Roguelike Roulette [Slot 1w]

Level 33: "You have an excellent feeling"

Another dark chamber, a horrible radiation eye sleeping nearby. Detect Evil reveals a couple of ghosts, a couple of minor zombies and skeletons, and three young dragons each of different kind. No great peril to go with great treasure, perhaps?

She zaps the radiation eye with a lightning bolt, glad to be able to dispatch those easily.

A ghost begins harassing her soon after she starts moving, draining her life force with its touch. Her whip sends it fleeing, but it soon returns and is destroyed.

Next, Marash goes after a young red dragon, only slightly inconvenienced by its claws and fiery breath. Its treasure is nearly worthless to her, so she turns her attention to the young gold dragon.

Her life-draining rod is recharging, but her other ranged attacks make a strong dent in the young dragon, as does her whip. The battle is going well until the dragon renders her magically afraid. Merely a brief hiccup for such a priest as Marash.

The young gold dragon is a slightly more profitable foe, yielding a scroll of treasure detection. It is also seems to be located in a dead end, and Marash is attacked by the other ghost as she makes her way around. In the process of destroying it she learns that ghosts can terrify as well as drain one's life force, wisdom and intelligence.

She smashes a kobold skeleton for good measure, then continues on her way. She is surprised by the arrival of a gang of black orcs, who have conveniently shut themselves behind a choke point.

Disappointingly, they too occupied a dead end. Marash trudges around yet another way, getting into a fight with a doombat over a wooden chest and losing several scrolls to its fiery bite in the process.

The chest contains a curing staff which she deems superfluous and a small metal shield which she tosses on realising it is merely magical.

For such an excellent-feeling place, a surprising amount of disappointment. Marash continues after a young bronze dragon.

This dragon yielded a ring of constitution the equal of her current one, not deemed good enough to replace the ring of strength that keeps her moving easily, and a flail.

Marash destroys a blue jelly with satisfaction as she continues south. Her next scan reveals a minor demon, an imp in that direction. She is hopeful, and moreso once she realises the ex-dragon's mace feels excellent. She puts it at her hip, waiting to test it at the first available opportunity.

A potion revealed by the detect treasure scroll is drunk from the floor, undoing the damage to her life-force done by those ghosts. Sadly, a bit of quick testing reveals Marash's new flail won't reveal the invisible to her. Its testing must wait until after the imp is destroyed.

Instead, she finds a werewolf to try the flail out on. Verdict: not worth expending an identify charge on. Likewise a sabre lying on the floor is ditched for not being special enough.

Marash wanders north, finding herself in a narrow corridor with a four-headed hydra. The hydra is a tough fight, made tougher by it fleeing out of her sight whenever Marash gains the upper hand, but soon its treasure is hers. A giant salamander tries to claim some of the treasure for its own, which Marash proves is a bad idea.

And just a little to the north, a battle axe found laying on the ground...

Testing that out reveals it to be suspiciously similar to her whip. An identify charge from her staff reveals it, too is a Defender. Not quite as useful to her as the whip she already has, so it gets tossed.

There are trolls down south, but they look a bit nasty. Better to go round and see if there is anything else to do.

Of course, there is not. A pack of water hounds does serious damage to her armour before being put down, giving nothing but yet another dead end in return. No choice but the now-woken trolls, or leave and never know what is so great about this area.

A sleeping mummified orc handily blocks the trolls from getting to her just yet, giving her time to prepare herself.

The trolls give her a hard fight, putting her in dire straits more than once. She is weak when they are all dead and her prize is a pair of iron-shod boots. Perhaps they will be able to replace her Boots of Stability, now so badly damaged by the water hounds?

She is wary of moving while still so injured. A quick Detect Evil reveals nothing nearby, but an orc captain with an escort of black orcs and cave orcs to the west. Could be trouble. Marash checks out a chamber the trolls were guarding first, hoping there will be no surprises.

First surprise: a giant red scorpion which flees her attack. Second surprise: a purple worm cuts off her escape when she pursues the wounded scorpion. The worm is tough, eating lightning and fire, but trusty drain life gets it fleeing, buying Marash some more time to heal and recharge her rods. She is relieved not to feel its bite.

Picking her way over to the orcs, she get the feeling her new boots are worth trying out. They feel encumbering, might still be worth wearing.

Marash is attacked from behind by a young multi-hued dragon, not quite getting her defences up before it reaches melee range. The dragon resists lightning, fire and acid, but her rod of drain life hurts it significantly. She follows up with an orb of draining that hits it nearly as hard.

The battle feels less worrying after that, and soon the dragon is cut down as it flees, getting off only a single lightning breath. Among the clutter was a ring of strength not quite as good as the one she was wearing. It seems harder and harder for finds to excite her interest.

She continues after the orc captain and eir escorts, finding nothing of interest in their remains, nor the wolves which got in her way.

More trouble to the northeast; she heads that way. Stone trolls and a ghost. She focuses on the ghost first, the trolls after it is cut down. During the long battle her boots self-identify as boots of stability, just like her old boots but thus far undamaged.

A little more wandering finds her a mace of disruption. Could this be the source of that excellent feeling? It is very heavy, and sadly turns out to be only magical. A noticeable improvement in damage, but to wield it would mean sacrificing many of the benefits of her whip, including seeing the invisible, regenerating, and precious elemental resistances. Not a good enough deal, although it does prove handy for taking down a swarm of manes.

Marash continues her descent.