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Last time: I finished Gaab Baay's quests and received the first part of the Chaos Trinity. This time: I get my Lara Croft on and then retrieve the fire orb.

After depositing the Medal of Chaos in my stash, I return to the surface. I head west and cross the mountains with my climbing kit, then turn north.



This dungeon is the Tomb of the High Kings. I'm visiting a little out of order here. Shortly after the wall of flames I'm going to run into the Eternal Guardian. This dude won't let me continue until I have an artifact from this dungeon. The first two levels are normal dungeon levels and I pass through uneventfully. The next three are cavernous levels.



Cavernous levels have a high rate of monster generation, like the Big Room. These are also uneventful and I make my way down after killing a whole lot of chaff monsters. I do find some loot, including another potion of gain attributes. I still haven't drunk the other one I found (it's currently sitting in my stash), nor the two potions of dexterity as I've hit my natural Dex cap of 22 and I'm waiting on one or two potions of potential dexterity to drop so I can train it up to 24 or 25 with herbs before drinking the potions, but the game has been reluctant to give me any. (And don't get me started on my girdle of carrying, what the FUCK game.) I also find some more demon and dragon slaying quarrels (still no undead slaying ammo), a ring of see invisible, and a potion of youth. I've only been unnaturally aged by 1 year so far, courtesy of a random ghost that popped out of a wall, so I save the potion.



On the bottom level is a piranha-infested moat surrounding the High King's tomb. Trying to swim this lake is a guaranteed death. The only way across is to use Bridge Building (not fucking likely with my skill of 6) or a wand of ice. Ice will only hold the weight of my character plus 2000s of gear. The boss I'm about to fight has a confusion spell which could lead to me falling into the moat. I don't want that to happen, so I equip my clear mind ring before dropping all my stuff in the hallway, except for what I'm wearing and a wand of cold.



I make an ice bridge with my wand and kick the door down. The skeletal king opens with a magic missile spell but misses. He seems to have taken damage already, but I've no idea how.



I move away from the moat just in case he gets a confusion spell past my resistance. He summons some skeletal warriors to pursue me. I've never seen him do this before. According to the guidebook he normally only summons them if kited off the level. I guess that got changed in the new versions. Anyway it doesn't matter because they're chaff and I kill them.



I hit level 20 as I do so. The skeletal king can move over the moat no problem and bombards me with spells as I fight. I am able to avoid them thanks mainly to having maxed Alertness.




I put one into Dodge to max it out, two into Climbing (12), and one into Disarm Traps (8). I also get a Toughness increase from the level up.



I pull the skeletal king away from the water and soften him up with some blessed crossbow bolts as he closes in to melee range.



He gets a few hits in but I don't drop below 300 HP before I kill him.



My prize is the artifact Ring of the High Kings [+2,+3]. It grants resistance to fire, acid, cold, and shock but has no other properties apart from allowing me to pass the Eternal Guardian.

On the way back up I encounter a random named monster, Workaka, the female carrion crawler. She gets a bunch of attacks every round but dies easily. Much less threatening than that stat draining minotaur motherfucker I met earlier. I return to the surface without further incident and head back to D:1 where I make preparations to tackle the Tower of Eternal Flame.

The tower has four levels. As I explore them I will be bombarded with constant heat damage to my HP and my gear. My fireproof blanket will protect my pack, but the tower is so hot even fireproof blankets can eventually burn. Ideally I'd like to take two or more but the one I've found will have to do. I stash all non-essential burnables on the D:1 stairs and replace all combustible gear such as my spear, shield, and 7LB with higher-metal backups. For most characters, four levels of fire resist will ensure they take no heat damage from exploring the tower. Drakelings are a special case due to their cold-bloodedness. I'll be taking some damage even with max fire resist. To counter this I'll have to take along healing herbs and potions. Let's hope my blanket holds up. There is a silver lining to the drakeling weakness - fire also speeds them up. I already have 120 base speed, and the heat will make me even faster.

The boss of the tower is a dragon, so I'll also need to bring Wyrmlance, my dragon slaying bolts, and a couple of crossbows to fire them. I'll keep my crossbows and ammo in my pack under the blanket until they're needed, but once equipped they will be vulnerable to burning damage. I bring my ring of ice to protect them. Rings of ice won't 100% protect your gear, which is why I'm stashing my most valuable combustibles and bringing a spare crossbow. There are also high-level fire giants in the tower, so I bring some giant slaying quarrels I found. The boss can cast confusion, so I bring my clear mind ring. I'll need to dig into the temple area on the last level, so I bring all my digging wands and pickaxes. I'll need food obviously so I pack some of that. I'll want to get to the boss ASAP before my blanket burns up and without using too much healing to recover from the ambient heat, so I also bring four blessed scrolls of magic mapping so I can get to the stairs quickly. Teleportation would make getting to the boss even faster, but unfortunately I have found no wand of teleportation and only one scroll. I take the scroll along as an emergency escape.

My final tower kit:





I have two levels of fire resist from eating a fire drake corpse, and two more from the Ring of High Kings and Elemental Gauntlets. This will minimise the heat damage I take. This will be the most dangerous challenge I've faced in a while, let's hope I don't fuck this up! I could spend some time in the Infinite Dungeon grinding for another fireproof blanket and some more teleportation, but eh fuck it. If my blanket burns up early I'll beat a hasty retreat and hopefully make it out alive, and I'll worry about grinding then.



Right, let's do this!



I step inside and immediately get messages about the heat. I resist the normal heat damage through my fire resist but the drakeling damage will kick in soon enough. Note that my speed has jumped to 221 already.



I read my first mapping scroll. The stairs are hidden in the dark room to my east. Nice and close. I head on over and up.



I find an unIDed potion at the top of the stairs. Hopefully my blanket lasts long enough for me to find out what it is!



I read another map scroll and fortunately the exit is close by again. I ignore the various fire-themed monsters I run past on my way to the stairs, blitzing past them at a Speed now over 250.



The damage over time is starting to wear me down by the time I reach the third level. I munch a couple of pepper petals to recover.



I read a map scroll and beeline for the stairs to my west. I'm tempted to stop to kill the fire demon for some nice exp, but there's plenty of killing to be done on the final level. Onwards and upwards!



I encounter my first adult dragon at the stairs. This isn't the boss, just a regular red dragon. There are many hanging out in the tower. I don't want him following me up to the final level so I equip Wyrmlance and cut him down. I eat some more pepper petals before heading up the stairs.



I reach the top level and map it. As with the water temple, the boss is hanging out by the altar in the middle of the temple area, surrounded by fire demons. The side rooms are filled with fire elementals, fire grues, and chaos servants. If I tunnel straight into the middle, I'll probably agro the rooms to both the north and the south.



I want to kill the boss, recover the orb and get out ASAP, so I tunnel into the southwest room first. This way I'll only have to clear one room of elementals to get at the boss and his demon bodyguards.



The elementals can breathe fire bolts along cardinal directions. The elementals themselves are obviously immune to fire, so if I try to fight them all in a straight line in the tunnel, I have to deal with multiple elementals breathing fire at me. I make a side tunnel and fight them there to avoid this. Notice my Speed is now 340 where it caps out. I'm getting several attacks for every one they get. I switch to berserk tactics to take advantage of this.



I clear the elementals from the first room and push on towards the inner sanctum where I begin to encounter fire demons. These guys also breathe fire bolts and have a corrupting melee attack. There's too many to fight using ranged weaponry - I'd run out of ammo long before killing them all, which is why I left my demon slaying ammo behind. I'll need that later for more dangerous enemies. I'll have to fight the demons in melee and hope I don't get hit enough to pick up much corruption. This is why spear and shield is so great, you want as much DV as possible to avoid getting corrupted by guys like these. Thankfully, my insane speed means I kill most before they get more than one attack off. I'm out of pepper petals now, which is why I've let my HP drop lower - I want to get the most I can out of the ultra healing potions I brought along.



My HP dips below 80 so I play it safe and pop my first ultra healing.



I fight my way into the inner sanctum and spot the boss, the Ancient Chaos Wyrm. This guy breathes fire, confuses, has a corrupting melee attack and can heal himself. He hasn't spotted me yet so I pull more of the trash monsters back to the chokepoint and kill them. I get down to 59 HP and pop another potion. Five left. Hopefully it'll be enough. I had 4 blessed potions of extra healing too, but I left those stashed on D:1 in case my blanket burned up and I lost all my gear.



I step back out into the inner sanctum and spot the boss again. This time he's seen me. I equip my crossbow and dragon slaying ammo and let fly.



Several shots miss, but I'm firing so fast it doesn't matter. Three connect and are enough to kill him before he or his minions get into melee range. I don't even need Wyrmlance. Slaying ammo fucking owns. I fight my way through some more trash monsters to grab the wyrm's corpse and the fire orb. I have to drink another potion in the process. The fire orb increases strength by 10 when equipped. Fucking hell yeah! It can also be activated for some corruption and a fireball - lol no. I head back down and make it out on 30 HP without having to drink another potion. I rest up in the wilderness and return to D:1 and recover the rest of my gear before heading back to Dwarftown to stash the wyrm's corpse at Waldenbrook's shop. Now that I've finished Gaab Baay's quests I'm free to change alignment back to Neutral. Time to return to Terinyo. I have a puppy corpse to recover! I would take the snake and wyrm corpses to Terinyo with me, but I'm running low on holy water after blessing a lot of my tower kit, so I leave them here for now.

Before I head to the Puppy Cave, I stop for a quick word with the sheriff.



"Greetings, adventurer.
Welcome in us peaceful village.
Kill Hotzenplotz, da evil crime lord and ye will be rewarded."



Hotzenplotz lives in Holeinthewall and is guarded by a couple of half-orc bouncers. This is a level 10 quest which I've saved until now for the lawful boost.



I'm way over-leveled and he goes down easy. I return to the sheriff.

"Congratulations! Ye hast vanquished a dangerous foe!
Hotzenplotz has been a dangerous enemy for many years.
Take dis reward as a sign of recognition for yer valor."

My reward is a blessed amulet of order. Wearing this will gradually move my alignment towards lawful, but will cause some damage as long as I'm Chaotic. It's not much though so I put it on and head to the Puppy Cave.



I find a wand shop on PC:2. No more wands of wishing sadly. I buy a few wands of digging and move on. There are three guaranteed features of the Puppy Cave which can be dangerous for new characters: an ant hole on PC:2, a cavernous level on PC:5 and a lesser vault on PC:6. However, I'm extremely over-leveled for the Puppy Cave and clearing it is trivial. Unfortunately the vault contains no loot of note.



The dog is always on PC:6. I'm well past the 4-day time limit to find it alive, so the dog is dead. I pick up its corpse. On the way out I find an unIDed potion and read an ID scroll. It turns out to be a blessed potion of willpower, and the potion I picked up in the tower is an uncursed potion of mana. I bless the mana potion, drink both, and return to Terinyo.



"Hast ye found me puppy?"
Do you want to tell her about it?
The tiny girl begins to weep bitterly.

I give her the corpse.

The girl accepts the corpse of her beloved dog and starts to sob bitterly.

I chat to her again.

"Oh my, I'm so lonely and need some company."
Do you want to spend some time with the tiny girl?
You spend some time with the tiny girl who seems to enjoy your company.
You talk to the tiny girl.
"*Sniff*"

Turning in the quest, giving her the corpse, and talking to her afterwards are all lawful acts. Despite doing all of the above, in addition to the Hotzenplotz quest and wearing the amulet long enough to get down to about 50% HP, I'm still Chaotic. I've saved several plant seeds, herb seeds, and pieces of candy over the course of the game so far. I give the seeds to a farmer and the candy to a kid, also lawful acts. Still chaotic. I return to Dwarftown where I sell some sis and other loot, and retrieve a pile of gold from my stash. I now have ~76000 gold. I visit Ruun, the priest of Dwarftown, and donate 70000 to him. Still Chaotic. Fuck.

Next time: I delve deeper into the Caverns of Chaos in search of more Chaos Orbs and more gold to donate my way to Neutral!