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Slappy the Wood-Elf Monk - First-ever Day in the Life story

This is a continuation of a thread in the strategy section. It's a (semi) blow by blow account of how I got a monk character going. It will not be of interest to everyone. If you think you'll be bored by this thread, then don't bother reading it

By all means, please post with your questions/comments. I doubt I can answer them all, but hopefully someone else can.

A few caveats: - I've never played a monk before, so you'll probably see beginner's mistakes. I've never won a game, either. - Nasty critiquers will be invited to type up their OWN day in a life - Starting out, I will put in a lot of detail, but later on it's going to get trimmed down. If there's any specific detail you want that you don't see, please say so.

That being said, I hope you enjoy. Slappy, the Abbess of Pain, has gotten to CL10. For convenience, I'll post a link to her oook dump here. And hopefully, the fact of my posting her before CL20 will not result in YASD any time soon.

Day in a life #1: Rolling up a character

The first thing I did was NOT to roll up a character.

1. I pulled up the online help and I read. Remember, I've never played a monk before! I don't go so far as planning every last skill point as some do. I'd probably be better off if I did but I don't have the patience. Still, I try to make informed decisions.

Monk stat bonuses. Hmmm, +1 to STR, WIS & DEX, -2 int, no change to CON. They get 1.000 in monster lore and in corpse preservation, but 0.000 in possession and music. Hrmmmm. (Music? Possession? Do I want those?)

The main things to pump are barehand combat, combat itself, and dodging. As skill level goes up, you get speed and increased blows. Big penalty for carrying weapons/armor at higher levels. Fine. The monk barehand blows seem to be affected only by character level, not STR or DEX, how odd...

Mental shortlist: I want Speed, STR, Stealth, and infravision. INT and/or WIS for spell casting would be nice too, and DEX always helps. At high levels I will probably not be wearing any armor or weapon, so all the intrinsics I can get are desireable. I need levitate (or flying), ID/mapping, trap management, healing, and some sort of ranged attack. And all four immunities , while I'm wishing!

Monks get access to spells in the Meta, Temporal, & Mind schools of magic. I go read about those. Meta--eh. Recharge isn't worth 10 skill points. Mind--hrm, a possibility. I don't think I'd take it past Armor of Fear if I did. Hm, Fire Golem, never used that before, mental note: search forum on that, is it useful? Temporal -- Ah-hah. Now this could be good. Magelock turns at L30 to glyph of warding. Don't know if I want to go that high, but worth noting. Slow monsters turns into a zone spell at L20. Essense of speed at L15. And grow trees at 6. That's a keeper - to L15, anyway.

Gods. Hmm. I usually play Eru characters, but I don't think that'll work here. I want speed, so I'll probably try Manwe for the first time ever. Doublechecking the gods spoiler shows Manwe gives levitate, FA and flying (great!) and he likes elves. Well, I like elves too, so that works. Manwe's spells -- they look good for a monk. Manwe also gives access to the Air and Conveyance schools. Air--eh. Conveyance gives a few good spells but probably more skill points than I want to spend there.

Add to mental short list: See if I can't get spells from the Divination School somehow. Hear that, FF???

• #2 Now I go have a look at oook to see what other folks have done with monks. This turns out to be somewhat less helpful than it might be, since many of the monk posts date back to older versions of ToME. Still, I gather a few points:

• Popular skills (other than barehand and dodging) for pumping include mindcraft, thaumaturgy and magic. Mindcraft makes sense - if you take it to 23, you get added speed & healing via Adrenaline Channeling, and ID at 40. Thaumatury is very powerful at high levels, but also unpredictable, and I don't want to blow the skill points to get up there. OTOH, if that's the best thing FF offers, I'll take it!

• Monk possessors, mostly wearing dragons. This makes sense too (extra ring slots, etc, which don't penalize monks.) Possession doesn't sound very monkish to me, but I might try it later, we'll see.
• Lostsoul monks (usually combined with possessors.) A good way of getting great rings early... *IF* you survive!

Short list for races after skimming birth.txt: Dark elf, dunadan (no infra), elf, gnome, high elf, half elf, hobbit, wood elf. Oook shows a number of RohanKnight & Deathmold monks, but I'm not interested in either of those. Deathmolds are weird, and RKs have rotten stealth. I suppose a monk doesn't have to be stealthy, but I'll take any advantage I can get.

In the end, I pick a Wood Elf. Why? I love wood elves. They get intrinisic tree walking, which is a great way of keeping a low level character alive. AFAIK (please correct me) you can get tree walking in one of three ways: Being a Wood Elf, being an Ent, and worshipping Yavanna in order to buy it.

Race modifiers: Ooooh, vampires! That would be perfect. Except... it's not a birth option. Rats. Lostsoul is tempting, but I've got another one right now. Classical it is.

So, I'll run a Classical Wood Elf Monk. Second choice would be a LostSoul Hobbit Monk/Possessor.

• #3 Checking the skills spoiler shows I certainly do want to boost Combat as well as Barehand Combat. Involved rule for going without armor. Mental note to check the spoiler again when CL15-20 or so.

Abilities: Treewalking is intrinsic. Of the rest, I don't know yet if extra blows apply to monks. (Do they?) If so, then YES. Of the others, only 'make ammo' appeals, and I can live without that.

Summary: Wood-Elf Monk, Manwe, looking for Divination & Symbiosis, keeping in mind Temporal and maybe Mind or Mindcraft. Or even Thaumaturgy. Music?? We'll see what FF brings.

• #4 Rollup (finally!)

I pick a female classical wood elf monk. Worshipping Manwe. 98 quests. Stupid monsters (OK, I'm a wimp), no arenas. I set the autoroller to SIWDCC = 15 15 15 18 11 --. Three rolls later, I have a character with decent stats (for an elf) and social class 81, which means 428 AU on startup.

Thus is born Slappy, Abbess of Pain. Whether it be her pain or that of her opponents is yet to be determined.

Next installment: CL1 - CL10.

Notes:

I'd write this from the perspective of the character, but it'd make it even wordier.

From now on until I say otherwise, whenever I kill townspeople or other critters, I take the corpse if there is one, hack it up and sell it. Edit: This relates only to town/surface level. The only time I drag a corpse up from the dungeon is for a Beastmaster quest.

Starting AU = 428

I level up in the swamp south of Bree. Others prefer the hills. I usually level up faster than this, but I'm not familiar with the Monk class.

Day in a life #2: CL1 - CL10 (Levelling up)

CL1:

• Wielded the armor given me. Acquired Maggot quest. Killed an idiot, got an essence to sell (wheehaw.)
• Bought a sling and 20 iron shots.
• General store has lanterns but no oils, so I buy neither. Also no shovels! And no cloaks.
• Bought metal cap - same AC as boots but lighter.
• Changed my mind and bought the boots after all. Turns out they disrupt my balance, so I sold them back. Even a pair of gloves disrupts, so I'm stuck with AC 9. Ugh.

• Killed another idiot. Between dropped AU & rag & meats sold, I'm back to 479 AU. I buy 1 scroll of teleport and 5 potions of CLW. (There aren't any better cure potions available, worse luck. Dang these shops rot!)

• I head to the swamp area south of Bree. Treewalking makes it easy, as I can enter and exit the swamp map anywhere except a small area in the top lefthand corner of the map where there's mountains. Lurking along, I creep up on a Green Naga dozing near the map edge and lob some iron shots at it. Unfortunately, a Crebain shows up. Knowing they often run in groups (and the Crebain is coming over the edge of a panel, so I can't tell if it's a singleton or not) and the Naga has smacked me for a bunch of HP, I dive back into the trees. Three iron shots lost.
• First kill, with the sling: A Giant Green Frog. Wandered, spied a clump o' Lizard Men and ran away.
• Revenge: I find another Green Naga, this time with no Crebain around. It takes 8 hits from my sling (I don't dare hand-to-hand it yet) but I kill it and....

CL5:

• Grabbed all 8 iron shots, ran off the map into the trees and healed up. Dumped 9 skill points into Barehand (the maximum) and 5 into Dodging. Held onto the rest.
• Spied a lone Lizard Man. Thought about it greedily - I'm VERY close to CL6. Then thought about it twice, and moved on.
• More revenge: Killed a lone Crebain....

CL6:

• 2 skill points (max) into barehand, 2 into dodging; hold the rest.

• Made a very foolish and abortive attempt at a 3-Headed Hydra. Blew most of my ammo at it and ended up afraid & running for my life. Barely made it. Headed back to town to buy more iron shots.

• Back to the swamp: Nearly tripped over a Green Naga. Killed it...

CL7:

• 2 skill points (max) into barehand, 2 into dodging; hold the rest.
• Sold Naga meats for a tidy 260 AU, bringing me to 570 AU.

• Went on a minor tirade after townspeople. Starting to use barehand combat now as well as the sling. Between booty, gold & meats: 811 AU.

• Bought Wand of Manathrust.
• Thought about doing the Bree House Quest. Decided I really want to kill a Hydra first. No particular reason for that.
• Swamp: Killed another Crebain. Discovered that 2-Headed Hydras could care *LESS* about 5d2 Manathrusts. Ugh. Barely escape with my life, and buy a stack more Iron Shots. Maybe we'll think twice about this Hydra obsession
• Killed a Pink Frog, a bunch of townspeople, and another Crebain...

CL8:

• 2 skill points (max) into barehand, 2 into dodging, 2 into magic device (think: wands); hold the rest.
• Killed a Pink Frog, Green Naga, and a few Newts. This is getting boring. Ran into a 2-Headed Hydra, actually managed to damage it somewhat, but I don't have rfear, and the Iron Shots and wand can't compensate. Ran for my life. Again.
• Went back to buy more Iron Shots and discovered the shops inventories have cycled. Now the general store has oil but no lanterns! Rggh. Bought 8 flasks of oil, I figure I can throw them at the very least.
• *Blinks* Hey, I've got +1 speed now!!! Yay! (But is it from Barehand or from Manwe? Must find out.)

• BREE HOUSE QUEST The house quest wasn't hard, once I remembered to set Exploration to 'running' (Doh!) I used a combination of barehand, iron shots and manathrust. Killed everything else and ended up chasing the Brigand around while it squealed like a baby (it had run away earlier)

• Bought ID and sold the good dagger from the house quest. Sold the empty wand of Manathrust. Bought a pair of soft boots, which turn out not to encumber me, yay. Sold un-ID'd soft studded leather armor from the house quest and MUCH to my disgust, it turned out to be [5,+6]. I managed to steal it back, which started a minor crime spree. This character must be lucky, because I managed to score a nice cloak of stealth & potions of cure insanity from the Black Market, along with scrolls of ID.

• Back to the swamp. I know I could start the Barrow Downs now without a problem, but for some nebulous reason I've settled on CL10 to start there. Maybe it's those hydras calling. But mainly it's because I don't have a shovel yet, and Thou Shalt Not Go Underground Without A Digger. Killed a Newt and a Pink Frog....

CL9:

• 2 skill points (max) into barehand, 2 into dodging; hold the rest.
• Killed a Pink and a Green Frog, a Crebain, sold meats. With the combined proceeds, I bought a Pick, 1 WOR scroll, 2 more Teleport scrolls for a total of 3.
• I'm thinking about doing the Maggot quest before hitting the Barrow Downs. Given my leaning on the sling, it would probably be a good idea.
• Back to the swamp. Again. I took on a Lizard King. Almost got him, too -- down to 4 stars -- but the rfear problem reared its head again. Thank goodness for treewalking, as I made an escape with 0 hitpoints.

• FARMER MAGGOT QUEST Decided I might as well. Coward/Running. Coward partly for the save throw and partly to help me from accidentally killing the dogs. Running gives me total speed of +5, which makes the quest easy. I duck in/out/around the dogs, up to overland travel and back down. Even when they're biting me I'm only down to something like 1/3 of my hitpoints, which is pretty amazing, so it must be more of this monk stuff kicking in. I head back to town with 54 mushrooms and duly collect my sling and healing shrooms.

• Picked up the Merton quest. I'll do that later.
• My life of crime went bad: Failed to steal a potion of intelligence from the Black Market. Oh well.
• Bought 2 WORs for 3 total. No enchant-to-dams available for the sling, or scrolls of satisfy hunger. Sold the pick for a shovel (it's lighter) and bought extra food.
• Ducked into the Barrow Downs. L1 is a Princess quest for a bunch of Brown Yeeks. Shouldn't be a problem. However, I have an idea, and duck back out again. The idea is this: Very often when I get my first Beastmaster quest over in Lothlorien, it's for some monster which I have just recently killed in early Barrow Downs. So if I can get that quest first, maybe I can save myself some work?
• Went to Gondolin and got some Scrolls of Satisfy Hunger. Nothing else good there. Thought of going on to Lothlorien, and then decided not to. Too much chance of getting ambushed. So much for my bright idea. Came back to Bree, killed a Crebain, and....

CL10:

2 skill points (max) into barehand, 2 into dodging; hold the rest.

Recap at CL10: 2 blows/round, 2 shots/round. Melee damage 4-64. AC 39. 95 HP.

Boring Kit: Maggot's Sling, Brass Lantern, Soft Studded Leather [5,+6], Cloak o' Stealth [1,+9], Metal Cap [3,+2], Boots [2,+0], 35 Iron Shots (0,), Shovel +1

A day in the life #3: CL10 - CL18 (The Barrow Downs)

Notes

I'm wrapping this up late at night, *WAY* past my bedtime, so I apologize in advance for typos/formatting/wavering tenses and the like. I may add on later and will point it out if I do so, but I wanted to get this posted tonight. Er, this morning. - M.

Oook dump is updated.

OK, the Barrow Downs. Some people elect to start elsewhere, and all the more power to them. I always start in the Barrow Downs. Generally speaking, the quest rewards help quite a bit with starting kit (more on that in a moment) and I almost never get killed there.

98 quests, so there's a Princess or Lost-Sword quest on every level. Two changes this time around.

The first is just a general one for me. Used to be I'd explore every level completely, but now I'm going through as quickly as possible. (I'll probably slow down later on, but I'm still not going to try to scour the entire level each time.)

The second is the Princess rewards. This character is a monk. I don't want weapons, so if the rewards are all weapons I'm going to pick whichever one I think is most likey to be an artifact so I can sell it. If it's armor, if it's something lightweight that I *might* be able to wear, like a cloak or a golden crown, *maybe* boots, I'll take that. If it's heavy armor, again, I'll look for an artifact to sell.

For Fumblefingers, I'll just cross my own fingers. Seems to me FF is even more valuable to Monks than to most classes.

I'm not going to write down every last thing she kills anymore -- it's no longer feasible -- but if anything unusual comes up I'll note it. I am going to track the princess offerings, though, just for grins, and what FF offers. I'll also note Piety, AU and other stats occasionally.

Oh yes: I'm also tracking total # slime molds eaten, to see when/if she gets the mold-growing power. Total to date, at CL18, is 2. Don't know why I haven't found more, maybe it's just the fast diving.

continuing with CL10

Recap: When last we left Slappy, she had just shot a Crebain in the swamp south of Bree, and reached CL10. Once again I put 2 skill points each into Barehand and Dodging, and held the remaining skill points.

In the midst of celebrating her achievement and ruminating on things to come, she purchased a copy of Manwe's Blessing and stored it at home for future use. Then she made an unhappy discovery. She'd been killing all those evil things in the swamp... and had not been praying to Manwe at the time! Doh! Much chagrined, she became a much better worshipper forthwith. (Thanks, khearn, for your post. She's an elf, so I'll leave her praying all the time.)

Enchanted Maggot's sling up to +3 to-dam. And toted along 3 Mushrooms of Unhealth from Maggot's quest. I didn't write down whether I carried any ID scrolls but I'm sure I did.

Barrow Downs 1:

Princess / 13 Brown Yeeks. A pushover, though I did use Maggot's Sling almost entirely. The Shots are good for softening them up, then sometimes I'd get close in and polish them off with only a * left. Offered: Sabre, Main Gauche, Sabre. Took the Main Gauche for no particular reason. Sharp Main Gauche (+7,+5). Rats. Put it on the sell list. Continued down to-

Barrow Downs 2:

Princess / 5 Novice Paladins.

• Easy, but Manwe's not going to like it. Oh well.
• Ran out of Iron Shots. Picked up some I found and wielded them, un-ID'd, and got bit - they were cursed. Thankfully, apparently they weren't anything dreadful like Backbiters, as I could actually still hit with them. Hm.

Offered: Metal Cap, Flight Arrows, Small Metal Shield. Picked the Cap, got a Cap o' Infravision [3,+1] (+3). I can live with that. Continued down to-

Barrow Downs 3:

Princess / 5 Cave Lizards. Not worried about this either, but a) my pack's full and b) my missiles are cursed. I WOR out as soon as I arrive. (I usually do this - go down a level and then leave - to see if there's anything particularly nasty I need to prepare for. With my Thaumaturgist character I ran into a BDw2 FF quest for 20 Stegocentipedes. Ack!)

In Bree:

• Notice I have 7 XP to go to level.
• Sold off all the booty. Got more ID scrolls. Sold all my CLW and converted to CCW. Kept 1 of 3 Staves of Disarm that I found, sold the others. Brought #WOR to 3.
• Piety at -254.

Back to BDw3:

• Walking along and I get "You miss it. It blinks away." Great. Probably a Green Glutton or a Poltergeist or something.
• Get poisoned by Green Worm Masses, but got better. I'm still glad I had the CCW though.
• Hit wisdom trap and disarmed it.
• Killed a Blue Yeek and...

CL11

• 2 points each to Barehand and Dodging.
• Wisdom got better. (That always surprises me somehow.)
• Find 2 Wands o Manathrust 1/15.
• Hit a trap and get a wail of great disappointment. Wonder what that was.
• Finally find those silly Cave Lizards (took me a while to find the quest room).

Offered: Trident, Short Bow, Morning Star. Picked the last, got a MS of Slay Demon (+4,+4). Spent a little while cruising around the level in case that inviso-creature was Smeagol or somebody else, even though I still think it was a ghost. Don't find it, and continued down to-

Barrow Downs 4:

Princess / 14 War Bears. You have an excellent feeling.

• Um. This makes me a little nervous, but I'm not really worried.
• Ran into/killed something invisible.
• Argh, lice!!! I end up wading through a small mass of them and go running into the trees to get away. I hope the princess room is on the OTHER side of the map.
• Speaking of which, I should mention that one of the first things I do when arriving on a DL is to toggle the map ('M' in original keyset) to see where in the map I arrived. This usually somewhat drives how I explore - I may double back to look in a map corner, for example, if I'm close to one.
• Trip a Poison Bolt Trap. This time I *don't* get better and CCW saves me.
• More lice!!! I burn my first Teleport Scroll, and land near the Princess room.
• I have a note here that I destroyed a soft armor out of hand. It was the first time I got rid of something I could potentially have sold. I didn't record the reason why, but I probably ID'd it and found it was 4,+0 and not worth hauling back.
• Somewhere along here (BDw4-5) I find myself not bothering to use the Maggot's sling very often.
• Kill 5 War Bears and...

CL12

• Right in the middle of the fight, I immediately dump 1 skill point to Barehand (maxed) and 2 to Dodging. (I'm not sure I wrote that down right.)
• Thankfully the bears are sectioned off by the Princess room. They are a little tougher, and I have to resort to CCW a few times and/or rest in between fights. Got my first "It was a good hit!" message.

Offered: Whip, Light War Axe, Small Metal Shield. Picked the shield, got a RA (3,+3).

• BTW all the Princess rooms so far have NOT had lava. My Thaumaturgist had huge problems with those in the BD.

Continued down to-

Barrow Downs 5:

Princess / 5 Black Harpies. Ooooooh, I'm scared! I'm also a little miffed that there've been no FFs so far. And my pack is also full, so I read my last WOR. (I *hate* having only one WOR!) While waiting for it to activate, I walk around a little and find a Potion of Speed. Then back to-

Bree:

• Sold all the rewards except the cap which I'm wearing. Weaponsmith capped at 5k but the weapons are nothing special, so it doesn't matter at the moment. But if I find anything good, I'll stash it in the house for a Gondolin run.
• Got 10 scrolls of ID, ID'd a few things and sold the rest. Nothing interesting. Bought 3 WOR, 2 more enchant to-dam for the sling (both fail), and restock CCW.
• Ditched the shrooms of unhealth in the house, I've encountered nothing scary yet. (Famous last words.)

• Got remove curse and unwielded those darn iron shots. Yes, I've been carrying them this whole time - I'd forgot about it! I guess that shows how often I'm using the silly tihngs. Sold them to the Armory, too, & made them howl Bought 25 new shots to replace the old - maybe uncurse ones will work better? Ya think??

• I have a note here that I'm not selling hacked meats anymore (and probably haven't for a while); as witness, current AU is 4645.
• Took a side trip to-

Gondolin:

• Stole an Amulet of Resistance from the Black Market. Rbase only, but rah!
• Bought a teleport scroll (3 total)
• Received Gondolin House Quest (and I'm not going anywhere near it for a good while, either!)

I'm not sure when I went back to Bree, I think it was before recalling down again. Oops.

Back to Barrow Downs 5:

• Find 1st ring (R of Teleportation, cursed)
• See 1st fountain. Mental note: Get bottles!
• Find 2nd ring (o' weakness)
• Slappy slapped the black harpies around, and was

Offered: Beaked Axe, Spear, and Arrow Trap Set. Picked the Axe and got Beaked Axe of Slaying (3d7) (+4,+3). Continued down to-

Barrow Downs 6:

Princess / 14 Red Jellies

• Killed a few assorted things and a green naga...

CL12

• Found the princess. STR got zapped but no biggie. (This DL and the last went very quickly.)

Offered: Broad Spear, Light War Axe, Lance. Picked the Axe and got Axe o *Slay Animal* (+7,+5) (+2 stealth). Continued down to-

Barrow Downs 7:

Princess / 6 Clear Hounds.

• Hit a trap of wasting wands.
• Find 1st chest. I read ID on it just in case. It's (trapped). I open it successfully and get 206 AU. Well, at least my ID scroll is paid for
• Make short work of the hounds. I haven't used Maggot's sling in ages.

Offered: Spear, Light Crossbow, Longsword. Picked the crossbow. ID shows it to be The Light Crossbow "Hirth" (+4 to speed). YAYYYYYY! Happy dance, happy dance. But I do NOT wield it yet. It's not *ID*'d. AFAIK this is a randart - Cubragol is the only artifact light crossbow I've heard of - and I've been burned by this before. Never, but never, wield an un-*ID*'d randart! So I do one more happy dance, toss some salt over my shoulder just in case, and continue down to-

Barrow Downs 8:

Princess / 5 Pseudodragons.

• Hrm. I don't really have a good feel for this Monk char yet. So far, she's taking everything in stride, but... pseudos can be tough for low level chars.
• Anyway, she's now carrying so much heavy junk she's actually Slow (-1). (Did she kill those hounds while slowed? I don't remember, but it wouldn't surprise me.) Inventory's not full but getting there. Time to recall back to-

Bree:

• Grab one of Maggots shrooms of Restore STR and munch it.
• Dump Ego weapons in the house for now, I'll take them to Gondolin later, to sell.
• I buy an *ID* for this crossbow that's burning a hole in my backpack. Read it. And then spend a moment or two trying scrape my jaw up off the floor. OMG:

+4 to STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CHA, and Speed. Fires missiles excessively fast. Mind you, I've seen many better artifacts than this, but I'm sure not knocking this one! (Well, that CHA could be CON, darnit, but oh well ) Happy dance time again. I dump Maggot's sling in the house (I'll probably Mathom it) and ditch the shots. Turns out there are no arrows to be had in town, but I don't care.

• I realize I'd forgotten to up skill points for CL13, so I add +2 each for Barehand and Dodging.

OK, not Bree, but I sat back and thought for a while.

Where the heck is FF? And why haven't I seen any god quests? FF, I know, is just being a tease. I find myself wondering if I need to have skill points in prayer to get god quests, and post a question about that. Turns out no, I don't, so it turns out Manwe is being a tease too. Hrmmphh...

My little mental note (see first post) to check spoiler on armor somewhere between CL15-CL20 has gone off, even though she's only CL13. I spend some time with a spreadsheet and figure out that it's well worth it to take off armor, cap and boots, but the cloak can stay for now:

Starting AC=42 Soft Leather Armor (4,+0): take off -> AC 58 Boots (2,+0) : take off -> AC 62 Cap o' Infra (3,+1)(+3): take off -> AC 63 (I thought about keeping the cap, but I've got 40' base infra, don't have to have 70'.) The cloak does not (yet) give a bonus AC upon its removal, so it stays. Plus, I like the stealth, even if it's only +1.

Sold the armor, boots and cap, and gained 21 AC. Weird. Wish my Loremaster could do that!

I wonder if this crossbow is going to cause me problems. I experiment a bit and find that to-hit, to-dam, & fighting are all positively affected by the it. The weight of it (and future ammo) *WILL* affect Dodging, but I'm not worried about that for now. The bow will have to go, eventually, though.

Back to Bree: From home, I grab 1 potion of speed and 3 shrooms of unhealth, just in case the pseudos are problematic.

I only have 2 WORs, which worries me, but there's no more in Bree and I don't want to go to Gondolin. I'm itching to finish the Downs. But then I see that I'm also out of ID, so I go anyway. I drag along an un-ID'd staff and a sabre, doublecheck that I have enough scrolls of sat hunger, and set off to-

Gondolin:

• I stop by the General Store. Mental note triggers and I grab 25 pints of fine wine. Slappy does have to celebrate getting that crossbow!!! She starts to party, and then I remember something important. FIRST I inscribe the Mushrooms of Unhealth with !E!E, and THEN I let her get blasted. (Just trying to stave off Murphy...)
• Buy a few more flasks of oil.
• Pick up scrolls of ID. The staff is Nothing (literally) and the sabre's 0,0. Sell sabre, get 2 more ID scrolls (for what I wasted) and then get the only *ID* in the store.

• I peek in the Black Market (the one that'll let me in <g>). Nice Orcish Pick, but it weighs 18 lbs. Hm, but there's also a Ring of Flames [+11] in there! Slappy's itchy fingers activate again and she cops it.

• Side trip to Magic Shop shows a Ring of Protection [+10]. I sell the dang staff, then manage to nip the ring as well. This character MUST be lucky... I never have so much success stealing from shops, except w/ my Assassin character. It'll probably come back to bite me eventually. But that newly boosted AC 63 is now AC 84. Rah.
• AU check: 5048.
• Bought all the 0,0 arrows I could find - 36 - inscribed them and then enchanted them at the store. Belatedly, I realize that the Golden Flower is *VERY* overpriced (762 AU left!). Even more belatedly, I suddenly realize that I bought the wrong !@#%!#@%!#@%@ ammo! It's a crossbow, drat it all, not a bow! *Sigh* Must have been all that wine Slappy drank. (I was distracted by something IRL. Doh. What was that I was saying about 'coming back to bite me'? )
• Slappy buys 30-some bolts (0,0) and stomps back to...-

Bree:

• ...in a funk. She comes across a Village Idiot and takes out her frustration on him. He drops 23 AU and 29 pebbles. I almost dest the pebbles, but if there's an armory nearby I almost always test them. So I sell one (no point in burning an ID scroll) and voila, they are +3,+3. Selling the rest brings her up to 1000 AU even. So she feels slightly better.
• Stuff *ID* in house for safekeeping. Even with Rfire, not enough AU to replace it right now.

Back to-

Barrow Downs 8:

(princess for 5 pseudodragons, remember?)

• Find another ring. Kill a few snagas and novice rangers.
• I was cruising down a corridor and walked straight into the Princess room, darn it! I had wanted to creep up on it if I could. But I've got 3 pseudos right in my face. Still... this isn't bad.
• I see my first dodge.
• The first pseudo takes 13 barehand blows to kill. She takes 1 hp damage in return.
• Just for grins, I use the crossbow for the 2nd one. 10 (0,+0) bolts kill it, and...

CL15

(Note: As I'm typing this up, I realize I must have leveled to 14 somewhere in between and missed it. Oops. It was quite late at night when I was at this point.)

• 2 points to barehand and dodge. Barehand is currently maxed at 19.8, which means at CL16 I'll get another point of speed. Pseudos for this CL16 char are worth 100xp each, so the remaining 3 will take me halfway to CL16. And they do.

Offered: Spear, Mace, Wooden Boomerang. I pause and peek at oook. The boomerang artifact I MIGHT want is metal. I can't use spear or mace, so I pick spear and this time the odds favor me. Sort of.

I wind up with a randart again: The Spear of Maramanie (+12,+5) (+3). I didn't actually *ID* it til much later (post BD10 completion) so for the sake of flow: +3 STR, DEX and CON; drains life; very sharp and cuts foes; xtra dam vs demons; blessed. Nice little randart. Too bad I can't use it. Continue downward to-

Barrow Downs 9:

Princess / 14 Driders. Very good feeling.

• I'd almost say eeegh again, but the pseudodragons weren't bad. We'll see.
• Piety check: -832.
• I trip a weakness trap. Twice. I need trap detection/disarming, durn it.
• Ran into a pile of rotting corpses, and then 14 lemures, which brings Pt to -787. Easy kills and the poison (from the corpses) wears off.
• I notice that hidden doors are tending to stay hidden. Then again I'm not spending a huge amount of time searching, either. I just treewalk until I find another path.
• Found a fountain of CLW but I don't waste bottles on it.
• I find the Princess room. I'd planned to sneak around the surrounding area and try to clear rooms out of extraneous monsters before tackling the Driders, but as it turned out, the side of the room was open and the Driders came out on their own.

They cast dark, magic missile, and confuse at me. I dodge into the trees, come back out, and 6 blows kills the first one...

CL16

Hello, here's the first God quest! "quite some way from current location" & SW of Lothlorien. Thank you, Manwe!

• "You are confused." Drat. And they are crowding in on me.
• +2 each to barehand and dodging.
• I tweak tactics and exploration to normal/brisk. It had been at very fast (+9 speed) but the stealth was bad. Brisk gives excellent stealth and still has +7 speed. I can live with that.
• Drink CCW for confusion.
• I throw a Mushroom of Unhealth at the next Drider. It dies instantly. I smile. I'll save the last two (I was carrying three) for emergency.
• I kill two more Driders barehand, then a Novice Possessor (soul). (I didn't realize those are worth 0 XP!) Another Drider (5 blows), and I work my way around to the other side of the room for the 2nd door. Eep, a minor rat infestation. They haven't started to really multiply yet, and I'm moving fast, so I manage to clear it out.
• The last Drider manages to confuse me, and rather than drinking a CCW (not sure why I didn't, I still had some. I tend to forget the obvious at times ) I stagger after it and kill it.

Offered: Lead Filled Mace, Katana, Dagger. Picked the last, as I often find *thancs from Princesses, and get a Dagger of Slay Giant (+7,+13). Ah well.

Oops, inventory's full and I can't pick up the dagger. ID on the ring reveals Nothing again, literally. Darn it. I destroy it, pick up the dagger, and continue down to-

Barrow Downs 10:

Lost Sword quest (FF that is) for 20 Ochre Jellies.

• Yay, FF finally! Ochre jellies, huh. Ooch. Well, at least I'm not wearing much armor anymore.
• Return to:

Bree:

• ID the dagger I just got (the slay giant one). Nothing else at all in my stuffed pack is even good. Bah.
• I stash the shrooms of unhealth and the potion of speed back in the house, grab a scroll of *ID* and finally check that spear I got a while back. I sell stuff - AU check 4555 - and get myself 15 ID scrolls (altogether), 3 WORs, 10 CCWs. Wait. Ochre Jellies. I go back and buy the last 4 in the shop for a total of 14 CCW. Thence to:

Barrow Downs 10:

• Encounter first dragon: Baby Green. It's toast.
• Kill 5 ochres, a few novice mindcrafters and a zombie one, and...

CL17

• 2 pts into Barehand only, this time. I've got plenty of skill points in reserve right now. I'll probably still bring dodging way up, but I have a tendency to waste skill points so I'll just wait.
• Kill a few more ochres, a wolf, and, hey, who's that 'p' over there? Why, Hello Wormtongue! I hit him a few times, pause and change tactics to berserker/running. 13 more hits and he's dead. I change tactics back to normal/brisk. He dropped a cruddy Lead-Filled Mace of Slay Undead, though. Bah.
• Piety check: -758.
• I get confused again, this time by a novice mindcrafter. This is becoming annoying.
• Find an Everburning Torch. Yay! Lighter (critical for a monk) and no fuel.
• Piety check: -781. What'd I do?!?! Mindcrafters aren't "good."
• Beat up a bunch of Undead Masses (first time I've seen them) who are mixed in amongst the last of the Ochre Jellies. The very last Jelly proves a little problematic. Its attack destroys a Khopesh (+1,+3) and some bottles (big deal) and damages my good cloak, not to mention me! But it shortly went to Mandos.

FF offered: Disarming 2.7 +0 Weaponmastery 0.3 +0.1 Sprituality 2.7 +0 Monster-Lore 3.3 +0 Well, weaponmastery's out. I'm ambivalent about spirituality skill. Monster Lore.... it's already at 1.0. 4.3 in M-L will give me about 10% xp of pet kills. 10 will give me 24% and 2 companions. I'm very tempted, but in the end, I put it into Disarming. I've only got 54xp to make level, so I want to do that before wrapping up and posting. I run into more Novice Mindcrafters and end up killing them off in the midst of staggering around in confusion and fear. Again. Yet...

CL18

• 2 skill points into Barehand. Currently 94 AC, Pt -784.
• Hid in the trees from the mindcrafters and stood at the tree side of a bend in the path to get at them one at a time. Find a Harp and a Drum in the carnage. Hmm. I keep them.
• WOR out to:

Bree:

• Sell lantern/oils.
• ID'd assortd loot. Nothing fancy, some iron shots and a good trident, average mage staff. 2 staves of sense hidden, one of globe of light, and that staff of disarm I've been lugging aorund and never used. Sold all of that plus the normal stuff. Refilled WOR, ID, CCW, doublechecked to make sure I wasn't running low on Satisfy Hunger or Teleport scrolls (I need to get more tport eventually).
• Ducked over to Gondolin (I can't resist.) Found and stole a Ring of Damage [+18] and swapped out the Ring of Flames for it. Kept the latter though.

OK, that's it for the Barrow Downs, folks!

CL18 summary (see the dump for everything):

+12 to hit
+29 to dam
3 blows/round
6-150 damage per blow
brisk -> +7 speed
9247 AU
-799 Pt
big stack of unused skill points

Observations:

• Rbase is covered thanks to that lucky steal. I badly need resist confusion and resist fear, and I'll need see invisible soon. Poison isn't a huge problem yet, but I'm keeping CCW's around. Hm, I haven't been blinded yet, but that's probably just chance.
• IIRC, FA will come for free at Barehand 25 -- which is quite soon -- so that should be ok.
• Levitate wouldn't hurt either, but that may be hard to come by. I usually get it on boots, but I don't want those, and rings are going to be at a premium.
• I need spell ID, if I can get it. ID scrolls get expensive (though that'll change later), and carting heavy loot back to ID at home is messing up my Dodging. I did a bit of spreadsheeting on that too, but I'll comment on that later or edit it in.

• My little experiment in trying to guess the artifact didn't work too well, did it? <g>

A day in the life #4: CL18 - CL25 (Intermission/1st God Quest)

Continuing with CL18:

• I put 3 skill points into Dodging to bring it past 20.
• Restock basics (CCW, Sat hunger, ID) a bit more. Buy some enchant armor scrolls hoping to put another AC point or two onto my +8 cloak. (Probably a waste.) 6 scrolls later, it's +9. I put a few more to-dam points on my crossbow and bolts while I'm at it.

Strategy: So what do I do now?

Assorted things cross my mind:

• Orc Caves. I always do this one before Old Forest, even though Old Forest is usually easier for me. Maybe it's because by the time I'm done with Orc Caves, most of the other early dungeons aren't so bad. This time around, I'm also interested in it because I can probably get positive Piety there, too.

• Go to Lothlorien and get that Beastmaster quest & the house there.

• Dip into Mirkwood to test the waters.
• Get the first God quest out of the way so I can have a chance of getting the 2nd one ASAP.
• After reading Circon's post, I'm also tempted to scum about a bit at the wilderness level around Angband to see if I can knock off a dragon or three.

After some mulling, I decide this:

• Lothlorien first:

a) Load up on the stuff that needs to be sold and sell at Gondolin. b) Stop by Angband on the way back, while not carrying anything valuable. Try not to die. c) Stop at Bree, pick up whatever I want to take with, and relocate ops base to Lothlorien. d) Get the beastmaster quest and the house. I'm not worried about Wargs.

• God quest. I'll probably see the entrance while overlanding to get to Lothlorien, since it's S of Bree and SW of Lothlorien. (I'm NOT going to try the north passage yet.)
• Check first level of Mirkwood. Maybe finish a level or two if it's not that hard.
• Orc Caves.
• Old Forest.

Subject to change of course, but that's the basic idea.

---

Hm, do I donate Maggot's sling? I guess so. Though the bow is heavy, arrows are light, and carrying lots of shots or pebbles outweighs (literally) the bow. Not to mention the plusses on the crossbow

Gondolin:

• Sell off weapons, as G's weaponsmith's cap is 30k. AU now at a tidy 63890. Buy up *ID*, some to-hit scrolls, CCW. Nothing worth stealing anywhere.
• I consider dropping *ID*s at Bree first before Angband, but I can afford to lose them now.

Surface wilderness at Angband:

• First off, I try coming in from the square south of Angband and do an absolutely wonderful impersonation of a greased pig on ice. Or a greased monk, anyway. Mental note: Get levitation. Wait, I already made that mental note. Hm.
• I back off and come in from the jungle square east of Angband. This works fine, and I get in. Then I notice two things: It's night. And over THERE is a mature blue dragon:
• I creep up to it, then change to berserker/running (Speed +10).
• I manage to hit it 6 times (taking it down to ******) before it breathes lightning at me for 23hp.
• I hit it 6 more times (a few misses). It hits me once in the midst of that. It dies....

CL19

• And I still have 118 hp left. Cewl. I grab 121 AU, a Basilard and a Short Bow, and rest to heal.
• Put 1 skill point into barehand, which maxes it.
• Wander around a bit, kill a Young Bronze Dragon...

CL20

• Put 1 skill point into barehand, which maxes it.
• Wander more, and find a Mature and a Young Gold Dragon. Near each other. I wade into the mature gold, and an ogre and a griffon come out of the darkness, too. The young gold's still asleep. I kill the mature gold, taking damage in the process, which takes me to...

CL21

• Put 1 skill point into barehand, which maxes it. How come it used to take 2 to do this?!?
• Quaff 3 CCWs. Kill the Griffon in 3 blows.
• A Black Ogre comes up from the bottom of the map, the Ogre and young gold are still sleeping. I'm still on berserker/running, so my stealth is atrocious. Kill the Black Ogre, which wakes the Ogre, so I kill it.
• I'm heading for the Young Gold, but I'm near the bottom of the panel and another Black Ogre appears. Darn, there must be a cluster of them down there. Kill it and two more, the panel shifts, and it *looks* like that's it. Walk back and kill the Young Gold...

CL22

• Well, this is addictive! Thanks, Circon (To be honest, I thought I was nuts to be trying it...)
• Put 1 skill point into barehand, which maxes it.
• Gather booty.
• Pt -701; 3 blows/round; 6-180 damage per round.
• I accidentally walk off the map, then back on. A bunch of stuff in my pack pseudo-IDs. Then I get:

It says: 'Kill, kill, kill. Let's play chess.' It says: 'Hey! WATCH IT! You almost hit me.' It says: 'You da Bomb!'

• Dang, a unique. It's either invisible or past the range of my light or infra. A bit of walking around proves it's invisible. I'll spare you the rest of the conversation, but poor Slappy was thoroughly insulted. (And btw, dear game devs: Carnal knowledge of oak trees would PROBABLY be illegal if any lawgivers had ever thought of that... )

• A peek at my inventory shows that some of the pseudo-IDs are {average} or {worthless}. I drop them around myself, a few squares apart. I wander around, being regaled (and amused) by a VERY talkative Something. But it doesn't pick up the objects & thereby reveal its location. I start a frenetic, totally random walk, *trying* to hit whatever it is, and utterly fail. I'm not kidding, I wasted a good 5-10 minutes on this!

• I start to wonder if this is some sort of joke, but I don't have joke monsters turned on. Then I start to think a bit more. Probably it is one heck of a lot faster than me and/or has very high AC, which implies that it's way more than I can handle if I *do* manage to aggravate it. Then I realize something else: It hasn't tried to hit me. Could it be neutral or coaligned? It doesn't sound particular friendly, but there's no way to tell. I'm out of here. I duck off the map.
• I duck in and out of the Angband map a few times, destroying any {average} or worse items I find. Eventually a I find and kill a Mature Black Dragon (10 blows) takes me to....

CL23

• In that last conflict, I saw one dodge (mind you, I haven't really been watching for the dodge messages) and some stunning.
• Put 1 skill point into barehand, which maxes it. I've now got 50 more skill points to burn. Whee.
• Immediately find another Mature Gold Dragon and kill it...

CL24

• As fun as this is, I realize I've distracted myself. I wanted to get the first god quest out of the way, darn it. OK, enough fun.
• Put 2 skill point into barehand, which maxes it. (The 1 vs. 2 must be just how the numbers come out.)
• On my way out, run across another Mature Blue Dragon, kill it. Back to-

Bree:

• Sell all booty.

• See a Ring of Levitation at the Magic Shop and buy it. I stare at my two current rings (R of Protection +10 and R of Damage +1 for a while, dither, and finally swap out R of Prot for Levitation. Ice doesn't worry me (though I'd better darn well have levitation, if not ImmCold, if I want to do Helcaraxe!!) but it's those lava fields in Princess rooms that are worrying me. Not to mention drowning...

• Sell off "restore" shrooms (Lothlorien has cheap Restoration) and destroy Maggot's 100% CSW shrooms. I never use those.
• Bought up CCW, WOR, *ID*, etc.

• Tactic/Expore->norm/norm

Head to Lothlorien:

• I did NOT see God quest entrance on the way. Darn.
• I get the first Beastmaster quest object: 5-headed hydra. Double-darn. (Shouldn't be hard to kill, but to FIND one... and then get a corpse... argh.)
• Hm. I'm always vaguely interested in the semi-randomized appearance of the ground cover in the towns. Apparently the Public Works dept. in Lothlorien does not like trees. There are only a very, very few trees anywhere around the town buildings, and just a spattering at the bottom of the map. First time I've seen something that extreme in Lothlorien. And it feels WRONG.
• Receive the Lothlorien House quest, and the Old Mage quest while I'm at it.
• Check to see if I have any fates. None.

Lothlorien House quest It's a complete pushover. I kill everything & stash my stuff in new home.

• Piety now -564: it's slowly coming up. 61471 AU.

• Steal a dwarven lantern from the BM & sell the everburning torch. They weigh the same (5 lbs) and the lantern is radius 2.

I head over to-

Mirkwood 11:

First quest is Princess/14 Lesser Mimics. Hrmmmm.... that might not be bad. I try it.

• Run into something invisible and kill it. I need SI.
• Novice mages - more confusion.
• Find Princess room. The Lesser Mimics are easy to kill. I polish off about 4-5, and then get fear casted at me. Run away, rest up, come back. Finish off more, get blinded, kill them all, and find my first junkart (A Slimy Dagger, which on ID becomes: Lloth's Ceremonial Dagger. I'll haul it back and try to sell it. If I can't, I'll *ID* it.) Killing the last Lesser Mimic takes me to...

CL25

Offered: Scimitar, Metal Cap, Hard Leather Armor. Ouch. The cap and the armor are most likely to be an artifact. I can't wear armor, and really shouldn't wear a cap either. So it's a "which is the artifact?" guess-type decsion. I choose the cap.

• In detritus, find another junkart (an eyeball->Balzebub's All-seeing Servant.)

• ID the cap. YES! Thengel

• Take stairs down and go to-

Mirkwood 12:

FF / 18 Cold Vortices. I can handle that. My pack is full, though, so I recall out of Mirkwood (up to Wilderness level) and overland back to-

Lothlorien:

• Neither junkart can be sold, so I *ID* them. Here's a twist: They both activate for remove fear and cure poison every 5 turns. I keep the Dagger and drop the other in the trees.
• Part of booty turns out to be 2 rings of rfear. I sell one and unhappily wield the other. The R o Damage goes in the house.
• I stash the junkart Dagger since I've now got the rfear ring. I may well carry it with me for the God quest, though, and change rfear for damage. I prefer not to blow CCWs just to cure poison unless I have to.
• I've got a few {good} items left and I sell them un-ID'd, as there are no ID scrolls to be had and I don't care about the AU. It's night, and there will probably be more ID scrolls in the morning for my next dive. If not, I can go back to Bree and/or Gondolin.
• I could go back to Mirkwood (FF!) but I still want to find that God quest. Off to the Inn. Next morning I get my ID scrolls and set off.

The lost temple turns out to be almost due south of Bree - it's only one square to the east of Bree, and about halfway between Moria and the Paths of the Dead.

First God Quest

Lost Temple -10:

• Lots of water scattered around. I run into a patch of invisible beasties that release spores at me. (Gee, wonder what that is? ) I kill a bunch (noticing that I dodge quite a bit) and then wander off. And encounter.... mist? How cool, I've never seen that before. I kill something else invisible.
• Trip an Ice Bolt Trap. OUCH!
• Something else invisible touches me for lose DEX, casts fear at me and wails at me. Some ghost-type. It teleports away.
• This is on the exterior corridor around one of those hollow-center special rooms. Inside, there's bunch of Clear Worm Masses. I go after them.
• In the midst of this I get:

"It sniggers." Huh??? Since when do things that wail at me snigger? It must be something else. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like... I take another two steps and suddenly there's this light blue 'h' amidst the 'w's and: "Smeagol misses you. <2x>" Hah! I hit him, stun him, stun him more...in fact, I beat the heck out of him, and he never lands a blow on me before he dies. Then I have to beat the worms out of the way (they've multiplied badly by now) and grab the ring. Smeagol's also dropped a Beaked Axe of *Slay Evil* (+2). Well, now I can be invisible, even if I can't SEE invisible I swap out the levitate ring, mainly because I don't want to lose the RoI to a passing thief and have to chase it down. I get out of there because the worms are out of control - I *should* have closed the door when I entered the room. They're not dangerous, just annoying.

• There's an *awful* lot of invisible creatures around, darn it. Booty keeps appearing around me, even when I'm not the one walking into things and killing them. I keep hearing noise, too, of things killing each other. Maybe there's a Firebird somewhere?
• I find the source of the noise. There's one of those 4x4 inside a rectangle special rooms. I see a message I've never seen before: 'There's something scary in your way!' Hee hee hee.
• I've discovered that this mist stuff surrounds the borders of every room and can hide paths to other rooms. So I'm doing a lot of "wandering in the mist." Very funny, dev-folks.
• I finish scouring the first level. No relic (AFAICT - something invisible might have picked it up ) and the lack of SI is a royal pain. Still grumbling and wondering why I did this, I go down the stairs (or is that up?) to-

Lost Temple -11:

• I wander about through 4-5 rooms, cussing under my breath about the invisibles, when I suddenly spy something absolutely beautiful. The Relic! Yay..... Happy dance Manwe pats me on the head and I WOR out of this infernal place with drained WIS, DEX, & CHA, a nearly full pack, 2.500 points of Prayer, and the Ring of Invisibility.

==== Lothlorien: ====

• Much to my amused chagrin, it turns out one that of the unidentified potions I picked up in the Temple was a Potion of Detect Invisible! Sheesh.
• Other stuff in the haul included (do you care?): a 2nd ring of levitation, an amulet of infra, an amulet of spell - hm, might keep that - a wand of noxious cloud, staves of ID, sense hidden and reveal ways, 2 morphic oils of mouse, and a bunch of junk. I sell everything but the oils, amulet of spell (stashed those) and staves of sense hidden and reveal ways. Then I think again, pick up the spellbook of Manwe's Blessing (which includes cure fear), and stash the junkart as well. I may come back for it later.
• Oh yeah. Forgot to spend skill point on levelling. 1 to Barehand (maxed).
• Buy a parchment of advanced Sindarin from the Black Market and learn how to summon a dwarf. Cewl.

---

Where now? Umm.... Orc Caves or Mirkwood. I could do Mirkwood, but I think I'll take Orc Caves. I want to check for dungeon towns and get Deathwatch, and do it before I'm bored to tears by how easy it is. *knocks on wood!* Might have to drop by Angband again, too.

CL25 summary (see dump for everything):

+14 to hit
+31 to dam
3 blows/round
2 shots/round
6-180 damage/round
brisk -> +7 speed
78357 AU
Pt: -740
57 unused skill points. Suggestions?

Observations:

• I haven't used the crossbow since the Barrow Downs, but I'll carry it for the plusses for now. Question is, do I keep carrying the bolts? Answer... for a little while longer. I guess. Might be useful in getting something to chase me, as I don't have any other ranged attack. Better bolts would be nice.
• Barehand is over 25, so I have FA.
• I have resist or remove fear 3 different ways (Manwe, ring and junkart.)
• I have levitation, if I want to give up the ring of damage or invisibility for it. I think I'll swap out the damage ring. This reduces my damage plus to +13 to-dam. A big hit, but I'll take it for now. The reason for this is that I'm anticipating lava and deep water coming up, and at these low levels, being invisible will do some good. I can always swap around later.
• I *desperately* need SI and rconf!
• I can keep lugging around ID scrolls for now, but will look for better.
• Piety's gone down again, darn it. Time for orc mashing.

A Day in the Life #5: CL25-CL29 (Orc Cave)

Recap: Done are Barrow Downs and the first God Quest. Have Bree and Lothlorien houses, am residing now in Lothlorien. Sore lack of SI and rconf, Pt -740.

• After much skittishness, I bite the bullet and max out Dodging. As long as I'm playing a Monk, I might as well do it right. This leaves me with Dodging at 29.400, and 44 unspent skill points.
• It dawns on me that with negative piety, I can't cast Manwe spells. I dump the spellbook back at home and grab my junkart of cure fear/poison again. (Phew, I'm glad I thought of that.) [Edit: But I forgot to take off my ring of resist fear for something else. Doh!]
• Swing by Bree (nothing good at the BM), reveal Orc Caves on the Overland map, and can't resist one more swipe at the wilderness level of Angband.

Wilderness of Angband:

• Head straight after a mature green dragon. Hey, this dodging is a cool thing. It never hit me. OK, I'm a convert. Mature gold dragon, basilisk, hippogryph... oh, hello, Beorn!
• It occurs to me that if I dump enough skill points into Monster Lore, I can get companions off of anything Beorn summons for me, even w/o summoning. This is VERY tempting, especially as the increment is 1.100. I hold off for now, but if FF ever gives me Monster-Lore as a best choice, this might be an option, as I'm sure I'll see Beorn again.
• Bunch more dragons, storm giant, yadda yadda. Run into and kill The Wounded Bear. I think that unique is misplaced. It's weak enough that by the time you run into it, it's an easy kill.
• More kills, then a young bronze dragon takes me to-

CL26

• One skill point into Barehand (this takes my bh speed modifier to +3) and two into Dodging, 46 left over.
• I scum around a bit more and run into an Ettin. Well, he's a tad hard to kill, isn't he! I change to berserker/running, quaff 2 CCWs and get back to beating on him. It takes quite a lot of beating, and stunning, and dodging, but at last I kill it. 3000xp, thank you very much, and in the end I've only lost 30hp. (The sword it dropped was cursed, bah.) I change back to normal/brisk - there's a 25 AC difference between normal and berserker.
• A little way off, I see Thorondor, Lord of Eagles (level 30, unhurt) (coaligned). He wakes up. Immediately, I'm *SURE* Circon was right about the type of character I ran into before. Who'd'a'thunk Eagles were so chatty?
• I beat the heck out of bunch more mature dragons and other things and am about to leave (pack is full), when I notice I've less than 1000 xp left til CL27. I refresh the map to get more dragons, and very shortly later I'm at-

CL27

• The last thing I killed was a mature white dragon. It left a corpse. I'm about to leave, then I pick up the corpse and take it with me. Just in case. At the very least it'll impress the townsfolk back at Bree
• One skill point each into Barehand and Dodging. 49 left over. Thanks to all the draggies/etc, my Piety's now at -411.
• Due to the weight of the corpse, I burn 4 scrolls of Satisfy Hunger between Angband and Bree, and dump the corpse in the house there. (This causes assorted mental images, including Slappy trying to shut the door on this great, big, armored tail poking out...)
• ID/sell all loot, and restock, then proceed to-

Orc Cave 10:

• Boring. I find a shaft down and bypass it until I find a stair down.

Orc Cave 11 / superb feeling:

• Landed in a vertical oval room with a bunch of monsters, including a big clump of Manes. Kobolds, hippogryph, that sort of thing. Clean them out and notice Piety is at -327.
• I'm using the staves to look for traps, doors, stairs etc. I blunder into a room full of novice paladins, novice priests, and jackals. Darn it. Afraid, I start to run for the stairs down when I remember I'm carrying that junkart. I use it and wade back in.
• WHOA. Certes, Manwe does not like priest-killing. Piety now -1387!
• The superb feeling comes from an Orc Pit: Snotlings, Hill Orcs, Black Orcs, Half-Orcs, Uruks and Elite Uruks. That's the good part. The bad part is that my pack is full, and that there's some sort of borer around, as the backside of the pit is holed and they're coming out that way, too. I don't use any particular tactics, just wade in. Main things I notice are that: a) Once again, I'm getting confused (not that it matters), b) I'm dodging magical attacks (first time I've seen this message), and c) I'm taking very little damage. By the time I'm done, my Piety is -895.
• I wander a bit more, run into some Noice Mindcrafters, and get the 'afraid' thing again. My pack's full, so I WOR out.

Bree:

• I stop in to see what's at the BM (nothing) and sell my haul. Best: A ring of prot +9, a mouse fur, and an everburning torch. Yahoo. I head back to-

Lothlorien:

• Well lookee there. The Black Market has a Holy Tome of Manwe and a Feanorian Lamp. I steal both successfully, somewhat to my surprise. The lamp has radius 3 light, one better than the dwarven lantern.
• I put 2 skill points each into Magic Device and Disarming, bring each of them up to or over 5.000. 45 left.
• I notice I now am up to 4 blows per round, and have SOMEHOW acquired Extra Max Blow (1). I know I didn't buy that. Must be a monk thing. Do I get (2) later??
• Uncurse kit (both rings got it), restock.
• I unhappily swap the Ring of Invisibility for the Ring of Resist Fear.

• Stat check: 4 blows/round, damage/round 8-288, normal/fast gives me +9 speed (remember I've got that xbow w/ +4 speed) with superb fighting & bows, fair save and fair stealth. +15 to-hit and to-dam. 103072 AU, Pt still rots at -911.

Recall-

Orc Cave 11 / excellent:

• Bunch of wolves. See my first Firebird (Blue) and find my first Rod Tip (Acid Balls). Firebird helps a little and then dies to an undead mass before I leave the room. Wander a little, find a stair and go down-

Orc Cave 12 / good:

• Find a fountain of Cure Serious Insanity and drain it for 8 potions.
• Huh, that's unusual: two Green Firebirds in the same room.
• I run into Flying Skulls for the first time.
• I enter one of those open rooms (one Firebird is already gone) to find clusters of Novice Mindcrafters and Novice Mages, Hill orcs, a Baby Blue Dragon, Large Kobold Shaman, hand a spattering of other things. The remaining Firebird lasts a surprising time, then dies. I don't have too much trouble except for the darn Mages, who keep blinding me. I get confused a time or two as well.

• I'm rooting through the booty when I suddenly realize that a cap in my pack has pseudo-ID'd as {special}! It IDs as the Hard Leather Cap of Curindor [2,+5]. Probably a randart.

• Wander/kill a bit more, and go down stairs to-

Orc Cave 13 / very good:

• My pack is almost full. I've been destroying anything {average}, by the way.
• Sigh. I *MUST* remember not to kill the priest types. My Piety's down to -2055. Argh!!! I see a Priest (most have been novices, this one is not) and take stairs down to-

Orc Cave 14 / strangely lucky:

• I find a junkart and a fountain of CCW (and of slowness & resist heat).

• I'd been intending to WOR out first thing (my pack is full) but I just keep going. Run into a pack of Hill Orcs w/ a Hill Orc Shaman, then another similar pack. Then a stack of Snagas with a Snaga Captain.
• Bunch of booty, I end up destroying an empty Staff of Reveal Ways to take a Wand of Manathrust [3|16], etc.
• Then a pack of Cave Orcs. Then a pack of Brown Yeeks. What is this?!? I'm not complaining, there's just a lot of monsters around. They aren't coming from a pit, either.
• I round the corner, and the explanation rapidly becomes clear. Standing side by side in a coridor are Orfax, Son of Boldor *and* Vort the Kobold Queen, plus escorts.
• Just to be helpful, Orfax summons more escorts, including a shaman and an archer, then blinks away.
• Luckily I'm standing right next to Vort, so I ignore the others and beat on her. 5 blows kill her.
• Something out of view summons help - it may be Orfax come back. I take a few steps... yup, it's him. My first double-kick stuns him, and two more blows kill him. That was easy. Then I turn around and chew up the escort. Nothing interesting in the drops, just a few good items.
• Find stairs down-

Orc Cave 15 / strangely lucky:

• Land in a hollow '+'-shaped room filled with black orcs. Kill them, find a stair down-

Orc Cave 16 / very good:

• Land in once of those large, oddly shaped rooms the Orc Caves have, it's fairly empty. I go after undead masses/etc for the piety (it's up to -1534), find aother stair down -

Orc Cave 17 / You hear the sounds of a market:

• RAH! Coolness. I wander about and... huh, this is odd. There are stores right in the corridor. You have to enter the shop to keep going down the corridor. Must be something about room generation in the Orc Caves?
• The RNG hates me. The first shop I run into is a Dragon Hunter store, with all sorts of Dragon Scale Mail. Let's see: Black, Blue, White, Red, Green, Pseudo, Law, Bronze and Gold. None of which I can wear.
• I continue along this weird corridor. Next shop is a Footwear Shop. Fortunately, no BOS to torment me.
• Darnit, I just killed a Priest. Must remember....
• I walk right into Boldor, King of the Yeeks. Kill him, pick up a couple weapons I'll ID later (I'm out of ID scrolls) and turn the corner and
• Walk smack into Bullroarer the Hobbit! I'm about to decide if I should destroy any of my inventory to pick up his drop, when I see some Forest Trolls for the first time. I move out of the corridor and into one of those big open areas.
• There's a lot more Forest Trolls and Black Orcs too (w/ shamans etc), and right in the middle of them is Brodda, the Easterling. What *IS* this place, party central?!?
• I kill Brodda easily, then something hits me, blinds me, confuses me, and drains experience (twice) as well! It's still hitting me, so I drink a CCW and see a Spectral Baby green dragon. Sheeze. Fortunately it's only a baby one and I kill it easily enough, but I am now very, very paranoid....
• I go back, poking through the mess - there's now booty spread over a huge area. Underneath the corpse of a Forest Troll, I find an Expensive Black Market. Sadly, there's nothing in there I want. Well, wait. There is a ring of rconf. [Edit: Which I forget to try to steal because of what next happens.]
• I finish cleanup, and go looking for more stores. And who do I run into but Mughash, the Kobold Lord. Did I say sheesh already?? Once done with him, I find a Long Bow (x5), that should be a keeper.
• A bit more searching turns up a Common Shop. I buy a few CCW (don't need them, but all these uniques have me paranoid.)
• Next up: a Master Archer shop. Nothing I want though. That's the last of them. I WOR out - that way when I come back down, I can check the EBM again.

Lothlorien:

• The booty: I sell a few Slay items. Cuidor turns out to be rfire, rlight, rdark & rnexus. I stash it though I doubt I'll ever use it. The junkart activates for Summon Pet. How cool is that?? The recharge probably makes it not worth it; I stash it, too.

• The bow Mughash dropped is a Long Bow of Lothlorien (x5) (+11,+16) (+2) -- the second one I've ever seen. It has +2 dex, FA, SI, extra might firing and blessed. I might have to take off my artifact bow 'Hirth' and wield this thing for the SI! Rghhh.... +4 speed, STR, DEX, WIS & INT vs. SI. I keep Hirth for now, but I'll definitely grab this other bow for future Manwe quests, if I haven't found anything better by then.

• More annoying, there's no potions of restore life in town, and I'm about 1000xp down. Oh well. I go to recharge my staves at the Wizards Spire. My Staff of Sense Hidden gets consumed by wild magic.

• Restock & WOR back down-

Orc Cave 17 / Town:

• I land in a corridor with some orcs, then wander along trying to refind the Black Market. This is SUCH an odd town; I wonder how much of its structure has been preserved. Usually towns are buildings in a big rectangular open area. Not so, here.
• I find a fountain and realize I forgot to get more bottles, oops.
• Well, the RNG still hates me. This time the Footwear Store does have Boots of Speed (only +5). My spreadsheet tells me wearing boots will cost me 10-11 AC (I'm not sure how it rounds), and the boots are [2,+8].
• I continue to explore, still mulling those boots. I'm about to report that the whole map is AFAICT exactly the same as last time, but without all the uniques this time, when I run into Ufthak of Cirith Ungol plus all his little friends in a room. I wade in and kill him, then realize I'm getting beaten up; I'm totally surrounded. I switch to berserker/running and back out until I'm in the corridor leading to the room. Then use the pedo mellon a minno inscription and sit back to.... what? They're crossing it! What gives? Well, fine. I'm at 159/244 hitpoints (and -3767 piety, how did *THAT* happen? ). I quaff some CCW and kill the rest. This piety thing is really starting to irritate me. I should have stuck with Eru after all
• The Expensive Black Market has nothing good. I go back to the Footwear Shop, try to steal the boots of speed, fail, and get locked out. In disgust, I go down a level to-

Orc Cave 18 / good:

• Energy hounds. I'm still set on berserker/running, so I make short work of them and lose no hp. Then I make a fool of myself running aorund trying to hit a &@#$ brown bat.

• Next room is very full of hill & black orcs - no uniques that I saw, though. I kill them off, then discover that in the OTHER half of the rather large room, white worm masses have been breeding. I pick up a large wooden chest and beat it, closing the door after me.

• Thinking I'm heading to safety, I open another door and am confronted by a fairly large group of Fire & Light Hounds, and beyond them, a stack of snotlings. Oh bother. I power through the Hounds, then it turns out the snotlings are hiding a shaman, who confuses me, but it doesn't matter. I find a second chest, and open both. I fail to disarm either one, but fortunately no major damage.

• I destroy all but {excellent} items, find a stair and go down to-

Orc Cave 19 / luck turning:

Land in a room with a novice paladin (note: don't kill it!!!), a pile of black orcs and assorted other foo. I kill off all the orcs etc, but the one novice paladin turns to be at least 13 novice paladins, and they are mobbing me. I walk carefully around them, trying to grab an un-ID'd rod tip I've seen. I'm down to 99/244 hp. I read a scroll of Teleportation for the first time and start to rest up...and MORE novice paladins attack me. Agh! I read a WOR and a Teleport, in that order.... the tport takes me straight back to the first batch of novice paladins. (Did I mention the RNG hates me?) I manage to get to a corridor and run down it (causing a rude demise to some creeping gold coins, which I literally ran over), and in the process get yanked back up to-

Lothlorien:

• First of all CCW since the @#$ coins poisoned me. Then healed up. That wasn't (quite) a close call, but it was irritating.
• The haul: Wands of Manathrust, Ice Storm, Dig and Charm, yet aother Everburning Torch, an Elemental Beaked Axe, a Spectral Club of Slay Dragon, a Short Bow of Accuracy, and a Rod tip of Door/Stair Location. Sell = All but manathrust. (I'd keep the charm, but it's low level.) Oh yes, and I found a scroll of remove curse, which I read to good effect.
• Slappy celebrates surviving her recent adventures with 25 Pints of Fine Ale, and gets some more empty bottles to take with. Restock other items.

---

I correct my skills spreadsheet *AGAIN* (thanks, Vagabond!) and experiment a little. The weight of my inventory really doesn't matter all that much. However, it turns out that while the 1.0 lb cloak doesn't make a big difference to armor class, it makes an ENORMOUS difference to Dodging. With the cloak, the dodge change for a melee attack by a L30 monster is (if I've got this right) 71.44%. Without the cloak, it's 91.44%.

The cloak comes off (bye-bye 8 pts of stealth) and just so I can't change my mind later, I destroy it. Slappy is now completely armorless (and, I suppose, a Nudist Abbess of Pain. ) I notice that when I took off an AC 9 cloak, my AC only dropped 3 points from 100 to 97.

Spot check: AC 97, 138740 AU, -3413 Piety (sigh), 4 blows/round, 8-288 dam/round, 244 hitpoints. Currently in my pack: junkart of remove fear/cure poison, 42 CCW, 5 scrolls of teleportation, 4 WOR, 40 ID, 10 satisfy hunger, a Wand of Manathrust [3|15] (13 charges) and 25 empty bottles. I have rbase, rfear, levitate, and (intrinsic) FA & rlight.

-WOR down to-

Orc Cave 19 / luck turning:

• I land in the middle of what seems to be a destroyed area with a bunch of Ogres, Ogrillons, and some Clear Hounds. I go after the hounds as the Ogres seem to be napping, and after killing a number of them, I notice in the distance a bright yellow 'h' which turns out to be Nar, the Dwarf.
• Nar is napping and lets me creep right up next to him. I change to berserker/running, and let him have it. In 12 blows, he's dead. I've missed him a few times. He never hit me at all - he missed a few times, and I dodged 3 times. He drops a corpse, and I pick it up (it's less than 200 lbs.)
• I go after the Ogrillons and kill a number of them. Then a Tengu sneaks up behind me and teleports me away to a smallish, oddshaped room filled with.. let's see... 38 Ogres, Black Ogres and Ogrillons. There's priests and archers in the mix. (Gee, I wonder if killing ogre priests upsets Manwe? I'm really getting tired of him!) I'm completely surrounded, and fight my way off to a corridor to keep the bulk of them coming at me one at a time. I polish them off, then a mini-horde of snagas and novice warriors comes at me from the other end of the corridor.
• I stop to destroy all {cursed} and {average} loot. I've been starting to destroy all {good} loot, too, lately (well, except for boots!), so take that as given from now on.
• I explore, killing more assorted orc-types - and the first golem I've seen, a Clay golem - but all I want is the stairs down. Soon I find them-

Orc Cave 20 / superb:

• I double-check the dungeon spoiler. IIRC, the next level is Deathwatch and I'll want to stock up for that, so mental note: WOR out, don't take stairs yet!
• I land in a corridor and run into Air hounds, who promptly poison me down to 150/244 while I'm killing them. A couple of CCWs later, I'm all better. Then I see a Priest. Rgghh. I hate Manwe. I try to evade him, but he moves towards me, curses me and a black cloud settles over me. I kill him, and two steps later I trigger an Earthquake trap. I shortly thereafter find the stairs down. I think about trying to find the source of the 'superb' but I'm impatient, so I WOR back up-

Lothlorien:

• Sell booty: 30 Arrows of Acid (for a tidy 35670 AU ), a bunch of good armor, and the Weaponsmith shop fills up. I destroy the rest.
• Steal a Potion of Dex from the Black Market. Then buy a Sprig of Athelas, so as not to push my luck. I try to keep at least one Sprig in every town.
• Stocking up for Deathwatch: I swap my Ring of Levitation for Ring of Invisibility. Pick up 2 Mushrooms of unhealth, 6 Potions of Speed which I hope not to use, scrolls of magic mapping and trap detection, and I find components to make a cheap rod of door/stair location. (Yes, overkill, but I don't have that many scrolls of mapping. I'll save those for when I want to see where I am quickly.) Plus basic restock, though more CCW than usual: 51. I've only done this quest once or twice, since my older characters didn't realize what they are missing. Those chars who did the quest fought VERY differently from this Monk, so I'm really not sure how much she's going to get beat up.
• On my way back from the Alchemist I walk over the "fountain" area and get the "You are drowning!" message. Mental note: You're not wearing that Levitation ring anymore, dummy!
• I *WISH* I had a Potion of Enlightenment (I've kept an eye out for them), but I don't, and I'm not going to waste days scumming the Black Markets for one. I've got magic mapping, and I remember more or less where the Artifacts are. OK, here we go-

==== Orc Cave 20 / good (the level above Deathwatch): =====

• I land in a room with 29 cave and half-orcs including a captain, shamans and archers, 6 air hounds, 10 energy hounds, and assorted other critters. I hate hounds. This is going to hurt. I have to say that this 'visible monsters' list is a wonderful thing. I've only just started using it the last week or so and I'm a total convert.
• I start wading into the energy hounds. The air hounds are on the other side of cave orcs from me, so they are helpfully killing off some of the orcs, and in fact some of the air hounds, too.
• Ack! I'm down to 72/244. I don't have rpoison. I quaff a CCW, do a 180 back towards the air hounds - what a dummy I am - quaff 2 more (112/257), and...-

CL28

• Dump 1 pt to barehand, 2 to dodging
• ...shoot one air hound, trip a Lightning Bolt trap (ouch!) and kill the last, getting poisoned again in the process. Whew. 82/257.
• Meanwhile, the Cave orc Shamans have figured out where I am despite my invisibility, and are gleefully casting magic missile me. I've been even more gleefully dodging them - I don't think a single one has hit.

The archers are just plain missing me. Oops, the shaman finally gets lucky and confuses me. I quaff 6 CCWs and look around. Everyone's milling all over because I'm invisible.

• I start hunting down the remaining and trip another trap. Then miskey and accidentally quaff a potion of speed instead of CCW. Argh. (At this rate I'm going to HAVE to recall before Deathwatch, if only to replenish my CCWs.)
• Ho, I find another Potion of Speed in the booty as I'm cleaning up! Then I trip another trap. Slappy is now an "It". Figures. Then a Blink Dog (what?! Oh, it came down a corridor) teleports me a short way. I kill it and go back.
• What next happens is a bit confusing, but basically the slain Blink Dog was somewhat revenged, because his 25 packmates proceed to play with me like a pingpong ball, plopping me down randomly around orcs and manes/undead. I finally kill them all, get back to the room I was TRYING to clear, clear it, and as I'm cleaning up, I step on a Fire Ball Trap. Thank goodness I have rfire, but I'm still back down to 95/257 hp. Ouch. I rest. One more attempt to get the treasure sitting on the trap (via disarming, of course) trips it again and I desist. I burn a scroll of trap detection to make sure the next trap doesn't kill me. That was the last trap. Figures.
• Well, darn it. I should have just teleported out of this room and gone on down to Deathwatch, but Deathwatch has big clusters too (though fortunately no hounds!!!) and I was curious how hard I could push Slappy. I could *probably* go on, but I want to be sure I've enough CCWs. WOR-

Lothlorien:

Of course, this means I now *have* to go Overland, as I bought every CCW in Lothlorien before going down the last time. Very grumpily, I head to Minas Anor for the first time.

Minas Anor:

There is zilch here except for 8 CCWs, a staff of sense hidden, and a quest I receive that I'm not going to be doing any time soon. On my way back to Lothlorien, I receive my first fate.

Lothlorien:

• This is just not my day. It's a Death Fate. Fortunately it's for DL18, which I have just passed, so maybe it's not such a bad day as all that -- though I'll have to be wary in the Old Forest and Mirkwood, both of which contain that level.
• I'm happy now. I have 57 CCW, and I pick up 8 scrolls of blessing for luck. This is probably way overkill, but that last room was a bit scary and I really don't want to lose this character. I'm carrying a lot of stuff (118% of capacity) but I'm not slowed, and experimenting with my spreadsheet has shown me that total inventory weight doesn't impact Dodging *too* badly. Plus I can easily afford to destroy most of what I don't use. WOR down-

Orc Cave 20 / good:

• Alright, this time I'm not messing around. I land amidst a semi-destroyed room (if you know what I mean) with a pile of orcs. I zap my cute little wooden rod of door/stair location, don't see any stairs down, pick a random direction and plow through. (And see another Blink Dog. Ugh.) Light hounds, more orc types.
• Ahah, there's a stair. On the way toward it, *more* orcs. I wonder if there's another unique around. A fountain: turns out to be Resistance. I drain it. I'm getting mobbed by Phantom Warriors, Light Hounds (ha - I have intrinsic rlight), Rotting Corpses and Snotlings, but I haven't lost any hp.
• I reach the stair, set my tactics/expore to normal/normal - I want the stealth - and-

Deathwatch:

• This level looks filled with evilness. Whee!
• I don't remember, do you always enter Deathwatch in the same place? I think so.. Anyway, I'm in a tiny little room. Magic Mapping shows me small adjacent rooms and a path leading towards something that IIRC is a large open area (mapping radius doesn't go that far.) I kill a few assorted snagas and find a fortune cookie. On a whim, I eat it. It says: "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!" I take this as a good omen
• Yup, there's that open area. How spoily should I be? Well, we're in the spoilers section. I'm not going to tell you where the artifacts are, though! But this open area, there's a lot of snagas, orcs, uruks etc that are more or less evenly spaced out. I duck back out and continue up a corridor, on the left hand side of the map, kill a a few more critters including a skeleton sn