Part 62: Victory Lap

Update 61: Victory Lap



Here we stand, atop one mountain of a corpse. Morgoth, master of this dungeon and everything in it, is dead. Friar Tuck has achieved his goal, and can now head home.

However, we have some unfinished business.



Gorlim. Glaurung. Qlzqqlzuup. Cantoras. Ancalagon. Vecna. These monsters have names, and that cannot stand. Tuck shall be the only named entity in the world! We're going to track these guys down, and we're going to take their names from them. And I know just the tool for the job.

You have the Mighty Hammer 'Grond'.


Oh, wait, hang on a sec. Fighting Morgoth left us a little tired (drained to 18/180 STR).

You feel less weak. You feel less naive. You feel less clumsy.



That's better. Now, before we pulverise the local undead, we should clean up the rest of Morgoth's drop, just to make sure it doesn't get blown up by earthquakes.



Morgoth's Crown, as always, is patently absurd. Not that we need it.



Gauntlets of Combat would be seriously powerful if it weren't for the aggravation; as it is, if you're building a character around one of the aggravating superweapons (like Deathwreaker or Doomcaller...or Grond, I suppose) then there's little reason not to use gloves like these.



Getting ammo from a unique drop is always disappointing.



Uh, hang on, there appears to be some rabble standing on the rest of our items.

The power of your god banishes evil! The Emperor wight disappears! The Nightwalker disappears! The Nightcrawler disappears!

Argh, stupid Elder Vampire standing in a wall. Back away, wait for him to walk out, and

The power of your god banishes evil! 2 Master liches disappear! The Elder vampire disappears!

Right, that's done it. Back to the loot!



Eh.



Ehh.



Mm, not terrible but speed is a lot better.

And that's it. Let's start breaking stuff!

You fiercely smite the Archlich (274). The Fire hound wails out in pain! You fiercely smite the Archlich (1334). It was a *SUPERB* hit! The Ancient green dragon wails out in pain! The Fire hound wails out in pain! The Fire hound is embedded in the rock! You fiercely smite the Archlich (299). Something wails out in pain! You fiercely smite the Archlich (314).



Behold, the power of cheese. Grond has 9d9 damage dice; that gets multiplied by five against dragons, demons, and undead. It also weighs in at an even 100 pounds (45 kilograms), and is, I'm fairly sure, the only weapon with access to the "*SUPERB*" critical, which deals quadrupled damage. For one hit, we dealt (5 * 9d9 + 49) * 4 damage (the 49 is our bonus to-damage from weapon, STR, the +4 on our amulet, etc.).

Put another way: Archliches have 3500 HP. It took 8 hits to kill this one.

Meanwhile, Grond also frequently causes earthquakes when it hits things. These will damage monsters, or, if there's no spare tile for them to get knocked into, it will simply delete them from the level outright (much like Banishment and Word of Destruction do). It will also destroy items, not that we need any items now. I don't know if it can destroy artifacts. My guess is no; the devs tend to be fairly merciful when it comes to accidentally losing things forever.

Anyway, our first target is going to be Vecna, the Emperor Lich, who got summoned early on in the fight with Morgoth and is now hanging out in the small vault northwest of the battlefield.



I say that, but as we wait for our SP to recover from our grand battle, Ancalagon shows up:



We already know all about Ancalagon from past lives:



Grond's preposterous weight is slowing us all the way down to +19 speed, so Ancalagon is actually faster than us, if only just. But we'll be fine!

You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (309). Ancalagon the Black wails out in pain!



There's something satisfying about literally knocking your opponent around with pieces of the dungeon Also, that Black Reaver coming up behind Ancalagon is in for a rude shock when it enters melee range.

You miss Ancalagon the Black. You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (674). It was a *GREAT* hit! You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (309). Ancalagon the Black wails out in pain!



You fiercely smite the Black reaver (1044). It was a *SUPERB* hit! You miss the Black reaver. You miss the Black reaver. You fiercely smite the Black reaver (309). Ancalagon the Black pushes past the Black reaver.


Now if only Grond made us preternaturally accurate too. Missing half our attacks is a bit tiresome. Two more rounds take down the Black Reaver, leaving us just with Ancalagon to fight. Things go predictably poorly for him.

You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (904). It was a *SUPERB* hit!
...
Ancalagon the Black wails out in pain!
...
You miss Ancalagon the Black. You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (914). It was a *GREAT* hit! You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (259). You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (779). It was a *GREAT* hit!
...
Ancalagon the Black breathes poison. You resist the effect!
...
You fiercely smite Ancalagon the Black (1144). It was a *SUPERB* hit! Ancalagon the Black wails out in pain! Ancalagon the Black flees in terror!
Ancalagon the Black is hit hard.
Ancalagon the Black dies.

*bonk*



Rings of Power tend to look like this, but I prefer our current one instead, for fire immunity and better resistance coverage.

Right, now let's kill Vecna.



Man, there's undead everywhere! Refugees from the Great Battle; they'd best stay away if they want to livesurvive!

As for Vecna:

The greatest of all undead sorcerers, even the gods once feared him. This ancient shadow of death wilts every living thing it passes.

Vecna naturally has plenty of powerful spells, including Mana Storm, Nether Storm, Mana Bolt, Summon Greater Undead, Summon Greater Demons, and Summon Kin (pulling in more liches). But he also has Blind, Cause Mortal Wounds, Frighten, Mana Bolt, and Summon Monsters, none of which are likely to be especially effective. His melee isn't all that strong either. We could have handled him before; now, with Grond, we can pancake him with ease.

You hit the Spotted jelly (89). You have destroyed the Spotted jelly. The Horned Reaper wails out in pain! The Young black dragon wails out in pain! The Young black dragon is embedded in the rock! Vecna, the Emperor Lich wails out in pain! Vecna, the Emperor Lich is embedded in the rock! Something wails out in pain! Something is embedded in the rock! The Grey wraith wails out in pain! The Ancient multi-hued dragon wails out in pain!


Er...whoops? That's what I get for using Grond to clear chaff near the unique we want to kill, I guess! Vecna, you get to survive...for now.



All the rest of you assholes are gonna die though. We make a mess out of the dungeon beating up various undead, dragons, and demons, until I notice an important message:

Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir wails out in pain!


Whoops! Hold up! We got someone needs to survive long enough to die!



Gorlim's flavor text:

This sad creature - once a mighty warrior - betrayed his former friends to Morgoth's army in return for, he thought, safety for himself and his wife. And so he fell under Morgoth's power and became little more than a mindless servant of evil, even though the other side of his "bargain" was not kept.

Heavy-handed much? Gorlim is a colossal badass when you first encounter him -- way back at 2050'! He can cast Mana Bolt, Water Bolt, and Cause Critical Wounds, all of which can deal huge damage for his depth. But we've long since passed the point at which he could pose a credible threat.

You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (106). The Horned Reaper wails out in pain! You miss Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir. You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (232). It was a *SUPERB* hit! You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (89). The Horned Reaper wails out in pain! The Great Wyrm of Balance wails out in pain! The Death drake is repelled. The Death drake misses you. The Death drake misses you. Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir tries to cast a spell, but fails.

Oh, hey, we have Protection from Evil up, which means that the Death Drake, native to level 45, can't hit our level-50 self! Meanwhile, Gorlim has no slay-able traits, making him in some respects the hardest monster to kill on this level. Then again, he only has 1600 HP...

You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (100). You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (336). It was a *SUPERB* hit! The Great Wyrm of Balance wails out in pain! You miss Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir. You hit Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir (260). It was a *GREAT* hit! The Death drake misses you. The Death drake is repelled. The Death drake misses you. Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir hits you. Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir misses you. Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir misses you. The Horned Reaper tramples over Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir.

...wait, no! Dammit! C'mon, guys, let me kill the named monsters! And he was almost dead too!

Stupid Horned Reaper. We vent our spleen on the nearby monsters (the Horned Reaper lasts 4 rounds), and loot this from one of them:



Just another piece of legendary junk.

Right, well, next up on our shitlist is Glaurung, Father of the Dragons:



Flavor text:

Glaurung is the father of all dragons, and was for a long time the most powerful. Though this is no longer so, he still has full command over his brood and can command them to appear whenever he so wishes. He is the definition of dragonfire.

He's nowhere near as dangerous as Ancalagon, and Ancalagon was no threat at all. I'm sure you see where this is going.

You miss Glaurung, Father of the Dragons. <4x> Glaurung, Father of the Dragons misses you. <4x>



We attain slightly higher levels of competence for the rest of the fight. At one point he even summons ancient dragons, plulling a Great Swamp Wyrm, Great Storm Wyrm, and Ancient White Dragon:



Not that it matters, because soon enough

You fiercely smite Glaurung, Father of the Dragons (289). The Great Swamp Wyrm wails out in pain! Glaurung, Father of the Dragons wails out in pain! Glaurung, Father of the Dragons is embedded in the rock!














Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons
Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg
Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord
Ancalagon the Black
Vecna, the Emperor Lich

Evidently we're going to have to tread very carefully around uniques if we want them to stick around long enough to actually die!

We head out in search of Cantoras, who should still be on the level somewhere. He's the last monster in the game who exceeds +20 speed, and thus the last we should need to use Potions of Speed on. Speaking of which, we ended the fight with Morgoth with only 2 potions left -- and have since found 3 more. How oddly plentiful.



The Cave orc dissolves! 4 Ogres dissolve! 5 Hill orcs dissolve!



Another thing: in the entire fight with Morgoth, we didn't use a single Scroll of Mass Banishment. Bit of an oversight, that.



Really read 7 Scrolls titled "equo hocutio" of Mass Banishment? {!*} y
You have 6 Scrolls titled "equo hocutio" of Mass Banishment {!*}.



Whoops, missed a spot.

Really read 6 Scrolls titled "equo hocutio" of Mass Banishment? {!*} y
You have 5 Scrolls titled "equo hocutio" of Mass Banishment {!*}.



There we go. Not that there's any worthwhile loot in the Graveyard, mind.



Man, where is Cantoras? He's gotta be around here somewhere, unless we accidentally clipped him with a Destruction or Earthquake without noticing...



Ah! There he is, on the other side of that rubble! Carefully now, we don't want to Earthquake him away while squashing this Giant Spider (who has about 55 HP...). In fact, we'll switch back to our Mace of Disruption of Extra Attacks for this guy. It does less than half the damage, but at least it won't make us fight him twice!

Anyway, Cantoras. Flavor text:

A legion of evil undead druj animating the skeleton of a once mighty sorcerer. His power is devastating and his speed unmatched in all the underworld. Flee his wrath!

As the description suggests, Cantoras is essentially a mobile druj: +30 speed, 7500 HP, lots of powerful attack spells, not much in the way of melee. We shed our spare prayer books and our 17 Potions of Healing to get our burden down to the point at which we're at precisely +20 speed; thus temporary speed will let us match him. His only "tricky" spell is Summon Greater Undead; everything else is straight-up damage, possibly with stunning or confusion (Whirlpool and Ice Bolt). We plan to just bonk him on the skull until it caves in.



You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (91). You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (112). You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (103). You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (115). You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord.

Man, I miss doing over 1000 damage in a single blow

You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (121). You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (73). You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (236). It was a *GREAT* hit! You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (124). You smite Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord (174). It was a great hit! Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord gazes at you. You feel your life draining away! Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord misses you. Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord misses you.
You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. You miss Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord. Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord shoots a spear of ice. You resist the effect! You have been stunned. You resist the effect!

Ha, with cold immunity and resistance to shards, Ice Bolt can only stun us, not destroy our inventory or cut us!

Cantoras wastes an awful lot of time on melee attacks. He does cast Whirlpool, once, and when he's half-dead he finally gets around to casting Summon Greater Undead...pulling a Grey Wraith and nothing else.



On the flipside, the constant melee attacks manage to drain us all the way back to level 49



1.5 million EXP in the hole! Man. Not that it's not trivially replaced, but that's still some serious draining there.

Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord casts a bolt of raw magic.

We yawn, having taken a mere 80 damage. He rolled spectacularly low on that; theoretically it could hit for up to 344 damage.

Anyway, Grond or no Grond, Cantoras can't stand up to us for long, and soon enough our Mace finishes breaking him apart. Scratch two! His drop includes a bunch of crap, and a Ring of Speed <+11> which can replace our <+10> ring any day.

There is now, at the moment, just one unique left on the level.



You didn't think I'd forgotten about Qlzqqlzuup, did you?



There he is. We could, from this position, simply Orb him down without facing a single summon; we can see him and he can't see us. But that would hardly be sporting. No, we're going to equip our old Broad Axe of Animlas (since he doesn't resist acid) and chop him to bits, the hard way. He has 5000 HP, and we deal on average 445 damage/round taking into account our 95% hit rate against him, so that's about 12 turns' worth of summons we'll have to deal with. Might as well drink a Potion of Speed to bring that down a bit.

Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons hydrae.



An excellent start; they can't really hurt us.

You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (105). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (97). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (109). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (113).

And no responding summon! At +30 speed, we get 38 energy per game turn, while at +20 speed, he gets 30 energy (remember, you need at least 100 energy to get a turn). Thus, we are currently 26% faster than he is and should get "free" turns every four turns or so.

You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (164). It was a great hit! You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (119). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (111). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (196). It was a great hit! Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg summons hydrae.


You just keep on doing that, buddy. Actually, he can't -- there are literally no open tiles in range for him to summon into. As a result, he's now totally helpless, having clogged his surroundings with monsters that can't really hurt us. We get in a half-dozen rounds of attacks before space opens up, which he fills with an Ancient Multihued Dragon, an Ancient Blue Dragon, and an Ancient Red Dragon. Which...is not much better than hydras, if we're being honest.

The Ancient multi-hued dragon breathes frost. You resist the effect! 2 11-headed hydras are badly frozen. Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg quivers in pain. The 7-headed hydra freezes and shatters! 2 7-headed hydras are badly frozen.

Well, I guess they can free up some space! But it hardly matters; Qlzqqlzuup already used up his turn that round, and as you might have guessed from his damage message, he was almost dead.

You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (96). You corrode Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg (86). You have slain Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg.

There, he's dead! We're clear to re-equip Grond.

You smite the 11-headed hydra (419). It was a *SUPERB* hit! The 11-headed hydra wails out in pain! The 11-headed hydra is embedded in the rock! The 4-headed hydra wails out in pain! The 4-headed hydra is embedded in the rock!

Ahhhh. The only thing from Qlzqqlzuup's drop that survives the ensuing earthquakes is this:



Not bad damage, that. Y'know, if we were playing a melee class and had found it 2500' earlier.

Right, we're done here. Onwards!

The air around you starts to swirl... You have no more Scrolls titled "cona pas res" of Deep Descent.
The floor opens beneath you! (to 5250')

We're in the postgame, folks! The dungeon goes all the way down to level 127, or 6350'; we're gonna go that far, and with any luck we'll run into the uniques who have cunningly evaded our grasp by getting buried beneath tons of rock.

...oh, blast, I was going to construct a screenshot showing you the devastation we'd wrought on Morgoth's level by using Grond. Too late now. Well, just imagine that we'd chain-cast Word of Destruction across the entire place and you'll get the idea.

...in fact...



There, that's what's left of 5250' Don't worry, nobody we cared about lived here.

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 5300')

We alternate between casting Detection and Portal enough to be fairly certain there are no uniques here, and move on. We're unlikely to find any equipment upgrades at this point anyway; our gear is just too solid.

You enter a maze of down staircases. (to 5350')

A cavern level. Next! In fact, let's just skip a bit...

5500' has a whopping four vaults on it:



We scan them for uniques...



...and are thoroughly disappointed. Oh well. Not much point cracking open the vaults either, even though our Scrolls of Mass Banishment would make easy work of them. Maybe there'll be better later on.

We find another vault at 5900', which is mostly notable for holding a Ring of Speed <+12>. Hooray for another incremental upgrade!



At 6050', we run into the Jigsaw vault again:



I decide we might as well use a Mass Banishment and check out the contents; the backlash costs us over 400 HP. There were an awful lot of monsters in that vault. Unfortunately, the only thing of interest inside is a Scroll of Deep Descent.

At 6350', we bottom out, with a labyrinth level:



Nary a sign of any of the uniques. So we start chain-casting Alter Reality in search of them. And two castings later, look who we run into!



Gorlim, hanging out next to a graveyard! Feeling morbid, ol' buddy? Not to worry, we'll sort you out.

Seven turns later, he's dead, and the denizens of the Graveyard have only just started to arrive. Rather than stick around, we just warp reality again and move on.

Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons
Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg
Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord
Ancalagon the Black
Vecna, the Emperor Lich

Two more to go!

Quite some time later -- I've lost count of how many times we cast Alter Reality, Portal, and Detection -- we encounter one of the old-school greater vaults, "Butterfly":



This is one of the vaults that shipped in the original version of the game. It's not really all that notable, though; there's only 2 of the "guaranteed at least excellent item" tiles, and of course, at this dungeon level, there's no concept of an unusually out-of-depth monster. It's not worth the bother to crack open.

Two levels later, we find another one of the original 4 greater vaults, and this one is generally worth checking out:



Its name is "huge", but it's more commonly known as the Great Checkerboard Vault, or GCV. It alternates between the "guaranteed at least excellent item" tile and the "guaranteed at least good item" tile, with correspondingly powerful monsters. Best of all, they're each in an isolated cell, so you can take them one-on-one -- except for a short open corridor in the middle of the vault. Finding one of these vaults in the mid-game can be a huge boost to your power level, assuming you can survive the monsters inside it. Imagine trying to fight, say, Arien, or Tselakus, or Vecna, at 2000'!

There's no uniques here to resist it, so we just Mass Banish the entire thing. Then we equip Grond for its faster tunneling speed (average 10 turns through granite, compared to 16 with our Mace of Disruption) and bore through the place as fast as possible.

...well, we get a Ring of Speed <+17> out of it. That's the biggest I've ever seen one of those things get. I've heard of people finding upwards of +22 though.

And...

You see a Plain Gold Ring.
On the ground: the Ring of Power of Power (The One Ring) (+15,+15) <+5> {cursed}.



Well. Moral dilemma time. Do we succumb to the power of the One Ring and its legendarily corruptive influence?

Fuck yes we do! Sauron's dead, what's he gonna do, decompose at us?

You were wearing the Ring of Power of Belmeth <+4, +1>. You are wearing the Ring of Power of Power (The One Ring) (+15,+15) <+5> {cursed}. Oops! It feels deathly cold!

Besides, it's a ring of Power of Power! It's power squared!

I do some source diving to figure out what that activation does. Looks like it's:

• 20% chance of permanently draining all stats and 25% of your EXP total ("You are surrounded by a malignant aura"). Ouch!
  
• 10% chance to deal 1000 damage to all monsters in LOS ("You are surrounded by a powerful aura").
  
• 30% chance to cast Mana Storm for 300 damage (no message).
  
• 40% chance to cast Mana Bolt for 250 damage (no message).
  

Well that's boring. Shouldn't it at least have an option to cast Summon Ringwraiths or something?



Unfortunately, we've swapped out our source of nexus/chaos resistance. Fortunately, we have another piece of gear that can cover nexus at least with no loss of capability.

You were wearing the Steel Helm 'Dosgin' [9,+16] <+4>. You are wearing the Massive Iron Crown of Morgoth [0,+0] <+125, +1> {cursed}. Oops! It feels deathly cold!



...hm, now we're vulnerable to sound. You'd think Morgoth would have more complete resistance coverage. Fortunately, we have a fix:



Compared to our old armor, we lose some speed and protection from blindness, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any monsters left that can blind us anyway! The only deep monsters who can blind with their melee are all dead uniques, the shallow ones are never gonna hit us, and we'll always save against blinding spells.

Naturally, now that we've welded two Silmarils onto our head, we find an awesome non-cursed crown lying on the ground:



Oh well! Too late!

Incidentally, the experience drain on the One Ring appears to work by draining a flat percentage of our total EXP every so many turns. Digging through the remaining walls in the vault (there's no other loot to be had) costs us some 400k EXP. We can trivially restore it by casting Remembrance. It seems a bit ironic that priests are thus the most-suited class to wear the One Ring.

Well, back to the Alter Reality grind. It takes awhile, but we eventually find another unique. Of course, the RNG is back to playing its little games, because Glaurung is hiding in the biggest practical joke in the entire game:



Meet the Greater Vault "Hellpit". Almost entirely wide-open, and totally full of horribly nasty monsters, with barely any loot to be had until you make it to the very end, behind those two layers of doors that aren't gonna stop anything from making it out to attack you.

And here we are with only one Scroll of Mass Banishment left, and we're aggravating monsters so everything's awake. Oh well. We'll just do this ninja-style. Very noisy ninja-style.



Which is to say, we'll bust Glaurung out, gank his face, and then teleport to an alternate dimension.



Success! We're using our Broad Axe on this fight; it still marginally beats out our Mace of Disruption, though the edge has narrowed thanks to the +15 damage on the One Ring (which makes extra blows like those from our Mace considerably more valuable).

You corrode Glaurung, Father of the Dragons (106). You miss Glaurung, Father of the Dragons. You corrode Glaurung, Father of the Dragons (124). You corrode Glaurung, Father of the Dragons (179). It was a great hit!

Glaurung "only" has 7500 HP. Honestly he isn't all that dangerous for his depth; if you can survive his fire and poison breath and have a reasonable stock of healing to cope with his melee damage, then you can probably kill him. He's capable of summoning Ancient Dragons, but antisummoning corridors deal with that handily.

We chop him down in fairly short order, and he drops an unusual pair of gloves:



Telepathy on anything besides a helm, amulet, or cloak slot is quite unusual (and cloaks only get a pass because Cloaks of the Magi get random special powers). However, gloves often provide lots of useful powers like combat and stat boosts, so these gloves could provoke some tough choices.

Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons
Qlzqqlzuup, the Emperor Quylthulg
Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord
Ancalagon the Black
Vecna, the Emperor Lich

Just one more. Vecna, you're out there somewhere, and we're coming for you! Y'know, just as soon as you spawn.



Ah ha! We have you now! And this time you'll not escape our grasp.



First step complete: we have an antisummoning corridor to fight him in. Our second step is to clear the environs with our last Scroll of Mass Banishment...



And finally, we break him out and bust him open!



Our Mace of Disruption is the clear winner for this fight, hitting for nearly 900 damage/round.

You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (139). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (106). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (112). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (139). You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. Vecna, the Emperor Lich hits you. You feel your life draining away! Vecna, the Emperor Lich hits you. You feel very clumsy for a moment, but the feeling passes. Vecna, the Emperor Lich hits you. Energy drains from your pack! Vecna, the Emperor Lich hits you.

We were carrying a couple of Staves of Banishment on the off-chance we needed them, but they're empty now. Oh well. Vecna's melee is reasonably powerful: 4x 7d12 hits. And of course he can cast a number of powerful spells. There's only one I'm worried about, though.

You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (109). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (130). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (106). You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (296). It was a *GREAT* hit! You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. Vecna, the Emperor Lich conjures up scary horrors. You avoid the effects!

...that wasn't it. No, there's one spell he can cast that would really screw up this fight.

You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (386). It was a *GREAT* hit! You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (327). It was a superb hit! You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (165). It was a great hit! You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (109). You miss Vecna, the Emperor Lich. Vecna, the Emperor Lich flees in terror!
You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (148). You smite Vecna, the Emperor Lich (121). You have destroyed Vecna, the Emperor Lich.

Phew! He never cast Teleport Self

We've done it! All the uniques in the dungeon are dead! Friar Tuck has clearly accomplished his mission to drive evil forth from the Pits of Angband.

There's just one last thing to do, now.

The air about you becomes charged...
You feel yourself yanked upwards!





You were wielding a Mace of Disruption of Extra Attacks (5d8) (+13,+13) <+2>. You are wielding the Mighty Hammer 'Grond' (9d9) (+5,+25) [+10]. Farmer Maggot looks for his dogs. Farmer Maggot asks if you have seen his dogs.
You hit Farmer Maggot (110). The ground shakes for a moment. You hit Farmer Maggot (307). It was a *SUPERB* hit! You have slain Farmer Maggot. The ground shakes for a moment.

There's only one entity left in the universe with a name. We know what we must do.

Do you want to retire? y











And here's Friar Tuck's history (with the same bug Bryson II faced where the turn numbers for some actions are wrong).


That's it! We're done! Thank you all so much for sticking with me through the journeys of Freude, Bryson, Bryson II, and Friar Tuck. I hope you've enjoyed yourselves!

Angband is a classic of the roguelike genre, and while it lacks a certain degree of finesse in its design, there are very few games out there that do what it does. It's clearly doing something right to still be getting play over twenty years after it was first released; I hope to see it still getting hauled out from time to time twenty years more down the road. Until then, keep your wits about you, and watch out for drolems!