Post Saturday, 8th May 2021, 13:02

YAVP: 6-rune GrFE of Veh, Tomb 5th

http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dame ... 011424.txt

What, another win with Tomb done early?

This avoided being a 2-streak by the RNG handing me OpCK, where I got collected by an entropy weaver on Lair:5, which I guess is pretty good going for an OpCK.

GrFE seemed a bit more viable. GrEE was my first win that made heavy use of spells (indeed, it was the one and only game I've won where I never trained a weapon skill, but fortunately I know better now) and since it was with Vehumet too, this game was at least somewhat familiar territory.

Veh didn't offer that many spells I wanted, but that's partly because the FE starting book is pretty solid (in particular there's a lot of the game which is just Sticky Flaming things and running away), and they came through in the end with Ignition. Oddly for a FE, I had Fire Storm and didn't learn it; oddly for a Gr I had Shatter and didn't learn that either.

Not much to say about the early game except before Lair I found a scarf with {RMsl, Str+4 Dex+5} and a ring with {+Fly rF++ Str+4 Dex+5} which I'd use all game; in Lair I got the same entropy weaver vault that killed the OpCK and it was very satisfying to set them all on fire.

I had a bit of an embarassment of riches when it came to weapons and armour. I found a CPA somewhere around Orc:1 and found Undeadhunter in the O:2 shops, which I bought thinking, I've only got a buckler, I can have gargoyle-in-crystal-plate AC once I get a bit more strength and skill, maybe I'll go two-handed. (Buying Undeadhunter before I actually was going to change over was stupid; I never swung it in anger).

I did Elf before the Lair branches (I forget why); Agnes dropped a lajatang of speed on E:1 and going two-handers looked more attractive since this was far better than the +1 flail of venom I was using, but then a deep elf mage on E:2 dropped a +9 demon whip with {freeze, Dex+6} and then on Spider:1 Louise gave me a holy wrath eveningstar and a large shield and I thought, OK, one-handed it is. E:3 had given me a +2 plate with {MR+ Regen+} which seemed better than the CPA now I was trying to cast in a large shield.

Shoals then gave me a +3 ring mail with {MP+9 Int+3 SInv Stlth+} which was pretty much ideal, so I gave up on the idea of heavy armour and medium-level spells and decided to go all in on magic. Shoals is pretty easy if you can fly and boil water (and I'd learned Isk's Battlesphere by now so a lot of my spellcasting was just Flame Tongue / Throw Flame to cycle the battlesphere, which tends to make steam, hiding you from the monster, rinse and repeat...)

Got Abyssed on V:1 but out without difficulty, and learned Orb of Destruction. I really like Orb of Destruction on characters who can cast it; in an open space it can't miss, and it doesn't care about monster resistances. On V:3 I hit the Crypt which I cleared out immediately, being torment-resistance and with a holy eveningstar.

I learned Ignition on V:4, but resisted the urge to head straight to V:5 and try it out (in recent wins I have often just gone straight to V:5 if my kit seems to be working well against Vaults monsters), working down to Depths:3; at this point I seem to have changed my mind and gone to V:5, which is pretty easy with a Veh gargoyle with mass AOE spells.

Slime next, since Ignition is pretty well a free pass on the Royal Jelly; I found the moon troll leather armour here, and spent most of the rest of the game wondering if I could use it to free up the amulet slot from guardian spirit, but this foundered on me never really finding any very good amulet.

So... to Tomb. Unlike last time I was there, with QAZLAL bringing every mummy in to say hello, this was as routine as a trip to Tomb ever is; the massed ambushes could be chewed up with Ignition and individual greater mummies blown up with IOOD (or, if they summoned stuff, with Ignition in its role as Aura of Murderjuration). I learned Chain Lightning here as a potential AOE option for fire-resistant targets; initially I was only able to cast it with brilliance, and I seem to have only used it five times.

I snagged a Hell rune last time, so I poked my nose into Pan, hitting disco Pan which I'd never seen before. I landed pretty much in the middle of the disco itself and this got pretty hairy (especially given the number of Brimstone Fiends) until a distortion weapon Abyssed me - at this stage being cast into Abyss:2 was just a nice opportunity to heal up and pop back into the disco ready to go. Oddly, when I got back Fupsuus the pandemonium lord had cleared off - I never saw them again - so I polished off everything else and snagged the rune.

I had six runes and done something I'd never done before, so it seemed like time to buy all the consumables and win. After doing all the shopping it became clear I'd never actually done U:4 and U:5, and U:4 had three expensive Gozag shops and a bazaar. This could have been embarrassing but I still had plenty of gold left; I gambled on gloves for 950 gold, getting a +2 pair with {rF+ rN++ Regen+ Stlth+}, which seemed like just the thing at the entrance to Zot.

To Zot! I got rid of one OOF on Z:2 with IOOD and Iron Shot, but another caused me problems; it turned up behind a draconian pack and I carefully manuevered to use them as cover to get next to it and hit it with the antimagic morningstar I'd... left in the Depths. This caused a bit of mutation roulette; no big deal but I was sorry to lose a pip of rC since now I'd need a jewellery swap to have any.

I learned Irradiate to ruin the days of draconians who got into melee, and cleared down to Z:5. This had half a dozen OOFs and ancient lichen, but they all turned up in convenient positions for IOOD. Snagged the Orb and ran for it; saw one panlord on D:3 but just evaded them.
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