Hello friends and welcome back to the next part of our Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup playthrough as M3ss the Troll Monk of Okawaru! Dungeon Crawl is a game that's very close to my heart. I've been playing it on and off for more than 20 years now and I find it's open source community creation model inspiring. All that said, Dungeon Crawl can be a complicated game to first pick up so, to help folks along (and improve my skills as an educational writer), I've decided to work on this series welcoming a new generation of players into a game I love!
So, let's go!
When we last left M3ss he had taken down an enormious 2 headed Ogre who has a massive club in each hand! This vile creature almost ended our run by mashing us to bits but thankfully, due to clever use of a scroll of teleportation and a wand of iceblast, we were able to come out on top! In the interest of staying ahead of the curve I think a great next step (while we are healing a bit) would be to read those last few unidentified scrolls to find out what they do! They aren't any use to us how they are after all.
It's always dangerous read unidentified scrolls but, if you'll remember in part two, we've already encountered many of the scrolls with negative effects. Thankfully the scrolls we had on us were a scroll of identify, scroll of enchant weapon, and scroll of enchant armor. While we're focused on unarmed combat due to our giant troll claws we were able to enchant the our backup weapon and further improve our robe! Score! Time to set off looking for trouble! I hope we can survive another day!
It seems this part of the dungeon has been infested with Ogres and Orcs, both of which can be extremely dangerous.
Those antenna we gained in Part 1 from a potion of mutation really came in handy here to see that I was being looped around on when this fight started. While the ogre is right infront of me I wanna try something interesting here: Let's try and stick him with one of those datura soaked needled and see if we can throw it into a rage to kill it's friends. Have I mentioned how much I love this game? Unfortunately I missed, going to have to start training throwing soon, thankfully M3ss made short work of the Ogres, Orc Priest, and rats with his claws. It seems two headed Ogres are much more powerful than the single headed variety.
Heading down another level we're greeted with some interesting information:
Battle?!? I love battle! Let's find it and maybe that secret entrance to ... something?
For out first few turns we searched the dungeon and found some enemies, shrines to lesser gods, and tons of Kobalds. Maybe we've found a new area? Hard to tell.
Hearing a lot of racket from a marticular area I discovered a unique closed room full of greenskin monsters who I used the iceblast wand on, killing them all in one hit. I had been feeling down on this wand after using it so many times on the two-headed ogre but I'm now realizing that was a very strong enemy and this spell is not weak at all. Approaching the cornet of the room I found a portal with a tapestry above it showing a field of battle. Without thinking twice I jumped in!
I know the massive dungeons of Dungeon Crawl have unique areas and we seem to have discovered one! This is not at all the kind of thing that happens every run so I'm really happy we found The Bailey while I'm taking the time to document this run. Let's explore!
On first exploration M3ss finds what appears to be a non-randomized dungeon filled with Orc and Gnolls with powerful enchanted weapons. This would be a lot better for a character who had the option to pick up and use these weapons but m3ss cares not for such distractions. Let's keep looking.
Ahhh! A potion storeroom guarded by dinner! This seems to be the end of the Baily so we headed back to the dungeon to keep the run going with a big bag of potions to try! Quickly I noticed we have 5 golden potions and, after quaffing one, was excited to find that we have a stockpile of healing potions! Those come in really handy! After sampling the rest of the potions this is what we're left with...
What an amazing variety of powerful effects! This is why I don't mind playing non-magical 'boring' classes in Dungeon Crawl, by the time you've got a good run going, you've got access to magic by other effects! M3ss is feeling like a very powerful character at the moment but it's important to remember we're only ever one bad decision away from permadeath. That said, the Baily has us stocked up and ready for war so let's go looking for a little more trouble before ending for the day.
Well this is interesting! We've found a portion of the dungeon sprouting new growth and containing centaurs. I was hoping I might be able to snag that wand on the ground using my significant stealth skills but now that I'm being peppered with flaming arrows it's time to get serious. Fire ... meet Ice.
Not only did we win and get a brand new Wand of Acid but our god is strongly starting to approve of our actions and has provided a major boon!
While attempting to equip it I suddenly noticed something coming around the corner and found myself face to face with a dungeon troll. As a Troll Monk of the art of battle this is an opportunity to prove myself so I threw the cloak of brilliance to the ground and attacked killing my enemy. M3ss wins!
Let's take a look at our full inventory at this moment:
Friends, we must truly be blessed by Okawaru because nine out of 10 runs I play would have eneded by now and we are doing amazing! Maybe it's the extra care I'm putting into playing because I really enjoy showing you around this game I love. In anycase, my takeaway is that games are better together! I hope to see you again next time and hope you are well until then! Cheers!