Just another playalong - Diego the DE Barb

[Maul]

Another nice session. To get some extra levels, I decided to dive deeper and attack the two remaining elemental temples. Annoyingly enough, I went too far and some useful items (Like my +3 PV light boots) got destroyed, but nothing much that breaks me, really. Clearing the temple was easy enough, Yulgash's summoned chaos warlords weren't enough to stop me from killing him. This just in, here's some of the stuff I got from the Casino:

• Wand of death
• Potion of quickling blood
• Lots of slaying arrows and quarrels
• Helm of mental stability

Well, as I went down to D: 40 and "felt excited", turned out I had to face a red dragon lesser vault. It was tedious work and the red dragons probably burnt up all the 7LBs and wands of wishing considering how nice ADOM sometimes is, but at least it didn't crash on me. Got a bulging cranium corruption meanwhile, so my overinflated brain finally managed to observe the charges on different wands. The wand of death I got from above drastically decreased time spent here, instantly slaying many ancient dragons. (The wyrm in there fell to some dragon slaying quarrels.) Notable loot from here:

• PoGA
• Another potion of quickling blood
• Wand of trap creation - if I want to do the maze
• Potion of toughness

Now's the time to resurface and dump the corrupting air orb, then I'll try the maze once again. I mean, I can always do the library later, it will be faster this time with the trick in the IGB, and it will give me time to (ab)use my corruptions by morgiaing the -3 To off the cranium corruption. Oh yeah, I got the cat ring. This thing rocks.

EDIT: D:27 is too corrupting for extensive smithing, right? If yes, maybe it's time to use a scroll of familiar summoning and do away with Glod, methinks.

[QuickDraw]

Got a bulging cranium corruption meanwhile, so my overinflated brain finally managed to observe the charges on different wands.

What?! Go and slay the oracle, I thought you`ve already done that.

[Maul]

What?! Go and slay the oracle, I thought you`ve already done that.

Sorry, I didn't remember that. It isn't something obvious to do for me, anyway... Will do.

[QuickDraw]

Well, just remember to undoom yourself after. And wear the wrapping, the Oracle casts death ray.

[Maul]

Well, I slaughtered the oracle, ate his corpse, reached the intellect of a worm, and went to the SMC to use another scroll of familiar summoning. Magedoom eye. Yay, the bastard kept draining MY mana. Oh well, I led him up to Glod and ordered him to kill the smith - the eye fell in one strike. Is the smith really that powerful? Anyway, after this I teled him out and started swapping places, and then he suddenly went hostile. So I killed him on another level - down to L. After this, I started to smith. My pickaxes didn't last a lot, and the ores I extracted got me +6 DV and +2 PV on my bracers of speed plus 1 point of DV on my adamantium girdle. Not a lot, but an improvement. I'll probably raid some ant mining operations as they get in the way - I really want to smith in this one, considering Dwarftown is on D:9. While doing all this, I encountered a black unicorn in the wilderness. Ambushed him (he didn't move at all during the "fight"), and 30 or so arrows later he was dead. And he dropped a corpse, yay! 1 free PoCC for me.

Next on: the maze!

[sgeos]

The oracle is female.

[Maul]

Whoops!

Anyway, the maze went just a bit better and just a bit worse than last time. Better: I actually got the potion of strength myself. Worse: I did get drained 1 St, so that's a net increase of 1 St, plus I lost my long bow of accuracy. (Now replaced by a plain long bow (+2, +2)) Now there's a stack of 4 PoCC in the glade, and still at least 4 (or so) SoCR. I took all the ore from the ants frequenting the level with the Darkforge shortcut and squeezed +3 PV onto my bracers of speed, now [+6, +5].

I wonder what now... Rift? Earth temple? Perhaps start cleaning the undead vault (I have about 20 undead slaying pieces of ammo - even if it's not enough, it sure will help soften up their defences at least, so that I can teleport in/out to try to find the artifacts)?

[_Ln_]

Now's the time to resurface and dump the corrupting air orb, then I'll try the maze once again.

None of the Orbs contains the essence of Chaos and Corruption, so they don't corrupt you... unless you use them, of course)

[Maul]

None of the Orbs contains the essence of Chaos and Corruption, so they don't corrupt you... unless you use them, of course)

Oh, in that case: "Now's the time to resurface and dump the unnecessary, heavy air orb".

The questions still stand:

I wonder what now... Rift? Earth temple? Perhaps start cleaning the undead vault (I have about 20 undead slaying pieces of ammo - even if it's not enough, it sure will help soften up their defences at least, so that I can teleport in/out to try to find the artifacts)?

[_Ln_]

Well, going to the Earth Temple can be nice to give a whole bunch of tasty new levels without facing a lot of problems (if you have quite high PV and fight grues/elementals luring them in groups to the previous level), but there's a certain possibility, that the Library will produce the Slow Monster spellbook (which is quite common spellbook and probably not difficult for your barb). IRC, you have a source of Invis, so the Rift won't be of great danger. And the doppelganger lord, if one appears can be taken out with offensive wands.
So, the choice is yours =)

The only thing I strongly recommend you not to do is to go to the vault. In my last game (I finished it the day before yesterday I went there with my monk on lvl 22, spent all my undead slaying ammo, NOT having killed a single emperor lich (only a couple masters and kings), since these guys regenerate like battle bunnies multiply, then returned at ~35, spent missiles again and finally cleaned it on the way back from D:50 and used a RoDS for undead slaying ammo). Leave it just for now, you'll probably find some ammo during your adventures in BDC.

And if you decide to go to the Rift, don't forget stealth at 100

PS: considering heavy air orb I was used to leave the si and some spellbooks which I wanted to lie somewhere for some time in the Bad Village before going to ID to scum for AoLS (the room to the right to Yergius is much more safer for me than Barb's clearing, since you just can lock the door). And almost every time I was realising that I'd forgotten that darned si and books. Once it was on D:49 and I had to throw some blankets, when found out that somehow I had no sis with me.
So since some time I've been leaving only SoCRs in the pacified Big Room for safekeeping. Even my climbing sets (yes, even multiple) are always travelling with me =)