Part 13: The Fix

Last time on Heroes...


4 named demons down, only Vlad and the Wizard of Yendor left.

Chapter 13 - The Fix


Orcus Town contains several deserted shops. Deserted, as in they don't have shopkeepers and you can loot them at your heart's content.


However, they also contain an unusually high concentration of mimics. Believe it or not, some people choose to genocide mimics, just so they can get more items out of Orcus Town.


Always useful.


Serious?


Let's all take a moment and say a little prayer to the big man up in the sky, the one and only, Mr. RNG God.


It's best to leave your magic marker uncursed, which lets you write blessed and cursed scrolls. So, in order to write blessed scrolls, bless a bunch of blank paper.


Oh glorious day.

I enchant my jumping boots to +5 and my robe to +4. -28 AC in total. Also write up a scroll of enchant weapon and bless Grayswandir up to +6.



Magic markers can be recharged once, which gives them an additional 50 charges. Make sure you use a blessed scroll of charging. I could write up a few more enchant armor scrolls or some genocide, but I don't really need those - I'll save these extra charges in case I need an emergency scrolls for later (like gold detection).

Moving on...


Yipes. Let's go finish off Vlad instead. I head to the second set of upstairs back on dlvl 41.


Welcome to Vlad's Tower. Vlad's Tower is not considered part of Gehennom, so you can #pray here safely.



Phew. Thank god for reflection. I know there's been a bit of talk in the main Games thread about ascending without reflection - black dragons are really the hardest part of that. The only problem is that the only way to get disintegration resistance is to eat a black dragon, and in order to do that you need to kill a black dragon first. Nathan's intrinsic magic resistance also won't protect him from disintegration, so I'll make sure he stays behind me here.


2 for 1! Hopefully this one is cursed - cursed potions of gain level are more useful to me at this stage in the game than their uncursed/blessed brethren. Otherwise I might use some of that unholy water I've got stockpiled.


Won't screw it up this time.


Vlad's second level has a guaranteed amulet of life saving, the only one in the game. I'm not going to put it on yet, since reflection is more important, but I might switch on, say, the Astral Plane. It's also handy to keep out just in case.


Disintegration resistance.



Couple more of the guaranteed items in Vlad's Tower.


Charm monster is a great spell (it acts like a scroll of taming), and it's only level 3. This is a great spell on the Plane of Air to tame air elementals. Unfortunately, even with his robe, Hiro only casts charm monster at 90% fail, and samurai can't advance in enchantment spells.


And we've finally reached the top of the tower and Vlad the Impaler. Vlad, despite his pretty threatening epithet, is known for being a complete joke at this stage in the game. He's no harder than any of the other vampire lords that you've seen so far in Gehennom. In fact, the most dangerous thing he can do to you is read a cursed/confused scroll of teleportation, which takes him (and his candelabrum) to a random level in the dungeon. That's happened to me before - I had to journey all the way back up to dlvl 16 to find him .


Because he's such a pushover, many people use silly weapons to take on Vlad, like rusty corroded tin openers or similar, which they then dub "Vladbane" or something similar. Looks like I finally found a use for that lizard corpse I've been carrying around for some reason or other.



Ah shit. Well, I was all ready to beat Vlad down with my (uncursed) lizard corpse, until this happened. An extra wand of death always comes in handy, so I switch back to Grayswandir and katana.


Note the turn count: 43165. I hit Vlad with the lizard corpse back on turn 43163. Yeah, that's how weak he really is.


The candelabrum is part 2 of the invocation ritual and should also be kept until that point.

Hiro has conquered his next foe, this time with a few style points added in for good measure! But his next enemy is no pushover - Hiro will have to take on the fabled Wizard of Yendor. Will he survive this confrontation? Find out on the next episode of Heroes, Chapter 14 - Distractions.

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