Part 41: Tuna Taint - Two

Fucking Ogres, man. Notice the distinct lack of Mephitic Cloud


Notice the continued lack of Mephitic Cloud. Nearly dead here. Thankfully, I have a scroll of fear to hand.


Oh hey, Temple



Oh hey, Fedhas. What can you do for me?


Here's a damn orc with a wand of confusion. I finally escape this guy when I realize him zapping me has happened to ID my own wand of confusion. If you see an enemy use a wand or potion, it will identify for you. Not the ideal way to find out, but still can help you in a pinch.


Guess what I can cast now.


So a pair of gnolls, attacking me in a pincer movement. You know what this means: Olgreb's Toxic Radiance. Unlike Sting, OTR applies no direct damage, but does poison every visible monster. It won't help with unseen horrors, unfortunately.

Now based on past experience Toxic Radiance is quite the crappy spell. Things have changed a bit since then, however. Now it's halfway decent. Now it stacks and has dropped to level three, making it much more accessible. Unlike sting, it poisons all the time, not caring whether it bounces off a shield or chainmail. It also happens to poison you, but that is no concern, we have Cure Poison.


Jumping foward in time a bit, we see Toxic Radiance take out this damn orc pack with little effort and maybe one assist from Mephitic Cloud.


Unfortunately, I got into a bit of trouble with this Orc Wizard who followed me while hasted. To handle him I relied on a point-blank mephitic cloud. As you can see, this confused me as well, but you'll tend to notice that player-cast mephitic clouds tend to wear off a lot sooner on you than the enemies. This asshole wizard loses his annoying spells, and I just wait in place (could stab myself trying to move) while the poison kills him. He does still have a chance to melee me, but I'm considerably better off not facing his spells.


Traveling back in time, I showcase one of Fedhas little known fun facts. Not only does prayer decay corpses and turn them into fungi, it also damages zombies, sometimes killing them in one turn.


If the prayer isn't enough to exterminate the zombie outright, it will turn into a yet weaker skeleton. Did I forget to mention we gain piety for this? Nice.


I finally got my revenge on those damn ogres. If not those ones exactly, at least their cousin. A little mephtic cloud and a little poison and I've got a nice toadstool farm going on here.


Here is the number one foe of a newbie Venom Mage, the crimson imp. Fast, regenerates, can use items, resistant to fire and poison, yet vulnerable to cold. Since I have zero weapon skill, I've got no real chance of taking this guy out. Instead, I let him get close.




When the time is right, I pull him upstairs, and then proceed to whack on him till he blinks away. And now I simply head back downstairs, ditching that imp. Wasn't that less frustrating than hitting him fifty times?


Here's when I get lucky. Not only do I have a long sword, I also have an elven trident for training until I'm ready to pick up the bardiche. Of course, I have zero skill in all of the above. I'll probably start training one very soon. I'm almost to Venom Bolt, after all.


Here's how prayer is normally used. Kill an enemy and pray, and the corpse will be replaced with a short-lived neutral toadstool, giving you a small amount of piety. Unlike any of the other sacrifice accepting gods, Fedhas does this to ALL visible corpses, not merely those you're standing on. Very nice and convenient, but be careful if you're looking for Troll Leather or Dragon armors.


And hey, what is that off to the side? The worst possible match for a Venom Mage: an Ossuary. This is one of the entirely optional portal vaults you can enter in Dungeon Crawl. These are filled with low level undead, all of which are immune to poison. Nasty. Fortunately, I'm usually faster than anything in there.

This type of portal vault will only let you enter for a limited time. As soon as you enter the floor it is on, it starts counting down slowly (but without any announcement). Once you actually see the portal itself you need to make a decision since it starts counting down a lot faster. Shall I poke my head inside? Who are we kidding, we know the answer anyways.


Unfortunately, while I have the piety for some allies, they won't follow me inside this portal vault, and there will be no fresh bodies to get new sidekicks from.