I woke up in pain. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m stiff and sore. I think sleeping on the stone floor is starting to get to me. I do some stretches before I do anything else, and I’m finally feeling close to normal. I decide it’s time to move on.
I’m greeted by darkness. I take the lamp from my bag, and light it. I’m slowed by the extra weight. Fuck. I really need to do something to get over this. I don’t think I can get any stronger than I already am.
I make my way through the large room, killing gnomes and dwarves as I see them. I encounter a large dog, and against my better judgment, I throw him a ration. I need the companionship. I name him Fritz, in his memory.
There are a few places where I need to use my pickaxe to make the passageway large enough for me to fit through.
The rest of the area doesn’t post any serious problems, and it’s not long before Fritz and I are ready to head down to the next area. I remember to turn off my lamp before heading down.
Again, I’m greeted by dark, so I have to light my lamp again. I hear rumbling in the distance. It sounds like a boulder trap, so I keep that piece of information in mind. I will have to destroy any boulders as soon as I see them if I don’t want to get caught in it.
I encounter a wraith, which sucks experience from me. I get it back when I kill it, and even more when I feast on the corpse it leaves behind. I hear a far off zap. Another idiot with a wand.
I see a pile of armour, and without thinking I walk over to it. I hear a click, and a boulder knocks me down. I blast it, then look down. That better have been worth it. It was. I get another dagger, a lembas wafer, a potion of extra healing and a wand of teleportation. Not a bad haul.
I’m still dealing with the effects of random teleportation, usually it’s helpful, or not an issue, but this time it sent me to the other side of the level. I’m not sure why, but I go with it. I find a flute, and experimentally try playing it. I improvise, and produce soft music. I’m a bit confused, so I cast identify, and learn that it’s a magic flute. I still don’t know what it does though. In my mind I see the pied piper, leading rats around. I take a quick look, to see if I somehow summoned a hoard of friendly rats to fight for me, but I’m still alone. I shrug, and put it into my backpack.
I continue wandering around, no clear goal in mind other than exploring everything. I step on a trap, and I’m blinded by a flash of light. I’m surrounded my monsters. The worst of them is another Sasquatch. It immediately starts hitting me, while a pair of killer bees swarm around my arm, stinging me here and there. I stab at the Sasquatch, and Magicbane confuses it.
There’s a monster I can’t detect while blind, and it hits me. I decide I’ve had enough, and use my unicorn horn to heal myself. It takes a few tries before I can see again, and I notice that the hidden enemy is a gelatinous cube. I’m a little weary of it, I’m pretty sure it can paralyze me, but there’s nowhere for me to run. I risk hitting it with Magicbane, and get frozen. The Sasquatch keeps attacking me, and the bees are relentless.
When I can finally move again, I decide I need to kill the fucked up snowman first. Once he’s down, I take out the bees. The cube moves over to one of the bee corpses, and engulfs it. I use magic, and kill the box of jello. I decide to risk eating eat, and my health feels amplified. I don’t know what that means, but I take it as a good thing.
Now that the excitement is over, I finish looking around, then head down to the next area, with Fritz in tow.
It’s another dark area, and my lamp flickers, and I don’t get very far before it goes out. I drop it on the ground, and light one of the candle stubs I’ve found. It doesn’t last very long.
I keep looking around, and kill a giant spider, later I get stuck in it’s web. I don’t find anything useful so I move to another area. Searching is going slowly now that I can’t see very far.
Suddenly I see a pillar of flame ahead. I can make out a vaguely human shape in the midst of the flames. What the hell is a fire elemental doing down here? I immediately start blasting it with magic, but before I know it, it’s beside me, striking out at me with arms of pure fire. Some of my potions boil and explode. I teleport away, and continue hitting him with magic. I repeat the process any time he gets close. I don’t know if I have the energy to keep this up, but it finally sizzles out, leaving scorch marks on the ground where it died.
I lean over, and catch my breath. That was close. I’m nowhere near strong enough to take something like that on yet.
I keep looking around, on my toes now though. I’m still too weak to deal with another one of those. I see a shimmer in the air beside me, and I can already guess what it is. A bloody air elemental. I should be grateful that it’s not fire, but it engulfs me and I start to think twice about that. I hack at it with Magicbane while getting pummeled with debris. I finally kill it in time to see a rope golem strangle Fritz. With a roar I fire a bolt of magic at it. The spell hits it, tearing a hole through it’s thigh, but it moves toward me unaffected by the injury. I slice deeply into it with Magicbane, and it falls to the ground, the rope that made it up slithers away in all different directions.
Once again, I am all alone. I move away, and fall down through a trap door. The new level is dark, and I stumble around for a bit before felling through another trap door. I’m starting to feel a bit unlucky.
At least this new area is fully lit. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the light again. Nothing on this level gives me any trouble. I find the stairs up, and pop up just so I have a point of reference. I continue on until I’ve mapped out the whole area, then go down once again.
I come out in a small room. There’s a spellbook of light that I greedily snatch up. I will blank it, and make something new out of it. There are no doors in the room, so I begin searching the walls. I find the door, and open it. It’s a small hallway beyond. There is a hollow shelf on the wall, lined with skulls. I reach out, about to touch one, when I jerk my hand back. I don’t think I should go touching things I don’t know anything about. The area has the feel of catacombs. I can almost feel the dead calling out to me. I shudder, and continue walking.
I see a vampire bat, and Magicbane takes care of it with a few well placed strikes. The bat falls to the ground, but suddenly transforms, and rises as a vampire lord. I send a blast of magic at it, and it vanishes. I fight through a few zombies before the vampire lord makes another appearance. He reaches out and touches me. I feel my experience leak out. I start hitting him with all my strength, but he carries on his attacks. He touches me again, and I lose experience. I regain a bit of it when I finally kill him.
Not much further I encounter another vampire bat, and the entire process repeats itself. This time I grab hold of Werebane, and try to keep my distance, hitting it with blasts of magic when it comes in range. It finally runs up to me, and I strike out with my saber. The silver blade sears it’s flesh. I grin wickedly, and continue hacking at it. I feel my experience drain, but I don’t pay attention to it, I’m too focused on sending this bloodsucker back to the grave. I finally manage to kill it.
The next room has a fountain, and I immediately dip my spellbook of light into it. The book fades. I take a quick sip of the water, and a nymph appears out of nowhere. She steals my daggers and vanishes. I cast my spell, and detect a nymph just around the corner. I run over, and stab her. She takes Werebane and is gone. I repeat the process, and see her just down the hall. I run over, and zap a wand of magic missile at her. She falls to the ground, and I go over. I only see Werebane, so sign of my daggers. I cast detect monster again, and see another nymph on the other side of the level. I’ll have to hunt her down later, once I’ve finished exploring. I can live without the daggers for now.
I find a book of haste self, and immediately memorize it. I don’t know how useful it will be, but my thirst for knowledge won’t let me wait. I don’t have any trouble for awhile, the narrow passages, full of twists, turns and dead ends are getting annoying but not deadly. I fall into a pit of poisoned spikes. I use my unicorn horn to regain my lost strength. A bit further I step onto a magic trap. I’m blinded again, and a panther appears on either side of me. There’s also a baby purple worm and a peaceful Elvenking. I somehow manage to kill the panthers, but the fight takes it’s toll on me. I drink one of my potions of extra healing, then head for the worm. It’s not as strong as I feared it would be, and I continue my search.
I eventually come across the nymph again, and Magicbane makes sure it won’t bother me anymore.
I find two more spellbooks. Cause fear, and knock. I come across a grey stone, and try to kick it. I stub my toe and the stone doesn’t move. I get out a scroll of remove curse, and pick it up. I know what it is now, and I’d rather identify it now, in safety. I pick it up, and I was right. I’m immediately weighed down. I try to take the stone from my bag but it evades my grasp. I read the scroll, and I can now easily grab it, and drop it on the ground.
I teleport back to the stairs, there’s one area left to explore. A mordor orc is waiting for me. He grins, and reads a scroll of create monster. A score of evil creatures pop into existence. A nymph grabs Magicbane from my hands, and vanishes. My heart drops as I recognize another of the new arrivals. It looks like a giant insect, with a long tail that ends in a spade. The armour of this creature is a rust red, fitting, because it’s a rust monster. It’s tail whips around and hits me in the head. My helmet immediately rusts. It lashes out with a leg, thankfully my cloak is rust proof. I run behind a mummy for protection, and blast away with magic.
The mummy quickly dies, but the rust monster is still there, eating the pile of weapons on the floor. A human sergeant quickly runs in to fill the space the mummy left open. I keep blasting away, both the sergeant and rust monster seem to shrug off my efforts. The sergeant is bashing me with a mace. I’m backed into a corner, and in my rage I finally kill him. The rust monster approaches, and I continue to blast it with magic. It ignores me, and before I know it, my helmet has completely rusted. I’m worried about using a weapon. Does silver rust? I stick to magic instead, and I finally kill it. I take off my helmet, it’s beyond useless now anyway.
Before I go after the nymph that took my weapon, I decide to check the last open area. I find a spellbook of magic missile. Now I can kill that bugger without using up my wand. I cast detect monster, and I’m about to teleport over when I notice a group of monsters in a dark area. I’m going to have to look around there, it looks like it might be a hidden room. First though, I need Magicbane back.
I teleport over to the nymph, and blast it with my newfound spell. It still takes two tries before she falls to the ground. I reclaim my possessions, and teleport over to what I hope is a hidden room. I search the walls, and find a door.
There’s noting in the room except a few monsters. I quickly kill the ghoul and large mimic. A black unicorn stays away from me, keeping to the walls. I’ve heard that they like gifts, but I can’t get into a good position to toss it a gem. I try getting close to it, and it disappears.
I’m a bit annoyed that the room is empty. I decide to drink my potion of object detection, to make sure I’m not missing anything else. I see a few grey gems off in the other corner, a scroll and a few potions. All things I can use. I teleport over to the scroll, and an incubus is waiting for me.
Again, I won’t go into the intimate details here, suffice to say that when we finished, I needed a nap. There were still monsters all around, but from everything I’ve seen, time stops while I nap, so I should be safe. I’m not really in any condition for any further physical activity anyway, so I decide to give in and go to sleep.
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