Julhrycia the higher rogue Ziguranth; insane roguelike 1.6.7

[Bananadine]

I like the Higher race because it seems kinda crappy. I like underdogs. I love the rogue class because it provides so many interesting choices. I was intent on making an antimagic character because I wanted to unlock something that required that, and because it seemed as if playing as an antimagic Higher would be extra weird. This character was the end product.

I wanted to win in madness roguelike difficulty; that would be especially strange. But that is too hard. I settled on insane roguelike with my strange race-class-affiliation combo. That was acceptably weird. (It was unique, too - at the time, nobody other than one cheating test character had yet won on insane roguelike or harder with a higher rogue, let alone an antimagic one!)

I have played with Cunning/Stealth and Technique/Assassination in the past (albeit on a shadowblade) and found them good and strong. So this time I wanted to try focusing on traps and poison. I knew poison was good but I'd never seriously explored traps before. They seemed like they might not be good enough in insane difficulty. But I wanted to see. I was also quite interested in relying solely on knives, not on hand weapons; then maybe I could even carry a shield or a staff or something if I wanted to??? But knives, though strong, did not seem strong enough to be viable as one's only weapon at this difficulty. So I gave up on that. Finally, I wanted to play with Cunning/Scoundrel, because I'd never used it much before and it looked kinda good.

So that is my setup: traps, poison, scoundrel, antimagic, higher, certain Zigur quests required, no "point me to your teacher" with lost tinkers allowed; and also as an arbitrary act of roleplaying I refused to knowingly wield, wear, or even carry any magical items, except for the purpose of unlocking Angolwen. (Later, I would add one final constraint; see below.) Thus Julhrycia was born. The name was produced by the game's random name generator.

The early game was easy but quite frustrating. The trouble here is escort quests. I wanted to have as many of those as possible in the first two dungeons (Trollmire and Kor'Pul), because early ones were easy to complete (usually) with this character, whereas later ones might not be. So I ended up churning through a lot of characters before I found Julhrycia, who would consistently meet three lost adventurers in Trollmire 2, Trollmire 3, and Kor'Pul 1. I think it's a flaw in the game that this is allowed; the number and locations of escort quests should not persist across restarts the way they do now. It encourages this kind of tedious exploitation. I was never willing to drown townsfolk for experience, but I'm not quite above doing this. I don't like it though.

The other problem with escort quests in this run is that some of them provided crappy rewards, and if I got bad quests early then I'd feel compelled to restart and try again since I was only a few minutes into the game. That's also tedious and stupid. I think maybe the first quest or two should be semi-selectable, maybe via an advertisement posted in Derth or something. I mean I don't like the idea of completely controlling what rewards you get, but it'd be nice to be able to rule out a few lost adventurer types for the first one or two quests. That'd help a lot while still preserving a lot of randomness.

Specifically, I ranked the escorted characters thus:
S tier: defilers
A tier: warriors, sun paladins
B tier: temporal explorers, seers
D tier: loremasters, thieves, tinkers
F tier: alchemists

Defilers provide Resonance Field, which is effectively a big chunk of extra health that regenerates moderately quickly. I love extra health in all its forms. I also appreciate Conversion, though I can easily live without it; for me it generally only provided health and stamina, and I could get more health out of the resonance field and plenty of stamina out of my equipment.

I like warriors for Vitality only. On other characters I might want Unflinching Resolve, but now that stunning is no longer a death sentence, I think that a rogue with Cunning/Scoundrel can rely on inscriptions and Rogue's Brew to clear physical ailments. And I love healing. Also I developed a strong desire to limit disease duration, because on one of my runs, Argoniel crippled me with a lot of diseases. So, for better or for worse, I would put two or three points into Vitality if given the chance.

I normally want Skate from paladins, but I think Telekinetic Leap is probably far better. It's deceptive in that it only gives you 2 range at first, with no guarantee of improvement, but even that's good enough to let you cross an enemy that's blocking you in or to escape from a deadly location despite pinning/dazing. Now that I've seen the consequences of being unable to leap out of a pin, I will pass up Skate almost every time.

Temporal explorers allow that same thing via dream walking, plus the extra ability to cross through walls, which is awesome. But that talent has bad accuracy and I don't like relying on it, though I certainly will if I have to.

Seers could give healing and vision of terrain, both of which are very nice; I can't use Burning Star since it's magical and I hate to have to switch to the Eye of the Forest a thousand times, so I'd like to have Earth's Eyes. It can save a life on occasion. But I'll take healing first anyway, because you always need more healing. Also, it's nice to be able to heal friendly characters, in certain quests. I still prefer Vitality though, because it doesn't eat a turn and can't fail or be blocked as easily.

Thieves just gave me extra generic points effectively, which is nice but not as good as unlocking new talents would be. Tinkers, with the teacher quest barred, give some decent benefits but nothing too exciting; I'd tend to take a different one of those each time. Loremasters offered me nothing special, strangely. Usually you can benefit from at least Mind Sear, but with my knives and poisons I didn't care about that or the spit talent. The stat bonuses are boring, and I can already disarm with a trap. I'd end up picking Disarm, since it's always nice to have one more way to neutralize a sawbutcher, but I never much wanted it.

Alchemists offer nothing but stat bonuses, spell save, and mindstar stuff that I had no use for since I was saving all my generic points for dagger power. At first I would take +5 willpower (for antimagic talents) and feel annoyed over it. After Argoniel destroyed me with Burning Hex and diseases, I started taking spell save and feeling somewhat less annoyed. Still, I never wanted to see a single alchemist.

My runs would go like this:

Improve poison a bit, turn it and stealth on automatically (annoying!), and zip through Trollmire 1. Check the first quest in Trollmire 2; restart if it's below B tier. Do the quest and any vaults, fast. Peek into Trollmire 3, get the next quest, and again consider restarting. Finish Trollmire (usually including Bill's hideout). Celebrate if Prox or Bill dropped the Summertide Phial; it will see heavy use until at least level 25.

Unlock Angolwen if possible and buy a decent infusion if possible, plus any cheap jewelry that may help. Return to Derth and shop for infusions again. Talk to Stire; clear the arena (poison makes it easy). Charge hastily toward Last Hope, shopping at towns along the way for infusions if it's still necessary. Unlock and destroy Cruthdar (poison usually makes this pretty easy too). If things are going especially well, hunt for Agrimley while it's still safe to wander around (the Trapped! quest seems to activate at level 10 maybe?).

Enter Kor'Pul. With luck, the game will glitch and fail to generate the escort quest. In that case, clear the floor, return to it to start the quest late, and auto explore repeatedly until the dude has wandered all alone through the empty ruins to the portal (to Zigur - what a bad deal!). Otherwise, move slowly and hope not to meet too many rare skellingtons. Those things can be a big problem for a low-level rogue who relies on poison. Usually it's not too bad, but occasionally I'd lose promising runs here. (If my quest failed I would always restart.)

Now there is no more restarting. The run is safe! Finish Kor'Pul and hit level 10; then shop again since the stores have restocked. Hit the crystal caves and Rhaloren hideout - neither would tend to be too hard, though certain builds of the Spellblaze Crystal would heal and teleport too much to be destroyed until after more leveling up. Rescue Derth. Clear Norgos' lair and the Gloom. The latter is dangerous of course, but at this point Julhrycia's level is around 17, which is a bit high for this dungeon, so she can handle it pretty easily.

At this point my poison and traps would both be fairly strong and effective. I'd have rogue's brew level 2 and maybe grappling hook. I should have Track and the almighty Tumble. I'd have so-so knives (not good enough as a main weapon, but still good enough to use). I would have no Dual Techniques whatsoever. That's another thing I was exploring: Can a rogue do well without basic two-handed dagger moves? I hated to pass up Whirlwind, because it's an excellent movement ability and I love movement abilities, but I really wanted those points for other things.

I love Technique/Mobility. It is very very very good. I'd put points into both Disengage and Tumble until their ranges stopped increasing; Disengage is extremely useful and Tumble is indispensable. I think Tumble may be the single best talent on this character. Also Trained Reactions seems like a fairly reliable way to invisibly prevent a death or two. I don't care too much about Evade, but I'd certainly use it whenever I felt it might help more than it'd hurt. I only put one point into it though.

In racial talents: For a while, I nurtured the plan of becoming Julhrycia the Far-Seeing, who would have inhumanly high sight range both in light and in darkness. Race/Higher and Cunning/Survival can facilitate this. I didn't know how useful that would actually be, but it seemed like a fun idea. Across many runs, though, my hunger for generic points in other categories eventually whittled that idea down to nothing. In the end I settled on putting just one point into Race/Higher, for a slow-cooling shield that'd also boost damage a bit. Since I wasn't generally increasing my magic stat, this talent stayed as weak as it could possibly be, but even at that level it's still kinda good, and I used it very often. Other than that, my race helped me very little. I just couldn't justify investing in any of the other talents. Most of their effects do work for a Ziguranth, but even so... they just aren't that great I guess? I'm sure some characters can get a lot out of Highborn's Bloom, but Julhrycia tended to become rich in stamina in the long run, so I never felt any need for it. So ultimately, this run would probably have been a bit easier if I'd just played as a Cornac. But that's not very weird!

In inscriptions, I would generally go for regeneration, healing, wild, and something else. For the last, I wavered between heroism and wild. In the long run I decided that rogue's brew could serve in place of a heroism infusion, leaving me free to take two wild infusions. After my second (I think?) death against the sorcerers, I decided to go all out in protecting myself against Burning Hex, the new worst commonplace status ailment (that spot used to be held by stunning). I'd take wild (phys/mag), wild (men/mag), Primal, and regeneration. But for most of the game I used regeneration and healing.

Among poisons, I preferred to stay on numbing/crippling. I'd switch crippling to insidious when fighting an oozemancer or bulwark or whatever that wouldn't stop healing. The others I mostly left alone - I don't care much about the healing one, since it seems more useful to just prevent damage to begin with via numbing/crippling, and I never fully explored volatile poison. Maybe it's good? But I never wanted more basic poison damage enough to see how it could help me enough to justify the change. I also never cared much about area damage, since the most dangerous fights usually involve individual foes.

I almost always managed to kill the assassin lord without losing the trapped merchant (once the assassin lord just killed him for some reason, but usually he didn't), and afterward I'd always buy stoning poison from the merchant when I could afford it. I used it a few times, but it was never clear how much the poison was accomplishing. I guess it's fine?

Back to the adventure: After finishing the basic dungeons, I'd enter the halfling ruins. This was a dangerous place, full of high-level enemies and poison-immune enemies. So I'd have to be very careful there. But I wanted to reach level 25 before doing any more escort quests, and this was a good way to ensure that would happen. I'd poke my way in there and kill as much as I could, sometimes having to flee before reaching the end. Sometimes I'd meet one of my great nemeses: the overly durable rare/unique/boss bone giant. I usually didn't get killed in there. I never planned to fight Subject Z. Sometimes he'd get activated anyway though... if you fight a teleporting enemy who happens to drop into that room randomly, then I guess that enemy can kill the yeek wayist? It's annoying. But that usually doesn't happen. I'd normally leave that room closed, so I could return much later and safely destroy Z with one or two attacks.

If still alive, I'd go meet the sandworms. That place is quite dangerous in this situation, since I had no way to teleport or become undead. I lost several Julhrycias to suffocation. But I really wanted my levels, so I kept coming in there. It usually wasn't TOO terrible. Track helps some, and if you preemptively activate the rod of recall before entering a new air pocket then you can allow the recall effect to simulate a lifesaving teleportation rune, or cancel it if you end up not needing the help.

At some point I'd hit level 20 and go dance around outside the safe area until I became "Trapped!"

Then I'd head to Angolwen, buy all their staff mastery training just to be silly, and immediately proceed to Zigur to make my staff mastery obsolete by joining the Ziguranth. The antimagic test was never much trouble for me. I could consistently tumble up to the orc and kill him with just a few big attacks. Then I'd want to start building up willpower, in order to (if possible) learn shielding and Mana Clash before entering the Crypt of Kryl'Feijan...

Upon nearing 25, I'd go into the Maze to finish getting there. Then I'd take my first prodigy: Elemental Surge. I don't remember how I chose that one; a big factor though was that I wanted to see how it felt after whatever change it went through recently. After finding that out, I kept on taking it, because it is awesome. It would produce explosions from dagger hits, poison, Summertide Phial, Mana Clash, and more. It made me feel very strong.

Then I'd summon a tentacle near the exit of the Maze, disengage from it directly onto the exit, and speed from there across the world map toward the Old Forest. I did this in order to minimize the chance that the Crypt would appear in between the two areas. The technique never failed me, though it probably theoretically could.

In the forest, I'd try to do as many quests as possible and gain as many levels as possible, and then, if I had the strength, proceed into the lake and even make a half-hearted attempt to invade Yiilkgur. Usually I wouldn't be capable of safely beating the Weirdling Beast, but sometimes I could - not that it mattered too much either way. I just wanted the levels. After that I'd leave and wander a bit, triggering the Crypt to appear.

Somewhere along the way I'd found out that in 1.6.7, this particular character could consistently and even somewhat safely sneak through the crypt all the way to the bottom. In fact, I eventually started trying to not only get through the crypt, but also clear it of enemies. Sometimes this worked, and sometimes it didn't. Earth's Eyes helped a lot, if I had it. Track was of course absolutely required. I would dig through the walls and track over and over, trying to find elves and ogres that I could pull out and fight one-on-one. I could beat almost anything in there in a one-on-one fight. The big dangers were defilers that could use that portal spell they have to switch places with me and drop me into crowds unexpectedly, and (far more rarely) wyrmics, who can potentially burrow after you no matter where you flee and take away your hiding places so that others can see you. But I could usually avoid having any of that happen.

This is the extra constraint I added, once I found out that it was feasible: I had to save Melinda and see what (if anything) would happen if I finished the game after having saved her, which I had never done before. If I managed to reach her, then actually saving her was generally pretty easy, though it took a long time to accomplish. The cultists surrounding her aren't very strong and can be killed pretty easily. I'd always make sure to maximize the ranges of Tumble and grappling hook before reaching this dungeon, so as to be able to move quickly enough toward them that the time limit on their summoning spell wasn't a problem either. Once they were gone, I'd dig a winding path from left to right (with a few big wiggles) into the wall south of that chamber, deposit Melinda there, use Disengage, Tumble, and grappling to escape her, and then clear a path to the exit at my leisure. I don't think I ever died on that floor.

After this, my next goal was Dreadfell. I only needed to clear the remaining combat areas in order from easiest to hardest until I reached that one. On reaching the level 15 dungeons, I'd take some extra care: I was willing to enter the second level of the Mark of the Spellblaze, but not to clear it, since the Grand Corruptor had the power to defeat me. I preferred to leave him for later. And after a death in the teluguroth-infested spacey area, I swore off even starting that timey wimey quest. I didn't really need the levels anyway; in fact if I tried to build myself up too much, then I might end up having trouble in the East. I would, however, fight Urkis. He never gave me any serious trouble. Then I'd collect my purging trap from Protector Myssil, not that I knew how to use it effectively for a long while... but heck, I always wanted as many traps as possible. It's fun to collect traps! I'd try to disarm any unfamiliar ones I could find. It's really satisfying to learn a new trap type from an enemy rogue sapper - you have to detect the trap, kill the enemy before the trap times out, successfully disarm the trap, and finally win out in whatever roll there is that determines whether you figure out how the thing works while disarming it. That's highly unlikely to play out successfully! I only saw it happen once or twice I think, in a couple of months of play.

On the topic of traps: I tried all of them (except the magical ones of course), and found them all to be good. I could never pick out any clear winners among them. Nightshade seemed to have the highest single-target damage, but razorwire and disarming traps have nice side effects; pitfalls are uniquely able to free you from an enemy altogether (for a time), bladestorm is strong and durable enough to make a difference in a fight, and the various lingering-effect ones all seem acceptably damaging. I switched around on a whim, but always used razorwire, pitfall, and disarming in the early game, and nearly always used at least razorwire in the late game. I didn't have many other ways to directly reduce enemy defense. The only non-magical trap I didn't explore was the catapult trap. I didn't care too much about its effect, but maybe it could have helped me a lot somehow. I learned it so rarely that I just couldn't mess with it much, though. It seems to be the hardest trap to learn.

I never bothered with lures. I'm sure they could be cool; it's interesting to think of laying out a bunch of traps and triggering them all at once for a big hit. Maybe I'll try that on a future character, one who can use magical traps too. I just didn't have the points for it with this one. I also didn't intend to mess with primed traps, but then it occurred to me, after a death against the sorcerers, that it might be possible to prime the purging trap. Then I suddenly started wanting to pour lots of points into the trapping category.

Prior to that, my trap usage had tended to fade near the end of the game. Enemies become decreasingly likely to use basic movement; they tend to use offensive talents like Rush to approach you, or long-range attacks to fight you without having to move at all. And many of them have the stats to detect and avoid or even disarm your traps, so even if you do manage to lead them to the right spots, they often won't be harmed. It's a shame. But primed traps are different. They seem to be guaranteed to trigger, even if enemies aren't even present. (Actually, it just now occurs to me that the same may be true of lure-triggered traps?? Hmm I guess it probably is! Wow if I'd thought of that earlier then my playing style would have changed!)

Anyway, one way or another, you pretty much have to do your own triggering in order to get much done with traps once enemies are really strong. At this point, I mostly abandoned my basic trap usage and turned entirely to a primed purging trap, which (as I discovered painfully late) is basically Mana Clash Version 2. It's Mana Clash that you can refresh with Snap and use twice in three turns, even. And it hits an area, not just one enemy, and seems more capable than Mana Clash of deactivating positive magical effects and sustains. It's GREAT. I used it constantly, against mages at least. It even allowed me to fight some of those previously immortal bone giants, since apparently their bone shield is magical enough to be stripped away by this trap!

Speaking of antimagic, I also aimed to wear the Spellhunt Remnants in the long run. They seemed too good to ignore. I like the life they give, I like the special antimagic effects they sometimes provide when you punch with them (which a rogue can do, via the Hidden Blades tool), and I especially like the magic-stripping effect they get at tier 5. I even enjoy the minigame of trying to find magical items to feed to them. It's tempting for a rogue to use gauntlets of madness instead, but I always came back to these things.

I felt that if I brought those, my primed purging traps, and the Antimagic Totem into the final fight, then the sorcerers couldn't possibly beat me. Maybe.

Anyway, Dreadfell. I never had too much trouble there. The big challenge as always was protecting those stupid escortees. Actually, funny thing, I somehow managed on my final run to save ALL of those people. Or rather, to save some of them and deliver the rest to Zigur. I had quite a good mixture of them, too - mainly defilers, seers, and sun paladins. I even got Telekinetic Leap to level 3, albeit accidentally; I'd meant to take one level in Skate finally! But oh well, the leap range is fine too. The only bad one was a loremaster, from whom I took +5 in magic, since it seemed funny and I was too strong to really care about Disarm anymore.

The Master was no problem. He uses magic way too much to fight the likes of Julhrycia.

After that, my goal was... Gorbat. I fear his Pride. Nothing else in the East was very scary to me, except maybe any orcish patrol I might accidentally run into; some of those things could certainly kill me. Vor and Rak'Shor rely on magic, so I wasn't concerned about them. The seven overpowered multihued wyrms are dangerous, but they're also optional (though I did end up killing them, because I wanted items). The shade of Julhrycia that I found in that crypt full of shades (which I ventured into because I'd forgotten what it was even like and I was curious) turned out to be unbeatable, and also hard to even escape from since her purging traps usually cancelled my recalling effect, but she is also optional. Grushnak is tough, but not as bad as Gorbat, thanks to its less punishing layout and numerous diggable walls. The orb guardians are strong, and one in fact ended one of my runs with a heavy critical hit on Freeze, but I started wearing extra cold resistance and that took care of that I guess. But Gorbat, man that place wrecked me multiple times.

I may have also met my third variety of unbeatable arch-nemesis there: the overleveled unique dragon. Some such dragons can be killed, but some are just soooo good at blocking and healing that I had to leave them be. These mainly appear in vaults, but a few of the random dragons in Gorbat Pride may qualify as well.

I did try to clear every combat area, including optional dungeons (other than timey wimey) and all vaults. I wasn't religious about it, but I tried. I went to the Bearscape in search of new traps, for instance. I thought I might find poison vines there; I think I learned that trap from Poosh once at least. It didn't work on this run. (I think I would only figure that trap out in some vault on High Peak, actually! Apparently that is possible.) If I'd lacked the Blood of Life or the Ring of the Dead, then I'd certainly want to hunt for those. I wanted the jeweler's book, which I never found. I wanted any cool new weapons or armor I might not know about. And I needed every forbidden tome that I could get my hands on... with the possible exception of the one about the glass castle, which I don't really care about (especially since its most special treasure is magical and thus unusable).

Somewhere, sometime, I found that tier 4 tome, I forget what it's called. That's a scary book, but I had to read it, for the sake of the points. It somehow worked out, though I almost got myself killed by a crowd of horrors. I didn't even expect to survive that fight, but I did. Every point counts!

Eventually I ran out of safe places to search for treasures, and so I invaded High Peak. I had my Primal Infusion and my Antimagic Totem, though I wasn't using either yet. The enemies weren't too dangerous. In fact I decided on the first floor that I would kill absolutely all of them. This I did, until floor 6 or so, where I met something that would not die. I think maybe it was a bone giant? Oh well, I destroyed most of the enemies anyway. And I cleared most of the vaults, too. Not all, thanks to the aforementioned invincible dragons a few of them held, but most. Somewhere along the way, or maybe it was in a Pride, I found my final two weapons: Kinetic Spike and the Mandible of Ungolmor. I had plenty of willpower for use with my antimagic powers, so the spike was quite good. And between the other one and my Serpentine Cloak, my poison was STRONG. Plus I was 150% immune to enemies' poison! A bit much, but that's fine.

Maybe I was feeling a little too strong at this time. It's inevitable with this game. In a vault somewhere, I found my comeuppance. It turns out that a high-level nightmare horror, the greatest of all horrors, is strong enough to disable even such a strong fighter. I was surrounded by inner demons and covered in disabling mental effects, plus blinding... it was too much. I burned my Ring of the Dead there, and barely escaped afterward. (Then I went back and destroyed that stupid horror. Unlike my other nemeses, this one was not immortal!)

At the end: I went ahead with the plan of wearing three wild infusions, all of them capable of reducing/removing magical effects. I also wore the Crown of Command for canceling movement-and-cooldown-limiting effects, and of course I had Relentless Pursuit for canceling everything else. I felt I might be safe. I wanted to tumble in, leap to the right of Argoniel, grapple her over to myself to isolate her from Elandar and Aeryn, and then demolish her. This plan immediately collapsed.

On actually seeing the sorcerers, I realized that my various antimagic abilities would probably be much more effective if I let them hit both sorcerers at once. So I just tumbled right into the group and plopped down my totem in the middle of them. And then I started flinging around purging traps and glove blasts and everything else I had. It worked! They were both silenced and stripped of all magical effects, and Aeryn seemed pretty safe. I felt that this was my opportunity to start closing portals.

I closed the dragon one and returned to the fight, where we were losing control of Elandar. He does like to dart around. I did what I could to put them down again and then fled for the undeath portal, because some vampires had appeared and they were making me feel really uncomfortable.

Once I'd closed that one, I figured I'd repeat this process and take out at least the demon portal, because demons can do a lot of nasty things. Also, two forge giants had emerged from it and begun throwing boulders into the fight, and I didn't want to see any more of that. I made it to the portal, but completely lost control of both sorcerers in the process. Aeryn was still alive, but they were wearing her down.

The next part of the fight was just a mess. I bungled around, trying to kill the giants, close the portal, keep Argoniel from murdering Aeryn, shed the burning hexes that occasionally landed on me and threatened to end everything, and survive Elandar's random sniping from whatever corners of the map he zipped over to. It could have gone either way. Aeryn had to spend her Second Life, maybe even twice. I actually threw a rare smoke bomb to separate myself from Elandar; that's the one rogue's tool I'd never properly figured out! A good time for learning, the final battle. Somehow, I didn't die... well not twice anyway. I did spend the Blood of Life. I also fled into my horror book once or twice. I don't remember any more details, but here is the final result: https://te4.org/characters/214405/tome/ ... bb547af04e

[Bananadine]

AH I forget about my second prodigy: I picked Irresistible Sun for some reason. I thought it might give me extra offense and protection? Kinda weird for a rogue, but nothing else was really speaking to me. I lacked the strength to make its direct damage very high, but that's okay. That damage probably isn't all that great even for a high-strength character.

I think the prodigy worked fairly well?? It's hard to tell. It's kinda fun anyway. I don't know. There were probably better choices, but whatever.

Second addendum: I skipped Godfeaster, that place can't be trusted.

[Loco15]

Impressive. Ignoring all the times you died, that felt like a suitably epic adventure.

Though I fear that I can't relate all that well to you in most things, as I'm just a casual that has barely reached the east twice in nightmare, I can relate in bashing my head relentlessly until I make a build work, that being a necromancer, and also in dreading to face a nightmare horror, the ultimate nemesis for the Necromancer. Oozing horrors are also bad, but they can't compare. And some days, the weirdling beast is horrible, though the zone outside of time is not so bad if you're a mage class.

I love reading adventures like these. It's one of things that I feel make TOME awesome, kind of like dwarf fortress's stories, though I couldn't really get into that game.

I hope to find more epic tales from you.