Imush Dirtclods leaves the fortress Torchlash, slow traveling the underground dwarven highway to the fortress Mindfulportal, hunting cave critters along the way to build his attributes and skills.
After leaving Torchlash:
Body attributes (after 6 dingoes, 1 ettin, 1 cave croc, 1 pond grabber): above average strength/toughness, and average agility/endurance.
Skills (after 6 dingoes, 1 ettin, 1 cave croc, 1 pond grabber): adequate axe, novice dodge, and adequate-competent shield.
Imush's dodge/charge preferences are set to stand ground/stand ground as this produces the lowest level of randomness and favors blocking.
Imush, with sneak/ambusher on, is at 0.152 speed at the beginning of this series of encounters. He's slowed by the 35 cave croc meat he gathered up before leaving Torchlash, the various pond grabber organs, a few unworn cloaks,
and the +maple crutch+ he's using to train agility, endurance, kinesthetic sense, spatial sense and will power.The under 0.200 speed is desirable as this allows these slow and harmless critters the opportunity to attack more often. The best defensive gains occur when the steel battle axe becomes lodged in the wounds caused. Instead of directional movement to free the axe, the preferred action is Imush interacting with the axe, wrestling for control. This results in 8-14 unanswered attacks per interaction, 1-2 of which might be grip breaks while the rest are either misses (which advances dodge skill) or blocks (shield skill).
With each fight, beginning with the removal of the charge attack, Imush occupies each opponent with wrestling grabs, repeatedly latching on all 4 available grips, occasionally working in
strikes of opportunity ! and re-gripping once his initial grips are broken. This will train wrestler and also clogs up the opponent's attack menu.
The last third of the journey, involves only fatal brawling (mainly punches) and no wrestling. Dodge/charge preferences are set to move around/dodge away to even out the gulf between Shield User and Dodger.
The end gain upon reaching Mindfulportal (totaling 8 cave toads, 4 cave crocs, 9 giant olms, and 1 pond grabber) brings fighter to legendary; shield, armor and wrestling to talented; dodge and striker to skilled, swimmer to proficient; and axe skill to competent. Body attributes all advance to high.
Roughly the main benchmarks for a peasant cavern crawl under perpetual ambush in the last few runs has revolved around shield/armor/wrestling to talented, with all other skill/attribute development as incidental, but much sought after gain. Overall, at this point this seems to be the most well-rounded starting method out of the ones I've tried.
Upon exiting Mindfulportal, Imush runs into an unknown shrine 1 world map tile NW. As the cavern crawl has prepped him well, he has a look and encounters a glass humanoid with a poisonous sting.