Part 9: Homecoming
Last time on Heroes...
Hiro beat a nice little run-in with a fellow named Croesus. And by run-in I mean cheated and killed by drowning and took all his money. Whatever, we all know that Hiro's only in this dungeon thing for the money and the girls.
Chapter 9 - Homecoming
Did this another 6 times to lower my AC by 6 points.
After I lower my base AC by 9 points in total, it becomes much harder to gain additional protection. You'll get this message once you've hit the limit, which means that you'll start gaining alignment instead.
BUC testing more stuff. I've got several scrolls of identify now, so it's a good time to start IDing stuff. Bless them up and take out all the stuff that needs IDing. Each ID scroll has a chance of identifying everything in your inventory, so it's definitely worth filling up your inventory with anything that needs IDing.
I like IDing amulets first, since there's almost no way to tell most of them apart. IDing an early amulet of life saving is priceless. 300 scrolls and 300 rings come next, since they can be very useful but can also have pretty bad effects if worn/read ID'd. The 200 ring was next, since the 200 rings are all pretty useful - with a ring of slow digestion on, I probably won't need to eat more than a handful of times in the rest of the game. IDing objects is probably one of the hardest and most frustrating parts of Nethack to get a hold of, but after you play a few games you'll get a good feel for what can be quaffed/read ID'd and what you should save scrolls of identify for.
Sorry to anyone that might've wanted to see me fight liches, but I really don't like them. They curse your items, summon other monsters, teleport away from you when they get low on health, and they are just a major pain in the ass. Liches are much nicer when you have Magicbane or some other permanent source of Elbereth. Maybe next time.
I just want to get to level 14!
Any time you see "Vlad was here" written in the dust, that wall is hiding a secret door with a trapdoor hidden behind it.
A leprechaun hall? Normally leprechaun halls are a great source of money (make sure you put away any money you pick up immediately into a bag when fighting leprechauns), but I don't really need any more of that. I'll leave these guys alone for now.
Whoa. Dwarf Fortress crossover? No, just the Rogue Level.
Those little starbursts are actually just gold. All the symbols in this level are changed around, an homage to Nethack's predecessor, Rogue.
There's a ghost in the Rogue level named after one of the three developers of Rogue. He does have a bones pile, but it's pretty boring and usually cursed.
And somewhere out there, another level 7 character bit his pillow to choke back tears of fright.
Only one more point, but I'm not complaining.
Well, check that out. Looks like I'll be using dlvl 17 as my new stash. Time to burn an Elbereth and convert that altar.
Easy.
Well, lookie here, I just snagged myself a pet. Anyone remember that polymorph trap back in the Big Room? Think I'm going to go pay that a visit with this kitten and a magic whistle in tow.
Stand next (or in, if you're magic resistant) the polymorph trap and start tooting that magic whistle. With luck, your pet will polymorph. This is a pretty long and boring process, since it takes like 20 turns between each change, and you'll be getting a lot of crap pets in the meantime, so I sped it up a bit.
Well well, what do we have here. It only took like 500 turns for something useful to pop out.
Oh, that's really cool. Humanoid pets will automatically put on non-cursed armor.
Well, don't mind if you do. If that mind flayer wasn't friendly, I'd be in quite a lot of pain right now - mind flayers can lock onto your telepathy and attack you remotely.
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I hate to build up my shiny new pet like that just to be a huge downer, but I forgot to screenshot most of Ando Masahasi's all-too-short life. I'm really sorry. But, in honor of the late Ando, let's run through a few of the highlights I did manage to catch.
At that point, Ando decided to take on a blue jelly. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever fought a mind flayer might now, they can brain suck you something like 5 times in a single turn. Ando latched onto that blue jelly and wailed away on it like there was no tomorrow, only to be hit 10 times by the blue jelly's passive cold attack. Alas, Ando was no match for the level 4 blue jelly.
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Hiro would be much more saddened by his loss if he didn't find a pony on the same level where Ando died. Time for another training montage!
Note that gray dragons (or baby gray dragons) are a fairly common product of repeated polymorphs, since their intrinsic magic resistance prevents them from being polymorphed any more.
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Next time on Heroes
