Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1f]

Level 9: "This seems a quiet, peaceful place"
 
Marash heads west and finds a spear on the dungeon floor. While rummaging around for space, she notices something just a bit excellent about the latest boots she's found, so she tries those on. Boots... stack with each other, so now she can fit the spear in her bag too.
 
Not much else on that side, so she heads east, greeted by a black naga in the stair room. The spear is ordinary, but the boots protect her significantly. She wonders what else they do...
 
As she leaves the room, she unexpectedly notices a secret door to some stairs leading down. That will be handy for a quick escape if needed.
 
Panic! In her wandering Marash spies a cave orc. It doesn't seem so dangerous on its lonesome so she walks along to see if it can catch her, when suddenly a side door opens to reveal a non-scary sleeping giant black ant and a worrying baby gold dragon.
 
On a sudden dread hunch she casts detect evil. The area to her immediate south lights up in her mind: a baby blue dragon, a kobold, 9 hill orcs and another 7 cave orcs.
 
Marash swallows nervously. Unless those boots are even better than they look, this is liable to be the death of her.
 
She tests her aspen staff on the cave orc blocking her escape. It doesn't seem to have any effect. She tries to fight her way through the cave orc, but the baby gold dragon comes up beside and attacks. Marash quickly whips out a wand and sends it to sleep, staying focused on the orc.
 
After fierce slugging out she manages to get the cave orc to flee, having to put the gold dragon back to sleep twice meanwhile. As she runs down the corridor, the baby blue dragon has wedged itself into the junction she entered by. She puts that to sleep too and runs on, opening a side that also leads back, another orc in pursuit.
 
If she can keep ahead of it, she might just be able to reach a narrow stretch in which to make a stand.
 
Marash runs frantically north, through a lit room, and slams into the corridor that is her goal, right as the orc in pursuit turns aside for the moment. She steadies herself, prepared to see what dent she can make here.
 
She prays for her health restored. When she is feeling nearly healed, the kobold rounds the corner and into range of her mace. It flees after a single hit. She stands her ground, not wanting to be lured out into a probable slaughter.
 
After a while, a cave orc approaches. She trades blows with it a while, then realises this is a losing proposition with so much death waiting around the corner and prays for herself to be blessed.
 
When it is nearly dead, it flees. Again, Marash stays back to recover herself. Just as well, as a fresh cave orc approaches soon after.
 
That one flees too, and again Marash waits to recover. She is worried about this war of attrition, as even using only mana and time to rest it appears she is expending resources faster than her foes, and she has not the spare energy to spend on detecting evil again.
 
The next creature to come for her is the baby blue dragon. She squeezes the handle of her mace tight with worry.
 
Marash points her cast-iron rod of drain life at the dragon and it dies. She risks a step forward to claim 
its loot - a pile of copper pieces - then steps back again to recover herself. Perhaps she can survive this.
 
A kobold approaches and is felled in a single blow, yielding more copper. Another orc fless when near dead, and Marash grows hungry waiting.
 
Cautiously she pokes her nose out into the room beside her. Nothing? That makes her nervous. She heads back to where this started, alert for danger. Down a corridor she finds a line of cave orcs, blocking the retreat of the one she lately fought. It dies. The rod of drain life kills another, and she prays to be blessed in battle.
 
Another orc dies and a third is badly wounded. She is lured into pursuing it briefly, before realising how badly that could end, and retreats back only to find the baby gold dragon awake and angry again.
 
A straight-out fight is going badly for her, and her prayer for healing fails. She tries the wand of sleeping again and gains a needed breather to retreat.
 
Back in her nook she prays for as much healing as she can, then waits on the rest naturally.
 
When she is nearly healed the baby gold dragon reappears. She tries the rod on it, but in her nervousness fails to activate it properly. A second attempts brings relief and a lifeless dragon. She advances again, slowly.
 
The wounded orc from earlier approaches, then flees again when it feels Marash's might. It drops a welcome collection of Cure Serious Wounds potions.
 
Marash detects evil again, finding only the same 6 hill orcs still in place and a black harpy approaching down the corridor. An opportunity to wait, recover her magic, and heal. She braces herself against the dungeon wall in prime position to surprise the harpy. It dies to a single blow.
 
Marash investigates the room the gold dragon came from, decides to try out the mace and boots she finds there, and heads off to see what hill orcs bring. As she rounds the corner she begins to suspect she has made an error.
 
Her first action is to use the rod of drain life, but it seems only to hurt the single hill orc nearest her. One down, at least, is not to be shunned as a result.
 
The copperhead dies. Several rats die, but breed almost as fast as they fall. Another orc dies after some hesitation. She wonders if the swarm of rats might make this easy - trivial for her to kill so far, they perhaps buffer her against more deadly foes, isolating them for easier kills. And then she discovers giant grey rats have a poisonous bite.
 
After wading through 5 hill orcs and 11 giant grey rats, Marash gets the feeling her new mace might have some magic in it. She pulls it out and starts swinging at rats, and quickly realises it is magically worse than an ordinary mace. In disgust she switches back to her original weapon.
 
Eventually she carves her way through more than 70 rats and verifies the hill orc room is clear. She moves onto the next room in this quartet, having already cut down a few of the novice rangers who have emerged from it. Rats begin pouring out again, filling her path.
 
She has been fighting heavily wounded a while now, balancing the crushing of her foes with prayers for healing where she can, but she believes she can manage this.
 
White rats! Giant white rats mixed among the giant grey rats! Is there no end to them?
 
Sooner than she expected, there is an end to the flow of rats and to the last ranger. She liberates a couple of potions, dumps the anti-useful items she has gathered up in this area, picks up her collection of boots, and leaves.
 
Level 10: "You are unsure about this place"
 
A snake, and a maul. She lets the snake be but grabs the maul. On the floor in the corridor is a copper amulet, which she puts on immediately.
 
There is a trident on the floor which she has no room for; perhaps foolishly, Marash attacks a sleeping green icky thing to find out what the maul does and whether she'd rather the trident instead. The maul turns out to be enchanted badly. Despite hitting harder than her mace, Marash worries she would have more trouble making contact, so switches back to the trusty mace. Just in time to do away with a skeletal kobold.
 
She returns to the stair room in search of another path, but it is infested with giant black lice. They look dreadful. The lice breed worse than rats! It is satisfying to be rid of them all, more so to do so before the rattlesnake caught up with her.
 
Somehow, a baby bronze dragon snuck up behind her. It's breath confuses her, so she drinks a potion of Cure Light Wounds to clear her head. The rod of drain life finishes the dragon.
 
More rats. A door bursts open in the distance. Despite that not yet causing problems, it still worries her. She prayers for knowledge of the stairs as a precaution.
 
A panther surprises her from behind a door, seems to be hurting her more than she hurts it, so it gets the rod. The path behind the panther leads to a steel rod and a potion of contemplation, cutting Marash's constitution and boosting her wisdom beyond what she possessed before that mysterious creature drained her so far above.
 
A heap of silver coins in the room rouses itself and lurches after her, poisoning with its touch.
 
After much deliberation, Marash finally drops her stash of crossbow bolts in order to fit a mithril wand in her bag. The wand and the rod are both soon revealed to be of light.
 
Something in here is invisible and frightening, but it is not the new tengu. Marash resolves to explore as much as possible here before returning to town.
 
The terrifying invisible creature returns. Detect Evil reveals it as a poltergeist, and after some trickery her rod of light shrivels it away.
 
Marash has learned her boots are boots of free action. Unable to find the tengu to finish it off, she reads her scroll of Word of Recall and waits to return to town.
 
Nowhere in town has identification for sale, except on staves Marash can't afford. What she can afford is a new set of prayer books, which look like they will free up a few spaces in her pack to boot. Marash offloads her stash of boots and the book of made spells she found, buys herself a copy of Words of Wisdom and Chants and Blessings, and stocks up on light and Words of Recall.
 
Hoping she near-bankrupted herself well, Marash reads one of her newly bought scrolls and studies prayers as she waits to return to the dungeon.