View source for Majang's Gargoyle Wizard of Vehumet Diary

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Having been removed from the facade of Cologne Cathedral (where I was quite a success), I was left without a chance of gaining any popularity in the upper world. I decided to take my chances downstairs. I think that I am particularly well equipped for life in the dungeons: I know I can hit hard (and take even more in return without flinching), I am reasonably intelligent, I am oblivious to all kinds of poison, I can touch a life wire without getting too nervous, and the dark forces affect me less than others. All I am lacking is experience, but when I manage to survive long enough, I know I can make my way down here and succeed. There are tales of untold riches, but also untold dangers and horrors that await those who enter the dungeons. Well, I intend to add myself as the ultimate horror for the monsters who already are living down there. They won’t live much longer!

==Dungeon 1==
This first level may be the most difficult of them all, as I am still woefully weak. I need to grab a weapon, fast. And I need to decide what skills I need to train first. I have some very rudimentary magic skills, but not enough to survive long down here. I focus all my attention on training my spellcasting, and my abysmal conjuration skills.

I find myself in a small room with a closed door. Opening this, I am met by a goblin and an armed kobold. The goblin rolls over after three hits by my magic dart, but the kobold pursues me with his dagger, and my darts don’t seem to hurt him. Fortunately, we are not interrupted by other monsters while I pillar-dance my mana back up. I take the knife of this fallen hero, but I’d rather have a different weapon. There, I find a goblin with a wooden club, and after our meeting, he doesn’t appear to need the club anymore. “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. 

This first level is quite big, and I get plenty of opportunity to kill goblins and kobolds. I end up on XL 3, almost half way into XL 4, and that, after all, is a pretty good start. Going a level down, I already know Conjure Flame (CF), Mephitic Cloud (MC) and Repel Missiles (RM). My magic dart has increased in power to ##, but that is still rather unimpressive.

==Dungeon 2-3==
On Dungeon 2 I find an altar to Yredelmnul, but he is not my kind of deity. Let others dabble with those dark forces! The level is characterized by lots of wet patches, and just a few monsters. My XL doesn’t even go up to 5. Dungeon 3 at least provides me with a pair of gloves, and a quarterstaff, which is the weapons category I intend to train for my foray into the deep. But I won’t switch that on before my magic dart hits 4#, and that is still a long way to go.
I find an altar for Trog, guarded by two orcs, a kobold, and, worse, two eyes of draining. I need to get the troops away from these eyes, or I will never bring them down. The kobold at least has seen me, and dies quickly, but the next one round the corner is one of the eyes. I pay my respects and retreat. Maybe later.

Another altar, this time to Dithmenos. He has nothing to give to a high-level caster, so I leave him to his dark pursuits. But there I also find a +4 ring of intelligence, and that is highly appreciated. My magic dart jumps up to 3#, but that is still not quite enough for me to feel comfortable down here. Elyvilon, too, has opened shop on this level, but I am not going for a good god (at least not this time). And finally I find an altar to Makhleb – this place almost looks like the Ecumenical Temple, but as usual minus the deity I am looking for. Another shot at the Trog area brings both orcs into my path, without any eyes around. With them out of the way, the eyes are clear to feel the force of my staff, and go to wherever eyes go when they are snuffed out forever.

==Dungeon 4-5==
I reach level 4 severely undernourished, and have to dig into my choko that I’ve picked up elsewhere. Sounds much better than it tastes, but it patches up my gargoyle stomach somewhat, at least for a while. The downstairs take me straight to a jewelery shop, but the merchandize isn’t too exciting, and I am out of funds anyway. Who needs an Amulet of Faith? I certainly don’t; they usually are not worth the trouble.

I’m checking all my scrolls, hoping for a map, but reveal teleportation, blink, enchant armor and fear instead. I guess I have to find the Temple the hard and tedious way. I’m apparently lucky, though; the entrance is just around the next corner! I just have to fight my way past an ogre, a bat, an ant and a skeleton. I prevail. Did I say lucky? The Temple has altars to most of the remaining Gods, but not to Vehumet! No, I will not worship Sif Muna, give me Vehumet! Ok, I’m only on Dungeon 4 so far, so I guess I can afford to be more patient.

I leave a few things behind and return back to the dungeon. There an orc awaits me with a wand of fire bolt, nearly killing me. I get him first, but am pursued by a pack of jackals. When I return, another orc has picked up the wand, again hurting me badly. I retreat upstairs, and this wand is still at large. I don’t like this. I return, and this time I manage to confuse the orc before he zaps me. I pick up the wand – it has been zapped six times (I certainly felt that), and I’m sure that it is now rather drained. Too bad. Having access to bolt of fire this early in the game would be awesome. I find another wand and use it on a goblin who conveniently lingers in the area. He ends up being confused, and presently reveals that he wears a “sheer robe”, getting me slobbering. Of course it is cursed, has a -4 enchantment, and only gives me +4 DEX. I have to waste a scroll of remove curse on this junk.

Another altar to Dithmenos. Where is Vehumet??? My hope rests now on dungeon 5. I pick up a morningstar of protection from a slain orc, which will do me well for a while – I’m still rather low on AC. Getting down the stairs, I encounter my first orc priest. These guys can really hurt me, so I try to get him with MC fast, although he is surrounded by the rest of his cool orc gang. He takes the bait and ends up confused; I manage to get a few clear shots at him and he dies. I have taken some damage on my own, so I back up the stairs for a while. Now my magic dart is at 4#, and this means it is time to diversify my skills: I select fighting, staves, armor, dodging, and evocations, and keep spellcasting (focused), conjurations, fire and air selected. This sounds like I’m spreading it awfully thin; all skills receive now 10%, except for spellcasting, which gets double. Most of these skills, however, have a good aptitude, and I will let some of them grow only for a short time. Although I train staves now, I will continue to use my morningstar of protection – to train staves, I don’t actually have to wield one all the time, I only need to have it in my pack. 

I return to Dungeon 5 to kill the monsters I left behind, but this attracts Edmund, of whom I have the highest respect. He has killed me already several times, and now it is my turn to pay him back. He walks into my MC, and his resulting confusion leaves me enough time to smash him senseless. This single victory already brought all of my new skills up to 0.4! Ok, there was an unlucky orc succumbing to collateral damage, tainting the statistics a little.

This is a wide and open level, full of orcs, and full of potions and scrolls, which I collect devotedly. Now an altar of Cheibriados. I am tempted, he is a great god for casters and fighters alike, with his amazing stat boosts. But of course he has his downsides, too, and I really want Vehumet this time. There he is! His altar isn’t even made inaccessible by lava or some fire traps. He quickly finds me a devoted worshiper, and discovering him on Dungeon five isn’t actually too shabby. Find him much earlier, and he may not know which spell schools you prefer. I begin my devotion with a long prayer: Please leave me alone with earth, cold and poison spells, just give me Air Strike, Sticky Flame, Fireball, Bolt of Fire, Firestorm, and Tornado. Keep the rest. Ok, Orb of Destruction would also be appreciated! Has he heard me? Vehumet doesn’t seem to be too impressed by the religious kinds like me.

==Dungeon 6-10==
Now, with my first quest behind me, I will just plough through the next few levels, collecting goodies, and waiting for the entrance to the lair of beasts. My mana pool is now at 20, which should be enough for most situations, and I am at XL 8, with 25 intelligence (thanks to my ring) and 15 AC (thanks to my mace of protection). MC is still at 12% failure rate, but the other spells are already below 10 %, even without any support by Vehumet.

My favorite way to dispose of enemies is to create a fire column in a corridor, and then hit the monsters behind it with Mephitic Cloud. Some of them will always walk right into the burner, and while they are getting fried, I always give them one over the head for good measure. This works for all living creatures. Undead walk into the flames even without being confused, making my job easier. Only demons (at this stage only the imp-class) won’t be fooled by that. For them it is a generous application of magic dart and morningstar.

Vehumet’s first gift is sting. I had hoped for flame tongue. Maybe next time. But from now on Vehumet’s mana recovery on killing foes works for me, and that is nice to know!

Dungeon 7 has quite a reception committee waiting for me: three killer bees, an ogre, an iguana, four gnolls, a centaur, a few orcs and even a yak skeleton. I must be getting closer to the lair. I retreat upstairs and only manage to kill one orc. I’d better try another set of stairs. That works much better; I get a solid foothold on the level and explore carefully from there. There is lots of opposition here, and it takes me a while to clear it out. 

Vehumet obviously did not hear my prayers. His next gift is sandblast. Yes, I know that I have a great aptitude for earth magic. I just don’t feel like going that way right now, ok?

Still on dungeon 7, Crazy Yiuf is having a go at me. That late in the game he does not stand a chance and gets incinerated in my flame trap. Now I’m having his wonderful quarterstaff of chaos, enchanted +4,+2. Time to drop my morningstar, although it brings my AC down to 11. Unfortunately, Yiuf’s cloak isn’t such a hot item, just a plain cloak. 

Level 8 announces the presence of the Ossuary. I have a few scrolls not identified, and one of them indeed is magic mapping. I’m always a little bit apprehensive about going into the Ossuary – I have died there more often than I care to remember. But let’s go, I need that experience! On the way, I get my next Vehugift: Throw frost. Hello?

The Ossuary is the tedious, but harmless layout with connected rooms full of needle and dart traps, which lead around the map to a treasure room that you can see right next to the entrance. I couldn’t care less about these needles, and the few zombies in the rooms also don’t present much of a problem. Halfway around Vehumet gifts me static discharge. He seems to be slowly getting it, although I will leave this spell untouched, too. The treasure vault is guarded by two mummies, which are annoying mostly because of their death curses. The treasure consists of scrolls and potions, some of which are not yet identified.

In fact, I have only a few potions identified so far, and I have 9 scrolls of identification. Time to spend some of those. The first scroll gives me three shots – great, and it finds haste, brilliance and might. Confusion and degeneration are filtered out by the next two scrolls, and the next one finds invisibility and berserk rage. I hope I will never have to use that berserk shake. Two of my new scrolls improve Yiuf’s quarterstaff to a whopping +5,+3! And I still have four scrolls of identification left over. Time to move on.

Gadget shops are now better equipped than in previous versions, but I’m still somewhat broke, and leave that one alone. Next door I find my first spell book – of course a book of ice. Still angry, I smash both Prince Ribbit and Eustachio to bits, within ten moves. They just had the bad luck of showing up at the wrong spot at the wrong time. But this brings me my third Vehumet star, and that reduces the failure rate of my conjurations to 1% across the board. Time for me to get access to some spells with a little bit more mmph! I’m ready for them.

On dungeon 9 I find a book of air. I am tempted to learn the lightning bolt, but I better wait to see what Vehumet has on offer. His spells are slowly getting more high-level, and I want to be ready when something really juicy comes up. I also identify two potions of heal wounds, and that makes me feel much better.

A fellow gargoyle shows up – and it hurts me quite badly with its stone arrow. Gargoyles are good at earth magic, I know. I see what’s left in my bolt-of-fire wand, and it gives me still enough shots to bring this feller down. Another kill or two, and Vehumet grants me fireball – at last! It is still at 5% failure rate, and only has measly 5# spell power. I guess I am paying a price for my broad skill training, but that will change soon enough. Fighting and armor are already above 4, and they will be switched off at 6.

Dungeon 10 announces the Bailey, and a scroll of magic mapping also reveals that this level contains the entrance to the Lair. The Bailey is the symmetrical fortress with four slightly connected main rooms, full of goblins, kobolds and gnolls heavily armed with tomahawks of returning and halberds of electrocution. MC makes them merrily kill each other; I just have to throw in a flame trap here and there. But there is also an orc knight lurking, and he is not very impressed by my mephitic cloud, and doesn’t mind standing in my columns of flame that I conjure up for him. But even he bows to the inevitable. I collect my loot (a few potions), and leave this mess for others to clean up.

The potions were in fact quite nice: two potions of magic, and two of beneficial mutation. I quaff those right away, ending up with the ability to spit poison, and with two extra dexterity and some stealth. I had hoped for something more exciting, such as clarity, but this is better than nothing.

Back at level 10 I break a sweat by fending off lots of significant threats: Erolcha, Sonja, another gargoyle, packs of wights, a pack of life yaks, and even my first hill giant. I retreat to the upper level for a while. I do feel the effects of training too broadly: my fireball does not pack the punch it could. I decide to switch off my armor training at 5.5. If I find a mottled dragon armor soon, that should be enough. I’m still running around in my first +0 robe, there just wasn’t anything better yet. Another ring of +3 INT reduces the hunger cost and failure rate of fireball, but the spell power is glued at 5#.  I do find my first magic staff, though, a staff of energy. That may come in handy sometimes, and it will give me a weak one-handed stave should I find my first buckler. I have explored the level now, but that hill giant is still at large. Ok, he can wait, and I will be better prepared when I return for him from the Lair.

==The Lair==
It is time I’m getting here, as my pack is starting to get somewhat heavy. But right down the stairs some  pretty bad company shows up: a komodo dragon (fortunately not as much of a threat to me as for other characters), a big crowd of green rats, and a mimic. I need to retreat upstairs again, hoping that that hill giant doesn’t show up right now. He doesn’t. But the next trip down almost kills me: the mimic and the komodo are still there, and follow me upstairs, between them bringing my health down to almost zero. I quaff a potion of healing and blink away. It takes quite some effort to kill that mimic. The next trip down and up reveals one of the weird sides of Yiuf’s staff: I hit a frog with it, and the lair staircase on which I am standing trades places, so that it is now under the frog. In dire straits that could deprive you of your escape route.

Down in the Lair I find a lajatang, enchanted +2,+2. That is slightly more powerful than Yiuf’s staff, and entirely without side-effects. But I should keep it away from hydras! Vehumet’s next gift is delayed fireball, which is entirely welcome. I learn it right away, but at 82 % failure rate it may be a while before I actually cast it. Lair 1 is surprisingly small, but it has all three downstairs. Can there be another invisible area? Without wasting a scroll of mapping I won’t find out.

On Lair 2 I find a necromancer’s den, who seems to specialize on simulacra. All of them eat fireball, and that takes care of the situation. The spell is now at 6#, and you can feel the difference. Fighting has reached 6 now, and I switch it off, to pour even more experience into my vital casting skills.
 
A basilisk shows up, trying in vain to petrify me. Another reason to play this game as a gargoyle.

I establish a stash on Lair 2, and ferry the few things over that I left behind in the Temple. I’m now out of scrolls of identify, and I have this amulet that I don’t dare to wear without identifying it. 

Lair 3 has a big anthill, but these critters are susceptible to poison, which makes them prime targets for MC.

A snort announces the presence of the Labyrinth entry on Lair 4. I am out of maps, so I have to trust my luck to find it in time before it closes. It works, the entrance being just around the corner in the direction in which I decided to run. I’m in, but will I find the way out? I’d better put on my ring of sustenance for a while. There seems to be more stuff lying around than usual, but also a few more monsters. I have to take care of some trap-door spiders, then two wandering mushrooms show up, and a shadow disappearing out of sight. I try on an unidentified ring, and presto, the shadow becomes visible again – I have a ring of see invisible! But this place is crawling with life: Two earth elementals show up, and I have nothing that comes even close to destroying them. That means I have to shake them, which is easier said than done in a labyrinth. Let’s hope they won’t be too close when I find the minotaur and the exit. Now there is also a hungry ghost, which is the last thing you want to find in a labyrinth. It gets me to gobble down a bread after I’m done with it. Well, I found the exit and the treasure, but where is Mino? He is nowhere to be seen, at least not near the treasure he is supposed to guard. That never happened to me in a labyrinth. I’d like to collect his experience. Well, he is lurking around the corner, hitting me across my conjured flame with his enchanted halberd. But he cannot withstand me, and I take my loot and move out of the Labyrinth.

One of the most useful finds in the Labyrinth is the Book of Fire. A staff of summoning, too, but I have never used one, ever, and I won’t do it in this game. I also found a ring of dexterity down there, and my first pair of plain boots. Also a medium shield, but I need to start out with a buckler. Well, I learn Bolt of Fire, which is already down to a 9% failure rate. 

Lair 4 has a staff of power lying around, and that is another useful find, bringing my mana up to 45. Otherwise I’m just bashing and burning things, leaving behind lots of animal corpses. Now that more and more ‘big’ wands are coming in, I can tell my automatic pickup settings to ignore the puny wands, such as magic dart, confusion, flame and frost. Why carry those around, when in doubt you are using a wand of fire anyway? My next book-find is Cantrips, but I won’t waste any spell slots on those before it is clear what Vehumet has on offer next. Currently he is trying to tempt me with Bolt of Draining, but I am not interested. In terms of favor, I am around five stars with Vehumet for quite some time now, which means that I have all his abilities, and won’t ever lose them again.

Another scroll of identify discloses that my unidentified amulet has guardian spirit. Not really what I want or need. I wish I had the amulet of faith identified somehow, so that I can identify all other amulets by just trying them out.

On Lair 5, Fannar makes his appearance without noticing me, while I am low on energy. I retreat, drop my potions and rest a little. When I find him again, he doesn’t even have time to use his refrigeration on me, which is good, since I don’t have any cold resistance. But that changes now: I can finally shed my worn-out and much-mended robe of the first minute for Fannar’s rC++ robe. He also dropped a quarterstaff of freezing, and I may use that against hydras, if I have to. I think it will slow them down.

I’ve been carrying this artifact ring around with me for quite some time, which I could only partly identify by wearing it. A scroll now identifies it as having N+, +2 INT and -3 AC. There may be times when I can afford this AC loss, and then this could be a good ring to use in dark places. With the amulet of warding, that I also found lying around, I can now get up to N+++ if the need arises. Now is also the time to charge my first delayed fireball. At 45% failure rate it works at the first attempt. I guess the next time will be a lot less risky.

Both entrances to the Lair branches are on level 6, the Spider Nest and the Swamp, whose entrance is guarded by a flock of insubstantial wisps. These things do have a very substantial punch, and they are quite difficult fry for a fire elementalist, so I have to get out my lajatang to whittle them down. I wish I had Airstrike! Later I get simultaneously attacked by a large pack of yaks and a bunch of killer bees. But fireball and bolt of fire, together with Vehumet’s mana recovery, take care of that onslaught, without me even breaking a sweat. I find the bee-hive from where these bees originated, still well populated. The reaction of killer-bees to MC is rather entertaining. My lucky find of this level is a staff of wizardry, which will unlock the high-end spells a few levels earlier than otherwise. But it’s time I find my most coveted staff, the staff of fire, which by now (I have fire magic at 8, evocations at 7, and staves at 8) would be a formidable weapon, on top of boosting my best spells. By the way, dodging has reached 6, so I am switching it off for a while to spend this experience on my magic skills. I am also for now happy with my staves skill. I will bring it up a few more levels later on. That leaves me training only spellcasting (focused, and now at 10), conjurations (almost 9), fire, air (at 6) and evocations, which I want to get up to 10 before switching it off for a long time. I hope that this concentration of skill training will get me speedy access to the more interesting spells.

I read-identify a scroll of immolation. I quickly put those into my auto-pickup settings as they are most useful for a long-range caster. I have used them earlier with spectacular effect in the orcish mines and even in Vaults 5. They are actually a lot more useful than the corresponding inner-flame spell, which only affects one character at a time (and its neighbors).

Lair 7 greets me with a pack of death yaks. I manage to kill three before slipping up again. I’d better look for another set of downstairs. Vehumet now offers me Ball Lightning. I don’t know this spell, but I guess for a gargoyle (I’m about to get my large wings to fly permanently) the use of it shouldn’t be too risky. I give it a try and learn it. Let’s see what it does to those death yaks! Indeed, I get hit most of the time by the ball lightnings, but it doesn’t affect me at all. But also the death yak I isolated takes it quite well. In the end I finish it off with bolt of fire. I try it again on a five-headed hydra, and that one collapses after the first application of ball lightning. I’m beginning to like that spell! The secret seems to be to stay in an open area.

After clearing Lair 7 I am only one or two kills away from permanent flight, but I need to go up to Lair 2 to relieve myself. It will be nice to attack Lair 8 with shiny new wings! Indeed, just after getting down the stairs to level 8, Snorg attacks me and has the dubious honor of getting me my wings. I flap them excitedly, and go back into attacking the other beasts who don’t appreciate my airborne presence. This Lair ending is the one with the canine enclosure. It also has the entrance to the Slime Pit, but otherwise not much is happening here. I was hoping for the dragon ending, which might net me a mottled dragon skin, but it is not to be. I shouldn’t complain, though: the bears and dogs are guarding a helmet of see invisible; on top of allowing me to get rid of my ridiculous useless hat (why on earth didn’t I throw it away right at the beginning?), it will free up my rings to use intelligence boosters only – I now have a total of +7, which brings me up to 30 at level 14. There is still a lot more to come my way!

Back at my stash at Lair 2 I take stock. I have now all the important wands, except healing: fire, fire ball, cold, disintegration, and teleportation. I have some potions of healing and curing, and a good number of various useful scrolls, which I mostly leave in my stash. I’m still a bit underdeveloped in terms of armor, but my AC is already up at 20. I crave a buckler, to start training shields, and I am still waiting for my air or fire elemental staff. Maybe someone sells it to me in the orcish mines? Time to find those and clear them out! Interesting, though: something seems to be pleasantly wrong about my Repel Missiles spell. I remember the last time I cast it, I must have been in the dungeon before entering the Lair for the first time. The Lair is done now, but my RM is still on! Either the software is buggy, or the mechanics of that spell have been dramatically altered, maybe counting the number of hits before it expires.

==Dungeon 11-12==
On my way out of the Lair, I forgot to check on the hill giant that is still lurking on level 10 of the dungeon. No matter, I find another one on 11, and he doesn’t present any problems to me at this stage. I also dispose of Maurice, who upgrades my cloak to +2, but without any branding. Still a nice addition. Otherwise the level is unremarkable, except that it allows me to kill a mottled dragon, and this one leaves behind a hide! I snatch it and return to my stash to turn it into my coveted armor. I use my second scroll of enchant armor to bring it up to +1, but I need more of those scrolls, so that not any acid-slinging hobo renders it useless. I now have AC 26, and a GDR of 42%! Watch out, orcs, I’m coming for you!

First, of course, I have to clear out Dungeon 12. I can feel that the difficulty is really stepping up down here. No matter, I find the entrance to the orcish mines, as expected. Vehumet offers me poisonous cloud, but no, thanks. He is impressed with me now, having me at six stars.

I notice that an unidentified scroll is sitting in a teleport trap in lair 7. Could that be a scroll of acquirement? Time to learn apportation. I get it, and it is a scroll of acquirement! I order a staff, of course, and what do I get? A second staff of wizardry! I thought this software is intelligent enough to know that I have one already in my stash? Where is a unique when you need one? I really would enjoy beating up Wiglaf right now, but he is nowhere to be seen. Honestly, I doubt whether I could handle him yet.

Well, I count my losses, identify a ring of protection from fire, a potion of mutation and a potion of lignification, and disgustedly make my way to the orcs, this time for real.

==Orcs==
Well, Blork the Orc awaits me at the entrance, but he picked a bad time to play with me. He should have come much earlier. An orc wizard manages to confuse me, but for that contingency I have my potions of curing, which I don’t need much otherwise.

Each of the level 1 and level 2 places only has one staircase up and one staircase down, so I have to do a lot of level-hopping to clear everything out. All higher places are accessible through level 3, though, and that means I can finish all levels before entering Orc 4. Vehumet’s mana restauration now works wonderfully. My Staff of Power bringing me above 50 mana points, I don’t need to rest at all between fights. Level 3 also contains the entrance to the Elven Halls. Later.

Vehumet’s final gifts: Firestorm, Glaciate and Tornado. Right! Now I just need to get up to these levels, and wreak havoc. But I probably won’t get to try out the new glaciate spell. We’ll see.

It is a bad day for the orcs of the mines. After completing my killing spree on the upper levels, I enter Orc 4. I already loaded myself up with almost a 1000 gold pieces in the mines, but I’m sure there is a lot more stashed away on that level. Here I am to collect! In desperation the orcs throw everything against me, but my fireballs tear through their ranks. The four shops on the level contain mostly jewelery, even good stuff, like resist mutation, sustain abilities, conservation. It is good to know that I can find these here when their time comes, but I hope that I can save the money and find them lying around somewhere before I enter the vaults. One thing I buy right away: The artifact Ring of the Mage, with Wiz, MR++ and +3 INT. This will replace nicely the plain +3 INT ring I am wearing right now. That money is well invested. This immediately brings my firestorm failure rate down to an encouraging 97%. That’s a start! But I am particularly happy about the MR++, as I was pretty vulnerable until now.

Since I’m down here already, and quite hungry, and not really loaded yet, I decide to pay a visit to the elves. I hope they don’t mind.

==Elves 1-2==
Of course I will not enter the final elf level for now – I am not suicidal! But the upper level guys may have some nice loot lying around. I should at least be able to find a buckler down here! Well, at least not on the first level. I do find a treasure trove, but it wants me to sacrifice 18 scrolls of identify. I own two right now, so that is a long way to go.

Level 2 is just as devoid of bucklers as level 1. That never happened before – usually you can play Frisbee with all the bucklers on these levels, and now not a single one? Rupert tries to explain, but I have trouble making sense of his yelling, and I shut him up with a volley of ball lightnings. It works. Donald is more helpful, donates a +0 shield of reflection to me. Just for fun I try it on, and the effects are not too devastating on my spellcasting. Fireball remains at 1%, bolt of fire goes up to 4%, and ball lightning up to 6%. I find that acceptable, keep the shield on and start training! This is a good time to do so, as evocations has just passed the threshold of 10, and I can switch it off for now. I have another lucky find of a scroll of acquirement, but I will bring it down to my stash before using it. My business wit orcs and elves is concluded for now. Back to the lair!

==Swamp 1-4==
This time I pick up all the staves I have in my possession before reading the scroll, but I get tricked again: I don’t get a staff at all, but a rod of destruction, which technically is not a staff at all, but a mace/flail. I feel cheated. Ok, it is a +7 rod, but with only 10 charges, and when you evoke it, you don’t even know what comes out. Most likely you are going to attack a fire giant with a fire bolt. Just great. Can someone please send Norris my way? I need to bash another head.

My best chances of finding him right now are in one of the Lair branches. I start out with the Swamp, but first I am going to learn Ignite Poison, which might come in handy down there. It still has a failure rate of 13%, because I’m not going to train transmutations. But a few levels of shields should bring the success rate up considerably.

The first two levels of the Swamp are easily cleared, although I still have problems dealing with insubstantial wisps. With my shield the lajatang is now useless, so I can’t bash the wisps, and it takes a couple of fireballs to bring one down. My shields skill is now at 3, and that already is enough to get all my spells, including ignite poison, below a 5% failure rate. Sometime recently my fire/conjuration spells have also gained another notch in spell power, to 7#.

The next two levels also provide not much in the way of change from the tedious swamp routine. This time I did not meet a single unique in the Swamp. This of course may change when I return to do the final level.

==Spider Nest 1-4==
At least I come home with a full pack – lots of wands, potions and scrolls, and also a Book of Tempests. I am now up to 7 scrolls of identify, but I need to ID two new potions and an amulet. Hey, I’m lucky: One scroll does it all, and I reveal potions of dexterity, of flight (not too useful for me at this stage), and an amulet of stasis.

Good, I clear my pockets and rush off to the spiders. Here my biggest worries are demonic crawlers. They are very fire resistant, and I need an awful lot of ignite poison to wrestle them down. All the spiders instead quickly curl up in the corner, and provide a nice fire trap for the next critter stupid enough to walk that way.

My dragon armor is now enchanted to +3, and my total AC is above 30 – that feels good! Add to that my 18 shields, and I am well protected. But now I find a nice artifact ring mail, +4, with +3 each to INT and STR. I am tempted... I’d need a few more armor levels to eliminate the penalties, and I also quite like my sticky flame resistance. Hmm, I put it to my pack and decide later.

All goes well with clearing out the levels. I’m almost done with the third level when I stumble into Mara. Looking over my options, I just don’t see anything that can kill him fast enough. I try a bolt of fire, but in no time at all Mara has cloned himself a couple of times, and then me. That is too much for me right now. I pay my respects and teleport myself to a safe place. Better safe than sorry. For now I retreat to my stash, ID an amulet of resist corrosion and a scroll of torment, drop off the surplus, and return to Mara’s level. But I hope to avoid him and go straight for level 4. The way things are arranged in the Spider Nest, I should be getting away with this. But I can’t really face Mara before I have Orb of Destruction, and neither book nor Vehumet made that one available to me so far.

Ok, I avoid Mara, but just to bump into Asterion on the same level. I have not met this chap before, but he looks dangerous. Maybe he will be killed by a few ball lightnings, but I don’t know that for sure. Again I back off and try a different staircase. This is rather difficult! Just to underline that fact, on my way to the staircase I see (thanks to my helmet of see invisible!) a ghost moth. Ball lightning indeed does it some harm, and I finish it off with a fireball. Onwards!

Well, I get down towards level 4 of the spider nest, and there is nothing there to write home about. I clear it and retreat back through level 3, again avoiding the two uniques who I believe will kill me if I get too close. But I will come back, if I live long enough!

Ok, back to my stash, and taking stock. My spellcasting is now at 15, my conjurations at 13, and my fire magic at 12. Even air magic is now in the double digits, but obviously, the road to success is a bit longer here. My shields skill is still below 7, and that keeps firestorm at an impossible 98 % failure rate. A potion of brilliance could get it down somewhat, but I do need to accept that my time as annihilator has not yet come.

==Dungeon 13-15==
This means that I have to get back to the bread and butter of the regular dungeon. I should be ready for most threats now, with see invisible, high AC, decent SH, and the ability to run if I need to. But I still don’t have a decent melee weapon, and that is rather suboptimal.

Dungeon 13 announces the presence of an ice cave. Too bad that I left my cold resistance robe in the lair. I don’t dare to run for it, so I have to manage without. Looking for the entrance, I meet Nergalle, and I waste a lot of fireballs on her before I notice that she has cast Death’s Door. Stupid. I don’t really have time to wait that out. So I read my map scroll and teleport away. Not bad, I’m not too far away from the ice area. It is guarded by troops of white imps, but they line up nicely so I can hit six at once with a fireball. There are kobold reinforcements, however, including a demonologist. They die quickly, but I need to hurry up before Nergalle sniffs my trail. I drop all of my potions before going in, That may not be a wise move, but I hate seeing my valuable shakes popping in the cold, and I have to make a firm commitment to come up if the situation looks only slightly dangerous. Ok, down we go. I wish I had a wand of healing.

My reception is handled by a crowd of yaks, wolfs and bears. They don’t stand a chance, but there seem to be unlimited reinforcements! I hope they stop before my mana dries up. They do, and after turning a corner, there is an ice statue. I throw fireball at it, and it responds with freezing cloud. I win, but that is why I left the potions upstairs. More animals, and finally a room full of them, led by a frost giant. That will be interesting, I’m not sure I can handle this feller. The exit is now far away. A few blasts of fire bolt bring him down, before he even hurls anything at me. Phew! The giant guarded a treasure vault full of freezing-brand weapons and some gold. The path takes a turn around the level, crossing the river, which I explore up and down without finding anything. When the path approaches the entry-area,  I get greeted by a potion of beneficial mutation. It beckons at me, but it is guarded by more animals and who knows what. With them out of the way, I carefully approach: In fact, there are two BM potions, and before anyone shatters them I down them right on the spot. I get the first level of molten scales (+1 AC), and the wild magic mutation. I quite like that, as it jumps my fire conjurations straight up to 8#, without any spell enhancers. But it also means that I have to wait quite a bit longer before I get firestorm castable. I also find a potion of healing, and one of resistance, so those should help to get me out of here alive. Well, no more opposition, and I find the entry/exit area from the other direction.

Back up in the dungeon, I will need to keep looking for Nergalle. But I can’t find her in this maze of rooms. While fighting a flock of ugly things, I level up to 18. That almost feels like coming of age! There she is! This time, I hit Nergalle first with MC, so she gets confused and can’t cast anything. Two balls of fire (now improved!) silence her and her black magic for good.

Level 14 has another reception committee waiting: lots of wights, augmented by a single spore. This spore explodes after a little encouragement on my part, and all the wights go down with it. That was a cheap victory! But shortly thereafter a brainworm gets a clear shot at me, and bites off three of my 33 INT. I make it pay dearly for this, but the damage is done! The level contains the entrance to the Vaults, and in its center there is a big vault area. The closer you get to the inner circles, the more dangerous the opponents are. Another ice giant, for example! But even worse is the fire giant that follows him. I don’t have much at my disposal to get a fire giant down, and I throw ball lightning after ball lightning his way. Most of their damage actually seems to affect me, and I have to pop a few potions of healing to survive. But slowly the giant succumbs to his wounds. An elvish offender throws a sticky flame my way, but my mottled dragon armor (by now enchanted to +4) shrugs it off. The treasure down here consists of a Book of Unlife, and a Book of Necromancy. Both of them are not my line of work. I offload those and other stuff (but not my newly found artifact amulet of clarity and for me useless electricity resistance) at my stash in the lair, and go back to work.

Dungeon 15 is themed around necromancy and cold, which means that I hardly find any food. I find myself doing rather dangerous stuff, such as butchering up and eating an orc corpse while a skeletal warrior and a manticore zombie are beating me up from two sides, just to avoid using up my permafood savings. I guess I can do this because of my good defenses. I hate these shadow imps. You have just killed a scrumptious polar bear, and before you get to butchering it, they turn it into an inedible zombie, which you have to kill (kill?) again, without getting any nutrition out of that exercise.

So, I’ve done it – I completed the whole dungeon, all of the Lair and the Orcs, and all of Elves and the two side branches, minus the final levels (and, er, a small problem area on Spiders 3). Add to that the Labyrinth, the Ossuary, the Bailey, the Ice Cave, and you would get the impression that I should have had plenty of opportunity to find loot and to equip myself with the finest weapons, garb myself with the best armor. But what do I have to show for myself, after clearing out a total of 39 levels? I’m still running around in shabby plain boots (enchanted +1), plain gloves (again enchanted +1, while ID-ing my first scroll of enchant armor) and an utterly boring cloak (this one at least enchanted +2). Usually by this time I have to choose between several branded or artifact boots or gloves, but there wasn’t anything at all yet. The only better armor items I have are my +0 helmet of see invisible, my +4 mottled dragon armor, and my +0 shield of reflection. The last two items I had to fight for, and this shield of reflection is symptomatic for the game so far: Even after clearing out the two harmless Elven Hall levels, I had not found a single buckler, which forced me to go for that heavy shield to start training the shields skill; not an ideal situation for a caster. As an aside, I did find a “shiny buckler” on Spiders 4, which turned out to be a cursed +0 plain thing. This measly preservative is the only buckler the game generated so far. I chose to continue with my shield of reflection, as the penalties by now are not that heavy. And would you believe that I have cleared out the orcs without finding a single enchanted leather armor?  The same in other categories: My stash has 10 spell books, all the game produced so far, and I am dangerously low on spells effective against dangerous uniques. Usually I have at least three sources of orb of destruction by this time, and more books of flame than I can burn to forget the obsolete spells. I’m still without Sticky Flame, and if I’d find it now, I wouldn’t probably bother to learn it. My biggest complaint, however, is about a weapon. My whole strategy centered around finding either a staff of fire or a staff of air, which would both give me a very nice melee option against most opponents. Usually you find them lying around by the time you have cleared the lair. I didn’t. I tried a scroll of acquirement twice to remedy this, and got cheated twice. Since I’m wearing a shield, my initial quarterstaff and lajatang options are now useless to me, and I am flailing around ineffectively with +5,+5 weapons without any mmph to them.

Now I have the choice to either dive deeper into the Depths, or to clear out the side branch endings. I’m not sure I am ready to do either. The Depths are brutal, and I wouldn’t survive long without better spells and equipment. I may find some of those in the branch endings, so I will have to try my luck there. A rune will also give me access to the Vaults, and at least the early Vault levels are somewhat better in survivability than anything the Depths throw at me. If I’m more lucky than up to now, I may also find a few more scrolls of ID; I have stashed 10 so far, and can buy three more, but I need 18 to enter the treasure trove.
==Swamp 5==
So it is going to be the Swamp first. My insertion point must be very close to the vault, because before I can get my bearings I am attacked by wave after wave of hydras, swamp dragons, thorn hunters, and other stuff. The cracks of my ball lightnings attract ever more customers, but this spell is now wonderfully efficient for killing groups of attackers. If only it wouldn’t hurt me so badly in the process, in spite of my genetic resistance and my ability to fly! I can tell that my best spells are now at 8# power – fireball for example gives me a lot of one-shot kills, even on tough enemies. A spriggan druid leaves behind a ring, but I can’t ID it, and I don’t want to waste a scroll on something which probably only grants poison resistance. I can now see a whole in the shrubbery through which more and more bad guys slip towards me. The vault must be right behind there. For now I will explore in the other directions and take the vault last. But that is easier said than done – I am in a dead end, with the vault guarding the exit. I’d better take a different staircase down.

These shambling mangroves are pretty nasty. They should burn a lot better than they do, and once you are done with them you need to remember to flap your wings again, because with their root thingy they nail you firmly to the ground. Now, the level outside the vault does not provide much in the way of treasure, just one spell book, Beasts. Aargh. I don’t think I ever learned a spell from that one. And I won’t do it this time.

So let’s have a look inside the vault. There can’t be too many monsters left in there, after all that already crawled out to get me in the beginning. No, they are all gone and dead. And the loot? The rune, of course (one down, 14 more to go), all of 28 gold pieces, and a plain battle axe. I did not find a single scroll of ID on the level.

==Spider 5==
I now have officially been granted access to the Vaults, but there may be some useful treasure in the Spider vault that I want to grab first. Before I do that, however, I trade my trusty dragon armor for my artifact ring mail, which grants me 3 extra intelligence and strength. I don’t expect to find anything throwing sticky flame at me in the Spiders Nest, so I appreciate the stat boosts. Now I sneak my way past Asterion and Mara to the final level of the critters.

Spider 5 is a good place to sacrifice a map scroll, so that I don’t stumble inadvertently into dangerous places. My insertion point is in the outer periphery, so I can explore slowly approaching the vault, which appears to be a huge circular area in the southeast of the map. I’m sure it is brimming with ghost moths, emperor scorpions and demonic crawlers. The secret here is to isolate the strong opponents and to wrestle them down one by one. And I haven’t met Arachne yet, so I need to expect her beautiful presence on this level. Too bad I have to kill her.

Now, here is an amazing find: A manual of maces and flails. Together with the cross-training bonus from staves, it adds a whopping +8 bonus to an already respectable +1 aptitude. Since I’m really out of a decent melee weapon, I would be stupid not to use this opportunity. I’m still carrying around that rod of destruction, so I can start training right away. Maybe I can return to my morningstar of protection when I am back to the lair. That should do a lot more damage than the staff of power that I am using now. And I believe to have seen that Asterion and possibly even Mara were carrying a demon whip. So once I tackle them I should have an appropriate weapon for a character such as me. The price, of course, is that it will take longer to get my big spells online. Fire storm is now at 89% failure rate, and I need it way down from there.

The area outside the vault is explored quickly. Now I’m going in. I don’t think I have ever been killed on Spider 5, but this shouldn’t be the time to have this experience. All access is hampered by spiderweb traps – I invest some time to clear them away, so I have unobstructed escape routes to the nearest stairs when I need them (and I guess I will need them). There is also lots of water here, but since I can fly, this water is my friend. I take the southern way around the circular center structure first, encountering mostly spiders, including orb spiders. They don’t live long enough to throw anything at me. Almost half way round, I see the first ghost moth. The second fireball brings it down, but some of my mana got drained. Ignite poison is helpful here, because it kills everything poisonous in sight, and my fireballs have stirred up some spiders. But before my mana is back to full, an emperor scorpion spots me. Time to use my escape routes! He awaits me back at the foot of the stairs, and indeed I need six ignite poison spells to burn him up from the inside! I did not have those 30 mana points when I escaped upstairs, so that rest was really crucial. Just round the corner another emperor shows up. For him I don’t need to retreat, but he is followed by so many smaller critters that I spend all my mana. Another temporary rest upstairs.

It takes me quite a while before I return to the place where I killed that first ghost moth. On the way there I encounter four more emperor scorpions, various yellow and red wasps, a boring beetle, a moth of wrath, and lots of lesser spiders. They were all stirred up by those two fireballs I threw at the ghost moth. I can now see the entrance to the inner vault, but I backtrack, so that I can clear out the northern approach first. I don’t like to have enemies showing up behind me when I enter the vault. Doing this I first pick up an unidentified scroll (either brand weapon, enchant weapon III, or summoning), and then have to kill another ghost moth, now needing four fire balls. I can also admire the handiwork of that boring beetle I killed earlier. The second moth didn’t have as much support as the first one, so the northern approach to the vault entrance is clear. Inside there is only one more ghost moth. It manages to get my mana down to nothing with still lots of hit points to kill. I have to use my wand of fire to do that, which works quite well. Treasure: three lumps of ambrosia, a plain scale mail, a potion of healing and a phial of floods. Spiders are cheapskates.

As a result of gaining the second rune, my maces/flails skill is now almost at 6, but my firestorm is still at 85% failure. Should I dare to tackle Asterion on my way back? I want his whip! I can try my balls of lightning to get him down. I’ll try!

There he is, napping very close to the place where I last saw Mara. That is a bit dangerous, to say the least, considering the noise created by my lightning balls. But the way back to the upstairs is clear, so I think I can risk it. I need to take a step closer to get him into range for my wake-up call, a fireball, but he wakes up without it. Ouch, he knows sticky flame, and I’m not wearing my dragon armor! Stupid! I quickly drop the unidentified scroll and hit him with my fireball, which he takes very hard, so there is hope. I unleash my lightning balls, but a demonic crawler gets in the way, making sure that mostly I get hit by the six balls running loose. I need to kill that crawler with a bolt of fire. This fight is not going well. Asti now has his spectral weapon up, which could be an advantage because my second volley of balls will be hitting both him and the weapon. It works, he collapses while I still have three balls in the air. I’m lucky – Asti’s sticky flame only destroyed a scroll of remove curse. 

I get his whip with apportation, which is a +3,+2 demon whip of draining. A good enchantment, but I don’t like draining. If this unidentified scroll is a branding scroll, it may change that to something more useful. But where is that scroll now – I cant’t see it. Asti collapsed right on top of it, so I have to use apportation to remove all his debris from my scroll. That contains a glowing shield and a scroll of teleportation. I even have time to chop up his minotaur body without Mara turning the corner. I decide to linger, heal up and see how far I can explore without getting into trouble. The shield, by the way, is a +1 shield of cold resistance. That will come in handy if I ever survive to explore Cocytus. 

I think I have surveyed almost everything when I meet Mara again. I make it back to the stairs, with him on my heels, but still at a save range. He has cloned himself, and I will try my barrage of ball lightnings again. They could bring down the real Mara and his cloned minions. I check: He is not resistant to electricity! I send two volleys into the air, but one Mara blinks towards me. This one gets hit, and another one, but the third Mara is sitting on the fence out of range. I will watch this for a little while. The two Maras take significant damage, but the third one (I guess the real one) clones me and gets nearer. He is also taking damage, but throws fire at me, which nearly kills me. I pop a few potions of healing while I watch the two Maras die. Obviously, they were both fake, because Mara 3 is still at large and approaching. Four of my balls are still in the air. No wait, only one of them is mine, and the rest was sent by my clone to get me! Too bad, but I’m out of here. Maybe I can kill Mara, but the risk is too great. And in any case, he is wielding a demon blade, so I have nothing to gain from killing him but the experience. Later. 

I make it upstairs with 38 of my 103 health, so that was a pretty close shave. But I have tackled Asterion for the first time, and that is a nice success. He even gave me two useful pieces of equipment. But what next? Back at the stash, I first try out the new scroll; summoning of course, and now all kinds of merry little forest friends are hopping all around me. Let me state this only once, for all the DCSS developers to hear: I HATE SUMMONING! PLAYING THAT WAY IS TEDIOUS AND BORING. PLEASE LEAVE SERIOUS PLAYERS ALONE WITH ALL THINGS THAT CREATE ANY KIND OF ALLIES THAT GET IN THE WAY WHEN YOU WANT TO KILL ENEMIES! So, having yelled that I feel much better. But the new friends are not phased by my outburst, they keep hopping all over my stash, blocking my sight from the things that I have lying here.

I use four scrolls of enchant weapon II and three of EW I to get my new whip up to +5,+5, making it immune to acidic corrosion. I only have one EW I and one EW II dud in that process, which isn’t bad. My maces skill is now at 6.5, so almost as high as my staves skill. Things will become much slower when it reaches there, but I will switch it off anyway as soon as the manual has spent itself.

I’m not ready for the Depths. My foray into the branch ends also did not add to my ID scrolls, so the treasure trove is still out of reach for me. That leaves only the Vaults. At least I should find some useful loot there, if I survive long enough. If I really survive, my current 82% failure rate with firestorm should go down quickly, and with potions of brilliance I will be able to cast it at least on second try soonish.

==Vaults 1-4==
On my way down I go shopping in Orc 4 – I now want my Amulet of Resist Mutation, in case I get banished to the Abyss. And all those yaktaurs firing icy and fiery bolts at me I want to counter by having an Amulet of Conservation.

Entering the Vaults, I am determined to not mess around. If I see an enemy, I will use firebolt for a fast kill. Food won’t be much of a problem down here, so I can always retreat and recover when my mana gets low. That works quite well on the first level. An ironheart preserver drops a large shield, but that is still way too early for me. Another scroll of acquirement. Should I dare? For now I will just take it with me. But there is also another unidentified scroll. It turns my demon whip of draining into a whip of flaming. Nice! But all my options are now quite biased towards fire, which isn’t good when I meet another fire giant.

A skirmish with a band of orcs brings me up to level 20. I now have an AC of 36 and 22 SH. Even better, firestorm is now down to 75% failure. I will keep an eye on that number!

With the first level clear, I return to Lair 2 to drop off the loot. I also grab all my staffs and give the scroll of acquirement a third try for a useful elemental staff. Out comes a rod of shadows. I have no idea what that is, but the description makes it clear that this is a summoning device. Just great! Next time I will just ask for money, because even if I go for a book it will be a book of summoning. Disgustedly I throw this thing into a deep pool (thanks for nothing!) and return back to work on Vaults 2.

After some exploration I get attacked by hordes of undead. Their source is the entrance to the Crypt. I now enjoy the sight of more and more monsters getting struck by their own missiles, thanks to Donald’s Shield of Reflection. A book is lying around! Guess what, summoning! Aaargh! Almost done with the level, I see the entrance to a Bazaar. I don’t recall that this was announced when I entered. What do you know, I find a book of power there! I have Orb of Destruction! I also see a potion of Cure Mutation, for quite a steep price, but I think I can’t let this one go. I’d hate to let go of my current good mutations, but that time will inevitably come. I also find an artifact pair of gloves, which turns out to be +0 with resistance to electricity. 240 gold is quite a steep price for a piece of junk. A runed demon whip has the pain brand. I might branch out into Necromancy much later, so I keep it. It appears that bazaars are no longer timed – that would be a nice change!

My firestorm is now at 65 %. Soon! I may want to learn it after the next level. Now it is time for the orb! It is already at 1% failure rate, so I can use it at will. That may be the time to pay my final visit to Mara! So it happens. I rush to Spider 3, and find Mara where I left him last time. But he is not stupid. After taking my first orb, he splits up, leaving me to guess the target. That means I have to resort to ball lightnings again. Next move he clones me, and that starts a spectacular exchange of ball lightnings. But this is good for me and bad for Mara, as all three Maras get badly hit this time, while me and my clone barely take a scratch. Well, Mara manages to fire off a bolt of fire on me, and that hurts. I decide to retreat upstairs, but the last message I see announces Mara’s demise, and the disappearance of my helpful clone in a puff of smoke. I heal up and return to investigate – indeed, his robe and demon blade form a heap at exactly the same spot where I killed Asterion. That ends my quest in the Spider Nest, and I return to the Vaults via Lair 2.

Descending into Vaults 3 the first foe I see is Mennas accompanied by two napping vampire mosquitoes. What puts these vile creatures in his holy presence? And now they are going to join forces to attack me! I try a fireball on him to see what it accomplishes: Nothing! So I jump back up the stairs and kill one of the mosquitoes which managed to follow me. I return to my stash and grab potions of might and agility; with those, I should be able to whip him down if I meet him again. If I’m lucky I may also hit him at least once with an orb before he silences me. I take down a different staircase to Mennas’ level, which places me quite far away from him. I find my second fire giant, but this time I get him down quickly with my ball lightning.

Next I see Sojobo, who puts me into a freezing cloud. The two turns I stay in there almost kill me, so I blink towards safety and pop a potion of healing. Sojobo is still in that room, but badly injured. I need to take him down fast before he heals. Well, he does me the favor to come out himself and try a bolt of lightning on me. Has he not read my Crawl-Wiki page? I’m resistant to electricity, you idiot! He dies finding that out. But I’m pretty close to death, too, being followed by an ironheart preserver. I want to make it to the stairs, but my way is blocked by a stone giant. Boy, I just cleared this area ten minutes ago – how does he get here? Being pressed from two sides, I read a scroll of teleportation, hoping that it will get me to a safe place. Phew, I land in a big empty room in an already explored area, right next to a wizard. He is a challenge I can handle, and so I find my safe house to rest up. The stone giant finds me anyway (maybe it is another one?) but now we are not in a corridor, and I kill him with two orbs. He does not leave behind any chunks, which is bad, because I am famished. 

I explore further, kill more bad guys, until I see the halo of Mennas showing through a door. I am now far away from the stairs, so I can’t outrun him. The terrain is favorable for shooting one, maybe two orbs at him. I drink a potion of agility, and there he is. My first orb hits, but then the other mosquito appears out of nowhere and takes the second orb. Now silence engulfs me. I have time for drinking a potion of might and a potion of speed. My demon whip gets his health down fast, but he heals up a bit, and he gets help from a yaktaur captain and a vault sentinel. Mennas dies, but his friends are in melee range and beating me up. No problem, with my buffs I have them down in no time at all. With Mennas killed another serious threat is out of the way. And he gave me lots of experience. Firestorm is now at 54%! I clear the rest of the level, have a short trip to my stash, and then learn the big one, now at 52%. If I need it, can use a potion of brilliance, and then the party can begin!

I’m running through Vaults 4 for ages, without seeing any monster. That is always a bad sign, because it means they will all meet me at once. One vault door puts me right next to a self-propelled vampiric battle axe. I find no better way to deal with it than to sacrifice a scroll of blinking, before grounding it with an orb. Now I am out of blink scrolls. Not surprisingly, behind that vault is the entrance to the Hall of Blades. I won’t go in there for a while. Snooping around further, I find a place with a scroll of identify and a scroll of enchant armor, which finally gets my dragon armor to indestructible +5. A scroll shop sells me another three ID scrolls. Now I’m missing only one to get access to the treasure vault! I can get that from an orc shop, and maybe that is my best course of action for now. As usual, the treasure trove loot is not half as exciting as you dream it up to be. There is some money, a +3 cloak that lets me fly (aargh!) and adds +4 to my dexterity, and an artifact amulet that I bravely try on – well, not bad. It adds +2 to my intelligence, another +4 to my dexterity, and is a gourmand source! Two runed morning stars, a phial of floods and a crystal ball of energy. I run a little bit through the Lair in search for snacks to bring my satiation up, but that is quite difficult. On Lair 5 I finally butcher up a herd of sheep, and that does it. Back to Vaults 4!

This is a dangerous place now, as I feared it would be. I encounter an ice giant and a fire giant, backed up by an ironheart preserver. That ice giant gets my HP down in no time at all, and I have to do three things simultaneously: drink healing shakes, fight that giant, and kill that preserver. The preserver goes first, and I manage to lure that ice giant out of its corridor. He eats orb, and so does his fire friend, but at first I thought this would be it for me. I return to that place, and another fire giant shows up. His first fire bolt reduces me to a third of my HP, and I am in a corridor, where I have no chance whatsoever to hit him with my orb. I read another teleport scroll, but land in a room with a fire dragon. He reduces my HP even further before succumbing to orb. Then a fire crab shows up and gets me down to 5 HP, and zero potions of healing. I kill it, but I’m shaken. I need to get back to my stash to get more potions; more of those close encounters, and I’ve had it. On return to Vault 4, I kill that fire giant by luring him out of that corridor and orbing him. That concludes my exploration of Vault 4. Vault 5 is still beyond my pay-grade (I want to have a good command of Tornado before going in there), and that means that I now have to brave the depths. Firestorm is at 43% failure, my intelligence at 34, AC at 38, and SH at 24. My magic skills have grown only slowly, with spellcasting now at 18, conjurations at 16 and fire magic at 15. Air magic has not even reached 13 yet. In any case, I am still alive at XL 21, and no-one has banished me to the Abyss yet.

==Depths 1-3==
The Depths have an elaborate entrance area, which means that the stairs out will be hard to reach when I need them. I will take this very slow. Indeed, I have barely ventured out when Norris shows up. Now I should be ready for him, and the terrain allows me to use orb against him. But it is a lot more difficult than that. He knows phase shift or something like that, and avoids most of my orbs. At the same time, a deep troll earth mage blasts away at me with LRD, and I can’t stand that. Norris finally rolls over, and the earth mage, too, but four plain flavor deep trolls are now hot on my heels. Well, I make it to the stairs. It continues like that – high concentrations of yaks, death yaks, yaktaurs, deep trolls, earth mages – it just never stops! And I have barely seen the first three rooms of the level. The depths are brutal! Next a balrug, but at least he drops a +2,+5 demon whip of freezing. That is a nice addition to my collection! The balrug guarded an entrance to hell, and there I find another staff, which turns out to be a staff of conjurations. Not quite what I am looking for, but it will make my spells more powerful.

Exploring Depths 1 brought me up to XL 22, and Firestorm is now at 32% failure. I’m nearly there, but it is also high time. I’m in desperate need of fire and cold resistance, but I don’t want to drop my rings of intelligence, as that would get my success rates down again. My maces and flails skill is now above 13, which will give me minimum delay for my demon whips even if I am moderately drained. The manual is still active (bringing me all the way from zero), but I drop it for now at the stash and switch off training maces and flails. I need every point of experience for my high-end spells (but that includes bringing my shields skill up to 15 to avoid spellcasting penalties – I’m now at 13).

Level 2 of the Depths takes me to an enclosed area full of hard-ball monsters, which I can luckily fight from the stairs. I learn that I can bring a fire giant down with a few orbs from melee range. But I need to look for another staircase to find the rest of the level. The second staircase brings me to a similar layout, which is actually arranged parallel to the first insertion area. I guess the third staircase will get me to the area around these two enclosures, which is bad, because once again I will have just one staircase for a large area. Indeed, that’s how it goes. Descending the third set of stairs I have my first encounter with liches, two of them, backed up by a fire giant (they become something like a staple for me now). I decide to adjust my tactics a little bit – whenever I see an enemy, I will retreat a room or two, so that I don’t take on too many at a time. And it is always good to know where those stairs are. Outside of the two enclosures the level is fairly open – perfect territory for using orbs, and I use a lot of them. There is plenty of experience to get down here, and I make XL 23 halfway through, making my firestorm a little bit more reliable. I haven’t used it yet, but only because of lack of opportunity. The hunger cost for my orb is still very high. I need to switch to my gourmand amulet more often than I want to, which already cost me a potion of healing, because I had no conservation to protect it from an ice attack.

Depth 3 begins for me in a forest, right next to an entrance to the Abyss. When I now see a monster, I start a forest fire right next to it, which should delay the reinforcements. I guess this level is a surrogate for the Enchanted Forest which eventually did not make it to the final release of 0.14. Will I also meet the Enchantress? She might have a fancy armor for me. I open a door to a little structure and see three spriggans spread out somewhat around an altar of Trog. Now this is the opportunity I needed! But my first attempt at firestorm fails. My second one works, and the little forest friends get incinerated. I’m sure Trog appreciated that. Next time I will use a potion first. I see another concentration of spriggans and drink the brilliance shake, which brings my failure rate down to 16%. Firestorm works at once, and my mana doesn’t even go down a single point, which means I must have hit quite a crowd between the trees. I now use my staff of energy, to eliminate the hunger cost. Tornado, by the way, is not too far off with 42% failure, when under the influence of brilliance.

After burning my way through the forest I get to an area where there are lots of high-level spriggans coming out of the woodwork, dropping demon whips and quickblades. I must be getting closer to the capital of this place. The demon whip is a flame-brand, but with lesser enchantments than my own. The quickblade is plain, but +3,+8 – an excellent weapon, which could be improved by a scroll of branding, but not in my line of training. I let it pass. There it is, a stone structure with a high-elf priest coming out, followed by a frost giant. The elf is throwing hellfire at me – ouch! Good that I wear my mottled dragon armor, and good that I can kill this guy fast, together with his frosty friend. Time for a tactical retreat, because more monsters are now pouring out of that structure. One of them is the Enchantress herself. I quaff another brain booster and hit her with firestorm. I follow it up with an orb, but she just blocks it. Two more firestorms finish her off. I’d love to investigate her faerie dragon armor, but her fall has stirred up lots of hell knights and more high-end spriggans, coming at me from all directions. The hell knights only respond to orb or my whip of freezing. Beating off this onslaught takes quite a while. Eventually I go to investigate. The faerie dragon armor is nice! It is enchanted +7, gives fire resistance and +3 accuracy. It also recurses itself, but I don’t envision much changing. I’ll keep it! But otherwise the loot here is pitiful, not at all like what I’ve seen in other spriggan environments or enchanted forests. The best thing of all is a potion of restore abilities, and that says it all. 

It takes quite a while to clear the level, even after the Enchantress’s defeat. Depths 4 then takes me back to the usual rocky environment, and the usual onslaught of endless waves of high-level monsters. But now, with firestorm on my side, I have much better odds of prevailing. And I try to stay close to the stairs. I run there again when Jorgrun crosses my path. I’d better tackle him rested, considering his repertoire of earth magic spells. Indeed, he shatters me twice, but doesn’t outlive my second firestorm (now at 13% without brilliance). Next, a bone dragon attacks me, and I find it very difficult to hurt him. He instead is reducing my health with alarming speed. I’m sure he would crumble under Tornado, so I need to get this going soon. From now on there will be lots more bone dragons. On this level I also find the entrance to the guaranteed Ziggurat. I hope I survive long enough to go through that gate.

I finally make some useful book-discoveries, book of clouds, and even my long missed book of flames. But now it is too late to learn sticky flame, it won’t impress too many of my future opponents.

==Elven Halls 5==
One more level of the depths to go, but with firestorm at my disposal, I decide to first visit the elves for a last time. I might find a few useful things in there. Getting there, I sacrifice another scroll of magic mapping – I want to clear everything outside the vault first. That is quickly done, but in the process I carelessly tried on a -5 artifact helmet, which has nice stat improvements, but is cursed, and it does not grant see invisible. Now I have the choice to go back to my stash and uncurse that thing, or try my luck here without changing my headgear. Well, in fact, I don’t have to go that far; Orc 4 is selling such scrolls. With See Invisible back on, I now enter the final vault of the elves. When the first elves show up, I drink another potion of brilliance, which brings my failure rate down to 7%. That is still quite enough to make the first storm fail. My third firestorm brings my shields up to 15, so I switch that training off for now. I’m quickly out of mana, which means that my firestorms did not kill very much inside the vault. A blade master follows me to the stairs, but gets checked by ball lightnings. I repeat this procedure a couple of times, and after many firestorms I dare to enter the outer vault, where I find a scene of utter carnage. Some of the elves were wielding randart and unrandart weapons. I still need to check the inner vault, some elves are still bound to be lurking in there. No, both treasure rooms are unguarded, and full of treasure. I will need several trips to get the best things out of here. I find another artifact helmet, which is even more useless than the first one, and again cursed, of course. I find a staff of poison and a staff of cold. I think the staffs of air and the staff of fire are now the only ones missing in my extensive collection. Time to go home.

==Depths 5==
Clearing out this last level of the Depths presents no particular problem. I am now considerably more powerful than when I entered Depths 1. I find a high-level spell book, which is definitely not the Book of Annihilations, because I could read that by now. I won’t bother to ID it for a while. The Zot Entrance Vault, however, is a huge structure in the center of the level, and is swarming with dragons and draconians, including my first two golden dragons. I also meet my first tentacled monstrosity, which at this stage of the game is not a threat to me, but a welcome source of massive experience. Draconians are a different matter, though. They always come in squads, and each squad member is of a different flavor. You cannot really prepare for all of them by switching rings and amulets (for example, I quickly put on my amulet of resist corrosion when a yellow draconian shows up, to protect my helmet of see invisible from getting trashed). That makes my scrolls and potions vulnerable to ice and fire attacks. But I finish the level at XL 25, almost at 26. My intelligence is 36, my AC at fully 45, my SH at 27, with a shield that kills or at least hurts a lot of (de-)ranged attackers for me. I guess all that now makes me a pretty solid character. Tornado, too, has reached a confidence-inspiring 26% failure rate, without brilliance-boost. I will give it a stunning premiere on entering Vault 5 in a minute. I am now ready for the last hurdle on the way to entering Zot, the silver rune of the Vaults! I quickly learn simple blink, which will be useful whenever I go upstairs to Vaults 4, to get some range to the monsters who follow me up.

==Vaults 5 and Vestibule of Hell==
Before entering, I drink another brain boost and wield my staff of conjuration, which brings my firestorm up to 9# power! My first firestorm is so devastating (and the vault guardians stand so tightly packed) that my mana stays at my full capacity. My second firestorm accomplishes the same, getting me up to XL 26. But now the survivors are at melee range. Time for my special surprise! Unlike my first firestorm, my first tornado is not a dud, but lifts the vault guardians off their feet. A fire crab turns the corner at that moment, and the best I have for it is a firestorm. Now the whole area is a blazing inferno, but I stand calmly in the eye of the storm, watching the effect of my fireworks. Impressive. After two turns of doing nothing, the screen is cleared of enemies, and my mana is back to its maximum of 46. I like fighting like that, thanks to Vehumet! All I have to do now is to wait for more enemies to come out of their holes, allow them to concentrate, and hit them with the next firestorm. At least that’s what I thought. A titan hits me with airstrike, and a fellow gargoyle manages to slip a devastating iron shot through my defenses. I am down to 32 HP. I retreat up the stairs, although that is rather dangerous. If anything hits me on my way up, like this Ancient Lich I couldn’t quite kill... I survive, and take a long rest before going down again. I seem to have forgotten the important fact that the mighty vault guards are really just the small fry (pun intended) on this level.

Sure enough, all the baddies await me at the foot of the stairs. The Ancient Lich blinks next to me, but boosted by another potion of brilliance I get my Tornado going right away. I forgot to stop my flying, so that the Titan would not get me that easily with his airstrike. But my tornado would lift me up anyway, wouldn’t it? Now, this goes much better. Two firestorms later I am still at good health, with the Ancient Lich, a tentacled monstrosity, the Titan and two Shadow dragons dead at my feet. But reinforcements keep coming, and I need to make sure that I don’t miss the right time for going upstairs again. Everything dies around me, but after a while I need to go up to replenish my mana. Going down again, there are two golden dragons, another Ancient Lich, another Titan, various giants and smaller threats crawling out of the vaults. I’m not done here yet. A vault warden also seals the stairs, so I need to get him first to open my escape route again. But all these fall to my tornado and my firestorms, and I go up once more. I think I have bagged this level now, although I know that there are still many monsters in the four vaults. But those I think I can take on slowly. I go down again, and indeed the coast around the stairs appears to be clear. I start exploring the outer perimeter first, just to make sure that I don’t have any surprises from behind when I enter the vaults.

Now wait! This layout looks different! It seems that you can enter the vaults not only from the stairs area, but also from the outside. That affects my tactics considerably. I guess I have to take each vault with its surrounding outside, starting each from the stairs, or I may end up being surrounded.

Now that the tedious mopping up begins, I replace my staff of conjuration with the staff of energy, or I will be quickly out of food. That reduces the power of my firestorms, but my tornadoes are not affected. When I get back to the stairs, a lot of high level stragglers come out of all four vaults, but not in high concentrations any more, and I can handle them. I choose the southwest vault to begin the mop-up. A good choice, at it is the vault containing the rune. I’m getting loaded on loot, and I am tempted to bring everything down to Lair 2, but maybe it is now time to open up a new stash a bit closer to where the music is played. 

So I pay a visit to the Vestibule of Hell. I should now be strong enough to clear it out. I drink my second to last potion of brilliance, wield my conjurations staff and go down. The Vestibule seems to be a very open place, I see no structures from my position at the entrance. I like that, it gives full effectiveness to my tornado, and no obstructions to my firestorms. Geryon is right there, and takes damage quickly from my first firestorm. A tornado should take care of the other monsters approaching me from the other directions. Excellent, Geryon collapses under my second firestorm, and in this way gets me all the way up to XL 27! But there are lots of other demons approaching, and I am low on power. Murray rears his ugly head – time to go up again and replenish my resources and health! I find that firestorm is now at 3% failure, and tornado at 16%. So I will quaff my last potion of brilliance, to get down there again and destroy Murray. Afterwards I should not need these potions anymore, hooray! By now, quite an assembly of bad guys is awaiting me, plus Murray. I have raised my defenses to N+++ to reduce his torment damage. That should do. I begin with tornado, because many of the monsters are now in melee range; that will teach them! Then I begin hitting Murray with firestorms, but he takes damage slowly. In the end it will be the tornado which brings him down. But that peters out, and Murray is still there, heavily damaged, and starting to summon stuff. He is right next to me now, so I fire an orb at him and that does it. With him his summoned minions also disappear. A few other monsters need further encouragement, but the Vestibule of Hell is now mine! I need to go up once more, though, as I am low on power again, and not at full health, with more demons approaching. There is still some dangerous stuff creeping around, like this hellion who hits me twice with hellfire.

After mopping up the Vestibule I start on my stash. First I need to clear out the debris of its previous inhabitants. Fortunately there is plenty of lava for melting down all that junk, creating room for all my goodies.

Returning to Vaults 5 I notice that my tornado is now at 11% failure rate. That is good enough, and the time has come to broaden my training again. What I need most now is fighting and dodging. With my very light (and yet so powerful) armor I can achieve amazing evasion rates, in spite of my poor aptitude for dodging. So I switch these two skills on again, and I also want to get higher with armor and evocations. This resembles the situation in midgame, when all my trained skills received only 10% of all experience. Even now I keep spellcasting focused. I want it up at 27 as soon as possible (it is now at 23).

The southeastern vault is undefended now. I find some loot, such as the book of the dragon. In the northeastern vault I have a lucky find with a manual of armor. But there are also a few monsters left, ditto in the northwestern vault. There I find three distilleries, one of them selling me my first potion of experience. For maximum effect, I pour all of it into dodging, which brings my evasions up to 17. That concludes my exploration of Vaults 5. Outside of entering Zot I would now have the following options left: Crypt, Hall of Blades, Slime, Abyss, Pandemonium, any of the four Hells, and the Ziggurat. My best chances of finding useful equipment are in the Slime Pit, but that is also a very dangerous place. I have beaten this some times before, though, so I think I will give it a try. This will also get me near my Lair 2 stash, and all that stuff can be ferried to the Vestibule once I’m done with the slimes. I’ll do some equipment swaps before going to the slimes. It doesn’t do to have your best armor items trashed down there, so I’m replacing my helmet of see invisible with that crappy -5 artifact helmet, which gives me some extra intelligence. I also don’t expect to get attacked with sticky flame, so I change the faerie dragon armor for an artifact ring mail of intelligence and strength. I end up having 42 INT, which means that all my spells are almost hunger-free and highly reliable. Not a bad thing at all! My only worry is a shield, though. I have not found an artifact shield yet, so I take the cheapest other shield I can find. It will get corroded to nothingness, but that is still better than going in there without, or having my shield of reflection or shield of cold resistance ruined. I decide for a +2 shield of protection – its enchantment may actually protect it somewhat, and I don’t think I need that brand later on. Other equipment: Plenty of potions of curing – I may get confused in the slime pits quite often. That’s it, I’m ready!

==Slime Pits==
Once in, I start swapping amulets. The needs vary – resist corrosion, clarity, resist mutation. I hope I never forget this swapping! The slime monsters as such are not difficult to kill, but they can have the most awful effects on your stats and DNA if you can’t kill them the moment you see them. On level 3 I get a taster on what can happen to you: Coming down the stairs I end up right next to a shining eye and various golden eyes. Before I even can do anything, I am the proud owner of the shout mutation. That one isn’t actually that lethal for me – stealth was never a part of my strategy or tactics, so I don’t mind if once in a while a loud yell rips itself from my throat. Let them hear me coming – I won’t drink a potion of cure mutation because of that!

There are different strategies about tackling the slimes. Some people say that one should not explore the levels, just dive deep and kill the Royal Jelly. I just can’t bring it over me to do that, missing out on all that experience. But yes, there are no treasures outside the Royal Jelly’s vault, and picking fights here means facing the worst effects on your character. I know that and take the risks. I’m going to explore every place I can reach without touching the acidic walls. There isn’t much to write home about doing that – it is a constant upstairs-downstairs with occasional firestorming, and repeated switching of jewelery, depending on whether you are fighting jellies or eyes. That is my chore until I have cleared all of the top five levels. It is not a very good idea to go down to level 6 if there are other areas that you can clean first.

So, I’m entering level 6. As usual, I only see a number of minor jellies, and I kill them as noisily as I can and retreat upstairs to recharge. I hope that the Royal Jelly has heard me and comes to investigate. No he didn’t. The next time I use lightning balls, that should wake him up! Yes, there he is, still a bit disoriented by the fact that someone is trespassing in his realm. I introduce myself with a firestorm. TRJ takes some damage and is now heading for me. Time to let off a hideous one, I mean a tornado. TRJ is mightily pissed off and calls lots of other jellies for help. But that will do more good to me than to him, as I have fodder that gets easily killed and recharges my mana. The next firestorm kills TRJ and many of his minions. In fact, in spite of the hefty firestorm cost, my mana bounces from 22 to 32. I kill the rest of TRJ’s attack force and start exploring around the four now transparent vaults. I’m happy to see that my shield is still at +1, so it did its job well. With my wand of digging I open up two vaults in one shot – no need to be wasteful! Well, I am somewhat disappointed – again no air or fire elemental staff, and certainly no artifact boots or gloves. At least I found two scrolls of ID, which are desperately needed, as I have heaps of unidentified jewelery. I identify three rings in two shots, all of them useless, so they can stay right here.

Time to get out of here and leave not only the Slime Pits, but also the Lair for good. That implies ferrying everything useful from Lair 2 to the Vestibule. That is always a lot easier when Lair 8 generates that entry to hell, but this time I have to bring it all up and down to Depths 1 to find my entrance to the Vestibule.

==Crypt==
The Crypt is my next best option to find some useful loot. I get myself up to N+++ and wear my faerie dragon armor again, as the level of fire resistance it gives may be needed. Instead of Donald’s shield of reflection I now take my +1 shield of cold resistance, so that I am now somewhat covered from all angles. My whip of freezing I leave at home, as it won’t do me much good on all the stiffs I am going to meet there. But I will keep my amulet of resist mutation handy, just in case. By the way, my trip into the slime pit resulted only in the shouting mutation. Otherwise my DNA is still as it should be, so that went well.

Down in the Crypt I find monsters that I have not met before, such as a mana viper skeleton. What on earth is a mana viper? I have the feeling that I will soon find out. Silent spectres are not new to me, but as dangerous as ever. I’m glad that I have some melee abilities and take the first spectre out with my demon whip of flaming.

Food is an issue down here. Because I wear my amulet of warding, my gourmand ability is dormant. Margery shows up with her following of hell knights, and I am just about to butcher one, when a necromancer shows up and turns my meal into zombies. I am not amused and tell him in unmistakable terms. On level 3 I find a sphinx which is kind enough to leave behind a corpse. That keeps me fed for a while, which is good, as I find the entrance to the tomb which is ably defended by a pack of guardian mummies and a mummy priest. These wrappers certainly have ways to hurt me, and I retreat upstairs for a minute to refresh myself.

On level 4 Boris peeks around a corner. I hit him hard with firestorm, and he wastes a turn on getting himself invisible, which does not work on me. Next turn he is gone – for a while. Having cleared the first four vaults, I return to the Vestibule to drop some loot. I want my pockets to be empty when I go through the treasure vaults of the last Crypt level. On the way back I was lucky enough to encounter a troop of elves, who got me up to engorged again with my amulet of the gourmand. I switch back to warding and go down to Crypt 5. This seems to be the spooky forest, and I sacrifice a scroll of mapping before I get lost between the trees and gravestones. I start out in the northeast corner of the map and decide to go round counterclockwise. In the northwest is an egg-shaped clearing, which is heavily populated. But there is only a choke-point entry on its west end, and there I kill most inhabitants. But other undead come around from the other side, so I have to backtrack a little to avoid getting surrounded. The clearing cleared, I notice a little structure south of it, but when I approach, some mummies, including a greater mummy, pour out. I had hoped not too see too many mummies at this level. So far they left my stats alone, but that won’t last forever. The structure is stacked with gold. You know that something is stacked when you pick up 264 gold from one tile! But when I clear the other tiles I step into a teleport trap, and end up in the far southeast. I’d better check for the next upstairs! They are right here, so I still have a good escape route.

These skeletal trees here burn a lot better than the trees in the spriggan-themed level of the Depths. I can use that to my advantage, but I also need to make sure that I stand clear when I start another inferno. I’m exploring westwards now, around the southern exterior of the big treasure vault. It has a few side vaults accessible from the outside, so I find some funds in there – and another potion of experience! This again goes all into dodging. It jumps almost a full point to above 10, this way keeping track with my fighting skill, which advances quite fast on its own. Near a lake in the far southwest I find an artifact ring guarded by two curse skulls. I try it, but that is a mistake – all I find out about it is that it adds to my dexterity – and that it is contaminated! I take it off right away, but the price I pay is the first level of deterioration. Stupid! There is a reason why most people ID artifact rings before they try them. I just don’t have any scrolls of ID, and that drives me to regrettable actions.

I make it back to the place from where I was teleported, and now I apportate all the money (another 141 pieces). After going full circle around the center vault, which is shaped a bit like a cathedral, I dare to go in. My plan of attack is as usual: Make as much noise as possible killing the first visible opponent, take a few steps back and follow up with those who come to investigate. When nobody comes any more, go a bit deeper and repeat. That works best when you can be reasonably sure that there won’t be any strong enemies coming at your back. The southern part of the cathedral is quite a complex structure, with lots of entrances in all directions. It is good that some of my enemies are alive, because my satiation is down again.

In one of the side caverns I meet two ancient liches, which get my mana down too fast for my comfort before collapsing in a pile of bones. My stats are now all one down, thanks to my stupidity. I’m coming to the main treasury, where I am eagerly expected by another ancient lich. He behaves like he owns this place, but I let him know that I have come to take over. So what is my loot here: Maxwell’s patent armor, which is a great piece of equipment, as long as you are not planning on any casting. Too bad. But there, two staffs! Staff of death, and staff of fire! Finally! But I guess, except for the Tomb, and, of course, Cocytus, I won’t find many places where this will still have much of an impact. Comes about 40 levels too late in the game. I will still go back to training staves up from 8 to 12, so that I have minimum delay for this beauty. Of course there is no artifact pair of gloves or shoes. I don’t know how many treasure hordes I have now visited without finding anything more useful than the plain +1 items I am wearing now. There is no other treasure place except the end of Tomb (not yet) and the Ziggurat, and both are still far away from me. At least I get a +1 large shield of protection. Not as useful as my current medium shield of cold resistance, but maybe it is time to get my shields skill up to 25. I disable my armor training instead, at least for now. My level 12 here results now in a total of 51 AC. That feels quite comfortable, considering that the heaviest piece of armor I wear is a faerie dragon armor.

This concludes my exploration of the Crypt. I run around the vaults a bit more to find some enemies who can feed me. There, a group of assorted vault guardians, gets me from starving to well satiated in the nick of time. Two more sheep, and I am all the way up to engorged again.

==Hall of Blades==
Since I am in the area anyway, that is the time to do the Hall. I don’t expect to find anything useful here, but there is at least some experience to be gained. Some of the weapons there may be draining weapons, so I keep my N+++ up. Because all is wide and open, orb is a wonderful spell down here. The dancing weapons drop like flies. Done. Back to the Vestibule! On the way, I purchase the two scrolls of  ID available in shops, and go to work on some of my jewelery. I put the plain unidentifieds on, and I can get results on a ring of fire (good!) and a ring of magical power (not that useful to me anymore). Another ring is cursed and doesn’t identify, so it must be a ring of hunger. My two scrolls give me a single shot each. One reveals that the ring that malmutated me only adds N+ to what I knew already, so I can throw it away. The other reveals an amulet of clarity, which I already have as an artifact. But the artifact only adds resistance to electricity, so I will from now on use the plain clarity amulet, which is easier identified in my inventory because of its nice icon.

==Zot 1-5==
It is time now to put my four runes to good use, or at least three of them, and work my way through the Realm of Zot. Not a bad place at all, if you are properly prepared. But I am not. I have only minimal cold and heat protection, and that cold protection is tied to a shield that is likely to get trashed at the first contact with a yellow draconian. I need to prioritize these. Well, at least I have an amulet of conservation, but I need to be prepared to trade that with resist mutation, whenever an orb of fire shows up.

Zot 1 goes surprisingly easy, but it is just the regular onslaught of waves of draconians, supported by the more powerful dragons. No scary uniques, no orbs of fire, no ghost moths ruining my spellcasting. In Zot 2 the biggest difficulty is to find any opposition at all. Of course it is somewhat of a relief if you survive a level without breaking a sweat, but I also need that experience to get my skills up. If nobody wants to play with me, I won’t grow. Well, Zot 3 is different. I arrive in the midst of a draconian crowd, which gets augmented by a bone dragon and a ghost moth. That one drives me up the stairs again. I get the moth and another bone dragon on my second way down, but then a tentacled monstrosity approaches and I am up the stairs again. Down again, I miscast a tornado right next to the monstrosity, and a storm dragon takes pot shots at me. The second attempt at tornado takes care of both. Now finally I have a foothold on Zot 3. One thing I have learned quickly: When I travel through Zot and I see a single draconian from far, it is never a waste to unleash a firestorm at him. It will always hit at least two or three more draconians, a good chunk of the whole cool gang that is inevitably in attendance of the initially spotted specimen. Exploring Zot 3, I find the last unidentified scroll, enchant weapon III, and apply it to my whip of freezing. I also find a shield of fire resistance, the mirror image of my shield of cold resistance.

I take some stuff to the Vestibule, identify a ring of positive energy and two rings of sustain abilities (I will need those soon) and come back for Zot 4. Here it finally happens: A yellow draconian gets a clear shot at me and with one lucky hit corrodes both my shield and my helmet of see invisible, in spite of my amulet of conservation. Not fair! In this fight, my staves skill reaches 12, and I switch training off again. I have already used my staff of fire as a very effective weapon against tentacled monstrosities, whose constriction has a hard time to accomplish anything against my tank-like armor. I don’t envy them, how they try to cling to me and at the same time get bad fire damage being bashed by my staff. I find a scroll of magic mapping down here, and go to the next set of downstairs to use it right away – although there is very little variation to Zot 5, it is always good know exactly where what is. But back to Zot 4 – I need to clear this out thoroughly to have my back free before I enter Zot 5 for business.

That moment comes, and I think I have all I need with me (except of course for the items I never received during this game). Well, what do you know, I find another scroll of ID, and my fourth scroll of acquirement. This time I won’t have to spend it on a staff, as the biggest gaps so far I have in armor. Let’s see what happens when I do that – the way things went so far in the game, it will probably give me a Naga barding! No, not quite as useless, but almost – a +1 large shield of fire resistance. It will be still quite a while before I use that, maybe in Gehenna. I find a few more ID scrolls at the harmless side of Zot 5, and together with the encumbrance of the large shield, that provides a good excuse to return once more to the Vestibule before coming back for the orb chambers. I peek in shortly, and promptly have to kill a bunch of draconians and orb guardians who have spotted me from the inside. A course toe was working the outside, but I bring him down with a mix of tornado and firestorms. On the way up to the Vestibule I already swap my amulet of conservation with my gourmand source, but that was a mistake. On Zot 3 a yellow draconian gets my trusty helmet corroded another notch. Rats!

Back at Zot 5, I’m determined to take no chances. I wield my staff of fire, although that opens me up to a hefty 4# hunger cost for my level 9 spells. But I want my firestorm as powerful as it can be. It is at a strong 9# power, with spellcasting skill at 25, conjurations at 21 and fire at 20, boosted by a ring of fire and a staff of fire, plus my wild magic mutation. I also have three more potions of brilliance, and I am going to use them here, as my intelligence of 33 is a little bit underwhelming. My tactics is my usual 4F: Find them, flush them, fool them into following you, and finish them. In this way I should be able to avoid having to fight too many monsters at the same time. You don’t want this to happen with orbs of fire or ancient liches. Tornado is going to be a wonderful asset here, as it ignores any resistances, and does best in large, open spaces, as we have them in the six orb vaults. Here we come!

The entrance chamber is already cleared. I place myself in its center and unleash a tornado, just for the fun of it. That sound should wake up a few guys from the side chambers. But only a fire dragon comes up from behind. He is my last snack before I kiss my gourmand source goodbye until I can stand next to the Orb of Zot. Indeed, a few draconians and an electric golem have heard my wake-up call and come to the entrance chamber to investigate. I march through them, inching a bit closer to the western side chamber this time. This is a delicate moment, because there could be an ancient lich or orb of fire at my throat coming from behind. I have died this way before. Cute – the western side chamber is blocked off by a teleport trap. I won’t get past there, but even worse, whatever follows me from inside will be teleported anywhere else – usually to the area which I have already deemed pacified. So I have to try the eastern chamber. Indeed, before getting there, I see an orb of fire which has come out to play. Switching to my amulet of resist mutation! A tornado is heating up, and I blast the orb with my own orbs. But it burns one of my scrolls before it dissipates. Another important victory under my belt! I now get to the entrance of the eastern side chamber, and get into a fist fight with orb guardians and more draconians. Once more I forget my tactical policies and linger too long. All of a sudden another orb of fire is right next to me, in a place where a tornado does no good. I need to walk a few steps with the orb on my heels – dangerous business! To kill this orb is harder than the first one. Once it is down, I have to deal with some follow-up threats, and flee the area entirely. But the orb has done no real harm, except for burning another scroll of vulnerability. No malmutations! Back to the eastern chamber, a third orb of fire approaches. That is a bit much, isn’t it? I draw it towards me and blast it with one orb after another during a tornado, but most of my orbs sail harmlessly past. I am out of engergy, and my scrolls keep burning away under the hits of this orb. I drink one of my two potions of magic to deal with this situation, and that gives me the energy I need to bring this orb down. I have taken considerable damage this time and must find a place to rest. My intelligence is now 3 points down to 29, which is embarrassing for a character like me. My level 9 spells have become prohibitively expensive, but I didn’t bring my staff of energy to this fight (and wouldn’t use it anyway). I finally clear the eastern outer vault, but on entering the inner eastern vault, an ancient lich throws an orb of destruction at me. I hit him with my high powered firestorm instead. This one is tough, and needs several firestorms to be defeated. His orb hits me and does enough damage to drive me out of the area once more. Returning, the outer chamber is again swarming with enemies, including a fourth orb of fire. This time we are all in the open, so tornado seems to be the appropriate response. But I almost forgot to switch back to my resist mutation amulet. This orb gets thrown down quickly, but is followed up by a few more draconians. How many monsters can still be left in that inner chamber? It indeed appears to be clear, but just when I feel safe, a hell sentinel shows up – these guys can throw hell fire! But even before he can think of the spell, he is already down. 

That noise fighting the hell sentinel right next to the Orb Chamber has raised all the orb guardians there. They come out one by one and get felled by my orbs. Seems to be a fitting death for them. Now I shoot a few firestorms into the peep-hole of the Orb Chamber and catch a few more guardians that way. My next sight is the Orb of Zot itself, lying there in all its splendor. I won’t touch it in quite a while, if ever. But for now I have a job to do; there are still guys in here defending the Orb. One of them is another orb of fire. I duck behind the wall of the Orb Chamber and let him come out. He runs into my tornado and takes a few orbs. The way is clear again. But no, yet another orb of fire shows up! Repeat procedure, but now I am really low on energy. Doesn’t matter, the orb-chamber is now clear of enemies. I take a moment’s rest right on top of the Orb of Zot and promise (more to myself than to the Orb) to be back. I still have a steep program in front of me before I can do that. In the western inner chamber I find another scroll of acquirement: a +2 leather armor of fire resistance. Now it is really getting ridiculous. Why is it giving me that when I am even wearing a +7 faerie dragon armor of fire resistance? This is better or at least as good in any category as the junk given to me by the scroll! Out of five scrolls of acquirement so far, I’ve had five complete failures. Was there something done in the programming on those for version 0.14? Ok, they often don’t get you what you want or need, but five out of five giving you worthless rubbish?

The outer western chamber is completely clear. I wonder where all these monsters went – did they all hit the teleport trap in pursuit of me? Whatever, I have accomplished my mission down here – Zot 5 is mine! Whenever I get that far, that feels like victory. If I wanted, I could now just grab the Orb and ascend, to spend my future sitting at a nice beach reading my well-stocked bank savings books. There wouldn’t be much that could stop me (never has when I did). But this time I want to get farther. It means that I will probably die, but once in a while it got to be done. Onwards to a 15 rune victory! I have to kill another orb of fire on my way out, but the realm of Zot will have peace of me for some time to come.

Time to take stock. At the beginning of the post-end-game I am at XL 27 (for quite some time already), with 29 basic intelligence points, 14 strength and 10 dexterity. The intelligence is a bit disappointing; I was hoping for at least 30 or 31, but a lot of my undirected stat increases went into strength. Nothing I could do about that. But I have a few INT boost items which in between brought me to above 40. My highest skill level so far is spellcasting, being half way to 26. Conjurations comes next with 22, then fire with 20. Getting these up will add significantly more power to my firestorms. Air magic is still below 20, as is shields (17), evocations (14), fighting and maces (13), and dodging, armor, and staves (12). All my current spells are way below 10 % failure rate, with tornado having the highest at 5%. Those failure rates will go down to 1% soon. What will not go down easily is my hunger cost. My intelligence is just too low for that, and I can’t wear just rings of intelligence, as I need these slots for other purposes. Ideally I would shoot for a constant intelligence of 38, which would get all hunger cost down to zero, but with my current equipment I don’t see how to do that.

Very nice are my defensive stats: AC at 49 (it was already above 50, before yellow draconians corroded my helmet of see invisible), and evasion at 22, still growing. I like that best about my setup: Yes, I am a tank, but a nimble one, and one that can cast the most devastating spells which are otherwise reserved for Deep Elves. The only trouble is my low HP number (currently at 160), but this is currently being addressed by training more fighting. My magic energy currently has a ceiling of 49 (if I don’t use my staff of power), but it should reach 50 when I master the spellcasting skill.

In terms of mutations, I have two bad ones: shouting (that one, however, does not bother me at all) and deterioration 1. The last one is at least annoying (currently I am down 1 strength point and 2 intelligence points), but I don’t want to drink a potion of cure mutation, because I have a few good ones, too – the best undoubtedly being the wild magic mutation. The Thin Skeletal Structure (+2 DEX) leaves me cold, and the AC bonus (+1) of Molten Scales 1 means nothing to me. I also can spit poison, but have never done so. Judging my luck in the game, if I drink a potion of cure mutation, it will remove wild magic and leave the deterioration! So I won’t, for now. But in the next level I am bound to pick up a few more bad mutations, and then it will be time to flush them all out.

==Abyss==
Because my next project is the Abyss. I hate the Abyss – no matter how powerful you are, particularly as a caster, you may end up being surrounded by enemies that you can’t kill. There is never any rest, and you come out (if you come out) with some bad mutations and decreased stats. The loot is mediocre at best, and the next escape option can’t even be guessed at. Yes, I hate it. If it weren’t for the rune, I wouldn’t go in there voluntarily. I’m surprised that so far no-one has banished me there. Many of my games, even with very promising beginnings, have ended that way. So this a little bit of luck I have had in this game so far.

I will take my ring of regeneration along, although I will only wear it in dire circumstances. I also learn the regeneration spell, which gets me my first stab at necromancy. I engorge myself on some none-ration permafood, of which I have plenty lying around, pick up eight rations (that should be enough, I expect to find more down there), and replace my ring of fire with my +4 ring of intelligence, to keep the spell-hunger down. Otherwise I keep my pack light to leave room for the loot I may find – just a potion of speed, a potion of magic, a few scrolls of remove curse (I may want to try out a few of the things I find), and, most important, my amulet of resist mutation (it has protected me well against all six or seven Orbs of Fire on Zot 5). Also my staff of energy, my whip of freezing, and my staff of fire. Let’s go!

The Abyss hasn’t improved since I’ve last been here – there are still too many structures in the way for offensive spellcasting, but at least they also help escape from monsters that you don’t want to fight. Apportation is a great cheap spell that saves you a lot of walking when you see loot off your chosen path. For smaller threats such as all kinds of abominations I use my staff of fire, which burns them down fast. But many demons have fire resistance and require different treatment. When I see malmutating monsters they get hit hard from far away, before they can even spot me.

I seem to be running around forever on the first level, without finding any transfer gate. Why do they say that this is the easiest level when they send a hellion your way? This chap hits me twice with hellfire before I manage to throw him down. He is immediately followed by an executioner. I know why I didn’t come here earlier. Time for my first regeneration spell. There, a gate to Abyss 2. After some aimless running around, I meet a daeva, and then a lich. Before a star-spawn can hit me, I slip through the next gate and find myself on Abyss 3. Here I may find the rune, but I may also have to go deeper. Another gate lets me do that, and right where I am entering Abyss 4, I am tempted by a way out. No, not yet! I want that rune! Wait, structure with lots of doors – could that be the rune vault? Well, I find another exit in there, but no rune. I don’t know what is happening right now – I am surrounded by dozens of monsters, and no matter how many I kill of them, there are always tons more. How did I stir them up? I unleash firestorms and tornadoes to check them, and Vehumet keeps my energy up, but my health has taken a dip. These exits I’ve found now look really friendly. I should stay in their general neighborhood until this crisis is over. Indeed, things don’t get any better, so I blast my way through to the exit in the structure and escape with 45 HP (after drinking a potion of healing on the way). On my count I have killed at least 96 monsters in the short period between finding the exit in the multi-door structure, and going through that exit – and there were still lots more on my heels. I find that somewhat unbalanced.

I return to my stash to drop some loot (four scrolls of identify, and a book of geomancy), and to engorge myself. Now back to the Abyss. I have to survive a profane servitor before I can enter the gate to level 2. This level has plenty of loot lying around (like a still unidentified plain ring, a ring of protection from magic), so I’m a bit reluctant to move on when I see a gate to level 3. I take it anyway. That is well done, because that level greets me with two potions of healing and some funds. I guess this time I will just stay here until I find the rune. Level 4 was a bit too exciting for me last time. I find both an exit and a gate deeper, but I ignore both. Let’s linger! But that level is already very tough. I get swamped once more, with no exit anywhere near, but not quite as badly as on level 4. I survive and recharge, and move on. A cacodemon slips another mutation past my amulet, but it is just another level of yelling. Let them hear me!

This is an endless ordeal. I have another near-death situation, but mercifully the abyssal teleport gets me to a place where I can heal and recharge. The rune is nowhere to be found. Next time I see a gate to level 4, I’m going to take it. There, in a forest-like area I see the rune and get it with apportation. Didn’t I just see an exit somewhere? Maybe it is still there. On my way I have to fight lots of bad stuff, including a hellion hellfiring me. One monster berserks me, and that, too, gets on my nerves. I see the exit, and slash my way through, again with lots of monsters on my heels. Two follow me, but they are easy stuff. My two trips into the Abyss gave me some experience, moderate loot, another bad mutation (but not that bad), and my intelligence is currently down 4 points. I am tempted to drink a potion of restore abilities, but maybe that can wait. I won’t volunteer to go down into the abyss again, at least not in this game.

==The Tomb==
Of what is left now of the game, two areas are fun, and two general areas are hard and tedious. I will begin with these first, the Tomb and the various hells, leaving the Pandemonium and the Ziggurat for the end, if I live long enough. At least the Tomb has some significant loot, and I may want to use some of it before entering the hells, so that is my next project. 

As preparation, I replace my dragon armor (no sticky flame attacks in the Tomb, as far as I know) with my stat-improving ring mail, and my two rings with my two rings of sustain ability that I recently identified. That means that my only extra source of positive energy is my amulet of warding, which is far from ideal. I also decide that restoring my intelligence can’t wait, as without my ring of Wizardry, my failure-rate for my high level spells went up unacceptably. All things told, I enter the Tomb considerably weaker than I was, with only inadequate defenses, but I need the double sustain ability protection to prevent major trouble. I will have to try out how it goes, and abort if necessary. On the plus side: I do have some torture resistance, and no rotting can ever harm me. I hope I won’t encounter anything mutagenic down there, and my staff of fire will be an excellent fallback weapon in the Tomb. I also take along some scrolls of immolation, which may come in handy, but I need to use them carefully, as I have no fire-resistance myself. Thinking about that, I think it may be good to learn Ring of Flames – that gives me an extra rF++, and leaves me oblivious to all fire clouds. And it will teach those highly combustible mummies!

I make it without mishap to the sphinx-guarded entrance to the inner place of level 1. But I know that this is where the trouble starts. I hope that my rings of sustain ability keep my stats up, and that I can compensate through kills the draining I receive with N++. The gate is already open, so I shoot in a firestorm just for warm-up. It doesn’t seem to have hit anything, but now the inhabitants start to appear.  I retreat. Not too early, as at least one mummy priest and a greater mummy follow me persistently, and I don’t have enough energy to get them both down. I make it to the stairs to refresh. When I get down the stairs again, this greater mummy, two priests and a mummy guardian attack me, but this time I am prepared. I lose a point of strength, but am fine otherwise. The inner area is mostly clear, except for some mop-up in the windy side corridors. One of them is blocked up by a Zot trap, so I have to blink across it to explore the area. Done with that, I give the whole level up to this point another sweep (killing a good number of straggling mummies) and return to the downstairs towards level 2. Before going down, I cast ring of flames. A number of lower level mummies surround me, with a few curse skulls for good measure. I better save my scrolls of immolation for bigger fry and start a tornado. That should attract the bosses. Indeed, they come up pretty fast, and killing so many mummies at once takes its toll on my health. I escape back up the stairs and rest a bit, with lots of mummies, particularly the bad ones still at large down there. Repeat procedure, this time with lots of bosses awaiting me. I read the scroll of immolation, and throw a fireball randomly in one direction. Interestingly, the greater mummies don’t get inner flame, probably their magic resistance protects them. Still, the chain reaction starts, and I help with a few firestorms. A few moves later I escape upstairs again, and I barely make it out alive. Since two greater mummies followed me and start hitting me with bad stuff, I need to drink a potion of healing. Again I prevail, but this beginning of level 2 is truly dangerous. When you have so many mummies tormenting away at you from all directions, there is no telling when you are going to fold up.  Twice now I have lingered longer down there than was prudent. At least the ring of flames is doing its work against these mummies. I have to go down and up a few times more, but then I can stay down and fight the thinner rows of attackers with fireballs. It is amazing how terrible especially their pain death-curses hurt me. I guess I was quite lucky when I stayed down there for four or five turns during my first two visits.

So far my two rings of sustain abilities worked very nicely – I only lost one point of strength in all this. But as a price I burn through my perma-food way too quickly for my comfort. The big entrance hall to level two is now clear of mummies, and I start exploring the side chambers. I know there are traps out there, and that in spite of my XL 27 I will trigger some of them. Permanent flight is certainly an asset in a place like that. I find the staircase and take it up to the unexplored parts of level 1 – the gauntlet of mummies, by all means not my favorite place in this game.

I start winding my way around this place. There is no messing around for me. When I see a greater mummy, it is firestorm, followed up by a bolt of fire. That is usually enough. Mummy priests and guardian mummies can be brought down by bolts of fire alone, which is a lot better on my satiation. Towards the end it gets easier, because all the mummies must have been attracted by the noise I made in the beginning. I make it to the staircase down with a second point lost on my strength. That does not matter, as I don’t carry much with me anyway. I cast ring of flames, just in case, and run down. 

Only a lonely guardian mummy awaits me, but I know that there must be many more. There are, but I can handle them with bolts of flame without having to go back up again. When they stop coming, I start exploring. The level is now entirely clear and I find the three sets of stairs going down. I think I have the worst behind me now, because these stairs get me to a place that I can control easily by throwing firestorms at the only direction from which I can be attacked.

Once more, for starters I get myself a ring of flames before going down. Not only does that punish opponents in melee range, it also increases my spellpower for the firestorm. Going down I see nothing in sight, but I yell for the fun of it, and that attracts three guardian mummies right away, accompanied by some hideous shrieks. When I kill one, reinforcements are right on their heels, and I get surrounded by some reapers and other unsavory things. Time for a tornado! I follow this up with a high-powered firestorm at the next wave of mummies. They all disappear in a hurry. My mana goes almost up to full after this, so I am ready for the next wave. But now the guardian mummies get replaced by mummy priests, and I am taking more damage. Time for one more firestorm, and for a tactical retreat. I am low on health, and on top of that I have been badly drained this time. I rest, but against the drain the only remedy is killing more enemies.

Going down again, I find five opponents in melee range, who get fried in my ring of flames. But others are approaching, among them a greater mummy. Firestorm. It registers, but the greater mummy stumbles onwards. A bolt of fire brings it down. More enemies are approaching, and I hit them with another firestorm. I get a lot of messages for kills off-screen, and my mana bounces back to full. That was a good one! But I am now surrounded by summoned enemies, and I am taking damage. Tornado, then. While this unfolds and clears the area immediately around me, two badly damaged greater mummies stumble out of the fog of war. I hit them with another firestorm. And another, but then I need to go upstairs again to lick my wounds. Things are going well, though. In this way I attract most of the opposition on level 3 and fight them on the stairs. I must already have made quite a dent to their fighting power, and I have not taken any serious stat effects yet. After two more visits up and down the opposition has dried up. I know that there are a few more lurking in the treasure halls, and in the rune area, but those I can handle even away from the stairs. So I start to explore that final level of the Tomb. The rune is acquired quickly (my sixth one), but I still need to tread carefully around the treasure vaults. The western one is still behind closed doors, and I want to keep it that way until I have cleared the eastern vault. Maybe I will not have someone sneak up from behind when I’m collecting my loot. Two guardian mummies watch over this loot, but that is not enough to get my greedy hands off it. Again no artifact gloves or boots. There are a few books, the most interesting of them perhaps the book of the warp, which I didn’t have so far. Also the long awaited staff of air, which completes my collection of magical staves, and two more staves of fire (it never rains, it pours!). I found a scroll of ID earlier, and use that on a ring of which I previously suspected it must be the ring of hunger. And so it is. I don’t have to carry that one upstairs.

The western vault: It is meekly defended by a misplaced plain mummy and a swamp dragon skeleton. The contents are mostly gold (lots of it) and nothing else of value but one artifact spell book. Again there is no change to my precarious situation. I will continue to tackle this game with a +1 plain pair of boots, and a +1 plain pair of gloves.

Now I am done with all that can be found in the Vaults, and I take my loot and my disappointment back to my stash in the Vestibule of Hell.

==Cocytus==
Three places are left to go – the various hells, Pandemonium and the Ziggurat. I am somewhat tempted to try my luck in the Ziggurat first, as there will be lots of treasure and maybe even something I am looking for. The hells usually don’t give you much treasure. Still, I want to tackle those first and get the tedium behind me. As a fire-blaster, the natural choice is Cocytus. I go down to Lair 2 to grab myself a +3 leather armor of cold resistance which I thought I would never need, and continue to use my shield of cold resistance. That gives me rCold++, which is not entirely ideal, but should be enough. But it also reduced my AC to a measly 40. The big question about Cocytus is always whether to take along any potions. Usually by that time I have all I need from wands (particularly a wand of healing), but not this time. It is a bit risky to go without potions of healing, and even riskier to go with them, as most potions will pop in a short time. I could use conservation to prevent that, but there maybe better uses for my neck than that. Tough choice. I decide to leave all potions at home, and not use conservation, but clarity instead, which will protect me from hell’s confusing force. There is still a lot I need to fear about hell, particularly the stat reductions, and sometimes contamination. My biggest worry continues to be spell hunger. With the current equipment I get to 32 intelligence, and that puts level 9 spells at 4# nutrition loss. Cast a few storms with this, and you are starving in an environment which does not provide much in the way of chunks.

Usually I don’t follow the reasonable advice about not lingering on the upper levels of a hell. But this time I just don’t feel prepared to do more than just the most necessary exploration to the next staircase. Forget the experience, this time I need to husband my potions of restore abilities and cure mutation. Therefore no inefficient lingering this time. I dive deeper as soon as I see at staircase, getting myself ever closer to the mighty Antaeus. I get to level 3 quickly, but the downstairs to level 4 elude me for a while, so that I am getting to explore a good chunk of the level. In order to conserve my food, I use my staff of fire a lot for bashing my opponents. When they line up nicely, I use bolt of fire or fireball. Only when something really bad shows up, like a tormentor, I use firestorm. My staff of fire also works very efficiently against ice fiends, who in turn have difficulty hitting me because of my already fairly high evasion (now at 21). I’m surprised that my stats still have not taken any hits. My single ring of sustain abilities can’t be that good. Finally I find the stairs and slip down. I pass through level 4 quickly and take some hits on level 5. Regeneration should take care of this quickly, but this will literally eat away my food stores. Once healed up, I rush down the next set of stairs. There a huge crowd of monsters shows up, among them a brimstone fiend. What is he doing here in the ice? I’m not quite prepared for him and start a Tornado right away, also to clear the screen of the multitude of other monsters. It takes quite a while to bring him down, and I’m badly mauled when the next merry band of monsters appears out of thin air. Regeneration and tornado again. I have to remember that I don’t have any potions to save me. I see the last stairs down to the final level, but a tormentor hits me just before making it down. Now I have to be extra careful, because Antaeus is somewhere around here. I forgot to bring a scroll of mapping, so I have no idea where I am, but I start exploring southwards, emptying a few treasure vaults which, once more, don’t contain the artifact armor pieces I crave. At least they have lots of money. Exploring further south, I encounter an ice statue. That seems to be a sure sign that I am getting close to Antaeus. But first I want to clear the rest of the level, in case I need to teleport away with low health. So I turn round and find the other areas.

The next treasure vault holds items as exciting as a ring of flight. But at least my spell casting skill maxes out, my first one to do that. Now I focus fire magic. No more treasure vaults outside Antaeus chamber, so I need to face him now. There he is, and he quickly hits me hard with some ice conjuration. But I blast my 9# firestorm into his face. Let’s see who lasts longer. I can tell that I can’t bring him down with the mana I have, so I read a scroll of teleport. One more firestorm, and I am out. Well, there is still enough for a bolt of fire. And, yes, my delayed fireball is also available. That brings Antaeus down, but there are more enemies, and I am completely out of options. Too bad, the teleport moves me a few places closer to my enemies, and that won’t do. I run. To top it all off, something has given me a contamination. Wasn’t a scroll of vulnerability supposed to cure that? After reading it, I am as contaminated as before. But I have my amulet of resist mutation with me, maybe that helps. No, it didn’t, I lose 10% of my mana. So what then is the purpose of a scroll of vulnerability, except for making you more vulnerable? And now the same thing happens right again: I have more contamination, and also become frail! I need to get out of here, but first I need to see Antaeus chamber. Well, more money and an ancient chain mail. I try it on in the Vestibule, and it gives high cold resistance, but I won’t need that anymore. I also drink a potion of cure mutation. It flushes out all my bad mutations except yelling. Unfortunately, it also also deprives me of the one good mutation I cared about, the wild magic.

==Dis==
The Iron City of Dis is my next project. Aside from Old Dis himself, the most fearsome inhabitants of that place are the Hell Sentinels. Even in a high-level gargoyle like me they instill fear and trepidation, with their ability to both torment and throw hellfire. But currently there is no better place I can go to, so I have to brave them. I don’t like that I have to go in there with only N+, but my current equipment does not allow any better. At least I have rF++, and rC+. Less than ideal, but I have covered all elemental damages somewhat, and I have one ring of sustain abilities, without which one should not enter any hell branch. Interestingly, in Cocytus I did not suffer a single point of stat damage.

My original plan was to switch between my demon whip and my staff of fire, depending on who is going to be beaten up, but within a few minutes my staff of fire is cursed, and this time I did not bring any scrolls. That means that I have to use tornado a lot to deal with groups of fire-resistant monsters. I don’t think I ever had a game where spell-hunger was a real issue in the post-end-game. I desperately need more intelligence, but the only way to get it is through artifacts. 
On level 6 I get into some deep trouble, being stuck in narrow corridors and beaten by one high-level foe after another, eating earth spells from a fellow gargoyle, hellfire from a hellion, and raw physical damage from tough iron dragons. I quickly run out of HP and energy. While healing up, I get contaminated out of thin air, and I waste two scrolls of vulnerability on this situation without any effect. Only then do I notice that I still have my amulet of gourmand on, which is now cursed – no way to switch to my amulet of resist mutation. But this time the contamination disappears without mutating me. Maybe there is an effect to these scrolls after all. I finally make it down to the deepest level and start exploring, but another contamination hits me, and this time I get 10% HP deducted. I need to get out of here and remove those stupid mutations. I find the exit and clean myself up. I still keep a level of yelling, but also the +1 AC bonus because of my molten scales. In any case, I need to buy these two potions of cure mutation that are on offer on Vaults 5. 

Back in Dis, I fight myself back to level 7, this time protected by an amulet of resist mutation, and also with a few scrolls of remove curse. I also brought a scroll of mapping with me this time, and start clearing the outer areas of the last level of Dis. Another contamination hits me, and again I receive frailty, at the same time with a hell-induced 3-point hit to my intelligence. A minute later a cacodemon shows up and gives me blurry vision. What is this amulet doing? One treasure vault contains an artifact morningstar – I check it out and find it to be a distortion weapon. Removing it throws me into the Abyss, and here I need to fight a large number of hellephants, liches and other nasty stuff. I can’t find an exit, and I am low on everything, but I find another potion of cure mutation. Eventually I get out and continue my exploration of Dis 7.

Things are rather difficult. There seems to be an endless supply of hellions, balrugs, dancing weapons, and hell sentinels, all blasting me, sometimes with irresistible damage, before I have had time to heal up. My intelligence is still low, and now also my dexterity is somewhat down. The loot here is so far mediocre at best, and, honestly, I am not at all sure that I’ll make it out of here alive. Another contamination gives me back my trusty frail mutation, again in spite of the amulet that I wear to prevent this very thing. I don’t like where this is going. I drink the potion of cure mutation that I collected in the Abyss, which completely clears me of all mutations. But I am badly drained now (N+ isn’t that much of a protection against draining), and still my stats are down. I am making a solemn oath: If (not when!) I survive my encounter with Dispater, I will leave the other two hells alone for a while and tackle the Ziggurat. It may mean dying with only 8 runes, but at least I will have had some fun before that. And I may find the loot in there that helps me to make it a lot better through the other hells.

But first to Dispater. I have cleared the area around his fortress. The map shows two outer hallways, which may provide enough space to hit him with orb or even tornadoes. The inner fortress, however, has lots of structures, which will at least absorb some of my orbs. I need to lure Dispater out of there. Killing off some of the foes in the outer hallway restores my lifeforce, but a lot can happen before I actually meet Dispater in this fortress. Too bad, the doors to his inner sanctuary are already open, which means that he could show up anytime, while I’m still mopping up outside. A hell sentinel comes out of this door, and he rolls over only after the fifth fire storm, which sees me completely out of energy. Not a good time to meet Dispater. But first he sends another hell sentinel, which is in tornado range. Before he is down, a balrug and a brimstone fiend round the corner to finish me off. This does not look good at all. I throw a final firestorm at them, but they are not impressed. I’m down to 3 MP, and 42 HP, and really out of options. I could start drinking potions of healing, but that would not keep up with their hellfire damage. I could try to blink away, but that could also get me closer. I could try a teleport, but where would that lead me, and do I survive long enough? I decide to teleport first, and use my wand to do that. The next thing I notice is the surprisingly cold stare in the eyes of the otherwise red-hot brimstone fiend, as he unleashes another blast of hellfire at me. It is also the last thing I ever notice.

==Epilogue==
I finish the game with 14 STR, 29 INT (down three due to stat loss) and 7 DEX (down 1 from my original 8). My other stats are quite impressive: 49 AC, 19 EV and 30 SH, which is great stuff against anything but hellfire. But this hellfire (assisted by one torment) ground down my 175 HP to -2 HP in just three or four attacks by three foes who were attacking me during my last 6 turns.

I’m not sure if I could have done anything to prevent this death. Maybe I should have teleported away already when the second hell sentinel attacked me, but teleportation is a very dangerous thing to do on this level. I could have gone into necromancy some time earlier and try to learn Death’s Door, but that would not have worked, as the game did not generate a Necronomicon (the final list revealed the one unidentified high-level spell book I had in my stash to be a Grand Grimoire).

I think this feature in general was the thing that killed me in the end: The game just did not generate enough quality items that would have helped me to survive the post-end-game. I’m not sure whether there are any real reasons for this, like maybe a change in the game mechanics for 0.14 that severely restricts good-item generation. But I was still wearing my plain gloves and boots when I died. I did not find a single artifact shield (not even a bad one), and not much in the way of useful artifact jewelery that would give me any helpful double resistances. When I died, I was forced to wear a plain ring of sustain abilities, together with an artifact ring that gave me Wiz, MR++, and INT+3. All these were good things to have,  but even a highly resistant character like a gargoyle needs a bit more N+, rF and rC to survive the hells. But what is most important, as a caster, you need a lot more INT to win the game, and I just could not pile it on the way I planned it in the beginning. A bit more INT might have helped killing off a bit faster the bunch of foes that wrestled me down in the end. Needing five firestorms to kill a hell sentinel shouldn’t happen to an end-game character, and that was the beginning of the end for me.

I may have picked the wrong end-game strategy. Instead of trying to tackle the hells with suboptimal equipment I might have gone into the Ziggurat, which may have improved my equipment rapidly. The Ziggurat I may have survived. But some levels in there throw worse stuff at me than what finally killed me, just with the important difference that the layout puts me at an advantage for using firestorms and tornadoes in a much more efficient way.

In any case, it was fun to do this diary, and I hope it still conveyed that the Gargoyle Wizard of Vehumet is a build that can get you very far (I did a 15 rune + Ziggurat run successfully on a 0.14 trunk version with this build). After all, this was a very unlucky character, and when you try it, you may discover a lot more useful items. Just to add some perspective, the build that won this game for me consistently had rF+++, rC++, rN+++, and always between 38 and 42 INT, depending on whether I had to swap rings of sustain abilities or not. A little bit more luck in armor and jewelery finds may have a huge impact on how this game ends for you.