G#(*&4627#@(, the Raven-born Drakeling Elementalist, managed to close the gate in 1 hour, 18 minutes, and 16 seconds. Time starts after name entry, which is how in-game time in the .flg is measured. Video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/371437284 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaORmA7P3sE.

Why Drakeling?
  • The run goes for a pre-16 ToEF, killing ACW with frost bolt. While doing this without the cold-blooded speed boost is technically possible, it's quite miserable and risky.
  • High starting attributes, Alertness, and good enough leveling speed are nice side benefits, although secondary to cold-blood.


Why Elementalist?
  • Access to fire and cold spells without having to spend time on books.
  • Guaranteed fire resistance before ToEF helps with consistency.


Why Raven?
  • +10 speed is OP.
  • In the event that you luck into teleport control or water breathing, RCT is helpful for Earth Temple and D:50, which can otherwise be quite challenging.


Point buy?
18 Strength, 6 Learning, 17 Willpower, 10 Dexterity, 20 Toughness, 2 Charisma, 4 Appearance, 18 Mana, 10 Perception. 3 starting talents with 0 points left over.

Talents?
Healthy -> Hardy -> Tough Skin -> Iron Skin -> Steel Skin -> Immune to Pain -> Quick -> Very Quick -> Greased Lightning -> Affinity With...? -> Doesn't matter past this point.

The route:
  1. I startscum for wand of door creation. This is needed later on for a piety-gaining trick.
  2. Bought rations in Terinyo.
  3. Generated Goblin Camp and grabbed the three treasure piles, using Frost Bolt to deal with the difficult monsters.
  4. Picked up the blanket from SMC and dived UD. Found some blink dogs on the way down and lucked into teleport control.
  5. Killed various things in HMV. Managed to deal with a stone giant lord. Killed dwarven veteran for his eternium chain mail and axe, and killed Hawkslayer and malicious doctor for experience, using Fire Bolt and taking advantage of the river. If I needed more experience I could have killed old barbarian.
  6. Headed down to arena to pick up cooked lizards.
  7. Went back up to the wilderness and waited until 8000 turns passed for settlement (I have Recovery set to 500). Picked up some booze and water from the shop.
  8. At this point I'd dropped to chaotic due to my murders in HMV. Went back there and used wand of door creation to make a locked door by the stairs. This covered summoning divine wrath (greater daemons can't break down doors), and at level 11 I had enough HP to survive smiting wrath. Prayed until cursing wrath and got some unholy water for the future. Prayed until dusting wrath, dealing with it by wielding gold pieces. Prayed a couple more times at smiting wrath. Finally, reached summoning wrath and held down pray for a good 40 seconds, angering the C god enough to max out my N and L piety.
  9. Converted to neutral using the altar in settlement, picking up two precrowns and crowning. The loot: Iron Crown, robes of the master monk, and Devilbane.
  10. Dropped off everything flammable except food and headed to ToEF. Killed ACW with a combination of frost bolt and Devilbane (not sure which is faster), using my massive piety to cover prayers for healing, PP, and pick axes.
  11. ACW corpse survived the flames and I was able to pick up a cure corruption potion from the druid.
  12. Having earned my pyramid invitation on TF:4, I headed there and picked up AMW, Ankh, and the pick axe. Used mouseover glitch to find the wand of teleport in VDDL, picked up the remaining useful potions from the settlement, and started on the dive.
  13. Got Thrundarr off the lever using Burning Hands. Since the damage is reduced to 0 by his incredible PV, this does not aggro the rest of Dwarftown.
  14. Held down direction through Animated Forest, taking a break for Fungal Caves. Didn't pick up terribly useful shrooms this run, but did get some good attribute increases from the herbs picked along the way.
  15. Water Temple had a horizontal river, which combined with boots of levitation made for a quick orb.
  16. Passed by eternal guardian using wand of teleport, and picked up cat ring.
  17. Had an uneventful Air Temple, thankfully (really miss having confusion blast for this part).
  18. Earth Temple was fairly reasonably between my ball spell knowledge and Devilbane.
  19. Picked up circlet of the pure mind from a surge of power on the way to Mana Temple, which let me use robes of the master monk and avoid any confusion issues.
  20. Fight with Nuurgy was a pain, due to cursed invis potions failing and lack of speed boosting, but throwing PoCC at least allowed me to survive in melee.
  21. D:50 was diggable; ended up blocking the levers with a battle bunny and a greater chaos servant.


Near-death experiences:
  • Accidentally meleeing a Dorn Beast while being pursued by a greater earth elemental and the other contents of a high-DL mixed tension room.
  • Some nice crits in Earth Temple.