Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1e]
Level 7: "This seems a quiet, peaceful place"
Quiet and peaceful, but a copperhead snake sleeping right in front of the stairs. Marash judiciously heads the other way.
With her first step it wakes and pursues. The corridor leads to some sleeping, bloodshot eyeball thing, and suddenly it seems more sensible to turn and fight the snake.
The copperhead poisons her, but that fades quick enough after it is dead. Triumphantly, in the room the snake had been blocking, Marash finds some Cure Serious Wounds potions, plus a couple of scrolls. Further exploration revealed a sleeping metallic green centipede and a book of magic spells.
The centipede woke with her first step, but a good thwack sent it running. Marash snatched up the book and let the centipede be.
As she left, something unseen started touching her, damaging her wisdom. But not so much she didn't feel a need to leave quickly.
Hardly any of this depth explored, but stairs down found, so down she goes.
Level 8: "You feel a little lucky"
Wooden torch and stairs down found quickly, then a prayer for knowledge and soon after, a tengu spotted. This is meant to be luck?
Marash has never seen a Tengu before, but it seems scary. She takes a step forward and it blinks away. More steps forward, hoping it is just gone, but when she sees it again it yanks her through space to its side and strikes her.
She tries testing the Chromium wand on the tengu, but fails to use it properly. Back to hitting things. Her strike misses and it blinks away again, replaced by a scruffy hobbit emerging from the north.
Thinking the hobbit easy, she pursues, harassed by a giant brown bat. Soon after she wonders if this is somehow a trap, as once she is away from all exits a cave bear follows her in with the hobbit and bat.
Marash takes a deep breath and aims the Chromium wand at the hobbit. It reveals itself as a wand of sleep.
As the cave bear approaches, tengu close behind, Marash prays until she is healed. The tengu blinks to surround her, but there is little she can do about that. She aims the rod of drain life at the bear...
Or rather, the novice mage she'd mistaken for a bear. The real bear comes back into sight as she sheepishly puts the rod away.
She zaps it with the wand of magic missile, notes the reaction, and decides maybe she can take this bear in a fight. Marash hefts her mace. It flees before she is much hurt, itself nearly dead. She turns and brains the sleeping hobbit behind her, taking its copper coins.
The tengu returns and teleports her over to it. The tengu hits harder, and seems hard to hit. Just when she is feeling a good blow, it vanishes. While it is gone, she drops her tattered cloak from town to make room for a tulwar.
The tengu yanks her away before she can grab the sword, but vanishes almost immediately. She takes the opportunity to finish off the bear and grab the sword before that annoying demon comes back.
She heads back out into the corridor, having decided she may as well explore while the tengu is busy playing tag. A novice rogue approaches around the far corner, but for now it seems sensible to let enemies come to her.
The rogue steals some of her gold and vanishes. Vanishing seems normal enemy behaviour at this point.
She kills the tengu on its next approach, convinced its game of tag was what let her live long enough to do it.
Her torch has been running out of fuel. She lights another and continues exploring.
A skeletal orc approaches; she ignores it as long as she can, fights it out when she's cornered. Not dangerous by itself, but more would be, or if she weren't so strong.
The rogue turns up again. This time Marash chases it down until it is dead, and claims its loot for herself.
A red naga is left sleeping where it is found, but as she leaves it behind Marash spies Wormtongue, agent of Saruman sneaking up from behind. A troubling development.
She flees and seems to lose him. Winding paths lead her to some scrolls she can't quite fit in her pack, and so now seems a good time to test what she already has and ditch what isn't useful.
Violet potion: nothing noticeable.
Tangerine: fire resistance.
Orange speckled: true seeing
As the fire resistance wears off, she is charged by a giant salamander. Its bite envelops her in flames, and it breathes fire on her. Marash hits it until it flees, then pursues. This thing is too dangerous to let roam, but safe enough to chase down.
After some more wandering Marash finds another pair of boots she hasn't room for. She tests some of the scrolls she has found. The first turns out to be Phase Door, and places her adjacent to an unlucky cave lizard. The other turns out to be magic mapping, both useful, so she dumps the tulwar instead.
Weirdly, a zombie kobold ran out to get killed when she did so.
Wandering around in search of a path down, Marash is pursued by a metallic blue centipede, soon joined by a Night Lizard. A mass of blue worms troubles her, spreading and multiplying across the floor as she tries frantically to stamp them out. She nearly blunders into a disembodied eye, scintillating with many colours, and backs away, recalling at last that she'd found a path down early in her explorations at this depth. She makes her way back there, hoping the path will be safer.
A small kobold in her path drops an Aspen staff. She drops her stash of iron spikes to make room for it.
At last, she descends.
