Kisho the Samurai

I started a Samurai (on the suggestion of someone in the irc channel), and decided to be aggressive. I tried to get my long sword leveled up as quickly as possible, so I barely used my bow. A few levels down, I found an armor shop. After some cursed/uncursed checking, I decided to buy some cheap kit. I bought some inexpensive armor and brought my armor class down to a tolerable level. Samurai start pretty lightly armored.

Down in the mine town I saw the temple was neutral, and I was lawful. Oh well. It's been a long damn time since I've seen a co-aligned temple in the mine town. I set up a small corner in the temple with my stuff and identified the cursed/uncursed status of everything, and tried on everything that was safe to try on. One of the shops had a can of grease, which I bought quickly. I wanted the can of grease to grease some of my items, because it can be useful. Greasing your outerwear (cloak, mummy wrapping, etc) will allow you to escape grab attacks, greasing your bag will make it waterproof. I did both actions, and remembered the other thing I could grease, a helmet. Greasing your helmet is to protect from a mindflayer brain-suck attack, I wouldn't be running into a mindflayer for a VERY long time, but I did it anyways.

After my kit was squared away, I decided to continue deeper into the mines to see if I can find something interesting before returning to the regular dungeon. I find a magic whistle and return to town and get an idea. I empty my bag, enter a shop, put all the items into the bag, and have Hachi, my dog, pick it up. It's easy to get your pet to pick up items, but to get them out of the shop before they drop the item is harder.. unless you have a magic whistle, and it teleports your pet to your side when you blow it. I steal the items easily with the help of my dog and magic whistle, then return to the shop and sell the items back to the shopkeep. I do this for a while, and get more money than I could possibly need. I didn't think to make an offering to the neutral priest for protection, because I didn't want to piss off my lawful god.

Surprisingly, a cockatrice appeared, and was quickly killed, leaving a corpse. I though about picking it up, and turning bad guys to stone just for fun, but I didn't really have any reason to take the chance, and didn't have any real nasty enemies to contend with. I decided to pass on it. As I wandered the town Hachi had been picking on the soldiers. Fighting a bit, then running away; well, he did it one too many times because he was killed by one of the soldiers. I was pissed, and that cockatrice corpse was still sitting there. I checked that my hands were gloved, and flew my black flag.

I picked up the cockatrice, and slapped the soldier that killed Hachi across the face with it. He turned to stone. Take that dog killer! I get the message, "You kill the soldier! You murderer!" Yeah, yeah, lawful characters aren't supposed to do that. Fuck you. A whistle blew as the soldiers descended on me. By the time I'm done the town is adorned with four new soldier statues. I realize my god is probably pretty fucking pissed at me, so I return to the temple and think about trying to convert the altar. I worried about the priestess, who would kick my sorry ass when I converted the altar, then realized that I was still holding a cockatrice. I'll probably die, but fuck it. It took a few tries, but I finally hit her with the corpse, and she turned to stone in two turns. Bam! The voice of Raijin (the neutral god) booms, "How dare you!" and he zaps me with a bolt of lightning, which I survive. I soon find a monster worth offering, and attempt to convert the altar. I fail! I converted myself! I'm now Kisho, the neutral Samurai. At first I worry about the change, but then I realize it doesn't make much difference. It occurs to me now that the quest artifact (an awesome sword) will dislike being used by me unless I'm lawful.

I sacrifice to my new god a few times, and he's much easier to placate than my previous lawful god. I use his power to make some holy water, and strip down to identify some scrolls and potions.

A little bit smarter, I leave the mines and continue down the regular dungeon. I'm surprised by the amount of monsters who won't bother you if you're neutral. What else have I been missing by playing lawful characters? On an unimportant level with not much going on, I run into an oddly strong monster; a hill giant. I evade him for a bit, then duck into a room to get him close so he won't throw a boulder at me. But when he comes around the corner, he's a FUCKING MINDFLAYER!

I freeze up, and after some careful consideration, decide it's a chameleon, and will change to something less dangerous soon. I back away from it, and try to keep a red mold between us. It doesn't work, and it catches up to me. It attempts to suck my brain, but can't get a grip on my greased helmet. Thank god I greased it! I keep hitting it while it keeps trying to suck my brain, and it changes into something smaller, and dies immediately. It leaves a chameleon corpse. If I eat the corpse, I'll polymorph. I wish I had polymorph control... I look at my unidentified rings, and decide to go for it. I lock myself in a room, check for monsters with my telekinesis, put on the two rings, and eat the chameleon. You feel a change come over you! What would you like to polymorph into? YES! I choose vampire lord, because they're fucking awesome, and the polymorph fails for some reason. Shit. I mark the rings as possibly polymorph control, and move on.

I decide to hit sokoban and unfortunately, had just gotten a new pet dog. Pets can get in the way in sokoban, but with a magic whistle, I wasn't too worried. I completed sokoban easily, and got a number of new rings and wands. Sadly, I got the amulet of reflection instead of the bag of holding... again. As I continue deeper, I lose my dog again. Shit.

In sokoban, I made myself invisible, and picked up some mummy wrappings so I could be visible when I chose. I was also playing on nethack.alt.org, which allowed other users to watch my game. I got a message of mail, which is usually logs on the linux computer I was playing on, but decided to read it anyways. It was a letter from "Jew" that said, "i see you as a . what are you poly'd to?" At first, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. After a while I realized that someone was watching me play, and had sent me a message. I opened the help where you can type whatever you want in, and typed that I was invisible. Weird. I've never had a viewer before...

Deeper I found a temple to the lawful god, complete with priestess. Luckily, it had a closet in the temple. I set up another closet there. I was accumulating a lot of stuff, and this looked like a good place to get all the new kit squared away. A short while later I had everything moved into the closet, and had picked out all the useful stuff. I kept losing pets as I was playing, and chalked it up to me fighting everything, and leveling up too quickly, resulting in tougher monsters.

A few levels down, I cleared out a bee hive, and ate a ton of royal jelly only to have a hill giant wander in. Damnit.

Around now I realized I hadn't leveled up my longsword skill recently. I checked it, and saw it was expert. I decided to work on my dual wield skill, and went into two weapon mode with a regular longsword in my other hand. Further down I found another treasure zoo, and bypassed it, choosing to go deeper. I found my quest level, and ignored it. A few more levels down I saw a mindflayer using telekinesis, and retreated. I didn't want to deal with that right now.

I went back up, and explored the levels until I got back to the treasure zoo. Eh, why not? I cleared out the treasure zoo easily, and found someone else had died there. There was a ton of stuff there, and most of it looked pretty cool. I sat on the throne there, hoping for a wish, but it was a bitch and vanished on the first try. Why can't I get a damn wish.

When dead players drop their stuff, it usually goes down a cursed level. Blessed stuff becomes uncursed, uncursed stuff becomes cursed, and cursed stuff stays cursed. I loaded up as much as I could, and went back up to my outpost in the lawful temple. After a few more trips I had everything moved to my outpost. Unfortunately, some douche bag gnome went pick-axe crazy, and dug around my door, opening my closet and my stuff to every Tom, Dick, and Fire Giant on the level. I decided it was about time to start cleaning up the nearby levels, and bring all the potentially useful kit to my outpost for identification.

I packed light, and set off with some extra tripe rations for any pets I might run into. I quickly ran into a few pets, and before I knew it, I had two cats, and a pony. Unsure of how I was going to feed the pony, and longing for a wand of polymorph, I wandered around gathering up all the kit. *Poof* my dog changes into a lizard. *Poof* my pony changes into a rock mole. There's a polymorph trap around here! I search for it, and eventually find it. Sweet! I've played with polymorph traps and polymorph control before with awesome results! Pet dragons, pet cockatrices, eating rings to make their powers permanent, or just changing into something killer. Notice that my pets are disappearing, and realize they must be going into the undiscovered magic teleporter to my quest. I decide to follow them, but not as myself. I put on my polymorph control ring, and hop into the trap. I polymorph myself into a vampire lord, but the trap disappears after I use it! Damn! Good thing I didn't start with a cockatrice or something! I hop into the magic teleporter, and see... NNNNNINNNNJAAAAASSS!!!11

I decide they're no match for an invisible vampire lord samurai dual wielding a +3 katana, and a long sword, and tear them apart. Sadly, since my pets were not optimally polymorphed into something badass, they all died in the ninja assault. (which was much tougher than the beginning of the valk quest)

I return to the dungeon, and to my outpost, and start eyeing all the sweet-but-cursed kit the dead dude left. I needed holy water. I needed a LOT of holy water. I needed to go all the way back to the mine town. It would be a long way.

I found all the nearby fountains, and dipped all the crappy potions I didn't want, turning them into water. I was loaded down with water, and started on my trip back to the mines.

On the way up, I ran into a sink I had forgotten about. I had a ring that didn't have any obvious effects, so I just said what the hell, and tossed it in. The sink revealed it was a ring of conflict. Fuck. I should have worn it more to see if its effects became obvious. Somewhere along the way, I changed back into a human. Fuck. I liked being a Vampire lord. Maybe I'll find a wand of polymorph, and re-up.

After a long trip to the mining town I sacrificed a few monsters to my neutral god, and he seemed pleased. So I dropped my water on the altar, and prayed. My god was happy to bless the water, and I was happy to have it. I dug through some of the stuff I stored there, and managed to pull out some more potions and useless scrolls, which I turned to water, and blank scrolls for writing on later. After some more sacrificing, I blessed another lot of water. I sacrificed some more, and got ready to take a chance. I put on some cursed but useful rings, and weilded a cursed but awesome sword, all picked up from the dead dude. I prayed again (after sacrificing some more), and my neutral god was happy to remove the curse of the items I had attached to me. NICE! My lawful god always found some reason to be mad, and screwed me on uncursing items I was stuck using.

So now, dual wielding frostbrand and my +3 rustproof katana, carrying tons of holy water, and eager to make it back to my outpost to get all that kit uncursed, I was ready to deck out Kisho.

After my neutral god's performance in the mine town, I kind of wanted to stay with him. Sadly, the samurai quest artifact is too valuable and useful to pass on. Maybe it will only blast me when I equip or unequip it. If it becomes too much of a burden, I'll probably just piss off my neutral god, and sacrifice to my lawful god again in the temple outpost... and hope it doesn't convert the alter, and give me two pissed off gods, and a mean priest inside the safety of my outpost.

We'll see...