Welcome back to Let's Play Angband. This update is brought to you by: Updates. Sorry, I don't have any good ones because I'm not drinking right now, and haven't had any really good beers lately. Well, that's kind of a lie, because I had some awesome beers last week when I was in gorgeous Portland, Oregon, where we went to an - and I am not shitting you - midwestern-themed bar. They had Schlitz ads and Hamms on tap. I ordered a bunch of potatoes that were covered in too much cheese and not enough bacon, and they were delicious. A friend of mine had the "pickle plate" which is not what it sounds like. It had a pickled pear on it, which word on the street says was "awesome".
Wait a minute. Maybe I should have a drink after all. Today's Let's Play Angband is brought to you by: Dark Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, graciously provided to me for the cost of about 10 American dollars by the Great Divide Brewing Company. It is: delicious. It's also brought to you by the chinese food I ate while in the bath tonight. That's right: I ate chinese food while in the bath. Everyone needs to do this at some point in their life. Trust me.
Tonight's thrilling episode starts off with a bang!
I'm sure I've mentioned Wormtongue before, because he's one of the few unique monsters in the (relatively) early game with awesome magical powers, including but not limited to, trap creation. This makes him an extreme roadblock for a lot of players, because getting to Wormtongue and being unprepared usually means death - especially since he's a unique monster, and thus can't be slowed or slept.
A quick blessing and 40 HP later, Wormtongue is worm food. I like that one. He leaves behind a yellow squiggly, which can only mean one thing:
I've missed you, baby. Don't ever leave me alone again. Keep on lighting my way through the dungeon, giving me that delightful 3-tile radius, and I'll take care of you forever. Just us.
Hieronymus Gaylord heads down to 600' and gains a level fairly quickly for his troubles, which puts him at level 21. This game is progressing much slower than I thought it would now, it's time to start rushing down stairs! Especially with that blindness resist, there's going to be relatively little that's super-duper dangerous to our dwarven hero.
Hieronymus Gaylord laughs - laughs! - in the face of danger. The hounds go down just as easily as any other chumpy group-spawn animal would. Blindness resist is much, much more useful than I remember it being.
That was fast. I guess there's not much of a reason to explore this level.
Checking the stats on this weapon, it is clearly awesome as all hell and needs to be equipped right away. Hieronymus Gaylord's muscles are also so huge from hitting things so often (and also his Rings of Strength) that he can get two blows a round with this thing, making it completely unnecessary to keep carting around that wussy little whip of his.
Having explored just enough of the last level to get a handle on what the next one will be like, Hieronymus Gaylord parties down to 650' feet and for his trouble is rewarded with a lucky feeling! That's one step up from 'good', I guess, which means that there must be something (even more) awesome hanging around here. What could it possibly be, I wonder?
Oh. It's probably this orc pit.
Things actually go badly for the first time in his life as an adventurer, and Hieronymous Gaylord must teleport away from the throng of evil monsters - which are totally getting decimated by his awesome hammer, by the way - to regain his strength before going back into the fray.
Curiously enough, our hero gets a level up not from crushing some orcs beneath his mighty hammer of justice, but rather from smacking down a lowly zombie. This makes me wonder, for a moment, if 3.11 has ghosts. Did I mention ghosts before?
I don't mean the regular G monsters, I mean super-special unique G monsters - monsters which have the stats and equipment buffs of your previous characters. That's right, it's entirely possible that there could be a vicious showdown between Hieronymus Gaylord and Let's Play favorite Viki. Ghosts are awesome, because they add a little bit of flavor to the game, and most importantly, whenever you're lonely, you can put on the top ghost.
He's wearing them down! Go, Hieronymus Gaylord! Don't die!
And shortly thereafter, all the orcs were dead. And now you know.. the rest.. of the story.
Wait! There's more story to be told, we've still got seven more images to go this update! What shocking things will happen to Hieronymus Gaylord next? Well, first he has to go back to town and unload all his junk, and for a moment I'm extremely grateful to Torchlight for having the idea to have an adorable dog (which I named Dr. Kisses) that brings shit back to town for you. Otherwise, I don't like Torchlight very much. That's right, I said it: A guy who is balls-out in love with Angband doesn't like Torchlight very much.
So Our Hero heads back down to the dungeon and finds a shovel. He decides to equip it (hey, shovels aren't going to be cursed, and he had a good level feeling) and so
[size=6]HOLY CHIRST DON'T GET ANY OF THAT ON ME[/size]
Oh. That's cool, I really like you. (+5) digging means that, well, absolutely nothing is an obstacle. Within about 100-200 turns, if I feel like it, tunnels can be made between two near-adjacent rooms regardless of what wall material is in between them. That is rad.
Meet our next contestant in unique monsters that are totally going to die. Taking bets on how many turns he will die in begins... several days ago! Sorry.
Actually, it seems like there may have been a fairly epic battle here that I just forgot to screencap. I've been getting lazy lately because you guys have seen all this stuff before, so substitute in Hieronymus Gaylord's epic fight for, well, just about any other epic unique monster fight. Honestly it was probably just a hit-retreat kind of deal, but dealing with Master Yeeks in addition to Boldor (as mentioned in the past) is a real bitch. What did he drop?
Asshole.
Well, you know the drill: Back to town, sell loot, back to the dungeon.
Alright, these are pretty rad. The problem being that it's not the smartest idea to take a dragon out at range, because it's more likely to unleash totally devastating breath attacks upon you from across the room. These will go in the house until such a time as dragons need to be attacked from around corners and things like that.
Also it looks like level 23 is obtained at some point. I'm sorry guys, clearing those -more- prompts fast makes me pretty likely to miss the level up screenshots.
Anyway, Hieronymus Gaylord descends to 700' and
NEXT TIME: What could this be? Plus: Monsters are killed! More ego items! Danger! Luck! Excitement!