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Last time: I explored the Unremarkable Dungeon and visited the High Mountain Village before journeying to the Caverns of Chaos.
In the first room I find a Ring of Stun Resistance. I must have IDed it in a shop in Holeinthewall or the HMV. You don't normally get stunned unless you just took a big hit and got left on really low HP, which doesn't happen a lot (ideally it won't happen at all), but hey it doesn't hurt to have.
I meet an owlbear.
Well alright then. This owlbear was friendly. You can chat to friendly monsters for a line of flavour text. Onwards!
I find some loot I'll ID later but the first two levels are otherwise uneventful. From now on I won't mention loot unless it's an upgrade or a significant consumable. I'll be doing a lot of looting.
As you can see here, level two of the Caverns of Chaos (as the main dungeon, the CoC are denoted as D by the game, this being D:2) has two down staircases. One leads to D:3, the other to S:3. S:3 is a normal level that is a side-branch which rejoins the main dungeon in D:4. I have no idea what the point of this is, unless it's to introduce the idea of dungeon forks early.
I hit Polearms 8 and find another pool on D:3 but D:3 and S:3 are otherwise uneventful. On D:4, I meet a dark elven wizard (grey u). In addition to casting energy ray spells, dark elven wizards (and priestesses) can summon giant spiders (blue S), cave fishers (another type of spider, grey S), and tarantulas (none here, teal S). All three have poisonous attacks and poisonous corpses. However, the corpses also grant poison resistance, which renders poison mostly trivial. Poison can stack, and enough stacks can still be dangerous to a poison resistant character. Poison can also be somewhat countered by using the First Aid skill every time the poison damage ticks. I kill the wizard and his spiders and eat a corpse for the resistance.
I also run into an ogre magus. Ogre magi are fairly scary. They can turn invisible and cast quite damaging cold bolts. I have neither the ability to see invisible nor cold resistance so I leave her alone for now. You can attack invisible creatures without see invisible by guessing where they are and moving into them or shooting/casting in their direction but the AI will move around so it can be tricky in an open room.
I find herbs growing on D:4 and am able to cultivate a couple of good patches. I also kill a kobold shaman who drops a corpse. Kobold shaman corpses increase Mana by 1 when eaten but like all kobold corpses will make you sick. Fortunately I picked some curia mancox during my herb cultivations so I am able to cure sickness no problem. In addition to its spellcasting benefits, Mana gives a chance to avoid hostile spells.
On D:5 I find the arena. The arena is a special level that will always be found between D:3 and D:5.
"Well met, stranger! Us is always looking for new talents...
talents to fight in da arena and become rich and famous... art ye interested?
Ask me, if ye wanna mutilate some baddies."
You can fight monsters in the era to earn a few hundred gold each time after the first, when you fight for free. The first 21 fights are picked from a pool of monsters for each fight. Any further fights are selected randomly from any monster in the game, including very dangerous ones. For two of those first 21 fights, cats are a possible opponent. This is one of the reasons I'll be skipping the arena for now. The other is that later I will be given a quest to become the champion. You become the champion after winning 21 fights. If you become the champion before getting the quest, you will instead be given a quest to kill a random monster, possibly a rare and/or dangerous one. This can be very annoying, so I won't be getting the championship until I get the quest.
"Ye wanna buy sssommme fat worm for meagre 1 gold piece?
The area around the arena is also populated with ratling traders selling a variety of foodstuffs. Most of them, including the worm this fine fellow is offering, will make you vomit and lose satiation. Two of the varieties of food sold are nutritious and one in particular (cooked lizard) has a very good weight:nutrition ratio. The traders are indistinguishable until spoken to so I'll name them for future reference.
I find the two lizard traders (there's usually two selling each food type), buy them out (they'll restock later but for now I have a LOT of food), and move on to the next level.
On D:6 I find the Big Room. The Big Room is another special level, always generated on D:6 or D:7. The room takes up almost the entire area of the level, has a lot of monsters and a very high respawn rate. It also always has herbs growing.
As I move around the room trying to cultivate herb patches or pick herbs before the bushes die out on their own (some will spawn isolated), a blink dog shows up and summons his friends. Now the fucker summons when I already have a gaggle of monsters following me around being annoying. At least I'll get another shot at a corpse, but unfortunately I didn't spot the original before he summoned in his friends.
Yessssss. Now any time I get teleported I will get to choose where I end up instead of it being a random spot on the level. As I try to cut my way free of the constantly-reinforcing pack, I hit level 11.
One each into Alertness (12), Athletics (7), and Dodge (7). I also manage to pick up another blink dog corpse. There's a shop coming up soon where I'll be able to sell it. Corpses sold to shops will not decompose. It's possible I'll lose teleport control later in the game, so it'll be good to have a spare blink dog corpse available. As corpses decompose, they drop in B/U/C status. When a cursed corpse decomposes it rots away completely. I don't know what status the corpse is right now, but I dip it into a potion of holy water. This blesses it, meaning it will last longer and the B/U/C status will be visible from now on. If it reaches cursed status before I reach the shop, I can bless it again.
I finish exploring the Big Room, trailing a pack of monsters the whole way, and somehow manage to cultivate three herb patches. I'd like to harvest them, but doing so is a pain in the ass with all these monsters everywhere. There is a very gamey but I believe intended way to prevent monsters from spawning in the Big Room. It actually works in any level, but this is the only one where it's worth the effort. See how the eastern edge of the room doesn't quite reach the edge of the screen? There's two columns of wall I can dig out once I have a means of digging. If I hollow out that area, I can lure a breeding (self-replicating) monster such as a worm into that area and use a wand of door creation to seal it in, where it will breed until the whole space is filled. There is a cap on the number of monsters that can be in a level at once, and letting a breeder fill in that space will reach the cap, leaving me free to harvest herbs (or hell, just pass through the level) in peace. I have no way of digging for now though, so I continue on.
A cat follows me down the stairs from the Big Room. I could lose it by dropping some loot to lose Strained and outrunning it, but I have a bunch of stuff I want to ID/sell so I'd rather not. I'm strong enough relative to the monsters around here that, except not being able to outrun cats, the penalties from Strained aren't a big deal. I begin exploring the level in the hope of finding a way to ditch it. I stumble over a teleport trap (green ^) and use my teleport control to land on the other side of the door and close it, trapping the cat in there - at least until it walks over the trap and teleports itself out. It works for now though and I find the stairs and head down before my blink dog rots.
The strange smell indicates the presence of an unusual artifact which always appears on D:8.
This strange item will replicate itself in your inventory. This gradually adds weight but the duplicates can be sold for cash. This gives me an unlimited albeit gradual source of income. I head down the stairs ASAP again.
You enter a huge cavern, which seems to be hewn from stone. Several globes of bright light floating in the air illuminate the cave very efficiently. In the distance beautiful stone buildings are scattered throughout the cavern. The worksmanship is obviously of dwarven origin. You seem to have entered an ancient dwarven city!
On D:9 I find Dwarftown, always generated between D:9 and D:11. First stop is the local shop, to sell my blink dog corpse. I also check out his stock and make my usual two piles.
Again I get pretty lucky and the store has some nice gear. I'll hold off buying anything just yet though.
Next stop is the temple. The Dwarftown temple will generate a lawful altar if you are lawful when you first enter Dwarftown, or a neutral one if you are neutral or chaotic. I check the B/U/C status of all my loot and wear-ID the safe stuff. Well, what I think is the safe stuff.
The uncursed trapped ring mail (-1,-1)[-1,+3] seems to be welded to your body... you can't remove it!
An seemingly innocuous uncursed ringmail turns out to have the trapped prefix. This prefix is very rare but means I'm stuck with this fairly crap armour until I can find a way to destroy it. Fuck you, Biskup. Fuck. You. Among my other loot is a metal cap [+0,+1] and an adamantium girdle [+0,+3], both +1 PV upgrades from what I had previously. Adamantium is similar to mithril only better - even lighter and more protective. There's one more "higher" metal even better than adamantium, called eternium. Higher metals, in addition to the properties already mentioned, are immune to rust, corrosion and elemental damage. I also find an amulet of perseverance, which boosts Willpower by 3, and a whip of hunting. The hunting suffix increases the chance that slain monsters will leave a corpse. Food isn't really an issue now that I have access to the ratling vendors in the arena, but some corpses are very desirable. I'll hang on to it for now and whip it out (pun intended) if I run into something worth using it on.
Next stop is Thrundarr, the Dwarven chief.
Thrundrarr, the ancient dwarf mumbles: "Good to see a hero..."
"I want ye to slay a troll to prove your valor.
Return to me when ye have succeeded."
Thrudarr's first quest is to kill a random monster from a pool of relatively low-level monsters. Some of the possibilities are somewhat dangerous or rare, which can be annoying. It shouldn't be too hard to find a troll though. I realize at this point that I haven't sold my loot, so I do this quickly before continuing to do the rounds in Dwarftown. While I'm back in the shop, I buy the adamantium spear, the boots of speed, and the potion of training. Potions of training increase the level up die of a random skill. I drink mine and get food preservation. Not ideal, but at least it wasn't woodcraft. The spear won't replace my orcish spear of penetration, but it will make a good backup, in addition to being safe to use against corrosive or rust-causing enemies. The boots of speed are a straight upgrade, and a nice one at that.
"Aye, training is good for ye!"
Which attritute do you want to train?
Garth offers training in Strength, Learning, Willpower, Dexterity, Toughness, Charisma, and Perception. Upon choosing which attribute to train, the player is prompted to enter the amount of gold they want to spend. The cost to increase a skill increases dramatically the higher the attribute is, but the game offers no information on this whatsoever. Fortunately, the guidebook contains a table (use the bottom ones) listing how much gold is required for each stat value. I only have enough gold to train one lowish stat right now, so I pay Garth 2001 gold to increase my Learning score. This training works the same as training naturally or with herbs - it won't happen right away. There are four other NPCs in Dwarftown, but two I don't have any use for just yet, one is in that building without a door, and the fourth won't talk to me until I'm chaotic. Speaking of which...
You can press ':' followed by 's' to swap places with a friendly monster.
I use this to lure this friendly fellow over to the stairs down.
You climb downwards. The dwarven guardian decides to follow you.
By luring him onto the next level I can murder him without anyone knowing about it. I'm now chaotically aligned. With that little errand out of the way, I head back to Dwarftown.
"Gimme 6 artifacts and den us'll see.
The first quest in the ultra-ending chain is to give this gentlerodent 6 artifacts. Unfortunately the strange item (aka si once identified) doesn't count.
I'll call it here for tonight. Next time: I go troll and artifact hunting, and do some more quests for Thrundarr!