ToME WikiDecided I'd join the crowd and do a DiTL...
99 Quests, Lovecraftian on, Select-a-stats (c), Maximise, Preserve and... an attitude!
My Char is using Massiliamo's mindcraft module and is (duh) a mindcrafter... an Avari Mindcrafter known as Oloalith, who has defected to... (mwah hah hah) evil...
"Though small, I shall rise to the pinnacle of evil, and dethrone that petty schmuck known as Melkor. However, in the meantime, I'll be the work experience kid to him, and worship him like the dark master he is... what a schmuck!"
Yes, thanks Olly... starting off in Bree, he kills a few townsfolk (to get the evil thing brewing). He buys a longbow, but there aren't any arrows in the General Store or Weaponsmiths... (doh!)
"Dolts! Don't they realise that by opposing true evil, they only strengthen my resolve to destroy them all!"
Not to worry, Olly. Baby steps, remember. Baby steps.
In the time-honored cheapass tradition, Olly heads west and picks on a few innocent solider Ants, bringing him to Level 2.
"Ahhhhhrr... the power!"
LEVEL 2
Ooooooooooookay...3 to mindcraft and 2 to meditation... Olly's still a scrub, but can now at least do SOME damage at range... Also got my first God Quest ("So early? My dark lord, you shouldn't have! No... I mean you really SHOULDN'T have...")
Go back into town and buy some Soft Studded Leather... no arrows yet! Argh!
"That fool of a Mayor wants me to clean some vermin from a hovel in the middle of town! Hah! I am made for greater evils than this!"
So you're too chicken to do it. OK.
"Now just wait a minute! Oloalith fears nothing!"
No no, no need to defend yourself to me. I mean, I'm sure they don't think you're chicken either!
"Arrgh!"
Olly rushes like a man possessed to the doors of the lair and screams out obscenities for a good fifteen minutes before they tire of his abuse and bean him with a stone from the top floor. Olly wakes up with a sore head and even sorer pride.
"They dared touch me! How dare they! I will be the scourer of the Valar, the shriveller of the great trees, the..."
Baby steps, remember. Now... focus. Recover your stuff and then go and suck some brains out. Sound good?
"It will do."
Olly wanders towards the evil-doers, intent on doing evil. His contemptuous attempts to pick the lock earn the standard contempt, and he has half of the Bree Mafiosos charging after him. He legs it back the way he came, hurling curses over his shoulder.
Some especially foolish theives charge around the corner... alone... (why do they always expect their cutthroat mates will back them up... why?) and fall to the ground, burbling messes. Olly laughs madly, then Meditates, and laughs less madly. He repeats the dose a few times, bringing him to...
LEVEL 3 1 each to Mindcraft and Meditation, then throwing two to Weaponmastery (melee is still pretty important here) and one to Prayer, for the hell of it. No more rogues come at him, so he moves into the main area. There, he spies another one, and cackling softly, lures him into a dark corridor. Unfortunately, the Rogue proves resistant to mental blasts, and Olly foolishly lets him get too close... a puff of smoke and some gold later...
"Consign his soul to the void for eternity!"
Settle down, Olly... you see that big brute of a warrior over there?
"Oaf! He shall fall before my wurble meep blasts!"
Dear... Olly's Sanity is a little low... oh well.. fortunately, the Novice Warrior DOES fall to the wurble meep, and a good meditate later, Olly's ready for some gluteus maximus foot propulsion... The warrior drops a short bow and some iron shots. Helpful, no? Sorry... I punctuated that wrong... Helpful? No! One Bandit later and...
LEVEL 4 LEVEL 5
"So shall they all fall before the power of my vengeance!"
Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you what the whole vengeance thing is about Olly.
"A great shame, which I have carried all my life, which can only be expiated with oceans of blood, so that all might be washed clean of..."
They made fun of you at school didn't they?
"... the tawdry hopes and fears with which they torment those different... WHAT did you say? "
Er, nothing... nothing...
"That's what I THOUGHT you said." <baleful glare>
Meditation + 3 to 4.800 Mindcraft +4 to 9.280 Prayer +2 to 2.800 Weaopnmastery +1 to 3.100
OK, beginning to take shape. Will begin the long arduous task of raising Archery now. Gotta be done, more's the pity. Have also swapped to the dagger, although probably a little less damage than the mace. The + to hit are equally as important at this stage.
Two dumb and extremely mind-blastable warriors later.
"VICTORY! This high castle -"
(Er... small hovel, I think you mean...)
"- high castle is mine! Soon shall men learn to fear he who lives at number 83, Brandybuck Court! Mwahhahahahahah"
I get out of the lair and FINALLY there are arrows at the General store, along with a couple more torches and food rations. Time for the big dive, methinks... (and I'm not talking about saturday night at the Prancing pony!)
Barrowdowns 1 - Princess: 12 Metallic Green Centipedes...
Cool. An easy one to start with.
Or not... Olly's melee still sucks, and the MGCs aren't really worth mind-blasting, as there's not enough mind to make it sanity effective. So a long process of moving close to the (water) room and drawing one or two at a time to me. Eventually, this yields
LEVEL 6 3 to Archery (1.200) and 1 each to Mindcraft and Meditation.
"Oh thank you, great hero, how can I ever thank..."
"Ah, young maiden, your virtue and your virgin's blood is all I require for my dark master, for only then may I... HEY, where did she go?"
Tsk tsk young Olly... you haven't learned many foreplay techniques, have you? A war hammer, a quarter staff and a longsword are what's on offer. On impulse, I go for the quarterstaff.
Down the rabbit hole!
Barrowdowns 2 - FF: 15 Cave Orcs
Ah... this should be interesting.
"I should treat these as allies for my dark plans, should I not?"
Er... not.
"True! For they be rivals to the acclaim of my evil lord! I shall slay them, and he will thank me for ridding him of weak and foolish servants!"
Um... if you say so.
Oooh... Evil ESP... this staff might be interesting... Olly slays two of them, and his melee hits actually do some damage (though mind-blast is still by far the weapon of choice). Suddenly, three of them are coming at me, and I start taking some hits. Instead of Astral Travelling out of there, I keep blasting away, and am rewarded when one of them becomes dazed. Olly retreat, snickering. Soon they come after him again, but this time he lets fly with the longbow. One drops, but the other sneaks closer. I try to melee, but am too low on HP. Licking my wounds (and by this level of Sanity, the walls, floors and torches too), I astral travel away. Unfortunately, I'm below the minimum sanity for Meditation, so I have to quaff my only potion of cure insanity... damn!
"You will suffer and die when I catch up with me... you will feel the agonies of angband multiplied many times, perversion of blessed Melkor!"
In the meantimes, without having noticed... whoops, I'm at
LEVEL 7 1 point each to Weaponmastery, Meditation, Mindcraft, Archery and Prayer. I want Olly to be a well ROUNDED psychpath. TrueStrike is now an option, so I might start relying on it a bit more, rather than just spending myself on Mental blasts. I strike the offending Orc, who responds by levelling me to
LEVEL 8 Meditation +1 to 7.200 Mindcraft + to 12.520 Prayer +1 to 4.000 (Piety -30 and counting) Archery +2 to 2.400
Hmm... still might need to up the Weaponmastery... but we'll see what his fumbleness has to say for himself, once I've managed to clear out what he was incapable of banishing. I come across a Melkor altar, and lug an Orc corpse to sacrifice on it. He's about as impressed by this as you might expect.
"Melkor, I apologise for this paltry offering of a Hench-Orc... greater glory SHALL be yours, O dark one..."
You absolute crawler, Ollie...
3 Orcs come through a door... they're too close to effectively melee, so I hop through the nearest void gate and slowly move back within striking range. Truestriking range to be exact! The results aren't sadly all that impressive at this stage. One falls, another eats a few arrows and then gets felled by a whack from the staff Orcbreaker (yep, named and inscribed now)... Olly gets a bit antsy at having one of the slavering beasties this close and hops through a void gate. Sanity is a tad lowish, so we Om Mane Padme Hum our way back to rude mental health... (though not, in Olly's case, sociologically well-adjusted mental health)
I wander back down the corridor towards the orc I just fled from to find the bugger has found some allies... Cave spiders! Bugger! I chew through a few, and then mindblast his orcishness back to idiocy. Then I unshoulder the longbow and go spider hunting... just like Olly did when he was young...
"Oh yes, Old Chap, I shot this beauty near Dale. Magnificent specimen. Pity it ate the dog before I could get to it. Yes... Rover's mounted over on THIS wall"
Many spiders and a few orcs later, I'm
LEVEL 9 Hmmm... it's decision time. Do I go all out for Archery, or still try for an all rounder. Temporising, I put one each into Meditation and Mindcraft, one to prayer and TWO to Archery. I'm getting closer to a decision, I am.
"A question, foul sir."
Yes, Olly?
"Why hath you not trained me in the matter of devices of destruction, both magical and mechanical?"
Sneakiness and Magic-Device? Er... we'll GET to that... I promise!
"For such would enable me to kill many fools!"
I feel like one myself at the moment, as the last orc is behind a maze of rubble, with no way of getting to him.
"We didst not purchase a shovel?"
Nup.
"Dolt!"
After a bit of Astral travellnig abuse, I finally come toe to toe with the sucker. Well... it's maybe more accurate to say that I keep him at a distance and mindblast him into dribbling submission.
FF offers me Stealth/Symbiosis/Antimagic/Disarming... four fairly unappealing choices. However, I think I might choose...
"you would not have Oloalith, child of nobility, proud disciple of evil and stylish black clothing wear slime for a vestment!"
Your social class is 8, your charisma is 14. Don't be melodramatic about your darkly good looks. They're a benefit of that expensive mirror you own, nothing more. Symbiosis it is. I don't have a WoR, so I decide to clamber back up to Bree and take a looksee at what I've got... on second thoughts, maybe Gondolin for a full ID might be a better bet...
"Aye, I would much enjoy sketching out its defences for the future sacking of their city!"
Ok... whatever floats your boat... we trek to the hidden city of Gondor, and wouldn't you know it... the scabby buggers in the Minstrel's haven won't give us a discount... cheapskates!
"they will burn in the fires of..."
Later, Olly... much later. We ID and sell a {good} dagger, which gives us enough for an ID... woo hoo! Quarterstaff of Aman! Can't wait for a full ID on this puppy...
However, we're currently skint, so tomorrow I might go and do some Wyrm hunting in the hills to boost the cash reserves...
_
We head east in wilderness mode, have a look around, then head south.
"I shall slay me a mighty dragon, then butcher it and wear its skin as a cloak! Then, I will sacrifice its entrails to mighty Melkor, who will reward me most highly!"
Um... maybe we should try killing one first. We try a young bronze dragon, who shrugs off our feeble mental blasts and charges forward. When it becomes obvious that this is going nowhere, we step from one otherwise unremarkable wilderness square to another and magically, the pursuing dragon disappears!
"Melkor has answered my prayer!"
Yes, through the divine office of his sacred abusable feature. Rest and Meditate and then go back. This time a young green, with the same result. I can't really risk going toe to toe with this bugger, as I've still only got 55 HP, and I'm getting nervous about Draconic Halitosis. So I bug out again. When I go back, instead of looking for a dragon, I find a nice, hulking hill giant.
"Hulking oaf! This time we shall not run!"
Can we amend that to "shall not run unless we really WANT to?" We mentally blast the oaf, who rushes towards us. He's fairly well damaged by the time he's got to us, but I'm not particularly happy with him being close enough to melee. I Astral Travel away then lure him into LOS. Our sanity is at risky, but not dangerous levels, so Olly hauls out the longbow and starts peppering the approaching brute. Moaning piteously, he turns to run. An honourable opponent would refrain from shooting a fleeing foe in the back, but Olly...
"Die, coward! Feel my shafts tickling your lower lumbar region!"
And so he does, shooting us up two levels to... LEVEL 10 LEVEL 11
Okaaay... Ten skill points to play with. 2 to Mindcraft and 3 to Meditation (taking us up to the heal cuts power level). 1 to Weaponmastery, 3 to Archery and 2 to Prayer.
"Whyfore should I need such paltry arts of worship? My mental strength is near that of a Valar, and my bow answers for the nullbrains..."
Urrr... Just trust me on this. Neural Blast is now a ball, so I'm planning on having a ball with it. ESP appears to be permanent now, though it shouldn't be. But I'm not complaining about it right now, OK? 
Bolstered by this, we forget our cash worries and return to Gondor. We sell the (+1 +1) Dagger we IDed last time we were here and flogging off the rest of our inventory gives us enough for a pair of WoR ? and some more food and light.
Down, down we dive, to
Barrowdowns 2
Not much here to entice, apart from a Banyan Staff.
"THIS is one of those devices of power you esteem so highly?"
Nup. Most likely a staff of nothing. We'll take it along anyway, down to... Barrowdowns 3 - Princess: 6 Snagas
"Ah... that bint escaped me far too easily. I shall get her this time! Snagas? More Orc-kind? Bah! Melkor sets me to destroy his weakest servants!"
True enough. A crow and a few kobolds provide transitory amusement. My evil ESP leads me to where these putzs lie. Along the way, we find a Zinc wand. On a more seroius note, an un IDed potion proves to be of corruption, Demon Thoughts. No real tragedy, although this makes Olly even LESS attractive. The glowing eyes, and all that stuff.
Smeagol also pops up. Hello Smeagol. Goodbye Smeagol. He drops a Khopesh and a ring. I wonder what the ring does...
I'm tempted to melee them, but intead open the X-Room and just reduce them to the witless equivalents of Network Executives.
"Oh thank you brave... argh! Get away from me you foul freak!"
"What did I do?"
Well Olly, you did leer suggestively and snap a silken cord meaningfully between your hands. Women tend to pick up on these subtle signals.
A Lucerne hammer, a cap and an awl-pike. Well Olly?
"These long instruments of war are too... well...LONG... I wish to feel my enemies brains splatter over me as they die!"
Uh... huh... the cap it is.
Barrowdowns 3 - FF: 9 Sand dwellers.
"You like the look of this place..."
Not really. Oh well... Sand Dwellers usually drop pretty good loot. Ahh... evil ESP, you serve me well. Two come at me and after a brief skirmish, drop a war hammer and a staff of sense monsters. I ditch the staff, as...
"My massive intellect greatly outstrips this tinkers toy!"
A nearby spotted mushroom patch offers the opportunity to test out the wand. Slow monster. Cool. Betcha can't do THAT, canya Olly?
"<grumble grumble> we might as well keep it I suppose <grumble grumble>" '
A long passageway reveals another Sanddweller, who leads me to
LEVEL 12
1 to Meditation, which by consequence brings up the Mindcraft to the max 16.120. 1 to Prayer, 2 to Archery and 1 to Weaponmastery nicely round it out. A larger room brings two more Sanddwellers, who I don't even have to use mindcraft for. Arrows and my trusty Orcbreaker suffice. Nothing of interest drops. A Salamander delays us slightly moving towards... a pile of rubble.
"Please tell me sirrah, that we bought a shovel..."
<sound of head stiking desk repeatedly>
Okaaay... there's another Sanddweller just round the corner, so we astral travel in an effort to ... whoops! We're in the room with the Sanddweller all right, right next to 14 Cave spiders. I'm quite exposed here, so I prudently Astral Travel again. This brings me right next to the Sand dweller, so I have a bit of a bash.
"Hail mighty <crack> Melkor, your discord is <wallop> foul in all ears but <smash> ours..."
No spiders wake, so I move off to one side. A Sanddweller comes down on me from the north, foolishly I melee him.
"Death to the <splinter> unbeliever, crush the <whack> trees..."
Still the spiders are sleeping like babies. All is good. I rest up a while, but then I hear a click-clack amongs the arachnid hordes. Oh well... time to abuse that ball effect. I do some pest control, and pick up the Main Gauche dropped by one of the Sand Dwellers. I meditate and rest up, then move on.
Oh dear. LICE!
In the Barrowdowns, they're absolute buggers, as they get into the trees and... hmmm... not pleased. I hop into a nearby void gate. I can't see any Sand dwellers in range, so I just hope I don't have to come this way again.
ESP reveals a patrol of Snagas to the north. How d'you feel about some more Orc Bashing Olly?
"Their blood shall sing as it sprays in the air!"
So it does. These buggers are weak enough that even Olly can melee with impunity (combined with Neural Blast as well). They drop some copper, a pair of boots and a small shield.. Shall see how they ID.
One Sanddweller later, that Mysterious Tall Dark and Not Unhandsome Stranger offers us a choice of Mimicry, Divination, Monster-Lore and Thaumaturgy.
"I haft often desired to consort with the powers of chaotic destruction..."
Really? Could you TRY for a normal love life? Please? For Me? Monster-Lore it is.
Barrowdowns 5 - Princess: 5 Servants of Glaaki
"Glaaki? That puny challenger to our dark lord? I shall feast on their souls!"
That's the spirit! Well... they're the spirits, really, but the sentiment is appreciated.
I find the z's pretty quickly, along with a jade ring from a green ooze. I cop a curse, and then throw some evil intentions back, with interest. Two down lead me to...
LEVEL 13 Skills...
Meditation +1 to 12.000 Mindcraft +1 to 17.200 Prayer +1 to 5.800
Here I face a dilemma. I can up Archery to 6.000 with 2 points, but it seems kinda wasteful.
Oh what the hell...
The remaining 3 come out, but are frustratingly too spaced out to ball-effect. Taking a minor risk, I move within Melee range, which concertinas them nicely.
"Hah! How does your master Glaaki serve you now, feeble creatures! Mwahahahahah..."
Yup. Melkors getting value out of this little sick puppy...
"Wait gentle princess, I seek only to lightly torture you for my dark... oh she's gone. Is my technique improving?"
Slightly. Boots, a Quarterstaff and a Short bow. Hmmm. I'm unlikely to improve on Orcbreaker with a staff, so I opt for the short-bow. Piety is still distressingly low at -752, but then again, I've been prayer-off the entire time. Something to concentrate on, perhaps.
Downwards we travel to
Barrowdowns 6 - FF: 9 Black Harpys
Fairly pathetic resistance, really. Since they're fliers, they come to meet my staff quite willingly over the treetops.
Some novice priests provide some Piety fodder.
"Mwahahah... die filth of Eru!"
A staff gets dropped which turns out to be of summoning. Rotting corpses are annoying, but the white lice... might be annoying. I astral travel away and watch with horror as the poison drops HP down... down... into single figures... and... PHEW! Stops At 4! I rest and meditate up and then return to the fray. And then Major displacement away. At -6 speed, I'm just too vulnerable for the rotting corpses. I wander around for a bit, then find with lice crawling all over me.
"And whose fault might THAT be, filthy human?"
Shut up, Olly... I major displacement... and find myself bang up next to the final black harpy. Whack-O!
<whack>
"Ohhhhhhh.....-*"
FF Duly appears as if from no-where and offers Symbiosis, Antimagic, Magic and Archery. Ahhh... Archery.
"Mine powers of bowmanry needst bolstering, human."
Okie cokie. We recall to Gondolin. A Song of Lore reveals the Khopesh is Vampiric (tempting, but it ain't Orcbreaker), that the metal cap is of regeneraton, that the short-bow is of Power (+16 +8) and that the rest isn't worth worrying about.
"Materialist fool. All that matters is the pursuit of power. EEEEEvil power!"
Enough sneering, Olly. Let's restock. My poison experiences have biased me towards survival, so I stock up on some CCW, some WoR.
I *ID* Orcbreaker, which reveals... a Quarterstaff of Aman (1d9) (+9,+7) [+3] (+3) {Orcbreaker} It increases your wisdom by 3. It strikes at demons with holy wrath. It strikes at undead with holy wrath. It fights against evil with holy fury. It sustains your strength. It makes you completely fearless. It allows you to see invisible monsters. It allows you to sense the presence of evil beings. It has been blessed by the gods. Using it you would have 1 blows and do an average damage per turn of 18 against evil creatures, 23 against undead, 23 against demons, 13 against other monsters. It was given to you as a reward.
Not bad, though there might have been a few more resists or something. Oh well. It'll do.
I recall to
Barrowdowns 6
Not much here, so...
Barrowdowns 7 - Princess: 5 Driders.
Hmmm... should be an interesting stoush.
On the way, I see a group of wood spiders. Nasty, poisonous creatures. They do have one redeeming feature, though. Which is that they bring me to
LEVEL 14
1 to Mindcraft, 2 to Meditation, 1 to Prayer and... 1 to... oooh... Weaponmastery. He'll never be a master melee char, but he should at least get himself a CHANCE to hit with that half-tree he carries around. I spy the Driders, and manage to get a turn or two before they're on me. I cast character armour, and find my AC increases by around about 50...
"Why, Sirrah, have we not been using this mystic shield?"
Laziness, mostly. But with poisoning monsters, I think it might be a fine idea from hereon in. Using a combination of Melee and Neural blast, I soon put paid to the buggers. They barely scratch me. Character armour is hot stuff! I run out of usable sanity, but manage to get the job done before I totally start headbutting trees and calling them fire-engines.
During the battle, I also levelled, so onto
LEVEL 15
1 to Meditation and Mindcraft, 3 to Archery. L19 Mindcraft gives me the "fun" form of telekinesis where I can throw monsters about. Goody. It's only 3d4 damage at this level, but it's still fun to use.
"Oh brave warrior..."
"You'd best be off."
"But may I not...?"
"Right now I'm suppressing an urge to paint your naked body with unholy symbols drawn in pigs blood..."
"Oh... but I would quite enjoy a little..."
"Sod off!"
Bolts, short sword or Morning star. For weight purposes alone, I think I'll go the Shortie.
Down to
Barrowdowns 8 - Princess: 9 Dark Elven Priests
"Ah, my brothers in evil! We shall join forces to destroy..."
Sadly not. They're not the collaborating types.
"But surely we of one blood and one foul purpose should join our strength to-"
Think of them as rivals. They're looking to move up the ladder and you're a good stepping stone.
Hmmm... this could be dangerous if they come all at once, as they move quickly. It's one of the big rooms with one exit north and one south. I draw them out one at a time. There are also a pack of cave orcs. AND rotting corpses. Quite a big mob, really.
The first falls easily, but the second one curses me horribly and nixes about half my HP. Ouch. I realise that two at once could easily kill me.
I battle for a while, but at -2 Speed, it's all a bit much. I Major Displace away and findmyself next to Bullroarer. He's a big man in the hobbit community. That still means shortstuff in anyone elses. 2 Neural Blasts later and... he drops a metal cap, a rapier and a bastard sword. I'm REALLY overloaded now. Oh well. I go back to the chamber (the type with one north and one south door) and patiently lure them out, small group by small group. The rotting corpses are the REAL pains, but I manage to finally splatter my last Dark Priest, who most kindly takes me to...
LEVEL 16
+1 Meditation, +1 Mindcraft, +2 Archery, +1 Prayer (-2974 piety <groan>).
"Oh, Brave warrior..."
"You have a family, young lass?"
"Why of course, my father is rich and powerf-"
"You want to see them again?"
"I cannot wait to..."
"Then off, before you feel the back of my sacrificial dagger on your forehead!"
Metal Cap, Short Bow, Morning Star. Hmmm... Short Bow! A scroll of identify lying around tells me that it's a Short Box of Power (again!) (+9 +14). I might switch to that, actually, as Truestrike is weighted towards accuracy rather than damage.
Ok, onwards to
Barrowdowns 9 - Princess: Ufthak of Cirith Ungol I cast precog when I get down, and notice with pleasure that it's now magic mapping as well. I see that as a good omen. Ufthak rushes out to greet me. I melee him...
"Like hell I do!"
Well... yes. We bounce around astral travelling, and pepper him with arrows when sanity drops. It's one of the weird things about being a mindcrafter. Unlike with mages, your mana doesn't recover when you run around, so you have to pretty much get in one good shot. Mine is good enough.
"Boo hoo, boo hoo..."
"It's all right, your royal weepiness, he's-"
"Dead, my dearest Ufthak is dead! You beast, how COULD YOU... I'm telling Azog on you..."
Hmmm... well a different taste in men is quite normal, I suppose. Xbow, Khopesh, Pike. Well Olly, you call it... a big heavy weapon or...
"Let us test our favour with Melkor in regards to shooters"
You're on! Ufthak drops some leather scale mail, so I'm still weighted down. Only one level of the Barrow downs to go, though, so....
Barrowdowns 10 - Princess: 10 Half-Orcs
Oy vey! Enough with the orcs already. I find, 'em and they prove bloody tough. OOooh. The Crossbow psudo-ids as Special. Cool. Halfway through, I get hungry and realise I'm out of food. Hmm... hey Olly, how evil are you.
"The pits of hell, evil, human."
And are you hungry?
"Ravenous!"
See that half-orc corpse?
"Yes, why do... no... no, NO WAY."
I shrug and avert my eyes for a few minutes. When I turn around, Olly looks full but nauseous. The last orc takes me to
LEVEL 17 +2 to Meditation (which as a consequence takes my Mindcraft to the max), +2 to Prayer and +1 to Archery.
"Oh my hero, let me kiss... what's that smell?"
"What smell?"
"*SNIFF SNIFF* on your lips there's a smell... I'm not sure what... Euuuuugh... you're disgusting, you cannibal!"
"Melkor's oath, woman! Strictly speaking we're not the same species to it's technically not..."
Give it up, Olly. Give it up.
Dagger, Small wooden boomerang (hah!) or Rapier. Go the dagger and hope for a *thanc. For some bizarre reason, there's a dagger both above and below the staircase. Weird. I zoom out to Gondolin.
Song of Lore reveals the Dagger of Rillia, a Randart Tulwar "Elindel" and the Crossbow is also a randart. The drops are getting DISTINCTLY nicer. Hmmm... the tulwar poisons, electrocutes AND is vampiric, and the crossbow has pluses to Strength, Intelligence and Wisdom. Fneh, why not. Bye Bye, Orcbreaker. Bye Bye, Longbow.
"But... this leaves me defenceless to the powers of the elements! I cannot withstand the might of magical attacks! I resist NOTHING! This WILL NOT DO! My evil must be in-VINCIBLE!"
Hmmm... good point.
In search of a foo of elvenkind to fill the gaps, I think the orc caves might be in order.
You're not bored of orcs Olly?
"No! These Melkor-spawn are foul and noisesome... but maybe if we take along some garlic and herbs and a frying pan next time, I could..."
Euw! Enough! I sell Orcbreaker (*sniff* goodbye old friend) and the longbow. I don't have a home yet in Gondolin, and with these huge holes in my resistance, I don't want to go for the dragon quest just yet, so I'll lug around Rillia for a while. Drat! No BOLTS in Gondolin (doh!x2)
Regardless, I go east and through the nondescript little cave entrance that allows passage to the Orc Kingdom.
Orc Caves 11 - You have a good feeling...
OK... first up we have some Sanddwellers, some rotting corpses and a baby bronze dragon. Character Armour and a few Neural Blasts later...
"Ahhr! This weapon of soul-sucking fills me with the wrath of vengeance!"
Well I don't know if we'll find any of those school bullies down here. Though if Eol was one of them, there's always hope. Yes, the vampiric weapon helps immensely. Helpfully, some bolts are dropped. Moving on, some cave orcs provide temporary amusement and I toddle along until... argh! Killer bees! Buggers of things. I look at my equipment wistfully, in hope of finding a resist I've missed and see... ring of aggravate monster? DOH! I could have fixed that when I was in town, but it will now have to wait.
*BUG NOTE* - Precognition appears to map the whole level. It's not enlightenment, but it still maps everything. I don't think this is intentional, is it? What's the range?
I get caught with some War bears and Astral Travel away into to find... Vort! She and her minions pour out from behind a wall. It's too narrow for them to flank me, so I happy consign the entire number to the Eru Illuvatar Secure Facility for the More than Moderately Deranged.
"Ahhh... the taste of royal blood is on my lips, and I rejoice in it!"
You're really getting into this eating other sentient beings thing, aren't you? A set of cave orcs in the same room take me to
LEVEL 18
+1 Each to Meditation and Mindcraft (18.400 and 22.240 respectively) and +2 to Prayer (9.400) and +1 to Weaopnmastery (5.900)
After the dust settles...
"Sirrah, what be this 'Blackened Figurine'? An item of unholy power?"
Er... maybe. Let's hold out on activating it. It might be an item of unholy power that gets its power by sacrificing schmucks like you who think it will give THEM unholy power.
"Oh."
We load up with lots of weapons and armour. Fortunately, psudo-ID is working nicely (just in time for me to get Psychometry, isn't that convenient? 
We wander around a bit further and... Wormtongue!
"Hah! You're that measly Oloalith I've heard so LITTLE about. Beaten up any small kobolds yet, or are they too tough for you?"
"Why you...!"
"Eol told me just how unpopular YOU were at school. He says they used to call you a yeek-lover, because you were the only one who made them feel superior! He said the only time you ever got close to an elf-maid was when you asked to borrow their clothes... he said..."
"Argh! Shut up!"
A bit of entirely gratuitous violence later...
"... right... anyone else want to talk about my schooldays? ANYONE?
<SFX: crickets chirping>
We wander off to the stairs and clamber down them.
Orc Caves 12: You hear sounds of a market.
Oh Goody. I cast precog, and the whole level is mapped. It's one of those spread out markets with doors everywhere. Battling through the various hordes of sanddwellers to the shops, I find myself trapped in a corner getting confused and hit in equal measure. Behind a group of sanddwellers a pack of novice mages are confusing me every couple of turns. Thank god for vampirism!
"I too thank Melkor for this evil spirit weapon enabling me to survive the relentless attacks of these Fire Engines, Marshmallow Men and Greep Weeble Burp..."
Ah yes, we're a bit of on sanity, too... Worse luck, I see a few White lice multiplying behind the mages. Drat! I Major Displace out of there right near... Orfax, son of Boldor? This is not going well...
"Yeek! Yeek! Yeek! 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go! 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we goooooooooo..."
Oh great, a larger lout yeek. I trade a blow or two with him and realised that we're outmatched <general crowd hilarity> in our current state...
We quaff a Cure Light Insanity pot and Major Displace out of there. We end up back near the room that pest control forgot, behind some rubble. (which seems not to stop the lice at all, with some snotlings coming at me from the other direction. No place to safely meditate... drat. I deal with the snots quite easily, and then venture away from the rubble, firing bolts back as I go to stop the infestation from following me. At least we levelled during all that...
LEVEL 19
+2 to Meditation (taking me to 20.000. Yay.), +1 to Mindcraft, +1 to Prayer and +1 to Archery.
Right. we find a place to recover. Now... it's time to foot propel some gluteus maximus...
which I do, for a while, but there are just too many, dammit! Bearing a grudge, we...
"You would not have Oloalith, the fiercest evil ever visited upon Arda, flee from vermin such as these?"
Well yes. There's no real point to it, Olly (apart from maybe getting our piety up).
"Foul Spawn, thou would...[CENSORED BY PLAYER]... and your dog, too!"
OK, got that out of your system? Good! Almost forgot Orfaxe!
"The Yeekies, united, will never be defeated! The Yeekies, united, will greeble wurble snurp...."
Hmph. Yob.
We zoom quickly back up to
Orc Caves 11 - You Feel Your Luck is turning
Yup, it's turning all right, turning right back to...
Orc Caves 12 - You hear the sounds of a market
Which is ARRRGH! Filled with worm masses. OK, that's it. I'm off... this Aggravate ring is giving me the irrits. WoR back... and a wilderness trek later brings us to...
Gondolin.
Song of Lore reveals...
"Why dost we go to that place to hear that elf-fool sing a long, boring lay by someone called Tol Keen? It is VERY long."
It's in theme, don't blame me. Song of Lore reveals a Ball and Chain of Westernesse and a randart boomerang. The Blackened Figurine randart *ID*s for confusion. See. Told you it wasn't worth wielding. We then wander over and remove curse the Aggravate monster. To my intense surprise, it also flips a Ring of Stupidity I'd been carrying.
"So, sirrah, this ring, which previously created a mental defect, now created mental accuity?"
Pretty much the size of it.
"But a lack of absence doth not correlate to a presence of same. Absence is merely a lack, and a reversal of a lack doth not hold to be an increase, surely?"
Um... I'll get back to you on that one.
I don the ring of Anti-Stupidity (especially handy during election years, kiddies!) and then sell off the rest of the loot... except for the randart boomerang, which seems to do quite a bit of damage. I'll keep the Xbow on for the moment for the stat-boosts though...
WoR back down to...
Orc Cave 12 - You hear the sounds of a market
Oh not HERE again... This time, at least I'm not overwhemlmed by breeders. A potion shop offers some Potions of Constitution and Dexterity, which I purchase and quaff. There are also 21 potions of Cure Serious Insanity... valuable to a normal adventurer, a life saver to us!
"Tell me, kind shopkeeper, do you do trade orders? A cousin of mine runs a certain establishment in Rivendell... strictly without any duties to that damned witch Galadriel, too."
"Sadly, sir, I don't. I had a bad hexperience hat one point with a certain Mister Wormtongue. Let halone the losses I made when I started hexporting Slime Mold Juice to the Shires. For some reason, those 'orrible 'obbits ain't got no happreciation for good ol' fashioned Slime Mold Juice like mother used to squeeze..."
Dragging ourselves away from this fascinating mercantile discussion, we wander down to...
Orc Cave 13 - You feel strangely lucky...
Not yet, I don't. Dark Elven Mage, Hill Orc, White Wolf... <yawn>
At least the White Wolves take me to
LEVEL 20 +1 Mindcraft and Meditation, +2 Archery and +1 to Magic Device, which is still at an embarassingly low level. Moving on, I encounter some Undead masses, which (annoyingly) won't take any notice of Neural Blast. Instead, I crossbow them to death using True Aim, which needs only 1 more level to raise the might rating of the shooter. Something to look forward to.
Finally, I find the reason for the Strange Luck. Mughash!
"Hah! Foul kobold royal, your consort Vort is dead, dead by my hand!"
"Grk? Well elf, the joke's on you. No alimony, I get the kids, no more dividing the kingdom in two. I should thank yoU! With steel!"
He and his horde of unimpressive subhumanoids attack! I'm in a relatively good position, but a nearby Druid (What? Is Mughash courting the green vote? ) summons some white wolves around me. Not so much of a good position now. I trade blows and Neural Blasts for a little while, but then I get an Ochre Jelly in my face and get a little low on Sanity. One major displacement later...
I return and they come at me single file through a corridor (why they ALWAYS do that, I'll never know). Mughash comes roaring up to me and doesn't even survive a single Neural Blast.
"Who shalt pay the lawyers now, I wonder?"
Not our problem, Olly.
"But lawyers are people too (except for the demonic ones) with families and children to support. What shall happen now to the starving lawyers?"
You really ARE a Melkor woshipper, aren't you?
*BUG NOTE* - I appear to be getting +50 to AC, regardless of my Mindcraft Level.
No exceptional drops here, so we proceed in a Stygian Direction down to
Orc Caves 14 - You feel your luck is turning.
Ogres provide some brief entertainment, followed by a Druid who takes me to...
LEVEL 21
Now we're cooking with gas! +1 to Meditation and Mindcraft, +1 to Archery and +2 to Prayer. Level 25 means (among other things), +1 Might with True Aim and Probability Travel with Astral Travelling.
*BUG NOTE* - Meditation doesn't seem to cure poison. This might be because taking damage disrupts the state of meditation.
Not a lot of interest on this level, so down to...
Orc Caves 15 - Looks like any other level
So it does. However, we do some testing of our un-IDed wands. One is Slow monster. See Olly, Mindcraft can't do EVERYTHING? This is why we need some Magic-Device Skill.
“Bah, still tinkers toys for true evil-doers!”
Suit yourself. We come across Brodda, after which we walk across Brodda's lifeless body. Nothing else of note. I'm getting heavy with psuedo-IDed Excellent Items, so I recall back to...
Gondolin.
The excellent items prove to be nothing particularly good. Oh well... they filled a hole... (in my wallet). A rod-tip of detection is handy... or at least it would be if Precog hadn't already fill the hole... and... YES! Gloves of Free action!
We restock, and then prepare to...
“A moment, sirrah!”
What?
“I want a night in bed.”
Bed? Why do you want a real bed? What's the matter with catching 20 winks kip on a nice comfy dungeon floor? What are you, some kind of wimp? How about breakfast in bed and some rosewater, then? Huh?
“True evil needs its beauty sleep.”
Oh fine, then. We'll see if there's any interesting restockings in the morning. There aren't, so we recall to...
Orc Caves 15 - Looks like any other...
Still chock full of interest, with an interesting looking vault. I wander in, Ogres and Orcs monstly, who kindly take me to
LEVEL 22
+1 Mindcraft and Meditation (natch), +2 Prayer (sooo sick of -1400 piety) and +1 to Weaponmastery...
I haven't been using ranged attacks as much as I should...
I psuedo-ID a Cloak [excellent]. I sigh and put it on. Cloaks of Protection bore me to tears. Then a Gnome Mage hits me.
The Gnome Mage gets zapped! The Gnome Mage gets turned into a pile of cinder!
“Argh! I'm on fire, I'm on fire! Melkor preserve me, I'm on fire!”
Don't be silly, Olly. It's just a Cloak of Electricity. No one will ever strike you again without getting a serious case of Ouch.
“Ah... just what I've always wanted. These pitiful fools shall not dare to strike me now!”
Oh they will, Olly.
We clear out the level fairly easily, and some Giant Fruit Fly scumming even takes us above 0 piety (cheers). A Mi-Go nixed my strength though (damn mutations), although he does take me up a level to
LEVEL 23 +1 Each to Prayer, Mindcraft, meditation, Archery and Magic Device.
Nothing much here, and my strength loss has me travelling about as fast as an Elven Poem. Recall time...
Gondolin.
Restore, restock, return.
Orc Caves 16 - You have a good feeling.
My oath I do. Not a lot of variety, but there's a lot of orcs and ogres here for the pummelling. Not a lot of interest, though, so we go on to...
Orc Caves 17 - You feel your luck is turning.
Orcs, more orcs... ooh, a Mi-Go.... and then we spy a couple of yellow 'p'...
“Fellow Mindcrafters, dare you challenge a true adept, one whose power shalt rival the Valar 'ere long, and give full voice to the glorious discord that is Melkor!”
“Olly! Hah, you damp squib! The three of us were in Possession of Monster 101 together! Hey Washpot, look who's here!”
“Olly? Roly-Poly Olly? Geez the years haven't been kind to you, you've put on WEIGHT.” “See any of the old gang?”
“Naw, remember? ... they wouldn't come within a league of him if they could help it.”
“Still got that social disease I see?”
“Weren't you voted 'Adept most likely to bcome a blubbering idiot in later life'?”
With cold precision, Oloalith takes the two of them to school. Nar the Dwarf over in the other corner proves a bit more resilient, but still doesn't manage to touch olly. A scroll of never-moving pet summons a Qulthyug finally allows Olly to use mimicry. Though since doesn't have use minor powers, it's pretty useless. Oh well... another 24 HP to burn.
I head north, to find pets blossoming around me. Whoah, maybe my little Q don't need daddy to tell him when to summon. This could be handy!
Trolls, Orcs and an illusionist amuse me for a while. Then I come across some Trolls...
“TROLLS! I hate trolls! I will consign them to the deepest, most painful pits of hell, where the demons take pleasure in their work and will extract your nostril hairs one by one for all eternity!”
Where did that come from, Olly?
“A troll ate my favourite goat once, when all it was trying to do was cross a bridge. Since that day, my life revolves around the annhialation of the troll race!”
Talk about holding a grudge. Anyway, indulging Olly's racism take us up to
LEVEL 24
Piety has been steadily climbing, so I'll leave that for the moment... M&M 1 each, +2 to archery and +1 to Weaponmastery.
Right. Now we're getting near Deathwatch, and we STILL don't have a shovel or pick, so up we go to...
Gondolin
Song of Lore reveals... a Wand of Dig... <sigh>...
Nothing else pricks my interest, so I pick up a spellbook of curse (now we're getting enough piety to make it worth having) and wander back down to...'
Orc Caves 17 - You have a good feeling...
Ugluk the Uruk provides some stiff opposition, although Olly soon triumphs. We’re going to have to get used to this, mate.
“What, sirrah? More puny orc-kin, powerless aganist my... uh... power?”
Nope, enemies we’ll have to keep hammering at for a decent period of time in order to actually defeat them. No longer the one-two-three and we’re done.
“Pah, if this foolish Ugluk was an example of toughness, then Melkor must surely have weak fools for all his servants.”
OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
When sparring with some orcs, I realise I’m invisible now... another thing to thank Mr. Qulthyug, methinks...
A busy fight with orcs, ogres and mirkwood spiders (yes, I’ll get around to the Lothlorien quests soon, promise!) later, it’s down we go.
Orc Caves 18 - You have a good feeling.
Some Light hounds and Uruks take me almost immediately to
LEVEL 25
Goody.
I max my Mindcraft and then add 2 points to Meditation, which takes me up to Level 30. LOS Neural Blast, Direction-based Major Displacement, Flare Aura, object detection with Precog, identify with Psychometry. In thanks to the fact we’ve survived this far, I add the remaining 2 to Prayer. All praise melkor!
Hmmm... Neural Blast doesn’t seem to be LoSins... I may have misread the code... will recap when I go up 1 more level. Flare Aura works well (although it appears to charm as well as the other Domination type effects... bug or feature?)
All goes fine until I run into some damn Flying Skulls. No strength equals no speed equals get me outta here!
Psychometry reveals an Elven Leather Scale Mail.... (woo hoo! Basic resists! And it only took til Level 25, woo hoo!)
I recall to restore my stats...
Gondolin
*ID* reveals that the armour has Nether as the bonus resist. Would have preferred poison, but it’s still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!
“I’m not sure about that... we’ll ask the next princess we rescue, methinks!”
And on that disquieting note, I decide that it’s about time we got a pad in Gondolin...
“Ah, from whom shall we be renting this Princely abode?”
Um... the real-estate market in Gondolin is extremely tight. There’s one in the Estate agent’s window but...
“What? It looks to be quite palatial and for that matter reasonably priced?”
OK, here’s the ad, Olly...
---2BR, Semi-Detatched with BiR, WWC, EnSuite, IwD, Close all conv---
“Yes?”
Read closely... it’s the 'IwD' bit I’m worried about. It means Infested with Dragons.
“Pah! What care we for this, now that we art all knowing and all powerful!”
(How did I know he was going to say that?)
We descend... <prolonged banging and screaming noises>... we ascend.
Now... let us never speak of this again.
“Agreed.”
The treasure haul wasn’t too good, although at least we went up a level. A ring of Confusion Resistance replaces levitation. I’m tempted (severely) by a short bow of extra shots, but decide to stick with my Randart Xbow.
LEVEL 26
Drat. My little trick last level means that I have to wait for NEXT level before I can raise mindcraft. Oh well.
+1 Meditation, +1 Prayer, +1 Magic Device, +1 Weaponmastery and +1 Archery. See? I’m well rounded.
We decide on curtains and carpets, visit Gondolin’s interior decorator (wouldn’t you know it, a hobbit!) and zoom back on down to the Orc caves whilst Quend-eye-for-the-elf-guy do their thing with my new posession.
Orc Caves 18 - You feel strangely lucky
Oooh? Do I? Yes I do! Some novice Paladins give me some nice piety, yummy yummy. Rather oddly, Olly insists on sacrificing them on an altar to Melkor that’s handy. What gives, Olly? They’re hardly great foes that will net us a lot of piety!
“It’s the (evil) thought that counts, human!”
Can’t argue.
Orcs, Orcs, more orcs, The Rat king...
“I do so wish we had not needed to kill him sirrah, he would have made a fierce pet and companion...”
Ohhh.. Olly shows his (typically warped) soft side... On the bright side,
LEVEL 27
Rears its ugly head.
OK, LoS time! (I hope...) +1 to M&M, +1 to Prayer and +1 to Weaponmastery and Archery...
Mwahhahah! LoS destruction it is! We clear the level, with not much very interesting, although Olly does get a bit exctited about some trolls.
“Trolls! Die, fools! Die, to avenge Mr Billykins!”
Once he’s calmed down somewhat, we descend to...
Orc Caves 19 - You have a good feeling
An Orc pit sends me into an ecstasy of killing, although sorting through the trash on the floors less so... elsewhere, I get seriously annoyed about the fact that Rotting Corpses are immune to Neural Blast. I have to wade through them manually, which is quite a distraction.
Down to...
Orc Caves 20 - You have a superb feeling about this level. ‘
I see the reason for the superb straight off... a troll pit...
“*sob* I’ll avenge you, I swear I will...”
So he does. Now we have to sort through all the crud on the floor. Bugger.
I do, and not much presents itself. I battle through the level, and finally lose patience when a group of blue icky things start a-breedin’. I’m loaded with loot, so I recall before deathwatch...
Gondolin
Nothing in the rucksack but AU boosters, restock, rearm, recall...
Orc Caves 20 - You feel that you will meet your fate here... you have a good feeling
“Damn Eru to the Void, I knew we shouldn’t have killed that fortune teller in Gondolin!”
Well you did get aggro when she started ‘You will meet a tall dark Maiar who will kick your-’
“All right, I lost my temper. It happens to evil geniuses all the time, ask Saruman!”
We wander, and some Air Hounds take us to
LEVEL 28
Hmmm... where now...
M&M +1, Archery +1, Prayer +1 and Magic Device +1...
Piety is ticking along nicely at 7371 BTW, and Curse seems to be auto-casting with gratifying frequency. Lugdush the Uruk provides brief entertainment. these Orc uniques aren’t much of a threat, but they’re still bloody tough. Maybe Melkor should outsource to the Haradrim rather than relying on Orcs all the time... just a thought.
“You are WEIRD, human.”
Lugdush drops the Hard Leather Cap of Thranduil, which I gladly swap my battered regen helm for. There’s also a randart Leather Jacket...
(The Leather Jacket of James Dean, it provides resistance to heat (so cool!), Bonuses to CHA and CON (after all, he used to ENJOY having cigarettes stubbed out on his chest) and a foul-ancient, automobile curse...
... which I’ll leave until I *ID* it.
And so on to
Deathwatch - This level looks filled with evilness
“Evil? Just wait ‘til they get a load of me...”
Careful, Olly, we’ll have Warner Brothers onto us.
We go through it, but slooowly... we got our strength reduced, so Olly’s puffing and snorting as he carries half an armoury’s worth along with him...
Onto
Orc Caves 22 - You Feel strangely lucky.
In fact, I’m bored.
We find and kill Azog pretty quickly and then recall... I think I’m feeling pious enough to try the temple quest now...
*ID* reveals that the Leather Jacket has Rpoison, Elec, Light, Dark, Chaos, nexus and Imm Acid. Whoah. All the high resists, but no Fire or Cold. Hmmm... will store that one away for later use.
Leather Gloves ‘Cammrithrim’ are a no-brainer to wear. Maehedros and Thalkettoth are both qualified nos. Need the resists from my Elvenkind and the Vampirism and Poison from my Randart Tulwar are just far too tempting.
I restock and charge up Thrain to 30 or so...
“My, this Dwarven artefact is capacious! Its capacities for evil are unlimited!”
Not much you can do with a dig wand, young Olly.
“Er... mayhap collapse houses?”
They appear to be ‘Permenant Wall’... which suggests colourbond...
“Damnation. Mayhap a peasants hovel shalt present itself to entomb those within!”
Nup. Gentrification has rendered Gondolin pretty much all semi-detached stuff. On the way to searching, we pop into Bree, pick up a spellbook of Corpse Explosion and do the Troll Quest, which pleases Olly no end.
*BUG NOTE* - Hmmm... is Mindcraft included in the magic/combat split which determines which quest the player gets?
“Die Trolls, die! May Melkor scour your race from the earth in the discord of his almighty wrath! And may goats be free to roam the countryside unmolested! DIE!”
Rather shamefully easy, actually. And now onto the Temple!
South East of Angband and South East of Where I got the quest (which I’m pretty sure was Barrow Downs)... this shouldn’t be too hard...
“... oh this shouldn’t be too hard, he says, after tramping over half of Arda.”
Think of it as a life-broadening experience!
“BROADENING? I’ve wasted away to a stick! How will I chastise the righteous and punish the good if I’m a nut-brown little whipcord with as much substance as smoke!?!”
The Temple was actually two squares away from Lothlorien. (Thank YOU directions...)
Lost Temple 2 - This Level can’t be all bad.
At least it’s small, and the glass walls will make the relic hard to miss. Barely anything here, so down to
Lost Temple 3 - This level can’t be all bad
It’s just as boring, though, and just as small. Onwards to...
Lost Temple 4 - This level can’t be all bad
Nope.
Lost Temple 5 - You like the look of this place...
No I bloody well don’t.
Lost Temple 6 - You like the look of this place.
Oooh... you betcha I do. Relic one PACE away... praise thee mighty Melkor, may your discord reverberate!
** **
A Randart finishes off my joy. Outta here!
Lothlorien’s closest so...
“No! We cannot go there!”
Because?
“Galadriel is no more to me...”
No... MORE? Oh COME on, she wouldn’t go near you if she was blindfolded and you’d stolen Aragorn’s pecs!
“We had a thing once.”
Olly, YOU were a ‘thing’ once. As a matter of fact...
“I just can’t FACE her.”
Look, we’ll keep our distance, promise! And if you like, we’ll hire a couple of curvaceous Teleri escorts to hang off your arms and make it look like you’ve made it big... she’ll be soo jealous!
“Promise?”
Pea-soup green with envy...
We get to Lothlorien, and I’m dumbstruck with the beauty and majesty of the green heart. Olly on the other hand walks around with his collar turned up muttering that he hopes that ‘she’ isn’t at her window. I put up with this strange delusion for a while...
We wander in to the beastmasters.
“A quest for a monster? What would this human Sharra need with the corpse of an Air Hound?”
Beats me. Maybe she’s just the inquisitive type.
“I find unnatural how she strokes that pendant around her neck and whispers ‘soon... soon’ every so often.”
Me too. Maybe she’s just the sentimental type.
“And also how that circle of power on her wall is missing only one symbol before it is complete and will summon the great dark lord of...”
Look, maybe she’s just into symmetry in a big way, ok? Drop it. We’re goin’ down to...
Mirkwood 11 - Princess: 15 Brown beetles.
“Beetles? What sort of nonsense is this! They form not a challenge, but a tiresome chore!”
Well Olly, this is the consequence of all that levelling we did in the Orc caves. Boredom for a while.
One predictably boring fight later and...
“Ah, Princess. What would you say to a certain... business arrangement?”
“Why thank you brave - what?”
“Business. Cash in hand, no one needs be the wiser. All you need to do is smuggle this pipeweed into Minas Amor. I have a contact there who’d pay good money. Of course, you’d need to place it somewhere that no one would search... somewhere that no one would look. I’ve got this waterproof package here that - hey, where are you going?”
Olly, you and women will forever be separate species...
“Well I never thought yon maiden was elvish!”
That’s not what I... oh never mind. Boomerang, Spear, Leather Jacket... uh... Leather Jacket!
Which turns out to be resist acid. I leave it where it lies.
Mirkwood 12 - Princess: 11 Cultists.
“Excellent, a dark brethren that shall obey my every command! They will worship me as if I were a god!”
Uh... no they won’t. It’s a union thing.
“A ‘union’ thing? What about NAFTA, the WTO, the Chicago School? Haft the sacrifices of Free Market Advocates everywhere been in vain! Villainy!”
THAT’S a matter of opinon, Olly. Suffice it to say they’re a tarriff wall you’ll have to smash.
So we do. The Princess takes one look at us and flees (they’re getting smarter, I swear they are!), leaving behind a choice of a battle axe, a dagger and a Device Trap Set (hah!). Dagger, methinks. Hmmm... dagger, Defender. Very tempting. I whack it in the pack and wait for full ID.
Mirkwood 13 - FF: 13 Sphinxes... (Sphnxi?) You have a superb feeling.
Sadly, the Superb feeling proves to be a jelly pit. Not a mind in there worth blasting.
“Oloalith fears nothing!”
Fair enough, but it’s less a matter of “Fear” and more a matter of “can be bothered with”.
In the usual convenient manner, the Sphynxes wing their way over the trees, firing their riddles at us as they go...
“If a rider leaves Bree travelling at four leagues a day, and a rider leaves Lothlorien travelling FIVE leagues a day...”
“What has three legs, four teeth, and a LIMP?”
“Why did the Wizard cross the rune?”
Ignoring these inquisitive inquisitions, we slay and slay, and get a choicwe between Thaum, Conveyance, Combat and Disarming. For want of anything better, Combat beckons.
Mirkwood 14 - Princess: 12 Vampiric mists. You have a superb feeling...
Hmmm... waiting for the Superb will be tricky... we advance, finding an everburning torch of warmth. I can’t remember what the advantages of a light source ‘of warmth’ are, so I whack it in the pack. Some novice paladins and priests provide piety fodder...
(“Die, Tulkas-and-Eru-scum, Die!”)
The Vampiric mists take some XP off (dammit, shouldn’t rush in!) and I’m offered a feathers cloak, a broad axe and a hard leather cap. Going the lightest possible option, I choose the cloak.... of protection... dammit. We wander around... trying to find the reason for the ‘superb’... we fail. But something QUITE amusing happens...
‘Gas sprouts out... you feel you transmute.’
“No! This will NOT do!”
What’s the matter, Olly, your voice sounds higher than usual... oh... so it’s Olivia now!
“Melkor damn it to the void!”
Now now, language for a lady!
A small Metal shield of RESISTANCE proves helpful!
ImmAcid Randart, here we come! Later, though. For now, it’s down to....
Mirkwood 15 - Princess: 14 Blue Dragon Bats
Oh god. This is SAD. Oh well... sooner started, sooner finished. Hard leather Armour, Chain Mail and a Katana... hmmm... let’s go the Hard leather, eh? Resist lightning. Rats....
Mirkwood 16 - Princess: 10 Giant Silver Ants
They don’t interest me, the huge vault on one side does, though!
Ulfast, son of Ulfang... “Hah, son of Wormtongue! Don’t think I don’t know what your mother got up to!”
Angamite of Umbar summons Khufu, the Mumified King and Draebor the Imp, so we amscray away to recuperate. We return, but the zombies (rotting corpses especially) prove a pain in the proverbial... fortunately, the entrance hole allows us to deal with them one on one... Khufu eventually falls (thankfully!)
“Fall before the power of the Feminine Mind!”
Er... right on, sister!
We finish off Draebor (eventually... oh god, no more summons, PLEASE!) and clear out the rest of the vault. Boldor teleports out, so we remain to ID everything before we do anything else. The Phial proves to be of undeath. A fur cloak of stealth (I think I prefer the Electric sheath). A few <excellent> weapons complete the...
“...clutter! I am festooned with geegaws! I am not a walking embodiment of evil, I am a purveyor of children’s tinker-toys!”
Hmmm... don’t know how many children would really be into a Spectral Two-Handed sword, but I get your point. We’ll kill Boldor, kill those fearsome, princess-enslaving silver ants and recall, eh?
“Hmph!”
Boldor proves a bit less of a pushover than we thought. Resistant to Neural blast (which I’m going to have to get used to, I think), we power up ye olde crossbow with ye olde explodingeth crossbow bolts and ye olde Trueth Aim and blow ye olde intestines out of Boldor. Bye bye.
“Hah! A blind hobbit would offer better sport than thou!”
Hmmm... you’ve obviously never heard of Bill Brandyfoot, the blind Undead Hobbit Sorceror have you?
“You’re making that up, aren’t you human?”
Moving right along...
“I said ‘You’re making that up, aren’t you-’”
Moving RIGHT along, we move right along and liberate her princessness.
“Thank you, brave hero...”
“No worries, sister. Hey, you haven’t got an equally beautif - er - handsome twin brother who might be in need of rescuing?”
“Um... not that I know of.”
“*sigh*”
Longsword, Broadsword, Spider web... I’ll piiiiiick... Longsword (Ringil hopes spring eternal...) Durandil... close enough!
Recall recall recall too... the wilderness. Bugger. Have to find our way back to town... tramp tramp tramp...
“That’d BETTER NOT be a personal remark, human. Just because I am of feminine form dost not mean that I’m easy...”
Oh Melkor, give me strength...
We arrive at Lothlorien, and I acidly ask whether she minds visiting Galadriel now!
“As far as I knoweth, she is straight. No problems.”
To my surprise, they get on like a house on fire.
“Ah, Oloalith, I see you have embraced your inner woman.”
“Oh Gal, I treated you abominably. Only now doth I realise the pain I put you...”
“Oh, say nothing of it! The past is the past.”