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Our equipment so far, nothing really exciting. This is a pretty normal setup for this depth, maybe a few more consumables than I’d expect but meh. Bonnie is basically coasting along on the back of her large investment in melee and evasion skills.
”Clear Worm Mass” posted:
A disgusting mass of transparent worms, twisting and writhing on the floor. Normally found at 300’. Poisonous
Owowowow my hatred of worms overcomes my good sense and the Orc Warrior lands a charge critical and rolls high, nailing Bonnie for 24 damage. Orc Warriors don’t fuck around, respect the charge.
Clear worms are white worms but mostly invisible, not a threat unless you let them multiply out of control or you somehow wander into a huge swarm without noticing.
The orc lands another hit on Bonnie and I’ve had quite enough of this fight, Elbereth time.
And 3 turns later the orc fails his morale check despite Bonnie not landing another hit and he books it.
By clicking Elbereth on and off you can sometimes keep enemies stuck a few tiles away from you where you can pepper them with arrows but they’re too terrified to come any closer. Unfortunately this orc is having none of it and continues to bolt.
The darkness bolsters his morale and he turns to fight only to get crit in return. 
brave orc, you are the first thing in Angband that had a shot at killing me.
”Gorcrow” posted:
A dark creature related to the crow. It pecks at any exposed flesh, especially the face and eyes. Normally found at 300’. Can cause Blindness.
”Orc Champion” posted:
A champion of the orc hordes. He wears well fitting armor and wields a battle axe. Normally found at 400’
Gorcrows can blind with melee attacks, Orc champions lose the charge attack in exchange for having lots more damage, more hp and more armor. A Champion might kill Bonnie in single combat if I roll exceptionally bad and it absolutely could if I start the fight blind. I immediately fire an arrow at the crow to draw it into the corridor where I can butcher it one on one before engaging the orc. Then we shoot an arrow at the orc to wake it up and uh...
Uh..
Bonnie you’re supposed to be bad with bows.
Bonnie stop. Well 2 arrows with 3 crits with a follow-up shot finishes off the orc.
”Orc Archer” posted:
One of Morgoth’s grim mockeries of the firstborn. He carries a crude sword and bow. Normally found at 250’
Orc archers are exactly what they sound like and can be dangerous in packs. Their AI leads them to try to run from you which can be super annoying but you get a sense for how they move rather quickly so cornering them isn’t too bad. One on one you could beat one in a bow fight even with a shortbow and no archery skill so... 
Speaking of AI movement. If you get an orc archer into the corner of an L shaped corridor they’ll just stand there and let you butcher them.
Confusion gas trap, that’s not good.
The fleeing warrior turns around and I decide to just stand still until this wears off. I could try to move back into the corridor but I’m more likely to just wander around the middle of the room giving the warrior opportunities to get huge charge attacks off.
Confusion wears off just in time for another orc. 
Running away now.
And back up to semi-safe hp ranges I turn Elbereth off and wait for the orcs to come find me one at a time.
Tracking down the remaining archers.
That’s maybe a few more than I thought.
Here’s another trick with Orc archers. Archers are the opposite of other orcs and will never, ever under any circumstances open a door that you’re standing next to. They’ll patiently wait on the other side till you’ve healed up and you open the door for them. Getting half the pack in on one side of the door and having an archery duel with the other half is extremely easy. It’s also fairly common to dispose of the melee portion of an orc pack, close a door to heal up and then engage the ranged portion at full hp.
I hate molds.
”Grave Wight” posted:
It is a ghostly form wrapped in a stained shroud. It protects that which was buried. Normally found at 400’. Can cause Slowness and create Darkness. It can drain Strength.
Our first W enemy and quite a bit earlier than I was expecting. Grave Wights generally aren’t directly dangerous but if they manage to steal your strength you may be left so crippled that your run is over unless you happen to have some form of restoration. Stat drain in Sil is permanent until you restore the drained stat either with an herb or potion and I’m not interested in quaffing every potion I own in the hopes that one of them happens to be Strength.
Will allows you to resist stat drain, 3 should be plenty as we’ve already got +5 Will from Grace.
Wow he did a lot more damage than I expected but the important thing is we came out with all our (1) strength intact.
And he was guarding an enchanted axe, what a cool guy. This is either an artefact, slaying, or vampiric axe. Artefact we can’t really identify without wielding and using it. Slaying will glow in the presence of its slaying target, vampiric gives us health in exchange for hunger but vampiric weapons are always cursed. I’m not going to wield ID this unless it starts glowing because I’ve got no interest in investing EXP in breaking a curse or being forced to use an axe until I find a stave to break the curse.
IDing items gives you EXP so it’s worth it to haul around even absolute garbage like {special} rags just to ID them at some point even if you’ve got no interest in ever using them.
Mewlips are awful. I would say I want to get to a depth where they don’t spawn but by the time we’re that deep there will be things that are so much more annoying
”Easterling Spy” posted:
Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon, would Morgoth have achieved his end but for the treachery of Men. He is of a people who have come recently to Beleriand out of the far east, and have fallen under Morgoth’s sway. Normally found at 350’
Our first human enemy. Easterling Spies are Orc Scouts with a bow and a good set of lungs. They hang out on the edge of your LoS and pepper you with arrows while screaming for help, very annoying. They have very little HP so the hope is always that you kill them in a single hit before they get a chance to call for friends.
”Easterling Warrior” posted:
Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon, would Morgoth have achieved his end but for the treachery of Men. He is of a people who have come recently to Beleriand out of the far east, and have fallen under Morgoth’s sway. Normally found at 400’. Has the Flanking ability.
”Mountain Troll” posted:
A Tall troll from the Mountains of the north. Normally found at 400’. Can Knock Back and rapidly regenerates HP.
”Violet Worm Mass” posted:
A disgusting mass of worms, twisting and writhing on the floor. Normally found at 400’. Drains Strength.
”Distended Spider” posted:
It is a vast spider whose bulbous body is bloated with poison. Normally found at 450’. Extremely poisonous.
You guys know you’re all on the wrong floor right?
It might be time to leave.
Gameplan is to fight them in this corridor so I can’t be flanked. If it gets dicey I can book it to the up-stairs we originally came down.
Come get some.
The Easterlings are going down easily enough but the Trolls can’t be far behind. Spiders have no memory, if you break LoS with a spider they instantly forget you exist and stop pursuit. So if we’re going to win this fight we need to kill all the easterlings/trolls up here in the death-corridor and then go deal with the Spiders and Worms in whatever that vault of horrors was.
Trolls have the ability to knock you back 1-2 tiles. Normally this deals a shitload of damage and fucks up your position but we can’t be bashed through a closed door thankfully so it’s basically just a normal swing.
Corridor is clear, heal up and then on to phase 2. Bonnie dropped down to around 19 HP during that fight, a troll that rolled perfect damage could hit for 20 but it’s incredibly unlikely. If I had taken another hit at that point I’d have been forced to down one of my Liquor ‘potions’.
Distended spiders are hyper dangerous at this point and fighting them for extended periods of time in melee range is simply not an option. You should always fight dangerous spiders next to a corner so that if they get in a lucky hit you can instantly abuse their goldfish brains and end the fight by ducking out of sight.
Thankfully slow poison potions are extremely common at shallow depths. I’d say 9/10 times if you quaff the shallowest depth potion you have the highest quantity of it’ll be slow poison. This is one of the reasons why it’s a good idea to label your potions as you find them with the depth you first encountered them. If I was badly poisoned I could quaff a blue potion and be reasonably certain it would be helpful.
Huh we didn’t get all the trolls.
Don’t fucking fight early trolls out in the open like a dumb idiot, you’ll get torn to pieces for no reason as they knock you all over the place. This troll drops a longbow which is a strict upgrade to our shortbow. With a longbow we now have the power to kill some of the higher-level molds like those shadow molds that have been plaguing me without using a million arrows.
Now we find out how many violet worms have multiplied while we were clearing the rest of the vault guardians. Thankfully with 8 will we probably won’t get drained by worms but it’s still a risk.
It was just the 2, I guess they only woke up when I came in here the second time, victory! Theres a bunch of loot on the ground in here and those two ~ are treasure chests.
Loot from Guardians: Torch, herb, longbow
In vault: 2 rings, enchanted shield, enchanted mail corslet, 2 potions.
Treasure Chests: Enchanted long sword,enchanted battle axe, enchanted throwing axe
Shadow Mold up in the top room. Thankfully with our shiny new longbow these are no longer insurmountable obstacles.
He was guarding a staff which I promptly use to no effect. Some staves help in the process of identifying items but no such luck here.
Lore-Keeper will tell us what is safe to wield at the very least.
Cursed weapons are as far as I’m aware always Vampiric if they’re not artefacts. Kind of a bummer as I was looking forward to some manner of slaying longsword.
Down to 350’ and there’s even more loot to ID. Join us next time as we quest to figure out what this armory of garbage we’re hauling around actually does.