Smith, Level 1 Hurthling Bard
This was already my second "normal" victory with a level 1 character.
First a bit of advice to anyone who may ever attempt this challenge:
- Do not accept the quest to kill Srraxxarrakex, unless you are really sure you know what you're about to do. Even then you should think twice.
- Danger level can be too high to get really good pets. :)
I started the game by getting a greater claw bug pet from the bug village as usually with my titanium man attempts and it was my companion for a long time in early game.
When clearing the vault in puppy cave I got one of the most useful items in this game (after wishes, of course): an anvil, also I found a forge in UD:1 + a few pick axes later in the game which allowed me to start smithing my stuff like mad.
I also found an AoLS somewhere in early levels of CoC and gave it to Khelavaster, mostly to get some chaos resistance and the spellbook of teleportation.
When I found my first scroll of familiar summoning, I used it in dwarven halls in hope of getting some high level monster and also got one, not exactly what I wanted for but still a useful pet: a greater earth elemental (later called Yogi).
With Yogi it was possible to clear nearly every mid-game dungeon (Darkforge, Tomb of the high kings and graveyard for example) where I tried to find some needed items, like a wish (for writing sets to get more SoFS), fireproof blanket and a ring of ice (for ToEF).
At the point where I attempted ToEF first time, I had about 50-60 HP, no AoLS and still no other pets than Yogi (and a few other greater earth elementals left in DH). All this just to notice that Yogi can easily handle first 3 levels but starts taking damage in the last level which will kill it too quickly to defeat the ancient chaos wyrm.
So I really needed a better pet and went to drink every pool in the game and dug up every single grave in both graveyards and used pick pockets like mad in hope of getting a wish... but got nothing. So I had to use the last choice and made a gremlin bomb in DH and ran it over ten thousand turns and still had no wish but a shitload of other junk.
I tried my luck with those few potions of exchange I had found by dipping some rings inside... and finally I got a wish, in fact I got about 10 wishes. Finally after trying to get at least one wish for several dozens of thousands of turns.
I had to use 2 wishes for writing sets until I got first high level creature that's immune to fire: a greater fire elemental. I went to train this new pet to make it a bit stronger before attempting the ACW.
Everything went well in ToEF until GFE were critically injured and started to panic and raged to itself, causing the game to crash (and emergency save, which luckily worked) about 20 times before I managed to get out from the level and start healing it. Anyway, later I finally managed to kill the ACW and this time it didn't even manage bolt me to death like on my first won titanium man (which cheated death for once...). :)
So I continued quite straight to lower levels of CoC and nothing interesting happened until I went to get the quest to kill Srraxxarrakex from the greater karmic wyrm, which was possibly the worst mistake I made during the game. 4 first levels in dragon caves were easy for Yogi and in 5th it was able to kill great blue wyrms easily but against srraxxarrakex...
It died in a few turns and I were in quite a big trouble: my best (and only) companion were dead.
I lured it up 2 levels and used several wishes to get more SoFS but still didn't get anything better than loads of greater earth elementals and a few worse companions.
Finally I realized that the levels had too high danger level and I have to reduce the danger level a bit to generate better companions... after 5-10 scrolls of peace the danger level were low enough to get like greater moloch, emperor lich and such monsters. But again both of those were killed in a stupid way, greater moloch were killed due to carelessness and it's stupidity by Srraxxarrakex and emperor lich were single turn killed by a randomly generated greater moloch.
Then finally I got a pet that was capable of killing nearly every monster in a single turn after getting a bit training: Ambaretelydes, the great blue wyrm. I trained it up to level 90 or so and then tried Srraxxarrakex with it and it worked. It got moderately injured by fire blasts, but still it worked and I was free again.
Mana temple were too straightforward, Nuurag-Vaarn were killed in a single turn when Ambaretelydes got into melee with him.
And at last there were the last challenge to go: how to fill D:48 with monsters that are either immune to fire or have enough HP to survive from the fire damage caused when putting fire orb in place. I tried to zap plenty of wands of monster creation but it didn't help at all. Then I realized a way to do it, I just need one red worm that will breed and pacify the level but I'll need a wish for it and I already ran out of wishes. So back to the dragon caves...
It took some time to get new wishes from there but finally got those, managed to fill some rooms with worms and putting the fire orb in place didn't kill anything in level so I was ready for the last level.
Again I made some scrolls of peace to reduce the danger level in D:50 suitable for better companions and read some SoFS and around 5th try I got a great karmic wyrm which cleared both levers but later got killed by the Fistanarius but everything was clear already. I managed to trap a monster behind doors on both levers and quickly escaped the level and that's it.
And here's my little pet who was able to kill nearly anything in a single turn in melee (I think Srraxxarrakex was the only exception):
Code:
You examine Ambaretelydes, the great blue wyrm. Diagnosis: Level: 108, DV:
116, PV: 49, Hits: 845, Attacks: 26, Damage: 48-108. Speed: 125.
flg is available at http://ancardia.ath.cx/adom_users/samim/smith.flg
