From: lmulcahy@nyx.cs.du.edu (Larry Mulcahy)
Subject: Ascended at last
Followup-To: rec.games.hack
Summary:  the insufferable boasting of a first-time winner
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 05:40:08 GMT

Larry the Wizard has ascended - my first time - traditional bragging
post follows:

First some stats:

Amulets
E - an uncursed amulet of life saving (being worn).
Weapons
a - a blessed +1 athame.
i - a +0 long sword named Excalibur.
t - a cursed +2 war hammer named Mjollnir (weapon in hand).
Armor
y - a blessed +1 helmet (being worn).
A - a +3 pair of speed boots (being worn).
R - a blessed +1 gray dragon scale mail (being worn).
T - a blessed +2 pair of leather gloves (being worn).
Y - a +3 elven cloak (being worn).
Comestibles
w - 2 cursed lizard corpses.
Scrolls
C - a cursed scroll of scare monster.
N - a cursed scroll of confuse monster.
U - an uncursed scroll of taming.
Rings
c - an uncursed ring of teleportation.
d - an uncursed ring of conflict (on right hand).
j - a -5 ring of increase damage.
k - a cursed +2 ring of protection.
l - an uncursed ring of see invisible.
n - an uncursed ring of invisibility.
s - a cursed ring of hunger.
u - an uncursed ring of teleport control.
z - a +2 ring of protection (on left hand).
M - a cursed ring of levitation.
Z - an uncursed ring of protection from shape changers.
Wands
b - a wand of digging (1).
f - a cursed wand of lightning (3).
g - a wand of digging (6).
o - a wand of death (0).
r - a wand of probing (5).
B - a wand of undead turning (8).
H - a wand of sleep (0).
I - a wand of locking (4).
J - a wand of striking (6).
K - a wand of teleportation (5).
O - a wand of cancellation (4).
X - a cursed wand of slow monster (6).
Tools
m - a cursed magic marker (37).
p - an uncursed stethoscope.
v - an uncursed skeleton key.
D - a cursed +0 pick-axe.
L - a lamp (4).
P - an uncursed blindfold.
V - an uncursed mirror.

Current Attributes:

You are stridently aligned.
You can teleport.
You are stealthy.
You are poison resistant.
You are fire resistant.
You are cold resistant.
You are sleep resistant.
You cause conflict.
You are protected.
You are warned.
You have teleport control.
You are telepathic.
You are fast.
Your life will be saved.
You are magic-protected.

Spoilers follow:

Getting Started

I started out by rolling a wizard with a ring of conflict, a scroll of
genocide and a magic marker.  I saved this in a file and used it several
times before a viable game developed.  The idea was to use the ring of
conflict to survive multiple-monster situations and then fairly early in
the game to be able to write a cursed scroll of genocide and surround
myself with nurses to get the hit points up.  Unfortunately, every time
Larry tried to write a scroll, he tore it to shreds in his haste.

Level 5 turns out to be a bones level.  Hey!  There's a war hammer
named Mjollnir!  It isn't even cursed.  A few levels later, Larry finds
a long sword.  He dips it in a fountain and gets Excalibur.  Later,
Larry gets confused while testing a potion that turns out to be booze,
so he reads a scroll of Enchant Weapon while wielding Mjollnir,
rustproofing it. 

The Medusa

With a mirror, a blindfold and the telepathy intrinsic (floating eye
corpse), Larry makes fast work of the Medusa.

The Castle Level

The castle appeared on level 28. By the time Larry makes it to the
drawbridge, he has a harp, so he starts jamming away.  The ring of
conflict comes in handy here; the sea monsters in the moat are attacking
each other and the xorns instead of Larry.  Once he figures out that
there are six notes, A-F, getting the bridge down is straighforward
(BFABE).  After several trips back and forth to the chaotic altar on
level 27 with armor and rings of protection from all the dead soldiers,
Larry's armor class is getting pretty decent.  He grabs the spiked wand
next to the throne which he suspects to be the wand of wishing and heads
down the hall which runs from the throne to the back door.  Oops!  A
trapdoor!  After an invigorating plunge into hell, Larry decides that
getting some means of levitation is going to be important.  He zaps the
spiked wand: yes, its the wand of wishing.  With his new blessed ring of
levitation, Larry embarks on a search for the stairs back up to the
castle level.

For his second wish, Larry has a brainstorm and asks for 3 blessed
scrolls of charging.  Hey, presto! there they are.  He tries the wand
again.  Sput, fizzle.  Only two wishes!  He charges it up and asks for a
blessed +3 gray dragon scale mail, gets a blessed +0 GDSM.  Then he asks
for 3 cursed scrolls of genocide and uses all 3 up then and there
dancing with the nurses.  This raises his hit points from around 135 to
around 200.  As he prepares for the rigors of hell, Larry's armor class
without rings is -14, or with a +2 ring of protection on each hand, -18.

Hell

Reading a cursed scroll of teleportation, Larry warps down to level 50. 
This turns out to be the bottom level of the tower.  

Larry's footwear gets damaged in the tower, so he blows another wish on
a blessed +3 pair of speed boots.  The next time he goes to make a
wish, the wand is dry again.  When he tries to charge it up again, it
explodes.  

One or two levels later, it looks like the wizard level!  Here is the
amulet of Yendor, but where is the wizard?  The next level up, there is
another amulet of Yendor!  Examining his reflection while blindfolded,
Larry learns that a powerful wizard is far over his head.  He drops the
fakes in disgust.

The Wizard

Larry plays a tedious game of `find the up staircase or level teleport
trap' all the way back up to level 29, which he had already visited as a
result of falling through the castle level trap door.  He enters the 
wizard's little island with conflict on one finger and levitate on the
other.  The hellhound pup and vampire help bash the wizard for a couple
of turns, then suddenly the wizard grabs the amulet and disappears.
Donning his blindfold, Larry uses telepathy to locate the wizard over by
the up staircase.  Another couple of strokes from Mjollnir and the 
wizard expires.  Larry grabs the amulet and runs!

Looking over his shoulder all the way, Larry traverses the castle level.
There is no sign of the wizard, so he begins to drop his guard.  On
level 28, he uses the altar in the chaotic temple to determine the
cursed/uncursed/blessed status of a whole bunch of rings and wands he
picked up in hell.  Suddenly the wizard returns!  They duke it out
again.  The wizard grabs the amulet and teleports to the up staircase. 
Larry finally manages to nail him again, but it is closer this time. 
One of Larry's +2 rings of protection is cursed as is his pickaxe.

The next time Larry is ready.  Blindfolded, he monitors the monsters
via telepathy until a cockatrice appears.  He kills it, picks it up and
wields it, then stands there waiting for the wizard to reappear.  Soon
that familiar voice returns booming "So thou thoughtst thou could kill
me?"  Larry gently applies the cockatrice corpse, then smashes the
statue to rocks for good measure.

As he heads up into the single-digit levels, there are some disturbing
messages.  "You feel disoriented for a moment" recurs again and again,
and "you feel vaguely nervous."

Larry's smug attitude is shattered when the wizard reappears around
level 4.  He will spring back to life another three or four times before
he finally rests in peace.

The Endgame
-----------

Larry's first impression of the endgame level is one of the special hell
levels.  It is a maze level with some mysterious force that prevents him
from teleporting.  There is no message about being engulfed in flames at
the center of the earth, however.

The wizard keeps springing back to life.  At one point Larry identifies
two Wizard of Yendor corpses present at the same time.  This explains
why schemes to utterly annihilate the body are ineffective: the wizard
creates new bodies (unlike trolls).

After slaying about another hundred monsters, Larry reaches three
altars, one each lawful, chaotic and neutral.  It is the first neutral
altar he has seen in the whole game.  Between the wizard and all the
liches and rust monsters, many of his things are cursed or have negative
numbers, but he has not been in serious danger of dying.  Stridently, he
offers the amulet up to Thoth.

You offer the Amulet to Thoth...--More--
An invisible choir sings, and you are bathed in radiance...--More--
"Congratulations, mortal!"--More--
"In return for thy service, I grant thee the gift of Immortality!"--More--
You ascend to the status of Demigod...--More--

Goodbye Larry the Demigod...

You went to your reward with 1793086 points,
        an uncursed amulet of life saving (being worn) (worth 500 zorkmids),
and 2119 pieces of gold, after 41839 moves.
You were level 19 with a maximum of 279 hit points when you ascended.

Some Questions
--------------

Does the Poison Resistance intrinsic make you invulnerable to
cockatrices?  I was bashing cockatrices left and right.  They hit me, I
heard them hiss, but I never even started to turn into stone though I
always kept a couple of lizard corpses handy.

Is gold good for anything besides (1) spending in shops (why lug it
around when you can rob them with a pickaxe) (2) paying your priest your
experience level X 400 (if you can find one)?  Are jewels good for
anything besides throwing at a co-aligned unicorn to increase luck?  In
this game gold and jewels were always the first to go when I got
overweight.  I didn't even pick up jewels.

Why couldn't I write on a blank scroll without ripping it to shreds in
my haste?  Could the magic marker have been cursed early in the game?
Maybe I never thought to check it because it was `original issue.'