Eira's Quest part 2, Big Room Bollocks

When we last left our hero, she was below the Big Room, half-dead, blind, and lycanthropic! You could say she was having trouble seeing what a hairy situation she was in! (ba-dum tschh!)

Back downstairs, I confirm I'm still wearing the ring of warning and wait silently, afraid a clot of hill giants will round the corner and throw boulders at me at any moment. Luckily, the blindness wears off, and I'm able to wait until healed, and return upstairs with a new plan.

As soon as I emerge, I read a scroll of teleport, hoping I don't get dropped near that group of chickatrices. Luckily, I get sent to the other side of the map. Whew. Good thing I didn't have to take out that group of chickatrices. I take one step, and... The pyrolisk casts its fiery gaze upon you! Shit! Where the fuck did that come from?! I attempt a retreat, hoping the conflict will run it into some other monster, but it just keeps on staring at me. After a few turns, and a few near misses due to my displacement, I manage to take out the pyrolisk. But I'm low on health, most of my scrolls have burned up and potions have boiled and exploded (goddamnit), I'm on fire, and oh yeah, I'm stuck far from the staircase in the big room with no more teleports. Just when things couldn't get any worse, You change into werewolf form! AHHH FUCK! I FORGOT I WAS LYCANTHROPIC! I was going to wait until I was lower on health to pray! The transition tears through my precious cloak of displacement and my armor. Now I'm a weak werewolf, against a wall, low on health, and no armor. Oh! summon help! I wait a few turns to get my energy up, and summon help. I'm instantly surrounded by wolves who came to help, but they too, attack me viciously. Shit! Really low on health now! Way to leave conflict on! I quickly remove the ring of conflict, which first stops my pack of wolves from attacking me as I'm near death, and second makes every monster left in the room make a bee-line for me. I noticed I'm overburdened, and quickly drop any nonessentials so I can make a hasty escape. Lets see if I can figure a way out of this...

My wolf pack takes a few monsters down before dying surprisingly easily, but at least I can put my ring of conflict back on. I'm still low on health, and looking to make my way back to the staircase as a plains centaur and a winter wolf close in on me. While I'm waiting for them to close in on me so I can make some moves around them both, the centaur starts firing its crossbow, and the winter wolf starts shooting its ice beam at me! Fuck this shit! I retreat from my position, hoping I'm fast enough to make it around these monsters, and notice that as I leave my spot, there is a pile of stuff I didn't expect. Shit! I dropped my weapons too! I can't wield anything in this form, can I? Shitshitshit. I gotta go back. Already three spaces away, I return to the line of fire to grab whatever I needed to survive until I changed back to my human form.

Dodging crossbow bolts and ice beams, I make it back to my pile of stuff. Ok, what's here? I need my sword and daggers, *crossbow bolt* and this gray stone, I guess, it probably doesn't weigh much *ice beam* and definitely this wand of lightning, hey wait! I pick up the wand of lightning in my werewolf mouth, and level it at the centaur and winter wolf, making short work of them. Whew! Ok, still need to get out of here, but conflict seems to be less effective than it used to be. It's long past time to get out of here.

Quickly dodging through fighting monsters and missiles, I'm still nowhere near the staircase, and the pack of chickatrices are alternating between turning nearby monsters into statues and making several troublesome moves toward me, when I (luckily?) discover a level teleport trap! Hopefully I'll go up a level so I can go up to level two or something, and get another cloak of displacement. I'm momentarily blinded by a flash of light, and... Went down a level. Oh well, it's still better than where I was, trapped in the big room. I'm somewhat close to the stairs, and this room seems pretty protected. I quickly pray to my god to cure my lycanthropy, and he graciously cures me, but I wasn't low enough on health to heal me. Wow. That was almost terminally stupid. Forgetting I had lycanthropy, and that changing form would destroy all my sweet armor? Geez.

I wait around a bit to heal up, and check my inventory. I've got that cursed cloak that I think is good. It's a "piece of cloth," so I'm pretty sure it's invisibility, but no other armor to speak of... Oh yeah! Those green dragon scales! I put on the loose dragon scales, which helps my armor class a lot less than expected, and put on the cursed piece of cloth, which turns out to be a cloak of protection, but I didn't notice any AC improvement. This is far from ideal, but it's better than nothing. I'll worry about removing this cursed cloak later. I futz with my inventory a bit and heal up enough to venture back to the up stairs. The up and down stairs on the Big Room level are pretty close together, but I can't remember how many were in that area when I was there last. Or more importantly, where those chickatrices were! I still don't have any lizards, and a simple touch from one of those would end my quest!

I continue making my way back to the familiarity of the up staircase area, when I find a neutral altar! Sweet! Now I can sacrifice to my god, get a prayer back in case of some other stupid move, and possibly get Mjolnir! I hang out for a bit and sacrifice a few small monsters that come by. Fuck this, I'm zapping my wand of create monster. I greedily zap the wand and a damn plains centaur appears! Ok, maybe I should have waited until I healed up a bit! I eye my inventory for a way out, and realize that what worked before should work now, and zap it with my wand of lightning, killing it instantly. OK! Lets not try that again! I drag the centaur onto the altar, and sacrifice it for a little luck, but I need more monsters. Understandably gun shy, I leave the wand of create monster alone, and opt to wait around, healing, and trying to coax monsters into the altar room. One room over a hill giant breaks down the door. Shit! I don't need this right now! Please don't throw a boulder at me! It'll block my way back to the altar room! I quickly vacate the corridor for fear a bolder might block it, and luckily, this hill giant didn't seem to have a boulder. It very clearly passes on several opportunities to throw one at me, and closes in to melee me, which is definitely what I prefer. That's it, a little closer... Then it throws a boulder at me. AH FUCK! *WHEW* Dodged it! No longer afraid of boulders, I close in on it, and take it out. The next corridor has a lot of items in it for some reason, I check the pile and see the grave of a dead wizard, and all his kit. Well, most of it is probably cursed, but beggars can't be choosers!

I grab everything that looks useful and check the cursed status on the altar. Most of it is cursed, but some isn't. Quite a few cursed rings, and a pair of cursed leather gloves. I briefly consider the danger of those chickatrices, and decide to put them on. Woot! They lowered my AC by 3! There is an uncursed amulet, but I'll try it out later. My amulet of reflection is too important to me right now. Ok, time to try on some of these rings... Oh wait... I can't take off my cursed gloves to change rings... Genius. Wait, I'll just sacrifice some more and pray, and maybe I'll get lucky. How about this cursed potion? Potions are heavy, and even cursed, they don't usually have game ending consequences. I quaff cursed potion, and discover it's a potion of gain level! But cursed potions of gain level literally make you gain a level. I float up and through to the ceiling, and back into the Big Room! Genius... Well, at least I still have my ring of conflict on, and I found some scrolls of teleport. Here we go!

Back on in the Big Room, I see that I'm actually in a pretty good spot. Pretty much on the opposite side of where I was before, so I'm far from where the monsters were, and they will have to fight their way through each other to get back to me. This might actually work out better than expected! I take a step, and land in a polymorph trap! SSSSHHHIIII--wait! The scales are merging with my body? I'm turning into a green dragon! The transformation destroyed my cursed cloak of protection, and pushes my cursed gloves off of my hands! So... win? Hey! I can breathe poison and lay dragon eggs! Sweet! Never mind, not enough energy since I just transformed, but now I wonder how fast I am... Hey, I seem pretty fast! I dance around the chickatrices, making them run into other monsters, and contribute further to my Big Room statue garden. After the Big Room is pretty clear, I retreat downstairs to relax for a bit, and try out my new form.

[to be continued]