The first rule of Dwarven Halls Club...

[LexyBoy]

...is do *not* muck about in the DH. Why do I never learn?

Back playing after years away (excited to see new stuff happening!), and it seems that all the playing back in the day has left one thing in my mind, which is to be careful and run away at the first sign of anything going awry. Unfortunately it seems I still get cocky and pay for it

Playing a human mindcrafter, nothing decent in early game but then got lucky with some good kit in the upper CoC - tower crystal shield, swords (!) of sharpness, some high PV gear. Skipped through DH with only one encounter (Corruptor) which was no problem. Waltzed through Griffyard, the Pyramid, and the CoC graveyard in melee with hardly a scratch. RNG started to bite with Unholy Aura - unfortunate with a few Dwarftown crossings to do and most of Thrundarr's quests. Ah well, I thought.

Decided to get crowned - I was already very close and now had some expendable artifacts. Problem was, only nearby neutral altar was on DH:2 (can you see where this is going?), but it was only a couple of steps from the down stairs and by now I had eyes of the mind.

So, Eyes of the Mind - two tension rooms! One mixed, next door to the altar room, and one full of red 'p's. I have a great idea: I'll go over to the quickling one and try killing a few with mindcraft without ever opening the door! Should be safe xp right? The eagle eyed will be thinking "two tension rooms?"... that's right... guess which one was actually a threat room?

Amazingly, my lvl 18 char survived that time, thanks to 5 !oEH, one prayer and having a key for the door at the end of the corridor. Took a breather for a while, then back to try for crowning. Sacced Moon Sickle and AMW (controversial? I never use them): not quite enough. Next, do what any complete idiot would do and open the tension room next door. One Doppelganger King, one Ancient Black Dragon and one Black Slayer offered up and it's crowning time. Downstairs to crown and down to the Water Temple (planning to avoid Dwarftown till I have to due to Unholy Aura).

Got Mana Battery on the way - fortunately I had 3 \oDigging. Cleared out Water Temple mostly in melee with a bit of TKB. Back upstairs, up through DH (why I thought this was a good idea after getting away with all that, and having an opened tension room next to the stairs, I don't know). Sacced a couple of scary-ish monsters (Berserker emperor, that sort of thing) and killed a few more in melee. Did I mention Unholy Aura? So, a troll of some sort runs scared and I think nothing more. Shortly afterwards, who's that coming down the corridor? That's right - that troll must have smashed the door behind which the 30-odd quickling queens lay. I was only 3 steps from the stairs and didn't stand a chance, even with 100/35 DV/PV and praying

So so stupid... I'd even said to myself earlier that I would only go via the DH as quickly as possible, preferably with teleport. When I died at level 20 I had 226 HP, 46 Wi and so much potential.

Tempted to hang around in the DH? Just say no!

[Blasphemous]

Another rule: If you have a surge of power in DH, better run for the stairs and return when you close the gate. There can be some funny, extremely experienced things that protect the artifact, and the artifact itself is more often than not useless.

[JellySlayer]

Sacced Moon Sickle and AMW (controversial? I never use them)

Moon Sickle is meh. Some people like it for potion transforming, but I don't normally bother. It's almost always better to sell it unless you're an orc or DE, I think, first because saccing chaotic artifacts can mess with your alignment and screw your piety anyway, and second because it gives a quite large pile of gold that I suspect is far more valuable than saccing directly.

Saccing the AMW feels crazy to me. It's one of the best armors in the game. Lightweight, many useful intrinsics in slot that rarely gives any (including SeeI and =Cold, which can be useful for Arena/Griffyard quests), decent enough PV bonus... It's covers everything you need for Mana Temple in one go.

[anon123]

Moon Sickle is great if you're a Chaos Knight: polearm with high damage that heals you on almost every hit. Otherwise, not so much. I don't play chaos roulette (although if you're familiar with danger levels, the rewards can be good), so typically I'll pick it up and never use it.

As for the AMW, JellySlayer is spot on. It's very nice how something you get early in the game can still be so useful near the end.

[Blasphemous]

I almost always run around with AMW but on rare occasions when I have a lucky pool sip(s) and get -deth and seeinv, I swap it right away for something with higher PV. 5 is just a little meh.
Ont he other hand it's guaranteed and easy to obtain and comes along with ankh. Still, there's a lot of other artifacts I'd rather sac than amw.

[LexyBoy]

Well, I had See Invisible from a pool and an amulet of DR resistance. Maybe I'll be more circumspect about it in future, I just never seem to wear it since I usually have something with much better PV, and other sources of the bonuses it gives by the time it might come in useful. Plus I'm too vain to envisage my mighty hero running round in some skanky old bandages.

Thanks for the tip on selling but shops were out of the question for me due to Unholy Odour...

[LFk]

I generally only try DH when I have a guaranteed source of teleport. What you said to yourself was correct, and not only the TP, but also control. Uncontrolled TP to escape can land you smack dab next to a balor.

Invisibility doesn't even help more often than not, and if it's steady enough source, it makes the forest far less annoying anyway.

You know, crowning is easy enough by slowly accumulating Si / gold. There's a number of good chances to get corruption removal for the unholy aura, notably if you dragged the snake corpse up, or can get Tele Control from a blink dog / item / pool. Doing it with livesacs in a very corrupting, dangerous area is ballsy to say the least

[Tyrnyx]

I personally I have digging around the forest with a pickaxe recently and that seems to work pretty well. Walking through the trees is hell, even invis. They punch pretty dang hard so getting surround by a few grumpy trees from accidental hits can spell the end.

Also, he was a mindcrafter so he already had Tele Control. Perhaps looking for the wand of teleporting might have proved fruitful.

Agreed about dicey live sacs. That was really the only alter?

[Blasphemous]

Just equip 2 shields and hold 4 or 6.

[LexyBoy]

Let's just say lesson learned (till I do exactly the same thing again).

At the time I died I did have a \oTeleport but with Mana Battery I thought it too risky to chance, so I went for the running a couple of steps to the stairs instead. For the same reason I couldn't get to any guaranteed source of corruption removal (known to me). No chance of getting the snake corpse to the druid. Probably should have just gone to the ID till I could pickpocket another then get the ?oCR from the HMV.