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Jon Dowland: nautilus sums

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:07:34 +0000

I've got a ISO image that I wish to burn to DVD. I've got a copy burned already which has the same MD5 sum as the ISO file. I've just attempted to burn it another two times, both using nautilus cd burner (well, right click and 'burn image'). In both cases, the sum ended up being different, but strangely, the sum was the same for both of these subsequent burns.

Has anyone else experienced problems getting 1:1 burns with nautilus cd burner?

Afterglow: Sony Ericsson K850i

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:32:32 +0000

After almost six months with a Sony Ericsson K850i, offered through Rogers Wireless in Canada, I thought it was about time to make some comments on its use since my critique should be worth its weight in gold. Isn’t that the only commodity that will keep its value through the oncoming recession? Let’s go straight for [...]

Afterglow: Jumping on That Web Media Bandwagon

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:55:19 +0000

I designed and implemented The Relations of Natural Systems back in 2004 more as a favour for a friend than a venture I was eager to jump into. I was thrown a couple hundred bones for my efforts, but the final product was somewhat of a archaic mess that would never generate traffic. This may [...]

breathing water: mewse @ 2008-10-02T18:01:00

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:59:34 +0000

Simon Howard: Does this make me an Internet star?

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:04:47 +0000

I was reading the Wikipedia article about Ken Silverman's PNGOUT, which is a program for creating optimised versions of PNG images. However, it was the screenshot in that article that intrigued me the most. Upon further investigation, it seems that a group of Wikipedia users have been running a minor contest amongst themselves to create the most optimised version possible of an image I originally uploaded three years ago.

It's really weird when you stumble across things like this.

Afterglow: The Nail Was in the Coffin Long Ago

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:40:30 +0000

Insert more funeral jokes. Welcome to another edition of me telling you what is already known. So St. Anger was an utter embarrassment of tin drums and dull songwriting. After watching the album’s documentary Some Kind of Monster, I could only conclude that Lars Ulrich is one of the smuggest motherfuckers on [...]

Simon Howard: c-algorithms 1.2.0

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:28:01 +0000

Version 1.2.0 of my C Algorithms library is up. The biggest changes in this release are the improvements to the test suite. I've written a bit about the test process that I've been using for improving the library.

Learning about coverage tools has been an interesting process. I liken writing tests without using coverage analysis to trying to optimise code without doing any profiling. With optimisation, it's easy to pick something that you think is a bottleneck and waste lots of time optimising it; in the same way, I've found that it's possible to write tests that you think are exercising the code in a satisfactory way, but actually aren't. Profiling helps to show exactly what's going on. In the course of analysing the library, I found a bug that should have been shown up in the tests, but wasn't, because the tests weren't exercising all of the code as I assumed they were.

Testing how code behaves in failure conditions is as important as testing how it behaves normally, so I wrote some code that uses #define macros to wrap the standard C allocation functions and allow the tests to simulate memory allocation failures. Again, coverage analysis is helpful here, too.

All in all, I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing a data structures and algorithms library, considering that all of these things have already been implemented hundreds of times over by different people. I originally wrote the library to remove the dependency of Irmo on GLib. Since then it's taken on a life and direction of its own, probably due to my own slightly obsessive nature. I think I just like the process of crafting something to the highest quality I possibly can.

(Also: Open source software with a test process? World coming to an end!)

Colin Phipps: Nethack 10-Game Streak

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:10:26 +0000

I have been back into playing Nethack over the last year. I used to be a keen Nethack player back at school, when one of the teachers installed it on some of the computers in the computer science lab; and I had played it intermittently for a few years after that, never getting very far. After a break of nearly 5 years, I found alt.org's public nethack server and resumed playing. I ascended for the first time last year.

Earlier this year, I was playing quite a bit of Nethack, and had my best run of form ever, ascending 10 games of Nethack in a row. For those not familiar with the game, ascending Nethack at all is considered very hard; once you have done it once, it is generally not very hard to ascend again, but to ascend consistently (that is, without many failed attempts) is very difficult and requires that you make very few mistakes. 10 ascensions in a row is very good indeed, and ranks amongst the longest ascension streaks on alt.org.

My original intention was just to beat my previous best streak of 3 ascensions — hence why I was playing the easier roles in games 3 through 5. Having passed my previous record, I kept going, and made it to 10 in a row (and finally foolishly died to a mumak on game 11). To see the roles, scores, and to show that they were all consecutive, see my list of game outcomes on alt.org (see 2008-05-03 through 2008-06-16).

From about game 4 onwards I was taking notes as I played, and I later went back and filled in descriptions for the first few games. So detailed descriptions of the 10 games follow (warning: spoilers). All of the game dumplogs are held on alt.org and are also linked from the descriptions below. And, as always on alt.org, all the games are recorded and the recordings can also be retrieved from the preceding link; or, at the moment, I have set them up playing in a continuous loop on termcast.org (title cph).

Update: I have fixed the links to the game summaries (dumplogs), as NAO had compressed them by accident and have now uncompressed them.

1) neutral male human Priest

I chose neutral, so the Eye would be available if I got an early wish, and I might get lucky and get Magicbane as a sacrifice gift. St: 15, Dx: 12, a good priest start.

I made a fairly poor start, almost dying to a small mimic in a general store on dlvl 3 (escaped by Elberething my way to the door). And then got very lucky/unlucky all at once — wandered into a magic trap on the same level, stepped away to a wall (to reduce the number of things attacking me at once) and fell into a pit, and then struck out at the nearest enemy I couldn't see — and it was a gas spore. I had 10 HP (after the pit fall), regained 1 on the turn before hitting the spore, lost 10 to the explosion (although, amusingly, I advanced to XL2 (because most of the other stuff spawned by the trap was killed by the explosion too) before it took off the 10hp, so I never went below 3hp), made XL2. My pet died fighting the remnants, and I prayed to get my HP restored (gained 5 max hp in fact).

The Oracle was high, at dlvl5, making it easy enough to get to soko, where I established my stash as usual under a boulder on soko1, and found the first wand was speed — excellent. soko2 was a problem — no wand of the left side of the level is often bad news in soko, and indeed it was a wand of fire, wielded by a wererat, that faced me once I kicked down the door to the far room. First hit took off half my hp; fled into the corridor, but even with speed that wasn't enough to escape; second hit killed the two killer bees that were ahead of him, and took me to 1hp. Prayed to get back my hp, and then charged him (the time praying meant he was only a few paces away). He got off one more shot, which missed me, before I killed him. All enemies dead, wand of fire in my possession — a decent outcome, albeit my AC was now 7 due to all the burned armor.

That was no good to fight the soko zoo, so I trekked back to an altar, to use my starting spell 'create monster' to summon some stuff and maybe get some equipment; no joy. Still needing some decent armour, I wandered into the mines to see if I could get any. Fell through a trapdoor down 1 level, but I got the dwarvish mithril I wanted. Finding the downstair first, I deviated even more from my usual pattern and went down to minetown (usually I always finish soko first). And, lucky me, Izchak had a magic lamp — but the djinni gave me nothing! Darn. But with the armour from the mines, I had AC -2, so back to the soko zoo. An orc with a wand of striking made life a bit difficult here, but no big problem & I got the amulet of reflection around turn 6400.

Back to the mines; but first, I stopped off at the altar on route, tried some more sacrificing — and got Cleaver. Not what I would have chosen, but certainly better than the starting mace. Heading down through the mines for real this time, I found a magic marker and a +2 dwarvish mithril. Then I ran into a bones level — a samurai, who must have previously run into a wizard bones, judging by the marker, cloak and spellbooks he was carrying. I returned to the altar in the main dungeon and its nearby scroll shop, to buy some identify scrolls, bless them, and identify the cloak — yes, it's a cloak of magic resistance. Back to the mines, and I then find the remains of the wizard bones on the same level as the samurai bones — but the good stuff I already had, except for a bag of holding. The bag was cursed, but no problem to carry, so I suspected there wasn't much in it [later found it was empty].

I still didn't have poison resistance, so had to play very defensively when meeting a giant spider on the next level, and another on the next. Then, of course, the RNG serves me a group of Uruk-hai with poisoned arrows, and another giant spider. On the plus side, I finally got a unicorn horn, and also found a wand of polymorph [eventually ascended polyless]. Then a scorpion on the next level; I took a chance and ate it, but still no poison resistance. Got the wine cellar mines end (easily the best, due to the number of potions), and another giant spider, which I ate and finally got poison resistance. Then some elf lords turn up, and I get sleep resistance too. Turn 12100, I have PR, SR, MR, unihorn, reflection — game looks on for an ascension.

Plain sailing from there. I blessed a touchstone I had found in the mines, IDed all the gems from mines end, sold them in shops and bought lots of protection from the minetown priest. I then worked down the main dungeon, digging (pick-axe) direct routes between the stairs, and using potions of object detection to find vaults. More create monster and sacrificing to max out my luck at the next altar I found. Found the portal to Ludios; went back to minetown to buy more protection before fighting it, taking my AC to -10. More sacrificing, until finally I got... Vorpal Blade. Again I may have hoped for something better, but I would have wanted to get Vorpal as well (would have got crowned if needed, just to take it out of play on Astral), so I'm not complaining. I decided to use Vorpal as my main weapon, to avoid the two-handed weapon problem in Gehennom. With +5 Vorpal, I cleared Ludios, and in particular killed the silver dragon there and made a silver dragon scale mail.

Next I did the quest, enchanted up the Mitre, and read all the spellbooks that I had been collecting and those from shops higher up in the dungeon. I now had some very useful spells, including magic missile, jumping, and identify. I got a magic lamp on my way down to the castle, which I retained as a light source. I got the Titan medusa, but, with magic missile and a ring of conflict, he was no big problem. The level below was the castle, where I used the drawbridge to kill the first wave of enemies, including the liches, and then killed the soldiers. I got the wand of wishing around turn 30500, and established stash #2 in the castle chest. Went down to the Valley, genocided L, emptied the various chests in the graveyards there, and also found (cursed -1) Frost Brand, which I enchanted up to a decent level and switched to using for Gehennom.

I had not used any wishes from the castle wand, and was hoping to do an opportunistic wishless ascension, so I didn't wish up a magic marker, and instead mapped Gehennom manually. I didn't get the best of luck finding Vlads, so it was around turn 36000 that I got the Candelabrum. Continuing down, I beat Orcus and got the wand of death at (0:5). I found the vibrating square at turn 38500. Then I did a final round of armor enchanting and alchemising to boost my HP.

The ascension run went smoothly. I got a cockatrice corpse in the Wizard's tower, luckily, so I used that to kill the Wizard. I had no cursed teleport scrolls, so had to walk down to the VS; got a second 'trice corpse on they way, which I used to bash my way across the sanctum graveyard & kill the High Priest & second appearance of the Wizard. Smooth ascent, thanks to some cursed potions of gain level I had been saving. The planes were straightforward, due to a ring of conflict for Air, and an earlier throne genocide of electric eels; and wands of teleport got me to the first altar on astral without too much trouble, which proved to be the right one.

cph, neutral male human Priest




                                   ---------
                                   |.......|
                                  4|.......|
                                   |...@...|5
                                   |..@....|
                                |  |...A...|  |
                                |55----.---- .|
                                |...4.4%%.4...|
                                ---..4.D.15.---
                                  -----@-----
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                                         1   |
                                            --   -
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                                   ----.----   ---
                                        [      |
                                   -------------

Cph the Canon St:18/83 Dx:18 Co:18 In:17 Wi:23 Ch:19 Neutral S:1609615
Astral Plane $:0  HP:218(218) Pw:250(250) AC:-31 Exp:20 T:41942

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1209321224.nh343.txt
Schroedinger's cat: dead
Astral altars: 1
Wizard kills: 5
Conducts (opportunistic): wishless, polyless
Wishes: -

2) neutral male human Tourist

Oh boy, the hard one. Ascending a tourist at all must be one of the great computer gaming achievements. St:13, Dx:8, Co:15, In:14 — well, only the dexterity is terrible, so it could be worse. (Because I always do sokoban first, I prefer to have higher Dx and lower St, since St tends to improve nicely in soko.) Almost died to a fox on dlvl 1 when it got between me and my pet. Since I couldn't kill anything tougher than a newt or lichen, I was glad to find plenty of both on dlvl 2; I had got an orcish dagger off a goblin and soon got to basic with that.

I found the downstair to the mines on dlvl 3, and as it was lit and the stairs were in a long dead-end passage, I stayed there, bashing away at a gnomish wizard for about 30 turns to kill him before some gnomes finally found me. This proved very useful: gnomes started throwing daggers at me, so I stood it as long as I could and then went back up with their daggers — vital ammo — and elven mithril from a hobbit. I could stand a fight now — albeit not very well, as I had a tough time fighting a giant bat next. Dlvl 5 was the oracle, and with liberal tossing of daggers I got through the hill orcs here without too much trouble; I got lucky and found a tin of spinach here, taking me to a very decent St:18/01

So, Sokoban, where I established my stash as usual on soko1. I found a runed broadsword on soko2, which became my main combat weapon. No wand on left again, and this time it was a wand of magic missile in the hands of a hill orc — reducing me to 7hp, just low enough to pray, so I did, restoring my hp and I then killed him. Soko early as a tourist is a bit of a pain, because you aren't strong enough to leave your pet on the level below, and it always gets in the way. The sokoban zoo wasn't too bad — I got poison resistance from a naga hatchling corpse, and got the amulet of reflection around turn 6100.

I went back to an altar I had passed in the main dungeon and started sacrificing using a wand of create monster I had obtained from sokoban. I got gifted Giantslayer — hmm, well, it's an artifact with a to-hit bonus, useful while I'm at only Dx:10. Things got a bit out of hand for a bit, when a gnome king knocked me down to 20hp and I had to use a teleport scroll to get away, then running into a band of Mordor orcs. Then team ant show up, in the form of some fire ants. I play carefully for a bit, dusting Elbereth and taking my time to recover hit points, and eventually the orcs and gnome king are all dealt with.

So to the mines, where I don some iron shoes, which — together with dwarvish mithril to replace my elven, and misc other bits of armour I'm collecting — takes me to AC -3. With Giantslayer partly offsetting my poor to-hit, I am now at the point where I can play more like a combat character at last.

I get the town-square minetown, one of the nicest layouts just because it's easy to move around. Izchak had a magic lamp! I was feeling the benefit also of having Ch:18, which made for some relatively cheap kit from the minetown shops. I needed holy water to bless the lamp, so I flushed a few potions in the minetown fountains and headed back to the main dungeon (minetown temple was crossaligned). A nearby acid blob fell to my pet, went on the altar, to confirm I could pray, and then I prayed with my 2 potions of water on the altar — just enough for the lamp & a potion of holy water to be the seed for more. Got the wish and — easy decision for a Tourist with AC -3 and no magic resistance — picked Magicbane (for my money, the best item in the game, and I rarely lose a game once I have it).

Much still to do, though — back in the mines, I ran into a black light and had to lock myself in a room in minetown to wait it out. My pet had got polymorphed into a lynx (very useful) and I found a luckstone just lying around. I stuck with the script and went to mines end anyway (hoping to find more useful tools, a bag of holding in particular would be nice...); I got the excellent wine cellar mines end, where I also found a touchstone, and found a dwarf had already mined the vault (around turn 11800). I grabbed the potions, washed out the booze in the fountain, and ditched some surplus equipment (including the camera, unused).

Back in the main dungeon, I ran into a unicorn & grabbed the unicorn horn. I did some sacrificing to improve my luck; I got gifted Trollsbane, then Dragonsbane. Heading down the dungeon, I hit a trapdoor on dlvl 11 — and fell to dlvl 18, 7 levels down, very unusual, but no problem. Finally got sleep resistance from a grey elf on dlvl 15 — that's PR, SR, MR, reflection, unihorn obtained, should be plain sailing from here. I went back down to dlvl 18 to donate to a priest there, gaining 4 points of protection.

I ran into some trouble on dlvl 20, where I was fighting a captain and an ettin when a mumak attacked me from behind; I had to teleport away, and then put the captain to sleep while I healed and dealt with the rest (not helped by an Aleax turning up around the same time).

Next, the quest, where the main problem was managing to carry all the loot acquired; although I did have a tough fight when a barracks of soldiers crowded around me on the upstairs of the locate level. I got a spellbook of identify in a shop. The nemesis was easily beaten with sleep, and I had the Bell and PYEC by turn 28500. After much training using detect food, I got to basic skill in divination, and could cast identify well. My pet got polymorphed into something crap, so I played with a poly trap until he polymorphed into a captain.

Going down, I got the titan Medusa, and had a hell of a fight with the titan, as he summoned enough stuff to half fill the room. My pet soon died, and I was holding out by Elberething with MB. One of the summoned monsters was a black dragon, though, which helped thin the crowd (including killing an inconveniently summoned minotaur). Eventually the titan strayed close one time too many and I killed him. The black dragon left scales, and to give myself better casting, I set aside my +4 dwarvish mithril and make a black dragon scale mail instead. There was also a demilich at Medusa, but I dealt with him without problem. The castle went smoothly, using the drawbridge to crush the first wave of monsters including the liches as usual, and got to the wishing wand around turn 32800.

There was a silver dragon at the castle, but it left no scales. I then almost got myself in trouble — a hill giant threw a boulder at me in one of the side corridors, and I moved towards him, and he threw another, and I kept moving towards him — leaving a 2 boulder plug behind me, and I had no striking wands or pick-axe (and it's a dead end on a no-teleport level). I kept my cool, though, Elberethed and forced the giant back into the corridor, where he picked them up again — problem solved. I started going back up, and made a slip at Medusa — distracted by dealing with the last electric eel, I fell in the water; high luck saved me from any real damage, though. I went back up and picked up everything from my various stashes, also washing out useless potions and wiping scrolls in fountains, and going back to minetown to buy my candles. I also emptied a potion shop of everything useful, or cheaply washable to water. I also did some sacrificing & praying at an altar, until I got crowned — and shoved Vorpal straight in a trunk (out of the way for Astral) and dug direct paths between the stairs as I went back down. Back at the castle, I wished up scrolls of charging and then a magic marker, and enchanted my armour to AC -24. Note that I still have magic resistance from Magicbane only, and a black dragon scale mail.

To the Valley then, with +5 Magicbane and a silver sabre two-weapon, which cut through the undead well. I was going genocideless now (as I usually do if I have Magicbane), so a lich made the Valley fairly lively. Better than that, I found statues, meaning it was a bones level. The bones was of newerp, who fell into one of the fixed pits near the downstair of the Valley wielding his 'trice corpse — ouch. He had stoned the priest of Moloch, leaving some spellbooks (stone to flesh, sleep, force bolt). He was a priest, so had the Mitre which was no use to me; but a grey dragon scale mail was useful and I switched to it immediately. I couldn't lift his bag of holding, and I had no cancellation, so I just opened it and grabbed as much as I could (accepting much stuff would vanish). I got various scrolls, rings and potions, and a wand of wishing. With the enchant armor scrolls I get my MB and silver sabre both to +6.

The rest of Gehennom goes fairly smoothly; the only major problem is an arch-lich on dlvl 45, which I have to chase up 2 levels before I finally pin it down. In the Wizard's tower I wish up 2 cursed scrolls of genocide and revgeno silver dragons, to get my third scale mail of the game, my preferred silver. I get a cockatrice corpse to kill the Wizard, which I also use to kill the arch/master liches in the Sanctum, the High Priest, and to fight my way back out of the Sanctum. I had the Amulet around turn 45000.

The Wizard stole the Amulet at one point during the ascent, but fell to a wand of death on the next turn. And at one point there was an arch lich amongst a group of summoned monsters, when I was fortunately not far from the stairs so I could deal with it easily. The ascent was otherwise just frustrating, with the mysterious force intervening more than a dozen times; it was turn 46450 when I reached the Valley (where there was another arch lich, dealt with with a cockatrice corpse). The second altar on Astral was the right one.

cph, neutral male human Tourist




                                   ---------@
                                   |..%....|A
            -----                  |......X|
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     ---------..--   ---           |...@...|
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                               ------------

Cph the Traveler St:18/** Dx:18 Co:18 In:16 Wi:16 Ch:18 Neutral S:1384580
Astral Plane $:0  HP:327(327) Pw:75(75) AC:-31 Exp:17 T:47673

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1209836127.nh343.txt
Astral altars: 2
Wizard kills: 6
Conducts: genoless
Wishes:

blessed fixed +2 Magicbane
2 blessed scrolls of charging
magic marker
2 cursed scrolls of genocide

3) neutral male human Barbarian

St:18/01 Dx:17 Co:18, can't go wrong with Barbarian's stats. I choose to play neutral for the better artifact choices. I got a shield of reflection on dlvl 3, nice luck. My pet died to an arrow trap on dlvl 4, not so lucky. A nymph on dlvl 6 then stole a lot of stuff — fortunately nothing vital, then a second nymph stole some more. Killed them both and got it all back. I established my stash on soko1 as usual. The RNG smiled on me and gave me the bag of holding sokoban; I always want reflection sokoban, except when I have reflection already. XL8 soko zoo is easy for a barbarian, and I have the bag by turn 4700; a unicorn shows up on soko1 as I'm making my way out, so I get my unicorn horn from that.

Into the mines next, where after much smiting I get the grotto minetown — bleh. I buy a lantern and price-id a few scrolls, and then head on towards mines end. I get a +1 dwarvish mithril, the luckstone, and more scrolls and spellbooks which I take back to minetown to price-id. While there, I get sleep resistance from a Grey-elf.

Time to descend the main dungeon then, and I don't get far before I hit a bones level, "Tuxie, killed by a Woodland elf" — wizard bones, giving me a cloak of magic resistance, and a magic marker. Now I have reflection, MR, PR, SR, unicorn horn — another game set for ascension.

At a temple on dlvl 16, my pet (now an ogre lord, thanks to a trap) kills the priest (after I get more protection), and I do some sacrificing, getting Cleaver (which I dump, as I don't like two-handed weapons). After a detour upwards to wash out some potions and gather water, I pray for my holy water at the same altar. I can bless my two potions of gain ability now, which helps my stats a lot.

I then find the portal to Ludios on the same level; there is a silver dragon there, so I decide it's well worth fighting through and hopefully getting my silver scales. It's a tough fight, with a lich and a mind flayer in the zoo, and a captain who kills my ogre lord; something breaks down the door and the soldiers pour in, so it is a long hard fight. I don't get any scales from the silver dragon in the end, so I return to my downward path to the castle.

I do some more sacrificing at an altar on dlvl 21, and get Frost Brand — now we're talking! So I now have FB and a silver sabre two-handed, one of the best weapon combinations available. This makes short work of the titan at Medusa.

Next is the Castle, and I do the usual burn E and crush with the drawbridge routine. Things get a bit interesting when a demilich starts summoning monsters around me; including a black dragon, which disintegrated a pet minotaur that I got a few levels earlier. The demilich gets crushed in the drawbridge shortly afterwards and it's plain sailing from there. Having got the wand of wishing, I head back up to the nearest altar, do some identifying, then wish up cursed scrolls of genocide and revgeno silver dragons. I soon have my silver scale mail, and praying for holy water I also get crowned (which I would have wanted anyway, just so I can stash Vorpal away).

After a brief detour back to minetown, to buy my candles, I went on the Quest. A tinning kit here made life fairly easy, until I got to the nemesis; Thoth Amon cursed my sword and unihorn, and I had to chase him up to the level above before I could get on the upstairs and finish him. Then back down to the castle with as much loot as I can carry. Gehennom goes smoothly, and I have found the vibrating square by around turn 32000.

I get a cockatrice corpse in the Wizard's tower, which I kill the Wizard with. I then level-teleport down to the VS, do the ritual, and level teleport into the Sanctum — I land in the left area near the temple, so I get into the temple without too much fighting, and kill the High Priest with the same 'trice corpse. I wish up unholy water so I can curse my gain level potions, and I get out of the sanctum using one of them. The ascent goes quickly, apart from a brief pause to kill Asmodeus (not sure how he ended up at the Swamp), and I'm ready to enter the endgame at turn 33700. I use up a couple more wishes here — a stethoscope, just because it's handy, and a cursed unicorn horn, because I don't have a way to confuse myself. (Should have picked up a horn along the way somewhere and just cursed it, but never mind.)

I use cursed gold detection on Earth, and booze + gold detection (+ conflict) on Air. Fire was a nightmare — I have to use the cursed unicorn horn to try and get confusion, but instead I get blind, hallu, and deathly sickness several times (I even have to use a potion of full healing one time, because my blessed unihorn fails several times in a row and I'm scared I'll actually kill myself). While I'm grappling with my unihorn effects, an Archon turns up. Fortunately it walks right up to me, and I'm glad of the stethoscope to check progress against it — it is dead in a few turns. Back to unihorning... more blindness, stun and deathly sickness later, I finally get confusion; it has taken about 70 turns (albeit that includes the Archon fight). Water isn't quite so bad, only 20 turns and a couple of deathly-sick before I get confusion. Astral goes smoothly, as the first altar is the right one.

cph, neutral male human Barbarian




                                   ---------
                                   |....@..|
                                   |...@...| A
                                   |...@...|
                                  A|.......|
                                |aA|.a.....|  |
                                |.a----%---- .|
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                                   ----.----   -
                                        )
                                  ------------

Cph the Raider St:18/** Dx:18 Co:18 In:16 Wi:21 Ch:11 Neutral S:1169442
Astral Plane $:0  HP:157(294) Pw:64(64) AC:-30 Exp:16 T:34091

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1210618565.nh343.txt
Schroedinger's cat: dead
Astral altars: 1
Wishes:

2 cursed scrolls of genocide
2 potions of unholy water
blessed stethoscope
cursed unicorn horn.

4) lawful female dwarven Valkyrie

I decided to play dwarvish, as Valks can't cast much anyway. That makes the early game fairly fast and safe. At dlvl 6 I get a throne wish, and here I make the dumbest mistake of the whole streak — I wish for the PYEC, forgetting that I'm lawful. I get blasted twice before I realise what I've done. D'oh! Gamewinning early break thrown away. Argh!

I dip and get Excalibur. I'm also using a -1 (cursed) elven mithril I got somewhere, and some +1 high boots (very good for the early game); and I find a +3 ring of protection, giving me AC -7 at turn ~3000. I get my cat to kill a unicorn in sokoban for my unicorn horn. My pet dies fighting the soko zoo, but I have no trouble and I have the amulet of reflection by turn 6800.

I get poison resistance by eating a xan on my back up to an altar on dlvl 1; at the altar I convert it and get my holy water. I get some protection from the priest at minetown, taking me to AC -12. I get the worst mines end, the catacombs, and I'm back at minetown with the luckstone at turn 9800.

I do some sacrificing on dlvl 1 to boost my luck, and I bless a couple of potions of gain level from a big potion shop on dlvl 2. This game has some excellent shops, with a big jewellery shop on dlvl 4 too. I get a couple of rounds of protection from a priest on dlvl 12 (taking me to AC -14), and establish a stash on dlvl 11 due to weight problems.

Dlvl 18 is the Rogue level, and it's a bones too, of "tafryn". He has a bag of holding, which by shedding a lot of equipment I am just able to pick up and uncurse. Once I have that blessed, I head back up to empty my stashes so I can carry as much down to the castle as possible. I also find the portal to Ludios, but there are no silver dragons there, and I don't need the wands.

I blunder into a mind flayer round a corner on dlvl 21, but fortunately my helmet protects me. There is a massive cockatrice nest on dlvl 22, which unfortunately wakes up, but I manage to slip past, leaving the level crawling with 'trices.

I get the titan Medusa, peaceful, and dig straight past and land in the castle. With no magic resistance, I'm glad to find no purple L there. After the usual drawbridge crushing routine, I get the wand of wishing at turn 17500; after charging scrolls, I wish for a magic marker, then write cursed genocide and get my silver dragon scale mail; I then wish for a cloak of magic resistance once I have checked there is none in the armoury (I do get jumping boots from the armoury, though). So, finally I have MR, PR, SR, reflection and unihorn; ascension should be a formality from here.

I head back up after that, to do the quest and empty stashes and potion shops back in the dungeon. Then on to the quest, using a potion of gain level to get to xl 14. I get a magic lamp on Home 2, which I bless but use for a light source for now. Otherwise it's uneventful, with most of the work being eating every giant that I can and then jumping around to sweat off the nutrition. I get the orb of weight around turn 21200.

Back down to the castle, then. I get a surprise along the way, when the titan at Medusa goes hostile and summons immediately when I arrive. I kill the titan, and then remember I have a 'trice corpse from the nest on the level above which I picked up on the way, and easily clear the summoned enemies. I use the same to clear the remaining barracks at the Castle. I get a full identify here, where I find I have rings of conflict and free action amongst the loot, so my equipment is looking good. I enchant my Excalibur and silver sabre both to +6, and enchant my armour to AC -27.

Next, to the Valley, where I genocide L and clear the rest without problem. I found the vibrating square around turn 25200. I grab a cockatrice corpse from a passing 'trice, portal into the Wizard's tower, and levelport to the top floor, where I kill the Wizard with no problem. I then levelport straight to the vibrating square, and after doing the ritual I levelport into the left-hand side of the Sanctum level; I kill the High Priest with the same 'trice corpse. I have a very smooth climb up, reaching the Valley by turn 26300.

The end game causes no problems, as I jump past first Famine (and wand of death him on the way back) and then past Death, and the second altar proves to be the right one. 27k turns, fairly quick by my standards.

cph, lawful female dwarven Valkyrie



                                    4  4
                                 5 ---------
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                                   -------------

Cph the Warrior St:18/80 Dx:23 Co:20 In:14 Wi:16 Ch:19 Lawful S:904735
Astral Plane $:0  HP:232(238) Pw:25(25) AC:-28 Exp:16 T:27170

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1211027532.nh343.txt
Wizard kills: 3
Astral altars: 2
Wishes:

blessed Platinum Yendorian Express Card (yes, I'm a moron)
2 blessed scrolls of charging.
uncursed magic marker
blessed fixed +3 cloak of magic resistance

5) chaotic male human Wizard

I play my wizard chaotic (it's one of the few roles that isn't disadvantaged by playing chaotic) and human (I haven't tried gnomish wizard, and I know I don't want to be elven, since being more physically vulnerable is the last thing I want as a wizard). I start with rings of slow digestion and stealth, and a wand of teleportation, and a blessed scroll of enchant armor — all very good. In: 18, St: 11, Dx: 11, Co: 14 — not bad. I read the enchant armor immediately, but get only +1 on my CoMR — darn.

I find a fire horn on dlvl 3, and then, even more usefully, an apron on dlvl 4. I get pummelled by some fire ants on dlvl 7 (still only AC 8) and have to use the wand of teleport to escape; after taking a long time to heal up from that and kill the fire ants, I have to do the same thing for a single giant ant (after several attempts to dust Elbereth fail). The oracle level is also a bit too interesting — a chameleon turns itself into a lich and turns invisible, so I use the fire horn to kill it quickly. My pet eats the corpse and becomes a storm giant. I get a spellbook of detect monsters from a statue here, which is useful to train divination.

I'm still at AC 8 though, so I have a hard time with team ant on dlvl 9, having to Elbereth and park to heal up after running into a soldier ant. I get to the stairs to sokoban and establish my stash here as usual. When I find a wand of create monster on soko 1, I go back to an altar on dlvl 9 and do some sacrificing, hoping for Magicbane. I take breaks from this to do more of sokoban each time I get badly mauled. Next time I'm back at the altar, I'm having a hard time killing a cockatrice when a tiger turns up, and I have to use the teleport wand to get a reliable escape; I come back and blast the tiger, and sacrificing that gets me Magicbane.

Back into sokoban then, where the next problem is a pyrolisk — I have to drop my scrolls and potions (no bag yet) and kill it fast. I get the bag of holding sokoban, and get a white unicorn, which I tackle to get my unicorn horn. I push the storm giant ahead into the zoo to take the worst of the fighting. I finally get poison resistance here (I have been donning my apron and eating every poisonous corpse since dlvl 4, so this must be perhaps the 25th corpse I have eaten that could give PR). I'm out of the zoo, bag in hand, by turn 8900.

So to the mines, where I get the "Town Square" minetown. My pet giant can bash down doors and soon sees off several shopkeepers; I have to pay attention to keep him away from Izchak and the priest, and after a bit I just park him on the level above. The temple is coaligned, and there is a magic lamp in one of the shops, but it is cursed so I lock the watch away and dip it in the fountains here; a summoned water demon reads a cursed scroll of create monster after being confused by Magicbane, giving me 8 acid blob corpses to sacrifice too; I get Sting and Frost Brand as gifts, albeit both fountains are used up and my lamp is still cursed.

I head back out of the mines, then, and finally get my lamp uncursed at a fountain. I use my pet to kill a potion shopkeeper and grab all those potions, and then the potions from my stash, and wipe them at the Oracle fountains. I get my wish, and use it for a +3 silver scale mail.

I get the cellar mines end, where as usual I get all the booze and wipe it at the fountain. I also pick up a touchstone on my way there, which I bless when back at minetown and identify all my gems with; selling these gives me enough for another round of protection from the minetown priest. I also got a pet soldier ant from an egg during the mines.

Back in the main dungeon, I get my storm giant to kill a jewellery shopkeeper, and take the rings and gold; and sell more gems for gold from a general shopkeeper. More sacrificing at the altar on dlvl 9 gets my luck maximised, and then I get crowned, getting finger of death.

After clearing down to dlvl 20 or so, I reach xl 14 and head for the quest. By turn 24500 I had killed the Dark One and had the Eye. I branchport back to the main dungeon, where I head down and reach the titan variant of Medusa; I easily dealt with the titan, and then dug past the rest. I get an arch-lich at the castle, which is easily defeated with Magicbane from the upstair. I get the wand of wishing (0:1) around turn 27200.

Down to the Valley, where a master lich summons nasties a few times and makes a big fight; no real problem though. Back at the castle, I wipe a spellbook in the fountain and then write identify and magic missile, and wish up a ring of free action. Gehennom goes smoothly, and I have found the vibrating square by turn 31700. I have a rather interesting fight at the fake wizard's tower getting to the tower portal, when the demilich inside summons a gremlin that gets into the moat; that, together with a cockatrice, some dragons and demons, makes life interesting for a bit.

I start fighting the Wizard's tower zoo, but the cockatrice there doesn't leave a corpse, so I abandon that fight and just levelport to the top of the tower. I finger-of-death the Wizard. I levelport to the VS level and land within 2 squares of it, very handy. I levelport into the Sanctum, and immediately a lich summons nasties including a cockatrice, and I grab the corpse. Lots of stuff gets summoned, but the rubber chicken takes care of it — in fact, I get another corpse so I'm wielding two. I kill the High Priest with them, and get the amulet around turn 32500. The climb up is uneventful, and I get through the planes fine with conflict.

Astral is a bit interesting. I head for Famine first, using FoD and magic missile to blast and jump my way in — and out, wrong altar. I then head into the sanctum with Pestilence, after drawing him out and dropping him with FoD; but more dangerous here is a knight with Vorpal Blade, who seems to have a charmed life as 4 finger-of-death shots miss him, and he survives conflict with the stuff around him. I'm reluctant to simply teleport him away, as I would prefer to keep him in sight and not risk running in to him blindly later on. Once we have killed almost everything else in that sanctum between us, I'm able to run around him and jump through the door to the temple beyond. Wrong altar again. Coming back out I know I have to pass the knight again, and now there's someone there toting a wand of lightning too; fortunately the knight has wandered to one side and I am able to get out okay; I then promptly fat-finger my way into the arms of the revived Pestilence in the hall; one potion of full healing and a couple of saves with the blessed unihorn, and I take him down with a wand of death. I melee Death, and then easily cross the final sanctum and get to the right altar.

cph, chaotic male human Wizard




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

Cph the Sorcerer St:18/85 Dx:18 Co:18 In:18 Wi:18 Ch:15 Chaotic S:1080408
Astral Plane $:0  HP:117(225) Pw:121(253) AC:-29 Exp:19 T:34018

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1211323343.nh343.txt
Wizard kills: 3
Astral altars: 3
Wishes:

blessed fixed +3 silver dragon scale mail
2 blessed scrolls of charging
magic marker
blessed ring of free action

6) neutral male human Monk

I decided to go neutral, hoping to wish for the Eye. I was also intending to keep weaponless and vegetarian [failed both; failed vegetarian only on one occasion, doh!]. St:14, Dx:18, In:11, a good start.

Heading for soko as usual, the first problem was a leprechaun on dlvl 5 with a wand of cold — which froze and shattered several of my potions, costing me near 30hp in one shot. After some thought, I used my starting spell, sleep, which neutralised him while I fled to heal. Came back with full health, got him with sleep again, (after losing more potions and about 25 health to another shot of cold) and killed him.

Next problem was falling through a trapdoor on dlvl 7, falling to dlvl 11. I was only xp6, and an owlbear being the first monster I saw showed I was out of my depth. Next I ran into 3 green elves — sleep wouldn't work for them, and they were too well armed to fight — ah, I have the wand of cold from that leprechaun earlier! A few zaps later, the green elves were dead. Working my way back up, the Oracle on dlvl 9 was a bones level, so I left it for the moment. Having got back my pet, exploring dlvl8 I found a unicorn, and had a hard time fighting it (martial arts at skilled + AC 1 isn't good enough to take on a unicorn head-on; I had to do a lot of resting to heal); in the middle of that fight, some winter wolf cubs turned up; I lost about 25hp to the first breath attack, and was more careful after that, using sleep to neutralise them at range. The unicorn then teleported away and I couldn't find it again. I did run into a cockatrice though, so I grabbed the corpse and went down to the Oracle bones.

Wolves, woodland elves, and orcs — no problem for the rubber chicken, they were all quickly neutralised. And the unicorn was here also — I didn't have a way to break the statue so couldn't stone it, so more painful fighting & resting to beat the unicorn followed. More monsters turned up during this fight, and the fight became quite tricky for a bit here. I finally found the actual bones — Qvazzler, killed by a lynx. Various wands (light, slow monster, nothing very exciting) and amulets and such gained; and apparently she was a Valkyrie, as she also had a small shield — I took a chance and wore it, and it was indeed +3 (and at +3, didn't care it was cursed). Finally killed the unicorn, unicorn horn obtained.

Made it to sokoban, established stash under a boulder on the first level, and got the bag of holding around turn 6350. I had a lamp, and had got the spell 'light', so I made brisk progress through the mines next. Mines dlvl5, which was a bones level, was dangerous; a Gnome lord with a wand of fire took off a lot of health with his first shot; I wasn't wearing my robe (couldn't risk losing it to a poly trap), so I stepped out of line of sight, put on the robe, and then zapped him with sleep, closed and killed him. The bones were of shachaf, "killed by a bolt of fire" — that fits — and had a few misc potions, a couple of identify scrolls, and an empty sack, nothing too exciting.

Minetown next, and the altar was cross-aligned; but I found I had a potion of holy water (expensive water potion from a potion shop, but I hadn't known if it was holy or unholy). Izchak had a magic lamp! I washed out various useless potions in the minetown fountains, and also some of the not-identified cursed potions from the bones, made as much holy water as I could, and blessed the lamp. I got the wish, used in to get the Eye of A — magic resistance is always important, and with no armour I was in a good position to use spells, and of course I had no telepathy (vegetarian) so it was useful as an amulet of ESP also. So, turn 8400, I have MR, PR, SR, unicorn horn — if I could just get reflecton...

Luckily minetown had a bookshop, so I learned some more spells — magic missile and detect monsters. I got the mimic mine's end; found the luckstone, and another magic lamp! I uncursed that by dipping it in the fountains at minetown, then blessed it — but decided not to use it yet. The thing I needed was reflection, but, as a monk, I couldn't use an SDSM, didn't want to use a shield of reflection (which would interfere with casting), and wishing up an amulet of reflection seemed a low yield wish. I had the amulets from the earlier bones still to identify, and decided to take a chance and hold off wishing for reflection. I used the eye to branchport to the main dungeons, back to the altar on dlvl 11, where I used the create monster spell to summon stuff to sacrifice. I got gifted giantslayer — not much use, except to unrestrict long sword skill — and this is where I messed up weaponless, bashing something with my crossbow. I was sacrificing to clear my prayer timeout and then praying on the altar, hoping to get gifted some useful spellbooks. Instead I got gifted telepathy — very useful for a vegetarian.

I explored down a bit further, then branchported mack to minetown to identify more equipment & buy more protection. I got a full identify from a blessed identify scroll, which identified a lot of gems I was carrying; so I used those to clean out all the general shopkeepers' money & buy up all their scrolls and spellbooks. I wished up the amulet of reflection, at last. More sacrificing & praying, hoping for spellbooks, and I got crowned instead — there goes that plan. Sacrificed some more to clear the prayer timeout from that & finish maximising my luck — and got gifted Frost Brand. Hmm, since I broke weaponless already, I could use that.

Working down the dungeon again, I continued to dig out vaults & get all the gold from shopkeepers (selling them gems & having my pet steal them back). Donated for 4 more points of protection to a priest on dlvl 22, and for another point to another priest on the level below, taking my AC to -13. I got the isle medusa, which was a tougher fight than usual, with some storm giants and then a silver dragon (why does it have to be the monk game where I get one of those in the main dungeon?) assailing me before I even tried to cross the water. Burned E on the stairs and had no real problem. Medusa was deep at dlvl28, Castle was right below it, with no purple L; I made it to the wand of wishing around turn 22000.

Next I polypiled for armour, spellbooks and rings in the castly armoury. I got neither the T-shirt nor the spellbook of drain life I was mainly after, but did get rings of free action and teleport control. I decided to use frost brand and enchanted it to +7; and enchanted up my armour to AC -21. Next I cleared the Valley, genociding L. Back at the castle, I grabbed every spellbook and bit of armour I could, and branchported to sokoban, where I polypiled some more. I got a spellbook of identify, and also magic mapping and jumping.

Next the quest — I got to Kaen's level, went back up, and wished for a spellbook of drain life and a +3 T-shirt, taking my AC to -24; I also happened to have found a +5 ring of protection, so I put that on also; that still wasn't enough to stop Kaen knocking off 50 hp in two combat rounds. I drew him upstairs and fought him from the downstair there, using drain life on him, casting healing on myself while he fled to the upstair to heal, beating him comfortably in the end.

On my way back, I found the portal to Ludios; as I was a little short of the most useful wands, I decided to fight it. I got a cockatrice corpse from the zoo there and worked my way through the soldiers very quickly using that.

Next, Gehennom. Having the magic mapping spell and the Eye, this was straightforward. I did have an incident at Juiblex's, where I got dropped in the swamp when I killed Juiblex while engulfed; grease and high luck prevented any significant harm. As usual I did some alchemy at Orcus' town, to bring my hit points up to 230. On the level below, I got my third magic lamp of the game, which I used as a light source (I didn't want to wear the Eyes for the part of the game where the Wizard could shop up, since he could steal them and get MR). Found the vibrating square, grabbed a cockatrice corpse, teleported up to the top level of the Wizard's tower, and got the book.

The wizard showed up again just after I performed the invocation, and I killed him with the same rubber chicken; level teleported into the Sanctum and killed the High Priest also. The ascent went fairly smoothly, with lots of teleport scrolls speeding things up a usual. The planes went smoothly, albeit I got grabbed or engulfed several times on Fire. I got out the Eyes for Astral (I always want extrinsic ESP or something equivalent if I can get it) and went for the sanctum with Pestilence first, as it was closest; jumped past him, wrong altar. Getting back out of this sanctum was a bit tricky, as it got quite crowded and Pestilence was hanging around the inner door; I was down to about 140hp by the time I got out again. Famine was up next, fell to the wand of death; this time it was the right altar, but for some reason I mistook and started to walk out again; fortunately I realised by the time I reached the outer door that I hadn't read it properly, went back, offered the amulet. Phew.

cph, neutral male human Monk



                                   4 4      4
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                                    ------------

Cph the Student of Waters St:18/27 Dx:23 Co:18 In:16 Wi:18 Ch:15 Neutral S:1110897
Astral Plane $:0  HP:144(232) Pw:70(83) AC:-28 Exp:16 T:31288

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1211735664.nh343.txt
Wizard kills: 3
Astral altars: 2
Schroedinger's cat: alive! (until my pet got to it :( )
Wishes:

blessed Eye of the Aethiopica
blessed fixed amulet of reflection
2 blessed scrolls of charging
uncursed magic marker
blessed spellbook of drain life
blessed fixed +3 T-shirt

7) lawful male human Knight

I had only played 1 knight before (since restarting playing Nethack on nao), so was still rather new to some of the issues with knights (OTOH I did ascend that previous Knight). St:15, Dx:9, Co:10, In:8 — well, at least the Str is okay...

I held off dipping for Excalibur, as I wanted to maximise my chances of Grayswandir by sacrificing, and expected I could use the lance a lot instead. I found several altars on the way down to soko, and a wand of speed — very useful, for me and the horse. Almost lost it when I hit a floating eye, but it was in a corridor, and the horse blocked it behind me. Some sacrificing at the altar on dlvl 6, hoping for Grayswandir and to boost my luck for a while, so I could use the lance more safely. Got my unicorn horn on the second level of sokoban; killed a second unicorn but no poison resistance after eating both. I had a bad run in with a soldier ant on the top level of sokoban, though, where I prayed for health & my god was displeased; luckily my horse killed the ant. And I forgot that this likely meant my luck was bad, and shattered my lance fighting the sokoban zoo. Got poison resistance from eating a snake, and got the bag of holding around turn 5500.

Did some sacrificing with a wand of create monster back at an altar in the main dungeon to fix my luck; still no gifted weapon, so I dipped for Excalibur & got it first attempt. Next into the mines — I had a lamp, fortunately. As I was lawful, I had my horse fight all the dwarves I passed, hoping to get mithril; eventually got it after the 10th dwarf or so. The minetown temple was co-aligned, and first sacrifice I got — Demonbane. "Use my gift wisely!" — so I sold it to the general shopkeeper (for 312zm — the shopkeeper was as wise to its value as I was). The minetown shops were disappointing — no magic lamps, and only 6 candles at Izchak's — at least there was a magic marker in the tool store. Dragged every bit of junk I could to the general store, to get just enough gold for one round of protection from the priest — got +4 protection. I got the best mines end, the cellar, and had the luckstone and potions by turn 9300.

OTOH I had no MR, reflection or sleep resistance, so it was going to be a dangerous descent. I dug out some vaults for money for protection, and did some fountain dipping to clear useless potions, uncurse misc kit, and on the off chance of getting a wish. Price-IDed & read some spellbooks (including 2 from statues at the Oracle), but nothing useful. More sacrificing at an altar, to establish high luck now I had the luckstone, and still hoping for Grayswandir — didn't get it. Working down the dungeon now, I found a big armour shop — with nothing useful — and a big potion shop, with a badly needed potion of gain ability (In:9 knight is no fun). I also found another horse, having lost the previous one in the mines. Another big armour shop on dlvl 14 was much more useful, giving cloaks of invisibility, displacement, oilskin, and jumping boots (which I wore for the rest of the game), and a silver sabre (cursed -1) to off-hand with Excalibur. I had a rough fight with a bunch of Grey elves and elf lords, several toting wands, but I had a spell of healing and decent combat ability now, so it wasn't too much trouble (really feeling the advantage of being mounted, which gave me a speed advantage). I got sleep resistance. Next problem was a red naga on dlvl 18, which burned some of my armor before I killed it.

Dlvl 20 was a bones level, with two dragons (yellow and blue), trolls & giants. A vegetarian pet makes trolls hard work, and no reflection meant I had to take on the dragons bravely. It was well worth it though — Ch0hag (killed by a yellow dragon) had a pile of scrolls, useful wands and, crucially, an amulet of reflection. Even better, it was a throne room, and I got a wish — cloak of MR. I lost my horse in the fight, though. So, turn 17,000ish, I have MR, reflection, PR, SR, unihorn — ascension is on.

I was glad of having MR when I ran into an arch-lich on dlvl 23. It summoned some monsters, but easily dealt with by burning Elbereth on the stairs. I found the portal to Ludios, but there were no silver dragons there, so I fought the zoo (for gold, for protection) and left it. I went for the quest next, using a potion of gain level to reach xp14. I clumsily fell in the water on the quest, but I had greased my bags & had high luck, so got away with it. The Knight quest was as usual very lucrative, and I got the Mirror, Bell and loot by turn 20,500. I read the various spellbooks I had collected, and found I had magic missile, sleep, fireball and jumping — useful.

I got the Titan Medusa, & he was peaceful. Reached the castle, and genocided L since there was a master lich there. Crushed the first wave of monsters with the drawbridge; then had some fun in the main hall when a giant with a wand of fire, aiming at me (invisible), instead vapourised two doors on successive turns releasing lots of soldiers. Got the castle wand around turn 23000.

I reverse genocided silver dragons — and again, since the first lot didn't yield any scales. The last dragon (of 12!) yielded silver scales, and I had my SDSM. I was still lacking several important rings, but decided to do the Valley next, as I might get what I needed there. The Valley was straightforward to fight, but I didn't get any useful rings, so I polypiled for them (in the Valley temple), eventually getting free action and conflict as desired.

I found a horse around the same time, and levelported back up to where I had left my saddle, levelported back to the castle where I remembered seeing a lance, and so I was back in the saddle for Gehennom (sorry). Jousting vampires and minotaurs was great fun, and I got through Gehennom fairly briskly, writing mapping scrolls as needed to find my way. Things went well until Baalzebub, who attacked me despite my having gold to hand and Excalibur hidden in my sack. While I was jousting him, one of the demons from his room started zapping a wand of create monster, summoning a cockatrice which stoned my horse. I cleaned up that mess, and came back to reclaim the saddle when I found another horse a few levels further down. That one lasted all the way to the vibrating square and into the Wizard's tower, where it finally got killed by... um, me, with a rebounding magic missile. Oops. Dumped the lance at this point, as clearly it was going to be too much hard work to keep a horse alive during the ascension run.

The ascension run started well enough — killed the Wizard first shot, and he dropped a helm of brilliance, so I replaced my leather helm, greased it and enchanted it to +4, teleported down to perform the ritual (after wishing for candles), and on the second attempt level teleported right into the sanctum next to the High Priest. Wand of death took him out too, and cursed potion of gain level got me out with hardly any fighting needed. The ascent started well, then started to go poorly when the mysterious force forced me to walk around Asmodeus' level 3 times (after I used my other potion of gain level for the first time). And then, while changing into my water walking boots for Juiblex' swamp (for the third time), the random Wizard intervention landed a master mind flayer next to me, while I was stuck for 2 more rounds changing my shoes. The flayer used the first round taking the grease off of my helmet, and got two sucking hits in the second round.

That made things a bit difficult. Fortunately I hadn't forgotten gold detection or identify, and I could immediately name the wands I had been actively using (teleport, death, digging, and I knew which one was my wand of wishing). But I had forgotten charging and magic mapping, albeit I knew I had some of both in my bag. I used my spare identify scrolls to re-ID various rings and wands, and wished for 2 blessed scrolls of charging (to find I had 3 already in my bag), as I was out of wand of death charges and chose not to risk the Wizard turning up while I had no easy way to take him out (and needed to rechange my magic marker to write another identify scroll to ID the rest of my scrolls). I made it up to the Valley with no further major incident, collected spare kit from the castle stash, and worked my way up through the upper dungeon, writing magic mapping to remap some forgotten levels but mostly going by vague recollection, clairvoyance from the Amulet, and seeing where I had dug routes between stairs.

With all the essential kit re-identified, I was essentially back to a state of being well prepared for the endgame. I got a cockatrice corpse not far from the top of the ascent, so used that to kill the Wizard on Earth. Air was easy enough with a ring of conflict and wand of opening, albeit I was very wary around a mind flayer that stood in the middle of the route between the clouds, for obvious reasons. No problem on Earth or Water, so I landed on Astral, pulled out the Mirror (bagged for the duration of the Wizard's visits), blasted Death with magic missile, jumped and teleport-wanded my way to his altar and it was the right one. Phew!

cph, lawful male human Knight




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Cph the Banneret St:18/60 Dx:18 Co:18 In:18 Wi:22 Ch:18 Lawful S:1125854
Astral Plane $:0  HP:242(258) Pw:59(212) AC:-28 Exp:20 T:33212

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1212312391.nh343.txt
Astral altars: 1
Wizard kills: 4
Wishes:

blessed greased +3 cloak of magic resistance
7 candles
2 blessed scrolls of charging

8) lawful male dwarven Caveman

I chose to play lawful, so I could be dwarvish; it was finely balanced, as the usual advantages for neutral certainly held, but for a non-caster the lawful artifacts are as good as the neutral ones (except no Magicbane by sacrificing), and after my only previous caveman had a hard time in the early game, I fancied the extra HP from being dwarvish could be useful. Dx:13, a decent caveman start.

I got an altar on dlvl 2, which I came back to when I found a bag of tricks lying around a few levels down & had got to xp8. I had found a mace in a general store, but it turned out to be cursed so I couldn't use it; so decided to sacrifice for a weapon instead. Sacrificed for a bit, got Snickersnee — it seems out of keeping with playing a caveman, but a decent weapon so I switch to it. I also got a splint mail from the same store, and one of the sacrifice victims was a dwarf with an iron helm & roundshield, bringing me to AC -2. Progressing further down, I got to soko, and killed a unicorn to get my unicorn horn and poison resistance. I also found an amulet, uncursed, so I tried it and it proved to be ESP — useful. I used stones from my sling to kill an eye for telepathy. I beat the sokoban zoo and got the bag of holding, but I had already found one in the main dungeon.

Next, to the mines. I had not tried dipping for Excalibur, and had no light source; I don't like searching dark mine levels without light, especially without searching, so I dug down to make the journey to minetown shorter. But Izchak had no lamps anyway; he did have 21 candles though, so I bought some and used them to make exploring the mines a bit less painful. Bought one round of protection from the minetown priest, got +3 protection. Got the cellar mines end, and got the luckstone and potions.

Back to the main dungeon. I had found 3 potions that price-identified at 300zm, and had already identified paralysis; so after making some holy water, I took a chance and blessed them before quaff-identifying them. And yes, they were indeed gain ability. I found I had another in my sokoban stash — so, 4 blessed gain abilities later, I have some good stats.

Next I encountered the bigroom: bad news, because I lacked reflection and sleep resistance. So I burned E, and then used a cockatrice corpse that I picked up on the previous level to bash through the contents of the room as they arrived. I made a mistake here, though: I ate a quantum mechanic corpse, thinking I didn't have speed, but cavemen get speed at xp7, so I lost it instead. Damn.

I worked my way down to Medusa. I found a throne a few levels above it, and got a wish — as usual as lawful, I went with the Magic Mirror of Merlin, which gives carried magic resistance and ESP for almost no weight. (Non-neutral characters can't wear both ESP — to help with jumping — and life saving — to guard against Vorpal Blade — on Astral, so I like to have carried ESP.) I then dipped for Excalibur, replacing Snickersnee (I had not done so before, to leave open the possibility of reliable artifact wishing), as I lacked intrinsic searching.

I got the titan Medusa, and the titan was hostile (unusual, as I was lawful), so I went back up to improve my equipment (I had got some armour burned by a troll with a wand of fire a few levels previously). Some good armour finds and more priest donation took my AC to -12, strong enough for the castle. I also got a wand of death from a water demon (the Mirror saved me), so I was now very confident to take on the titan.

But I had another option — I found the portal to Ludios on the level above Medusa, and there was a silver dragon there. If I could get scales from that, the game was won. But doing Ludios without reflection is dangerous. I decided to do Medusa first, hoping to get the shield of reflection; zapped the titan with death, dug down, and the level below Medusa was a dungeon, not a maze, so I easily found the way up (remembering to blindfold myself!) and beat Medusa herself. The Perseus statue had levitation but no reflection. I jumped my way back across Medusa, killing a quantum mechanic & getting speed back on the way.

So, decision time — Ludios, or the castle? I eventually decided that, since both had a lot of soldiers toting wands, I might as well do Ludios, where there was a more immediate prospect to get reflection. Ludios was probably riskier, but I knew I was also lacking several important rings, so I might be short on wishes for my ascension kit if I went to the castle as-is. Ludios started well, and I got most of the way through the army with only wands of magic missile turned against me. One soldier with a wand of fire was potentially dangerous, but his two shots missed and I grabbed the wand unharmed. Then a lieutenant with a wand of lightning came — the worst case scenario. I didn't have shock resistance, so his first hit took off a lot. I had heard somewhere that cancellation would neutralise wands carried by monsters, and had my cancellation wand out in my inventory ready for this — zapped it at him, no effect! His second hit had me down to 60hp. My plan was out of the window, so... I got a sleep wand out of my bag (and speed gave me a free turn at that moment, very timely) and zapped him with that, then killed him before he woke. I had most of my wands and rings safely bagged, but I didn't appear to have lost even the two or three wands and rings I kept in my inventory. High luck is useful.

I killed the silver dragon and made my silver scale mail, so now I have MR, reflection, PR, SR and unicorn horn — game on! I completed Ludios, grabbed tons of cash, and carried it all the way back to minetown to donate to the priest — I now had 9 points of divine protection. Bought up all the scrolls, potions and cheap spellbooks I could. I did the quest next, easily beating the nemesis and collecting the Sceptre, which I used as my main weapon only long enough to train mace skill (switching back to Excalibur). I made a slight diversion to buy a robe I had seen earlier in a shop: with the robe, I could cast magic missile and force bolt reliably (and, since I had carried MR, I had no need to wear a different cloak).

No problems beating the castle; I got the wand, wished for a magic marker, and enchanted my armour and weapons. Next the Valley, which yielded some useful rings, and no less than 5 wraith corpses, unusually, giving me 4 more levels — useful for my spellcasting, magic missile in particular. I was a bit short of marker charges, but had enough mapping scrolls to get most of the way through Gehennom and wrote just 2 more to finish it. I had a rough fight at Baalzebub's, where a lich summoned a mind flayer, then a disenchanter, and then Yeenoghu; I paid off Baalzebub as usual, got down the stairs and beat Yeenoghu there. I beat Vlad, found the VS, and got into the Wizard's tower to do final equipment prep.

I had wished up a can of grease on my way through Gehennom — it's a piece of kit I don't like to be without, as greasing the helmet takes the edge off the threat of flayers, greasing the bags protects against water mistakes, and greasing the cloak makes the plane of water safer. I now found I had only 3 wishes left, but still wanted unholy water (to make cursed gain level & more cursed teleport scrolls), a ring of teleport control, and I was short of marker charges to write gold detection scrolls (and wanted to keep a spare wish). So I made the unholy water using all my spare water and confused blessed remove curse, and wished up the other two. I did some final armour enchanting, taking me to AC -29, and (with gauntlets of dexterity I had found) I had Dx:25, the highest I have ever seen (just for my amusement).

Looking for a cockatrice corpse, I chased down a 'trice in the tower, but no corpse; then a bone devil created one with a scroll, and that did give a corpse. Handy. Teleported up to the wizard, got the book, teleported down to the VS and did the ritual, teleported into the sanctum, and killed the High Priest with the same rubber chicken. The ascent went smoothly, thanks to some teleport scrolls and the cursed gain level potions.

The planes were no problem; the plane of water is a bit scary with electric eels, but ESP from the Mirror helped to avoid them. I arrived on astral, switched back to jumping boots, and headed for Death first; magic missile took him down, then I used jumping and my teleport wands to get to the altar. Using the Sceptre for conflict proved to be a pain here: I knew I couldn't turn it on and off because of the #invoke timeout, so I had to chance going up to the high priest with conflict still on; fortunately, he was busy attacking something else. I did murder a peaceful priest by accident, though. It was the wrong altar, so I teleport-wanded my way back out, getting to the door just as Death revived. Over to Famine's sanctum next; wand of death took him out, and this was the right altar.

cph, lawful male dwarven Caveman




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Cph the Roamer St:18/** Dx:25 Co:20 In:13 Wi:16 Ch:14 Lawful S:1265084
Astral Plane $:0  HP:279(311) Pw:43(89) AC:-29 Exp:20 T:37535

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1212686873.nh343.txt
Wizard kills: 4
Astral altars: 2
Wishes:

blessed Magic Mirror of Merlin
uncursed magic marker
can of grease
blessed fixed ring of teleport control
uncursed magic marker

9) chaotic female orcish Rogue

I chose to be orcish for my rogue game; it's the early game that is most dangerous, and having poison resistance and infravision helps in the early game — and the limitations on int and strength later on aren't serious for a non-caster. I got St:12, Co:17, In:10, a decent rogue start, albeit the strength was a bit low, but sokoban usually fixes that. I immediately split a dagger from the starting stack to use as my main weapon.

I got an elven dagger within a few levels, though, and switched to that as my close combat weapon — though my main weapon remained thrown daggers. I got the first of many wands of polymorph [I had seen about 6 by the end of the game] on dlvl 4. Making liberal use of striking from behind got me through the early fights okay. I made it to sokoban, and had a tough time on the first level there; after establishing my stash under a boulder as usual, a raven caused trouble, and then a gnome lord with a wand of speed showed up — he reduced me to 7hp, and he had just picked up some of my daggers that were on the ground from a previous fight, so even dusting Elbereth wasn't an easy save. But dusting Elbereth caused him to back up, and he happened to be in the narrow point between two rooms, so I waited until he was a few squares off, then got a boulder and plugged the entrance, so I had him walled off while I healed. Once healed, I beat him easily. I got a wand of fire on the third level of sokoban. With stealth and backstabbing, the sokoban zoo was easy enough, and I got the amulet of reflection around turn 5500.

Back in the main dungeon, I got spellbooks of jumping and create monster from a general store; I got lucky here and the same store had a +2 studded leather armour — that's almost as good as elven mithril, taking me to AC -1. A +1 orcish cloak improved that one more. Into the mines then, and I got fairly lucky here, as the mines were mostly lit. I fell through a trapdoor on the first mines level, and again on the next, into the bazaar minetown. Bazaar minetown is one of the worst — small shops, fiddly to get around — and this one was particularly bad, with Izchak's having only 4 candles, a useless tool shop, and no general store.

Going up from minetown, I found the level above was a bones — "maddas, killed by a rothe". He was a wizard, so I took the cloak down, washed away the curse in the minetown fountains, and wore it. I retrieved my pet, and encountered a white unicorn along the way — excellent, unicorn horn obtained. I then descended to the level below minetown, and got sleep resistance from a Grey elf. So, turn 9000, I have MR, PR, SR, reflection, unihorn — unusually early to have the core kit assembled. I had a reminder only a little while after, when I ran into a chickatrice, that I was still lacking a lot of stuff — a lizard corpse, firstly. I got the worst mines end, the catacombs, although as I had a lamp and MC3 it was no problem.

Without a bag of holding, and strength at only 15, next came a slow exercise of hauling equipment out of the mines and down to my stash in soko, BUC testing it all at the altar above the oracle. I did some sacrificing to get my luck up, and threw the gems I had collected at mines' end to a black unicorn at minetown. I didn't want to sacrifice too much, as I was afraid of getting chaotic artifacts; I would be better off getting a chance wish and going for Magicbane, rather than sacrificing. I sacrifice one more thing... and got Stormbringer — well, at least it is the decent chaotic artifact. I also got a +2 elven mithril from some wood elves from this run of sacrificing. Much ferrying of equipment up and down as I began to explore down the main dungeon. I got a bigroom at around dlvl 10, which was not too bad with Stormy in hand and plenty of Elberething. Similar story at a zoo a few levels lower: I found one of my rings was conflict, and let a cockatrice do most of the work, and Stormy helped me beat an air elemental. Then a long trek back to minetown to do my first 2 rounds of priest donation (got 4 points of protection), and to buy up various potions from the potion shop on they way, to identify more potions. I enchanted Stormy to +6.

Next I ran into a bones level, ArgonSloth killed by a Grey-elf. He had wands (lightning), some rings, Sting (there goes the possibility of any artifact wishing), a stethoscope (yay!), tinning kit, candles (solving my candle shortage), lots of potion and scroll fodder in his bag, and a grey dragon scale mail (not especially useful, since I had MR from the CoMR from the wizard bones earlier, but still an improvement on my +2 elven mithril, and better to allow casting). He also had a bag that was not a sack, which I got excited about and blessed before realising it was oilskin, not holding. I juggled stuff around to get back down to only burdened, lugged the stuff up to my stash in soko, and got a full identify from a blessed identify scroll there: I identified rings of teleport control, slow digestion, and misc other stuff. He had quite a bit of money also, as did I from more vault digging & zoos, so I went back to minetown for another 2 points of protection, and to throw some of the gems from the bones at the black unicorn to get my luck up some more. I uncursed some of the rings & the stethoscope at fountains on my way back down, and resumed my descent.

I did the quest next. No major problem since I had a ring of protection from shape changers; I tinned as many chameleon corpses as I could find on my way down. I dug through from the level above, hoping to fall into the sector with the quest nemesis; I didn't, so I donned my ring of poly control and used a tin of chameleon to poly into a xorn and walk through. I then poly'd myself into an elvenking so I could don my armour again for the fight with the nemesis; I zapped him with sleep to stop him escaping. Two attempts to poly back into a xorn failed, so I changed plan and level teleported out of the level instead.

At the castle, I wished up 2 cursed scrolls of genocide, reverse genocided silver dragons, and got some silver scales. I decided not to convert to SDSM immediately, though — robe + gray scale mail + amulet of reflection worked well while I was training up my casting. I enchanted up my armour, recharging the marker from the bones and using that up first, and then wishing up a second marker. Blessed the other geno scroll and used it to geno liches on my way down. Gehennom was uneventful; I grabbed a silver sabre from a captain and went with Stormy and silver sabre two-weaponed for the rest of the game; advanced sabre to basic, broadsword to skilled, and then two-weapon to skilled. That made Orcus and the shades easy; in fact, this was a highly effective weapon combination, once I had the sabre up to +7. Meanwhile, at Orcus' town I alchemised up 4 gain ability potions, taking my int to its maximum 16; I was trying to get decent casting of magic mapping. I needed to get divination to skilled too, though, so I was casting light a lot; it wasn't until half-way down Gehennon that I finally advanced it and could cast mapping. That in turn saved some mapping scrolls; I had a fair amount of charge left on the remaining marker, but knew I didn't have much to spare since I still needed to write some gold detection and (possibly) charging.

I got the candelabrum, found the vibrating square. I identified the right portal to the Wizard's tower, and there I did my final armour enchanting. I had also found jumping boots, to go with speed boots I had found earlier, so I enchanted them both, and my helmet, and made & enchanted my silver scale mail. I tried as usual to get a cockatrice corpse to fight the Wizard and Sanctum, but all 3 cockatrices on nearby levels left no corpse, so I was forced to use wands of death instead (I already had 2, and took a third off of a demon I ran into at this point). Killed the Wizard, teleported down to the vibrating square, did the ritual, teleported into the Sanctum, zapped the high priest and got the Amulet.

The ascent was uneventful; with 3 wands of death, I had plenty to take out the Wizard. I had 2 potions of gain level, which I cursed and used for getting out of the Sanctum and for Asmodeus'. At the castle, I picked up some stashed booze and wands of digging. I reached dlvl 1 without incident. I wished up 2 scrolls of gold detection, as I had not found any, and then wrote 2 more with the last charges on my marker; I also wished up a wand of teleport (having seen none in the game) and wrote 2 blessed scrolls of charging, expecting to recharge it on Astral. I donned boots of levitation and used a speed potion to get through Air, Fire and Water; Water was a bit scary with electric eels around, but warning from the Key helped dodge them.

For Astral, I switched to jumping boots, amulet of ESP, and drank another potion of speed. I headed for Famine first, who went down to a wand of death; teleport wands and conflict got me to the first altar fine, which was the wrong one. On the way back out I wand-of-deathed Famine again, and headed for the central sanctum, containing Death. I waited until Death was well to one side of the door before jumping in, and managed to dodge him and get through to the temple — again, wrong one. Getting back out was tricky — priests and angels kept getting in the doorway, and I was trying to save teleport charges, and the high priest was too close for me to don conflict; my hitpoints got a bit worn down here, but I got through okay. I managed to dodge Death on the way out with jumping, and recharged my teleport wand in the corridor. Pestilence I had left to last because I wasn't wearing an amulet of life saving (ESP + jumping is more effective — stay away from the dangerous stuff entirely); I waited until he wandered to one side of the door before jumping in, teleport wand moved some stuff out of the way of the inner door, and I made it to the third altar without major problems. Phew!

cph, chaotic female orcish Rogue




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Cph the Burglar         St:18/50 Dx:22 Co:18 In:16 Wi:16 Ch:15  Chaotic S:787090
Astral Plane $:0  HP:232(232) Pw:109(109) AC:-26 Exp:19 T:36362

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1213040103.nh343.txt
Astral altars: 3
Wizard kills: 4
Wishes:

blessed greased bag of holding
2 cursed scrolls of genocide
uncursed magic marker
2 blessed scrolls of gold detection
blessed wand of teleportation

10) lawful male human Samurai

Dx:15, In:9, a good Samurai start — albeit Samurai never have bad starting stats. I then managed, somehow, to kill my own pet on turn 3 — I had as usual not remembered to turn numlock on, and must have generated some key combination to attack it. No pet, rumble of distant thunder — damn!

I made it down to the Oracle level, though, picking up a new pet and a magic whistle along the way. A black light got me at this level, and I was in trouble for the first time when I attacked something [turned out to be a pony] that gave me a hard time. Hallucinating, I couldn't dust Elbereth, and it was fast enough that I couldn't run, so I dug down (early wand of digging). On the level below I waited to recover hit points and for hallucination to wear off, then went back up and finished clearing the Oracle level. I also got a halberd around this time, and decided that a pole-arm could come in handy.

I made it to the top of sokoban, and had some fun fighting the zoo with my halberd — I hardly took a hit the whole way through — and got the amulet of reflection. There were 3 unicorns in the zoo, but they were all white; I locked two in cupboards and had my pet go after the third, but my dog wasn't strong enough and kept needing to heal up. I started ferrying equipment back down to the first soko level while I waited for my pet to heal, and ran into some green elves, who gave me some problems — I got a bit careless and let two get beside me on the stairs, but once I went up and healed, I was able to beat them; and that provided me with elven mithril. My pet got killed by them firing arrows, though. I needed a new pet, or new way to kill the unicorns at the top of soko — and then, on my way back down, I ran into a black unicorn. Easily killed with the halberd, unicorn horn obtained. I then headed back to the gnomish mines, where I got poison resistance from a grey ooze.

Into the mines next — the first couple of levels were lit and I found a lamp also. I picked up a new pet, who was set on every dwarf or hobbit in sight so I could get better mithril. Into "bustling" minetown (cavernous minetown would seem a better description), where there was a fairly useless tool store (two bags — both tricks), two oil lamps at Izchak's, and a coaligned temple. I dragged huge amounts of equipment to the altar to BUC-test, got a +1 elven mithril, and, when a soldier turned up, some +2 high boots and some gloves also. I then dragged all the cloaks and spare armour I could to the general store, raising a few hundred more zorkmids and giving me enough gold to make my first priest donation — got +3 protection, taking me in total to a much better AC -7. The next level was lit again, but I hit a level teleport trap and got sent back to dlvl 1 — that wasn't so bad, as it gave me the chance to empty all the chests on the early dlvls of any useful stuff, and BUC test some more and identify some potions at minetown.

Descending further into the mines, I fell through a trapdoor to the level 4 below minetown. Going up the upstair, which I soon found, the level above seemed to be a bones level as I ran into an elvenking called Spot. Despite some softening up with arrows, I was down 2/3rds of my hp when I killed him — only to find he had an amulet of life saving. Fortunately elvenkings are not followers, so I slipped downstairs for a moment. Waiting to heal up, I ran into a peaceful piranha, and soon fell into the same polymorph trap myself (despite searching before moving — grrr) and turned into an ice troll (breaking my mithril). I took the opportunity to go back and kill Spot. The level above that had another polymorph trap, as I found when a ran into a lich — I dusted Elbereth, then kept him just out of contact and hit him with my halberd — he fell in a few hits. Next an Aleax turned up — that's a bit more scary, A are followers and don't respect Elbereth, and still without body armour I wasn't that tough. I used speed to stay just out of his reach and used my halberd again — he fell fairly quickly. I then fell into that polymorph trap myself, becoming a wraith; I made it back to minetown, and once again had to drag more stuff to the general store to sell, so I could buy back a spare elven mithril I had sold to the shopkeeper earlier. A grey elf showed up too and I took his cloak, which with the mithril took me back to AC -7.

The bones proved to be of "darel, killed by a soldier ant". The most useful thing he had was a sack; apart from that, he had a few cursed potions — unholy water at least is useful — and a couple of wands of polymorph, and a stethoscope. I hit yet another level teleport trap back to the top of the dungeon, and got sleep resistance from some green elves on my way back down. PR, SR, unicorn horn, reflection — I just need magic resistance now.

Dlvl 20 was the first level with a lot of opposition — a big throne room, including a grey dragon. If he left scales, that would be magic resistance sorted. But I was hardly strong enough to tackle either the dragon, or the Olog-hai, head-on — still wielding a (now rusty) +0 katana. I chipped away at the edges of the throne room, taking out the weapon monsters, and then tackling the Olog-hai using my halberd; the throne gave me nothing. I realised I only had 1 80zm scroll on me, and didn't know if it was enchant armour, so I decided to trek back to my stash and identify some stuff. I found the 80zm scroll was remove curse — so I couldn't make scale mail myself anyway. I went back to minetown for another go at killing the watch captains, but no luck — my pet got killed instead, before I could use my potion of extra healing to restore him. Long trek back to the front line, and I killed the dragon, again with elbereth and the halberd — but no scales anyway. Hrmm.

I blundered into a rust monster and rusted my katana some more, and decided it was time to do something about the weapon problem. I had IDed a scroll of taming, so I used it to tame a rock troll from the throne room; I trekked back to minetown, letting the troll kill everything on the way, and let it loose on the minetown watch captains. He made short work of them, and I now had — at last — my first long sword of the game, at turn 25000, and a silver sabre to pair with it too. Excellent. I got the troll to kill the unneeded shopkeepers, yielding enough gold for another round of protection. I also switch to a dwarvish mithril from a dwarf killed by the troll, taking me to AC -13. I got Excalibur back in the main dungeon — the extra damage and intrinsic searching would both be useful.

Going down again, I soon got to isle Medusa, which I dug past and used a mapping scroll on the level below, came back up and killed Medusa. The Perseus statue had both shield and levitation boots. I used the alternate level method so I only needed to manually map one of the maze levels above the castle, and soon found the downstairs to the castle. Of course, this being a rare game where I reach the castle without magic resistance, I got two master liches; I burned Elbereth on the upstair and killed them with no problem. Crushed the other demilich and most of the first wave of monsters with the drawbridge, then fought my way through the other soldiers and soon owned the main hall. I wanted to wish for my favourite lawful artifact, the Mirror (Excalibur was the only artifact in the game so far), so I wanted to check the armouries to ensure no artifact weapons were generated there (as happens sometimes); also I saw there was a silver dragon amongst the dragons, and was hoping for scales. I killed the dragons — and got the silver scales — and checked the armouries — nothing exciting. I made it to the wishing wand at turn 29000; it was (0:2), so I immediately wished for the Mirror, completing my core kit of MR, PR, SR, reflection, unihorn.

I went back to stash 1 in sokoban, gathered my unidentified scrolls (having price-identified some on the way up), and used a scroll of identify to identify the 300zm ones — good, I have charging already, that saves a wish. Second wish was for a bag of holding then [subsequently found one on Home 2 and one at the Valley, RNG amusing itself as usual]. I then emptied the stash of everything useful, intending to carry it down to my normal late-game stash at the castle. I decided to go on the quest next: the Samurai quest has so much loot, I didn't want to identify anymore until I had the scrolls etc from the locate level (I left a pile of stuff by the quest portal so I wouldn't have carrying problems). I wasn't intending to complete the quest, as I wanted a wand of death to fight the nemesis, but I got lucky and one of the ninjas had one. I used that to kill the nemesis, and got the Bell and Tsurugi (which I dumped back on Home 1, since I had a decent weapon combination & didn't want any two-handed-weapon issues in Gehennom).

Back down to the castle — but I stopped on the way to polypile tools (I had been collecting tools to polypile for candles, using the poly wands from the bones earlier, as I was only 1 short, but no longer needed to, because I found a candle on the quest goal level; decided to do the magic tool polypiling anyway). Also I was throwing in rings too, to see if I could get conflict or teleport control. I was lucky, getting 2 more magic markers [plus rings of levitation, conflict, and teleport control as I found later — very high yield!]. At the castle, I used my last 2 identify scrolls to identify my remaining scrolls, potions, and rings, and wrote enchant armour scrolls to take my AC to -27 and bless all my armour.

Gehennom was straightforward, as I had plenty of marker charges and scrolls to write mapping — and I found a fourth marker at Orcus town. I alchemised up ~13 full healing potions to boost my hitpoints, and 4 potions of gain ability to do something about my int — but still couldn't cast anything worthwhile. Oh well. I was surprised to see by telepathy that the zoo in the Wizard's tower was empty; there were a few already-dug walls here also, confirming my suspicion that it was a bones level. It was near turn 40,000 that I found the vibrating square.

Into the Wizard's tower to explore the bones there — dgoddard, killed by falling into a spiked pit wielding a cockatrice corpse. I was paranoid about falling in and dying to the same corpse (although I understand you can't die doing that), so I levitated over the pit first to check the corpse had rotted. Zapped striking at the statue, found the PYEC (he was a tourist), +6 Frost Brand, 2 amulets of life saving, a can of grease (yes! I was starting to think of wishing for one), wands of wishing (1:2) and death. I cleared the stuff lying around first, then zapped cancellation over the rest and opened the bag of holding (nothing too exciting, just a shedload of spellbooks and water, and a few more scrolls). Some scrolls of identify and a blessed remove curse later, I had speed boots, gauntlets of dexterity, helm of brilliance, AC -34. From earlier in the game, when I was seriously worried about running low on wishes (before I had the amazingly high yield polypiling), I now had a vast excess of equipment to ascend with. Having int 18 from the helm of brilliance, I read the spellbooks too.

The ascension run itself was simple enough; I got a cockatrice corpse at the top of the Wizard's tower, which I used to kill him and the High Priest. I charged the Bell of Opening to detect the door to the High Priest's temple, having no wand of secret door detection and plenty of marker charges to burn. I made it to astral with no problems (speed & conflict for Air, telepathy letting me dodge the eels on Water). I went towards Famine first on astral, easily made it to the altar, wrong one. There was an amusing moment on the way out, when a priest zapped a wand of death, which shot past me and killed his own high priest — boy is he in trouble. I got past Pestilence okay to get to the second temple, again wrong one. Getting out again was harder, as Pestilence hung around the door. I had to jump out diagonally and then back off, firing wands of death at him; on the third shot, he fell, and I was never in serious danger. Then over to the third sanctum, where I finally donned conflict (hadn't needed it before then, but I had no good ranged weapon to take out Death). He got obstructed by the angels anyway, so I jumped past to the temple, made it to the altar. Another ascension, and 5 spare wishes in the bag too.

cph, lawful male human Samurai


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Cph the Ryoshu         St:18/62 Dx:23 Co:18 In:18 Wi:23 Ch:10  Lawful S:958662
Astral Plane $:0  HP:234(252) Pw:71(71) AC:-32 Exp:15 T:41287

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/cph/dumplog/1213439618.nh343.txt
Wizard kills: 2
Astral altars: 3
Wishes:

blessed fixed Magic Mirror of Merlin
blessed fixed greased bag of holding

Simon Howard: New screensaver

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:11:17 +0000

Large Hadron Collider + GLeidoscope = Large Hadron Kaleidoscope

breathing water: cheap, tiny mips laptop?

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:15:52 +0000

this $100 laptop mentioned on slashdot is kinda crazy. mips processor and wifi? i hope it's available soon.

i've been to the first classes for 2/4 of my courses so far. my computer organization class has 105 students in it! peter graham is the prof and even he expressed surprise that there were 105 people when he looked it up to print out copies of the ROASS.