Fun in the Abyss

[tormodpwns]

Man I just had the best experience in the Abyss yet. I was a level 14 TrHe of Elyvilon and I was chilling in the Orcish Mines, trying to take down Sonja when her short sword banished me.

I started running around the Abyss, dispatching 3's, 4's, and 5's with ease. The only problem was that despite my fast regeneration, I couldn't stop and heal to full health after every battle. I was forced to use Greater Self-Healing multiple times. Luckily, there wasn't anything too tough except for a pack of Hell Knights, but I was able to lose them after a bit.

Then all of a sudden I came upon a Daeva... and it was instantly pacified because of my good standing with Elyvilon. And then I had just had the most fun I've ever had in Crawl: I just rested next to the Daeva, and every time a demon, skeletal warrior, or abomination came, the Daeva would go over to smite and fight it, and I would stand next to it and get the killing blow for free experience. I must have killed at least 30+ monsters just farming with the Daeva.

It was all good until an Executioner came. The Daeva was busy fighting a skeletal warrior, and I tried to run from the Executioner. BIG MISTAKE. (20 speed x pre 0.8 Haste x 3 hits per turn) = 12 attacks on me. And I died.

But that Daeva farming was awesome!

Share some of your awesome Abyss stories here:

[Grimm]

"Fun in the Abyss"...does not compute.

[evilmike]

I'll share the only interesting thing that ever happened to me in the abyss.

Once upon a time I had 14 runes and was wandering the abyss looking for that 15th. Now, I hate looking for the abyssal rune, so I'll do anything I can to cut corners. This usually means finding a place to hide, putting on sustenance, and waiting 8000 turns to bump up the rate at which the rune is generated.

When I was looking for a nice corner to hole up in, a noticed a weird spot on the ground. It was bright yellow instead of the rest of the floor, and upon examination it appeared to be a sanctuary (same as in the zin effect). For those of you who don't know, monsters cannot enter sanctuary squares, and can't attack anything in them.

The thing about this square is that it seemed permanent. So, I figured, what better spot to wait 8000 turns? I promptly marched up to it and began waiting.

A problem immediately arose: monsters would swarm around the square and interrupt my resting. The monsters themselves were harmless, but it made it difficult to rest. And so, in a moment of absolute brilliance, I decided that the best way to deal with this would be to simply macro F5 to "...................................................................". That way I'd just wait in one spot, without interruption, no matter what happened to me. Very similar to being paralyzed, in fact, but a lot longer. What could possibly go wrong?

And then, in the middle of one of my presses of F5, my HP started dropping fast. Very fast. Before long it was at around 20, and I had no way to do anything about it. I didn't know what was going on - literally the entire screen was full of abyss monsters at that point, with me on the single tile of sanctuary, and all I could really make out was ***LOW HP WARNING***. I couldn't interrupt the macro (which seemed to be a fatal mistake), so in a panic I killed the terminal I was connected to cao with, and hoped henzell didn't announce my death. People who were watching didn't have any idea what happened there either, until someone suggested it might be a tormentor.

Well, as it turns out, it was a tormentor. Torment (or maybe just their torment) seems to be one of the few effects that can breach sanctuary. This means that I was actually safe all along - torment can wreck your HP but it can't kill you. Still, I didn't like what just happened. I teleported out of the big mob of enemies, and went and found the rune the normal way.

[GrimmSweeper]

I am in awe. And it's odd that Torment can get through Sanctuary; it's a demonic/undead power that goodness hates.

[mageykun]

Dang. I've seen a square like that, but I had no idea what it was. I figured it was just a graphical oddity, like when the abyss shows you doors outside of LOS that aren't actually there. I just shrugged and moved on.

I discovered recently that spriggans are great fun in the abyss. You're fast enough that almost nothing can catch you, and hunger is low enough you'll actually make a profit in food (ie, you'll leave the abyss with more than you entered- unlike most races). "Teleport when you're inevitably surrounded" becomes "Teleport if you see an executioner". Nothing else is capable of surrounding you. You can survive, and even acquire the rune, with relative ease even on very early banishments.

One of my first encounters with the abyss was as a HOPr. My army and I had just entered Elf- the entry vault was the room with one big door taking up a whole wall. I crossed the room, and then with my troops at the ready, threw open the portal. And instantly got hit with banishment in face. I spent the remainder of that game running for my life, with Beogh occasionally depositing a troop of screaming meatshields to slow my demonic wake. Never made it out. I can only imagine the horror that befell my loyal followers- their leader devoured by a tear in space, fighting a desperate losing battle against an elven brigade, desperately praying for the return of a messiah who never did. Actually, that game, and the one where I entered Elf only to instantly get a crystal spear to the face lead me to give the place a wide berth for a long time.

Also: whoever added vaults to the abyss: great idea! I was incredibly thrown, and kind of scared, the first time I encountered something resembling order in the abyss (didn't help that the vault was a long hall with liches coming out from every door). But I find now they add flavor and something interesting (the banished ecumenical temple is pretty funny, actually). I wholeheartedly support adding more.

[colma]

Yesterday the demonspawn CK I've been working on was sent there by my stupidly miscasting a lvl 7 translocation spell with 1 skill (yeah, I know). "Damn it" I thought, so I rolled up my sleeves, hunkered down, and got medieval on some demon ass knowing it was the end. Went from level 13->17 murdering everything I saw with prejudice and then I found a portal out. Thank you, vorpal +11 demon blade.

[Un67]

I just was playing my HaBe, and got my first rune ever (Swamp, and it was the *shiver* ice ending too). Then I thought, "Hmm, I've got a ring of cTele, Vault has Nikola on floor one which is suicidal without rElec, and I've cleared Snake 1-4, so why not grab that rune?"

So I ran over to Snake:1, and realized I forgot to finish part of it...

And in that part, there was Louise and Nergalle. In the same room. That wasn't TOO bad though, and I took out Nergalle with 'zerk, and almost took out Louise... but my 'zerk ran out and I got banished.

Cue me running around the Abyss, ALMOST getting to a portal before I got teleported away by something, getting sent only a few steps next to the rune, and getting almost brutally murdered twice (the first time an angel and a red draconian zealot tag teamed me, the other time an Executioner popped up right next to me), and finding an altar of Lugonu. But, for some reason I figured it was a better choice to stay with Trog anyways...

Which was a good decision, because after a bit more wandering, I finally found the exit, and I'm sitting on my first two runes, ever. ^_^

Now it's time to tackle Snake:5 >.>

[galehar]

got teleported away by something

The abyss randomly teleports you sometimes.

But, for some reason I figured it was a better choice to stay with Trog anyways... Which was a good decision

Indeed. Trog's wrath is brutal.

[Zicher]

Trog's wrath is brutal.

Very true. On the other hand, if you can hold your ground against a zerking stone giant, then you can stand against pretty much everything in the game.

[joellercoaster]

OK, so it wasn't exactly fun. Or maybe it kinda was. But I just survived the Abyss for the first time. Bonus? I got the rune

*does happy dance and goes to bed*

[Grimm]

I just survived my first Abyss the other day too. No rune, but the exit portal appeared within about 2000 turns. There is no sweeter sight.

[mageykun]

There is definitely something satisfying about getting banished early, getting a rune way earlier than is normally possible, and then killing whatever banished you.

[mad]

I've started playing a few DSCK of Lucy just for the heck of it, and I notice that more often than not the portal I start on is near an exit gate (I'm talking within 5-10 tiles). Is this normal for Lucy starts, or am I just ridiculously lucky? (I'm playing trunk, if that matters)

[mageykun]

Yeah, that's normal. KN's of Lugonu start in a special version of the abyss, with d:1 loot and the exit nearby. If you have the misfortune to get teleported or find a nasty monster before the exit, that's what your escape ability is for. But if you don't waste it, you get to start the dungeon with a bit of extra piety.

[Sjohara]

I just had a moderately interesting experience in the Abyss. My 18 MfIE got banished by an Ogre Mage (I didn't even know they could do that). I wasn't too worried initially. I had accidentally unleashed a whole vault of demons on a recent floor, including a few 2s, and I killed them without a huge amount of trouble (once I ran away and let the disperse themselves, at least), plus I once had a DSCK of Xom of a level in the single digits waltz out of the Abyss no less than twice, so I figured this character had a pretty good chance of making it out.

I eventually got surrounded by a bunch of who-knows-what, though, so I decide to burn my first teleport. But on the very turn I read it, the Abyss teleports me by itself, so now I'm somewhere safe-looking with Tele still active. I take one step and...it's the rune off in the edge of my line of sight. I make a desperate pounce for it and, against all odds, just barely pick up the rune two rounds before my teleport scroll finally kicks in. Making it something like the fourth rune I've laid hands on across all my games, and the first abyssal rune.

Unfortunately the story doesn't have a happy ending. One or two jumps later I ended up someplace absolutely horrible. Not dangerous, but a ludicrously tight web of walls and lava tiles. Worse than a labyrinth, since I didn't have my ring of levitation with me (this is like the first character ever who didn't carry one around full-time...I guess I figured as a Merfolk my odds of needing it were low and I could always go back to y stash for it). So I was stuck there forever, barely seeing any enemies, and barely even making any progress since lava blocks most of the paths and I can't keep track of where I've been with the map always blacking out everything I can't currently see. I wanted to use another teleport scroll just to end the tedium, but due to a recent sticky flame incident I had been whittled down to just two, and they seemed like a pretty critical resource given the circumstances, so I didn't want to waste one and instead just wandered around waiting for another random teleport. I guess that was a mistake, though, because I got so hellishly bored that I accidentally suicided myself trying to melee an Ice Demon to death which I'm sure I easily could have killed easily with a couple of icicles (in my impatience I mistook it for a 3 rather than a 2, since I play tiles and had never seen one before).

I'd be more annoyed, but I don't think my long-term prospects with that character were too great anyway. It was only my second time getting Frozen Cloud castable, which was great, but I got the undead swamp for the first time with no apportation or rot resistance, had no Repel Missiles for the Vaults or Shoals 5, and had gotten mostly junk from Sif Muna except for Ozocubu's Refrigeration (which I never cast because I didn't have ice resistance or conservation) and Blink. Plus I was down to my last on-hand meat ration, so I had a decent chance of starving to death in the Abyss anyway at the rate I was going.

[Grimm]

Jesus what a sad tale.