Rudolf the ratling duelist

[kapsi]

After several years I returned to ADOM, seeing the resurrection project was close to stable release. The graphics are awesome. First I tried mist elf wizards - see my thread in YASD forum titled "fuck mist elfs" to see how it went. Then I played a gnomish chaos knight. Very strong but then I read I can't do most of the quest, so I quit. Finally I went with ratling duelists. Many of them died at the beginning, not being that strong. Then came Rudolf. Who was first named "Raider" after his first kill.

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As a young ratling, Rudolf was interested in other cultures. He once read that mist elves train for 8000 years and they're still as weak as a giant rat. He said "whaaat?" and couldn't believe it. He was 8 and already feeling grown-up.

Rudolf liked the anime "Yu-Gi-Oh!". It was about card duels. He liked to duel other kids. So he decided to become a duelist.

Rudolf arrived in the Drakalor Chain looking for people to duel. He found a village called Terinyo, where he got several quests. A girl wanted him to find her puppy dog, the sheriff wanted him to kill some guy, and the druid also wanted someone dead. Bloodlusty lot. He left the village and went north-west, visiting a small cave for a second. Then he remembered the puppy is in another cave, so he went east. He didn't walk far before he encountered the raiders. Dueling them required some skill, and their chieftain turned out to be a coward and ran away. Rudolf looked at him in disgust, as his rapier murdered the panicked raider.

The puppy cave went smoothly. Rudi quickly descended the cave levels, searching for the puppy. Finally he found the dog. He was in a room full of wolves and wolf-men. Rudolf went berserk and tried to reach and save the puppy, who was stupidly trying to fight the wolf-man. He was screaming commands to the puppy, trying to get him to come and save his life. Trying to be heard among the barks and the yowls. But when he finally got there it was too late. Rudolf took the lifeless body into his backpack and murdered the rest of the wolves. He planned to give the body to the little girl (little girls love dog corpses), but later he accidentally ate it. Killing other monsters he found a devastating sword, and he thought that swords will become his specialization.

On the second level of the puppy cave, there was a white altar. Rudolf knew it wasn't Sssaass's altar, but he never cared that much about his god. He sacrificed a few monsters, until he felt he became lawful. Then he decided to become a champion of Fiit-Ssaaar. He has heard many other ratlings ventured to Drakalor Chain, never to be heard from again, so he figured any help will be good. Then he sacrificed monsters until he was extremely close to god and prayed. He expected to become a champion, but forgot he must be also very lawful to become one. An amulet called Preserver appeared instead. He has read about that amulet. It was good. He stayed near the altar for some more time, until Fiit-Ssaaar named him his champion and gave him a jet black axe. He wasn't sure about this gift at first, feeling strangely unlucky every time he put it in his hands, but he decided to give it a try. Little did he know that would later easily murder everything with it.

After some adventures, Ruolf found himself fighting a skeleton near an underground lake filled with piranhas. He didn't know what do the piranhas eat, and he preferred not to think about that too much. He tried to scale the mountains and go back east, but he found his only climbing set was destroyed. Feeling trapped he went back to the tomb, killing lots of monsters and looking for another set, but he didn't find one. He visited a maze filled with bull-men but the corrupting magic in that place made him very thin and weak, his eyes became shrouded with chaos, and the random teleportations were so annoying he went back to the surface. He also lost his favourite worn shoes to a trap. He once again descended to the tomb caverns, trying to focus on his climbing skills, as he saw a great rift nearby, but couldn't descend into it.

Finally he managed do train his climbing skills enough to visit the rift. He went to the bottom, looking for anyone with a climbing set. But there was no one there. He found a wish-granting ring though. "Maybe there is someone on the first level" he thought. Still no one. He knew he can simply wish for a climbing set, but didn't want to waste the wish, so he climbed up. Still no one. He found a staircase to the surface, and then for no reason decided to again climb into the rift, instead of using the stairs, embarrassingly falling on his ass and crushing the magic ring. He was sad but it turned out there was another wishing ring on the bottom. He thought it may be not a coincidence, and wished for climbing sets.

He went back to his favourite altar, did some other chores and climbed a flaming tower. All of the monsters were powerless before his axe. He executed them without ever becoming endangered. One of the monsters dropped another wishing ring, so he wished for a magic amulet and saved a dying sage. His gifts reverted the nasty corruptions Rudi got.

He went back to the maze, wanting to finish what he started. In preparation he drank from some pools, until he was able to control teleportation. He also became talented in trap detection. Searching the maze was long and tedious, but he finally found the emperor of the minotaurs. He was embarrassingly weak, but who wasn't before Rudolf and his axe? He ate his corpse, feeling strength filling his body. The axe the boss wielded was too big for dueling so he sold it.

The rest of his adventure was a blur. Evil snakes, stone beasts, wizards and what not. No one could survive more than 5-6 hits of his Executor. Most died after one or two. Giant lumbering greater molochs couldn't even manage to hit Rudolf before he destroyed them. Ancient dragons and wyrms looked confident, until they were hit and tried to run away in panic. Rudolf feared nothing. No one could hurt him. Only a cat man gave him a challenge, halving his health. Rudi drank his first and last health potion and quickly killed the cat person. In fact Rudolf was so bored, he often cast a spell he learned from a book on himself, a spell that slowed him down a lot.

Rudolf has heard many adventurers find great caverns filled with monsters and artifacts. Dragons, terrible undead hordes or other evildoers. But he only found one of such caverns and a disappointing one at that. The giants were no more dangerous to Rudi than rats. The titans inside of the vault weren't up for the challenge either. At least he found an artifact quarrel for his crossbow there. It was very neat because it returned after firing.

Rudolf never liked projectile weapons, so he avoided great karmic beings. He knew he would beat them, but didn't want to tediously fire dozens of crossbow bolts into the monsters. But then he tried killing a great karmic wyrm and it turned out he was so strong, he didn't even need any crossbow skill. He proceeded to kill an ancient karmic wyrm.

Then he killed everyone on the bottom of the caverns of chaos. He has heard about some kind of boss monster around that level, but didn't even notice him. He only left a worm that was born from his corrupted flesh, as a guard.

Rudolf went back to the surface and found a white unicorn, who wanted him to kill a black unicorn. Instead of doing that, he talked with the guy. He didn't want to go back home corrupted by chaos, so he counted his scrolls and potions that cured corruption. The black unicorn's offer was better after all, so he shot the white unicorn with the magic quarrel and killed it instantly. The black unicorn's potions tasted like betrayal.

He then went home and became a king. He lived long and happy, duelling for 200 years.
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As I wrote, smooth sailing all the way, except for the climbing set mishap. It's too bad I couldn't go for an ultra ending with this character, because he was super strong. I don't think I ever had a guy that never was in any danger (the cat lord got him to drink a potion of extra healing if that counts).