Mason Wheeler
12-10-2013, 01:23 AM
I normally play Mindcrafters, but I hit the wrong button when setting up the character and ended up with an Archer. So I figured oh well, let's try this one.
From the beginning, I was going for the ascension as an Avatar of Balance. So I quickly slipped into Lawenilothehl and killed a beggar. I knew getting the alignments right would be tricky. First I'd have to go evil, so I accepted the quest to kill the healer. (Which also gives better Healing skill than saving the carpenter.) I killed the carpenter, ate the corpse of a kobold wizard I found along the way back for a +Ma, then went to Jharod to be healed, then killed Jharod and got my Healing skill. Opened the little girl's cave but didn't go deep into it just yet. Then I headed down to the HMV just to open the way. Got a wish from a pool along the way, and wished for an AoLS of course.
Then onward and into the CoC. My alignment was N- by the time I got to Dwarftown, and I was careful to keep it that way as long as possible, finishing all the quests and getting the quest to kill Griff Bloodaxe, which wasn't all that tricky. Went through the Pyramid on my way back, then headed back to Dwarftown, lured an innocent child off the level, and brutally murdered him to turn evil.
I fed the mummy wrapping and the ankh to the Demented Ratling, along with Big Punch, Sword of Nonnak and some other junk. (Yes, the ankh. I had already gotten Lucky and Fate Smiles from the pool while trying for a wish.) Went and spoke with Gaab'Baay, then it was time to fix my alignment. I went and retrieved the corpse of the little girl's cute dog, then very carefully sacrificed some gold to get back into Ayssia's good graces. Saved the sage, then headed for the Water Temple.
Archers find lots of arrows, which made it a lot easier, since a couple of the bundles of arrows I had found were DEMON SLAYING! :D Also, my first corruption was the gills one, which simplified getting across the moat.
The ToEF, on the other hand, was a real pain. I happened to find a scroll of familiar summoning that gave me a Greater Fire Elemental when read in the dwarven halls, and he was really helpful in the ToEF, but there's still no way I'd have gotten through if I hadn't found a Wand of Wishing in the DH. Used two wishes for Phase Daggers and Red Dragon Scale Mail, which made the tower manageable, but still painful. Had to play a lot of hide-and-seek with elementals, fire grues, and demons. There's a *lot* more of those guardians on the Fire Temple than the Water Temple! Orb guardian died to more demon slaying arrows.
The first two temples are always the difficult ones. After that, I headed for the tomb. Nothing too spectacular there. I had done the carpenter's quest, but building bridges sucks, so I used a Wand of Cold to get to the ring. The skeletal king inside cheats: he can walk on the chaos piranha-infested lake and not get chewed up! Oh well. Undead-slaying arrows put an end to his shenanigans.
After that, I finished off a few of Gaab'Baay's quests and headed down to Darkforge. (Phase Daggers make this level a whole lot easier!) Didn't get anything particularly interesting in the treasure vaults (except another phase dagger) but I did get a level or two out of it.
Then I went back to the CoC and down to the casino. Found a few artifacts I didn't care about at the gift shop, and a few items I did, such as 7LB. Played the slots for a while until I could buy useful gear. Took a bunch more money back up to Dwarftown to get crowned. Ayssia must have really liked me; she gave me Sun's Messenger, the Longbow of Pure Awesomeness. I also found a Wand of Monster Creation in the gift shop, which let me finish Gaab'Baay's quests. I dropped her reward off in Darkforge, then went to the stone circle. Entered on day 91. Keriax was a lot less scary than I remember him being last time I tried this. Of course, last time I wasn't an archer with an artifact longbow and dragon slaying arrows. Dropped his bit of chaos off at Darkforge as well.
Then back to the COC, and it's a good thing I got Sun's Messenger: The level directly below the casino contained a FREAKING GREATER VAULT OF UNDEAD! :eek: Sun's Messenger turns every arrow into an undead slaying arrow, but I still had a rough time with this level. It was worth it, though: Bracers of War were in the vault.
A few levels deeper, I ran into another greater vault. Giants this time. Lot less pain, but a lot less gain. Got a couple worthless artifacts from it, which ended up on an altar.
Did the Air Temple. Yawn. This level is boring. Lure grues and demons away one or two at a time, blow them away with demon slaying arrows, retrieve arrows, wash, rinse, repeat. Then kill Yulgash.
Down further, I hit the Earth Temple. Also boring. Orb guardian dies to demon slaying arrows. Head down further.
On my way down, I ran into YET ANOTHER GREATER VAULT! That's three, if you're keeping track. Red dragons this time. I got myself a Wyrmlance out of it. (No wonder they had it protected by a greater vault; if I was a red dragon I would want that thing locked away behind armed guard too!)
The very next level contained a lesser vault. More red dragons. Whee! Time to practice with Wyrmlance and get some polearm marks trained. No artifacts here, but by this time I have more holy water, scrolls of identify and scrolls of uncursing than my grandkids will ever need.
I found an altar on D:46, which was convenient what with all the vaults around.
I headed down into the UD. Found two shops there, one for wands, one for spellbooks. What kind of crazy person sets up a shop in a place like that anyway?!?
By this time I had Alertness of 100, so the traps around the Mana Temple weren't too scary. What was scary was the combination of chaos wizards summoning legions of bad guys against me and the archmage making things dark. So I equipped an amulet of light and a big huge stack of arrows and got to work. Archmage fell to humanoid slaying arrows, and I spent a few potions of holy water to take his corpse up to Guth'Alak. Did the unicorn's quest on my way back.
Now I had all five orbs. I headed down into the dragon caves. Wyrmlance really came in handy there, but when I finally ran up against the big purple/blue wyrm, I used dragon slaying arrows on him. Came back up, got Sting and a bunch of useless crap from Sharaad-Waador.
By this point I was L44. I needed to be L45 to continue with the Ultra Ending questline, and it just so happened that, in an act of supreme irony, among the loot the karmic wyrm dropped for me was another bundle of dragon slaying arrows. So I backed waaaay up and got myself level 45. :D
This is as far as I've ever gotten along the path to an Ultra Ending. I've never actually gotten to the assassin prince without aggroing him before, so everything from here on was unexplored territory. First, I went to the unicorn and got my corruptions cleansed. (It's worth noting that, up until this point,
the RNG kept trying to railroad me into the "hate the sun" and "tentacle mouth" corruptions. I removed them 4 times each, and kept getting them back.) Then I went to the Library and spent a lot of time killing a bunch of monsters that were making noise, including a lich who liked to scream words of magic and a highly inconsiderate titan that made this huge *THUMB* with every single step that reverberated throughout the library.
Out of gratitude for making the library a quieter place, the librarian gave me this really weird book and said some really weird bard wanted to have it delivered. So I took it over, and he gave me some scrolls of chaos resistance, which was cool. Then I headed over to the nearby bug temple and cleared it out for even more chaos resistance, and some magic mapping. Then I went to go see the assassin prince.
I had to try over 200 times to get down into the assassin's guild. Stupid teleporting staircase! But I made it, and then very carefully made my way into the presence of the Assassin Prince. He said I looked dangerous and gave me a quest to kill a bit of singing lightning.
Then I showed him just how dangerous I was. Humanoid slaying arrow FTW. Now I had Sting and Needle, which are awesome when you've got 14 ranks in daggers.
I'd only ever killed the one beggar, so I went and looked around on the first floor of the ID until I found a quickling. He told me to kill the Mad Minstrel. I zapped a blessed wand of fireballs instead. (No slaying arrows this time.) Mr. Crazybard was very impressed, and he told me where to find a cave where I could find a trident.
I didn't find a trident there, just an Emperor Moloch. I'd heard this guy has crazy-tough armor, so I dual-wieldd phase daggers just in case, then stood way back and loaded up my last batch of demon slaying arrows. He was dead before he came into melee range. Go figure. He didn't have the trident; all he had was a scroll with a picture of the trident on it.
I took it to Khelevaster, and he conjured the trident out of the scroll with the picture on it, which makes me wonder if the people who did that movie The City of Bones have been playing ADOM. ;)
From there, I headed down to D:48, pausing in Darkforge to retrieve the Crown and Medal of Chaos, and started throwing away my orbs. The Fire Orb (and all the carrying capacity it added) was tough to part with, but I did it. I also found a (neutral!) altar on this level. Go figure.
Wand of Digging made D:49 easy, and then I was at D:50. Emperor Moloch's death had raised me to experience level 50, which makes archers even more awesome: it turns their bow into a wand! (Sort of.) So I started mowing down chaos dudes.
The tricky thing there was, I had had the unicorn cleanse me recently, and I ran out of chaos dudes before I got all the corruptions I needed. So I stood around and fletched and let the background radiation do its thing. Then I equipped everything properly and jumped in the gate. Boy was Andor Drakon surprised to see me!
I quickly read a blessed Scroll of Uncursing, and traded the crown and medal for a helm of mental stability and an amulet of light, because the big guy's a spellcaster. Then I started reading scrolls of chaos resistance. (Yes, I know they're not called that anymore. I still like the old name.) Halfway through my cleansing, I got probably the most awesome message of all: Happy Birthday! Things were definitely going my way.
So I loaded up some humanoid slaying arrows and went looking for a god to kill. It took a lot of archery, but I got him down to critical, then poked at him with the trident for a few rounds... and then everything went white.
From the beginning, I was going for the ascension as an Avatar of Balance. So I quickly slipped into Lawenilothehl and killed a beggar. I knew getting the alignments right would be tricky. First I'd have to go evil, so I accepted the quest to kill the healer. (Which also gives better Healing skill than saving the carpenter.) I killed the carpenter, ate the corpse of a kobold wizard I found along the way back for a +Ma, then went to Jharod to be healed, then killed Jharod and got my Healing skill. Opened the little girl's cave but didn't go deep into it just yet. Then I headed down to the HMV just to open the way. Got a wish from a pool along the way, and wished for an AoLS of course.
Then onward and into the CoC. My alignment was N- by the time I got to Dwarftown, and I was careful to keep it that way as long as possible, finishing all the quests and getting the quest to kill Griff Bloodaxe, which wasn't all that tricky. Went through the Pyramid on my way back, then headed back to Dwarftown, lured an innocent child off the level, and brutally murdered him to turn evil.
I fed the mummy wrapping and the ankh to the Demented Ratling, along with Big Punch, Sword of Nonnak and some other junk. (Yes, the ankh. I had already gotten Lucky and Fate Smiles from the pool while trying for a wish.) Went and spoke with Gaab'Baay, then it was time to fix my alignment. I went and retrieved the corpse of the little girl's cute dog, then very carefully sacrificed some gold to get back into Ayssia's good graces. Saved the sage, then headed for the Water Temple.
Archers find lots of arrows, which made it a lot easier, since a couple of the bundles of arrows I had found were DEMON SLAYING! :D Also, my first corruption was the gills one, which simplified getting across the moat.
The ToEF, on the other hand, was a real pain. I happened to find a scroll of familiar summoning that gave me a Greater Fire Elemental when read in the dwarven halls, and he was really helpful in the ToEF, but there's still no way I'd have gotten through if I hadn't found a Wand of Wishing in the DH. Used two wishes for Phase Daggers and Red Dragon Scale Mail, which made the tower manageable, but still painful. Had to play a lot of hide-and-seek with elementals, fire grues, and demons. There's a *lot* more of those guardians on the Fire Temple than the Water Temple! Orb guardian died to more demon slaying arrows.
The first two temples are always the difficult ones. After that, I headed for the tomb. Nothing too spectacular there. I had done the carpenter's quest, but building bridges sucks, so I used a Wand of Cold to get to the ring. The skeletal king inside cheats: he can walk on the chaos piranha-infested lake and not get chewed up! Oh well. Undead-slaying arrows put an end to his shenanigans.
After that, I finished off a few of Gaab'Baay's quests and headed down to Darkforge. (Phase Daggers make this level a whole lot easier!) Didn't get anything particularly interesting in the treasure vaults (except another phase dagger) but I did get a level or two out of it.
Then I went back to the CoC and down to the casino. Found a few artifacts I didn't care about at the gift shop, and a few items I did, such as 7LB. Played the slots for a while until I could buy useful gear. Took a bunch more money back up to Dwarftown to get crowned. Ayssia must have really liked me; she gave me Sun's Messenger, the Longbow of Pure Awesomeness. I also found a Wand of Monster Creation in the gift shop, which let me finish Gaab'Baay's quests. I dropped her reward off in Darkforge, then went to the stone circle. Entered on day 91. Keriax was a lot less scary than I remember him being last time I tried this. Of course, last time I wasn't an archer with an artifact longbow and dragon slaying arrows. Dropped his bit of chaos off at Darkforge as well.
Then back to the COC, and it's a good thing I got Sun's Messenger: The level directly below the casino contained a FREAKING GREATER VAULT OF UNDEAD! :eek: Sun's Messenger turns every arrow into an undead slaying arrow, but I still had a rough time with this level. It was worth it, though: Bracers of War were in the vault.
A few levels deeper, I ran into another greater vault. Giants this time. Lot less pain, but a lot less gain. Got a couple worthless artifacts from it, which ended up on an altar.
Did the Air Temple. Yawn. This level is boring. Lure grues and demons away one or two at a time, blow them away with demon slaying arrows, retrieve arrows, wash, rinse, repeat. Then kill Yulgash.
Down further, I hit the Earth Temple. Also boring. Orb guardian dies to demon slaying arrows. Head down further.
On my way down, I ran into YET ANOTHER GREATER VAULT! That's three, if you're keeping track. Red dragons this time. I got myself a Wyrmlance out of it. (No wonder they had it protected by a greater vault; if I was a red dragon I would want that thing locked away behind armed guard too!)
The very next level contained a lesser vault. More red dragons. Whee! Time to practice with Wyrmlance and get some polearm marks trained. No artifacts here, but by this time I have more holy water, scrolls of identify and scrolls of uncursing than my grandkids will ever need.
I found an altar on D:46, which was convenient what with all the vaults around.
I headed down into the UD. Found two shops there, one for wands, one for spellbooks. What kind of crazy person sets up a shop in a place like that anyway?!?
By this time I had Alertness of 100, so the traps around the Mana Temple weren't too scary. What was scary was the combination of chaos wizards summoning legions of bad guys against me and the archmage making things dark. So I equipped an amulet of light and a big huge stack of arrows and got to work. Archmage fell to humanoid slaying arrows, and I spent a few potions of holy water to take his corpse up to Guth'Alak. Did the unicorn's quest on my way back.
Now I had all five orbs. I headed down into the dragon caves. Wyrmlance really came in handy there, but when I finally ran up against the big purple/blue wyrm, I used dragon slaying arrows on him. Came back up, got Sting and a bunch of useless crap from Sharaad-Waador.
By this point I was L44. I needed to be L45 to continue with the Ultra Ending questline, and it just so happened that, in an act of supreme irony, among the loot the karmic wyrm dropped for me was another bundle of dragon slaying arrows. So I backed waaaay up and got myself level 45. :D
This is as far as I've ever gotten along the path to an Ultra Ending. I've never actually gotten to the assassin prince without aggroing him before, so everything from here on was unexplored territory. First, I went to the unicorn and got my corruptions cleansed. (It's worth noting that, up until this point,
the RNG kept trying to railroad me into the "hate the sun" and "tentacle mouth" corruptions. I removed them 4 times each, and kept getting them back.) Then I went to the Library and spent a lot of time killing a bunch of monsters that were making noise, including a lich who liked to scream words of magic and a highly inconsiderate titan that made this huge *THUMB* with every single step that reverberated throughout the library.
Out of gratitude for making the library a quieter place, the librarian gave me this really weird book and said some really weird bard wanted to have it delivered. So I took it over, and he gave me some scrolls of chaos resistance, which was cool. Then I headed over to the nearby bug temple and cleared it out for even more chaos resistance, and some magic mapping. Then I went to go see the assassin prince.
I had to try over 200 times to get down into the assassin's guild. Stupid teleporting staircase! But I made it, and then very carefully made my way into the presence of the Assassin Prince. He said I looked dangerous and gave me a quest to kill a bit of singing lightning.
Then I showed him just how dangerous I was. Humanoid slaying arrow FTW. Now I had Sting and Needle, which are awesome when you've got 14 ranks in daggers.
I'd only ever killed the one beggar, so I went and looked around on the first floor of the ID until I found a quickling. He told me to kill the Mad Minstrel. I zapped a blessed wand of fireballs instead. (No slaying arrows this time.) Mr. Crazybard was very impressed, and he told me where to find a cave where I could find a trident.
I didn't find a trident there, just an Emperor Moloch. I'd heard this guy has crazy-tough armor, so I dual-wieldd phase daggers just in case, then stood way back and loaded up my last batch of demon slaying arrows. He was dead before he came into melee range. Go figure. He didn't have the trident; all he had was a scroll with a picture of the trident on it.
I took it to Khelevaster, and he conjured the trident out of the scroll with the picture on it, which makes me wonder if the people who did that movie The City of Bones have been playing ADOM. ;)
From there, I headed down to D:48, pausing in Darkforge to retrieve the Crown and Medal of Chaos, and started throwing away my orbs. The Fire Orb (and all the carrying capacity it added) was tough to part with, but I did it. I also found a (neutral!) altar on this level. Go figure.
Wand of Digging made D:49 easy, and then I was at D:50. Emperor Moloch's death had raised me to experience level 50, which makes archers even more awesome: it turns their bow into a wand! (Sort of.) So I started mowing down chaos dudes.
The tricky thing there was, I had had the unicorn cleanse me recently, and I ran out of chaos dudes before I got all the corruptions I needed. So I stood around and fletched and let the background radiation do its thing. Then I equipped everything properly and jumped in the gate. Boy was Andor Drakon surprised to see me!
I quickly read a blessed Scroll of Uncursing, and traded the crown and medal for a helm of mental stability and an amulet of light, because the big guy's a spellcaster. Then I started reading scrolls of chaos resistance. (Yes, I know they're not called that anymore. I still like the old name.) Halfway through my cleansing, I got probably the most awesome message of all: Happy Birthday! Things were definitely going my way.
So I loaded up some humanoid slaying arrows and went looking for a god to kill. It took a lot of archery, but I got him down to critical, then poked at him with the trident for a few rounds... and then everything went white.