Part 60: Mr. Ed, CeHu - Three

I hope you like Death Yaks folk, because this update was ½ killing them, ½ resting.



So, we return to Ed, he's in a pretty good place, having done a fair bit of the lair, his stash of arrows is decently sized now, and Okawaru has gifted him a variety of ammo to use.



Hitting XL12 off a spiny frog, we'll be seeing lots of those as well.



An ant vault, I've never had much issue with this, but we don't have rPois, so I had to draw them out and fight one at a time.



Till this happens, the queen is tough and it takes some finagling to take her down.



Naga, just chillin'. I kite him and he goes down quickly.



Oki gives me this ring mail, which turns out to be +2, rF+. That's nice, but I'm starting to run low on expendable arrows.



Poking my head into L:7, I'm greeted with this, I decide to seek other options for XP gain first.



Erica, if she feels like it, can be mean, and her penchant for going invis means I'd rather just try the dungeon, but she's preferable to a pack of elephants. Descending the dungeon, I hit XL13 and nab a bow of evasion off another centaurs corpse.



Then I find this, looks like fun!



No longer looks like fun. I high-tail it out of there. Powerful undead, like the lich, prove problems for earlier characters who often lack rN+ or are still using gimmicks like evaporate. Oh, and he summons a vampire before I leave LOS. When you don't think you can take the summons, the summoner is way out of your league.



By the way, this is the book I've been holding on to, nothing impressive but I figured I'd show it off to the camera.
I decide to go for the weakest link, Erica. While the lich probably doesn't bar my way further into the dungeon, it's much better to not risk walking into him at a bad time. Erica proves pretty easy, in spite of my fears, and I clear out much of the Orcish mines, a great place for piety and gold.



Nergalle beats me in our first skirmish, but I regroup and take her out, then quickly dart away from her summons.



Except I don't kill her before running into Psyche and mopping the floor with her.



An ice cavern on O:4 presents an interesting dillema. I decide to ID the chain mail Oki gave me and go in.



The chainmail was very good. It'll stop me from casting for a bit, but +12 chainmails are pretty nice.





Easy come, easy go. I don't have a good way of dealing with those, so I skedaddle.



I head back to L:2, and decide to enchant up my stack of arrows. I'll have 320 arrows, and I should be able to get them to +7 or +8. The stack is smaller than I'd like, but it's not gonna kill me. Assuming I lose 20 per level, this stack will get me to my second rune on its own. Combined with god gifts and drops, I won't have to worry about it (I hope.)



Armed with 320 +8 arrows and a burning hatred of everything else on four legs, I dive down. Ed methodically pulls up 1-2 enemies at a time and kills them. His arrows strewn everywhere, Ed clears out a great many enemies.





A GREAT MANY. On L:7, I kill about two dozen Death Yaks. Another dozen on L:8, combined with many spiny frogs and vampire mosquitoes, but I'm getting ahead of myself.



This volcano times out before we find it, oh well.



Oki gives us this lovely weapon, and our spear is really starting to show its age, but the base attack delay is too great for us to use it. Leveling axes is a bad idea because by the time we get the requisite levels, we'll already be set in using our bow. Oh well. We do hit XL 14 shortly thereafter.



As you may have noticed, I've been using two rings of sustenance, I've found nothing else but bad rings so far. This one turns out to be MR, Int+2, Dex-1. Well worth the slot, it shores up our crummy MR, and gives us a bit easier time casting our spells.



Rupert...



The very next turn. He soon berserks and we lead him on till it wears off, then quickly relieve him of his bodily fluids.



We didn't get the swamp branch, so the game decided to hand us a consolation prize, an awful bog in the middle of L:8. In this ss, I'm in trouble, so I TP scroll out, and chastise myself for sloppy play. Always be very cautious when entering open areas!



No joke, there were lots of Death Yaks. It was not fun.



A lovely island in the middle of the swamp, it has some food and OK items, not worth it.



I didn't expect the worm vault here, but whatever. Spiny worms are very poisonous, so if you don't have rPois, take care!



The nasties at the end of the vault, I kill them and take the paltry reward of gold.



The real treasure is beyond this door, but I can't recall what it is at first.



The dust settles and I remember the vault. A dragon with a hoard of gold, I popped heroism and Finesse to make sure he didn't kill me. Nice reward, but I haven't finished O:4 so I dunno if there's any good stores yet.



So, we leave Ed for now, as he parts ways with that foul, fetid place. Next time: probably my first rune.