Part 15: Run!

Special bonus Christmas mini-update!

Last time on Heroes...

With the Vibrating Square found and the final level of Gehennom mapped, it is now time for Hiro Nakamura to awake his most dangerous foe - the Wizard of Yendor.

Chapter 15 - Run!
_{Yup, going to be doing a lot of this in the next few chapters.}


You have no idea just how giddy it makes me to finally be able to use a scroll of magic mapping on a Gehennom maze level.


Ah, if only I had a spellbook that could do that - oh wait I still wouldn't be able to cast it anyway.


NOT NOW, BITCH


Well, maybe I'll save you a little bit of time for you on my way back up .

At this point I mapped out level 48 and went back up to level 47 to find Nathan. He seems to have disappeared , or maybe just got untamed in all the time I spent searching for the vibrating square, although it didn't take that long. Oh well, maybe I'll find him on the way back up. We have bigger fish to fry right now.


Guess that trapper was just chilling on the portal square.


And we are now officially in the Wizard's Tower. First to take care of some business before waking Rodney.


Cursed potions of gain level, as shown before, will make you go up a level. These will be invaluable in Moloch's Sanctum.


Quaffed my last potion of gain level (ID'd this one as uncursed and it wouldn't stack). Level 19, not bad.



Once you're inside the Wizard's Tower, you can levelport directly to the wizard's level with a cursed/confused scroll of teleport. The middle level of the Wizard's Tower has a pretty nasty zoo in it that I am all too happy to skip, especially since I don't have conflict.


Hey buddy, remember me? I'm Hiro, Hiro Nakamura!


The only way into the center part is a secret door that's hidden in one of the walls. There's no fast way to find this one, unfortunately.


Lot of eels/krakens in this moat, so I'm going to play it safe here.

Zap a wand of digging into the central tower to wake up the Wizard, and...


Oh shit. The Wizard of Yendor is the most dangerous spellcaster in the game - he can summon monsters, cast finger of death, curse your items, all the standards. However, he can also use a special spell which creates a copy of him who can basically do everything he can. Not good.


Time to cheese him to death with death rays. This is by far the easiest way to take on Rodney, since the more turns he stays alive, the more chances he has to...


summon...demon...princes. Fortunately, he didn't summon the big bad &, Demogorgon, but Yeenoghu is pretty bad too with his confusion-inducing attack.


Just blinding firing death rays into the inner tower and I took out the Wizard copy. Well, one down.


Bastard. I'm a bit busy here, if you don't mind.


When you get level drained, it puts you right under the threshold of the level you were at, so your next kill will put you back at that level. Unfortunately, this means I pretty much have no shot at level 20 anymore. Well, it's not like I was that close anyway.


Oh fuck me, again?


This one made me break out a second wand of death. What a waste of death ray charges.


Finally got the last one. I also waste Yeenoghu, who's actually a pushover compared to Rodney.


Well, the papyrus spellbook is the Book of the Dead and the last part of the invocation ritual...but what's that?! Did I get the Amulet of Yendor already? Thank god I'll be able to skip Moloch's Sanctum, that priest hits real hard and I don't have conflict to help with the priests and


Oh, boo that. The real Amulet of Yendor can't be put into a container, so that's an easy way to weed out fakes. The Wizard of Yendor will often carry cheap plastic imitations of the Amulet of Yendor with him, so after any encounter with him make sure to check that you have the real Amulet before moving on.

At this point, the Wizard of Yendor will continually pestering you every now and then as you ascend. It's definitely in your best interests to ascend AFAP.


Getting out the same way we got in. In this case, I can levelport straight to level 50 and end up on the vibrating square level.


Ah, home sweet Gehennom.


Quick teleport over to the vibrating square, and it's invocation time!










Hiro has woken the Wizard of Yendor and performed the Invocation Ritual! All that remains is to descend into Moloch's Sanctum and swipe the Amulet of Yendor from under the watchful eyes of Moloch himself! Hiro has made it down 50 levels of the Dungeons of Doom - will the 51st and last level be his downfall? Find out on the next episode of Heroes, Chapter 16 - Unexpected.

---

Next time on Heroes...

Well, I won't spoil the surprise quite yet. However, I do want to put a contest out there. I've already killed the Wizard of Yendor 3 times (at least, I think it counts as 3 times, I don't quite know how the death tracker works for Double Trouble). I'm sure to run into him at least a few more times during my ascension run. So, the contest is pretty simple: guess how many more times I'll kill the Wizard of Yendor at the end of the game. Answer will be checked according to the vanquished enemies part of DYWYPI. The prize: you'll get to give me a single condition for my next game. Class, conduct, whatever. I'd rather if it wasn't zen, or anything that requires farming (no extinctionism either), but anything else is fair game. I've never done any conducts before either besides the standard genoless/wishless/polyless stuff anyway, so it should be informative for all parties involved. My next game probably won't be for awhile, both to give myself a break and give Eidolos a chance to show his stuff, but I won't forget, I promise.