Part 61: Crusade - Part 2
Sauron's level has a Graveyard smack in the middle of it. How irritating.
We have 4 Scrolls of Banishment left; we burn one on Liches and another on Wraiths, nigh-totally neutering the Graveyard. The most dangerous thing left in there is a Dracolich.
Sauron is late to his own party, so we smash apart the remnants of the Graveyard with our Mace of Disruption. Not because there's anything worthwhile in there; there's nothing but {magical} crap. But now they won't bother us during the fight.
Finally we track Sauron down in the opposite corner of the map from where we entered:
He's hanging out with the Witch-King of Angmar and the Lernaean Hydra. So, hey -- at least we don't have to hunt them down.
Corridor complete; here they come! Sauron's flavor text:
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.
Sauron's melee disenchants and drains charges, and really hurts besides (2x 10d12, 2x 8d12). And his spells are painful too, and include all the best summoning spells including Summon Uniques. He has 10500 HP, +20 speed, and a glaring non-immunity to acid, so we'll be choppin' him in this fight.
First on the scene is the Lernaean Hydra, though.
In the 13 turns before Sauron reaches us, we manage to knock off 80% of the Hydra's HP. So close!
You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (97). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you.
And we have to heal already. That melee hurts! We have a 52% chance to hit him in melee, incidentally; we just got unlucky.
You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (220). It was a great hit! You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (125). Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
Granted that we let our HP go unhealed a bit longer than we should have, but we're now at 383/916 HP. Yikes!
Sauron hits us with Whirlpool and Ice Bolt a few times; we just drink from our gigantic stash of Potions of Healing to clear up the stunning, rather than potentially waste time on casting Heal with a 15% failure rate.
Sauron, the Sorcerer invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
And now we're at 157/916 HP
Time to break out the big healing spell! By the time Sauron's half-dead, we've expended slightly more than half our mana, all on healing spells. A bit more beating, and we stop to heal...
You feel very good. Sauron, the Sorcerer tries to teleport away.
Awww, come back! We weren't done playing! Oh well, we'll track him down in a bit. In the meanwhile, we splat the Lernaean Hydra and engage the Witch-King of Angmar. His flavor text:
The Chief of the Ringwraiths. A fell being of devastating power. His spells are lethal and his combat blows crushingly hard. He moves at speed, and commands legions of evil to do his bidding. It is said that he is fated never to die by the hand of mortal man.
Rumors ain't always true, buddy! With only 6000 HP he'll be dying comparatively quickly. His melee is 2 10d10 hits and 2 7d7 EXP-drain hits; his spells include a powerful Mana Bolt, high-level summoning spells including Summon Ringwraiths, and a bunch of spells that we can save against.
And after 10 turns in reach of our Mace of Disruption, he's fleeing the battle like his mommy's calling him for dinner. He did a grand total of 160 damage to us, and summoned a Great Swamp Wyrm. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be a Ringwraith.
Sauron, as it happens, is off to the south:
This positioning is inconvenient, because we can't walk close to him to dig a short antisummoning corridor without him fixing his pathing and chasing us down in the open. So what we do instead is dig a westerly corridor that we lure him into.
...I say that, but then his pathing turns out to be dumber than anticipated, so we just dig a closer corridor anyway.
While we were busy with the Witch-King, Sauron restored about 25% of his HP. Irritating, but we'll just wear him down again.
...or we would, if he didn't teleport away again after we took off a mere 10%!
We didn't even have long enough in battle to need to cast a healing spell! Fortunately he doesn't go far:
This time, he hits us in melee a few times and summons an Ancient Gold Dragon. Then
Sauron, the Sorcerer commands you to go far away. You avoid the effects!
...so Teleport Away can be resisted? Man, how come we never resisted it before, then? Maybe it has something to do with nexus resistance? Anyway, I'm glad we don't have to chase him down again.
The very next turn,
Sauron, the Sorcerer tries to teleport away.
Me and my big mouth
This time he went north:
We have an antisummoning corridor off the Graveyard perimeter we can use. Unfortunately,
The recharge backfires! There is a bright flash of light. You have no more Birch Staves of Speed (0 charges).
We finally failed a recharge. Guess we're relying on Potions of Speed from here on out! We have 13 of them; it should be enough.
You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (87). You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (129). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. <2x> Sauron, the Sorcerer summons his servants.
Oh dear. Kronos, Lord of the Titans is his new escort. We can take heart that Kronos can't dig through walls and thus will have to wait his turn, but he'll be nasty when we do fight him.
Sauron, the Sorcerer invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
You feel very good. Sauron, the Sorcerer casts a bolt of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
You feel very good. Sauron, the Sorcerer tries to teleport away.
Okay, Kronos, bring it. Flavor text:
The lord of the Titans, he has broken loose from his confinement in the nether hells to seek revenge on the world.
Simple enough. Kronos is an up-statted Greater Titan: 4 12d12 confusing melee hits, 7000 HP, summoning spells, and a number of breath weapons as well. However, he's only at +10 speed, so we should get regular double turns against him. Good thing too. He's immune to acid, so we swap in our Mace again.
Assuming you have protection from confusion and fight him in an antisummoning corridor, Kronos is basically a somewhat lighter version of the Tarrasque. We have to stop and heal practically every third turn, but he doesn't have any special tricks to pull on us, and we can win any damage race because our HP are functionally unlimited. Kronos is not so fortunate.
You hit Kronos, Lord of the Titans (58). You have slain Kronos, Lord of the Titans.
Dunno what his drop was, except that there weren't any artifacts and thus it all got auto-squelched.
Sauron's in the south:
We work our way around from his east, since we have corridors set up along that path.
He's 60% dead, now. We just need him to, y'know, not run away. If nothing else, it could be a serious drain on our Potions of Speed.
We knock off another 20% of his health before he teleports again
Back up north. I think I've mentioned in the past that the Teleport Self spell can bounce you back and forth between 2 or 3 different destinations instead of taking you to actually different parts of the level. It looks like the same may hold true for Sauron as well.
I stop using our Potions of Speed at this point. Sauron's at +20 speed and we're at +24; outspeeding him won't help that much. We need to outspeed Morgoth to avoid being double-turned, but obtaining a big speed advantage over Sauron won't actually help all that much due to speed's diminishing returns. Best to save our 11 remaining potions for the big fight.
Also, we only get one turn of combat in before Sauron teleports again
This time he ends up closer by, but I accidentally run down a corridor and give him time to catch us in the open:
So we teleport him away. This takes him further south, but we re-engage quickly.
We get a few good hits in; Sauron counters with Whirlpool and Nether Storm. We get him down to 80% dead, and
Sauron, the Sorcerer summons ringwraiths.
Aww, he didn't summon Vecna. This summon is surprisingly pathetic, in fact -- just a Master Vampire and a bog-standard Lich. Weird.
Shortly after this, Sauron teleports again
He doesn't go far, though -- just to the vault up north. We re-engage, one turn of combat occurs, and he teleports again. What, have you decided that none of your offensive spells work? This is ridiculous!
Back to the south.
On the plus side, all these breaks are restoring our mana faster than Sauron's HP, so we haven't had to spend a single Potion of Restore Mana yet! This time we get three rounds in before he flees! More importantly, he's now 90% dead.
And sloppy running gets us caught out in the open again, but fuck it, I want him dead.
Sauron, the Sorcerer is hit hard.
You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (119). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you.
You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (115). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (89). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you.
You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (97). YOu miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (91). You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (97). Sauron, the Sorcerer summons ringwraiths.
Who cares? None of them can cast attack spells that don't require saving throws! Well, okay, Archliches can cast Nether Storm, but I'm past caring.
You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (99). Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you.
You feel very good. The Vampire lord hits you. The Vampire lord hits you. The Vampire lord misses you. The Vampire lord misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer misses you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you. Sauron, the Sorcerer hits you.
You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (101). You miss Sauron, the Sorcerer. You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (113). You corrode Sauron, the Sorcerer (123). You have slain Sauron, the Sorcerer. A magical staircase appears...
Finally! Now, go away, losers.
The power of your god banishes evil! 2 Vampire lords disappear! 2 Master vampires disappear!
The Archlich survives by being in a wall, annoyingly, but we teleport him away on the following turn when he steps into the corridor.
Sauron's drop: a Lead-Filled Mace of Extra Attacks, Dwarven Chain Mail, a Sling of Extra Might, Mithril Bolts of Frost, and a second copy of Wrath of God. Cute.
Before we take the stairs, a quick look at Tuck's status:
We are so overprepared for this fight it's not even funny.
You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 5000')
Let's rock.
Funny, a vault. We're near the southeast corner, though, which is good -- you want to fight Morgoth in a corner, generally, so that Teleport Other sends monsters far away from you. We head to the east, and can already see walls disappearing from the map to our West; Morgoth is on the march.
This looks good.
There is a searing blast of light! You have 13 Scrolls titled "manior et laes" of *Destruction* {!*!*!*}.
This looks better.
And there he is!
Morgoth's flavor text:
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!
I want that hammer.
You all should remember what Morgoth is all about -- gigantic melee hits, all the best summoning spells, and a Mana Storm that can punch for upwards of 600 damage. We need to wear him down before we run out of Potions of Speed, or we'll be risking instant death on every single round from him casting Mana Storm back to back. And as you saw with the Tarrasque, that's not all that unlikely...
With Bless active, we have a 59% chance to hit him (63% after our one Potion of Heroism gets drunk), which means an average of 242 damage per round, meaning that it will take 83 rounds to wear down his 20000 HP -- except of course that he regenerates and we'll be spending plenty of turns either healing ourselves or dealing with his summons. Still, this is eminently winnable.
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (96). It was a great hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (60). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (60). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (112). It was a great hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (60). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (57). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness. The Nightwalker misses you. The Nightwalker hits you. The Nightwalker hits you. The Nightwalker hits you.
Shenanigans! Summons are supposed to enter the level with no energy, and we're faster than Nightwalkers, so how did it get a turn to attack us? Oh well. We Blink away and let Morgoth follow us.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The Nightwalker wails out in pain! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very weak. You feel very clumsy. 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.
We have a sizable buffer on stats and can always cast Restoration, so the drain isn't an imminent concern. The earthquakes also help keep the summons off our back (except for the wallwalking Archlich, of course). However, when we take a turn to heal Morgoth's melee damage, he summons greater undead again, pulling another Nightwalker. Tsk. So we Blink again.
Two more turns of melee, and Morgoth is 10% dead! Progress is visible!
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The cave ceiling collapses! You nimbly dodge the blast!
This is what happens when an earthquake tries to spawn a wall in your tile but you make your saving throw -- you get ejected to an open adjacent tile. That just saved us something like 200 extra damage.
Morgoth summons fiends of darkness.
Hey, there's Vecna! I knew he'd show up eventually! Of course, we are no way, no how going to fight him right now.
The power of your god banishes evil! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears! The Nightwalker disappears! The White wraith disappears! The Forest wight disappears! The Vampire lord disappears! Vecna, the Emperor Lich disappears!
There is a searing blast of light! You have 12 Scrolls titled "manior et laes" of *Destruction* {!*!*!*}.
I guess I should probably save our scrolls of *Destruction* and cast the spell, but dude, we still have 12 left. We're not gonna run out.
Vecna makes it back to us before Morgoth does:
But that's nothing a repeat Teleport Other can't solve. While Morgoth's on the level, there's no getting distracted by other fights.
Morgoth's first action this time is to summon "some friends".
The Undead Beholder and Death Drake are mildly threatening; everything else is trash. Still, we don't want to take a double Nether Storm (or the Death Drake's nether breath), so Blink it is. None of these monsters can move through walls, so Morgoth's constant earthquakes should keep them away pretty well.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The Blue dragon bat wails out in pain! The Blue dragon bat is embedded in the rock! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you.
Or kill them off entirely. That works too!
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
Ahh, everyone's favorite friend, Mana Storm. Nothing our 2000 HP Healing spell can't fix. He follows up with Summon Greater Demons and gets, among other things, a Horned Reaper. Maybe we can coax it into trampling the others for us. Still, we Blink away; Reapers' melee is nothing to be trifled with. And our speed runs out, so we drink another potion, leaving us with 9 remaining...
We take Morgoth down to 80%, and he gets us cornered, surrounded by walls. Not wanting to get squished by a ceiling collapse with nowhere to dodge to, we Blink away -- staying in Morgoth's LOS, and he summons greater demons again.
One Greater Balrog, two Lesser Balrogs. No big deal, but we want to keep them out of LOS to avoid getting summon spam, so we Blink again.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.
It's getting crowded here; he just pulled Ancalagon the Black! We're totally immune to all of Ancalagon's breath weapons except poison, but he can also summon ancient dragons himself, so he'll need to get teleported. In fact...
Ancalagon the Black summons ancient dragons. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.
I was not expecting Ancalagon to be able to summon, but we got hockeysticked. There's now a Great Wyrm of Balance, a couple of lesser Ancient Dragons, a Black Reaver, and a bunch of lesser "greater" undead here. Time to bail.
The power of your god banishes evil! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears! The Great Wyrm of Balance disappears! The Ancient multi-hued dragon breathes frost. You resist the effect! Ancalagon the Black resists a lot.
Ancalagon the Black disappears!
There is a searing blast of light!
There, peace and quiet. For the moment. Morgoth returns in short order.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons some friends.
Meh, nothing stronger than a Pukelman.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The Baby black dragon wails out in pain! Something wails out in pain! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The cave quakes! You are pummeled with debris! You are severely crushed! *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** The Erinyes wails out in pain! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** You feel very weak. You feel very clumsy. 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. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
Ow.
Oh well, heal up, Blink away (since apparently we can't dodge earthquakes into tiles that contain monsters), and resume the fight. We get Morgoth down to 30% dead, and he summons "ringwraiths", which in this case means two Vampire Lords and a bunch of miscellaneous undead; no big deal.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The cave ceiling collapses! You are severely crushed! *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
...except for that. Stupid summons getting in our way! We heal up, Blink away, cast Restoration since our stats were getting a bit low, and chug a Potion of Restore Mana (currently 14 remaining). And, since our speed timer is probably getting low, we chug a Potion of Speed too. The last thing we want is for it to run out on a turn we need to spend healing.
Morgoth summons ancient dragons, including a Great Wyrm of Chaos; we Blink away. We fight for a bit, managing to dodge earthquakes once but not a second time (the dodging saving throw is not failure-proof even when there are free adjacent tiles, it appears), and he summons greater undead again, pulling a Nightcrawler and an Archlich. That's too much to deal with.
The power of your god banishes evil! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears! The Great Wyrm of Balance disappears! The Master vampire disappears! The Nightcrawler disappears! The Elder vampire disappears! The Grave wight disappears! The Archlich disappears!
There is a searing blast of light!
Morgoth returns quickly, of course. Round 4!
That Baby Black Dragon is so hosed.
Morgoth wastes no time in summoning greater undead again, pulling a Demilich, two Vampire Lords, a Grey Wraith, and a Forest Wight. But of course we can just Blink away and let Morgoth track us down, since none of the others can get through walls. As long as we get enough distance, Morgoth's earthquakes should keep them away.
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (66). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (56). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (61). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (59). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (146). It was a *GREAT* hit! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The cave ceiling collapses! You nimbly dodge the blast!
He's down to 40%! Also, since we dodged out of our tile, Morgoth was unable to perform the rest of his melee combo on us; a nice way to save on damage taken.
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (50). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (59). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (112). It was a great hit! You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
I didn't notice our temporary speed running out, and we got double-turned by Morgoth. Now we're at 207/916 HP and Morgoth has a bunch of pals nearby, including a Black Reaver (who knows Mana Storm and Nether Storm himself).
We could quite easily have died here; all Morgoth would have had to do is cast two Mana Storms, or hell, even just Mana Storm + a reasonably lucky round of melee attacks. In fact, we've been running without speed for...at least half a dozen of our turns. I'm amazed we lasted this long.
We could Blink away, but with such low HP, landing in LOS of either Morgoth or the Black Reaver could be a death sentence. Of course, staying put could also be a death sentence.
Fortunately, Black Reavers are only +10 speed, so we're faster than this one already. And everything else is in open space that we can see. Ergo, can be hit by Banish Evil.
The power of your god banishes evil! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness disappears! The Nether wraith disappears! The Emperor wight disappears! The Master lich disappears! The Black wraith disappears!
Then we cast the fuck out of our 2000-HP Healing spell
Back at full health, we flatten the Black Reaver and wait for Morgoth to return. 
This time, we trade blows for quite awhile before Morgoth casts another spell: Summon Ancient Dragons.
He got a Great Wyrm of Balance, a Great Wyrm of Chaos, an Ancient Multihued Dragon, and an Ethereal Dragon. I can't fault his selection in the least; all of these guys are exceptionally powerful.
Once again, we could Blink away, and risk possibly being in LOS of more than one of these guys when we land, or we could just cast Banish Evil. I told you we'd cast that spell in this fight! Seriously, Blink would almost certainly be safe, but Banish Evil removes the "almost".
Of course, this does mean that we waste a bunch of time on our Potion of Speed timer waiting for Morgoth to return. The potion runs out four turns before he enters LOS, in fact.
Round, what is it, 6?
Yadda yadda more greater undead yadda yadda Blink.
...am I getting too cavalier about this?
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.
Man, I did not think he was in LOS of us. Remember, folks, the AI will happily abuse LOS tricks too! Morgoth pulled in Cantoras the Skeletal Lord, and Glaurung, Father of the Dragons. We'll certainly want to kill them -- but later. For now, some tricky Blinking gets them teleported away without having to disturb Morgoth.
Though we're kinda pinned down right now. I'm just trying to conserve our Potions of Speed here; we only have 6 left and running out would be a major problem. But hey: Morgoth's down to 50%! We get a few more good hits in, and
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons some friends.
Okay, this is too crowded for my tastes. Can't dodge through monsters, after all!
The power of your god banishes evil! Etc. etc. etc.
There is a searing blast of light!
Ahh, nice and clean. If you count standing in a gigantic pile of rubble as "clean" anyway.
Morgoth casts the "summon friends" (a.k.a. Summon Monsters) spell immediately on his return, but it's just a bunch of weaklings.
We leave them in place. We can't dodge through them, but they'll interfere with future summoning attempts. As long as we keep our HP up, we should be safe from extra damage due to cave quakes.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness invokes a storm of raw magic. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** The Stone giant screams in pain. The Large kobold dies. The Acolyte dies. The Umber hulk dies. The Red dragon bat dies. The Red jelly is destroyed.
Or, y'know, that works too
Those guys weren't your friends at all, were they?Morgoth follows up that Mana Storm with another Mana Storm, then Summon Greater Demons and Summon Ringwraiths, back-to-back. That's getting a bit hot, so we Blink away, and a good thing too, because our temporary speed runs out on the same turn. Phew.
Five Potions of Speed left, and Morgoth is 50% dead. Let's not fuck this up; there's no second chances here.
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (52). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (60). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (67). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (62). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you.
I don't know what Morgoth's chance to hit is, but I have to assume this is statistically improbable. Our 185 AC is pretty average in the grand scheme of things.
One turn later, and we get crushed by an earthquake, but Morgoth is 60% dead! I'll take that exchange any day. Morgoth's earthquakes are also doing a number on his summons, which is always convenient.
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.
Speaking of which. This time we got Qlzqqlzuup the Emperor Quylthulg, Gorlim Betrayer of Barahir, and Golfimbul the fucking Hill Orc Chief! I take the chance to scroll through the list of uniques. Lessee...Vecna, yep, Cantoras, yep, Glaurung, yep...I think literally every single living unique is on this level now.
We throw out a Banish Evil, and then, since Qlzqqlzuup and Gorlim aren't evil (and Qlzqqlzuup summoned an Istar in his spare turn, which got in the way), we do a few more targeted Teleport Others.
The Istar disappears! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons hounds.
The Wolf disappears! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons ringwraiths.
The Lich disappears! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons hydrae.
The Vibration hound disappears! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons major demons.
The 11-headed hydra disappears! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons ancient dragons.
Yeah, this isn't working. We'll just...leave him there, and try not to clip him with Word of Destruction.
Morgoth comes back, and literally on his first turn summons greater undead, pulling a Black Reaver among others.
Bugger. LOS isn't our friend here either when we try to Blink away, so we just cast Banish Evil again. Morgoth comes back, and
Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.
Oh come on! We didn't even get to hit you once this time! Well, aside from the Nether Wraith (who can cast Nether Bolt) none of these guys have much direct damage potential when you have a 100% saving throw, though the Archlich can of course cast summoning spells (and, in retrospect, Nether Storm; whoops!). We stick it out, and are rewarded with a Mana Storm for our efforts -- which at least clears out the chaff a bit.
Three turns of melee, and Morgoth summons ancient dragons.
This time he got a Great Wyrm of Chaos, a Great Wyrm of Many Colours, and an Ancient Multihued Dragon.
Hey Morgoth, lay off the summoning spells, why don'tcha? This is getting tedious! Plus the level's getting kind of crowded. We Blink away, and when Morgoth follows us, he obliges our request -- by casting Mana Storm three turns in a row
On the plus side, Morgoth's down to 70% dead!
On the minus side, we have to Banish Evil again, because this just isn't a tenable situation.
Sizing up the terrain, we discover a battlefield vulture:
You miss Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief. You miss Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief. You hit Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief (50). You hit Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief (139). It was a superb hit! You hit Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief (154). It was a superb hit! You have slain Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief.
One more tiny notch on our Mace of Disruption's haft.
Morgoth's summoned so many things, in fact, that they're constantly returning to the battlefield to take another stab at us:
That's the only problem with Banish Evil: it's not as permanent a solution as Word of Destruction. But we can cope. And as long as we stick over in this western half of the field, Word of Destruction won't clip Qlzqqlzuup. We're saving it for later.
We manage to get a few good rounds in, and knock Morgoth down to 80% dead before he casts Summon Greater Undead again. Oh well; we needed a break to cast Restoration anyway; our STR is down to 18/170 and that shit don't stand.
Once again the terrain gets a bit too crowded for our tastes:
This after multiple summoning spells including Summon Ancient Dragons and Summon Greater Demons. This time we teleport just Morgoth away, and cast Word of Destruction to remove everything else. We're still well clear of Qlzqqlzuup, fortunately. And our Potion of Speed was about to run out anyway.
C'mon, Morgoth, let's end this.
90% dead!
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (47). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (68). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness casts a bolt of raw magic.
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (61). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (156). It was a *GREAT* hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (58). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very weak. You feel very clumsy. 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 misses you.
You feel very good. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very weak, etc. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you.
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (53). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (103). It was a great hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (57). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you.
You feel very good. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons his servants.
Pah, not enough to stop us!
You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (55). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (47). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (139). It was a superb hit! You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (50). You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The White wraith wails out in pain! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you.
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (62). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (50). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (53). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (47). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (46). The Elder vampire hits you. The Elder vampire hits you. The Elder vampire misses you. The Elder vampire misses you. The Master lich misses you. The Master lich misses you. The Master lich misses you.
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (168). It was a *GREAT* hit! You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (61). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (53). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (67). Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The Master lich wails out in pain! The Master lich is embedded in the rock! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. The Emperor wight wails out in pain! Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness touches you.
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (145). It was a superb hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (52). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (87). It was a superb hit! The Grave wight misses you. The Grave wight misses you. The Grave wight misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you. You feel very weak, etc. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness misses you. The Elder vampire casts a bolt of nether. *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** You resist the effect!
You feel very good. Morgoth, Lord of Darkness summons fiends of darkness.
Okay, this we have to Blink away from. Nightwalker and Nightcrawler; both have powerful ball attack spells.
This will work nicely.
You miss Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (104). It was a great hit! You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (51). You hit Morgoth, Lord of Darkness (52). You have slain Morgoth, Lord of Darkness. A magical staircase appears... *** CONGRATULATIONS *** You have won the game! You may retire (commit suicide) when you are ready.
Phew.
Right.
Who's next?
Next time: who's next.