Woot, FINALLY clocked my first tournament win.
Nice, lazy, MiFi with polearms. Because axes are just asking to be ripped apart by a hydra. Disabled all training except for polearms and got started! Started worshipping Oka on D5, but did my usual careless autoexplore/tabspam until D6 where I killed a sky creature and got six positive mutations, the most notable of which were clarity and robust. Good start! Continued with the autoexplore/tabbing, but with more attention. Found a nice +5, rCorr ring mail on D10 and got an endgame quality pair of boots from Oka on D11: +2 pair of boots "Zaunyucewk" {rC- rN+++ MP-9 Str+7}. Meh, MiFi, who cares about MP, and rC- is easy to deal with. Around here, realized that I forgot to start training my other skills (usually do so when whenever weapon I'm currently using hits minimum delay, or 16; was 21 this time). Turn on fighting/armor/shield. Picked up a solid shield for a bargain in a shop-- +3 shield "Kanaov" {rF++ Int+2}. Cleared all the way down to the Depths with minimal issues. Saw Kirke and panicked for a moment since I didn't have much MR at the time, but a quick Heroism/Might killed her before I took on a slightly more porcine appearance. The bazaar showed up somewhere around here, and I grabbed an rElec, rCorr, Dex+6 cloak. Good enough, but I've seen better. After clearing the main dungeon, headed to the orcs. Normally, I do the lair first, but I didn't have rPois yet, and I hoped that either the shops would have something good or I can at least get something better than my junk trident. Nope, but I managed to buy a +5 plate armor, -Tele, rF+, MR+, Regen+. Eruuuuhm... I guess I can use it over my other armor, but that -Tele... Ugh.
Into the lair! rElec, rCorr, Str+3 gloves. Kind of redundant, but I can swap out either the gloves/cloak whenever a better option comes along. Got a +9 spear!... with MP/Int, and -Str/Dex. Thanks, Obam---Oka. Absolutely nothing interested happened in the Lair, outside of buying an endgame ring: "Gufa" {MR+ EV+3 Str+2 Stlth+}. After finishing that, I started raising my Invo/Evo, so I can use Finesse, wands, and the elemental summons if necessary. Did the Snake Pit first... I had a brief moment of panic when a guardian serpent managed to repeatedly surround me. Read a scroll of teleportation to get out and-- crap. -Tele. Popped haste, might, heroism, started swinging, and managed to break loose and get to the stairs with about 30hp left. Yeah. Not wearing that armor again. Shouted liberally and managed to pull the clump into a hallway where I made short work of them. First rune, GET!
To the shoals! Had an easy time until I got caught by about a dozen of them hurling javelins at my head and a water nymph on my tail... flooding the stairs up. Made a mad dash for the other stairs, a fair distance away, burning two blink scrolls in the process. Made it with about 40hp. This entire place, I did not get ANY good demon tridents to drop (three of them of protection? REALLY?) but I did get a scroll of acquirement... demon trident of Diwkoz {pain, rC+ Int+4 Dex+2} Uhm. MiFi, what kind of necromancy training am I supposed to have? Still, it's good enough, so I aborted my run through the Shoals, back down to D13 where I had a necromancy spell in a book, and started training it up. Came back, started shredding everything in sight, grabbed the rune, booked it.
To the Vaults, I guess. Easy run until V4 where I autoattacked into a red rakshasa... wait-- don't they wear blue? Aw, nooooo. Blinked my way back to the stairs, healed up, came down and started to beat on him until he summoned my clone again, whereupon I'd buff myself to the gills and destroy him. Except he died too early. Disappointment reigns, but back to exploration! Down to Vault 5, where a bit of stair dancing killed some of them before a warden shut down the stairs. Teleported myself from a bad spot into a worse spot into a safe hallway. Managed to take advantage of the layout of the place to turn the place into a funnel of doom, where I killed off 2/3rds of the floor in that nook alone. Got exactly ONE item worth using in the entire Vault, and that was the ring of the Octopus King, as a swap upgrade for SustAt.
Started my Depths dive since I had 3 runes, and decided to grab Slimy first. In the process, I lost my beautiful assortment of all positive mutations, and turned into a giant mishmash. Killed the Royal Jelly (Haste, Finesse, Heroism, Might, ran to the stairs as soon as it died)... and realized I didn't have a wand of digging. Walked back to the Shoals, where I left the only thing I had that could destroy walls: a wand of disintegration. (I never found another wand of disintegration, nor a wand of digging at all for the entire run!) Everything in there was trash, except for an amulet of rage I could use as a swap for an also newly acquired amulet of reflection. Spent some time running back and forth, cleaning up mutations, trying to get something decent... was iffy, but oh well. Realized I forgot to take care of the Elf Halls.
Uhm. Wow. Hall of Blades spawned a Quick Blade of Electrocution AND a Quick Blade of Distortion. Too bad I wasn't using daggers. -_- Went into the Ice Cave in here, got Boots of the Assassin... but giving up rN+++ for that seemed like a bad trade.
Polished off the Depths. Somewhere before this, I got Gloves of War, and then another set of +slaying gloves from Oka, but I couldn't give up my rElec, rCorr. (Somewhere before this, I ended up throwing out the cloak in favor of a generic MR cloak.) Got a Gold Dragon Armor somewhere in here and promptly enchanted it up to max. Way better than the Crystal Plate I picked up somewhere since it frees up rPois and gives an extra rC.
So at this point, I've got the Crypt/Tomb, Abyss, Hell, and Panda. No point in doing the Crypt without Tomb, and, between rocking a Pain-brand weapon right now and not taking Kiku, that place is going to suck. Hell? That killed my LAST super MiFi. Panda? Same story. Okay, Abyss it is. Made like five trips in there-- the first one, I got cornered and ended up having to drink down almost my entire stash of healing potions while my teleportation scroll kicked in. The others had me taking moderate damage before getting to Abyss:3, so I just left, healed, reentered. Eventually found it surrounded by a bunch of lightning rods of some kind that didn't do much damage, so I just walked in, grabbed it, and left.
Zot dive time! Somehow killed Tiamat without even noticing. Briefly considered using that cloak, but, eh, my resistances were golden and extra MR never hurts. Zot:3, got... WYRMSLAYER. Best timing ever. I'm a 1h polearm user surrounded by dragons. Thank you, Oka! Makes up for all the random crap you've given me all run...
Cleared the last floor. Briefly considered going for the other runes, since I've got defenses AND melee offenses coming out of my ears, but I want this win. Grab the orb, and I basically just dash straight for the exit. Nothing managed to even dent me on the way up, including a few pandemonium lords. Win in 2:55, with 5min to spare for Speed Demon III!
Things I never found in the entire run (as far as I know): A source of spirit shield (I had swaps for every other effect), a wand of digging, a potion of experience, a holy monster (even the "caged" angels by altars sometimes), a large shield.
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Topic: Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Or: THAT DAMN SIGMUND. (Read 1683195 times)