Crawl Relay Part 2: Dungeon Boogaloo

[Totaku]

The amusement of being Flan's toy has made me laugh, and I'm enjoying it. XD

I'm surprised we managed to do this well with Flan. But then again, we got so many ways to counter her effects that we can probably work things out.

Anyways, I got word today that the Crawl team has managed to get Version 0.7 up to it's first release canidate stage.... This pretty much means that they're on the verge of being done. And since they're likely to have this out before the end of this month, all I can say is that we need to try to wrap this up ASAP like I said before. I think we can accomplish that before the end of the month even with my modding. And if not, it should be to soon after. Mainly because I would like to get a relay started with 0.7 using all the mods I'm putting in place. ^^;

And if you been reading the update, you know the new version will be "visually pleasing".

And just for the record.... I hope we have at least 1 distorition type weapon....we will need to make an emergency escape is we decide to go to Pandemonium.

[Psieye]

I'm 1/3 of the way through my turn. We have a dagger of distortion back at Lair:1 and another in a shop somewhere. We can do Pandemonium safely. I'll edit this post in about 1~2 hours with my turn status report.

----------------

Turn 142k, my turn starts. Enchantments is at Lv 9, this means Haste is at "Good" status. Not long before I can make space to memorise it.

Ok so we're in Crypt:4. It's sad that vampires, even mages, aren't worth taking screenshots of.

Hmm a cure mutation potion. Wait we have this few mutations?

Wizard Lab:



Let me make some temporary inventory space first in case tehre's a lot of loot to drag back.

Ok, it's that monk place.



Damn I don't have a disintegration wand. This is gonna be a battle of summons and Lee's Rapid Deconstruction then. There's an orange crystal statue up ahead.

Monk flavour:




Hey Flan, there's no need to confuse me here, there's a statue that will do that later. Or are you jealous?

By the way, "Monk" includes stuff like Rock Trolls. When many spawn, time to get serious:



More tourist shots:



This is the boss of this place, Wucad Mu's statue:



Nue trademark Snakeshow is put on. Er, try again some monks showed up and interrupted it. Damnit, got interrupted again:



I don't have stat protection either and other Divination miscasts still get through, but at least I can continue DPS'ing:



This one's a scary miscast:



Thank goodness it was a spell that's useless right now as I just used all our 17 arrows.

Ok Flan, let's see what this toy is:



.................... I'm curious, is there any penalty for taking this off, given Xom has no piety to work for? Seems none. Darn it leave me alone you monks!



Ok Wucad Mu, Round 2 and since you're a statue you can't regenerate while I can. Stat death or victory?



Ok let's send off these last 3 monks away and we can loot in peace... except for Flandre's attention. In fact, do I even care about these human monks? They don't do any damage.

Loot:



There was also a book of enchantments but we already have one. This staff is DANGEROUS to wield and DANGEROUS to attack with. Put simply, it mindrapes you. Just like his statue did. I don't feel we have enough Int to make good use of it, but it's nice for the keepsake.

Given our Int situation is critical, I go back to the Hive to restore it. Hmm, someone will have to do stash moving eventually but we'll see what the loot from the Crypt is and how many turns I need to get it. While I'm here, I forget ZUN's intoxication and replace it for Stoneskin and Abjuration... or I wanted to learn the latter but our summoning skill is lacking.

Not training Air skill means we'll never get good enough for Deflect Missiles, since we'll need ~Lv 20 Enchantments. Well, I'm taking a staff of wizardry so I can cast Haste as need be. I memorised it.

I drink a bunch of mutation potions. 22 potions (which Flan loved to watch) later:



Those horns reduce our AC (no helmet) but give us a melee advantage. Teleportitis 1... ideally we want a Controlled Teleport ring and then we can cancel them whenever they occur, but I can live with a little randomness. Anyway, main point is that with this many mutations it gets hard to get mutated further.

Ok, I want to be well-fed before I venture further so I do the rest of the Vaults first.

Vault:7, that's the 3rd bone lantern we've come across. I spam some butterflies to distract Mistchikkuri from my food and to train our summoning skill.

A book of stalking... Is that any use to us? I drop it back down in this fancy setting I found it:



Hoh, so that's a plain elf:



Must be a shapeshifter. Oh and Frances was nearby too. Guess I'll deal with her first. Drat we have no Rage wand eh? Fine then, we'll use Haste up close. Maybe that was overkill:



Huh? Summon Butterflies is at "Very Good" if we have blade hands out? Just how bad is our summoning skill anyway?

Oh that was a normal rabbit. Bad luck little girl, I'm still hasted.

Ouch... ok Flan, I'll take that as a sign that I've eaten enough and I should get to the Crypt. Sheesh you were entertained weren't you?



Glow mutation resisted. Onwards to the Crypt.

It's nice to not be the victim of this:



Now then, back in Crypt 4, I test out this unknown wand I picked up earlier. My guess is flame. Yep, it is.

I imagine the monsters are under the illusion that all these butterflies look like Nue. It woudl explain why they're so easily distracted and exactly fits with Nue's theme:



Oh ok, Flan decides she wants to be first at teleporting me before my mutation does:



Flan triple teleports me. Then gifts me:



Skeletal dragons are a lot of EXP to burn through:



RECHARGE SCROLL! Immediately used on our heal wand. It regained 4 charges.

Another curse skull. I really wish we had a bunch of javelins now, what with the bone lantern reducing vision of everything.

Oh right, this is where the 3rd staircase was on Crypt:3 with the curse skull:



I apport that book over and run away with 1 set of summons from the curse skull. A Charms book.

Guardian spirit amulet. Excuse me while I recharge our mana...

To Crypt:5! Reached Lv 22.

Uh hey, a paralysis wand wielding skeletal warrior. It wasted shots on butterflies. Really convincing illusions eh?

This is a Myon:




Party time!



So this is how you treat your playthings Flan:



A butterfly stopped a bolt of draining! Because the necromancer cast it at max range and any target it hits on the way reduces its range.

Why do we have an altar to Sif Muna at the bottom of the Crypt?

Some implement indeed:



Ok, several hundred turns remaining and I've cleared the entrance party. Let's get some bosses if there are any.

I see a lot of traps. Did you know Lee's Rapid Deconstruction can blow them up?



Oh blah, I was expecting to hide for a while to recharge but no matter:



Final room:



I see, it's skeletal dragons that guard the treasure. And you can't forget the Ancient Lich either. There is Always an Ancient Lich down here.

Ok my turn's over:



There's a wounded skeletal dragon that ran off in there. Totaku I'll let you decide what to do with almost 9000 EXP in skills. I've dragged Summoning skill from Lv 4->9 so Haunt is now at "Fair" - meaning with our wizardry staff (needed for Haste) it's well within reach.

Sign me up again. Images now up. Forgot to say: I haven't seen Flan be entertain in a while for the rest of my turn, be prepared to make her laugh.

[Totaku]

TIme for my update!

When we last left off.... Nue was on the verge of completing the Crypts.... what kind of tureasure did she uncover, and was it worth it?



Well first things first... she needed to get rid of the Skeletal dragon.

She managed to catch to the thing and then hacked it to death....

And then went over to the loot.... the results.... gold, lots of it. and the vast majority of the items were junk.

A  +2 ring of evasion, staffs we already had and a bunch of uselss equipment.

The robe was interesting but.....

Doesn't seem worth it..... I took it anyways help Nue make her way out of the Crypts....

As Nue escapes, she decided to take care of an annoying unique...Margery....

Thankfully blade hands can go along way since she's a living human...


She was quickly exterminated and then we noticed that she had a demon trident. Something Nue could use.... but it was plain one.... so it probably won't be used.....

Either way, Nue heads back to the Hive HQ and starts making a plan. She gets some fire ressitant equipment, some other items and drops her useless stuff so that she could return and settle a score.......


At the Shaols....against Reisen...

The plan was simple....use the haste wand, use stick flames and then go all out with blade hands!


As expected, Reisen decided to create illusions of herself, and then followed up an Illusion of Nue, regardless Nue pressed on hacking and slashing at Reisen...even when being sticky flamed....

And finally Reisen was finally taken down! And while her illusions still stood. Reisen consumed a healing potion, and teleported out of there!


And then took the stairs downward...

Now with the problem out of the way, Nue had it smooth sailing from this point.... Course there were still threats here...


 such as the female kappas that played thier music to draw you to the water....

Sticky flames proved useful in helping brake the trance when they were in the water...


The Kappa cyrotechnician, they usually specilize in using ice magic, but at times can also fire thier water cannons and blow you back as well as create water on the field. That's when they're truly dangerous. Nearly got killed by this one...
Floor 3...

It was pretty much a simple trip here.... However Flan decided to have some fun.....


So basiclly, Nue's lost some of her armor, and she doesn't have any horns now, so she can wear a helmet.... ok I guess that's fair...


Pretty much the only thing we can say was made this place full of hate was the sudden Yukkakkuri that appeared here.... made. Simply avoided the area...besides, the Shaols doesn't have much to offer. It's mostly just blazing through what you can and then heading down...(unless your a merfoke...
Floor 4

We encounter a Armored Kappa, armed with a demon trident and wearing a cardborad box as armor.....

Though as nails and tend to pose a threat.... thankfully Nue took care of it easily...

And what kind of Trident was it?

A +6 +0 demon trident of fire?! A keeper alright!

Finally we reach floor 5.....

This is pretty much kappa HQ down here, so be ready to fight tons and tons of kappa!

Nue spent her time sneaking into room from room killing the kappas in them...  She found some interesting stuff.... Course there was one kappa that had a rather nasty spear....

Not good for Nue.... but Flan found it funny....especially when I removed it. She loved to watch Nue suffer....


We find a scroll of aquirement in the mix. Nue attempts to use it and hope for some armor (was aiming for boots) Sadly it was a chain mail...with electricity resistance.... POINTLESS!

Apperently Flan was very amused so she deicded to turn Flan into something uses..... LICH FORM!!!

She managed to pumble some kappas down and use a torment scroll that was near to wither down the kappa while in this form. This was very useful!

While still fighting, Nue found a strange sword.... What was it?

And awesome sword, that's for sure! It turned out it was only +1+3, but it could still be useful....

Of course I never did mention the number of times I suffered from teleportitis.. not that I care about it.... Because I was able to get back to a point one way or another but Nue did discover Nitori out in the water....



Pretty much Nitori is like fighting a Kappa Cytechnician with some kappa musican mixed in... so basiclly imaging being pulled torward the water while being blasted with ice and water... Bad combo, but Nitori is technically easy to take down...however, I didn't have time to play with her.... I had to hurry. It seemed I had gone everywhere...

Where is the rune? South west corner? No! North west corner? No? Even though I fought a few mistchikkuris and some other kappa, it wouldn't be till Nue went back to a spot she didn't both exploring that she would finally find it....


BARNECAL RUNE GET!

This now makes it two runes!

With that, Nue escaped the Shaols and picked up a +2 +4 demon trident along the way... AWESOME!

And at roughly 5700 turns, my turn comes to an end...

Took a tad longer than usual... but it had to be done. Nue had only a few places to go since the majorty of the Shaols is water the dungeon went fast....

And then the Rune seemed close so I had to get it, I'm surprised though that it was located so close, yet I didn't realize it till I killed most of the kappa...

But now we have 2 runes! One more to go before we can go to realm of ZUN!
We have only a few options on where to go...

Complete the rest of the dungeon (to find more goods)
Compete the Vault (and find the rune)
Go into the Slime pit
Go into the Hall of Blades and take on Yuyuko
Go into the abyss and attempt a hunt for the RUNE
Or Go to hell.

I'll let you guys decide.... In the mean time....

Here's my recent Crawl mod, I've added 3 more Touhou charaters to replace certain demons (and angels..)
http://www.mediafire.com/?nonjr3mnwmgnjen
And here's the save...

Like before.....

MaullarMaullar
Psieye
Totaku

Good luck and happy Crawling!

[Psieye]

Question: is this a 3-rune game or an extended game? I'm assuming we want to get powerful enough to see Okuu in action. Have we stocked up on Immolation scrolls, a torment scroll and fire resist? If so, then Vault:8 is within reach: at least the first step of clearing the circular sentry formation.

[Totaku]

Question: is this a 3-rune game or an extended game? I'm assuming we want to get powerful enough to see Okuu in action. Have we stocked up on Immolation scrolls, a torment scroll and fire resist? If so, then Vault:8 is within reach: at least the first step of clearing the circular sentry formation.

Personally I don't mind which ever route we take. We can go for as many rune as we can get, even the Pandemonuim ones if were ready. Just as long as we do it in a timely fashion.

As for what you mention... I do belive we have some immolation scrolls, and we have enough items to give us max flame resistance.... but torment scroll? We don't have torment resistance you know....

If you really need one, you might find one back in the Shoals on floor 5. Either way, I know we're blazing through this place now.

[Quad City QBs]

Question: is this a 3-rune game or an extended game? I'm assuming we want to get powerful enough to see Okuu in action. Have we stocked up on Immolation scrolls, a torment scroll and fire resist? If so, then Vault:8 is within reach: at least the first step of clearing the circular sentry formation.

We have Alistair's for that.  I'm personally more worried about the possibility of quicksilver dragons.

[Psieye]

Quicksilver dragons are not immune to poison. We also have haste and rage. I don't see a problem. Provided we get a blink scroll off early to avoid getting shot at from all 8 directions after the vault guard ring is defeated, we can do the vault with a healthy stack of Evaporation ammo. Steam screens woudl also be nice.

[Quad City QBs]

Welcome back to the show, where--GODDAMMIT FLAN



"You know without me you ain't got NO material.  Know your place."

ANYWAY, in preparation for Vaults:8, we drop Apportation for now so we can re-learn Alistair's Intoxication.  We also swap our staff of wizardry for the ring, so we can cast Haste with the staff of enchantment out.  I also grab that amulet of stasis, as a random teleport at the wrong time could literally kill us, in addition to a sealed bronze flask in case we need backup.



Music: Motorhead - Ace of Spades

"Don't you mean Silver Forest - Kero ⑨ Destiny?"

I had my MP3 player on shuffle, okay?



(Of note, stasis blocks Haste, but doesn't cancel Haste if you put it on while already Hasted.)



"Hey, this isn't so--"



"SWEET JESUS WHAT IS THAT."

"Well, we haven't had a fanservice update in a while, you know..."

"We haven't had a fanservice update in EVER!  And I'm just fine keeping it that way!"



"STAY"



"THE FUCK"



"AWAY FROM ME"

Anyway, we take care of the rest of the Vault guards in a similar fashion.





I take this as a cue to press the assault.





...And with prep, we're already up to turn 158000 (log), so one of you will have to carry on the charge.

"Next time!  Pure hearts collide in a beautiful, tragic final destined battle!  You won't want to miss our next episode, Go!! Crisis Of The--"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Come on, I've got this preview thing cold.  How about it?"

"I wish this were Nethack so you could choke to death."

[Psieye]

Turn 158k, my turn starts. Wow, when did Nue get to Polearms 6 and Fire Magic 11? If we wanted to we could even learn fireball at this rate.

Looks like we have enough magic skills for Level 6 stuff, I'll focus on Necromancy/Transmutation and Unarmed skills now. Wish we had the leather armour of negative resistance but this ring will do I suppose. Right as I say that, we learn Earth Magic...

Flan gifts us:



It's an ordinary +2 scale mail. We also find a book of cantrips around the perimeter of Vaults:8.

"You hear a distant slurping noise" is NOT what I want to hear down here. *sigh* screw taking it easy, let's use magic mapping and see where the most sheltered vault is and start from there.

A jewellery shop? Down here? But filled with nothing useful...

Hmm, that stone giant got a couple of lucky consecutive hits. Was worried for a second.

We hit Lv 23. That jelly is still out there somewhere. Not in NW vault though. Looting it now before the jelly gets here.

Notable stuff: Manual of Stabbing and Slaying Ring (+5/+1).

Oh hey, Flan found it hilarious I got demoted a level? That's an easy way to entertain her. I got that level back immediately after killing the shadow dragon responsible for it.

Hmm, I don't hear the slurping noises very often so the loot must be pretty spaced out. I shall assume this SE vault has the jelly then.

I found the silver rune. Oh and some random artifact spellbook where I re-learn Apportation now that I'm Lv 23.

Why hello there Tentacle Monster! Sod taking it slowly, I've got a jelly to find. Haste and Blade Hands! Whoops forgot I need to remove the Stasis amulet first before casting Haste.

Ok there were reinforcements behind that monster:



No problem for hasted Nue. A shadow dragon while I have EXP points to spend though?


Need to spend some EXP fast. No problem, renewed my buffs while around the corner.

This stash is also safe:



Not again...



Now an Ancient Lich huh? Time to risk extra glow to haste again. In fact, I'm going to drink this potion of agility so to make space while I'm at it.



10k EXP to spend! We can never have enough combat skill so I won't spend this in a hurry unless I see a shadow dragon.

Oh and we found a berserk potion. Stasis amulet saved us from wasting food and time. I'll pick up the rest of this loot later. Oh great, a mummy. SCREW YOU, I'll take a curse, so long as I drop my potions first. Hmm, I didn't get cursed. Rare misfire I guess.

SILVER BOLTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. We're so fast, we closed the distance before the Yaktaur Captain shot again.

What? Why is this here?



Joke mook killed. Now this is more of a problem:



I'm gonna throw the 2 precious scrolls off to the side while I deal with this. Except I can't throw with blade hands so I run back and drop them off - scrolls don't get destroyed from fire while on the ground to my experience. Yep, just had that confirmed.

Hmm some rabbits snuck in and are equipping loot I leave behind. No matter, so long as they're not actively destroying them I can tolerate that.

Flan gives us more loot. A "glowing scimitar". Let me drag all the loot back before I detect curse on everything.

SW vault, time to put these potions to use:



More more! Need moar throwing! Reinforcements appeared!

In fact, this looks like a good time to Haste while closing the door and mega buff.

Smoke screen on and go time!



Witness poison resistance!



Dammit, get confused everyone. Oh wait, I've got Alistair's. GET DRUNK EVERYONE.

Drink Heal Wounds while I have room to breathe, there's still a lot of damage potential out there.

Shit, looks like Nue couldn't handle this much. I'm going to rely on luck to survive longer while I read a teleport scroll and get out of here.

Good landing!



Uh you know Flan, I know picking up loot isn't exciting but could you let me rest before I... oh right, we're a special plaything right now:



Why are there THREE staves of death in this floor alone?

Oh, this staff is an Earth Staff. Nue hasn't realised it, but if she feels numb while casting Swiftness, it has to be Earth.

We have a boots of stealth +2. The dwarven boots may still be useful if we can't find an artifact one for the Slime Pits.

Whoops, forgot to put that stasis amulet back on. Teleportitis sent us to the outer edge. No problem, let's carry loot back and try the SW corner again.

Why another Momijikkuri? It's reall anti-climactic when I'm tussling with stone giants and skeletons of giants.

Gah that stone giant got some lucky hits in despite our high AC/EV. Regen'ing while Nue goes to eat and recharge mana.

Hazy for a moment? In other words, that did nothing:



Not what you want to happen:



Ok, so Azure Jelly means I could just burn it down, but I may as well wait for it to shapeshift into something else. CHAFF TIME.

A gold dragon. Better than Azure Jelly. Oh a titan now, even better. Stop changing about damn you, now stay as an elephant slug!

Chaffs are useful, they let you know enemies are about even when you can't see them.

Thank goodness for this rElec robe:



Oh, it was a shapeshifter.

We find a book with Ignite Poison in it, if we ever want to dabble with that. Oh hey there vault guard, really late to the party I see.

We find a crystal ball of Energy. Time for NE corner, I guess that's where the jelly was all along. Or wait, maybe it was just shapeshifters turning into jellies temporarily?

I see no reason why not to haste before going in. Mega buffed and good to slice.

Of all things to find down here, a TSO altar...



Blargh, took 2 points of rot damage from a shape shifter.

An ordinary lich guards the final vault. GG.

Loot: fire staff.

Flan, you're late to the party:



Oh and this is how we look in dragon form:



282 HP vs 177 HP to make up for the significant loss in AC and EV. Also, lots and lots of +Str for damage potential.

Loot assessment time! Nothing was cursed, that's surprising. Hmm...

Armour: +4 leather armour of MR, +1 leather armour of rPois, -5 Wizard hat of EV+1, Int+4, +1 Cloak of Darkness.

Weapons: Holy long sword. Scythe of Reaching. Venom spear. Demon Blade of Venom. Hammer of draining. Scythe of DRAGON SLAYING (it protects against breaths). Ankus of elec, rF++, Int+1. Holy artifact quarterstaff. Sabre of Speed, Dex -6 (LOLWUT), Int+2. Falchion of Venom. 2 great swords from fire giants. I'm leaving a number of these behind on Vault:7.

Right, the rest of my turn will probably be spent doing inventory maintenance. Gotta haul all this stuff back afterall - to Hell. Some ammo potions are left behind so I don't have to make a 3rd trip here.

1000 turns left, I'm bringing some of our stash from Hive:2 while I go beat up some plants to identify these weapons.

Ha ha, nice competency! 1 swing and Nue figured out this was a +3/+2 Scythe of Reaching. 2 more swings and this is a +4/+1 scythe of dragon slaying.

Lots of swings later, this is a +0/+2 demon blade of venom. We are not going to train up long blades this late so I drop it.

I feel bad for Flan, making her wait before we get to the action:



Oh ok, some respawns on D:14. HUH? We never defeated Urug?



Technically it's almost 5000 turns now but I'll sink in a few more hundred to finish grabbing more of the stash from Hive:2. Ok, turn done. Totaku, gear up and go pwn. There's still the pile of food in Hive:2 and a mountain of wands as well as spare common scrolls (like 28 Remove Curse scrolls).

Man though, I have never seen that many (unused) scrolls of enchant weapon in one place before. But all our awesome weapons are artifacts and we don't use ranged weapons so there's no ammo to enchant either...

[Totaku]

Ok it's time to tell my story....

When we last left off, Nue had just finished the Vault and got her 3rd rune, so where will she go today?

First she prepares herself with some of the goods down in hell...


And decided to repay a visit to the vault and found out you all missed something....


A wand of teleportation!

basiclly is was left in some small room that wasn't opened....

went and took it...

And then I went and looked through the hive's stash once more. And looked at the book of enchantment...


I think a spell we could really use is Deflect Missile, it's a stronger version of reflect missile pretty much and it's quite useful.

And as Nue was leaving She found out there was an unexplored area of the hive. It had book there too.
(I recently learned that the hive could eventually become a portal vault come around at version 0.8. So say good bye to your safe zone after so long..)

Then Flan decides to be nice for once...

Now we got our health back to normal and we no long rot away!

Nue then goes down to the shop on the bottom floor of the Lair. As it turns out, the Scroll of Aquirement that was there was never bought so Nue bought is and used it to ask for a ring. And she got....


Not a very important ring.....Keeping it anyways....

And so after about 2000 turns Nue embarks on the real part of her journey to....


The slime pits!

The slime pits.... one of the more nastier dungeons in Crawl. Mainly because your going to confront nothing but slime, slime and more slime (and maybe a Suika or two. )

Food is very rare here so it's important to bring you food with you. And above all else....a way to protect your equipment from Acid slime!

And just our luck what greets us the moment we come down there? A nasty pink glob known as an Acid blob!

Acid blobs are the most dangerous of slime you'll confront in the slime pit (along with the azure jelly). They are like a vicious moving Yukkakkuri. Come crawl up to you at high speed and spitting acid all at the same time. Thier slime seems to have the higest possibility to corroide your equipment so watch out!

Luckly Nue brought the corrosion amulet from her collection of goods. ( I can't remember if it was in hell or the hive it was placed at.) It may make her a little hungery, but if she wants to save all her good equipment this is a must.

A good rule of thumb when dealing with the slime pits is generally to come with on of the following:

Artifacted equipment as it is corrosion proof
Drawven equipment as it's well protected from corrosion, (not 100% but used in combination with a corrosion resistant amulet it comes very close!)
And of course a corrosion amulet.

Ice resistants can be helpful too since Azure jelly roam here and can freeze you belonging and you!

But another important item to bring is mutation protection. Why? I'll explain later...

Since Nue can't really keep her distance from the creature, her only stategy is to sticky flame it and then follow up with using her blade hands and slash it like crazy. Surprising it works. Even if it does burn her hands a little as she slices it.

While she chased some Suikas. Nue fell through a shaft so now were on floor 2...


Then we also have our issues with eyes, by not the eye of devistation is child's play though. But when your dealing with a floating eye ball it's a bit worse....

Though as one rule...eyes and ameboas are going to be your only food resource here. But knowing the fact that your likely to be using corrosion resistance and not a gourdman amulet it's not a high priority...

But what's this?


A snort in the slime pits? Another labyrinth?! We must find it!

Now here's your reason why you should use a mutation protection amulet.... Shining eyes.

These things are like the orange brain but less threatening.... Thier main focus is to mutate you and nothing else... and 9 times out of 10 it's a bad mutation. Fortunately we make short work of it.

Course when there's no room left to do anything, Nue decides to cast dig and make a path.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Come 0.7 these walls wall be acidic! This'll definetly change how we tackle the slime pits since just touching the walls can risk corrosion!


Eventually after lots of slime killing and eye killing and much digging later... Nue find the entrance to the Labyrinth.....

Course unlike before Nue didn't drop her belongings..... Cause it would be too much of a risk to leave them there....

So we go in, but we get a warning....

This is due to Nue's teleportitis..... So before we go in, Nue puts on the Stasis amulet....

It's go time!

Surprisingly it didn't take too long to reach the exit. A few door represent along with some traps that Nue detected but otherwise we met with the teach once more....

By now Keine's a cake walk with blade hands alone...


The loot? Really it was rather sucktaculater......

Mostly things we had or already had....

Moving on!

Flan decides to have fun with Nure...first mutating her so she gain some scales and had a more normal body.... then she's turns around and summons a bunch of demons.... Good thing is... at this point.... demons are a cake walk for Nue....

After many slime and Suika Killing later Nue leveled up!

Level 24!

But not all!

A strange Anathesia? What does that mean?

Torment Resistant?!!! This will hell like a walk in the park!!

Sadly this is where I should have just turned back and went to hell instead....But welll you'll see..

Here we have a golden eye, think of floating eye that's faster and can blink. Still very frail though...

Here's a good reminder of why one should not fight a bunch of Suikas in the middle of the hallway. They will eventually gather together and get BIGGER!

And the more they gather, the more stronger they become, the more tougher they become, and the more health they have! Thankfully though this isn't the early point of the game. So killing a large Suika isn't going to kill you.

Eventually after much slime killing later, Nue reached the bottom floor of the slime pits.... Which is very open. And of course filled with lots of slime...

By around this point, Nue's sealth boots were corroded to +0, her helmet was +1 and her cloak was +1. How much worse can it get?

Well other than fighting lots and lots of slime... Nue eventually found a strange room in the center...what could it be?


An Alter of Jival, this is quite common in the slime pits. You will find it there, and usually it's hard to find it in other locations... Jival mainly make you friendly to slime and can give you slime powers along with the ability to remove bad mutations if you worshilp him long enough, but he does come with a hidden dark secret..... he will eat items left on the floor! Anywhere in the dungeon! But regardless we are Flan's pet, not Jiyval's so let's keep looking....

What;s this? The Royal Jelly?

As the name suggest the Royal Jelly is the king of all slime, and his royal higness is not pleased to see us....

The Royal jelly is a very fast and hard hitter and will catch up to you with no problem.
Haste, blinking and teleporting is a must! And he is corrosive, so watch your equipment... but that's not all....

Everytime you hit him! He will release a bunch of jellies will attack you! And they usually come out in the form of Azure jellies and Acid blobs! What a bad combo.

To make it even more worse....just try sticky flaming it now! I dare you! Cause in this version, the royal jelly will spawn jellies like no one's business now once it's sticky flamed. So if you sticky flame it, be ready to fight lots of dangerous jellies.....

Course even with haste and swift I was a bit overwhelmed by how powerful his royal higness was....  I am use to fightiing him as a mage and keeping my distance, but with Nue she has to tackle it up close.... he hits much harder than I anticipated and thanks to his jelly spwaning it wouldn't take long for Nue to fall....


So yeah....sorry guys, I got too confident..... I should of turned back when I leveled up....
With this I learned that the royal jelly is much tough up close and personal.

The good news is..you equipment is no longer corroided... since you'll be starting back some distance...

The bad news...we're not torment resistant! ;_;

My advice:

Slime pits 1-5 should be safe for level training, just have a back up plan ready incase your items suddenly corrode.

Train there till level 24 and pray we get torment resistantace. Afterward, abyss, and hell should be fair ground for us as we are skilled enough to tackle it. And it'll be a walk in the park if we get back torment resistance! Otherwise, necromutation would be the only other option.

We probably shouldn't tackle the his royal highness unless we got our own form of back up (AKA Huant) to make this a fair fight.

I'm signing up again, and of course turn order is the same again.

MaullarMaullar
Psieye
Totaku

Go for it Maullar!

On other news, Crawl is on it's second release canidate, it won't be long before it's released. Let's get cracking on get those runes and the beer and wrap this up!

[Psieye]

Tip: higher enchant levels make equipment more resistant to corrosion. At +5 damage boost or +5 armour boost, weapons and body armour cannot be corroded. This doesn't apply to boots, gloves, headgear and cloak because they have a lower maximum enchant level. Personally I find some unbranded spare armour to take into the slime pits.

By the way, the Royal Jelly is the second hardest boss in the game, second only to Cerebov. At least, as far as arena tests go.

[barasia]

Back soon on Thursday.
Do sign me up, at the end of list, so i can take my turn on Thursday.

or maybe i'll jsut wait for the 0.7 version?


Edit: possible strategy against Jelly.
Note that Royal jelly cannot regen.
It may take a whole person's turn to kill it safely by hit-and-run tactic.

My strategy:
Hellfire+ Level dance.
always returning in different set of stairs.
So yeah, Hell fire, Retreat, rest, return in different stairs, hellfire, repeat.

by the looks of it, you can't melee it.

i melee it once.
it was an Ogre Berserker, with +5+5 spike giant club, with RAGE, Trog hands, and several stone giant buddies.
i kill it in 4 smashes.

[Quad City QBs]

I thought Sticky Flame spawned a few jelly minions, but not as many as a big hit?  Well, in either case, I'm not out of tricks yet.  Will ruminate on this at work and post sometime tonight.

[Psieye]

It feels odd that we contemplate killing the royal jelly when tackling hell would be easier - to me anyway. I hate indecisive battles and Flan won't be impressed if we take ages either unless we bring a stack of mutation potions.

[Quad City QBs]

And welcome back to the show!  Last time, we, well... died.  Let's try not to do that again.

"Works hell on the ol' back."

I've given this some thought, and here's our strategy.  We're temporarily dropping Dig, Blade Hands and Alistair's.  We're doing this so we can learn Dragon Form--

"Wait, what?  Even with a ring and staff of wizardry, we can only cast it at Poor!"

You didn't let me finish.  We only need to successfully cast it ONCE, because we're using the other 5 spell slots on--



"Iiiiiinteresting."



On a side note, this is how to defuse acid blobs.



"Nice, but... I think I would've preferred torment resistance."

"At least you shouldn't be making any more surprise visits to the Abyss."



In that fashion, we reach Slime:6.  With the experience we gained, Dragon Form is now up to Good with assistance.  It's go time.

Music: Rie Kugimiya - Pre-Parade



...well.  That didn't go quite as planned.  I didn't even get a chance to cast Haste.

"I hate you so goddamn much."

Here's the dump, and see you next time.

[Psieye]

So it's back to my save, at turn 163.7k... I'm going to take the easy option: Cocytus. 7 healing options, 3 bread sticks, Fireball and Control Teleport instead of Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Apportation and compulsory ZUN partying. Fire wands, staff of fire, steam pots, emergency Flan entertainment vials. Various jewellery. I think I'm ready. I put down half the potions at the entrance to Cocytus as there's no point risking losing too many to freeze.

A giant goldfish zombie is my first greeting. How nice. Flan approves of my invasion!



Whoops got teleported and Hell brought more out. No need for subtlety here, Immolation scroll!



Well that was insufficient. Teleport time maybe? Nahhhhhh. Ice Fiend could not handle the fire bolt danmaku wand. The rest died to Blade Hands. While I came out to rest, some reinforcements showed up:



A frost giant thought to distrub me too. I should do a patrol of the Vestibule to see what else spawned. Ah, a Yaktaur captain had stolen from our stash. The weapon's back in place now.

There is no reason not to abuse Haste while I'm not glowing:



Hi Flan, you must be on the same timer as Hell effects. More! Give me more EXP! Ooh and free entertainment for Flan too!



Hey there Komachi, taking it slow eh?



Srsly? A butterfly simulacrum?



Yay, we're back to teddy bear status~

Oh we're a chronic shouter due to Hell blasting us with radiation. No big deal. Oh and we hit Summoning Lv 10 so we can read that Demonology book and learn Abjuration.

Glow mutation attempt resisted. Now provided I don't get ambushed from behind, this'll be a good EXP harvest:



Why is Hell being consistent today? I've never been blasted with radiation this often:



Hmm, Flan gave us 16 runed elven darts. And now a mummy spawned from Hell effects, I don't have any immediate summons to deal with it. Do I have a trap nearby? Never mind, I lost it.

Nue's new look after Flandre modified her:



1800 turns have passed. Gonna take a short break from Cocytus to bring down more food supplies.

Oh goody, Flan gave us another gift: 31 STONES. We're back to teddy bear thanks to this though, after being a toy.

I don't know what to train up anymore. I'll just let random combat be my training. Unarmed combat and Fighting are always good.

Huh? I thought this was a Flandre exclusive effect?



Flandre is having a really fun time here. Wow and this glassing effect was HUGE.

WHAT HAVE YOU CREATED TOTAKU?!?



That mutation potion was drank straight away, meaning I forgot I had the resist mutation amulet on. Oh well.

Flan gives us a heads up she'll be wanting enjoyment out of that Robustness she gave us:



Hmm... need to relocate:



Seriously? A soul eater appearing is amusing to Flan? This is getting too easy to keep her happy.

Carnivore? Well ok Flan:



This is the generosity of the Scarlet Devil Mansion:



What an inconvenient bridge:



I gotta remember to keep Clarity on when Glow is gone:



Aww, that dragon didn't leave behind meat.

Ummu, that's 50k EXP Flandre set us back by:



More skill training for us, though it'll be next turn that we find out what her 6th demonspawn mutation is. The rot effect is exactly why I bring healing potions.

Unng, I'll assume this means Flandre wants us to do Gehenna next, but I'll be running out of turns soon.



Oh come ON now Flan, are you saying you're already bored?



There, happy now?



Hmm yes, for once I should listen to that voice from Hell:



Ah, how nice:



Oh and those rune darts from much earlier were Reaping darts.

HA HA HA HA HA, I GET TO FIGHT SLIMES TOO!



Wow, most pointless Hell punishment ever. Well ok, it COULD have been inconvenient:



Harrrr, good tactical dilemma you put me in, monsters:



Oh drat, I left all my teleport scrolls above when I was engaging those lava snakes. I forgot to bring the utility wands too. Yeah I got chain tormented by that one Ice Fiend.

No Mana, No HP, No Utility Items. I run into the shaft to try my luck.



I'm still alive:



Turn's just about up, but I'm gonna get back to safety before I end this turn.

Alright, let me gather basic equipment for Totaku and... oh drat, more respawns? Oh just one Yaktaur captain. Well it was good food at least. Ok, 5200 turns and confirmed there are no more respawns - I must have just missed that guy when he spawned with the rest.

Cocytus:5 has a nice Jelly room that should be wandering around the frozen hells by now. Cocytus:6 was as far as I got in my EXP hunt. I recommend doing Gehenna up to the penultimate floor or farming the Abyss. Do not hit Cocytus:7 until we have Torment resistance, be that from mutation or lich form. Cocytus is manageable because I've never had to fight more than 1 Fiend at a time. Fireball does not have enough killing power for the ice demons or Myons but is useful against slimes. Just forget fireball now, it doesn't suit us.

[barasia]

the odds dont look good for Nue.
After totaku, i'll take my turn ok?

[Totaku]

the odds dont look good for Nue.
After totaku, i'll take my turn ok?

Yeah I know your up next. I've been busy, but I 've been keeping track.

I probably won't write an update till tonight or tomorrow. I got a few more sprites to throw in, and I still haven't had time to work on the yukkuri abominations.

Either way.... I would like to report that Crawl 0.7 is on Release Canidate #3. And from what I got from the gist of the staff they're going to remain work on bug fixes up to the last possible moment.... In other words, they're goal is to release it probably around the 30th or 31st. Just in time for the Annual Crawl Tournament that'll be start in August 1st.

[Totaku]

Time to make a post with my report...
When we last left off, Nue had just finished taking her first trip through hell and decided she was going to take a brake....


She decided that for this time, she could take adventage of her teleportitis, so she decided to forget control teleport and decided that what she needed to learn was to deflect missiles.

Deflect missles is a strong version of repel missles.  As it can make you up to 2/3 resistant to missle attack which will prove useful with one place we are going....

So where did she go again?

Back to the Lair and went to the shop to  get a scroll of aquirement. And ask for jewlwery... what did she get?

Something really useful!


A control flight amulet with str, evasion and AC boost? AWESOME!

And so Nue returns to the Slime pits once more.


Pretty much alot of the same stuff happened....switching between corrosion and mutation amulet, killing eyes, ect...

But thankfully now Nue got back to level 24!
Int up and dex up! And what did Nue get?

The ability to channel energy into Mana!

So now Nue can sacrafice a tiny fraction of health to gain MP. This can be very useful!


As usual, Flan had her fun, and Nue always killed whatever demons Flan sent...

Course we also run into an orange brain here (that's rare)


And it unfortunately mutates Nue.

Now Nue will be screaming even more....

And an acid blob manages to corrode Nue's cloack too...


Course Shining eyes seems to make it worse....

Now Nue will be teleporting even more!


Eventually we reach the bottom,and so Nue finally confronts the Royal Jelly once more... but not without more probelms. Mainly now she get's mutated more and now has anger issues.....actually this could have an advantage....

Anyways, upon reaching our Royal highness.... Nue decides to..... Haste, swift, stone skin, regen, repel missles, BLADE HANDS GO!!



The assult was a success, his royal jelliness was unable to harm nue and with some sticky flames it proved to work even better! Before too long the royal Jelly became weak. And started to retreat.... We're not letting it run.... HELL FIRE!!!!

At last, his royal jelliness is no longer alive... and thus the reign of the slime is now dead as well as thier god.

Which means the loot is up for grabs!

Let's teleport away from these jellies!

And so here we are...earlier I was teleported into the upper right vault mainly there were some scrolls and money I grabbed thier and that amulet stinks, so it's not good...

Anyways, time to break into the remaining 3.....


We get the cure mutation potion and consume it. Thankfully, Nue's gotten better!

Not alot of things here were interesting sadly.. however I found these things...


A dagger with levitation and a high evasion boost + stab bonus? Cool!

There wasn't much else that stood out, so Nue went and fought off the Royal Jellies, remaining slime, took the rune and split!

(Also I'm susprised how hard Acid blobs can hit! OUCH! It's worse than thier spit!)

Anyways, Nue went back to the hive to get her mutation potions and decided to play mutation roullete. And started consuming them to try to get rid of some of the nasty effects....



The end result was for the better!

So now Nue can heal alot faster and not longer had negative intellegence. But now she's still has yelling problems, still has anger problems, and still teleports.....

But overall she's better than before...

Now Nue takes her remaining mutation potions to hell and decides to stop to take a brake, thus ending her turn....


Now as of right now, it seems, Hell, the Abyss, and Pandemonium (and the tomb if we decide to learn haunt) are our only stops. Were edging to level 25. And unless we get one more mutation, this could be it to Nue's mutation gain...we will see....

Also go and repair that cloak of conservation. It was thankfully the only piece of armor that took some damage from all the slime spitting that took place in that dungeon...

And as for Nue, she got alot of cool benifits, but at the same time, she still seems to teleport, she still screams alot, and now has anger issues. But to be honest, I think these can all be dealt with. Cause I think we have counter measures for all of them.

So for now I'll let you guys roll with what Nue does in the later turns. We got 4 Runes now so we went through alot, but at least now we have only the more dangerous areas to tackle...

So anyways, here's a mod update.
http://www.mediafire.com/?ehce8d5r09y5atx
Pretty much I only updated two charaters into the mix. That aren't appearing in this game since we didn't get them.

Purgy has been replace with Parsee
And the Leaehan hydra has been replaced with Ran.

And turn order is like this now....

Barasia
MaullarMaullar
Psieye
Totaku

Good luck and happy crawling!

[Psieye]

The stasis amulet will be essential for most fights now. Very good job with killing the royal jelly.

[barasia]

i was hoping to take a chance to brawl with the Royal Jelly, but it seems i'm left with the harder levels.

i'm abit at a dillemma of whether to go straight for the Beer Of zun, or leveling up Nue to Fulllevels first.
i feel confident at handling the Halls of Zun, but i know Nue can't deal with the final level without some trump card first. we'll see how it goes. any suggestions?

i'm thinking of handling Tombs....

[Totaku]

If you think you have a good way to keep summoning to deal with all the pesky mummies, then I have no reason to object the Tomb. There's also the Hall of Blades which we haven't fully explored mainly due to Yuyuko. So there's two spots right there. Plus we have enough stuff that we can probably take on the Abyss too.  As I always have said, haste and swift are your friend down there. So if you want to play it safe. There's my options. Just remember that in all cases make sure Nue has a way to back up her "anger management" issues.

[Psieye]

If you haven't done it already, I'm going to hit Gehenna on my turn. I think we have enough rF+ gear.

[barasia]

Great news:
Necromutation.
Haunt
GET

How?
Use, Staff of Wizardry (i cant believe Hell doesn't have it!, i had to go to simes to get it. heck, Hell didn't even have Necromicon. i had to go to Lair to get it too)
Theres a God Gifted ring of Int +6 in D:14.
Who ever got it NEGLECTED to pick it up to test it. thankfully, i used Ctrl+F "ring of int"
i also used ringof Wizardry.

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Extension
here is a rather neat tactic, so that we can save spell slots.
i recommend Totaku to include the new init.txt, so that we are forced to cast "Extension".
let me do more housework ,and probably make a fast trip to Tombs

Edit: did i mention i did another MUTATION ROULLETE before i cast Necromutation?
also i find that when we are in Teddy Bear status, somehow our Mutation Roulettle becomes much more favourable.
i've come across some very sweet mutations.
Heres a summary:
No more Shouts
No more telepotitis
Robust 10%
Resist fire +3(omfg! a string of good mutation after another...this never happened before in my entire Crawl life)
REsist Mutation+1(yes its locked in)
we lost abit of AC, but its well worth it

so yes, with Necromutaion, there wont be anymore Mutation. This is the final form of Nue. And its in a kickass form.


Edit2:my mistake, Hell DID have a staff of Wizardry. its jst that Ctrl+F "Staff of wizardry" doesn't show up in Hell because its hidden under other staffs.

Edit:3 forget Tombs. since im already at Hell stash, imma conquer Cocytus(Psieye called Gahenna)
we already have Flame spells and Hell Fire, so This Cocytus will be EASY MODE. currently at 176000 tuns.
will end it at 180000.

Edit4: i gotta go to study soon.
During the Cocytus run, i ran into a vampire, and realised, that i haven't learned ABJURATION yet.
i returned to te Book to Demonology to ge Abjuration BUT.....

Now im in an entirely new dillemma.
Which is Better.

Haunt
or
summon Demon

Haunt= lots of ghosts, Smite targetted.
Summon Demon = single summon. summon nearby, so you can spam...
(note: youcan summon buterflies, then HAUNT YOUR BUTTEFLIES, that way you get some ghosts even without enemies present. neat trick huh.)

Demons are so much powerful than ghosts.
but a single Haunt summons lots of ghosts(like 4- 5)

Any suggestions?

[Zengar Zombolt]

I'd say Haunt + Butterfly would work better for the spamming potential. Hell, it already sounds like EX-Spammals!

[barasia]

God, so many edits....

For REference,
Haunt costs 6 spellslot(hence 6 mana)

Summon Demon= 5
summon demonic horde =6 (just a party of  imps of all types, note that Imps can cast spells while ghosts cant)
Summon greater demon = 7. (with staff of wizardy + ring of int+6, it is "very good", but i won't take that chance. bad experiences......unless we get an Executioner or whatever Totaku turned it into this time)

do note that Hunger is irrelevant due to lich form.

i'll hold off my run until we finish discussing what path/spells to take.

[Psieye]

If we don't get Haunt (which won't have side effects due to lich form) then let it be demonic horde. Greater demon is out of the question with our measly summoning skill - Nue wasn't built with army leadership in mind. The point of Haunt/Horde is to get something that can cause traffic jams. Nue kicks enough ass by herself to not need them except as distraction mooks (because butterflies tend to just fly away). Ideally I'd like summon tentacle horde but that's not available and is well beyond Nue's expertise.

I vote Haunt instead of Horde, just because we have Lich form to take advantage of and we're better at Necromancy than Summoning.

[Zengar Zombolt]

Hey if anything all the summoning I care about is for the tombs. :V

[Psieye]

As far as I'm concerned, just being in Lich form is all we need for tombs. Killing anything higher than the mundane mummy creates a necromancy miscast effect - which lich form negates a lot of. So what if we get a soul eater or a Komachi summoned on us? The real danger had always been torment spam.

[Totaku]

And let's not forget having your potions rotting into decay potions... one of the major reasons I hate going there.

Anyways, I say Haunt again for Necromutation values. And yes, by all means....AVOID GREATER DEMON SUMMONING! It doesn't matter ow good you are. Sooner or later the demon will retaliate and try to kill you!