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Part 2 - Feels Like I'm Wearing Nothing At All



Last update, we entered the danger zone for nastier spawns.



I wander awkwardly towards the hobgoblin until the confusion from drinking that potion wears off. I then smash its face in.



The game decided that the sprite for orcs should be a pinkish color, not sure why.



More teleportation scrolls!



Adding onto weird design choices, leprechauns look like miniature wizards.



I dive down to Level 8 and find a scroll of aggravate monster, which is promptly dropped.



I find another ring that I can identify!



Oh, it's just a ring of searching. Rings of searching give you an increased chance (but not perfect) to find traps and secret doors while you walk around. Despite how annoying some traps can be, it isn't worth the food cost in my opinion (specifically, I can stock up the food with slow digestion for something better, or for the scare monster trick).



This squid like thing is an aquator, and they are assholes. They have an incredibly high chance to hit, and deal no damage. Instead, a successful attack rusts your armor by one point. The only way to resist this is to either find a ring of maintain armor, wear leather armor (which cannot rust), or take off your armor before fighting them.



I opt for the third option, but then I remember that my armor is cursed



Luckily, armor degradation stops at one of two points: when the armor you are wearing is at -4 enchantment, or when your armor rating is at 2. Unfortunately, chain mail allows both to happen at the same time. My character probably looks like I'm just wearing a bunch of chains drooped over my shoulders at this point.

The best strategy for aquators is to either get lucky with getting leather armor and use all of your enchant armor scrolls on that, or to carry around multiple sets of armor to replace as each gets rusted up. Aquators stop spawning around Level 19, but by that point you are diving for stairs anyway.



Centaurs look pretty spiffy with their new tiles.



I kill it and a slime that followed me for another level up! I am now a Warrior with two more max HP.



Level 9 has a scroll of teleportation right next to us, which is greatly appreciated.



This little stick is a wand! Wands and staves can have useful effects, but it's wise to test them on weaker creatures first to figure out what they do.



Of course, a centaur isn't a weaker creature, but with my relatively low HP and armor for this point in the game, I'm willing to risk it.



You press z to 'zap' your wands. They don't need to be equipped in order to do this; it works right from the inventory.



Whoa, that was powerful! The wand didn't identify though, so I'm still curious as to what type it is.



I find an aquator, which is a really good target to practice wands on since they can't actually do physical damage.



Two zaps brings it down. At this point, I'm completely confused as to what wand type this is, since the aquator took more shots than the centaur. Maybe it's magic missile and it bounced off the wall?

(Looking back through the screenshots, you can see that my health got reduced after each zap, even against an aquator. This wand is drain life, which halves your life and splits/deals that damage equally among all monsters in sight. However, I didn't notice that my health was dropping, and now I continue to nonchalantly explore with 2 HP. Past me will now be referred to as until this stops happening)



- I find another centaur, and give it some more zaps to try to figure out this wand.



- Hmm, the wand is out of zaps. Oh well.



- I pull out my bow and arrow and kill the centaur easily. I then drop my empty wand.
(It probably isn't empty because you can't halve 1 HP)



- Oh hey, another slime, let's kill it!



At this point, I realize how low my HP is, and believe that the orc caused it. I should be dead.



Instead, the Random Number God decided to show mercy and let me rest up some and head to the next level.



I find another leprechaun wandering around.



This time, however, I back up and pepper it with arrows at a range. Although leprechauns aren't really a threat to anything but my high score, they have a very high chance to drop items. For example, this one dropped a scroll.



Which turns out to be another scroll of identify!



As I finish clearing out the last room, I stumble upon a sleeping gas trap! These paralyze you for a period of time, and are just as dangerous as ice monsters if there is anything else around to beat you up for it.

I get lucky this time though.



Level 11 has an orc rushing for a gold pile over fighting me. I murder him and take the precious gold.



I also manage to find another type of ring! Let's use that leprechaun's identify scroll and figure out what it is.





A ring of stealth is pretty much the BEST RING IN THE GAME. Rings of stealth make it so that it is very, VERY unlikely that monsters will wake up when you enter a room. This massively improves the ability to pick and choose fights, and makes the late game much more plausible for anybody who hasn't found wands to augment their ability to kill things at that point.

I staple this to my other hand, and it looks like my ring situation is solved for the rest of the game!



Bear traps take some hit points when you step in them, and keep you trapped for a couple turns. Pretty bad if you get stuck when running away from something nasty.



I find an unidentified scroll and read it in the hopes of being able to take off this broken armor.



It's just create monster, though


NEXT TIME: The dungeon stops fucking around.