Contents

  1. Parallel Bjorn, part 4
    1. CHAPTER 8, continued
      1. Part 8 of 8
    2. INTERMISSION: Hard Core II
      1. Part 1 of 2
      2. Part 2 of 2
    3. CHAPTER 9: Towering Inferno

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Character sheet

Parallel Bjorn, part 4

CHAPTER 8, continued

Part 8 of 8

When we last left Bjorn, he was just about to descend to:

Mdr 63

"You have a superb feeling about this level." Which might actually be justifiable this time, as the level sports no fewer than three lesser vaults: a (diagonal), a (brain's lair) and a (belvoir keep).

That last is my first target; it's mostly populated by hounds, Air and Water, with some Nether mixed in for variety. Also of note is a pack of Cave trolls and an Ancient gold dragon. The dragon leads the assault, and falls quickly; as per their usual annoying behavior, the hounds won't approach as long as they think I'm outside the room, so I have to step inside and carpet-bomb the immediate area with Noxious Clouds, eating a water breath in the process.

"Aw, heinous, man, I hate when my fur gets all waterlogged."

You'll have to deal for now, we just acquired bigger problems: a Knight Templar I hadn't noticed before summons a Fallen angel, who in turn manages to summon a Lesser balrog before I can kill it. I drop a Cloud on the knight's head and go back to finishing off his lackeys. That done, I step back out of his line of sight as he approaches and smack him upside the head for being a pest.

From there, the rest of the monsters aren't a problem. Only one bit of notable loot, dropped by that Fallen angel:

Hmm, if I ever really wanted to swap out Trone's coat, this would be a good source of fire immunity. Wait, I just noticed that one of my Wands of Stone Prison is down to zero charges. [checks message log] Oh, I hadn't noticed before that Lesser balrogs have a drain-charges attack. Ah well, under the circumstances, with him summoned right on top of me, there's probably not much I could have done about it—I'll just have to remember that for future encounters.

Okay, next we'll move west to the (brain's lair) vault. Sense Monsters detects little of note inside: Gargoyles, a few Ice trolls and Earth hounds and a couple young dragons. Bjorn, are you pondering what I'm pondering? ;)

"I think so, dude, but, like, even if we could find another of those walking tree guys, I don't really think we could convince him to wear a tutu."

/!\ :\ Please tell me you were just playing along with the gag, Bjorn.

"Gag? What, was that, like, supposed to be a joke or something?"

*shudder* Never mind. Clearing the vault is easy enough not to merit a play-by-play. Again, only one bit of notable loot, this time dropped by one of the dragons:

Man, if only I had hands… Anyway, that leaves just the (diagonal) vault to take care of. Quite an assortment of monsters in this one according to Sense Monsters, but nothing particularly challenging. The loot is correspondingly low-grade—though a chest did cough up another Portable Hole. |)

Well, that was fun; onward to:

Mdr 64: Princess quest for Ungoliant the Unlight

"You have a superb feeling about this level." Now, this could be interesting… [checks notes] 13000hp, speed +20, moderately tough melee dmage, poison and darkness breaths, and a summon-spiders spell. Urk. No, I don't really feel so superb about this…

The level turns out to be a 3x3 small level; the quest room is on the far corner of the level from where I entered. Before I find it, though, a Mature bronze dragon drops:

Enh, I'm unimpressed; leave it.

And now for Ungoliant. According to Sense Monsters, there's a Great Storm Wyrm and an Iron golem in the outer ring of the quest room. I'd really rather not have to fight them and Ungoliant at once; I'll try to teleport them away as I approach. The quest room itself is in the southeast corner, and with one monster, it's the lava-moat form, with a door on the east side, so at least I have a safe approach from the west. I fire up Manwe's Blessing and Wind Shield and begin my approach.

Ungoliant wakes up as I approach. Neither of the other monsters do, though, and the Storm Wyrm is positioned so that I can't get into line of sight of him without letting Ungoliant out. No problem, though; once the Iron golem's taken care of, I wake up the Wyrm with a Noxious Cloud splash and teleport it off to parts unknown. Which just leaves Ungoliant…

"All right, let's rock her webs, dude. Halt, you evil spider thing!"

The first round of combat knocks Ungoliant down one star. Not good. She does seem to be stunned for the moment, at least, so I can keep whittling her down. After two more turns, she's down three stars and I'm barely scratched. Hmm, I think we can pull this off…

"That's the spirit, dude!"

Another seven turns of knocking her down one star at a time eventually does the trick. She did get in some hits on me, but not too much; I ended up at 982/1200hp, with a slightly lowered STR. I noticed she tried to heal herself a few times, but it didn't seem to do much good. [checks notes] Well, no wonder; the heal-self monster spell heals mlevel*6 hit points, which works out to 450 in Ungoliant's case—not even noticeable for Ungoliant.

"Man, talk about your wimpy healing spells. What a waste."

Indeed. The reward choices this time out are Metal Brigandine Armor, a Fur Cloak, and a Tome of the Tree (!). Hmm, my current cloak is just an Elven Cloak of Stealth; maybe we can upgrade it with… a Fur Cloak of Immolation [+13]. Feh, we've already got fire aura from Trone's coat; leave it. Ungoliant drops quite a collection of Tomes, including, of course, a Tome of the Tree—none that we can use, though. Let's move on, then:

Mdr 65

"You have a superb feeling about this level." Yeah, yeah, seen it, taped it, taped over it. Hmm, purple stairs nearby… that's right, this is the level where Mount Doom branches off from Mordor.

"'Mount Doom'? Sounds like the sort of thing some lame-o supervillain would name his secret lair or something."

You're not far off, actually. But we don't have to worry about that for now. The level is mostly boring; the only reedeming feature is a lesser vault (Karnak, part II). Sense Monsters detects mostly boring monsters, the worst being a Jabberwock and an Eye druj perfectly positioned for Manathrust attrition.

The assault isn't as easy as I'm making it sound; by the time I punch through the lead wave of Ghouls and Light hounds (and a Gravity hound, I think) and take out the Jabberwock, I'm down to 827/1200hp—and for no reason I can divine, I'm down to +17 speed. The rest of the nearby monsters aren't dangerous, though, giving me time to let Essence of Speed run out and recast it, which seems to clear up the problem.

After that, the vault is fairly easy; the trickiest part is finding an approach to the Eye druj that doesn't cross its line of sight. The loot from the vault is equally unimpressive; the only thing of note is yet another Portable hole.

"Dude, this portable hole thing, is that like in the cartoons, where, like, the goodguy slaps the hole on the wall and jumps through, and then when the badguy tries to follow him, he slams into the wall, like the hole was just painted on the wall or something?"

Nope, not a thing like that. It's a leftover bit of legacy from many versions ago, that can only be used by a class that hasn't existed for several versions.

"Oh. Bogus, dude. ‘Cause that cartoon thing would've been way cool."

I suppose. Anyway, we're done here; let's move on to:

Mdr 66: Fumblefingers quest for 9 Greater titans

"You have an excellent feeling…" No, I don't; my entry point is in a corridor just outside the entrance to a room to my west, and four of the Greater titans are visible in said room from my position. And that can only mean… yep, another 3x1 small level. Let's see what I'm up against: [checks notes] 3800hp, +10 speed, nasty melee damage, a summon monsters spell and a teleport-to spell. I could probably take them one at a time without too much trouble, but not four on one. Well, the Stone Prison strategy worked for the Grand master mystics, let's give it another shot.

This time it doesn't work so well; it takes six tries to get the wand to work, by which time the Titans have summoned… wait for it… a Grand master mystic, who further manages to add insult to injury by summoning Araneas. |) By the time I finally get myself sealed in, I've got the Grand master mystic on one side of me and one of the Greater titans on the other, and I'm down to 970/1160hp.

Okay, as a first pass, let's teleport these two away. This gives me a chance to catch my breath and figure out how to handle this. By the time I'm rested up, all three of the remaining Greater titans are hovering on the other side of the wall trying to get at me. Good thing they can't tunnel. Hmm, let's light up the level and see what I'm up against… okay, the titan and mystic I teleported away are in a corridor on the east end of the level. The other five Greater titans are in a room to the west of the room the first three are in—and immediately to the south of that room is a room with another Grand master mystic. And I was hoping finishing Mordor would be a simple sweep…

"*cough* Uh, dude, it's gettin' kinda stuffy in here…"

Tough, deal; I gotta come up with a plan. Let's see, the Greater titans' teleport-to spell means they could potentiall pull me into the room with them, which would be disastrous. I think we need a more elaborate approach: 

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This is just before I poke open the last square in the "zipper" path, to my northeast. This way, a teleport-to spell can at most move me a couple squares down the zipper path—and since there'll probably be another monster behind the titan in the square he'd be trying to teleport me to, he shouldn't be able to move me at all. At least I hope that's how it works…

At any rate, I fire up Manwe's Blessing and Wind Shield, finish the tunnel, and step back a few squares into the tunnel for safety. The three titans in the room lead the charge, and fall in three turns each. Most of the summoned monsters in the room follow me into the tunnel for similar treatment, but the Araneas, as usual, linger in the room waiting for me to come to them. Fortunately, one of the monsters dropped a Scroll of Mass Genocide, which neatly takes care of the problem. >:> A quick sweep through the first piles of loot reveals that one of the titans dropped:

Now, let's see if I can do the same to the five in the next room. Sense Monsters reveals that three of them are already headed out of their room toward me as I approach. Good, I can lure them back into my existing zipper tunnel, where they again fall in three turns each. Pushing forward again into the near room wakes up another of the titans, who meets the same fate.

The last Greater titan in the far west room still hasn't woken up. Since there's only one of him left there, I don't have to worry so much about the zipper tunnel; I just need to lure him out into the corridor and ambush him around the dog-leg. And pushing into the dog-leg seems to be enough to rouse him. Annoyingly, I also wake up an Ethereal drake, who proceeds to start heading through the walls toward me; I'd really rather not have to fight it and the titan at once. Fortunately, the titan outruns the dragon nicely, giving me plenty of time to finish them off one at a time.

And then there was one. The approach to the last Greater titan is ideal for an ambush, as you can see here: 

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The problem is that Grand master mystic right behind him; he's got +20 speed, which means if I'm not careful, he could catch up to the titan and slip around the dog-leg with him, and I'd have to fight both at once. This will take some clever dancing…

Okay, scratch that; the Grand master mystic got past the titan around a corner and is coming in first. *groan* Okay, not a problem; I'll keep the titan pinned in the concave part of the corner and let the mystic come all the way up first. He falls in two turns. Finally, I jig the titan around the corner, lure him in, and smack him down.

"Dude, that was way cool! Just like with those kung fu guys a few levels back, we get all commando tactics and stuff."

|) I'm gonna have an ulcer before this is over. And we haven't even gotten to Angband yet. Anyway, the ever-solicitous Mr. F. Fingers offers us Magic-Device, Archery, Stealth or Disarming. And considering those heart-stopping few moments at the beginning of the level when my Wand of Stone Prison failed five times in a row, I think Magic-Device is the obvious choice.

And that's it, boys ‘n girls, I am so outta here:

Lothlorien

Okay, first order of business: Thrain's wand is down to 62 charges, so I need to heat that back up to 155. Hmm, I wonder how much I can put into this dead Wand of Stone Prison before it blows up… well, I made it up to 5 charges, and I think I'm gonna quit while I'm ahead.

Now, I need to stow these artifacts somewhere. Let's see, in:

Bree

I can sell off a couple weak randarts and that old Harp of Power to make room for Eol, Belthronding and Beor, and in:

Gondolin

I can sell off some Elven armors, the old Drum of Power and the Dwarven Lantern of the Magi from the Eol quest to make room for Flare and the spare Wand of Stone Prison. And finally back home to:

Lothlorien

for a well-deserved rest.

"So, where to next, dude?"

Well, there are a last few quests I haven't taken on yet, and then it's time to take it to the Necromancer…

INTERMISSION: Hard Core II

Part 1 of 2

(stretches) "Ah, that was a good rest. So, where to next, dude?"

Next we're going to pick off the last few big quests. First up is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad quest.

"Whuh? Ninnith Arnold?"

Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Turgon's army are trying to retreat to Gondolin, and Morgoth's troll forces have them trapped; we need to punch a path through the trolls for the goodguys to escape.

"Whoa. This Gondola place must be really popular, what with everyone trying to invade it and stuff."

Um… yes. Anyway, I'm going to pick up some Potions of Restore Mana just in case, and then move on to:

Gondolin

On the way, we pick up a fate to meet a Snaga on level 1.

"Dude, what is it with these fates? It's like, 'You are fated to have a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow' and stuff."

They're not always boring. Consider yourself lucky we haven't gotten a death fate. But never mind that now, I need to settle on a strategy for the quest. I've only done this quest once before, with Lil, and my notes don't describe how she did it; I'm assuming she just carpeted the area with Noxious Clouds from her wand.

"Yeah, sounds about right."

What, you don't remember?"

"Hon, that was almost a year and half ago. It's not my fault you don't take me out that often…"

"Uh-oh. Dude, you'd better buy her flowers or something, she sounds pissed."

|) What an entourage I'm stuck with… Any-way, that seems like a viable strategy for us, too.

"I dunno, dude, like, we could go through a lot of mana that way…"

That's why I brought the !oRM, in case we need a lot of mana fast.

"Oh. ‘Kay."

So, with all that out of the way, we go through the usual power-up sequence, fire up Manwe's Blessing and Wind Shield, and dive headfirst into:

Nirnaeth Arnoediad

The front row of Olog-hai and Cave trolls gets the first Cloud right in the face, and are the first to fall. And amazingly, except for a couple War trolls that got caught in that first cloud, nothing wakes up. [checks character screen] I swear it says my stealth is Bad.

"No sweat, dude, we just gotta do it real quiet-like. Let's see, let's do those ugly ones to the east next. Ha! Take that, you evil goodguy-army-blocking troll dudes!"

Hang on, I see movement… yep, that's what I was afraid of: the Hru are awake, and the nearest one just hit the edge of our Clouds.

"Dude, you worry too much. We've dealt with these hooroo guys before."

Yeah, I just don't want them waking everyone else up.

"Oh… can they do that?"

I'd rather not find out. We manage to stun the first one long enough to kill him unscathed; a few of the nearby trolls wake up in the process, but they're easily dispatched. Okay, make that more than a few; most of the second line of War trolls seem to be on the move now. The second Hru comes in amongst them, and falls in four turns. And now I've got two more Hru approaching from the south, right next to each other. <!>

"Dude, use the wand of go-directly-to-jail."

No good, Hru can tunnel through a Stone Prison. I'll just have to brazen it out and hope I can keep them both sufficiently stunned by alternating turns attacking them… wow. Bearform-combat really is all that and the proverbial bag o' chips. By this point, though, I'm kinda surrounded by War trolls, and I've got another Hru approaching from the southeast, with one of the Eldraks from the center cluster right behind him.

"Ah, this is nothin', dude. We've clobbered worse crowds than this."

Oh, I'm not throwing in the proverbial towel just yet. Let's see, first let's drop a Cloud on the incoming Hru to soften him up a bit; then let's back up into the northwest corner to limit the number of trolls that can get at me at once.

The fifth Hru manages to get in some hits on me, taking me down to 996/1200hp; he falls in only three turns, though, having crossed more Clouded territory than those who came before. The Eldrak is right behind him, and falls in a single turn.

The Olog Priest points at you and curses horribly. There is a malignant black aura surrounding you…

"Hey! Watch your language over there, troll-breath!"

Rr, where is that Olog Priest… oh, there he is, to the south. Okay, eat poison, fang-face. Hmm, we've got another Eldrak approaching from the southeast; he's already pretty badly weakened, though, and again falls in a single turn.

And that's all the trolls in the immediate vicinity; time to push in a few rows. Most of the next batch don't even make it to me before dying in the Cloud. Hmm, there's a purple 'T' coming in through the center… ah, that's Ulik. [checks notes] Let's see, 3500hp, +20 speed, vicious melee damage, mostly shatter attacks. Though I noticed that the Hru that hit me a minute ago didn't cause any earthquakes, even though all his attacks connected; I think I must be right that quest levels block the earthquake effect. Still…

"Ah, he's not much tougher than the hooroos we've already butt-kicked. Come on over here and face me, Ug-lik!"

*wince* I'll just hold my ground for now and let everything come to me through the Cloud carpet. Ulik hasn't taken much damage by the time he reaches me; here goes nothing… well, that wasn't so bad; he manages to knock me down to 977/1200, but he falls in three turns.

"Toldja, dude. You worry too much."

Yes, so you keep saying. Nothing problematic in the rest of this batch of monsters, except a couple Eldraks that probably won't survive the approach; time to push out the front line a little further. The last two Hru come into view as I complete the sweep, side by side—looks like I'll be going for a repeat of the two-fer. And as far out as I've pushed my Cloud curtain, I think I can do another extension sweep before the ones I just woke up even get to me.

Only the Hru make it to me alive, and by the time they reach me, they've separated enough that I have time to take out one before the other reaches me. And that's everything I can target from this position; I'll have to push forward to get the last of ‘em. Hmm, looks like most of them are already awake. So much for our vaunted stealth, eh, Bjorn?

"Oh yeah, I was having so much fun beating up the troll guys, I, like, forgot to be quiet. Sorry, dude."

‘Sokay, they'll never reach us through the Cloud carpet anyway, and we've already taken out the worst the quest has to offer, except for the three Ancient green dragons in the far corner. We'll push the Cloud frontier a little further out, though, just on principle. Oops, there went Essence of Speed; gotta start that back up.

And speaking of Ancient green dragons, they've just come into view in the southeast corner as I push forward; I fire up Poison Blood just in case, and then push the Cloud frontier out to cover them. Oops, my mana just went redline—254/517 (I have the warning threshold set at 50 percent; maybe a bit high, but it works for me). I think we're okay, though, that should be the last spells we need to cast for a while.

And one last push through the dragons and the last of the trolls (notably including an Eldrak Chieftain), and the quest is done.

"That wasn't so hard, dude. We coulda' done that earlier."

Yeah, yeah…

"Hey, wait, what about the goodguy army? How're they, like, gonna get through all our gassy spell stuff?"

Well, since we've just killed all the badguys in the immediate vicinity, they have the luxury of simply waiting for our Noxious Clouds to expire—as some of the earlier ones already are.

"Oh, good. ‘Cause that woulda' been really embarrassing and all, killing all these badguys but messing up the whole point of the quest."

Indeed. A sweep through the dropped loot reveals nothing of note, except that I was wrong about not needing any more mana… That done, we return to:

Gondolin

where Turgon in his gratitude gives us lots of money and access to the royal jewelry shop.

"Did he give us money, dude? We've got so much I can't tell. Whoa, was there a store there when we went in?"

That's the royal jewelry shop, or the Rare Jewelry Shop, as the game would have it. That's what I was most interested in anyway. Time for some window shopping… hmm, Rings of Speed, Amulets of Telepathy, nothing great at this stage of the game. We'll have to keep an eye on this shop for potential randart jewelry.

"What next, dude?"

We'll save that for next time…

Part 2 of 2

With the Nirnaeth Arnoediad quest under our belt, we move on to:

Minas Anor

to do the:

Last Alliance quest

"So… then that last quest was, what, the Second-to-Last Alliance?"

[slaps forehead] Basically we just need to get from Minas Anor to Gondolin and back; we'll be ambushed by Thunderlords somewhere along the way.

"Doesn't sound so tough. We've taken on the giant bird rider dudes before."

Fifty at once?

"Oh. Good point."

That's mainly what I'm worried about; we're covered from their fire breaths by Trone's coat, but they can still gang up on us. Plus there's gonna be a Gold Thunderlord in the mix, with a summon-Thunderlords spell, which could make things worse. I think Lil got Marda summoned on her when she did this quest.

"Ouch. Say, that reminds me, how do giant birds breathe fire anyway?"

I could tell you, but Anne McCaffrey's lawyers would sue me.

"Whoa, heinous, dude…"

Let's move on, then. The Thunderlord ambush strikes about two-thirds of the way to Gondolin.

"Hey, that was that Troan dude talking, wasn't it? I thought we killed him."

Yeah, we're doing the quests out of chronological order again; I assume we were supposed to have done this one before doing the Sacred Land of Mountains.

"Man, that's a lot of giant bird rider dudes over there. What're we gonna do?"

We've only got a few turns to power up before they breach this row of trees between us and them. This quest was a lot easier in earlier versions, when flight didn't allow monsters to pass trees…

"We're not gonna just let ‘em gang up on us, are we?"

No, we're going to try the Stone Prison trick again. One step south to make room between us and the trees, and… *whew* two tries to cast the Stone Prison, just as the lead Brown was about to get next to us.

"Ha! Take that, you traitorous giant bird rider guys! Now what, dude?"

Now we've got a moment to fire up Manwe's Blessing and plan our next step. Okay, they can fly over the trees, but they can't get line of sight through them, so the best place to open the Prison will be the northwest corner, with trees all around it. A Brown comes in first, and falls in two turns.

From there it's just a matter of attrition for a while. The only slight flaw in my plan is that two of the Thunderlords are Spectral (which, if you think about it, is silly—even Trone's not stupid enough to include ghosts in his army).

"Maybe not, dude; maybe now that he's dead and all, he's, like, sending some of his dead buds back from beyond the grave to smite us and stuff."

Or maybe not. Anyway, the two Spectrals are only a Blue and a Green, and they have the courtesy to breach my Prison one at a time. The only thing that's got me worried at this point is the Gold; I just noticed she's got a teleport-to spell and a teleport-away spell, either of which could yank me out of my safe Prison. Fortunately, she casts neither spell in the two turns it takes her to die. >:>

Once she's down, none of the rest of them can really challenge me. And with very little room for loot to fall in the vicinity, it ends up piled twenty-three deep below me and the ex-Thunderlords. More convenient to sift through, at least… ;) Nothing of note in the loot, except:

You feel your body fade away.

"Gah! Dude, what happened? Am I fading? Is this the end?"

Don't panic, I'm checking… well, nothing untoward is showing up, and we can't pass through the Stone Prison walls, so we haven't been deincarnated or anything like that. [sound F/X: source diving] Oh, that's the message for temporary invisibility. I must've fat-fingered the macro for the Invisibility spell. [casts Greater Identify on self] Odd, it doesn't say I'm invisible.

"Yeah, and I'm not see-through like all the ghost things in Manwe god dude's temples."

Well, no apparent harm done, then. Exiting the quest level and returning to the overland map puts us below the southern tip of the Misty Mountains. Odd, I was sure we were further north than that… Anyway, on the way to:

Gondolin

I do get the "You are no longer invisible" message, so I must indeed have been invisible there for a while. I stow Totila and the Trident of Wrath in my house and check in with Turgon, who promptly gives us the bum's rush with an admonition to hurry back to Minas Anor.

"Totally rude. I didn't even get a chance to ask if all his army dudes got back okay."

I'm sure they did. Come on, let's go.

"We're not, like, gonna get ambushed again, are we?"

Nope. The trip to:

Minas Anor

is blissfully uneventful, and Aragorn rewards us with the Golden Horn of the Thunderlords.

"Well, that's new. I certainly didn't get anything nice like that when I did this quest."

Now that you mention it, Lil, I don't remember that either. [sound F/X: more source diving] Looks like it was added in 2.2.0.

"There, see what happens when you take so long to finish up a character? I'm missing all the cool stuff."

You're an Alchemist, Lil, you're hardly lacking for cool stuff…

"So, like, what's this horn thing do, anyway?"

It summons a Thunderlord to carry you back to town. Basically it's identical to your Recall spell, except it kicks in immediately. Useful as an absolute-last-ditch escape.

"Oh. Enh, I've got teleport spells and the switcheroo trick for that. Wait, was that glowing thingy there before? It looks kinda like the glowing tunnel thingies in the dungeon."

That was indeed the whole point of the quest: to create a void jumpgate between Minas Anor and:

Gondolin

"Whoa! How'd we get back to Gondola so fast?"

I just told you, a void jumpgate. The one we just got through helping to create.

"Whoa. Excellent, dude. Talk about your rapid transit."

I stow the Horn of the Thunderlords in my house here and then hop the void jumpgate back to:

Minas Anor

whence it's a shorter hop back home to:

Lothlorien

"That was fun, dude. Any more quests we can do?"

I think that's the last of the side quests; our next job is to take on Dol Guldur…

CHAPTER 9: Towering Inferno

As promised, this time we'll be heading to the Tower of Dol Guldur to take on the Necromancer.

"Heh heh. Sounds kinda kinky, dude." ;)

*groan* No, not "neck romancer", Necromancer.

"Vhat? Vhat? I'm here, already, vhat do you vant?"

[slaps forehead] I shoulda seen that coming a mile away… *sigh* Ladies and gentlemen, Scrig, my Vampire Kobold Necromancer. What are you doing here, anyway? And what's with the fake Bela Lugosi accent?

"Vell, how else are yourr readers supposst to know dat it's me talking und not yourr Smokey de Varper?"

Easy: you don't say "dude" and "like" every third word.

"Dude! I, like, totally resent that implication."

See?

"Whoa, wait a minute, dude; if we've got this Necro-whatever dude here, why do we need to go to this Dull Golden Tower or whatever? Why can't we just take him here?

Because this isn't the Necromancer, just a Necromancer.

"Yes, didn't you hearr I comm in six-pakks?"

Besides, the Necromancer isn't really a Necromancer anyway, he's more of a sorceror.

"Then… like, why isn't he called 'The Sorceror'?"

*groan* Let's just say he's incognito.

"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. No one would figure it'd be him with a name like that."

"Dizzying intellekt, dis vun. Vhere did you find him?"

Long story. Come on, let's go, Bjorn.

"‘Kay. What's this tower like, anyways?"

Kinda like Moria, but with a wider monster distribution, and no water streamers. Oh, and all the levels are small.

"Hmm, that could be bad if we run into Crazy Sword guy. Remember the trouble we had with those kung fu guys on a small level."

Not to worry, no random quests in the Tower. So, then, onward to:

TDG 57

"You have a superb feeling about this level." Not this again… A 3x5 level, and I'm surrounded by Vrocks the minute I enter the level. <!> Fortunately, they stay asleep while I power up and start clobbering them. Unfortunately, a pack of Dreads wanders in from the northwest, including a Dreadmaster. I risk taking some hits from the Dreads and the few Vrocks that have woken up by now to push through to the Dreadmaster, who falls gratifyingly quickly. After that, the opening onslaught is handled with dispatch—most of the Vrocks don't even wake up. >:>

"Dude, what is this nasty water?"

Ah, yes, tainted water seems to be one of the common terrain features in Dol Guldur. I think it's harmless.

"Speak for yourself, dude; I don't think this smell is ever gonna come out of my fur…"

Poor long-suffering Bjorn… ;) At any rate, the level passes without further incident. I do find a Metal Cap of Seeing with telepathy, which might be handy as a swap-in at some future point. Onward, then, to:

TDG 58

"You have a superb feeling about this level." Yup, here we go again. A 3x3 level, with nothing to recommend it. Fast-forward to:

TDG 59

"You have a very good feeling…" Another 3x3 level, nothing of note besides:

:\ [checks notes] Hmm, Dol Guldur only goes down to level 70; this could be quick. On that note, we move on to:

TDG 60

"You feel your luck is turning." A 1x1 level, and thus over quickly. I do manage to score a Staff of Genocide, though, which could come in handy later. Moving right along, then:

TDG 61

"Looks like any other level." See, that's how fast that last level went. This level, by contrast, is 3x5, so it'll take a bit longer. It also includes my first ever Behemoth with any character. [checks notes] Hmm, 5000hp, speed +10, decent melee damage, breathes fire… enh, we've beaten tougher monsters than this. Plus it's aquatic, so it can't leave the water squares it's in.

"Lame-o, dude. Halt, you big ugly wet hulking thing!"

Heh. The rest of the level is uneventful, and we continue to:

TDG 62

"You have an excellent feeling…" No, not really; I've got a Death drake immediately to my south, a Q not far off to my north, and a few other monsters of note nearby. A brief assault, though, and they're all taken care of. The level is 3x3 and, beyond the mildly amusing synergy of a Green Thunderlord dropping a Great Scimitar of the Thunderlords, passes without note. Oh, there was also the the Scroll of Summon Never-Moving Pet that I read on a lark, and for my trouble got… a Grey mushroom patch. :D

"Dude, I haven't seen one of those since that Downs dungeon. No way it'll survive here."

You're right; I should dismiss it out of kindness. Anyway, let's move on:

TDG 63

"You have a good feeling…" Again, right into the middle of a huge swarm of monsters: White wolves, Manes (Maneses?), Light hounds… and a Grand master mystic. Better Recall-swap next to him and take him out first.

Uh… what the @#$%? I'm knocked out… o-kaaay, I'll never disrespect a Grand master mystic again. ‘S what I get for playing while tired, I suppose. Ah well, I wanted to upgrade to 2.2.7 anyway… <:(

DayInTheLifeArchive/Parallel Bjorn, part 4 (last edited 2007-12-07 05:18:53 by ZizzoTheInfinite)