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Last time: I got crowned, killed the Cat Lord and cleared the Air Temple. This time: I go to a new moon festival at fantasy Stonehenge and press on to the Earth Temple.

Before anything else, I read a scroll of corruption removal, curing both of my mutations. I now head back up to my stash. On the way I find an eternium girdle [+0,+4], an upgrade of 1 PV, and a white dragon scale mail. The mail has the same defensive stats as my eternium plate, but also grants immunity to cold. I wear it for about five minutes before finding eternium plate of life. The life suffix increases my HP by 20%, from 409 to 490. I also drop in to the casino shop where I purchase a girdle of carrying and a potion of uselessness. In spite of its name, I'll soon have a use for the potion. The girdle has [+0,+0] stats, but increases my maximum unburdened carrying capacity from 5681 to 8606.



After my most recent dive, I have 15 potions of holy water. I take the scrolls of defense, protection, increase melee accuracy, and increase melee damage from my stash and bless them all. All of these scrolls increase gear stats, with the chance of an increase diminishing the higher the existing stats on the gear being improved.



I read the melee scrolls and increase my orcish spear of penetration from (+1, 1d8+2) to (+4, 1d8+5). Its base stats were quite low so all three scrolls worked. The defense and protection scrolls are applied to a random equipped piece of armour, so I remove everything but my seven league boots. I read all four defense scrolls and four of the protection scrolls, increasing the boots from [+1, +0] to [+6, +6]. Once of the protection scrolls fails but all of the defense scrolls work. I remove my 7LB, equip my girdle of carrying, and read the other two protection scrolls, increasing it to [+0, +4]. I'm also sick of waiting for potions of potential dexterity to drop, so I just go ahead and drink my two blessed potions of dexterity and two blessed potions of gain attributes. This seems like a good spot for an updated character info dump.



My updated statline.



My current default gear loadout. Since I'm now facing more high-PV monsters and monsters with nasty on-hit effects, I've gone back to my spear of penetration + shield combo over the long spear.



My selection of missile weapons.



My current supply of slaying ammo.



My weapon skills. (I stopped reporting improvements in these a while back.)

My other skills I've been showing when I level up so I won't post those again now, and I'm currently free of mutations.



My character screen. As you can see, most of my attributes have hit their potential max, meaning it will be difficult to improve them further without attribute potions. Also relevant: the calendar. It is approaching the end of the month and will soon be Darknight. I head up to the surface.



I travel to the stone circle in the northwest and wait for Darknight. Let's hope I'm ready for this - this Darknight is the 60th day since the start of the game. If I'm forced to flee the map, I won't get another attempt until day 90, when background corruption will double. This is something I very much want to avoid.



23:00 hits and I enter the Stone Circle.



My first opponents are a pair of chaos knights. Like chaos warriors, these guys like to drop eternium gear. They die easily.



I enter a tunnel and spot a sectoid an annihilator. These guys can destroy your gear if you let them get into melee range. I kite and kill him from range.



My next opponent is a writhing mass of primal chaos. This is what your character turns into if you get a game over from accumulating too many mutations. I press deeper into the tunnel and reach a cave where I kill another annihilator and another two writhing masses. I switch out my bow and arrows for a sling and two potions of confusion.



Deeper in the cave I spot the boss, Keriax, the multi-headed chaos dragon.



Keriax has ranged corrupting bolts. One hits me and gives me the poison hands mutation. This makes my melee attacks poisonous but any potions I try to pick up or drink are turned into potions of poison. Similarly, my food will be poisoned too. I don't want to blow a scroll of corruption removal on it just yet, so I swap my elemental gauntlets for the thick gauntlets I picked up earlier. Thick gauntlets let you safely handle food and potions with the poison hands mutation. Keriax also has a ranged confusion spell that is difficult to resist. I swap my rings out for a ring of the clear mind, a ring of mental stability (also grants confusion resistance and a bonus to Learning), and also equip a helm of mental stability I picked up earlier (like the ring but goes on your head). I'm not sure if confusion resist stacks but what the hell.



I have a ranged confusion attack too - I sling a potion of confusion at Keriax. It shatters on him and renders him confused. I switch to a crossbow and dragon slaying ammo.



I fire every bolt at him while he staggers around in confusion but unfortunately miss several while he regenerates much of the damage I did, leaving him critically wounded as I run out of ammo. The confusion wears off and he hits me with another corrupting bolt, which immediately gives me another mutation.



Gross. I move out of the line of fire of his bolts and read a corruption removal scroll, removing both mutations. I switch to my long bow and dragon slaying arrows. He tries to confuse me again but this time I resist.



Two arrows later he goes down. Killing him wasn't too hard, but I should have been a little more careful about staying out of the line of fire of his bolts. I could have done that without using up the scroll. Never mind, at least I hit level 24 from the kill.




I get six picks this time, due to the gain attributes potions earlier and the bonus learning from the mental stability gear I had equipped at the time of the kill. If I was more onto it I could be keeping a close eye on my exp and swapping into +Le gear every time I'm about to level up and getting more skill picks every time, but I put all six into First Aid (14) in an effort to max it, but it doesn't quite get there. For my talent I take Steel Skin, for +2 PV. That's the last PV talent for most characters, but Dwarves can get Mithril Skin after Steel Skin for +3 PV. Keriax leaves his corpse and the artifact the Crown of Chaos. The corpse, like those of the orb guardians, can be given to the druid in Terinyo for a potion of cure corruption.



The crown is another part of the Chaos Trinity. The "essence of Chaos and Corruption" means that like the Medal of Chaos, it will corrupt me just by carrying it. I kick it to the edge of the map, pick it up and take it across the overworld map to the Caverns of Chaos, where I stash it on the entry stairs. I continue to Terinyo and turn in Keriax's corpse for a PoCC. I return to the CoC and kick the crown down to my stash. I continue back down to where I was. On the way, I buy the potion of education from the D:10 shop.



On D:41 I find a room full of great blue wyrms. Great wyrms are always named, but are not like the random named unique monsters with special powers. These guys are worth a lot of experience and loot, but breathe lightning bolts. Lightning is annoying because a) I don't yet have a source of lightning immunity and more importantly b) there's no way to protect your gear from lightning damage. I back off and equip Wyrmlance and other artifacts and higher metals only, apart from my bow and dragon slaying arrows, and drop everything else apart from a crowssbow and dragon slaying quarrels. I kill the first one and check the monster memory function to see how much experience he was worth.



About 36.5k.



A screen showing how much experience is required to reach each level. I level up off the next Wyrm and killing the rest will get me well on my way to 26.



My level 25 class ability is okay but not amazing, an extra 1d4 HP per level up. On average this will give 62.5 extra HP by level 50.




One into First Aid, maxing it. The rest go into Tactics (4). Now that First Aid and many other skills are maxed, I bless and drink my potion of education.



Welp. I learn the Cooking skill. With a cooking set I can use this skill to cook corpses, increasing their satiation value and making them last longer. Considering how easy it is to stay fed, this isn't much help. There are really only a couple of good skills I don't already have and the odds of getting them weren't great, but it was worth a try.

As I continue to kill the great blue wyrms, a lich king sneaks up behind me and summons a bunch of greater earth elementals. These guys have huge PV, hit very hard and can move through walls. They're also worth about 19.5k exp. Luckily I have a penetration weapon and kill them fairly quickly, but they take their toll and I'm forced to use another ultra healing potion. After clearing a path, I one-shot the lich king with an undead-slaying quarrel for another 10k exp. Among the loot I find a potion of quickling blood, a potion of toughness, a ring of regeneration, and this:



Nice defenses and resists but terrible damage for an artifact weapon. This will be getting sold. Regeneration on the other hand is awesome, hugely increasing my HP recovery at the cost of hungering slightly faster. I swap it in for my speed ring. The potions of toughness and quickling blood I bless and drink, but don't gain any speed. I guess they're capped. I proceed to D:42.



This message indicates I've reached the Earth Temple.



As I explore, stone snakes start coming out of the walls. Most of the monsters in the Earth Temple can pass through walls. Fortunately there are no annoying environmental effects. The stone snakes die easily and I dig towards the temple.



As I push in, earth elementals and stone grues start coming through the walls. Compared to their greater cousins the lich king summoned, these guys are easy. As I clear it I get poison hands again. I put on thick gauntlets, drink the cure corruption potion I got from the druid, switch gauntlets back again and continue. I hit level 26 off the next monster.

I'm not going to bother recapping skills any more, I've maxed everything I can that's important. From here on out I'm pretty much just putting my picks into anything. I gain a point of Strength from the level up.

Earth elementals and stone grues continue to pour out of the walls and I make a fighting retreat to avoid being surrounded. In ADOM, any monsters in melee range past a threshold (2 for melee classes, 1 for everyone else) give the player combat penalties. These monsters aren't super-dangerous, but the grues have a corrupting attack which I'm eager to avoid.



As I fight, the Ancient Stone Beast appears out of the wall. This is the boss of the level. He's basically a super earth elemental who hits hard, has a shitload of PV, and regenerates. Like all the orb guardians, he has a corrupting melee attack. My penetrating spear makes short work of him. I take his corpse and the Earth Orb. The Orb grants +10 toughness when equipped and can be activated to corrupt and cause an earthquake. Earthquakes destroy random walls on the level and make piles of rocks fall all over the place. As usual, not worth the corruption. I return to Dwarftown and stash the corpse in the shop with the others. After selling some loot I have almost 150k gold. I stop in at the casino on my way back down and buy 6 potions of water, 2 potions of extra healing, 2 scrolls of increase melee accuracy, and several stacks of undead, humanoid, and dragon slaying ammo. This costs me 132k. The casino shop is expensive. I bless and read both scrolls successfully, increasing my spear's hit bonus to +7.

I make my way back down to the Earth Temple and clear the rest of the level, hitting level 27 in the process. I manage to max the Survival skill in case I find any more potions of education. I pick the Quick talent for +2 Speed and gain a point of Toughness. I find another potion of cure corruption as I clear. The monsters in the temple are worth so much experience I almost hit level 28 by the time it's fully clear.

D:43 and D:44 are uneventful except I hit 28 as I explore D:44 and gain a point of Strength.



As I explore D:45 I gain another mutation from background corruption.



This one isn't terrible. It sucks to lose Strength and Toughness, my two main stats, but in return I get some Dexterity and +20 Speed. It's also one of two specific mutations required to enter the Quickling Tree, an optional dungeon I'll most likely skip. Nevertheless, I won't cure this one. I need to accumulate a number of (non-specific) mutations for an ultra ending. To this end, I won't be curing any for a while except the really bad ones - like most of the mutations the game has given me so far.



I enter D:46 and receive a special message indicating that the level contains a greater vault. I read a scroll of monster detection.



Fuck yeah! It's a giant vault, the least threatening type of greater vault, and source of a lot of loot and giant corpses. My Strength is super high already so I won't get much if any from the corpses, but before Biskup nerfed sick/starving/ring of weakness attribute training, this would be my ticket to a whooooole lotta Strength. As I clear the vault, I pick up to hooves mutation again. It's still a shit mutation, but not one of the absolute worst and not worth burning a scroll or potion on at this stage. I clear the vault no problem and gather a lot of loot:








And that's not even including all the shit I left on the floor. I also looted about 100k gold.

Of particular note in there:
The crystal tower shield is a 1 PV upgrade.
Another potion of uselessness.
The potion of learning gets blessed and drunk.
The scroll of teleportation is my second, meaning I now have a means of teleporting into and out of one of two walled-off areas of the game. Still waiting on a wand of teleportation.
The Robes of Resistance and Scorched Spear are artifacts:




The spear has okayish damage, but is shit compared to what I already have. The only plants in the game that I can think of are the trees in the animated forest. Would make an okay precrowning gift I guess but I'll be selling this. The Robes of Resistance are quite nice. I won't equip them right now, but I'll hang on to them so I have the option of indestructible/undamagable body armour. Even eternium armour can be degraded by monsters "punching through" it and reducing its stats.



D:47 contains a red dragon lesser vault. I equip Wyrmlance and a ring of ice to protect my gear.



The boss of the vault is a great red wyrm. I already took out a whole room full of great blue wyrms so this shouldn't be too hard.



I kill him and hit level 29.



I clear the rest of the vault and run into an emperor lich. These guys summon like crazy, cast death rays, confuse and drain stats. Fortunately I'm on 151 speed having been boosted by all the dragons breathing fire at me. I equip some confusion resistance gear, an amulet of death ray resistance, Vanquisher and undead-slaying ammo. I manage to drop him with two hits out of three arrows. That was easy in the end, but I was lucky. Emperor liches will frequently summon hordes of powerful monsters to block your line of sight.



I get the stiff muscles mutation again. God damnit ADOM. I bless and drink a potion of cure corruption. In my loot from the level I find a phase dagger. Phase daggers work like weapons of penetration. I keep it as a spare in case I lose my spear. D:47 has two down staircases. I take one and find myself on D:48.



D:48 contains five elemental anomalies, corresponding to the five Chaos Orbs. Placing each orb into its anomaly will reverse the staircase to go down to D:49. This means there is no going back. I'm not ready to pass this point of no return yet, so I head back up to D:47.

Next time: I explore the other branch in the lower reaches of the Caverns of Chaos!