https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20261003-141923.txt
This comes after a long dry spell; two HEArs (the last got to being almost immediately obliterated by yaktaurs in a volcano), four NaSus (killed by Urug and friends on L:1), seven MuAEs (a horrible combo, last got mobbed by wolves as soon as it arrived in the Lair), a FeAR (almost cleared both Lair branches, which I thought was pretty good for a first attempt), a SpEE (black mamba, Lair:2), and a FoBe (died of hubris on Tomb:2 which I guess is kind of my fault). But at least this was won on the first attempt.
I got Makhleb from a faded altar on D:3; could have been worse. I made mysteriously little use of the abilities but obviously the heal-on-kill is always useful. Of course we have the bcrawlism that Xom will continue to annoy CK for the entire game. Xom had already given me blurry vision and partly herbivorous on D:2, which I was not best pleased with.
I hit an ossuary on D:4 and found a +9 hunting sling of freezing, so no clever strategic advice here, the key to winning this game was to get lucky early - and it does explain why I never felt the urge to use Minor Destruction. After this the rest of the trip down to the Lair was pretty easy going. On D:6 I had identified mutation and mutrouletted blurry vision out (I knew Xom might just give it right back, but it seemed worth a go) and also acquired a +2 pair of boots with {rElec rPois} which I spent the rest of the game hoping Xom would not push off my feet by giving me Hooves 3.
I say the trip down to the Lair was easy but I did hit a labyrinth on D:11 and very nearly get collected by the minotaur doing huge damage with javelins of penetration. During the Lair Xom started to hand out good mutations - I know this is just RNG, but it often seems that sometimes Xom is in the mood to do this and then changes their mind and takes them all away again. I learned Yara’s here. It would take me a while to get it online; Xom did not help by giving me Wild Magic, when what I mostly wanted was for it to work at all - spellpower does nothing for turning off monster buffs. I’d already learned Portal Projectile which was very useful all game.
Orc came soon after Lair. O:2 was much worse than Lair; I had to teleport around repeatedly to deal with Saint Roka, and there’s always the risk when you do that of teleporting into a horde of bastards. O:2 also had a silent bazaar stocked with plenty of consumables. I mutrouletted after Orc; Xom had given me frail on O:2 and I really wanted rid of it. Xom immediately gave me very frail, rude! However, Xom ran out of mischief before I ran out of potions, and I went to Snake with a reasonable setup.
In Snake Xom gave me a pile of gold so I bought and enchanted up a +6 fustibalus of velocity on O:2; I couldn’t buy it on first finding it because I’d spent all my gold in the bazaar. Naturally, Xom immediately gifted me Punk, and I don’t think the poor fusti got fired more than twice all game.
Vashnia and her pack gave me a very serious scare on Snake:3 but otherwise things were OK - and Xom decided to give me, amongst other things, Robust 2 and rF++. The rF was a real boon - I could have a much nicer combination of jewellery if I didn’t have to cover rF - and Xom never took it away, so I wouldn’t mutroulette again until much later when things were very bad (fortunately keeping rF++). Right now, however, Xom was giving me Clarity on the way into Swamp, thanks Xom.
Swamp was fine (permanent flight helped) aside from an unwanted helping of Spider Form on Swamp:4, and that was two runes down. D:14 was next, then Elf.
Elf seems to have been fine, hitting two more bazaars, one silent. (Can that even happen? Apparently yes). I did get spellbooks with Shroud of Golubria and Blink from the E:3 loot, but not much else.
D:15 then down the Vaults to V:4. No problems there, then into the Depths. More problems in Depths; close to dying to a combination of a flayed ghost and other monsters, then on Depths:3 Xom teleported me into a runed door vault full of mummies whose death curses summoned enough reapers to nearly kill me. Xom then gave me shoutitis, which was very unhelpful.
I did V:5 next; three runes, and a randart ring with {AC+3 Dex+3 Slay+5}. As I recall, I didn’t even try to fight the initial ambush on the stairs, teleporting or hatching immediately. After that was Slime, having become able to cast Ignition with brilliance. After Slime I had a huge surplus of gold and bought a scroll of acquirement for 1508 zorkmids, getting a randart amulet with {Acrobat rN+ Str-2 Int+3 Dex+4}.
I was up to the tricky extended rune question and cleared the Crypt, getting the shield of Resistance (alas we had not yet taken the patch that makes it rF++ rC++ MR++) and enough gold to buy a randart ring with {rPois rC+ rN+ Int+4 Dex-4 Slay+3} which I’d finish with as part of a general want to cram in some rN against torment. I got Abyssed by a lich on C:3 (having rather forgot that MR had trickled away with equipment changes) but got out immediately.
Shoutitis had got annoying enough that I mutrouletted it out, fortunately keeping the rF++ which I wanted most. Then I was off to Hell, nailing Geryon immediately with Portal Projectile. However, Pan seemed like the best… least worst extended rune and the first level had both Gloorx Vloq and an exit from Pan. As is often the case Xom teleported me in to the rune vault; and as is also often the case, the curse skulls were more of a nuisance than the panlord. I learned Sticky Flame here as a poor man’s See Invisible, but then found and learned See Invisible.
I bought an enormous pile of consumables and headed off to Zot. There was an OOF on Z:1 but it turns out you can corrode them with Punk. Zot wasn’t in general a problem down to Z:4 with Ignition for large groups and Punk for individual nasties; and I learned Statue Form for axe melee when necessary (but only cast it 5 times).
Z:5 did feature Tiamat (thanks for the dragonskin cloak) and a ton of ancient lichen and then orbs of fire (but I was well enough equipped for those). The orbrun had two panlords - one killed, one evaded.
Next up is MfVM, and I’m already on a no-streak.