Now that I've gotten the quest from Terinyo, the first thing I do is go to the Small Cave. then immediately leave the Small Cave. We'll come back later.
Then I stop by the bandit town of Holeinthewall to check out what the Black Market has for sale. The only thing worth picking up is a cloak of protection, but it's 6000 gold. And I could just find a cloak of protection in a dungeon somewhere.
With these two small errands done I head to the village dungeon southeast of Terinyo to get on with the quest.
I'm not sure how long Dogmeat will last. I haven't played with companions that much.
Oh. Well. Cool. Bleed out from a giant rat. Why am I not surprised. This is ADOM. Abandon all hope, ye who enter the Drakalor Chain.
Anyway, moving on, next floor, diving down, not much happening, oh hey, nice, an altar.
My first reaction is to want to sacrifice that hostile bat right next to it so I can convert the lawful altar to chaotic. However, I don't want to lower my alignment too low, for reasons I'll explain soon. I'l probably try to convert it on the way back out.
Dirtfarmer dives a few more floors. On level 4 we find Jharod the Healer. Jharod is willing to heal anyone, whether they're Lawful, Neutral, or chaotic alignment, but he'll only teach player characters who are Neutral or higher. We want him to teach us so we can get the healing skill. But our alignment is chaotic. How do we increase our alignment? Why, rescue the village carpenter and try not to commit any chaotic satanic acts of evil along the way, of course.
On VD:5 (Village Dungeon floor 5) we find a hostile blink dog. I name the dog Blinky and kite him around a bit until he summons help.
That's what I want.
I wade through several waves of blink dogs before one of them drops a corpse. It's actually kinda intense of a fight. I get close to death with 2 hp and bleeding before I level up and get my health raised to 12 hp. Then fighting off the remaining blink dogs lowers me to 6 hp. I'm so used to playing troll barbarians or fighters with impenetrable PV values. (that's armor, for non ADOM vets) Not used to squishy trolls. Feels weird.
I grab my prize of a blink dog corpse and run back up to Jharod for healing. I could sit in a corner and wait, but that's too slow without the healing skill, even for a troll.
Haha. We can now control where we teleport to. This is not nearly as gamebreaking as it could be for, say, a wizard or some spellcaster, but it's still good to have. Even for a troll who's barely sentient.
On VD:5 I pick up a potion of training, which I had identified earlier from my trip to the Black Market. Neat.
Oh hey, we found the carpenter. Meet Yriggs. He's been corrupted by the evil of chaos and driven mad and he needs healing. I lead Yriggs back to Jharod.
With Yriggs healed, we're one step closer to learning the healing skill. Our alignment is still chaotic though. I head back to Terinyo to turn in the quest. Hopefully I'll get the alignment boost I need to bring me from C to N-.
...Nope, still chaotic. Hmm. In the past that's been enough to bump my starting chaotic character's alignment to N-. Guess different races+classes start with different levels of alignment. I'd prefer to not have to take the chaotic method of learning healing, but I may have to. I don't like doing it because the skill is basically stuck at 60 with no way to max it out, but it's still better than no healing.
Next time: Dirtfarmer's Moral Medical Dilemma!
I really hate killing Jharod to get healing from the mad doctor. As I said, healing skill is basically stuck at 60, and if I were anything except a troll I'd hate to lose some points in learning and whatever else due to the doctor's brain operation on me. But if it's a choice between half-efficient healing and some attribute drops or no healing I guess I'll do it.
I tried scumming a bit for raising my alignment, namely giving gold to a beggar and wandering around the woods of Terinyo searching for bandit encounters. Neither one got me anywhere, and now I'm out of my stack of large rations.
I could try and save the little dog but it's just a corpse by now and won't give me as much alignment.
I don't think sacrificing to a lawful altar while chaotic will raise my alignment? Maybe if I gave 1 gold piece at a time I'd avoid converting the altar.