Part 35: Matchstick, MuWz - Nine

Update 9: Slimy Randomness


We start today in the Slime Pits. I liken Slime Pits to Swamp: monotonous, samey, and only interesting at the very end. As such, here's Slime 1.


Here's Slime 2. I should mention the walls do acid damage and can corrode equipment. In response to this, I equip the cloak of preservation, which is rCorr and conservation amulets bundled into one nice package. It greatly reduces acid damage from the walls to about 1-3 damage, and gives a 90% chance to prevent the corrosion effect. Acid damage also scales based on number of unequipped armour slots. Kinda interesting.


Anyway, here's Slime 3. Shining Eyes mutate. I'm not too worried.


Oh look, a unique. Dissolution was a human prophet of a God that used to watch the inhabitants of what is now the Slime Pits. He survived by turning to Jiyva as the region changed to this. Or something like that. Dissolution can hurt. He does as much damage as the end boss of Slimes, albeit at half the speed. He can burrow through the terrain, the only monster in Slimes to do so. He also has the ability to summon eyeballs. Any kind of eyeball. Frequently the ones that paralyze you.


Which he did to me, almost killing me in the process. By the time I got unparalyzed, this was roughly the health I was at. A couple controlled blinks and Firestorms later, and I get the chance to rest up.


Moving on, Slime 4... Sif, why are you here? This is Jiyva's domain, I doubt she'd be happy to have you here.


Slime 5. Really, I'm just going from staircase to staircase through Slimes. There isn't any real loot on the ground, as jellies kinda make that moot.


And finally, Slime 6. the -cTele is a great flag to know you've reached the end. Time to find the boss. After killing the golden eyes. Golden eyes can cast confusion on you. They blink (horrible joke completely intended, I can only assume). They're not a threat.


Killing the draining eye, as I'd rather not waste too many turns regenerating my MP. Also creating a lot of noise for a singular purpose, and fire storm is the loudest spell I have.


There we go. The Royal Jelly is the boss of Slime Pits. TRJ is a strange beast, as it doesn't regenerate damage you cause (unless it eats something on the ground like an arrow, or a corpse), it's fast, it packs a punch, and it has one other ability:


On taking damage, it spits out other jellies. These aren't summons, and as such will survive until you actually kill them. Basically don't think running back upstairs will make them vanish.


At critical health TRJ spits out alarming numbers of jellies. Well, they would be alarming numbers if fire storm didn't flat out cover the spawn radius and kill all of them in one hit.


And with that, The Royal Jelly is killed. -cTele vanishes, the fact both TRJ and Dissolution are dead now means Jiyva leaves the dungeon for good.


The treasure vaults are hidden behind walls that start as stone walls, impassable normally. Upon killing TRJ, they change to translucent rock, and can be dug into. Jiyva worshippers get this right away, one benefit of following Jiyva.


Looks like there might be some good stuff in there.


Most important thing first, though. Five down, ten to go. I grab the randarts and leave.


With fire storm castable, I have unfinished business on Vault 8. Hey Mennas?


Get. FUCKED.


That felt so good to do.


Well, while I'm down here, Hall of Blades for completion's sake.


It's filled with branded weapons floating about. Need a particular brand? You'll find it here, just not guaranteed on a weapon you want. Just be wary of distortion brand, unless you enjoy massive damage or trips to the Abyss.


Fire storm still works nicely, for what it's worth.


All in all, boring, filled with things I don't need, decent but not great exp.


Destination 3 of the day is the Vestibule of Hell, guarded by Geryon. Geryon is a three headed demon. In the mythology he was pulled from, he owned Orthrus, a two headed dog and brother of the more known Cerberus. Sadly, Orthrus is MIA from Crawl, making Geryon bit of a chump. He is purely melee, so I don't have an issue with him thanks to controlled blink. More of an issue than Geryon is the rest of the floor's denizens.


Demons of varying forms, yaktaurs, hell hounds, hellephants, and things of that nature can all appear down here alongside Geryon.


More demons... if you can't kill Geryon quickly, the enemies start piling up, and then you get whittled down.


Controlled blink is a godsend though. I'm assuming everyone knows what I do to them next.


I grab the Horn, and play it by evoking it. This opens the way to the four Hells. That won't be today, though. I have one more place to visit.

Sadly, I didn't get the Vestibule with a unique named Murray. He is a curse skull, rolling along the dungeon floor. He has the exact same abilities as a curse skull, though he can move and melee attack you. Would have been fun to show off. Oh well.


The Abyss! Infinite horrors may sound bad, but Abyss is honestly kind of fun.


Welcome to the Abyss. This place is random. As in, every turn the landscape changes a little. The rune won't even show up at first. For now, Wander around, grab items you want, kill enemies, and just have fun.


I turn on my boots of levitation, and I only turn them off to grab items. The reason is deep water and lava are prevalent here, and often the changes to the terrain happen to be more lava and deep water.


Then things like this happen, and you have to wait it out. I should mention that teleportation and blinking take longer or outright fail here. The Abyss does not appreciate you trying to circumvent it. Cheibriados slows down the changes, as he tells the Abyss to "Take it easy."


I feel like this is only the beginning of the game taunting me with exits.


I... I don't even... what? Xom's altars always make me laugh. I particularly enjoy the the lower altar on the left side has. Lugonu could help me get out of here, but I'd rather not face Sif's wrath of "just try casting"


Getting pulled to a new area is good. Now there's a chance the rune has appeared here. Time to go looking.


Angels sometimes get found here, allegedly fighting the forces of evil. I have yet to see them attack a demon.


Nuclear option. Gotta love it.


Well, that's half the battle. Rune found, just gotta get it.


There we go. Now... to get out.


I feel like the Abyss is just a sick joke. "Oh, you got the rune, have about 15 stone archways and assume they were all exits at one point"


More Lugonu choices for getting out.


Profane Servitors are anti-angels. Corrupted by Yredelemnul, their umbra is the exact opposite of the angel aura. It causes accuracy problems, and conceals enemies. It also has vampiric and draining attacks by default.

Overall, they're kind of a cool enemy. Yredelemnul occasionally gifts them to followers, which is great.


There are days I remember not having fire storm, and I get confused because I don't know how I dealt with things like this.


Still more taunting by the Abyss.


Let's see how many people get angry for me finding one of these, and then admitting I left it behind.


Oh hey! An exit!


Beelined to it and exited the Abyss.


Just look at that. Beautiful.


A quick rework of my spells will come up next time, but overall I'm pleased with the spell list.


Still loving my resists by and large.


And that's all this time. Two runes in one update. Can we get more next time?

Yes, yes we can. For the Hells are next! All four at once!