1st win, dark elven archer

[mewmew]

Thanks to your advice I managed to win. Dark elven archers are crazy powerful, it was just my 3rd attempt to play DeAr (I suppose it is shortened that way :3), second one died because I thought that Thunderstroke would help me to clear Bug Temple easily, well, it helped.. till it didn't return, and first one died due to a sudden ice vortex because I didn't know the proper way to change alignment and was at low hp wearing the amulet of order constantly. First one was remarkable that she didn't find any bow till the death at lvl 11 and dispatched everybody throwing rocks (without even a sling) like a real hurthling. As for the third who won, the early game was easy, as usually I killed weak enemy with a sword and strong ones with a sling, and milked kobolds and then barbarians for arrows and a possible bow. A bow was found pretty soon. I tried Treasure Hunter this game, not sure if it worth it, while I didn't really need early talent advantages anyway and probably found more potions of water due to the talent, I mostly found junk and got Lightning Shot quite late in game. At first I went to VD and saved the carpenter (I usually kill the healer, but I decided to try another way, I should say that those 40% difference in Healing was a big difference, it took me a while to catch it). I ignored the raider lord due to low money, I couldn't buy enough food to look for him in the wilderness. One of VD levels had a lawful altar, so I got pre-crowned at lvl 8 with a nice shield 'Lust for Glory'. Then I cleared some levels of Puppy Cave till I got lvl 10. At lvl 10 I took the quest to kill Hotzenplotz and quickly shot him and his half-orcs down. I gave some carrot juice to the certain baby dragon and got swimming which helped me since the first level of CoC had a wide river.

At lvl 10 I went to CoC, killed hordes of blink dogs to get teleport control, shifted my align from lawful to neutral, found 2 ratling traders who sold bats (and often restocked) and 1 who sold lizards (and refused to restock), won 19 fights at Arena and dived to Dwarftown (tried to pray 2 times in the process but both prayers were declined cos new god, low piety), where I took the portal quest and the quest to kill a dark elven priestess. It was my first time when I completed the quest to hunt for a random monster, because Thrundarr was kind and assigned something which can be found, actually I found her on the level right under Dwarftown. Also I hate those things and their spiders >< I cleared the Dwarven Graveyard without much problems, then cleared the Pyramid. As usually I lost a few scrolls and books to water traps, since all those 3 or 4 blankets which I found were fireproof ones. I went through the Animated Forest because I was scared of DH, it was hell even with two shields and the first attempt almost ended in my death. I was forced to shoot a few trees, thanks to Find Weakness it wasn't too hard. I got TRoHK with a wand of cold and lost all my money in the process. I dropped them among other stuff to be able to step on the ice bridge and one of summoned skeletons picked them and forgot to drop after his death/ My character was rather unlucky, when like ~40th blink dog dropped a corpse it rotted right before eating, then this money thing and then it turned even worse with corruptions. I went to the Dark Forge, drank some pools, lost fate smile but got teleportisis, and suddenly I got my first corruption... mana battery. I had no means to remove it, and soon after I picked (and properly drained of all charges, I suppose) a wand of wishing -_- On the bright side I found 'Nature Companion' armor and a bit of other armor. Then I managed to snatch the wand of teleportation from VDDL with some blessed crystals of knowledge. Having a cap of water breathing (funny, but I didn't find a better helmet than this [0, 1] cape till the end of game, as well as almost no good bows, two only long bows which I found were destroyed eventually) and a waterproof blanked given by Thrundarr for some quest, I managed to complete Blurp quest (almost died to water turtles in the process despite having a cloak of invisibility, at one point 2 turtles clenched me in a corridor and then one killed another with water breath and let me escape, it was stupid of course since I could just wait for teleportisis at the cave enter). Dwarven Mystic, found with teleportisis, gave me potions instead of scrolls of remove corruption and disappeared before I could say him how I hated him. I heard that there was a scroll of remove corruption in the High Mountain Village, so I ventured in the Small Cave despite being lvl 18 or so, luckily the downstairs were near the enter and I got to HMV safely. I removed my mana battery and then wrenched the last wish from the wand (I thought it had some charges -_-) - AoLS to save Khelly.

I dived to the wall of flame (through DH this time), killed the Snake with my new trident (ate its corpse, got two corruptions including tentacled mouth which is rather nice for an archer) and went to ToEF. With my artifact armor, 3 blessed fireproof blankets (and like 2 unblessed, I had a whole heap of them) and blessed ice ring it wasn't bad, but I still lost an equipped cloak of protection and bracers of toughness (on the way back). The tower was easy, ACW was two shot (almost one shot) with the trident just like the Snake and dropped Thunderstroke. I managed to turn its corpse for potions of cure corruption, removed mana battery (again), then I went deeper, ignored Casino and met the Cat Lord. The problem was, I didn't have humanoid slaying ammo and I killed more than 20 cats. I had a lot of fletchery sets so I tried to make some. It was useless, I wasted a lot of time and got nothing useful. I had some unsorted slaying arrows though and wands of web and paralyzation so I ventured at his floor. He was near the stairs so I lured him at the previous level and tried to shoot with my slaying arrows. Most of them missed and he broke webs at half hp. There was a shop at that level so I thought to make him fight with the shopkeeper (to pick something to make the shopkeeper to bar the shop entry) but the shopkeeper was a dark elf too (race solidarity :3 not with those who summon spiders though) and the cat lord would probably easily kill him not being scratched so I just decided to use my wand/scrolls of teleport on this level. I went deeper, cleared another two temples (Stone Beast was trishot but its elementals almost got me), got mana battery for the 3rd time -_- removed it and got poisoned hands. Foolishly I forgot of its effects and ruined my last potions of cure corruptions. Scrolls and thick gloves were at my stash in Ogre Caves. I fled back eating my last cursed bats with poison hands, removed corruption, went to beggars for some booze, sacrificed some stuff, but didn't manage to get enough piety to crown and I went to the last rush... as I thought. When I passed the cat lord with two charges of teleport wand (the lord waited me right near the downstairs and I had to teleport him away) I realized I forgot all orbs in the stash -_-

So I went back to and fro again, trishot some greater moloch with the trident, fled from doppel king, cleared Mana Temple with amulet of light (I found zero flint and still till the very very end of the game), AMW and 'Lust for Glory' and water orb and finally reached D 50. It was easy but annoying since it didn't have doors at the central chamber and the corruption rate was crazy. I got mana battery for 4th time here as well as posion hands again (this time I managed to destroy my last potions of booze trying to recharge the wand of monster detection) as well as numerous other mutations and removed some of them. I digged long corridors to the both levers rooms. Balors quickly died to the trident, others I shot with Thunderstroke. Since it was annoying to wait them to react on closed gates (I wonder what if I teleported to the stairs before they would react...) I digged to the central chamber and sped up the process. When all balors and (supposedly) chaos wizards and ghost lords died I left the floor, got the white unicorn quest (was quite a chore to chase her trying to speak through all those mouth tentacles), removed corruptions and left Darkalor Chain. Uff :3