A bit of a necro, but I don't want to clutter up the happy/sad threads anymore.
I blew it. Mind flayer got me which unidentified wands of striking. I don't derp around with the drawbridge so I always just hit it with striking and run for the chokepoint. I looked in my bag and couldn't find any wands of striking, so I used the bell of opening. DIdn't work, so I changed position and did it again. One more charge, no idea how else I could get the thing open, I was planning on using my wrest wish for a magic marker so I figured it wasn't a big problem and used the last charge. Still didn't work >:s As if that weren't bad enough, some desperate searching of my bag and I found out I had like ten wands of striking, they had just been unidentified.
Anyway, that thing about the magic marker and the charging didn't happen. After writing some scrolls, recharging it (My wand of wishing only gave me one scroll. The way circumstances fell together to arrange this bullshit is almost beautiful), and so on and so forth, I got around to writing a g - scroll of charging to charge my G - bell. I missed the shift key. I charged my scroll of charging. Of course, after that the marker was spent.
Since then I have seen one scroll of charging, in Vlad's tower. It was cursed. I'm basically ready to get the book and begin the ascension run as soon as I can recharge my bell. Currently I'm a bit more than halfway through tearing the dungeon apart looking for a scroll of charging, magic marker, wand of polymorph (To polypile for a marker), or something, anything, that will lead to me obtaining a scroll of charging. I've gone through every wand and scroll of create monster I've found, turned the castle upside down, Object Detection and Crystal Balled my way through Gehennom, wrested both my spent wands of polymorph on piles of magic whistles and unicorn horns, getting nothing but junk, it's beginning to look grim.
I'm going to do my math homework now, and hopefully you guys can help me out. Are there any ways I've overlooked to get a charge into my bell? Should I cut my losses and start over? If I do I think I'll try a different class. Even though I've never ascended I've got enough experience I don't think I need the Valkyrie crutches anymore, and having some spellcasting ability might have saved me in this game.