Iskenderun's Mystic Tower

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Version 0.14: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Iskenderun is a master of pure Conjurations, and her mystical tower Wizlab certainly reflects this. Among the clouds of purple fog reside deep elven and draconian students of the destructive arts, along with magically imbued statues capable of casting powerful magic.

Layout

The metal-walled main tower lies in the center of the chamber. The magenta walls along the edges of the room and the outside layer of the tower are spaced in a checkerboard pattern that breaks up line of sight, which aides against the irresistable ranged on all monsters within the vault: there are also LOS-obscuring purple smoke generators embedded in the rock. Spaced outside the tower are eight conjurer statues (2s below) that will hurl Orbs of Destruction at you, notably destroying the rock cover if it misses and thus making it easy to continue firing orbs. The tower itself has a spread of deep elf mages and purple draconians (1s below).

Once you've entered the tower through the door on one side, you'll have to deal with one final statue that guards the three inner doors. Each door contains a purple draconian sitting on top of some of the treasure contains: two Conjurations artefact spell books, four mundane and random spellbooks, a fixed Robe of the Archmagi, and two miscellaneous decent-quality items.

As with most portal vaults, the exit is available without fighting anything, further inside the initial diagonal tunnels. If you decide to stay, anticipate heavy amounts of incoming conjurations in worst-case scenarios; especially fragile or weak characters should seriously consider leaving this tower alone.

There's no surefire way to ensure your survival in this area; Repel or Deflect Missiles will help protect you from Mystic Blast and the draconians' breath attacks, but won't do anything about the statues' Orbs of Destruction nor the battlespheres. Silence will only work on the mages and not the statues or draconians, making it a questionable tool to manage the vault. Shields of reflection can reflect up to and including the orbs of destruction, though they naturally have their own opportunity costs. Movement aides such as Blink or Swiftness can help you dodge the Orbs, but will usually leave valuable cover in the process. Even scrolls of fog to immediately obscure LOS and thus briefly block all threats won't stop any orbs mid-flight or directly-adjacent monsters. Altogether, as such, high AC, HP, and (possibly) SH provide main deciding factors for most characters taking on the vault.

The diagonal out-reaches of the vault are the most important tool for any attempt at the vault: obscuring LOS prevents monsters from firing at you or orbs from hitting you, drastically reducing the barrage. Taking the level slowly by awakening and picking off the deep elves and draconians while stepping through the rock to the safe corners or orthogonal edges is the ideal approach, as it allows resting and abusing the immobility / slow regeneration of the statues. Running into the metal border of the tower will mostly negate the threat of the statues, as the orbs' slow turning and imprecise flight path will easily harmlessly hit the metal, but will also allow the majority of the deep elves and draconians to wander over to the player at once. Moving constantly through the open space leaves no cover and makes it difficult to dodge orbs, making it the most dangerous of paths.

Monsters

e Deep elf mage.png Deep elf mage- These mages exclusively have their conjurations-focused spell set: Magic Dart (3d4), Force Lance (3d10), two slots of Iskenderun's Battlesphere, and Iskenderun's Mystic Blast (3d12). They're relatively weak for Wizlab entrance depth, but are densely packed throughout the border of the tower.

d Purple draconian.png Purple draconian- Lacking in magic but possessing an dispelling breath attack, these comprise of the main threat of the vault against the cautious. Their breath, as with all monster dispelling breath, is fixed at 3d20, and possess passable melee and high health. Losing buffs as one might try to defeat the conjurer statues can be lethal, so picking them off from the level border is highly recommended.

Conjurer Statues

At first glance, this piece of sculpted granite seems inert. The red glow from its eyes, however, suggest it is no mere stone. Although it is rooted to its base, you are certain that it can still move parts of itself.

8 Conjurer statue.png The conjurer statues spread throughout the laboratory can cast Orb of Destruction, a fast-moving separate projectile that will skip EV to deal immense damage and will take wide turns while wobbling through their path, which will break up the rock border or dissipate against the metal tower if dodged. Rush-down, buff-abuse tactics are ideal for breaking down each statue, though all but one or two can be avoided outright. Their elemental resistances limit magic against them to select summons, earth magic and non-elemental conjurations (and they are especially weak to Lee's Rapid Deconstruction.)

Source

The 1s are the above deep elf mages and purple draconians: four have a 5% chance to be deep elves and a 95% chance to be draconians each, six have a 40 and 60% chance for deep elves and draconians, and the rest (twenty-two) have a 60% chance to be deep elves and a 40% chance to be empty floor, each. The 2s are the conjurer statues, x designate (notably destructable) rock, v designates metal, and " are purple smoke cloud machines. The entry door is randomly the = (60% chance) or the - (40% chance), and the other doors in the chamber will lead to isolated purple draconians on-top of the primary vault loot (DEF, with F swapping with the ' when - is the door in). [0.14.1 source link.]

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History

  • Before 0.14-9ae1ffb6 and 0.14-ffe6da32, the vault had many minor differences. The level was more rectangular and the outside was fringed with stone, which made it resistant to the statues' orbs of destruction. The top- and bottom-most statues weren't present, and statues would dilute their casting slots with Iskenderun's Mystic Blast. The entry door was fixed at the point where the = is on the above map, the robe of the archmagi was absent from specific definition, and the draconians were evenly divided with the deep elf mages in a 33% chance for either or nothing for each 1 above (as an artifact from before purple draconians got their dispelling breath). Altogether, the vault was mostly less dangerous, aside from the chances for a very large amount of purple draconians.