...that'll do.

I finally weakened and spent a few hours playing g10. My dwarven
ranger was doing well, mainly because he found a Halberd of Defense in
the Small Cave (not the FIRST time i've found a kick-ass halberd
there; it always seems to be a HALBERD, for some reason).

But, daftly, I tried out some scrolls in the shop in Dwarftown, trying
to find Identify. I'd had my stuff IDed by the Elder after killing my
first quest animal (a cave lion - good thing I can never be bothered
being nice to the Cat Lord anyway, eh?), but hadn't been carrying a
scroll of ID at the time.

One of the scrolls I tried turned out to be Darkness.

Casting Darkness over the doorway of the Dwarftown shop is a BAD idea,
given that all ADOM characters, even in friendly areas, apprently
flail their weapons around in front of them at all times.

I had a scroll of light, but I couldn't read it in the dark, could I?
So I foolishly fumbled my way into and out of the shop a few times
and, eventually, accidentally thumped a Dwarven Guardian. He followed
me out taking ineffectual swings at my heavily armoured character. I
just stood there and took it, trying to figure out what the heck I was
going to do NOW, because nobody had seen me hit him and so only he
hated me, when another Guardian came over and stopped the fight by
killing his angry colleague.

Great! Problem solved, right?

I wandered down to the temple to do the usual altar-drop dance. When I
came out, I discovered that the Guardian who'd killed the one I'd
angered was now a Bad Boy according to the rest of the town, and
everyone was coming over for a fight. Smack, slap, pound pound pound.
It would appear that anybody who hits a dwarf becomes an enemy to
every other "combat capable" dwarf, and when THEY start fighting they
become enemies too, and the whole joint goes to heck in short order.
This is quite authentic dwarf behaviour, I should think, but aren't
they supposed just to knock each other out and all be friends again in
the morning?

Anyway, after a little while the Priest weighed in and slaughtered all
comers, including the Elder himself. God is Great, taste my mace. When
the foolishness stopped, only the Elder and all of the Guardians and
all of the Dwarfs and Female Dwarfs were dead (I helpfully sacrificed
the corpses!), and nobody hated me. Dwarftown was populated only by
the other special characters and various lost Dwarven Children ("Is
that my daddy you're carrying into the Temple? Are they going to make
him better?" "Uh, yeah, kid. That's the ticket.").

I did nothing else very remarkable for some time, until I accidentally
whacked the shopkeeper in the dark, which I still hadn't got rid of
because I hadn't found one lousy amulet or wand of light. And that was
it for me.

--
Daniel Rutter
Visit http://www.dansdata.com/!