I wake up with a sense of dread. I don’t want to do this, but I know I have to. I step in front of Neferet.
“You will know when the Eye of the Aethiopica is near,” he tells me. “Proceed with care!”
I’m a bit confused. Where do I go from here? I cast mapping, and see a set of stairs I didn’t know about. I go into the small room off to the side of the chamber, and search the wall. I find a door, which is surprisingly unlocked, and head down the stairs.
A tengu is standing at the bottom of the stairs. I start attacking it when another one shows up, the a third. Fucking teleporters. They’re not hard to kill, and I take two of them out, while the last one runs upstairs. I leave him alone, and move on to the next room.
I open a booby trapped door, and not only does it make me blind and confused, it lets every damn vampire bat and raven in the area know where I am. I’m getting sick of those things. I don’t do any damage to them while confused, so I use my unicorn horn until I’m think straight. Once my head clears, I go after them with ambition.
Once the area is cleared, I move on. I find an amulet of ESP, a ring of free action, and a book of extra healing. I make sure the coast is clear before I dive into the book. A lot more helpful than the healing spell I learned earlier.
I come across an angel. It looks just like me. I see the wicked long sword it’s holding, and decide to blast it before it can get close. My stream of magic missiles bounce off it’s shield, and come back at me. That was unexpected. I try changing tactics, and talk to it. It imitates me mockingly, then swings it’s sword at my head. I duck, but still get hit by it. It keeps up it’s relentless attack, and out of desperation I cast cone of cold. It’s too close for me to aim directly at it, I don’t want to get hit too, so I aim behind it where a vampire bat is waiting.
The bat is killed by the explosions, but the angel doesn’t seem fazed. I try again, but my mind fails to lock onto the location. I guess I have to aim it directly at a monster. The angel has me on my knees, close to death. I dig through my bag for a potion of full healing. I quaff it without thinking, and I’m completely healed. The angel continues it’s attack, and I have no choice but to swing Magicbane at it. Any spell I try will just bounce off. It pulls out a scroll of create monster and reads it. What luck. A vampire bat appears behind it, and I set off another series of cold explosions. Again, the bat dies, but the angel lives on. What will it take to kill this fucker?
I don’t let up, and after a few more hits it goes down, the body slowly fading from sight. I snatch up the shield of reflection. I proceed to clear the level of monsters, and cast mapping to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Once I’m sure that it’s safe, I try on the shield. It’s nice and solid, but my mind immediately rebels at the presence of so much metal. I don’t think I can safely cast any of my spells while wearing this thing. It’s still useful though, at least for now, so I stash it in my bag of holding, then head downstairs.
I believe that I may invade the Tower of Darkness. I can sense that the Dark One is close. The level is covered in mist, like my tower, so it is difficult to see.
Another round of vampire bats. There are also some regular bats, and a fair number of minor demons. I try to move, but a wall of darkness stops me. I look around, and see a small path, obscured by fog. On the other side I see a large building surrounded by a moat. There are a few narrow paths through the water, and I head for the closest one. A wraith gets in my way, so I kill it, and feast on the corpse. More experience for me.
I see a book behind the building, so I head there first. It’s another book of extra healing. I grab it, knowing that it’s true value is the ability to become any book I want. I see a xorn on the other side of the moat. It can’t cross the water, and I laugh loudly at it. I shouldn’t have laughed, I end up falling into the moat, and have to teleport away. Water gets into my bag of holding, and I freak out. I look through it to assess the damage. Some of my rings and wands have rusted, but my scrolls and books all look undamaged. Thank Anhur. That could have been a disaster.
I can’t find an entrance to the building. I cast mapping to see if it helps. It doesn’t. There’s a ring of halls, with the stairs in the middle, but I can’t see any logical place for a door. I teleport into the outer ring, and go looking. I find a few nice things, a spellbook of detect monster, and a new wand. I identify it as a wand of polymorph. Sweet. I think I have a ring in my bag, yes, polymorph control. I didn’t think I would ever use it.
I’m about to polymorph myself into a xorn, and eat my collection of rings when I take a good look at them. Most of the really helpful ones I wouldn’t be able to eat, and even if I could, I don’t think it guarantees that I’ll get the positive effect from it. It’s something I keep in mind though, having permanent slow digestion, or regeneration would be great. With a sigh, I put everything back in my bag of holding, and start looking for a door, or another random teleport that will move me further inside the building.
I find a wand of digging that I had forgot about, and wonder if it will work on these walls. I had assumed that the black stone would resist digging so I hadn’t even tried my pickaxe. My head swells with joy as a hole opens up in front of me. I make it to the middle area, where a wand of cold is waiting for me.
I try to zap a hole in the wall by the stairs. The stone glows, then fades. Figures. I look around, to no avail so I head around to the other side and search there. I find a door, and try to prepare myself for what waits for me below. I decide it’s a good time for another quick nap. I don’t know what’s down there, and if it’s the Dark One already, I want to be well rested.
No comments:
Post a Comment