Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1m]

 

Level 20: This Place Looks Uninteresting
 
A lot of uruks to the south, not much else. By the map she has conjured, they don't look able to reach her. She could try and kill them for anything of use they might hold, but that would mean fighting them.
 
But then, aren't orcs an easy foe now? Although these lurk deeper than any she has yet fought...
 
With a shrug, she sets herself to dig them out. Curiosity, killer of cats and perhaps half-troll priests.
 
Her first discovery: light does not hurt them. Her second discovery: if she can control the fight, uruks are not more dangerous than other orcs. She uses her last two scrolls of identify to learn the orcs dropped a potion of charisma restoration and a potion of curing critical wounds. Marash keeps the healing potion.
 
She disarms a trap blocking the rest of the area and stumbles across an energy hound. It seems to have some kind of electric bite, but doesn't cause her trouble.
 
There must be more of them... Marash tracks to a likely chamber and finds two more energy hounds. One of them breathes lightning at her, doesn't survive drain life very well. The other she kills more conventionally quickly. These might worry in numbers.
 
This place seems uninteresting... a drider? What's that?

Apparently not much. It flees into a mess of novice mages, which leave behind a likewise mess of mostly weapons on the ground when they die.

Marash fights a sasquatch in an empty room; she is badly wounded and it is almost unhurt

Marash makes the mistake of trying out a sword they dropped and stumbles into a sasquatch almost unprotected. It wounds her badly, enough that by the time she gets her Westernesse maul in hand death seems almost certain.
 
In desperation, she prays to be portalled away, and it works. Time to rest and recover. Hopefully quickly; detecting evil a whole mess of uruks and mirkwood spiders nearby, the orcs on the march. She places herself ready to defend and rests.
 
An even fight? Even blessed and protected from evil, her trollish regeneration is only enough to keep up with the damage the uruks do to her.
 
Even. No healthier nor more wounded, when orcs and spiders stop coming. Definitely lower on arrows. Behind them a clear hound approaches.
 
Seven hounds, more spiders and a zombified orc later, the area seems clear. Time to rest.
 
After resting Marash takes up a staff of curing and sets off in search of that sasquatch. A pack of white wolves sets on her, and she needs to rest again afterward.

A priest and a hippogriff walk into a fight with an adventurer...

On the long, meandering path back, expecting every moment to see the sasquatch come into view. She meets a priest instead, and by the time she has called up her defences, it has called forth a hippogriff.
 
Stepping back into the corridor, they prove little trouble. But having to pray so often not to be afraid is definitely annoying.

A few steps apart in a dark corridor, Marash and the sasquatch face each other down

And there's the sasquatch. Experimental results: sasquatches are resistant to bright light, but not to drain life, being hit in the head, or arrows.
 
Level 20: This Place Looks Uninteresting
 
A quick jaunt to the surface, selling a few things, storing a few things, stocking up on arrows... She bought a staff of identify, which convinced her to switch back to her old cap. Is it /really/ more important to be smart than beautiful?
 
Uninteresting indeed - a blubbering icky thing? She hadn't seen one of those since most of a mile toward the surface. And then the two-headed hydra came into view. New creatures are bad news.
 
She turns her rod of drain life on it, and the hydra flees. The first creature that wasn't immune or named to survive. Very worrying. Marash pursues.
 
The Phial fazes it none, and even having been hurt by her rod it is a tough beast, casting terror at her and soaking up many arrows before it falls. At least it leaves a lot of jewels and coins for the trouble.
 
Nothing evil, nothing evil. Overconfidence, for sure.
 
She runs into a pack of energy hounds and tries to fight them in the open. Their breath destroys one of her wands of sleep monster, so finally she gets the message to retreat and control.
 
They don't seem willing to follow. Back and forth, firing and striking... they don't hurt much. If only she could protect her items. Using a staff to slow them has minimal effect.
 
She is almost pleased to be interrupted by a black mamba, something she can kill convincingly.
 
It is a stand-off. Too many hounds, and they won't expose themselves to be dismantled cleanly. Marash retreats, writing off the arrows she has already expended.
 
A pack of white wolves? Comfort food relatively speaking. Nearly cleared out when something breathed lightning at her. A hound had looped around after her. An intolerable insult, that, and she traced its path back to pepper the hounds with arrows until they stopped existing. Fortunate not to lose anything else to their lightning. She reminds herself not to try that again.
 
Rather, she should be heading down instead of getting clogged up with trinkets again. She scans for exits, and decides to take the long path through a neekerbreeker, just to see what it is.
 
And when did she switch from avoiding fights to seeking them out? That must be her problem, and mayhaps well-paid for. Evil, venomous crickets breeding like mad, put down before they got out of control but... the path she took to seek them out, and now heading for stairs down, places her between a water spirit and approaching ogres.

To the west, a line of ogres approach. Immediately to the east, a water spirit cuts off Marash's retreat

Managing to take those down, more easily than feared, and now more ogres approaching from the west. Dragons there too, and some other creatures... but she has fallen into this trap again. What profit in fighting those? None, but risk of death. She heads for the stairs, but the remaining ogres approach, and she finds it prudent to knock them down before retreating below.