Part 38: Doctor Rocktopus - Three

The Adventures of Dr. Rocktopus, Part the Third


When we last left off, the good doctor was showcasing his nice, new Shield of the Gong.



I leave the Ice Cave portal, because I have minimal rC and the rewards would most likely be minimal for us, considering we don’t wear armor or weapons. Ice caves are my least favorite portal.



Anywho, I pop down to d:14 to showcase the Shield’s special ability. That sound effect is one of many that the shield produces anytime you block with the Shield. It is all caps for a reason, I haven’t looked at the code for noise, but I’m fairly certain it’s one of the loudest things in the game, next to the Orb of Zot itself. While it doesn’t attract the entire level, the first few rooms of any floor WILL be some marathon fights, as each hit attracts nearby packs of enemies. Unlike enemy shouts, the shield calls them to your location, making retreat hard even if you finish off the first couple of enemies fast.



For our trouble, we pick up a Rod of Destruction. It can cast Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and Iron Shot, but instead of the power being determined by our meager skill in those spell’s respective schools, it is calculated using our respectable evocations skill. Not a bad find, but I’m unsure of if I want to spend the Scrolls of Recharging to power it up to be useful, after all, Nemelex provides us with plenty of firepower already, if unreliable.



I stop faffing about and head to Orc:1 to test out our shield. Should be fun.


This orc thinks he can out summon the Doctor with a couple of demons.



Today, he’s right. Dr. Roctopus pops a couple summoning cards and gets less than desirable results. They serve as shields while he makes a getaway.



I get lucky and draw a Warpwright card from one of my Escape decks. It creates a teleport trap next to me that takes me far away.



After Doc rests up and gets his revenge on that conjuror, I head down to Orc:4 and is greeted by Urug. Spoilers: Urug is dead now.



Reentering Orc:4 via a different staircase, Jozef leads the welcoming party this time.



Rocktopus summons a horde of monsters to my aid to destroy Jozef and rampage through the Orc’s last stronghold.



This shows both how sweet storming the castle with a summon army looks and also a nifty bonus of summoning decks. If you draw the “Bones” card, you can get a temporary skeleton warrior to aid you, however, the undead minions he raises are permanent helpers.



This is what 90% of the after math from Doc Rock’s battles looks like now that he’s rocking out on that Gong of his. Dangerous, but makes for a spectacular monument to bloodshed.



The only thing in all of the Orc Mines for us was a singular Gain Intelligence Potion, not to discount the lump of gold and exp, but sometimes playing as Octopode/Felid can feel very unrewarding.
I finally decide to take the hit and dump the Amulet of Faith, this makes me lose a metric fuckton of piety, but it has to be done sooner or later.



Doc Rock makes it all the way to Lair:6 before anything remotely interesting happens. He drew a tomb card next to a lava pit, temporarily trapping him, but also give him a chance to snipe Harold here without recourse.



I get a lair ending that I don’t think we’ve previously seen, it’s probably the easiest of the endings. Simply a forest filled with wolves, bears, and spriggans.



Left a little unsatisfied by his expedition to the Lair, Doc decides to slaughter some elves to relieve some stress. He’s not disappointed when he takes down that prancing asshole, Nessos, with a crystal spear to the face.



This time it’s us that sneaks up on Maurice, we steal his life before he has a chance to steal our stuff.





Erica foolishly tries to surprise us by banging our gong with a ball of energy. Too bad we’re already half-deaf from wielding the shield, we barely notice her before she’s murdered and sacrificed for playing cards.



Grum notices, but he is too late. Both to save Erica and himself.



Doctor Rocktopus makes it all the way down to Elf:5 with little trouble from the natives, but the final level proves to be a little above our head at the moment, we retreat back to our stash in the temple to plan our next surgical strike against the horrible denizens of this dungeon.
Here’s where Dr. Rocktopus currently stands.



We had to drop a lot of stuff. We’ve gotten to the point where we cannot possibly use enough cards before we’re gifted another deck. This is both a blessing to our versatility and a curse to our inventory. Not pictured above is the ten or so decks of escape I had to drop to stop clogging our stuff.



Our skills as of now. They are in a pretty sorry state because I’ve been counting on getting more Decks of Wonder with more Experience cards, but we’ve been getting nothing but Escape, Summoning, and Destruction. I may have to start selectively sacrificing items to weight our gifts towards wonder soon.



And finally, our current mutations. We’ve gotten ridiculously lucky with them, collecting only fast metabolism as a bad one, which is cancelled out by our Ring of Sustenance and Amulet of the Gourmand.

Overall Status:
Despite being a wee bit underpowered, we’re still breezing though most challenges thanks to the absurd amount of firepower and versatility Nemelex provides us. Under almost any other god, this shield probably would’ve ended us.
We have quite a few spell schools we could branch out to now and a lot of different directions we could take.
Next time! We collect the first rune of the run! Or die. Both are pretty good possibilities given the Doctors proclivity towards rocking out with his hectocotylus out.