YA 'fling the bling'
Second victory for the 'fling the bling' challenge. The last PC 'Berchant'
had a few mistakes in his journey : ) This time through, I had a few more
experience points under my belt, and so was able to get the 'perfect'
victory. I never inflicted damage on any monster, in any way other than
coin throw.
I got a lucky start with this PC, as there were two ant levels in the
puppy cave. I collected many valuable gems for use and sale, the healing,
darkness, and light crystals were a great help. I got the healing skill
in the chaos way (sorry Jharod), killed Hotz and gang, and returned to
the PC for exp. points and teleport control. I aquired the TP wand from
the VDDL, raided DF, and netted a +12 mithril scale mail! Next I found
some early herbs in one of the first few CoC levels. I proceded to (had
to) utilize sickness and starvation, in order to get my 'bling' damage
to respectable levels.
The pyramid and Griffyard were easy. The RotHK was easy enough as well,
but I had no way of lake crossing upon entering the dungeon. Happily
enough, there was a book shop spawned on the first level, only there was
no frost bolt book in there. I forced a few re-stocks, and finally got
an ice ball book. I got a few bad effects from trying that, as merchants
aren't wizards, but eventually I learned enough to cross the lake. I
was very careful not to accidentally freeze the skeletal king ; )
For some reason, I decided I wanted a L+ dark elf. I figured that the
SoCR were not guaranteed from the mystic, and I could sac the artifact
axe for a heap of piety. The axe plus the gold from selling gems (not
to Waldenbrook!), was enough to get an early crowning. I was hoping for
=fire, but I got =shock instead. I got the artifact dwarf shield from
Thrundarr, and used it through the whole game. I do like that shield,
+15 overall, with some resistances to boot : )
I cleared the first half of DF, and pool sipped. I like to do it this
way, to avoid the interferance that comes from fully clearing DF, then
sipping. I generated 13 pools, and only had to drain 8 to get my wish.
In most games, I just let the sage die, but my last blinger had some
trouble with late game corruption, so I needed those SoCR from Khelly : )
I finished DF without event, and headed for the tower.
I had to enter the ToEF without proper fire resistance, and no fireproof
blanket. I breezed through the pre-temple levels, and even picked up
intrinsic -fire one the way, from a friendly lizard : ) Healing was a big
problem on the orb level though, as I had no Water Orb yet, to rely upon.
I made a few trips back to my item stash on D:1, to pick up a small
supply of spenseweed. Strangely enough, none of it was burning away in my
temple fight, so when I made my next trip, I brought a horde of the stuff.
Even with no fireproof blanket, it just didn't burn up??? Oh well, good
for me I guess! : ) Being crowned probably played a big part in that.
The ACW did panic, so I had to kill nearly half the temple to finish him
off, but eventually he fell.
The Air temple was a breeze (ha!). The earth temple fell just as easily,
but with the ASB only being hurt by criticals, it took a while. I skipped
a couple of greater undead vaults along the way. I miss the extra artifacts,
but I don't miss the stat drains : ) I had to kill about a gazillion chaos
servants to reach the Archmage. I then lured him out of the temple area,
using a chaos servant 'meat shield' to protect me from death rays. I stood
out of line with the Archmage, and he shot stupid frost bolts at me until he
died.
D:50 was a lot easier this time, than the last. I tunneled through the top
and bottom areas, and cleared the monsters with a combination of the
'farsight' spell, and a long range 'bling' attack. The coin throw range
increases with exp. level (two squares every ten levels?), and I was at
exp. level ~35 upon entering D:50, so I had a respectable range. I lured
the balors to me, one at a time, by teleporting and pulling levers. Fisty
fell as easily as the rest, and strangely... none of them summoned a single
monster. Very strange, but a very welcome change from last time : )
After killing all the balors, I shut the gate for good and set about kiling
every monster on the level. It took a while, and the servants became quite
powerful. It was very satisfying though, to zap a wand of monster detection,
and get the 'you sense an absence of monsters' message : )
I was so worried about corruption in this game, I even visited the rift
(with not a single item destroyed!?), and cleared the bug temple for the
extra SoCR. It turns out that I didn't need them, but I think this PC just
had crazy luck. I didn't even need to do the unicorn quest, to leave with
no corruption. I even had SoCR left over : )
"Whip me!" pleads the adom player. The rng replies... "No."
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