Elf Ascension
Eugene Hung
Near-ascensions: HW
To go: AKP
Another ascension tale....hit "n" to avoid spoilers.
This Elf had the help of the full moon at the start. Ran into a bones level
of an archeologist on level 4 and obtained a tinning kit and a wand of
polymorph. After a few zaps, my pet baby white dragon and I started taking
vengeance on shopkeepers. Found an altar, converted it, and sacrificed for
Orcrist, and used it to chop through the mines, with a decent AC from the
shop looting. The town priest fell under my pet, and he was wearing a
cloak of magic resistance, which really helped against those wands of mm/
striking. Grabbed the stone, went back up and down, nervously cleared out
the Big Room (third time I've seen it, first time was with my Tourist
ascension and the second was with an elf who got overrun) with the big help
of my pet dragon and a magic whistle. When I found the Quest, I immediately
entered it since I wasn't worried about the artifact limit like other
characters. Found a spellbook of polymorph and blew away 168 Uruk-Hai with
Orcrist...that's the first time I ever genocided a monster the hard way,
by killing more than the game's number. I found the regenerative ability of
the Palantir to be very useful, though I wondered if it made me consume food
at the rate of the ring. Continued the descent, and got a wish from a throne,
so I wished for my favorite : +2 GDSM, threw away the cloak of MR, and wore
my cloak of displacement. Found another altar, and zapped wands of create
monster till I was granted Sting(drat, shoulda named it to get rid of it)
and Stormbringer, which was soon rustproof and +6 thanks to the hordes of
enchant weapon scrolls I picked up. Killed Medusa (but accidentally broke
my mirror when I ran into another creature while wielding it), using a found
ring of levitation to cross the water. Sleepwalked through the castle,
merrily eating soldiers along the way. I then piled some armor and scrolls
and did some polypiling with the spell, but it wasn't too effective : only
gave me speed boots and helm of brilliance. However, I had found a shield
of reflection on an Aleax up on level 16, so it wasn't too bad. Dipped all
the enchant armor scrolls I had into holy water and read them for a nice AC
of -32(with help from the priest of moloch who had my life savings for 10
turns before a pet cockatrice nailed him). Unfortunately, my white dragon
had died between Medusa and the castle to another white dragon, but with the
Palantir's taming ability, I had no shortage of Stormbringer fodder...er, pets.
:)
I had gained teleport and teleport control from tengus (WOW, and I was looking
forward to eating the Wiz) and a spellbook of magic mapping from a statue
on Medusa's level, so I mapped Gehennom and dropped like a stone. Then I
began to play stupidly. First, I ate another elf by accident (You cannibal!)
since I was so used to playing humans. Oh well. Second, I accidentally dunked
myself in the water of Juiblex's level and erased most of the scrolls of
charging, teleportation, and remove curse that I had stored up. Third, I was
forced to chase Vlad through Gehennom as he read a cursed scroll of TP during
our fight. Finally found him way up in Gehennom after going all the way down
to the vibrating square. At least I found it really quickly this time...
but I ended up accidentally killing about 2 umber hulks and a pet shade.
(stupid stormbringer) Luckily, my 3 scrolls of gold detection had survived
the dunking I gave them, so I only needed the 1 magic marker I found (ended
up with 1 charge left, talk about close). Cleared out the Wizard's zoo with
a pet purple worm and got doubletroubled by the wiz...however, I managed to
kill them by totally draining him of all his levels...and NEVER saw him again
except for the mandatory appearance upon entering the plane of Earth. Weird.
However, I managed to lose the Palantir of Westernesse...I think the wiz
stole it from me and I forgot to pick it up as I was busy running for the
vibrating square. Oops. I snagged the ring of regeneration I had thrown away
in the Valley of the Dead to make up for it, though.
The Elemental Planes were taken care of with conflict and spell zapping
confusion/gold detection. The Astral Plane was more of the same...I decided
to have fun and cause lots of conflict, after entering the plane un-conflicted.
It sure made it a lot easier...Death fell easily before me and Famine got
mobbed by the other Angels. The chaotic temple was the second one, so I went
over and sacrificed the Amulet.
Final statistics : Genocided L's, ;'s, D's, and V's (I ended up with 5 scrolls
of genocide thanks to polypiling and used 4, the 5th got washed out) Used 1
wish for GDSM from a throne...this is the third ascension in a row in which
I haven't used the castle wand. No lives lost, though I had two AoLS(and saw
5 disappear). 1.7 million points in 54000 moves. A very quick and dirty
ascension...I wonder what the time record for ascending is. Perhaps I ought
to ascend a Knight and jump around like mad for move-saving...
One last comment : I hate playing in a game with no stethoscopes, especially
when you've got pets galore!
--
Eugene Hung eyh...@garnet.berkeley.edu
Olum's Observation (and see Martha's Maxim and Farrow's Finding):
If God had intended us to go around naked, He would have made us that
way.