Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Slash'Em Ascension (Yeo Hum Mal Law)

I ascended a Yeoman in the wee hours last night on the Slash'Em server @ Pallas! Word!

This is my third ascension, but my first one in Slash'Em, as well as my first on a public server. I started this game nearly six months ago and have been playing it slowly ever since. Fortunately, this time I have a nice dump file, ttyrecs and a place on a public high score list to commemorate the event!

I enjoyed the Yeoman class (enough to ascend one); it's sort of like playing Knight Lite. You don't have the Knight's stringent code of conduct, but you pay for it by having fewer Expert skills available, as well as swapping lance for polearms. But hey, free fishing pole! :)

I don't have a play-by-play, but I do have some highlights:
-After defeating Col. Blood in the Quest and doing the three alignment quests, I managed to stuff a wand of cancellation into my (oH. Goodbye hard-earned inventory, including Sword of Justice, Reaper, Werebane, and an assortment of useful scrolls and potions. Apparently the aligned keys can't be destroyed in a magical bag explosion, though -- they were the only things left afterward!
-I LOST the Key of Law. I tried to use it and realized it wasn't in my inventory! After much more searching than I cared to do, I discovered that I had dropped it on an altar and never picked it up again, mistaking it for some other random tool. Thank goodness I found it -- beats getting blasted by the Key of Neutrality every time I pull it out of my bag!
-I was going to attempt to go without wishing for artifacts due to some lucky generation and sacrifice gifts, but I had wishes to spare, so I splurged on a Wallet of Perseus and a fistful of healthstones for myself. After that, I think the only conduct I had intact was celibacy. It gets lonely in the dungeon...
-I managed to hit a trapdoor on Yeenoghu's level and miss his area entirely, but it's okay because Demogorgon summoned him on the Juiblex level and I had already defeated both of them.
-Speaking of which, the mandatory appearance of Demogorgon is a dirty trick, but I actually had a tougher time with Dispater solely due to the structure of his level.
-The demon princes were really the toughest part of the game. Getting out with the "oY was cake. I'll have to confirm with the ttyrecs, but I think I blew through the four planes in less than 250 turns. It says a lot for being prepared and watching a lot of YASDs on SplatTV -- dawdling in the endgame is often fatal!
-Hit the high altar on the first try! I saw which one Famine was guarding and figured I'd get him out of the way first, and it turned out to be a good guess. Normally I lock myself in the room and expend some wishes to stock the demigod bar, but a monster blew the door off so I just had to get ahead of the pack. I decided to try to blow my remaining zillion wishes on some artifacts to bolster my score. I managed to get Grayswandir on the first try, then tried for Werebane and remembered that I'd destroyed it earlier when a regular saber showed up. I couldn't get lucky after that so I got some fun stuff for the afterlife, generated Sting for a mouthful of points, and headed on up...
'An invisible choir sings, and you are bathed in radiance... The voice of His Majesty booms out: "Congratulations, mortal!"'

For anyone who wants to take a look, the dumplog is available here. This way I don't have to type up the laundry list of artifacts in my inventory and vanquished creatures, though I will note that the Wizard of Yendor showed up 19 times, the rat.