Gargoyles, Chameleons, and Yeenoghus! Oh my!

[Herath's quest continues]

I test out the booby-trapped ring, and it's a ring of invisibility! This will help a bit. I leave it off for now and continue exploring. A tiger appears, and my horses make short work of it! Sweet! We find sokoban, and I brain fart on the first level and fuck it up. Goddmnit. I leave to go find a pick axe, and decide to just continue deeper. I still wanted to find an altar to get back in my god's good graces after accidentally killing my unnamed cat.

The next level down, we run into a few nasty monsters, followed by a bunch of zombies. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but one of my horses got surrounded, and died. Pushing on I discover the big room, and leave it for later, preferably when I have a ring of conflict. By now I've managed to pick up a bit of kit, and without an altar to test it out on, I'm going to have to go back to the mine town.

On the way there, my horse freaks out and starts attacking me! I avoid hurting it as best as I can, and then it starves to death. I guess it was crazed with hunger or something. It didn't matter, I didn't have anything to feed it. Alone again, I continue.

I find a general store I didn't notice before, and cost ID some scrolls. I have a general idea how much some scrolls cost, so if I get in a situation and have to take my chances reading unidentified scrolls, I can at least make an educated guess.

Back in town I sacrifice at the conveniently co-aligned altar, and get back in the good graces of my god. Instead of rewarding me with some useful item, he just summons the friendly demon Yeenoghu. I remember Yeenoghu from another game. He was kind of annoying, but he's kind of like a mascot. Yeenoghu teleports freely, and likes to jump in front of you, causing you to bump into him, and make the game ask if you want to attack him. He wasn't too much of a problem before, so I'll let him hang around. I dilute some potions and blank some scrolls so I can make some holy water and blessed scrolls of identify with my magic marker. As I start processing my equipment I realize I have a can of grease I hadn't used, so I grease my helmet, cloak, and bag. I prep my kit for the possibility of getting a full identify off a single blessed scroll, and luck out on the first try! My entire inventory is identified, but I don't really have anything gamechanging.

I maximize my kit, and bless my daggers (I still haven't been able to find more than 7 for some damn reason), and remember something I have to deal with. It's time to take on that gargoyle.

I head to the staircase, Yeenoghu teleporting around me all the way, and before I got down, I turn on my lamp, pull my +2 arrows out of my bag, and put on my ring of invisibility. He's not going to know what hit him. Yeenoghu actually follows me downstairs but doesn't get in the way too much as I put +2 arrow after +2 arrow into the gargoyle, which flails wildly trying to strike at my invisible displaced image. It took quite a beating, but it was a lot easier to kill when I could actually see it. I explore the rest of the level, and discover it is a bones level! A previous samurai died at the hands of a gargoyle (motherFUCKER!) and left a bit of kit.

After a short interlude of carrying everything from my previous character back up to the altar, I find a few bits of useful armor, but nothing too exciting. I update my kit, and continue deeper in the mines. I enter the level after the gargoyle, and wrap my towel around my head. My telepathy reveals a fucking demilich (!), a water troll, a baby white dragon, and bunch of other nasty monsters that I do NOT want to deal with right now. I quickly leave and return to town to regroup.

As I climb the staircase back to the town level, I use my telepathy again and see a fucking black dragon around the corner from me! WTF is going on!? I'm only level 10! I wait a few turns to stay by the stairs, and it changes into a newt. Oh, geez. It's a chameleon. Well, maybe I can wait until it turns into something useful... I stay blinded to watch it with my telepathy as it changes into some mediocre monsters for a few turns. Just when I think I should just kill it, it turns into a goddamn Arch Lich! FUCK! KILL IT! It teleports next to me and summons monsters! I remove my blindfold, and read a scroll of teleport! I need to stay away from it long enough for it to change into something else! I teleport across the map, and it teleports next to me and attacks me with its psychic powers! I put on the ring of invisibility and try to get away from it while staying out of the line of fire, and it turns into a yeti. I quickly drop it with 6 daggers and breathe a sigh of relief!

I decide to calm down with some potion testing, so I lock myself in the temple, and quaff away. Lucky me, the first potion I tested was hallucination. I blind myself so I can make sure I don't get surrounded while I wait off my buzz. I'm still a little on edge after the Arch Lich encounter, so I try not to freak out when I hallucinate at the Jabberwocky and Red Dragon that appear to be closing in on me.

I continue waiting, it's taking longer than normal, and I can't do anything without fear of accidentally attacking the Priestess, who would make short work of me. I continue waiting. Quite a while later, the monsters are massing outside, but I can't tell what they really are, and I'm still hallucinating! I can't do anything. Just sit. As I continue waiting, I hear crashing rock, which indicates something is digging through walls on the level. This is very bad, because if the monster opens one of the walls around the temple, monsters can get in, and I can't tell what they are and whether or not they're the Priestess. I luckily stop hallucinating shortly after that. Thank god that's over. I look at the monsters outside and realize I've got my work cut out for me.

The horde of monsters weren't that nasty, there were just a lot of them. I ready my arrows, open the door, and start firing. It takes quite a bit of time to thin them out enough that I can run out and grab the arrows to reuse, but somewhere in the fray, I manage to hit a guard, which brings all of them after me. Fortunately they don't want to enter the temple, so I'm somewhat safe from them. Dozens of salvos of arrows later, I think I've got everything. I sort through all the dropped kit (conveniently placed right outside the temple :]) and get a little better armor, and some more much needed daggers. I take out a unicorn that was a little late to the party, sacrifice it, and get its horn, which will keep me from having to put up with that hallucination crap in the future.

When everything is sorted, I realize I have a ton of money, and might be able to buy godly protection! Not sure exactly how much I need, I decide to ID some gems, and sell them for as much as I can get, and just donate it all. My god rewards my generous donation by improving my armor class by 3 points.

With the kit all sorted, and the horde dealt with, I decide to do some scroll identification. I lock myself in the temple again, take off all my good armor, throw on a pair of crappy boots, and wield a simple knife, and start reading. I find a scroll of remove curse, magic mapping, and destroy armor (good thing I wasn't wearing my good armor!) So now, faced with some nasties a few levels down in the mines, and the big room back in the dungeon, I decide it's time to deal with sokoban.

Picked up a pony on the way back to sokoban, but didn't have much hope for him. I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how I could fix my sokoban fuck-up, and figured out how to do it while breaking only two boulders. You can bet I was very careful for the rest of the puzzle, because I didn't want to lock myself out of the prize at the end. Along the way, my horse predictably starved to death, and I continued on.

I made it down to the last room, and realized I had taken them asleep! I carefully took out all the monsters one at a time, and got my reward; the amulet of reflection. Now I'm protected from at least some of the insta-deaths... I also make out with a few wands, one of which is a wand of fire! On the way out an ocre jelly tries to corrode my helmet, but it's protected by the grease. It also corrodes one of my thrown daggers I hadn't picked up yet. Damn! Down to 6 daggers! Where the fuck are all the daggers in this game??? I dispatch it with the silver saber I got from the mine town's watch captain, because the silver is protected against corrosion. What? He wasn't using it. I run into a kitten and dog on the way out, which join me as my new pets, but the kitten falls rather quickly to a clot of mummies. The dog takes a beating, but survives. With the pets, I do some impromptu testing on the new items, and try on some uncursed rings with no effect. I test out the wands, and all are obvious except one. I zap it at a monster, at my pet dog, and at myself. Nothing. Oh well.

Finished with sokoban, I wonder what to do now. I've got those nasties in the mines and the big room below my feet. I decide to make an outpost to get unburdened. A few levels up I find a chest, and lug it into a small, one entrance room, and start unloading when I make a startling discovery! What the shit?! When did I get blasted with water? All my scrolls are blank, and my potions are all water! Good thing I greased by bag, so its contents were protected, but still, wtf?! FUCK! MY MAGIC MARKER IS OUT OF INK! Shit! There goes all my scroll writing! Goddamnit! When the fuck did I get wet?! OH SHIT! What if I didn't get wet? What if that wand I couldn't identify was a wand of cancelation? Fuckfuckfuck! Shit. Well, nothing to do now but make this water holy. Back to the mines.

I return to the mine town, and make more holy water, and tweak my kit a bit. Still no more fucking daggers. wtf. I realize that that wand of fire might give me the upper hand against that demilich, and those other nasties downstairs. Hell, it's either them or the big room. I adjust my pack for the fight, and go back down.

Yeenoghu is waiting for me on the level above my destination, so I make sure he doesn't follow me down, because I'm going to need a clear line of fire at that demilich. There are a few gnomes I can deal with before getting to the demilich, and to my great pleasure, they start throwing daggers at me! Daggers! Finally, daggers! I quickly dispatch the gnomes, and pick up 9 more daggers! Sweet! Ok, demilich time now. The demilich seems to have trouble with me being invisible, and can't seem to corner me or hit me with any substantial spells. I dance around until I get a line of fire on it, Say hello to my little friend! I zap the wand of fire, and it turns to dust! WTF! The wand of cancelation cancels wands too?! Shit! I switch to arrows, and unleash salvo after salvo, but he keeps healing, and I can't wear him down! Eventually I run out, and realize I need to gather my arrows to try again! I unblind myself, and remember that it's invisible, so I can't see it now. Shit. It could corner me if I'm not careful. So I walk awkwardly around so as to avoid being cornered by the invisible monster, while picking up the arrows I will need to kill it. It takes a few swipes at my displaced image, and gets close enough to cast a spell on me! My boots disintegrate! Fuck these arrows! I'm out of here! I return to the town level, and intentionally leave Yeenoghu below me, because he's getting on my tits with this constant teleporting in front of me. I get some new boots from my pile of stuff in the temple, and identify and stack the new daggers with my old ones. Finally, I can start kicking some ass! I return to the demilich, leaving my god upstairs with Yeenoghu (he won't mind), and start pelting it with daggers. It heals once, and dies before it can recharge its magic enough to do it again. It drops a ring that I will not be trying on until I'm very sure it's safe.

Through some luck of the map layout, all the other nasties were behind another wall, and stuck there until I was done with the demilich. I grabbed my large dog from upstairs, and moved around the corner, still invisible, and started picking them off. I actually wound up with a nice corridor that they walked through while I pelted them with arrows. I emptied both stacks of arrows before I took them all out, but I was ok, and gathered up all the dropped kit. I was hoping the baby white dragon would leave scales, but it didn't. Lost my large dog in the fight. My poor pets...

I gather the kit, and ID it at the town. The ring was cursed, so I dipped it in some holy water to uncurse it and tried it on to no effect. Hmmm... Kit handled, I was going to to the demilich level, and FINALLY get to the bottom of the mines.

On the way, Yeenoghu had been getting in front of me in the small corridor on the way from the upstairs to the downstairs, so I went the long way up and around. I accidentally bumped into him (for the millionth time), and Nethack asked me if I wanted to attack him, except I was going up and to the right, which is "y" on the directional keys. I attacked Yeenoghu due to the typo, and he teleported away. Oh shit... that was bad... Where'd he go? Is he coming back? I gotta get the fuck out of here! I take a few steps toward the stairs, and Yeenoghu teleports right next to me, and misses me a few times, then teleports away. Fuckfuckfuck. This is bad. Maybe being invisible and displaced will give me enough chance to make it off this level. I take a few more steps and Yeenoghu teleports next to me again, and casts a spell! I'm pelted with hundreds of missiles! I'm at 13 health! Shit! That's low, but I don't think it's low enough that my god will heal me! I try for the pray anyways, and my god protects me for a few turns, but doesn't heal me. I've got one more turn left before I eat it. I don't have enough turns to dig a hole through the ground, and a scroll of teleport is useless because Yeenoghu will just teleport next to me again. I check my inventory again, and realize it's time to whip out something I was saving for a bad situation. Not a very good Hail Mary, but my only one. I reach into my knapsack, and pull it out, point it at Yeenoghu, and... "SAY CHEESE!" I take a candid shot of Yeenoghu with my expensive camera as he tries to cast a spell at me, he is blinded by the flash! RUN LIKE HELL! I move one space away from him, and he hits hits me with his missile spell. Apparently he doesn't care if he's blind or not... Herath the Orcish Ranger dies. Killed by a typo.

Ok, so, in the future? Yeenoghu is getting brought back to level 1, and ABANDONED. Thanks a lot Mars, fat lot of help summoning him for me was. He just gets in my damn way and fucking kills me! Bah!