gridlore | The Heroic Death of Gragnar Bareskin

A follow-up to my Nethack post of last night.

Fully expecting to be monster chow, I restarted the game and trudged into the graveyard outside Moloch's Sanctum. Where Gragnar kicked ass. He then went into the Sanctum itself, wearing a Ring of Conflict, and let them kick each others' asses. (Grangar helped, of course.)

Gragnar just wanted to get his hands on the amulet. Amazingly living long enough to make it into the temple, Grangar was most amused when Moloch keep double frying his own High Priest by firing lightning bolts at him. They'd hit the priest coming in, bounce of his shield of reflection, and re-crisp the poor priest on the way back. Gragnar thought he heard the priest mutter "about time" when he finally died. So Gragnar had the amulet, and about 15 hit points.. but he has potions in his bag of holding rummage, rummage Yes! A blessed potion of Full Healing gulp 194 HP! Bring it on!

Feeling much better about his chances, Grangar gets the Hell out of.. well, Hell. Running like made, he leaves the sanctum, and pauses on one level.. didn't I kill some elves over here?? Yes! Elven mithral armor! More bloody stairs.. and Gragnar remembers he killed a silver dragon in Vlad's tower.. maybe it left scales? Yes! More rummaging in the bag, a scroll of enchant armor, and Gragnar is now a very shiny barbarian indeed!

But oh no! The Wizard of Yendor! "So, you thought you could kill me, fool?" he sneers. "Yes." replies Gragnar, zotting the Wizard with a wand of death, which resembles a Colt Python chambered for .357M (hey it had six charges..) More running, bits of flying over Jubilex's swamp, and he's back at the Valley of the Dead! "Thank you, come again!" shouts the clueless priest of Moloch as Gragnar runs past carrying the one item his god needs to rule the universe. Explains how he got the job of hanging out in a graveyard.

Now it's a race. Can Gragnar find a cloak of magic resistance before Rodney curses everything he owns? he knows there are a few cloaks of magic resistance left lying in the piles of corpses he left laying about on the way down..

20th level..

15th level

10th level

Finally, on the 7th level Gragnar finds what he needs! He loses a few point of AC, but going from -28 to -22 isn't that much of a change..

Gragnar makes it to the first level of the dungeon. Pausing to wheeze, he thinks that he can't wait for elevators to be invented. "Gragnar wouldn't even complain about Muzak.. what ever that is" he muses. He takes the stairs up, and instead of letting him out, they now lead him to the Plane of Earth, where the Wizard is waiting! "Fool! Did you think that you could *urk*" Vorpal Blade ends so many awkward conversations, Gragnar thinks. He dons the Amulet of Yendor to find the magic portals.

Tunnel through the plane of earth, fighting off elementals, giants, and a few members of Xorns Against Bad D&D Art, Grangar notices that the Amulet is getting warmer. Either that, or the fire giant he ate is coming back to haunt him. Nope, it's the amulet! Using all his Barbarian skills, honed to a fine edge by a lifetime of hunting, Gragnar carefully searches for the portal.

"Searches? The bloody thing is a seven-foot whorl of dimentional energy! You can hear the thing from a mile away!" complains one Storm Giant, wearing a Metallica "Ride the Lightning" t-shirt (enchanted to +3 and fireproof, of course.)

"Gragnar had an unfortuante encounter with a mind flayer on level 16, heading down." replies a bored minotaur, flipping through an old copy of Dragon. "He's a few dice short of a Crown Royal bag, get my drift?"

Eventually, Gragnar notices the dimentional vortex, and knowing what is to come, puts on his rings of levitation and conflict. "Being a hero is much easier when the monsters kill each other." Gragnar announces. The Storm Giant and minotaur nod sagely before trying to rip each other heads off.

Gragnar arrives on the Plane of Air. Very cool, no gravity! Lots of huge, mean air elementals! Not so cool. Gragnar runs.. err.. flies towards a cloud bank to get to where the portal to the plane of fire must be. "Hee hee hee!" Gragnar thinks (if you can call it that) "Now they can't see me!"

Of course, Gragnar can't see either. And helms of telepathy don't show elementals. Gragnar finds himself surrounded by four big, ugly refugees from the casting call for Twister. Gragnar kills three, but uses up all his healing potions. Then the fourth swallows him.. out of options, Gragnar calls upon Crom.

Gragnar: "Oh, mighty Crom, save me! I've got the amulet you wanted! I'm this close, but I'm in a bit of a pickle.."

Crom: "Why is it you only call when you're in trouble? 'Help, I'm low on hit points! I've turned into a wererat! I'm turning to stone' You could just say hi once in a while.."

Gragnar: "You're kidding right? You are the one who complains about me contacting you too often, oh God. And when I sacrifice to you, what do I get? Nothing! Not even bloody Cleaver! Dozens of bodies I hauled onto to your altars.. You ever lift a centaur? Not easy."

Crom: "I gave you luck.."

Gragnar: "Hello? See this?" holds up Heart of Ahriman "A blessed luckstone, Dimwit Deity. I have luck. Loads of luck. I've corned the market in Luck futures. What I need is about 150 hit points!"

Crom: "Ingrate. The whole point of the endevour was for a mortal follower of mine to prove me worthy by retriving the amulet. You obviously aren't that person. Well, we'll discuss this in person soon."

Gragnar: "In person? What do you mean in.." THWAK! "urk. Blurble. Gasp"

Crom: "Well, that's it for him. Bother."

I am most impressed in how this game turned out. I fully expected to be dead before I hit the Sanctum. Getting to the planes was amazing. Killing the Wizard of Yendor three times without nagic resistance was unbelievalbe.

This is the reason I love this game.