I woke up feeling anxious. I don’t know what today will bring, but I can only hope that I come out victorious. I head down the stairs, into the darkness below.
It’s not as bad as I thought. There is a xorn in the room, but he is no match for me. I continue on, and other than a few vampire bats, nothing hinders my progress. I see some stairs leading down, and I decide to pop down to have a quick look.
I get to the bottom and I feel my mentor’s presence; perhaps the Eye of the Aethiopica is nearby. I don’t want to find out, not yet, so I duck back upstairs.
I clear out the level, a few xorns and a wraith were no trouble, the latter giving me another boost in experience. A few other small annoyances but nothing I couldn’t handle. I find some useless scrolls and potions, and gather them up.
Finally I’m ready to descend. There’s a few vampire bats flying around, and a group of minor demons, mostly homunculus, and a tengu. The tengu zaps away with a wand of sleep, but it doesn’t hit anything that’s susceptible to sleep. I quickly clear the room, and walk around picking up the spoils.
There is the wand of sleep, a cursed pair of gauntlets of dexterity, a scroll of genocide, some plate mail I’ll never wear, and a booby trapped tin of food. I grab everything but the mail. Even the gloves can come in handy if I enchant them.
The door leading from the room is locked, I easily unlock it, and walk through. There’s a long hallway, will jail cells lining both sides. I walk down the hall, letting the prisoners free as I go.
Most of the prisoners are human, but there’s also an elf and a gnome. All of them are friendly, happy to be free. I kill the vampire bats flying around, and a xorn walks through the wall but dies at my hand.
At the end of the hall is another locked door. I unlock it, and get ready to open it. I can sense a bunch of bats on the other side, just waiting for the chance to come at me.
I start by taking a step back, and blasting with magic missile. After a few shots, I have no trouble clearing out the rest of the room. I cast mapping and see two smaller rooms. I sense the Dark One in one of them, so I start by searching for the door to the other one first. There’s nothing of interest inside, so I wait to teleport into the other room. I don’t want to leave a door for the Dark One to run out of.
I teleport behind him, and before he has a chance to act, I zap my wand of polymorph, thinking that I can change him into some puny little newt or something. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He is unaffected, but the two vampire bats behind him start to change. One of them grows larger, more reptilian, until an orange dragon is standing flying in the air. The other bat falls to the ground. It’s wings turn into arms, and it’s legs grow. It quickly grows into a relative of the rust monster. It’s a disenchanter. Fuck, why did I do something so stupid? I teleport to the stairs so I have an exit strategy. The Dark One follows right behind me, and speaks.
“Ah, I recognize you, wizard. So, Neferet the Green has sent you to steal the Eye of the Aethiopica from me, hmmm? Well, she is a fool to send such a mental weakling against me. Your destruction, however, should make for good sport. In the end, you shall beg me to kill you!”
Well, the asshole talks a good game, but let’s see how strong he really is. He hits me, but it doesn’t hurt much. I can tell that Magicbane is doing a lot more damage to him than he’s doing to me. It doesn’t take long for me to kill him.
His body begins to shrivel up, and he croaks out. “I shall haunt your progress until the end of time. A thousand curses on you and Neferet the Green.”
Then, the body bursts into a cloud of choking dust, and blows away.
I step over, and pick up the sacred amulet. There is also a silver bell lying on the floor. I decide to grab it as well.
As I touch the Eye of the Aethiopica, it’s comforting power infuses me with new energy. I feel as if I can detect others’ thoughts flowing through it. Although I yearn to wear the Eye of the Aethiopica and attack the Wizard of Yendor, I know I must return it to it’s rightful owner, Neferet the Green.
I run up the stairs, thankful that I didn’t open a door to the room that now houses a dragon and disenchanter.
I make it back to Neferet without any issues. I approach him, and humbly kneel in front of him.
Neferet the Green notices the Eye of Aethiopica in my possession, beams at me and says:
“I knew you could defeat the Dark One and retrieve the Eye of the Aethiopica. We shall never forget this brave service. Take it with you in your quest for the Amulet of Yendor. I can sense that it has attuned itself to you already. May Anhur guide you in your quest, and keep you from harm.”
When she has finished speaking, she gets up from her throne. She is already looking much stronger than before I went down for the amulet. I take it as an invitation, and sit in the throne. I feel out of place, and it vanishes in a puff of logic. I shrug, and leave, hoping the Neferet doesn’t notice that her throne is missing until after I’ve left.
I make it to the portal, and step through. Neferet didn’t mention it, but I’m sure he hid some ofther magic in this powerful amulet. I invoke it, and it asks which dungeon I want to open a portal to. I’m starting to forget a number of spells, so I decide to head to sokoban for a refresher.
I’m surrounded by a shimmering sphere, and once the glow fades I find myself at the top of sokoban. I quickly make my way down to the first floor. I go through the books, memorizing the spells that I’m starting to forget. I take a quick look through my knapsack, and bag of holding, and drop off a bunch of things that I probably won’t need any time soon.
I decide to try and polymorph my spare spellbooks, and see what I can get. Better than wasting my magic marker. I also toss my rings in a pile, useless potions, and a bunch of scrolls that I already have spells for.
I take a step back, and pull out my wand of polymorph. I decide to play it safe, and bless it with a potion of holy water first. Next, I point it at the pile, and zap.
I feel shuddering vibrations. It worked. It looks like things have changed, and I walk over to see if any of it was for the better. The only thing that was beneficial were the rings. At least, I hope it was. I don’t recognize any of them. The books, scrolls and potions are still just as useless as the ones I dropped in the first place.
I greedily identify them, along with the rest of my pack. There are a few helpful pieces that I put into my bag of holding. Stealth, and conflict. The strange silver bell I found with the Dark One is known as the Bell of Opening. I try to put it in my bag of holding, but it can’t be confined. I’m going to have to ask Spoiler what it’s for.
I decide to try polymorph one last time. I don’t want to drain my wand for nothing but junk. I get a scroll of enchant armour and weapon, and some helpful potions like healing, and gain energy. I decide it’s time to change into the gloves of dexterity I found. I strip down, until I’m only wearing the gloves, then read the scroll to enchant armour. They glow silver for awhile, and I’m satisfied. I get dressed again, and leave my old leather gloves behind.
I grab the spellbook, I don’t know what happened to the other one. I didn’t know things could get lost while polymorphing. That magic suddenly makes me nervous. Can I just vanish like that? I’m left questioning while go down the stairs.
I had thought about invoking the amulet, to try and make it back to where I had been, but thought I could use another trip to the altar. Along the way I blank out the spellbook I’m carrying, but decide to wait before trying to write a new one.
I encounter a group of rothes. They are easy to kill, and I sacrifice the lot of them. One of them had a bag of holding, with an obsidian stone inside. I wonder if I can put my other bag of holding into this one, and make it even lighter, but something tells me that would be tempting fate. I don’t know what to do with it, but keep it anyway. I never know what might end up being useful down the road.
I continue hunting, and sacrificing, until I feel like it’s safe. I make sure I’m well fed, and nothing cursed in my bag. Finally, I kneel at the altar and pray. I feel that Anhur is displeased. Well, that didn’t go so well. I decide it’s time to move on.
I invoke the amulet, and head to the scary place. I discover it’s known as Fort Ludios. I immediately jump through the portal, and make my way downstairs.
When I get to the floor where Neferet’s portal is, I stop at the stairs and settle down for a nice peaceful nap.
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