The Story of Raven the Monk

A first ascension for me, on Slash.
Not slept for 25 hours, it's 1am. "I'll just have a quick game of Slash" I thought innocently.

Started a game as Raven the Monk (I use Raven every third game, and I usually use Monks), and got my least favourite starting equipment for a monk, a spellbook of healing. Never mind.

Found a _big_ pet shop on level 3, and eventually managed to persuade my pet to steal me one of the 4 magic whistles it contained. (It should've been easier, because I had about 15 tripe rations from the same shop).

Went through the gnomish mines quite uneventfully, apart from procuring a bag of holding. The altar wasn't neutral, but there was a wand shop, a scroll shop, an armour shop and a potion shop. Because of having found that pet shop I didn't have too much difficulty stealing lots of things.
Left the mines quite knowledgeable as to what scrolls and potions do, and with a few remove-curse and identify's, a wand (yay!) of polymorph, one of cancellation, and a load of other wands.

By this time I considered myself capable of dealing with water demons or lots of mocassins, so I started dipping useless potions in fountains. As a monk I usually drink lots of fountains anyway, in an attempt to get a wish or two. Eventually, I did get a wish, and wished for the pretty-much vital monk equipment, gauntlets of power.
A little later, I found my second favourite monk equipment, a spellbook of identify, which I read, blessed, and stuck in my bag of holding for safekeeping.
Another wish shortly later (water demons being no problem once the monk has his gauntlets), and I was unsure between items 3 and 4 - amulet of reflection or boots of water-walking. I went for the boots, I think.

Did the quest without difficulty except Master Kaen... He's a swine. In the same turn as he arrives, I'm down to 50/160 hitpoints. So I zap him with a wand of polymorph, and conveniently turn him into something useless. With my ring of conflict, the other monsters he summoned don't cause too much trouble, and I'm away with the bell and mantle of knowledge.

Met some of those electric bugs that have a tendency to disintigrate wands. "Ah." said I, "I'll put my wands in a bag to prevent that."
-apply- -bag of holding- -no take stuff out- -yes put stuff in-
"What sort of things would you like to put in? ([()!?/"= iaq)"
"a/" (all wands) says I.
"You put a wand of magic missile in the blessed bag called holding."
"You put a wand called healing in the blessed bag called holding."
"You are caught in a magical explosion."
Oops. I forgot about that wand of cancellation. Still, at least my wand of polymorph didn't go in before it.
But my spellbook of identify did. So I walked all the way back, half way through the quest, and got another one, which I blessed.

Came upon an untended altar, and converted it. By this time I had a wand of create monster and a bag of tricks. Sat there for a while sacrificing monsters from both of these, even collecting another wand of create monster from one of the monsters. Having done this, there was a huge pile of things in the room. Zombie corpses, much armour and weapons, a few odd tools... So I stuck them all in a pile against one wall, and polypiled for a while. Got myself a robe of power (that's magic-power, for those who would get confused with gauntlets of power) and had to choose between a cloak of magic resistance, drain resistance, invisibility or displacement. I went for drain resistance. Also got my amulet of reflection and a new BoH.

All that sacrificing had got me two pet Marids, which I didn't want, but I took them anyway, them being god-given. The whistle was handy there, since those guys have a tendency to not follow me. Later I polymorphed these guys and another that was from a figurine into a mind-flayer, a trapper, and a shadow ogre. (On a polymorph trap)
What does it _do_ when it says 'You feel a wave of psychic energy wash over you... It feels quite soothing.'?
Apart from get on my nerves, I mean. Anyway, a few levels later the game persistently crashed (boy, was I glad of 'recover'. I'd never got this far before!), until I left the mind-flayer behind by a level.
I realised something about now, my armour wasn't rust/fire resistant, and some of it (the gauntlets, the boots) is totally vital. So I walked all the way back to the gnomish mines armour shop, got it all rustproofed (shopkeepers do that in Slash), and enchanted. Got some _more_ divine protection from the priest, and enchanted the gauntlets up to +4.

I never did find a general or a jeweller shop, so I had loads of expensive gems that I couldn't do anything with.
I walked across the water on the medusa level, which I didn't realise was the medusa level (I thought it was _always_ the 'H' shape in the middle).
Luckily this one was more convincingly medusa, in that it had a big cluster of statues just before the room with her in. Also I saw a purple @ with my telepathy. Blindfold on, walked in ready to smite her, forgot about the amulet of reflection, no smiting necessary.

To the castle. Went for the simple 'wand of opening' method on the door.
Drawbridge comes down, gets blown up shortly afterwards by a guy with a wand of striking. No problem to me, with my waterwalking boots, but it trapped them in. Cleaned up, collected the wand of wishing [3]. Brilliant.
Couldn't think of anything I really wanted though. A blessed scroll of genocide, then a blessed magic marker, wrote a few scrolls of charging (for the wand of wishing and the wands of polymorph), genocided 'h'.
Wrote some more genocides, and genocided 'D' and 'L'. Wrote one deliberately not blessed, and genocided basilisks.
Oh, something funny happened before that - I'd already genocided master-lich and arch-lich'es. A demi-lich in the castle doorway...
"The demi-lich drinks a potion of gain level."
"The demi-lich looks more experienced."
"As the demi-lich grows into a master-lich, it dies!"
Made me laugh.
By this time it was 8:45 am, and I hadn't slept. Oops. Went and did things for the day, anyway, and did sleep when I got home, so the game was left for quite some time.
Anyway, the next interesting event was the Demogorgon. It's 'peaceful', but it keeps teleporting to _just_ in front of me. Eventually I said 'tsk', and hit it. Unicorn horn came into full use, and I went and took control of some stairs, eventually killing it. Orcus was also peaceful but rather in the way. (Oh no he's using the touch of death a few times, but lucky for me it didn't work, too. Is there some way of resisting it?)
Geryon appears and demands 4329 gold for safe passage.
How much do you offer him? 4628 - it's all I have and I don't want it.
Geryon disappears, laughing about cowardly mortals.
(I think I'll kill him next time, for the insult. Heh.)

Got the candelabra no trouble, found the vibrating square by accident, left gold on it to mark it and dug tunnels between it and the book of the dead's location. made sure the wizard wasn't over water, killed him, grabbed the book, made a run for it, killed him again, opened the square (after a few wrong-orderings of the items - hell, I didn't know the order!) , dropped the gadgets. After all that book seems to have a nasty effect, and I don't want to carry the damn things anyway.
Death-rayed a load of priests, and polymorphed the high priest. Got the amulet, tested it with my oilskin sack, named it real. Zapped it with a wand of invisibility, too, to make sure.
Ran all the way back up, killing the wizard 7 more times, the most annoying time being when he stole the amulet as I was passing round the side of the castle, then he insisted on fighting over the water.
I insisted he didn't.

To the earth plane, never been here before... Wizard appears as soon as I reach the top of the stairs, along with a load of summoned things, no trouble. I dig for a bit, and stumble into the portal.
To air, I put on my ring of levitation that I kept for just this purpose.
Wrote a scroll of detect traps, found the portal, went to it.
To water, I put on my amulet of magical breathing that I kept for just _this_ purpose. Wrote a scroll of detect traps, found the portal, then found that the damn thing was moving. Eventually fell into it by chance, while I was blind.
To fire, I put my reflection and conflict things back on, fight a while, then decide to try walking over the lava, forgetting that my boots had their fire-resistance removed by a brown mold. Whump, the boots go.
So I use the ring of levitation, in place of free-action, write a scroll, find the portal, and go to it. Before I go through I put the free-action, reflection and conflict on. Through the portal.
"Your desire for conflict will be met, mortal!" or some such, and I'm surrounded by angels _of my god_ attacking me. Even after I take the ring of conflict off. I kill them, what else can I do, and put on my ring of regeneration instead of conflict. Accidentally hit a peaceful priest of my god. (You murderer! made me laugh. I'm a murderer in heaven.)
Killed pestilence (twice) and death, came to the right altar second, and gave the guy the amulet.

I'd acquired a few valuable gems on that final level, but unfortunately I forgot to grab my huge stash of them I'd left at the castle. Tsk.

 No  Points     Name                                             Hp [max]
  1    6528274  Raven-M ascended to demigod-hood.               419 [419]
  2     292056  Kirk-M died in the Quest on level 23 [max 18].    - [177]
                Killed by a green dragon.

Rather better than my previous, eh? Incidentally, my whole top 10 are monks, and I only play them about _half_ the time.
419 hitpoints? Well, my other wishes were for '3 potions of gain level'.
And I did drink a lot of potions of extra healing throughout the game.
Come to think of it, I think I had a wish left at the end - I should've wished for 5 of those really expensive gems. If I could remember what they were called...

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