The Tavern

I am playing a SpEn, and have cleared out most of the spider nest. However, the final chamber contains two deadly uniques: Arachne and Agnes (has lajatang of speed). How should I deal with them? I was thinking about throwing a rock at agnes to lure her to the tunnel to the big chamber, then quaffing potion of haste or evoking my wand of haste, spamming dazzling spray on her until blinded, then stabbing her to death. How would I kill Arachne? I have no poison resistance, so she can two shot me (97 hp) with her spells. I could cast silence, but that would remove my spellcasting abilities as well.

Attempting to hex a spriggan unique seems risky. This sounds like a good place to ninja the rune with a ?blink, ?fog and ?teleport.

Dazzling Spray is not a real hex, it checks HD instead of MR. But I have no idea how good is it against medium and high HD enemies nowadays.

Arachne is slower than a spriggan, just lure her to a safe place and confuse her from the edge of LOS or you can even hibernate her (same MR as a hydra).

Except dazzling spray checks HD, not MR, so Agnes is as vulnerable to it as any other HD 11 monster such as an anaconda. The spell has a 40% chance of blinding her per hit.

This also is a good candidate for the 'come back later' technique.

Where else would I go? The swamp has Frances camping near the entrance, the dungeon is cleared, orc is cleared, lair is cleared, vaults are too tough, depths are too tough. Also, how long is Arachne's range with her spells?

When playing as a spriggan, level 3 Hexes spells, backed by enough spellpower of course, are enough for the majority of things you meet there. Also half of the stuff there doesn't see invisible.

Vaults also has a rune lock. Is arachnes speed 10? Spriggan speed to split the pack as agnes can keep up with you but isnt a ranged threat.

The starting spellbook no longer contains invisibility spell, and I have not found a spellbook that does. Also, I killed Agnes, but the noise alerted Arachne, so I fled to the level above. Then, I came back, confused Arachne, and stabbed her to death. I grabbed the rune, but it took me 4 invis pots to not die to the ghost moths.

Huh. I always think of Agnes as one of the least dangerous uniques relative too her level, but I can see how she can be tough for a Spriggan Enchanter.

You don't have anything? Mana vipers? Rod of Clouds? Fireball? Scroll of summoning? Sack of spiders? It's only Agnes!

I dazzeled agnes. I had a sack of spiders, a lamp of fire, and two phantom mirrors, but I did not want to waste them on agnes.

Don't think of it as wasting. If you need it to overcome what you are facing now, use it now. You managed without them. But if you were that unsure, then use them. Also the lamp regenerates uses and the sack likely isn't too great much later than where you are. Would be been a good choice to throw a bunch of spiders. I believe Arachne is as vulnerable to poison as any insect monster.

It actually would be a waste to use them to kill a unique you have no need to kill, though. And Arachne does not have poison vulnerability, she just doesn't have innate rPois either.

Agnes is probably the (second) most dangerous unique around her level since she is fast (the other candidate is Aizul). But uniques in general stop being dangerous around Lair.

Arachne is also often (always?) carries a staff of poison, which gives her rPois.