Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1h]
Town:
Marash stows her trusty mace in her home, along with the amulet of charisma. She sells off the Ring of the Dog and that potion of boldness she expects never to use, buys herself a shield and some leather armour, and sells off the lesser boots of free action. There, better.
She heads off to the general store, fills her quiver with arrows, buys some Recall scrolls, and sits down to study her prayers before heading back down.
Level 11: "This place looks uninteresting"
Marash is quickly set on by a gang of rogues. She prays to be protected from evil and kills thirteen of them before one escapes with some of her money.
After a while running around, Marash concludes her feeling about the level was right. She finds the stairs leading down and reads a scroll called 'fertum anus'. It unexcitingly detects traps, so she shrugs and heads down.
Level 12: "You are unsure about this place"
But surely better than the last one! She calls up her detections and becomes aware of a dark elven mage, a baby red dragon and ten manes. Mostly new creatures, always worrying. On consideration, she decides to wait and recover her magical power.
Nothing happens, so she heads off in search of the dark elven mage, grabbing a cap along the way. A hippogriff gets in the way, giving her trouble fighting it off. Especially after the elf cast a poisonous cloud onto her and ran off.
By the time she gets the hippogriff away, she has realised there might be something special about the cap she found, so it gets swapped out. She drops the one she was wearing; it got damaged by a trap 50 feet above anyway.
That hat is a very cute hat! Definitely worth wearing, and not just for the way it improves her looks. Although she isn't quite sure yet what else it does...
Marash wanders the dungeon, wondering if there is anything else nice here. What she finds is the yeek Orfax, Son of Boldor, and his escort. Dozens of yeeks fall to her ball and chain, but little sign of their local lord presents itself, just an embarrassment of riches in loot.
She finds a magical sword and decides to test it out, though it does not sit well in her hands. The Ring of the Dog laying around goes on too, just to know it better in case she wants to sell it.
The sword she discovers is slightly better than the ball and chain she wields, but to use it feels too wrong. There was a magical spear on the floor, so that gets tested as well. While roaming in search of something to spear, she discovers a chest on the floor. Opening it poisons her, but brings reward in copper coins and sapphires.
More wandering in search of something to stick a spear into. The place seems strangely empty, until she meets a kobold and feels herself buffeted by something invisible. A quick prayer to sense the invisible reveals some Air Spirits around, soon defeated once sighted.
The kobold drops a ring. A cursed ring of searching, only discovered after it is worn and stuck. A reason to curse oneself for taking the risk.
She retrieves her staff of curing and trudges off to face the yeek, plotting to abandon items she no longer finds needful.
As soon as she finds him she protects herself from evil. When he is closer she tries to bless herself, but is too confused by his spell.
Ack! By the time she is no longer confused he has blinked away again, beyond her reach unless she is willing to cut through the manes she detected earlier.
She marches south, restoring her protection from evil once the first manes is in sight. Three manes down and a baby white dragon filters in with a ranger. Drain Life deals with the dragon. She tries out firing arrows at the rangers until they approach. She almost doesn't notice when they are all dead, sets wearily to sorting through everything the rangers dropped.
None of it turned out special. She marched on, only to find Orfax coming for her, along with a baby red dragon. She retreats back up the corridor, fighting reinforcements as she went. The dragon's fire breath destroyed some of her precious items and marked it as a priority target. But, she could not see a path to destroy it quickly without using up her ability to do so when she created the opportunity. Desperate for time, she turned to tools she should have been using more, her staves of confuse and slow monsters. They affect all but Orfax and buy time.
Something unseen starting touching her and draining her dexterity. Fortunately she couldn't get any clumsier, but still she ended up praying for vision to see the moaning spirit in the walls, and to knock it away.
Orfax teleports her into the big room, where a green jelly comes in to cause trouble too. It won't confuse and it won't allow its life to be drained. The dragon wanders away a bit, but Orfax summons a griffon to aid him, a nasty looking creature.
Orfax blinks awway, then returns and heals himself, then heals more, and suddenly it looks like maybe fleeing is a good idea. But, surprisingly the rod of drain life kills him outright now finally charged. The griffon remains.
Marash prays for Cure Light Wounds and Chants to boost herself for fighting the griffon. More novice rangers approach, and now she is in the dangerous open.
The griffon is taking damage too slowly. She uses her staves, The griffon resists being confused but succumbs to slowing. It is still too dangerous, Marash too wounded. She drinks a potion of Cure Serious Wounds, then a second when she is in dire need again. Finally the griffon flees. She turns her attention to the rangers, making one flee her might and killing another.
She pursues and kills the fleeing ranger before it gets far, then uses the rod of drain life to dispose of the baby red dragon. The griffon returns to be killed too. Though the green jelly remains, Marash feels safer to check her prizes again.
The shortbow Orfax dropped turns out to be much better than the one she'd be carrying, now discarded. A shortsword dropped by a ranger is magical too.
While searching for something to test it on Marash encounters an amber amulet, which reminds her she ought to pray for the cursed ring to leave her. She throws it away, along with the Ring of the Dog she'd foolishly been wearing through the fight.
She finds a bloodshot icky thing to test her sword on, only to discover it is worthless and get her boots of free action damaged in the process. She kills the icky thing with arrows, then hits the master yeek behind it to death and feels a bit better.
She goes back and tries on the amber amulet she found, discovering it to teleport her randomly. In disgust, she throws it away and returns to resisting acid.
Wondering if she should abandon this level of Angband, Marash comes across a nest of paladins and cave spiders. A salamander too. She backs away to a nice, narrow corridor and emboldens herself. The paladins try to make her afraid, but she cleanses herself of the emotion.
As she sets to mopping up the last paladins, the cave spiders begin waking. The spiders seem reluctant to pursue her, so she recklessly explores north. A kobold archer emerges before her. She detects evil in the form of a tengu, a baby gold dragon, fourteen snagas and seven cave orcs. Clearly, she should head back to the spiders.
Those spiders were easy enough to charge and lay into. Her light is fading when she kills the kobold archer and heads north again. The tengu approaches. Marash tries to protect herself from evil, but fails in her prayer. The tengu yanks her into the room with all the snagas.
Immediately Marash fires off her rods of light, wiping out a line of snagas south of her. She prays for light and they cringe.
The tengu yanks her beside the baby dragon, to take the full force of its attacks. Before she can destroy it, the tengu yanks her back out into the corridor. This time her prayer for protection from evil is successful, and the tengu's attacks slide off her.
The tengu flees. Marash kills a snaga in the doorway, giving her a clear shot at the dragon. Her first attempt fails, but so does much of the dragon's reply thanks to her protection. Her rod kills the dragon on the second attempt; immediately the tengu jerks her away and flees again.
Marash steps back into the room and calls on light again. She grows reckless, overconfident with her success, and begins simply hitting whatever is nearby as the tengu bounces her around the room. After a while, her light goes out, and she is sent into cave orc territory.
A long, confusing while later, everything Marash knows of is dead. She is rewarded with the prayer of Earthquake and a gold-plated rod of door and stair detection.
She is out of light and she has been nearly everywhere. Marash returns to town.
Rod of door/stair detection sold. Scrolls of mapping and detection stashed at home, to see if she misses them. Oil purchased to fuel lantern. Both scrolls of Recall available in town bought. Return.
