Christmas Eve 2015 Challenge

[Blasphemous]

I've finished my turns with Santa Claus and here's a brief summary:
- no tasks done as there wasn't enough time. 4K turns is a *really* small time window
- keethrax corpse delivered, gardening already leveled up a bit
- ud1 had herbs but no stable patches, some morgia (some eaten already), stoma, curaria and peper have been collected
- some pv has been found (6 total at the moment)
- mixed vault in ud3, undead vault in ud7, neither has been explored
- ud8 has a bee hive on the way to ud7
- there are two vortices in UD, which I had to run from by teleporting, one is lightning, the other ice
- lightning bolt spellbook disappeared after one read - I had to replenish charges
- unfortunately no altars were found hence no holy water - I tried identification by price but it turns out that there's only regular and unholy water there
- hmv store some mildly interesting things, such as spellbook of frost bolt, ring of speed with 1 pv and some scrolls but nothing really exciting
- there's a hostile stone giant lord around HMV, which has been teleported away but is still there
- no cats killed, though many have been locked away in DD6 and DD7
- PC is saved in DDL as I often encounter herbs and altars there though this time around - no luck

Character has reached level 11 and is progressing rather nicely.

EDIT: Oh hey I just realized that delivering Keethrax's corpse to Guthalak is one of the tasks, I have no screenshots but there is an unidentified potion of cure corruption in inventory as proof.

[kapak44]

Nice job Blasphemous!

Will be claiming again tonight if no else wants to.

Edit: Beginning my turn again now.

[kapak44]

First of all, cleared the mass of rats left behind. Turns out there was an anthill in DDL, which was quickly cleared. Dropping off a pile of spare armor and useless stuff at the DDL, Santa Claus goes back up to get enough seeds to fulfill the HMV quest. He did notice that recipe for a potion of booze needed a burb root and a potion of carrot juice, so he kept one root in case he was able to brew a potion of booze. He also took the time to read unidentified spellbooks to learn the useful Fire Bolt and Cure Critical Wounds spells. He also read off some spare spellbooks to lighten the load a little and ate four more morgia roots after a toughness increase. He also noticed that he had a potion of carrot juice in his inventory, so he proceeded to Terinyo to give his find to Blup for another point. He went back to the PC:4 herb square in an attempt to get some seeds, while benefiting from the morgia root stat increases. He spent a thousand or so turns there before giving up with 6 seeds. He then went to the HMV and bought the frost bolt book for 1000 gp. With the six seeds that he had, Santa Claus made an effort to produce the 2x2 square and succeeded with two seeds to spare. After waiting for 500 more turns for another bush to grow, Santa Claus caved and planted another seed to complete the 2x2 square. He then spent the last several turns going back to Terinyo to give his last seed to the farmer and get another point. He also managed to learn Neutralize Poison at the last minute and make a potion of booze through alchemy. A wilderness encounter allowed him to learn the Magic Missile spell. His last 50 turns were spent giving a potion of booze to Yggaz, who gave him a potion of exchange. He ended his turn right in a trap-filled room in D:1.

Point 4.pngPoint 5.pngPoint 6.pngPoint 7.png

Right now, Santa Claus has acquired nine points, which means that this character has successfully completed this challenge! Since Christmas is technically over in real life as well, Santa Claus is now free to wield any weapon, win the game or do anything else that the next claimant wishes! He will, however, miss his trusty staff if he no longer chooses to wield it.

[Blasphemous]

Why don't we up the challenge and paint the big room with a huge "Merry Christmas!" using gardening and herbs?
Probably too boring. Maybe freeze all guaranteed water tiles since it's winter?
Truth be told there is no trace of that season outside my window, gotta ask some Finnish people to send me some of their northern snow.

[kapak44]

Both ideas are far too tedious to do. I think this character is done with the challenges. You want to claim it, or should I?

Edit: Claiming in one hour if no one objects.

Edit 2: Starting now.

[kapak44]

And my turn is over.

The first thing that Santa Claus did was equip a shield and a large adamantium hammer. Unfortunately, the shield was cursed. He crossed the trap-filled room and fortunately, found a neutral altar, which he converted to lawful using 3000 gold pieces. A mass identify then proceeded using a potion of holy water and a stack of identify scrolls. He then proceeded to drop a pile of junk to lighten the load. He also found that he had two scrolls of uncursing, which he blessed and used to uncurse his load. This allowed him to equip a much better crystal shield. He also switched out a ring of searching with a ring of acid resistance, and drank his potions of potential charisma and willpower. He also used two mosses of maerilion to get his low dexterity up. After sacrificing enough live creatures to get to the lucky piety level, Santa Claus proceeded downwards. He also proceeded to read until book consumption the Knock, Neutralize poison, and Calm Monster spells, since the books were just taking up space.

D:2 had a tension room which was left alone for now, while D:3 had nothing from the brief look, D:4, however, was another herb-supporting level, and he managed to find some stable squares of antidotes, curaria mancox herbs, pepper petals, and stomafilla herbs. After a few unsuccessful attempts of gardening, Santa Claus proceeded downstairs. D:5 was the arena level, which he skipped for now. D:6 was the big room, which proved to be difficult for him to find the stairs. When he did, he had a phalanx of monsters trailing him. D:7 contained a river and a massive amount of herbs, including morgia roots, spenseweeds, and mosses of marelion. D:8 was the si level of course, where he also reached level 12. He also took the Strong Healer talent, seeing that he had knowledge of several healing spells. D:9 had a leucrotta threat room that was easily cleared. D:10 was Dwarftown, where Santa Claus received a quest to kill a dark orc from Thrundarr. He went back up to the big room to see if one was generated there. On the way back up, D:7 turned out to have a statue saying, “thanks for all the fish”. Unfortunately, there was no dark orc in the Big room. Rexploring D:3, however, did yield a spellbook of Death Ray. Santa Claus ended his turn on D:2, where hopefully reexploring the level might yield a dark orc.

Good luck to whoever claims. If nobody claims by tomorrow, I will start again.

[Shinae]

Nice to read some progress. I'm back home from spending time with family, so will continue my character today. Will update later.

[kapak44]

Starting my char again in one hour. Good luck with your char Shinae.

[kapak44]

Picking up from where he left off, Santa Claus finished exploring D:2 to see if he could find a dark orc there. He did not, but he did find a mixed tension room. S:3 was no more successful. Another mass ID at Dwarftown yielded the presence of black dragon-hide gauntlets and a ring of the clear mind. He also bought a potion of troll blood and some food in an effort for Waldenbrook to restock his shop. On the level below Dwarftown, he got his adamantium hammer corroded from a gray ooze and reached level 13, prompting Santa Claus to consider the Pyramid if he reached the two staircase level. D:13 had a beehive which contained only beeswax, and mithril chain mail, which he wore in place of his leather armor, spellbooks of magic lock and revelation, and a cloak of protection. D:14 had a river and was a herb-supporting level, and contained the ancient scythe, and also contained the two staircases. He also learned the cure light wounds spell there. For his last act, Santa Claus bought a tower adamantium shield as a backup shield in case anything went wrong with his current shield. He spent his last turns making his way to the Pyramid to hopefully find a dark orc there. However, one magically appeared on D:8 with the message “Suddenly a dark orc appears!”, which was the doing of a necromancer. He thus got his reward and ended his turn in the middle of the animated forest.
So far, so good! I think we have a winner here.

[Shinae]

Alright. Time to update part 1 of Santa Claws's adventure. I created this character on Christmas Eve, but didn't play it at all until today. Also I took liberty playing steam version with NotEye, not ascii. I was a bit worried with early game survival, at least being a dwarf made door traps a bit safer and extra toughness saved me. I started with a dagger, but noticed it in first village so it was unarmed for me early game. I started with reading my 2x Spellbooks of Fire bolt, got about 500ish casts from them.

I went to puppy cave first. Almost died to pit with vipers. Had to pray twice, I think I was at like 3 hp. I stormed thru everything and found puppy at vault floor, first room, alive. Saved the puppy and made the little girl happy. I skipped the vault clearing for now and decided to save Carpenter. Puppy cave got me Bracers of Protection 2PV and Magic Missile and another spellbook of Fire Bolt. Also there was herbs at floor 3 I think, I got some extra willpower and toughness from morgia roots yay!

I went towards the VD. I found Quarterstaff finally from bat tension room, basic 1d10, I guess better than unarmed. I found 24s sword as well and it made me sad not being able to use it. Village dungeon was easy, I found scale mail with 4 PV, so I went that route. I saved the Carpenter. He got me near half hp, because low DV, but I didn't took that many hits and luckily stairs were quite close.

Stocked up some food, read spellbooks and went to Lawenilothehl and killed the boss there to get some gold. I didn't get much. There is Spellbook of Teleport in the shop I think about buying it after I talk to sheriff about my reward. Gave some food to beggar, screenshot doesn't really show it, but he's friendly.

So far that's:
Puppy saved 2 points
Food to Beggar 1 points
Saved Yriggs, no hatchets yet, so no points yet.

Some screenshots in album:
http://imgur.com/a/eac4H

I have couple of questions: Where do I see how many turns I have used? Also with 4k turn limit, should I skip the vault in PC? Vault might have extra hatchet needed and probably some candy drops as well. What do you guys think?