Yrak, Naga Poison Mage
So this is the second diary I've done after "The Sibylline Spiel of Hogswald Pfifflebottom III the Malodorous," which, you can probably guess, was... silly.
But this one is serious and I would appreciate comments, advice, telling me what I did was idiotic (as long as you mention what I should have done), anything you want to say, because I've never actually beaten Crawl and want to some day.
Contents
D1
Really nothing special. Found a nice +1 Dagger of Electrocution, gave it another +1, +0 trying scrolls. Found an uncursed amulet, no idea what it does. Stinging is going well, but I've heard a lot about PR monsters later on. I've never actually had a poison character make it that far, but I plan to keep a lookout for a conjuration spellbook or something.
D2
Found a +0, +2 runed quarterstaff of speed, not sure if it's better or worse than the dagger. Using it anyway, because as a mage, I'll probably end up using a magic staff of some sort if I make it decently far.
Enemies unusually mundane; So far the worst threats are hobgoblins. Found a fluorescent wand, itching to try it out on something big and angry. Granted since it's only D2, It's most likely magic darts or something, but oh well.
I used the wand on a snake. It turned out to be a wand of hasting. That fight was fun. If I were to use it on myself, I could probably manage normal speed- Woo!
D3
Memorized Mephitic Cloud, poison weapon being useless with a Quarterstaff of Speed (I don't like temporary brand spells anyway for no good reason) and cure poison being useless for a Naga. (I wouldn't have learned it anyway and saved the spell levels) Cast chance is "Good." Gooooood. Not that I'll use it for a while, I don't have enough magic.
Found a notched marble ring. Upon Identifying (found a strange amount of those so far), It's a ring of protect from cold. Good enough for me. Also found an amulet of the Gourmand! Oh goody, now I begin the slow transformation into happy civilized intelligent naga into fleshmonger mindless cannibal naga. Traveled around the level, eating everything that left a body. Got sick from eating a jackal, but otherwise it went just fine. I didn't get full, though.
D4
Tactics so far have been hit with sting until death of the enemy or I run out of mana. It seems to be working fine. I haven't actually had to bust out Mephitic yet. Found a pair of gloves, yay. The extra 1 AC is always welcome. Found the ghost of one of my earlier characters, a Deep Dwarf Necromancer. (one of my favorite classes) Ran away, it didn't notice me. I couldn't have hurt it except by clubbing it to death, which would not have been smart.
Found a +2 animal skin, which made my AC 5, pretty decent for a caster of level 5. The Ghost found me again, and noticed me before I could slip away. Thinking I was doomed, since even with the wand of haste I could only match its speed, I grimly waited for it and took it on in melee combat. To my great surprise, I killed it and barely took any damage.
The next highlight was an ogre, who I zapped with an unidentified wand. It turned out to be a teleport wand. After exploring the level, realized I only mapped 2 up stairs and 2 down stairs. This of course means I had another section of D4 to explore. Very little was inside the second section. I found some giant geckos and a goblin. I never found that ogre.
D5
A giant frog attacked me while I was butchering a rat. And so I killed it. Still have not cast mephitic cloud. Found a giant frog zombie, which worried me, (anything immune to poison worries me) but I killed it. After fighting two more zombies and wondering where they were coming from, I found another ring. Identified, it was a cursed +6 ring of protection. I put it on, and used one of my remove curses on it, I think unnecessarily.
Got attacked by an imp, possibly the enemy I hate most. I beat it to death though. Found a second ring of protection from cold. Found a scroll of curse armor. This irritated me into action, and I dumped it and all other junk scrolls into a neat pile on the floor. One thing I do hate about .5 is it picks up junk scrolls and potions on autoexplore.
D6
Phantom sitting on what was probably the entrance to the temple, judging by the four fountains around it. Ran upstairs to plot and write this. Dumped the phantom upstairs with the scrolls and proceeded to the temple.
Temple
I picked Sif Muna as my god over Vehumet, (Pretty much the only two I ever pick for non-necromancer spellcasters, probably dumb.) because I'm interested in her giving me spellbooks, though I do know Vehumet will do this also. Usually I prefer Vehumet, because he doesn't care how I kill, only that I do, which is nice when I'm decent at melee too. I don't know, I just don't know about gods.
Back on D6
I ran into a Jelly, the most evil creation ever to desecrate the upper levels of the dungeon, more so for the slow nagas, accompanied by a group of orcs. I killed it with a wand of magic darts, not waking up the orcs. Then I woke up the orcs. Violently. Turns out they had backup from an orc warrior. I do love mephitic cloud. It made the warrior easy prey, and I could mop up his minions without trouble.
I read a scroll of Immolation, (just reading scrolls is my strategy for Identification) and somehow did not damage myself. It attracted a giant frog, who did hurt me. But not as much as I hurt it. In short sucession, I then ran into an Ice Beast, (who turned out to be immune to poison) 4 gnolls, and 2 orc warriors. I nearly died from the second one. I realized I needed a better damage spell, and memorized Venom Bolt, which I've never used before. I tried it out on a sleeping orc, miscasting twice and then one hit killing it with sting. My cast rate with Venom Bolt is 'Very Good.'
Found a Mummy, who didn't find me. I ran away, not wanting to deal with melee and being cursed. Eventually, I ran into it again and it saw me. I then casted venom bolt in desperation, moderately damaging it. Perhaps spells dealing poisoning also deal 'regular' damage? Perhaps mummies aren't immune to poison? Could be either or both. I never found out what the mummy cursed, just used remove curse and moved on.
D7
Fought and easily killed Blork the Orc, then Edmund, (during the fight I miscasted Venom Bolt, causing a huge explosion Edmund was just outside the range of. Damn!) then, hilariously, Ijyb. Got skill 1 in air magic, and turned it off. I didn't want to narrow my horizons too much till I found a second spellbook. Found a necrophage, and ran. I didn't want to rot. I had a change of heart when I saw I had 6 potions of heal wounds. It only rotted me a little bit.
D8
Found 'A Hardcover Book!' Wonder what's inside... the book of the Earth is what it is. Hmm. I decided not to make use of it, since I would then have to learn Transmutation and Earth Magic, which conflicts with Mephitic Cloud, and I couldn't use the first spell, given I had an already-branded weapon. (A now +2+2 Quarterstaff of speed. It still serves me well.) I'm not interested in magic mapping or dig, either. So earth is a no-go.
Found a +4 ring of protection, and switched it for my ring of protection from cold. I'm a sucker for stat boosts. Now AC 17 EV 10 SH 0. Sif Muna gave me the power to forget spells, but since sting still works fine on weaker enemies, I didn't make use of it.
Suddenly, I heard many, many distant slurping noises! NOOO! NOT MY LOOT! The level still mostly unexplored, I was forced to retreat downstairs by a massive group of Jellies.
D11/10
I found myself in D11, I think due to a shaft trap. But I was in the company of a Troll and a Five-Headed Hydra, neither of which would be much fun to fight. I ran up the nearest stairwell to D10 and began looking for a way to D9, to normalize things a bit. It was then I opened a door to this:
Exp Pool: 1 Place: Dungeon:10
#.###@######## Wp: o) +2 quarterstaff (speed)
#. #J# Qv: d) +2,+1 dagger (elec)
#. JJJ Very Full
#. #JJf#
#. fJJfJ J _ giant amoeba
#.#fJJJJ# JJJJJJJ 10 jellies
.#ffJJf# J 7 oozes
##JfJ##
J.f
EEP! Not knowing what else to do, I hasted myself and ran upstairs again.
D9
I then ran into an orc priest and warrior, dipatching them fairly easily. Trying out potions for the first time in a while, I drank a potion of rotting and lost a good 20 hitpoints. Soon after it told me the level was fully explored. Crap. That meant I had to go either downstairs and face the jellies, or two levels down, to dance with a troll and a hydra. I'll see if I can manage the Jelly problem.
D10, Again
Slowly, very slowly, I picked off the Jellies, only corroding my staff once. I then found a yellowed book, the Book of Transformations. Cool. I picked up the spell spider form, since an average of my transmutation and my poison skills would be 6, and the spell is level 3. It'll be irritating to re-equip myself when the spell's effect ends, though. After trying the spell out, it seems to work fine (especially as an escape ability) and they fixed the .4.5 problem of having to re-equip everything. Still, it isn't what I wanted. It's still a poison spell, and I need to get a fire conjuration or something like that.
And just like that, I'd cleared and looted D10, meaning I had to face my fears in the form of hydras and trolls. I've never actually fought a hydra before, you know.
D11
The hydra was waiting at the staircase, along with the troll and a giant bat. Dropping a mephitic cloud took care of the troll, but the hydra seemed immune. I tried out my many unidentified wands on it. None did anything, and it killed me. Anticlimatic, I know, but that's how most Crawl games are.
--Incomp 14:05, 13 July 2009 (MDT)
