away the others, but the Ranger Chieftan just summons more when he returns:



This time he got a Wolf Chieftan and a Werewolf. Wolf Chieftans are also annoying, but they're less dangerous in melee than the Ranger Chieftan is, so we'll let this one serve as a buffer zone while we Orb him.

A third summons shows up and gets summarily executed -- a bunch of weaklings. A fourth summon, however, pulls an Eleven-Headed Hydra. Yeesh! Stop summoning things, asshole!



The 11-headed hydra disappears!

All this Teleport Other-ing is wearing on our mana supply. I'd break out the Dragon's Frost wand against the Ranger Chieftan, but he resists both fire and cold, so Orb really is our best weapon against him.

The Ranger Chieftan grunts with pain. The Purple worm grunts with pain. The Catoblepas shrieks in pain. The Wolf chieftan is hit hard. The Killer slicer beetle drones angrily. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan claws you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Ranger Chieftan casts a phase door.



Argh. Will you just die already! 880 HP goes down slowly when your target isn't evil and keeps spamming Summon Animals. And now he's in melee range! But he's also nearly to the point of fleeing...

The Ranger Chieftan cries out in pain. The Wolf chieftan is hit hard. The Purple worm grunts with pain. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Ranger Chieftan misses you. The Ranger Chieftan hits you. The Ranger Chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan wails at you. You stand your ground!

He's down to 2 stars of health. I hope for making him flee next turn, but no dice -- and the Wolf Chieftan's fear-causing wail bypasses our saving throw, making us afraid and increasing our spell failure rates a bit. Blink and Orb remain at 2% though.

The Ranger Chieftan screams in pain. The Wolf chieftan is hit hard. The Purple worm grunts with pain. The Ranger Chieftan flees in terror! The Wolf chieftan misses you. The Wolf chieftan claws you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** The Wolf chieftan bites you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** The Ranger Chieftan summons animals *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** The Wolf Chieftan misses you. The Wolf Chieftan misses you. The Wolf Chieftan misses you.

Weird how Summon Animals triggers the hitpoint warning. We're at 120/274 HP, and the Ranger Chieftan pulled some Vibration Hounds:



Their breath weapon only deals 23 damage, and we resist sound anyways. And we have got to stop these goddamned summoning spells!

You feel something roll beneath your feet. 2 Vibration hounds snarl with pain. The Wolf chieftan is hit hard. The Purple worm grunts with pain. The Ranger Chieftan dies. The Red dragon bat dies. The Giant white rat dies. The Wolf Chieftan claws you etc. etc. etc.

Phew. No more summons! We spend our Wand of Dragon's Frost taking out the Purple Worm and Wolf Chieftan; the other summons die pretty quickly now that we can focus on them. In the end, we're sitting at 103/274 HP and 20/205 SP...but we didn't have to spend any consumables in that fight, aside from the wand's charges.

Oh, and the Ranger Chieftan has lots of other spells that he could have tried to cast: his spell list is two different kinds of firing an arrow (for greater or lesser amounts of damage), Frost Ball, Fire Bolt, Magic Missile, Haste Self, Phase Door, and Summon Animals. He may exclude the bolt spells (and firing arrows) if there's an obstruction in the way, like, say, one of his summons, though.

Naturally his drop is crap. But back in the vault we see something interesting:



New spellbooks! Unfortunately no replacement copy for book 1, of which we only have 1 right now. If that gets burned, then we're right fucked, with no ability to detect monsters or traps, or call light.

Oh, also, there's a phial.



It sucks. I mean, the Phial always sucks at this point, especially considering the existence of Lanterns of True Sight. Having protection from fear on the Phial is actually pretty awesome compared to other things it could have (like Slow Digestion or +5% searching). It's just not worth using.

(Incidentally, while our light source uses fuel now, lanterns and flasks of oil drop regularly enough that we're in no danger of running out of light. We haven't dropped below 11k turns remaining since we got the thing)

We crack open the top third of the vault, and the Demonologist we detected earlier simplifies our lives by teleporting away.



The Manticore is the most dangerous remaining foe, and it dies in two Orbs, so that should tell you something. The treasure from this section is a Blessed Glaiv:



Okay, I really have no excuse for not using this. It has regeneration! And the +3 WIS takes us from 205 SP to 256, while bringing our minimum spell failure rate down to 1%.

Oh, and it gives decent speeds for tunneling through granite.

The bottom portion of the vault has a Pukelman (generic mid-tier golem); by the time we're done Orbing it to death there's nothing else left in the vault, all killed by splash damage.



Alas, the only loot of note is a copy of Resistances of Scarabtarices, totally useless.

This seems like a good place to end the update. Let's take a quick look at Friar Tuck:



The redundant copy of Ethereal Openings is theoretically useful. Even though the book can't be destroyed, it can still be stolen, especially with our comparatively-meagre DEX of 17.

Identification supplies are starting to seriously worry me.



Better rings would be lovely. Hell, I'd be happy to just find new STR and CON rings with bigger pluses. And of course, telepathy and speed are our next big priorities equipment-wise.



At this point, the "bonus" from being human has basically worn off. A dwarf priest at this point in the game would probably be level 32 or 33; hardly a difference worth mentioning.



Everything important is covered, but with nearly no redundancy. Having only a single source of Free Action on our gear is why we're carrying those Rings of Free Action, and the lack of elemental defense redundancy is why we're keeping the Defender Whip around.

Next time: life gets marginal.