Part 20: Adolph Hissler, NaCj - Three
Let it end in hellfire! I have no intention of doing so, Vehumet. I intend to win.
We're on d:14 and we've just run into Rupert.
Pictured: good thing we've got an amulet of Stasis or Rupert could really mess with us. That amulet is pretty much the theme of this update. We dispatch him with a bit of trouble and continue on our way.
Acc-6 on a decent ring otherwise. Good thing the accuracy malus from rings only applies to non-spell attacks. However, amulets of inaccuracy affect everything, so remember that. After finishing the level, we head up to d:3 to pick up a buckler, we're going to start training shields. Nagas, being large creatures, need less shield skill to remove the penalty to casting and attacking they apply. For most races 5/15/25 skill is required to remove the penalty from buckler/shield/large shield respectively. Nagas only need 3/9/15, meaning that with little investment we can add quite a lot of SH to our defensive stats. For the time being we want to pick up some easy experience so we can get a few skill levels without using our high level spells.
d:15 has Erica, she's apparently comely but we don't really care, so we kill her, she's apparently sometimes nasty, but I've never seen her do anything but die and give XP. As thanks, Vehumet grants us a book of Summonings, which has abjuration. Abjuration... abjures... summoned creatures. Which is to say it “sends 'em back where they came!” As we get to later portions of the dungeon, summoned enemies will be very common and dangerous, so it's a fantastic spell. Unfortunately, I take the shot of the book to remind me that I got it, and promptly forget to memorize Abjuration. It would've been very handy later. On d:16 we grab a staff of air, and so wield it. Staff of [foo] is a group of weapons that enhance the wielders power in that type of magic and do extra damage in melee if the user is skilled in that skill and evocations. The idea is that the person evokes the power from the staff to really lay the beats on their opponents. We'll do a build based around this later, but for now, it makes our freezing cloud spell more powerful.
We hit 15 killing a hill giant as we go down to d:17. Also, I swapped off the staff for a bit cause I'm dumb.
Louise can banish you, so we treat her with respect. But even things you respect must die, so we end her in
That's CPM, crystal plate mail. It's pretty cool cause I've never just seen it spawn in the dungeon outside of vaults. CPM is really heavy armour, like, really heavy man.
Like the player-race, monster draconians are pretty tough and strong, able to use a variety of tools at their disposal. They also have, like, the coolest tiles and love to come in packs, often in a multitude of colors. This one is alone, so we kill him with little issue.
The vaults, eight levels of shapeshifters, titans, and yaktaur packs. We're not keen on going there yet, but an XL 18-20 character can usually do V:1-7 with few worries.
The vaults, eight levels of shapeshifters, titans, and yaktaur packs. We're not keen on going there yet, but an XL 18-20 character can usually do V:1-7 with few worries. Oh wait, no. That's a mimic. I tried to freezing cloud to see if that would damage it, but no dice. I had to move right next to it for the mimic to activate. We hit 16 later that level, our random stat+ is dex. While every point of a stat is good, every third point tends to be a bit more important as a number of things use stat/3 or some variation to determine something.
HOLY SHIT! That vampire just turned into a death cob and his summons turned into a death ooze, a shining eye, and a mermaid. Oh wait, no such luck, it's just Mara, Lord of Illusion! We've been misled to believe the other things on-screen are stuff they aren't. We just decide to take a break from delving into the dungeon and head up to do orc. Mara can wait.
At some point, Vehumet grants us the Grand Grimoire. Each page is covered in arcane writings that seem to writhe on the page, truly an Danse Macabre. Contained on the pages are the most powerful summoning pacts one can make, Greater Demons, hordes of spectral entities and a gateway to the beyond can all be learned from the Grand Grimoire. Practically speaking, Mass Abjuration is Abjurations bigger brother and will severely reduce the time spent here by all visible summons; Malign Gateway is a very good way to deal with anything if you can last ~2 turns and have a way to hide from what it summons, which can turn hostile.
We enter the orcish mines having memorized Orb of Destruction, but we only use it once for show. Also, another scroll of summoning is read-id'd giving us a short-lived buddy.
Very short lived. That's the turn after we've cast OOD, the next turn is just a bunch of blood splatters everywhere. Later, we find and kill Grum (the guy with the packs of war dogs) and find a staircase to the elven halls. We'll go in there after we're done here. Oh, and Donald was on O:4, he dies easy and we pick up his +1 shield of reflection.
This is our O:4 vault, it's very easy with freezing cloud. We've picked up an amulet of the gourmand and are wearing that, it keeps us engorged so we don't have to worry about spell hunger. The shops here are a book shop (nothing but another Necrnomicon) a Distillery (two un-id'd potions that we pick up just to ID them) an armour shop (the Hat of Pondering , we'll be back for that) and something else that I don't recall, probably just a general store.
We're in the Elven Halls now. It's absolutely vital that you know when to back off in the halls, as a few elves can quickly overwhelm you. Orc packs are sometimes in Elf, as the two are very good friends. They're much easier than elves though.
I have a problem.
A book of spatial translocations, sweet! We grab blink and control teleport. I foolishly think control teleport is a controlled teleport, because it has been forever since I've read the description. It just lets you control where you go for blinks and teleports. This is extra dumb because controlled blink is a real spell, and it's level 7.
Deep Elf demonologists are nasty, we kill him super quick. Later, we find a distillery and buy the cMut potion, removing berserkitis and a few +1 stat levels, leaving us with +1dex, +1 str. We also nab a crystal ball before we leave. Crystal balls can be evoked to give you some magic back, but there's a chance it'll drain all of your MP or confuse you instead. They're good ways to return you to full MP after casting buffs, but not good emergency sources as you might end up dry as a result.