The Saga of Ellora the Elven Archer Krysia's Krusader 8th July 2004 2 Contents 1 Book 1 7 1.1 Preface . 7 1.2 Beginning . 7 1.3 Journey to the Oracle of Delphi . 9 1.4 The Descent into the Caverns . 15 1.5 Puzzling Out The Boulders . 19 1.6 Two Missions . 21 1.7 Grand Finale At The Boulders . 24 1.8 The Death of Sirius . 28 1.9 Lessons On Greed . 30 1.10 Consolidation . 34 1.11 Breaching The Ghost Level . 40 1.12 Snow Boots . 45 1.13 Dark Rituals . 51 1.14 Chain Reaction . 55 1.15 The Long Dark Ascent . 64 1.16 There’s A New Kid In Town . 68 1.17 Qualifications . 72 1.18 The Trees . 77 1.19 Revelations . 86 1.20 "Burrrp!" . 90 1.21 The Battle — Engagement . 96 1.22 The Battle — Maneuvers . 101 1.23 The Battle — Clash Of Arms . 105 1.24 Enlightenment . 110 3 4 CONTENTS 2 Book 2 115 2.1 Ellora’s Basecamp . 116 2.2 Back In The Game . 117 2.3 Reunited . 121 2.4 Hauntings . 124 2.5 Escape From The Valley Of The Dead . 129 2.6 Jungle Boots And Fencing Gloves . 135 2.7 Behold The Black Battle-Blade! . 138 2.8 A Plain Spellbook? . 145 2.9 The Sanguinary Sanction... 148 2.10 My Ghost!? . 156 2.11 The Blessed Fountain of Cursing . 158 2.12 Starving & Ravenous . 162 2.13 A Review . 166 2.14 Experiments . 171 2.15 More Experiments . 176 2.16 Identify! . 183 2.17 Filling Water . 186 2.18 Murder Under The New Moon . 189 2.19 Food Fight! . 193 2.20 Mary Jane . 197 2.21 A Milestone Reached . 201 2.22 It Worked! . 207 2.23 Exclamations . 212 2.24 That’s it! . 218 2.25 Maps and Tables . 224 2.26 A Day In The Laboratory . 240 2.27 A Day In The Armory . 251 2.28 Gimmick . 256 2.29 Shields . 261 2.30 Shooting Soldiers . 267 2.31 The Sacking of Fort Ludios . 273 3 Book 3 277 3.1 Nearing The End... 277 3.2 Return To The Valley Of The Dead . 284 3.3 Conquest Of The Valley Of The Dead . 291 3.4 Mollifying Mars . 295 CONTENTS 5 3.5 Formulating . 302 3.6 The Fall . 309 3.7 Lord That Flies . 313 3.8 The Climb . 320 3.9 Polymorphing Pleasure! . 328 3.10 Oblivion . 332 6 CONTENTS Chapter 1 Book 1 1.1 Preface Hiya, I have composed the following for those of you that were so nice to have helped me out (See thread "Seem to be at an Impasse" for more details). Please understand that I’m not asking, nor expecting advice on how to play the game. This is just my personal experience with the game of Nethack so far. It is quite long (very much longer than intended), but once I started, I just got more and more into it. Most of it is reconstructed from memory and some notes, but I have put in a lot of time with this particular character and remember many of the turning points in the game so far. The game is ongoing, but temporarily on hold until I catch up with this (again, see previously mentioned thread for details). Also I type slow, so it may take several installements over a few days. If you enjoy this, then I’m pleased to have gone through the effort. Reagrds, Krysia’s Krusader 1.2 Beginning I used to play D&D (and later on AD&D) when I was younger. I’ve noticed that there are similarities in Nethack to this old favorite game. This has probably helped me with some of the monsters, from what I remember (I think the Oracle of Delphi has mentioned this to me also.). I also put in countless hours, years ago, on a computer game called Master of Magic. My favorite hero in that game was Ellora the Elven Archer. After acquiring enough experience / enchantments / equipement, she could kill big bad monsters with one shot from her bow. I think Elves are a slick race. They’re intelligent, cunning, and sexy (to me anyways). So most of my games in nethack have been with this race. There are many times that passages, doors, AND traps are hidden. The "Guidebook for Nethack" describes Elves as: "Elves are agile, quick, and perceptive; very little of what goes on 7 8 CHAPTER 1. BOOK 1 will escape an Elf." I remember that Elves had a better chance of discovering secret doors in D&D compared to other races, and I see that this has been carried to Nethack. I never liked playing characters that just bulldozed through everything (fighters, barbarians, etc.), instead prefer- ing the thinking classes (magic users, theives, etc.), a Lawful/Evil female Illusionist being my all time favorite AD&D character. In Nethack, there are only three classes for Elves; Priest, Ranger, Wizard. Of the three, Rangers is where I would get the farthest on average. Probably due to being able to hit monsters with some stand-off weaponery (bow and daggers). Wizzards come in second (mainly with the force-bolt spell), and we’ll not even discuss how quickly my poor Preistesses died. After getting used to how the game looked on screen and getting familiar with the commands, I found that I coulden’t stop playing this game! I had become addicted... (groan). Often times I got killed due to making a mistake on the keyboard (over and over again), as well as not considering all my options (like running from, and avoiding conflicts in order to live another day). Hence, not thinking and/or considering things - which is what I pride myself on (!). After playing through many characters (at least a 120 of them), I was.