MayLith: I did, once, successfully get a character (Ceritrem) out of the Halls of Mandos. That was before I thought of DitL'ing, though, and believe me, I have no idea how many lives I burned through before I managed it.

So I present to you this character, Forsythia. I don't know whether I'll ever go back and try to get her out again (I've got other projects in mind) but I hope someone might find the story useful.

Comments welcome; please enter them as footnotes in the main text and then enter the comment itself in the Chatter section. (See here for how to make footnotes.)

Contents

  1. The DitL
    1. Character Creation
    2. Life #1: 6/16/2004
    3. Life #2: 6/16/2004
    4. Life #3: 6/16/2004
  2. Chatter

The DitL

Character Creation

Female Ent LostSoul Priest, worshipping Eru

I wield the mace and set explore to 'running'; that gets me to -1 to speed instead of -5. I leave tactics at normal. There is no armor to wield (ouch). I inscribe my spellbook and destroy the beginner scroll and torches, and then finally take a look around.

I've landed in a (gasp!) safe place: AFAICT it's an empty room with some adamantite on the floor, 2 squares away from the stair I'm standing on.

I don't have any spell points, but I do have 200 piety, so I cast See the Music, and look around with the 'L' command. I'm in the top left-hand corner of the map. Bottom center (4 map sectors away) is a midsized vault. Not going there! :)

Now I save the game and my preferences, and, yes, I do make a backup in this particular instance. Maybe you will consider this cheating, but I fully expect to die about a zillion times, and I prefer to expedite the restarts. Redoing rollup/startup is irritating and time consuming (even with fast start), and I'd rather work with the same startup character each time. (I used fast start with Ceritrem and it got old very fast.) It's a good thing I'm starting in an empty room and that might be an advantage, but only Eru knows what is lying in wait for me a little farther down the line.

Life #1: 6/16/2004

I gather up the money, then (stupidly) move to the door. A novice ranger busts it open. Easy meat?! I hit him, he cries out, then there's suddenly three more through the door, magic missiling at me, and...Tombstone.

Life #2: 6/16/2004

Okay, fine. I'll swap to beserker. That puts me at -5 AC, which means if anything actually hits me, I'm dead. (Actually I'm probably dead anyway, but....)

I ignore the money and move to the door, waiting for it to break open while standing to the right side of it, so I won't be in full view of the vertical corridor beyond it. I start praying; I doubt Eru will block any blows at 199 or so piety, but I can try.

The door opens; I can see nothing standing in the doorway yet.

Suddenly I remember something and realize I've already been stupid; I can dodge into the wall if I want to. I hit '5', and the 'p' of the novice ranger appears in the doorway. I hit him, and he flees in terror to the left side of the door, so there's now one square between us. I know there's at least two more Novice rangers in that corridor. A quick 'look' shows the novice ranger is almost dead, and I've still got all 18, count'em, hitpoints.

I consider trying to run around to the OTHER side of the visible Novice ranger, and ducking into the wall beyond it after I've killed it, but my slowed speed will probably get me killed if I do that. I compensate by switching to coward (which gives me 35 AC instead of -5, and run for it.

One step north and west. I'm now standing on top of the corridor, and I can see that there are 4 Novice rangers standing in it, plus the one to my southwest who is almost dead.

One step south and west. One Novice ranger hits me, another (or the same one?) misses me, and I'm at 13/18. There are two of them currently in my LOS, anyway.

I take 2 more steps to the southwest and now I'm safely ensconced in solid rock. Well, safe as long as something truly creepy doesn't come after me!

I move to the corner of room so that only one ranger can come at me at one time. I get hit, and then I smack myself -- I didn't heal up first or de-cowardize. I retreat to correct this. In the process of resting, I discover that there's a total of 15 Novice rangers in this nest, which is an unbelievable treasure trove to a Lost Soul character. I might just have a shot at this.

I rest until I'm healed up to 18 again. I'm starting to gain spell points (I started at 0/5) but that doesn't matter since I don't know any spells yet aside from See the Music.

I switch to berserker, come back, hit a ranger, kill it, rise instantly to CL 4, get hit before I can do *anything* and.... Tombstone.

Life #3: 6/16/2004

Rinse and repeat. I'm on to a good thing here. I'm back in the rock again, by the bark on my Ently teeth. I shouldn't have gone to berserker. I'll try 'confident' this time, instead, and see where that gets me.

Better. I get hit four times. One of them casts a magic missile (and apparently hits another ranger), and I get knocked down to 6/18 hitpoints and dive back into the rock again. I sure hope all this commotion doesn't attract something from that vault!

I come back again, and now I'm confused (me, not Forsythia). Are the rangers fighting each other? There's a lot of arrow shooting and screaming and magic missiling going on, and I'm not dead. What gives? At least one has died, and I'm not CL 4, so I didn't kill it.

Rest up, move, hit once, and run like crazy again. Rinse and repeat, with no apparent results, until I finally kill one and pop up to CL 4. Only 6 hp left, but I run away again, so now I can rest and invest in a few skill points.

Hovering in the middle of solid rock, I use my new Boulder-throwing ability to rip down two walls, creating 6 boulders in the process and a little pocket in the granite. The boulders weigh 30 lbs altogether, but I'm still at 64% of carrying capacity so that's fine.

I move back toward the ranger room. Throwing two boulders kills one ranger, popping me up to CL5 and taking me down to 21/55 hitpoints in the process. I flee back into the wall.

Two skill points into Mindcraft and three into Boulder-throwing. I cast Precognition for the first time and see a couple more Novice Rangers I hadn't seen before; there were probably around 18 initially. Also within Precog-sight is a Shrieker mushroom (eeek! eeek! eeek! Shriekers bad in Halls of Mandos!!!) but it's way down a corridor so I won't worry about it for now.

I make two more boulders to replace the two I threw, and go back to the ranger room. I get hit twice, someone fires an arrow that hits someone else. I'm down 5 hitpoints. I throw a boulder at the apex Novice ranger, and it dies immediately. I smile. Now we're talking!

Well, maybe not. I get hit 3 times in succession (down to 44/55) though one other time the ranger misses me. I throw another boulder at it, which takes it down to one star. One more boulder, it dies, and I'm now CL6 and running back into the rock to nurse my hurts and make a few more boulders.

I have 5 skill points to spend. I take a quick look at the abilities screen: There's nothing I want there that I haven't already got.

I make more boulders and wade back in again. About now I realize I've been praying all this time, so I turn that off. Stupid.

Three boulders in a row kill three Novice Rangers in a row. The fourth takes two to kill, but takes me to CL 7. With 42/80 hitpoints, I retreat to heal up and make more boulders. (If you think I'm wading out into that room to collect those I've already thrown, you are very silly indeed.)

I end up making a total of 10 boulders (77% of my weight capacity). This time I put:

Back in. I decide to try out the mace. Two hits kills one ranger, 6 boulders kills 6 more and now I'm at CL8. Suddenly I'm.... out of Novice rangers???? I cast Precog and see two more in the corridor. I'll heal up, gather loot and then go get them.

Well, no, I won't. One ranger comes charging in while I'm poking throw the loot. It dies to a boulder. Its companion comes skidding around the corner, and meets the same fate.

I grab up everything I can find (except for that original adamantite, which is still sitting there, beckoning to me evilly) and go hide again. I've now got some ring mail, two weapons, and 18 boulders... and am at 132% of carrying capacity. The boulders alone weigh 90 pounds. I dump off a bunch of them, then spend one precious ID scroll on the ring mail. It's just [12,+4] but at least it's not cursed; I wear it.

Anyone know why this character was created with 7 food rations and 43 scrolls of Sat Hunger? I'm not complaining, but that's weird.

The Trident I picked up has pseudo-id'd as {good}. As an Eru priest, this is probably not a good thing. I destroy it. I also try to destroy the Halberd I also found, and....surprise, I can't. It's {special}. Mmmmmmmmmmm! Well, prob is, I only have ID, not *ID*, but let's try anyway....

It's Osondir. A quick visit to oook convinces me to wield it even though it's not blessed: Among other things, it has levitation and resist fire. Its damage isn't much worse than my mace, and I'll probably be bouldering most things to death for quite a while, anyway.

I'm feeling confident now, and pass through the walls towards the next nearest room, bypassing that Shrieker. Casting precog changes my mind: NASTIES in there. A Patriarch, a Bone golem, a Colbran.... I think I'll go back and start stair dancing.

Up stairs to HMa97....

Nope. White Wraith in full view, and a bunch of ogre-types in a room just to the south. Back down again....

HMa98

Better. Now I'm alone in a room with a Blue firebird. It's unlikely to last for more than a few seconds, if that, against anything here, but maybe I'll wander about the room. Before I do anything, though, I Precog. There's an acid vortex in a room below me, but I doubt it can get up the passage to get at me. But I'll keep an eye on it.

I pick up a couple of scrolls and a Horn, which I destroy. (It might be an ego Horn with resistances, but I'm not going to blow a precious ID scroll on such a remote chance.)

That next room is very, very tempting. Can I kill an Acid vortex (L21) with boulders before it fries me? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm breaking my own rule of being utterly paranoid, here.

I go back through the wall and lead the Blue firebird down so that it takes the brunt of the Acid vortex attack. A second (and third) precog show that there is nothing nasty nearby. The Firebird gets in one hit before it dies, but the Vortex is now down to half its stars. Good enough. I start throwing boulders.... and none of them hit. Agh! It's now directly adjacent to me. Next turn could be life or death. I try to hit it...twice... and miss. It hits me with acid. Some of my ID scrolls and an un-ID'd scroll are destroyed (ARGH!) but I've clung to the wall, so I can escape into it safely. I try two more times to hit it with a boulder and fail utterly. It's also immune to Neural Blast. Guess I should put some more points into boulder-throwing, eh? I heal up and go back to stair-dancing.

HMa97

Spirit Troll and Green Thunderlord in the room with me... eeeee!!!! Down again....

HMa98

Nope. Ranger chieftain and Dark elven mage. Back up again....

HMa97

13 Mountain ogres, a Gauth (though not in LOS) and a Shimmering mold. Can I hit the mold before the Ogres get to me? Maybe. Yes. I hit it, but didn't kill it. I duck back down the stairs when the Mountain ogre Chieftain is one square away. Just call me Dances With Stairs.

HMa98

The RNG is taunting me, big surprise. There's a couple of Novice mindcrafters within easy reach, not to mention a wand and other loot, but also in the room is a Maulotaur and a Hell knight. Nevermind...

HMa97

Well, this is better. A Large white snake, that's more my speed. :) Precog, though, shows a room half-full of assorted Wights and another with a Marilith and a Nexus Q, plus a few other things. I kill the snake (not that it's worth much) and go back down.

HMa98

Master lich and Dreadmaster.... eeek....

HMa97

Whew. A corridor blocked off by rubble on either side. Let's see here. Precog.... Good grief! I've never seen one of those before. An... undead pit? But a sort I've not seen before. All 's'es. Assorted druj, skeletons, flying skulls, etc... Closer by, Earth hounds and a Revenant (plus a few others) which are right next to the one amulet I might be able to get to. In a very small voice: I do believe I'll pass on that, thank you.

HMa98

Out of the frying pan into the fire. Literally. A demon nest, including 3 Greater Balrogs and 3 Pit Fiends, plus... I don't wanna know...

HMa97

Now this is tempting. A few scary things, but blocked off by rubble. And a bunch of Manes. There's a Grand master thief beyond them, but I think by the nature of the corridor I can keep him away from me... Ack, I can't hit the Manes with boulders. I lose a handful of hitpoints, and run for the stairs again.

HMa98

I land in a room on the far right side of the map. There is one corridor leading off to the left, with rubble blocking it. Behind that is an Old sorceror. The room beyond has a Hardened warrior, an Eye druj, and a War bear. There is a wand right next to the wall (it's a diagonal square away from the warrior) that I might be able to reach by walking through walls. OTOH.... that's a long ways off. Better not.

HMa97

!!! Smack in the center of 17 Water Trolls...

HMa98

Great Bile Wyrm 3 squares away, plus other critters. Right next to me, a flail. I change mode to slug-like, cross my fingers, and nab it. The monsters start to approach and I get back to the stairs just in time. Bwahahahahah!

HMa97

I land in an empty corridor. There is nothing nearby (at all) but in the distance are nasties. I change back to running.

HMa98

Small room with a cluster of 14 Novice Mindcrafters, including a zombie one, plus a Black Harpy. There doesn't appear to be anything else nearby that could ruin my day. I can take these guys. I duck into the wall, losing about 6 hp to hits in the process. I kill two of them and am about to target the Harpy when suddenly a Dread comes out of *nowhere*, and.... it's Tombstone time.

Chatter

ElIott: I'm surprised you had so much trouble hitting the acid vortex. Vortices are among my favoite things to run into with lvl 1 Lost Souls because of their amazing hp/exp ratio. Even my level 1 spellcasters don't usually have that much trouble hitting them. Must have been really bad luck.

MayLith: Yeah, I was shocked. I thought it would be an easy kill. :(

DayInTheLifeArchive/Day in the many lives of Forsythia (last edited 2004-08-03 00:00:09 by MayLith)