Ancient Domains Of Mystery, forum overview / Spoilers / YASD ghuls revenge (long post)
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Nightmare Registered user Soul Calibur 2 Last page view: 4596 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes and 5 seconds ago. |
Duriel, the level 25 female dark elven Ranger born in the month of the sword, met her end at the hand of a barbarian leader while paralyzed by a ghul in a cavernous level of the TotHK. I struggled for about 5 minutes trying to think of a name. I knew her motivation - avenging her brother, another dark elven ranger Drizzt, who had been recently slain in the Drakalor chain. Not being able to come up with anything orginal, I considered how I wanted her to be. The character from Diablo 2, the act 2 final boss Duriel: tremendously powerful, relentless, two huge death dealing arms mercilessly crushing his opponents. Names that end in -iel seem feminine enough. She had a good start. Almost every missile weapon she found was "of Accuracy". Chose the village dungeon quest by accident, but that turned out to be a boon, as when I found an altar and turned neutral, I was able to augment my healing skill thanks to Jharod. A quick stop in Lawenilothel got me the pickpocketing skill which I made heavy use of. The small cave yielded some worthwhile treasures, such as a large crystal shield (+9 +4), some decent swords and spears to get me started. I went out, finished the puppy cave, got acid resistance and poison resistance from corpses, got precrowned with wyrmslayer (which I deem to be a piece of crap). Also got teleportitis and teleport control. I then travelled to the Caverns of Chaos and was having major issues with weight and food due to my low dark elf strength in the low-mid teens, which had only gained a few points from going around strained. Thankfully, the cooked lizards saved me, and I made it to dwarftown. Waldenbrook scewed me over with prices as usual, thankfully I had some money for Garth to train strength and toughness and learning, and learned smithing from Glod. Popped in to visit the dwarven mystic, who happily handed over 4 SoCR, 7 Potions of Revelation, and 4 PoEH. Thrundars first few quests were no problem, as I had trained up missile and melee weapons and shields quite well at that point. Especially swords, spears, bows, and thrown knives. Not long after I became quite skilled in Scurgari and Boomerangs, & Crossbows. At this point I had reached about level 13. Took a trip out to get courage quest from old barbarian, also picked up the teleport wand from the Assasins hideout. Once I got back to the altars in CoC, I became quite tired of building up piety and opted to become crowned (neutral) rather than trying for another precrown, hoping for suns messenger, kinslayer, executor, protector, bracers of war, something game changing. Unfortunately, I received Natures Friend, which, while it has an excellent array of resistances, was pitiful compared to my newly found Crystal Tower Shield (13/4 compared to 6/3? no contest). Some people use wishes to get eternium tower shields which have about the same stats. As a crowning immunity, I received Cold, which some people would say stunk, but I ran into lots of cold using creatures (Nonnak, Li-Hon-Kay, white dragons, invisible ogre mages, ice vortices). Not long after I received acid immunity from an Ankheg corpse, and 2 out of 4 immunities ain't bad ;) I finished Thrundars quests, DH1 and 2 weren't a problem, scrolls of magic mapping, wand of teleportation and stairs close together meant a nice quick finish and none of those damnable trees. Ogre cave was a nice little shooting gallery as I trained up my missile weapon marks. I had eaten an invisible stalker corpse earlier and had see invis intrinistic so Ogre Magi were no problem. The greater demon fell to a few demon slaying arrows, no stat drain or item destruction thankfully. The weight of Big Punch was an issue, but I needed the raw damage because I hadn't found much else as far as powerful weaponry, and didn't like the beatings I took when I removed my shield to use Wyrmlance. Thankfully a blessed girdle of carrying and the carrying capacity talents countered my pack rat tendencies. I herbed, trained, and potioned my way up to about 25 in most every stat, and went over to the TotHK to scum for items and level up. The xp came quick, and before I knew it, I had to run over to the pyramid with 600xp left before level 17. Almost forgot to duck into the glade for the courage skill, then into Lawenilothel for detect traps, then back to the pyramid. With the archery talents and blessed big punch, everything in there was crushed with ease. The Rehetep finale, I filled up the dangerous stuff with arrows while I had space (lightning lizard, dark elven priestess, corruptor) 1-shotted the mummies and jackal demons with Big Punch. Rehetep couldn't touch me with my CTS and shield skill at 8. Pummelled him into a pile of dust and grabbed his loot. The ank would be my favored amulet the rest of the game, and the mummy wrapping served me well until I found some plate mails with superior PV. Dwarven graveyard was another piece of cake, pickpocketed everything hoping for AoLS or a ring of Ice. No luck, but some other nice goodies. Once inside, I easily evaded the traps, and Griff barely scraped me. I scythed through Nonnaks minions before tooling on him, then 2-shotted the bone golem for my prize, the elemental gauntlets. Had some extra holy water, poured some on Griffs Grave, left sword of nonnak. Went back to Dwarftown, got my rewards, trained, smithed a few things up. Headed down to where Khelly was dying, and decided to leave him and hold out hope for an AoLS. Without much left to do, I went back to the TotHK to scum for that and a Ring of Ice. Got a few levels, tons of items, went in to Darkforge and cleared that out, killed Kherab with humanoid slaying arrows for his eternium warhammer and anvil. Armor and weapon rooms were filled with junk, aside from a Flaming Eternium Flail and a sword of sharpness. Pools drained, no wishes, cursed doomed, lost teleportitis and teleport control (yeah I got screwed). Back down into CoC, altar got C&D off, smithed items up higher. I decided for a change, to try the minotaur maze. I got lucky and found the correct sets of stairs and levels on my first try. I only intended to scope the place out and try to finish it later at a higher level (was level 23 at the time), but as fate would have it, I found the final level. My wand of paralyzation saved me numerous times VS Minotaur Kings who scored 170+ damage critical hits, and those hated Minotaur Mages who only managed to drain a couple points of stats. Then I finally saw him. The Minotaur Emperor. He had a mage in front of him in a hallway, the only thing protecting me from him. Zap with the wand of paralyzation, berserker tactics with Big Punch and Tower crystal shield, ring of slaying and blessed ring of damage. Started cracking heads, 3 hits and the minotaur mage was slain. ME was still paralyzed. I considered tucking my tail between my legs and running home to mommy. But I remembered who I was. I was Duriel, the Dark Elven Ranger, out to wreak vengeance on all in the Drakalor Chain for her brothers death. Heart beating rapidly, I strode up to the Minotaur Emperor and smote him with a terrible wrath, befitting of a dark elven champion. I forget how many hits it took. 5, 8, 10. He remained paralyzed, and perished. Victorious, I let out a great sigh, and claimed my prize, the Axe of the Minotaur Emperor. I also ate his corpse for the strength and toughness. IDing my accumulated loot from the whole maze after leaving, I noticed I had my ring of ice, finally! On the downside, I'd also received a few corruptions and used my last SoCR to remove the nastier ones. The "You look somewhat apish" turned out to be a great boon, however, as my strength and toughness both reached 40 before I removed it. Feeling tremendously confident, with huge DV/PV numbers (about 90/50 on normal tactics), excellent to hit and damage bonus with many melee weapons (mastery in maces, 9 in swords and whips, 5+ in everthing else) and level 12 in shields, 10 in bows, 8 in crossbows, piles of slaying ammo, I decided the time had come to take on the ToEF. Due to my regen, the point per turn of fire damage was negligible. The fire giant kings proved to be fierce opponents, scoring critical hits in excess of 150 damage. Giant slaying ammo and a PoEH was needed to survive. The demons and elementals on the top level were not much of a challenge, most requiring 3 to 5 hits, a few barely scratching me from time to time. But with my willpower severely low from the "Apish" corruption, I was frequently confused by the ACW. Thankfully, a ring of mental stability lessed it's duration enough I was able to fire off a number of blessed dragon slaying arrows and vanquished the guardian. With the orb in my tool slot, I had a strength of 50, the highest of any character I'd ever had! Smithing was at 100, so I went back into the CoC, dug a lot of ore up, smithed some equipment and backups to excellent DV/PV numbers. I was quite impressed and started considering this character might be able to pull of my first win. Once outside, I figured my alignment was perilously low at NC, and fearing becoming a fallen champion, decided to kill Hotzenplots for the lawful boost. Little did I know, this choice would precipitate my undoing. I was thinking of how I could get him hostile without losing aligntment, so I figured setting off my wand of fireballs and saying "Oops, my bad" would suffice. It did not. I became chaotic, a fallen champion, blasted by my god, and suddenly had about 2 dozen spectres to contend with, along with being doomed and cursed. I teleported to the edge of town and fled, wanting to remove the dooming and cursing immediately. Thankfully I'd achieved level 25 and the Ranger class power of being able to always evade random encounters proved invaluable as I had one every step of the way over to the CoC. I decided the monster generation there was too slow and went back to the altar in the ToTHK. Converted it from Lawful to Neutral, then I turned back to neutral, got from C to NC to N- and got the spiritually invincible message. Feeling quite cocky and figuring my Dooming and Cursing would be removed soon, I continued to play around with AotME, got it up to 7. I should have had my shield on and defensive tactics until those intrinistics were removed. But no, I thought I was so powerful and the monsters so weak, nothing bad could happen to me. A necromancer summoned ghuls. One of them got a hit on me and paralyzed me. I was a little worried. But as the pages and pages of misses with the occasional hit piled up, I started fearing the worst. This paralyzation was lasting FOREVER! In frustration and not wanting to drag out the torture, I hit the enter button to get through it all quickly. I died from the ghuls beating on me, and a lowly Barbarian Leader scored the final hit, slaying Duriel, the level 25 Dark Elven Ranger. Wow. Didn't see that one coming. I hope he gained 10 levels and went on to become a barbarian emperor or something, lol. Don't I feel stupid now. Moral of the story? Don't get cocky, don't underestimate the negative power of being doomed and cursed, don't fight on very aggressive tactics with no shield while having those intrinistics, especially around paralyzing foes, even if they are very lowly ghuls. If only I had popped on that AoFA. If only I had raised my alignment at an altar and with a Blessed AoB. If only I hadn't tried to do that dumb kill Hotzenplotz quest. Argh. Best character ever for me, down the drain. Oh well, new #1 in my list of slain characters, at over 800,000 points. I noticed something. My hurthling archer, who had also achieved level 25, needed only 1/2 the xp my dark elven ranger needed to reach 25. I didn't know dark elves had such a huge xp penalty, or conversely hurthlings get a big xp bonus?? "As for me, I feel priveleged to be among the only species able to make scientific inquiries." -unknown "Be sure to keep your distance if you don't have resistance." -DG |