From: snelling@bnr.ca (Peter Snelling)
Subject: Re: Two Artifacts in one shop!!
Reply-To: snelling@bnr.ca (Peter Snelling)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:48:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.034957.5909@netcom.com>, derelict@netcom.com (Daniel D. Miller) writes:
>snelling@bnr.ca (Peter Snelling) writes:
>
>>Just a quick gloat post -- I just found a shop with two artifacts
>>in it:  Orcrist and Dragonbane.
>
>>Of course, I can't buy them, and don't have any non-abusive ways
>>of stealing them, and thet're not the greatest artifacts, and I'm
>>only a level 3 tourist so I'll probably die soon, but all the 
>>same -- pretty lucky, eh?
>
>Recommendation:
>Since you'll probably die soon anyway, why not contrive to die 
>on that level???  Then this remarkable room will come back as
>a bones file!!!
>
Well, this level seemed to be working out quite well.  My pet stole
both artifacts.  I sold them back to the shopkeeper and bought
the crystal plate mail which was in that shop (much better than
just my shirt).  My pet then stole the artifacts again.  I left
the shop, killed a bunch of killer bees on the level (using my
camera quite a lot) without any trouble.  I also took a long
sword from the shop which I figured I turn into Excalibur later.

At this point my good luck seemed to run out.

As I was heading back to the shop for something or other, a 
homunculus stung me and put me to sleep.  I was (unfortunately)
standing in a corridor between the homunculus and my dog.  So,
it hit, it hit, it hit, I died.

No bones level.


But this story has a happy ending -- the very next game, I played
another tourist, and this time found Frost Brand in a shop on
level 2.  In this game, potions of object detection were glowing
(!!!) so I found all sorts of glowing potions and got (I think)
2 wishes.  I also found a magic lamp (cursed, but that was fixed
eventually).  I also found (very early) rings of polymorph and 
polymorph control.  

Although I hadn't used them much previously, I realize now that
these rings are almost a guaranteed win -- I spent most of the game
as a Vampire Lord.  If the monster managed to kill that, it still
had to face a >200 HP tourist (thanks to some nurses I ran into),
which might turn back into a fresh Vampire lord at any moment.

[Aside - maybe we should add a monster like that.  It lives in
 some strange corner of hell, has rings of polymorph and
 polymorph control, and uses them to devastating effect.  Usually
 by polymorphing into a Vampire lord.  It would have decent armor
 and weapon.  If you can kill it, it would turn into some nasty 
 demon (it's true incarnation).  If you kill that before it
 repolymorphs, you get the rings.]

I used my first wish to get an Amulet of Life Saving, which I
used very early in the game (I forget why).  I used my second
wish for a second Amulet of Life Saving, which I also used when
I (incredibly stupidly) typed in the wrong monster name as my
vampire lord re-polymorphed while floating over the castle
moat.

The only other unusual thing I did in this game was wished for
a helm of opposite alignment with the castle wand.  I used this
so I could turn Chaotic and pray in Hell.  When I later did get
into trouble in hell (picked up a gray stone even though I had no
holy water or remove curse scroll) I tried praying to get god to
uncurse it.  He was angry -- I'm not sure why.  Anyhow, having 
no other way to uncurse the loadstone, I dropped most of my excess
baggage, found a level teleport trap (I hadn't found the wiz yet),
went back up to a level which I knew had a lawful alter and another
level teleport trap, made some holy water, uncursed the stone,
dropped it, turned lawful, sacrificed to make god happy
again, level teleported back to hell, and continued.  No problemo.

One final strange thing I noticed was that often when I failed to
polymorph into a Vampire Lord, my tourist's stats seemed to change.
I went from >200 HP to about 150.  I also lost a few expience 
levels (gained one back later).

I won this game hours later.  I never got several intrinsics (see
invisible, invisibility, ...), but I did get teleport control from
the first tengu I ate.  My first win as a tourist. Mainly due to
good luck, not careful hacking.

-- 
Peter Snelling, P.Eng.    Bell-Northern Research    Ottawa, Canada
Newsgroups: rec.games.hack