Right, when we last left Urist, he went and stuck his head in a bloody pool and got himself doomed. Literally bloody pool.
Our first priority is to get not-doomed again. Oh, sure, dooming adds difficulty and difficulty is fun, but if I want to be doomed for fun I'll make a character for it. I'd rather try and beat the game normally and see more of what ADOM has to offer than try to play handicapped with doom and die horribly.
So, the plan is to run like hell down to the nearest lawful altar in the Caverns of Chaos. Then maybe I'll try drinking from more pools. Aside from cursing or dooming, I don't think anything too terrible can happen. Also, note to self, don't drink from bloody pools. It's just a pool, and maybe I'm being paranoid, but I feel like a pool of blood would be more prone to bad things happening than, say, a white pool or a green pool.
The dive down to the altar on D:8 is fairly uneventful, considering we're doomed. Probably because we're really too overleveled to feel any challenge from "early game" content like the Caverns of Chaos before Dwarftown. I said fairly uneventful, but there were some things that could've gone wrong. There was a gelatinous cube in the cavernous level, and if I had tried to attack it and got paralyzed I wouldn't be surprised if I got stunlocked and surrounded by monsters and killed.
Crisis averted, and we're still alive. Dooming really seems the most dangerous in early game or in dangerous later game levels without an easy to reach altar. But in later game it's possible the player has gotten enough piety to pray as soon as they're doomed and get the doom lifted. So, doom seems the worst in the early game.
Now that we're undoomed, let's play "drink from the pool and pray we don't die horribly" game! *insert laughtrack cheers*
Well that's one pool down. On the way to the next pool I get attacked by a master swordsman, who was standing to my northeast when this happened.
Huh. Didn't know they could do that. That could be really dangerous. Fortunately we kill him with our SPEAR OF DEVASTATION before he can poke us with the pointy armor-penetrating pointy-stick sword.
Time for the next game of pool!
Well shit, I can see a pattern with this pool. would rather not keep falling in and lose my only warhammer to rust. Need that for smithing. Ok, time to stop playing pool and get on with the game.
I stop by dwarftown and buy some food stuff from the general store and get our next quest from Thrundarr. To advance the plot we have to go past the animated forest anyway, so that's cool. I would not recommend the dwarven halls unless you're feeling very confident or very bored and looking for fun. Fun in the Dwarf Fortress "losing is fun" sense.
I also swing by Glod's place.
Uuuuuh. Never had this happen before. Right, well, Urist and Glod are smithbros now I guess. I go back to coldly demanding Glod repair my rusty items and move on. Not sure how a dwarf removes rust from an iron ingot but hey, dwarfs.
Back to dungeon diving! I'm getting kinda low on food stocks, but the ratling traders take a while to restock and I can't be arsed to wait around for them. If worse comes to worst I can dip my 13 cooked lizards into holy water and make them more nutritious and get more mileage out of them.
Uhhh. Speaking of lizards.
Yeah. Karmic lizards, in case anyone doesn't know, are a bad idea to kill with melee. Attacking one with melee makes you cursed and lowers your luck. In early game it's possible to have your run go to hell from attacking one of these things and causing a spiral of misfortune. Also, I'm a melee character. And have no wands to zap and kill 'em with. Hmm. Does cursing stack? I bet cursing stacks. Arg, I bet the stairs down are over there too.
Alright, I have a wand of digging. I close the door and head to another corner of the dungeon. We'll just dig ourselves a new way into that room.
Hmm. Not sure if I thought this through.
YEP. DIDN'T THINK THIS THROUGH. Well dang. Now what.
Oh, wait. I have a book of magic missile from which I learned the spell earlier. I have barely any casts from memory (20, that's almost nothing compared to wizards) but I do have the book. And I can cast from the book!
Well that worked. It takes two casts from the book to kill the two lizards on my right side. I'm not surrounded now, which is better.
Casting from books takes three times the time, three times the power, and doesn't train your efficiency in that spell. However, it won't destroy the book, and you can book cast as much as you want, unlike casting from memory which will eventually run out of spells. Because Urist ain't exactly the most spell adept character, a single cast drains his power points to 20/54, and the second bolt has to drain some health to pay for the spell, dropping his power points to 0/54 and his health to 144/164. I wouldn't recommend bookcasting combat spells like magic missile. it takes a bunch of time, and time in combat is important. Only reason I could do so here is because I have so much armor that the lizards can't hurt me, and I had no other choice, aside from sticking them with the pointy bit of my sword and cursing myself.
Ugh. Can't find the stairs for this floor. It's gotta be past the lizard room, but I don't have the gear to deal with that, and my food reserves are getting low. I'll come back. I guess for now I'll go back to the arena and wait for the ratlings to restock.
On the way up to the arena, I get these messages. My stats decreased. Pretty sure it was wisdom (soft hearted) and toughness (getting a cold). Bugger. Don't use your lifeforce in spells if you can help it, folks.
I think I'll end the update here. Here's a screenshot of the arena floor, if anyone who hasn't seen it is interested. Meant to include that in the first update I reached the arena in, but completely forgot to get the screenshot.
Kinda long update.
Didn't get much done aside from stopping the doom. Really not seeing the appeal of pools.
In retrospect I probably could've just killed all the karma lizards with my sword and run back to dwarftown to make offerings at the altar to cure the curse. Oh well. Next update. I needed to get more food from the ratling traders anyway.
We'll totally make more progress next time.