Utnapishtim
01-08-2014, 12:30 AM
This was my 76th attempt at this game since returning from a 15 year hiatus, and my first victory ever. Sorry, the following description is LONG, but I just had to do it.
BACKGROUND
From early youth Tharkun had the feeling that his previous incarnation had encountered a revolting unnatural death through devious magic. At night he often heard a faint whisper repeating the words "Nuurag... must.. die..." Poor Tharkun. Born to a very poor dwarven family he often experienced hunger. Weakened from this he also became seriously ill and suffered for a long time. This experience inspired him to become dedicated to helping others in similar distress. However, even his training as a healer was met with disfortune, as the teacher was a cruel old tyrant. Through all this it was only the strange determination stemming from the nightly whispers that kept him going.
EARLY GAME
Tharkun's early adventures after entering the Drakalor Chain were not particularly fortunate either. A mixed tension room in SMC blocked the blanket run. The UD really was quite unremarkable, yielding neither pools, altars, shops, spellbooks nor a decent weapon. The monsters only seemed to be carrying large rations and various kinds of shields. At least the way to HMV was not blocked by water. The way to Dwarftown, however, was. So after stocking up with cooked lizards, it was time for the evil druid to meet his end. The first level of the Puppy Cave finally yielded a neutral altar that proved surprisingly easy to convert. The precrowning gift was Nature's Companion, and this really was the turning point. The speed bonus in addition to the ones from talents and being Raven-born were to be really helpful in the early-mid game. On top of that the immunities for fire and shock ment that two of the Orb Temples would be hugely less problematic. What a fine choice, Morodwyn! (Much more so than the Tome of Alsophocus, with which Tharkun's previous incarnation was rewarded for his great troubles in luring the monster hordes past Ruun.)
The puppy corpse was delivered to the tiny girl, and the crime lord frostbolted without problems. Dwarftown was generated on level nine. Thrundarr's first assignment was to kill a hill giant, which was promptly found. The second assignment was accomplished through the Dwarven Halls. One Dorn Beast had to be avoided. A berserker emperor guarding downstairs on DH:2 was fortunately neutral. Khelavaster was making his death on the level directly below. Ignored him for now. A hostile blink dog from a tension room was used to summon its kind until around the fiftieth of them finally dropped a corpse. The ogres yielded two points of strength, after which it was time to do the Griffyard. Still no decent weapon found, so started using the Sword of Nonnak for a while. Retrieved the teleportation wand with a mapping scroll and digging, and fetched the Ankh and AMW from the Pyramid. Became the Arena Champ for Tactics.
MID GAME
Now it seemed like a good time to get the crowning done. No altars in CoC above Dwarftown, so the minigame of lure-monsters-past-Ruun ensued. But boy were those dwarven guards really in the way this time, and half of the monsters did not even survive until Ruun. Tried to block the guards away by creating doors, but wasn't really successful. So it seemed like the greater demon might become handy. And that worked.. a bit too well. The demon promptly went and did away with Garth! At least that got some movement to the guards and Ruun, who directly marched to their deaths as well. Only one of the elite guards had the sense of actually running away, and survived until the demon finally met its end, sacrificed in the now deserted temple by the soon-to-be holy champion of Order. The crowning yielded an immunity for cold and the Robes of Resistance, which was pretty much useless after the precrowning gift. It might not be altogether too chaotic an act for someone to give Morodwyn a gentle tap on the head with a cluebat.
Got the axe from the dwarven mystic and equipped it (in the wrong hand, as kindly pointed out later by grobblewobble). Cleared the entrance to DF with quarrels of construct slaying. Only junk inside the weapon and armour rooms, as usual. Nearest altar was all the way in Dwarftown, so didn't sip from the pools. Off to get the mountain king's ring. For some reason the skeletal king's confusion attacks did not work at all, so it was a breeze to wipe him off with undead slaying missiles. Did a scouting run of the ToEF without any stuff or lower metal equipment (had two fireproof blankets, but did not want to needlessly risk them, never found a ring of ice during this game). Had a near-death experience during this by getting stunned by a door trap for a VERY long time, while intimately accompanied with a fire giant king. Copped out by praying once.
No source of wishes found at this point, and did not feel like playing the pool roulette, so chatted with Khelly and explored down to the wall of flames. Fetched the water orb on the way back up. Tried to arrange for the Snake from Beyond and the Banshee to be introduced to eath other, but apparently the latter was too shy to ascend the final steps to the Water Temple level. What a pity. Identifying the stuff gathered after passing Khelly revealed a RoDS. Exact timing dear RNG, congrats! Decided to use it later when I really need something. Received decay of bodily tissue as my first corruption. Not so nice. Went to get the removal scroll from HMV to be used after getting the next corruption. But the next one was teleportitis, which I love to bits in its controlled form. So I decided to live with the bodily decay. Being almost always strained brought the strength score soon back up a couple of points.
At this point I was wondering whether Tharkun is ready to face the Wyrm. The attribute values were lousy, and there was no easy way to increase them, because Garth was gone, and herbs had disappared from both of the guaranteed herb levels after a couple of turns. I also had found no slaying missiles for demons or dragons, nor had I found Magic Missile (or any other non-guaranteed spellbooks either for that mater), which the previous incarnation of Tharkun had mainly used to wear down the ACW. Having no obvious remaining game objectives to do before the ToEF I decided to give it a go anyway.
Digged in at the middle with a wand, gulfed a potion of invisibility to get some peace from the crowd, and got the W moving with a frost bolt. Zapped a wand of webbing to the corridor, as this had actually worked the previous time, but now the bugger ignored the webs. Tried a wand of stunning, also with no results. Despite having the water orb in the tool slot for willpower, got confused, but luckily just for a few turns. Retrieted and bounded the thing with drakish scurgaries of returning that I had been training. Boosted by two rings of slaying they actually chipped away some hitpoints when actually hitting. Used frost bolts as well, although it shrugged off most. Got it to moderately wounded before deciding that hit-and-run melee might actually be the quickest and therefore least risky route due to continuous possibility of getting confused again. It managed to deliver a couple of quite nasty hits, but finally succumbed. Only had to use one blessed extra healing potion for healing. Two ACWs down in two consequetive games, not bad! As a bonus, the ACW corpse was auto-cooked by the heat in the tower, so I could take it to Terinyo for some corruption removal.
LATE GAME
Casino level, like DF, seems to disable teleport control. Unaware of that, I was carrying some unpaid items from the shop, when teleportitis kicked in. Luckily the teleport destination was also inside the shop, but any further shopping or attempting mass identify was obviously too risky. Had one wild cat to account for due to making the mistake of having some arena fights before acquiring the means of teleportation. Fortunately found the downstairs without encountering the Cat Lord, and for some reason decided not to look out for him to see whether he might be hostile or not. Air Temple did not pose problems - of all things the guy decided to summon kobolds! The Earth Temple was a bit more challenging. For some weird reason the monsters on the level allow themselves to be lured upstairs but not downstairs. Finally found a use for my wand of fireballs, when getting surrounded a bit.
Then the time was at hand to put on some mummy wrappings and avenge the previous incarnation. Nuurag was tough, and the bolts really hurt (as a aside, one limitation of dwarven healers is that the alertness can only be increased to about 60). Kept missing with missiles and had to resort to a prayer twice to heal up from double digits. Not the most glorious of fights, but got it done. Tharkun was now holding all five orbs, and was about to progress to a territory previously unseen by his controller. I had read some forum posts, where the icy level was mentioned, so had been spoiled as to how to move about. Had never seen the level layout though, so went the long way around without digging. The returning scurgaries were all I needed. The amount of movement was not randomised, so any time one failed to return, I just threw the next one to the opposite direction to fetch the previous one.
I was quite surprised to see that the first rooms in D:50 looked just like any normal dungeon level. After reading an uncursed scroll of magic mapping, I saw from where the main action was going to be forthcoming. There was also an obvious mimic shop - don't know if that's a constant feature of D:50, but it was very fitting: like a room full of equipment to prepare for the boss battle, but with a truly Adom-like twist. So, went to the hallway leading to the left half, and the jellies and mutants started to stream out. The mutants especially really seem to get some corruption hits in no matter how much DV one has. Got slowed down by the jellies a couple of times as well, but luckily only for some turns. Finally got those cleared and stepped further in.
Saw some chaos warriors and ghost lords further to the left and was approaching them, when a red & appeared a couple of squares behind me. Erhm.. what? Look... a balor? At this point I really wished I had some demon slaying ammunition, but alas - had found none during the whole game. And my melee weapons were not demon slaying either. I missed my first couple of shots as it approached, so decided to try a melee hit. Missed as well. And it hit me. Hard. Well.. I still had two thirds of my hitpoints left and I'm quicker. Switching on coward mode I bypassed it - it got one more smaller hit in - and ran towards the stairs with it following. Then another appeared behind it.. damn, there are more of those! And then, with the balor chasing me inside a corridor leading into the stairs room, a dark red & teleported in front of me, blocking the way. Nooo.. What is THAT? A GREATER Balor? You got to be kidding me... how am I supposed to deal with that, when the lesser one just nearly handed me my ass on a platter?
Inside a corridor, sandwitched between Fistanarius and one of his balor minions, Tharkun knew that his few potions and piety won't be nearly enough to get him out of this mess. So he used the only remaining option he knew to save his butt. Soon he was back in D:49 catching his breath and regenerating, having teleported himself to the stairs. Scared shittless he even considered for a moment if Thomas might be so devious as to make Fistanarius the only monster that can travel across the levels without directly following through the stairs. After waiting for a hundred turns or so to gain HP he finally calmed down a bit and stopped waiting for the dark red & to appear. However, a real doubt was setting in. Is this doable at all? Fistanarius was actually faster than Tharkun, and the other balors were teleporting all over the place, blocking escape routes. It seemed that continuous teleportation was the only way to survive, and that wasn't really possible to arrange with the teleportation spell taking nearly max PP and there being limited possibilities to recharge the wand.
But there was no way than to try. And so he did. And slowly, very slowly, the fight started to seem less impossible. Tharkun noted that the balors do not shrug off his ice bolt all the time. And Fistanarius is not constantly teleporting nearby. And teleporting oneself inside the mass of chaos warriors and ghost lords actually offer protection from the balors and give some much needed respite. Then one by one the balors started falling, and the experience levels started coming in, greatly increasing HP and PP. The final turning point was probably receiving the "very light" corruption with +20 speed. Never mind the loss of st and to, now Tharkun was actually faster than Fistanarius. And for hitting and running, that is decisive.
Finally it seemed that the level was pretty much cleared except for Fistanarius. A couple of corridors and rooms formed a suitable circle for hitting and running, so that is what Tharkun did, using also quarrels whenever there was a gap to the demon. The quarrels missed about 90% of the time and the melee hits were not much more accurate. On top of that the damn thing kept regenerating, and every tiny mistake lead into Tharkun getting hit massively and corrupted. But slowly but surely the ugly bastard started losing its hitpoints. Moderately wounded.. severely wounded... critically wounded. And then: "Fistanarius, the greater balor, decides to fight to the death in a blind rage!" Now THAT is some scary shit right there. Right after that, however, he panicked, and a handful of quarrels finally finished him off. Phew!
Tharkun had already gotten a glimpse of the chaos gate while crowdsurfing among the ghost lords. Only after having dealt with Fistanarius he found the corridors leading to the side rooms, and had to deal with the remaining chaos wizards etc. Just before having cleared all of them he received his 17th corruption, so decided that it is too risky not to finally use the RoDS and to wish for scrolls of corruption removal. Also one of the latest corruptions was mana battery, and there were some interesting unknown wands dropped by the monsters. Finally the time arrived to pull the levers and to see the gate turning dark gray, having received the feeling of the quest being fulfilled. A VERY satisfying feeling indeed.
... Until the gate reopened unleashing a surge of corruption throughout the level, and a balor was found in one of the lever rooms. It must have panicked and fled earlier or something. After it had met its end, the gate was closed again, this time for good.
THE AFTERMATH
Seeing no obvious other way, Tharkun returned to D:48 through the icy level, this time shortening the route with a digging wand. He had wondered if it is possible to return later and reopen the gate, but the changing stairs in D:48 made it obvious that the access to the chaos gate is now blocked for good. Going out via the DF route he chatted with Kherab, who disappointedly had nothing new to say. Then he visited Terinyo receiving well earned praise from the chief and the unicorn guest from the druid. Still sporting his gills, he decided to make the water dragon happy and payed a visit to the mother dragon. After clearing the corruption he was still some points shy from the level 50, so decided that it would be rather fitting to free Ancardia of Kherab by feeding him some humanoid slaying arrows. Of course as a pious paragon of order he scrupulously aimed his first shot behind the dwarf.
Then it was finally the time to leave the chain behind, although for a moment Tharkun was tempted to remain and to become a dungeon healer in CoC:4, offering his teaching and healing services to passing adventures. Finally the home sickness won over. Sorting out his inventory in the puppy cave before leaving, he decided that he might as well have some company on the road back home, and read his only scroll of familiar summoning. A female ogre magus appeared! Thou dost seem impressed, dost ye?" she said. You bet.
I dedicate this victory to Silfir and Hocus Pocus, who are to blame in luring me back to this marvelous game, thereby making this victory possible. Now I can finally watch the last episode as well. Credits go also to all of you who gave advise regarding what to wish for for the end game. Thank you. Quite fittingly, one of the wands I found from D:50 proved to be the wand of wishing.
BACKGROUND
From early youth Tharkun had the feeling that his previous incarnation had encountered a revolting unnatural death through devious magic. At night he often heard a faint whisper repeating the words "Nuurag... must.. die..." Poor Tharkun. Born to a very poor dwarven family he often experienced hunger. Weakened from this he also became seriously ill and suffered for a long time. This experience inspired him to become dedicated to helping others in similar distress. However, even his training as a healer was met with disfortune, as the teacher was a cruel old tyrant. Through all this it was only the strange determination stemming from the nightly whispers that kept him going.
EARLY GAME
Tharkun's early adventures after entering the Drakalor Chain were not particularly fortunate either. A mixed tension room in SMC blocked the blanket run. The UD really was quite unremarkable, yielding neither pools, altars, shops, spellbooks nor a decent weapon. The monsters only seemed to be carrying large rations and various kinds of shields. At least the way to HMV was not blocked by water. The way to Dwarftown, however, was. So after stocking up with cooked lizards, it was time for the evil druid to meet his end. The first level of the Puppy Cave finally yielded a neutral altar that proved surprisingly easy to convert. The precrowning gift was Nature's Companion, and this really was the turning point. The speed bonus in addition to the ones from talents and being Raven-born were to be really helpful in the early-mid game. On top of that the immunities for fire and shock ment that two of the Orb Temples would be hugely less problematic. What a fine choice, Morodwyn! (Much more so than the Tome of Alsophocus, with which Tharkun's previous incarnation was rewarded for his great troubles in luring the monster hordes past Ruun.)
The puppy corpse was delivered to the tiny girl, and the crime lord frostbolted without problems. Dwarftown was generated on level nine. Thrundarr's first assignment was to kill a hill giant, which was promptly found. The second assignment was accomplished through the Dwarven Halls. One Dorn Beast had to be avoided. A berserker emperor guarding downstairs on DH:2 was fortunately neutral. Khelavaster was making his death on the level directly below. Ignored him for now. A hostile blink dog from a tension room was used to summon its kind until around the fiftieth of them finally dropped a corpse. The ogres yielded two points of strength, after which it was time to do the Griffyard. Still no decent weapon found, so started using the Sword of Nonnak for a while. Retrieved the teleportation wand with a mapping scroll and digging, and fetched the Ankh and AMW from the Pyramid. Became the Arena Champ for Tactics.
MID GAME
Now it seemed like a good time to get the crowning done. No altars in CoC above Dwarftown, so the minigame of lure-monsters-past-Ruun ensued. But boy were those dwarven guards really in the way this time, and half of the monsters did not even survive until Ruun. Tried to block the guards away by creating doors, but wasn't really successful. So it seemed like the greater demon might become handy. And that worked.. a bit too well. The demon promptly went and did away with Garth! At least that got some movement to the guards and Ruun, who directly marched to their deaths as well. Only one of the elite guards had the sense of actually running away, and survived until the demon finally met its end, sacrificed in the now deserted temple by the soon-to-be holy champion of Order. The crowning yielded an immunity for cold and the Robes of Resistance, which was pretty much useless after the precrowning gift. It might not be altogether too chaotic an act for someone to give Morodwyn a gentle tap on the head with a cluebat.
Got the axe from the dwarven mystic and equipped it (in the wrong hand, as kindly pointed out later by grobblewobble). Cleared the entrance to DF with quarrels of construct slaying. Only junk inside the weapon and armour rooms, as usual. Nearest altar was all the way in Dwarftown, so didn't sip from the pools. Off to get the mountain king's ring. For some reason the skeletal king's confusion attacks did not work at all, so it was a breeze to wipe him off with undead slaying missiles. Did a scouting run of the ToEF without any stuff or lower metal equipment (had two fireproof blankets, but did not want to needlessly risk them, never found a ring of ice during this game). Had a near-death experience during this by getting stunned by a door trap for a VERY long time, while intimately accompanied with a fire giant king. Copped out by praying once.
No source of wishes found at this point, and did not feel like playing the pool roulette, so chatted with Khelly and explored down to the wall of flames. Fetched the water orb on the way back up. Tried to arrange for the Snake from Beyond and the Banshee to be introduced to eath other, but apparently the latter was too shy to ascend the final steps to the Water Temple level. What a pity. Identifying the stuff gathered after passing Khelly revealed a RoDS. Exact timing dear RNG, congrats! Decided to use it later when I really need something. Received decay of bodily tissue as my first corruption. Not so nice. Went to get the removal scroll from HMV to be used after getting the next corruption. But the next one was teleportitis, which I love to bits in its controlled form. So I decided to live with the bodily decay. Being almost always strained brought the strength score soon back up a couple of points.
At this point I was wondering whether Tharkun is ready to face the Wyrm. The attribute values were lousy, and there was no easy way to increase them, because Garth was gone, and herbs had disappared from both of the guaranteed herb levels after a couple of turns. I also had found no slaying missiles for demons or dragons, nor had I found Magic Missile (or any other non-guaranteed spellbooks either for that mater), which the previous incarnation of Tharkun had mainly used to wear down the ACW. Having no obvious remaining game objectives to do before the ToEF I decided to give it a go anyway.
Digged in at the middle with a wand, gulfed a potion of invisibility to get some peace from the crowd, and got the W moving with a frost bolt. Zapped a wand of webbing to the corridor, as this had actually worked the previous time, but now the bugger ignored the webs. Tried a wand of stunning, also with no results. Despite having the water orb in the tool slot for willpower, got confused, but luckily just for a few turns. Retrieted and bounded the thing with drakish scurgaries of returning that I had been training. Boosted by two rings of slaying they actually chipped away some hitpoints when actually hitting. Used frost bolts as well, although it shrugged off most. Got it to moderately wounded before deciding that hit-and-run melee might actually be the quickest and therefore least risky route due to continuous possibility of getting confused again. It managed to deliver a couple of quite nasty hits, but finally succumbed. Only had to use one blessed extra healing potion for healing. Two ACWs down in two consequetive games, not bad! As a bonus, the ACW corpse was auto-cooked by the heat in the tower, so I could take it to Terinyo for some corruption removal.
LATE GAME
Casino level, like DF, seems to disable teleport control. Unaware of that, I was carrying some unpaid items from the shop, when teleportitis kicked in. Luckily the teleport destination was also inside the shop, but any further shopping or attempting mass identify was obviously too risky. Had one wild cat to account for due to making the mistake of having some arena fights before acquiring the means of teleportation. Fortunately found the downstairs without encountering the Cat Lord, and for some reason decided not to look out for him to see whether he might be hostile or not. Air Temple did not pose problems - of all things the guy decided to summon kobolds! The Earth Temple was a bit more challenging. For some weird reason the monsters on the level allow themselves to be lured upstairs but not downstairs. Finally found a use for my wand of fireballs, when getting surrounded a bit.
Then the time was at hand to put on some mummy wrappings and avenge the previous incarnation. Nuurag was tough, and the bolts really hurt (as a aside, one limitation of dwarven healers is that the alertness can only be increased to about 60). Kept missing with missiles and had to resort to a prayer twice to heal up from double digits. Not the most glorious of fights, but got it done. Tharkun was now holding all five orbs, and was about to progress to a territory previously unseen by his controller. I had read some forum posts, where the icy level was mentioned, so had been spoiled as to how to move about. Had never seen the level layout though, so went the long way around without digging. The returning scurgaries were all I needed. The amount of movement was not randomised, so any time one failed to return, I just threw the next one to the opposite direction to fetch the previous one.
I was quite surprised to see that the first rooms in D:50 looked just like any normal dungeon level. After reading an uncursed scroll of magic mapping, I saw from where the main action was going to be forthcoming. There was also an obvious mimic shop - don't know if that's a constant feature of D:50, but it was very fitting: like a room full of equipment to prepare for the boss battle, but with a truly Adom-like twist. So, went to the hallway leading to the left half, and the jellies and mutants started to stream out. The mutants especially really seem to get some corruption hits in no matter how much DV one has. Got slowed down by the jellies a couple of times as well, but luckily only for some turns. Finally got those cleared and stepped further in.
Saw some chaos warriors and ghost lords further to the left and was approaching them, when a red & appeared a couple of squares behind me. Erhm.. what? Look... a balor? At this point I really wished I had some demon slaying ammunition, but alas - had found none during the whole game. And my melee weapons were not demon slaying either. I missed my first couple of shots as it approached, so decided to try a melee hit. Missed as well. And it hit me. Hard. Well.. I still had two thirds of my hitpoints left and I'm quicker. Switching on coward mode I bypassed it - it got one more smaller hit in - and ran towards the stairs with it following. Then another appeared behind it.. damn, there are more of those! And then, with the balor chasing me inside a corridor leading into the stairs room, a dark red & teleported in front of me, blocking the way. Nooo.. What is THAT? A GREATER Balor? You got to be kidding me... how am I supposed to deal with that, when the lesser one just nearly handed me my ass on a platter?
Inside a corridor, sandwitched between Fistanarius and one of his balor minions, Tharkun knew that his few potions and piety won't be nearly enough to get him out of this mess. So he used the only remaining option he knew to save his butt. Soon he was back in D:49 catching his breath and regenerating, having teleported himself to the stairs. Scared shittless he even considered for a moment if Thomas might be so devious as to make Fistanarius the only monster that can travel across the levels without directly following through the stairs. After waiting for a hundred turns or so to gain HP he finally calmed down a bit and stopped waiting for the dark red & to appear. However, a real doubt was setting in. Is this doable at all? Fistanarius was actually faster than Tharkun, and the other balors were teleporting all over the place, blocking escape routes. It seemed that continuous teleportation was the only way to survive, and that wasn't really possible to arrange with the teleportation spell taking nearly max PP and there being limited possibilities to recharge the wand.
But there was no way than to try. And so he did. And slowly, very slowly, the fight started to seem less impossible. Tharkun noted that the balors do not shrug off his ice bolt all the time. And Fistanarius is not constantly teleporting nearby. And teleporting oneself inside the mass of chaos warriors and ghost lords actually offer protection from the balors and give some much needed respite. Then one by one the balors started falling, and the experience levels started coming in, greatly increasing HP and PP. The final turning point was probably receiving the "very light" corruption with +20 speed. Never mind the loss of st and to, now Tharkun was actually faster than Fistanarius. And for hitting and running, that is decisive.
Finally it seemed that the level was pretty much cleared except for Fistanarius. A couple of corridors and rooms formed a suitable circle for hitting and running, so that is what Tharkun did, using also quarrels whenever there was a gap to the demon. The quarrels missed about 90% of the time and the melee hits were not much more accurate. On top of that the damn thing kept regenerating, and every tiny mistake lead into Tharkun getting hit massively and corrupted. But slowly but surely the ugly bastard started losing its hitpoints. Moderately wounded.. severely wounded... critically wounded. And then: "Fistanarius, the greater balor, decides to fight to the death in a blind rage!" Now THAT is some scary shit right there. Right after that, however, he panicked, and a handful of quarrels finally finished him off. Phew!
Tharkun had already gotten a glimpse of the chaos gate while crowdsurfing among the ghost lords. Only after having dealt with Fistanarius he found the corridors leading to the side rooms, and had to deal with the remaining chaos wizards etc. Just before having cleared all of them he received his 17th corruption, so decided that it is too risky not to finally use the RoDS and to wish for scrolls of corruption removal. Also one of the latest corruptions was mana battery, and there were some interesting unknown wands dropped by the monsters. Finally the time arrived to pull the levers and to see the gate turning dark gray, having received the feeling of the quest being fulfilled. A VERY satisfying feeling indeed.
... Until the gate reopened unleashing a surge of corruption throughout the level, and a balor was found in one of the lever rooms. It must have panicked and fled earlier or something. After it had met its end, the gate was closed again, this time for good.
THE AFTERMATH
Seeing no obvious other way, Tharkun returned to D:48 through the icy level, this time shortening the route with a digging wand. He had wondered if it is possible to return later and reopen the gate, but the changing stairs in D:48 made it obvious that the access to the chaos gate is now blocked for good. Going out via the DF route he chatted with Kherab, who disappointedly had nothing new to say. Then he visited Terinyo receiving well earned praise from the chief and the unicorn guest from the druid. Still sporting his gills, he decided to make the water dragon happy and payed a visit to the mother dragon. After clearing the corruption he was still some points shy from the level 50, so decided that it would be rather fitting to free Ancardia of Kherab by feeding him some humanoid slaying arrows. Of course as a pious paragon of order he scrupulously aimed his first shot behind the dwarf.
Then it was finally the time to leave the chain behind, although for a moment Tharkun was tempted to remain and to become a dungeon healer in CoC:4, offering his teaching and healing services to passing adventures. Finally the home sickness won over. Sorting out his inventory in the puppy cave before leaving, he decided that he might as well have some company on the road back home, and read his only scroll of familiar summoning. A female ogre magus appeared! Thou dost seem impressed, dost ye?" she said. You bet.
I dedicate this victory to Silfir and Hocus Pocus, who are to blame in luring me back to this marvelous game, thereby making this victory possible. Now I can finally watch the last episode as well. Credits go also to all of you who gave advise regarding what to wish for for the end game. Thank you. Quite fittingly, one of the wands I found from D:50 proved to be the wand of wishing.