Hack 1.01: Six teens

I got to be honest, my last two posts on Hack have been some of my least-read posts in awhile. So for this one, I thought I'd structure things a bit differently. I'm going to describe the narrative of each attempt, and they'll be subdivided by the anchor save starting point, which I increment whenever I descend a level and feel things have been going well (otherwise I just continue until I die). If this makes the post any more interesting to read, or if it just makes it more tedious, please chime in.

 

Level 14

• $2,822, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 8
• +1 mace, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 33 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Wand of light, wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation, 2 scrolls of identify
  
• Food ration, fortune cookie

 

Attempt 1:

A zombie fought in the dark dropped plate mail. Another dark room held a ration and a potion of sickness.

In a dark corridor, a rust monster ambushed me and ruined my armor - I desperately equipped the plate mail, but it was cursed -2 - better than the rusty splint mail but still bad. At least I could remove the curse if need be.

I descended to level 15 and didn't save. Here I found a potion of restore strength and a helmet in a dark room, and spent the last of my light wand charges.

And then a cockatrice in a corridor hissed at me. Fatally.

Attempt 2:

In the middle of the map, a group of orcs yielded a wire ring and a pink potion, and their corpses made decent dog food. The pink potion turned out to be a potion of invisibility, which for the time proved to be more annoying than helpful as you can't see your own @ while invisible. The ring identified as +2 increase damage - finally something good!

I spotted a rust monster in a dark room, and carefully removed my armor before engaging. It did some notable health damage, but my armor was fine.

Another dark room had a tengu, which was annoying but harmless, capable of doing little but hitting me and teleporting away. A long sword was found here too - I used my last identify scroll and found it was a +2 long sword!

A few more minor encounters got me a level up and a scroll of light. Obviously, I made an anchor save before 15.

 

Level 15

• $3,023, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 33 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Wand of light, wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation, scroll of light
  
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

A new monster type "leocrotta" exhibited no unusual qualities. Neither did a yeti, though it dropped some ring armor.

A nymph in a dark room stole my ring of cold resistance and teleported away, but as I explored, a yellow light blinded me with its attack, and it was one of those "see all monsters" blindness episodes, so I easily tracked down the nymph and took it back.

I exhausted my wand of light and scroll of light here, but found the exit satisfied that all was well. I also found an unidentified maple wand, whose purpose was not made obvious by test-firing it.

 

Level 16

• $3,113, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Maple wand
  
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

Almost immediately, I found a potion of gain level and drank it. In the same room, a 'xan' pricked my right leg. In a corridor, an invisible stalker was little trouble. A beetle dropped an agate ring, and a pack of orcs dropped a platinum wand, but I had no scrolls of identify left for them.

All this would have been fine, except a rust monster in a corridor damaged my armor, and I wasn't willing to anchor this setback, so I continued to level 17 without saving.

Fighting a quasit, I tried out my wands. The maple wand turned it invisible, and the platinum wand prompted me to wish for an object!

Not sure how it worked, I typed "ring of +2 stealth" and received an unidentified "blackened ring" in exchange. I tried zapping again, this time wished for a "+5 plate mail." And received it! It was +5 and everything. And then I wished for a wand of wishing - that worked too, but alas, the new wand had no charges, and the original's had run out.

I killed and ate a wraith, which got me another level.

I descended to level 18.

Here, I found a long wand in the dark, which revealed to be a wand of cold when I test-zapped it. I drank my potion of monster detection, revealing a lecrotta, xan, and previously unencountered I and X. The latter turned out to be a Xorn - not harmful to me with my epic armor class, accompanied by an Umber Hulk.

Then I ate a monster called a "nurse" and got a nasty message.

But zombies were fine?

There were no immediate ill effects and I went down to level 19.

Here I found a "zruty" which did nothing unusual except leave a corpse too big for me to lift. A rust monster slightly harmed my armor, which I realized was cursed! Was that because of the wishing, or the cannibalism? A scroll of identify showed that the agate ring was one of adornment, i.e. useless.

An umber hulk confused me, and here, confusion means that even zapping wands will fire them in random directions, so those won't save you, but I survived. But I did not survive a dragon which spawned in the room with me.

Attempt 2:

A roaming rust monster wandered into a room as I explored, but I managed to remove my armor before it could rust it. Soon after that, a cockatrice hissed at me in the dark.

 

Attempt 3:

Killer bees!

Retreating and going through uncharted territory chased by bees seemed foolish, so I stood and fought using the doorway so that only one could hit at a time, and hasted the dog, but alas, a poison sting one-shotted me.

Attempt 4:

Almost immediately after descending, a trapdoor dumped me to level 17. Without the dog.

On 17, a rust monster hurt my armor before I found the stairs to ascend back up, but I located a silver wand and some tripe.

I found the dog soon, now aggressive, and tried offering my tripe to get it friendly again. It didn't work.

Attempt 5:

Nothing particularly eventful happened. I had just about finished exploring the level, found a random dead scorpion in the corridors which I left alone - presumably if the dog didn't eat it, then I shouldn't either. I killed a violet fungus on the way to the exit. Normally these are unappetizing but safe to eat, so I did. And the game told me I choked to death. Urghhh!

Attempt 6:

After exploring the level as thoroughly as I could and not seeing the way out or noticing any secret doors, I used my wand of digging to carve out tunnels. One tunnel freed a troll and an umber hulk who tag-teamed me to death.

Attempt 7:

Exploring was slow. As in, there was a delay after each move. What could be going on?

After exploring some tunnels and returning to the starting point, a dog that I can only assume was my own attacked me, and I had no choice but to put it down.

Or so I thought. Another, non-hostile dog was skulking around near the middle of the dungeon.

Something was off, though. It wouldn't follow me out of the room, not even when I blew the whistle. It kept sniffing around the south and east walls in particular. So I searched, and found the source of my emulated CPU slowdown.

 

Zounds! What happened next was a carnival of chaos as everything started attacking all at once. The umber hulk's gaze sent me into a state of confusion, and a vampire stole a level. I read a scroll of teleportation to escape, and rested to heal my wounds. The game informed me of a "sad feeling" - the dog must not have survived. And as I rested, a bee found its way to my location and killed me with a poisoned sting.

Attempt 8:

Several mimics spawned here - I learned quickly not to eat them or you will transform into a treasure chest for a little while. The dog will eat them without such effects. At one point while I ate a freshly killed centaur, a lecrotta wandered in and landed a few solid hits while I ate my giant meal, but the damage mostly regenerated. An unidentified scroll boosted my armor class. Overall this was a pretty uneventful run, but I survived it and saved.

 

Level 17

• $3,506, AC 2, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +2 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

Killed by a cockatrice in a corridor.

Attempt 2:

I found another treasure zoo, but this one was much smaller and also in a dark room where I could fight monsters one at a time. This would have been great, and I found some interesting loot too, but then I got repeatedly level drained by a pair of vampires in the back. I beat them, but learned that you should not eat their corpses.

Attempt 3:

This time an armor shop generated. And boy, shops really suck in this version of Hack. Let me count the ways:

• There is no way to view what the items are in a shop. You've got to step on an item just to see what type it is, then drop it if you don't want it.
• There's no convenient way to find out what an item costs. You find out by offering to pay, and if you have enough gold you automatically buy it. If you don't, then you don't get told what it costs, only that you can't afford it.
• There's also no way to get the price of an item you want to sell. You drop it, you automatically sell it.
  
• On that note, if you drop an item that the shopkeeper doesn't want to buy, it's now his property anyway. You want it back, you have to pay for it.

 

After fighting what seemed like half of of the shop's inventory were mimics, being forced to buy my own arrows for $900, and buying both plate armors only to discover one was worse than my splint and the other was cursed, I ragequit.

Attempt 4:

Two good things happened very soon - I killed and ate a level-boosting wraith, and found another scroll of enchant armor.

Then I encountered a rust monster. Removing my armor to fight it, a swarm of killer bees entered the room behind me. Shit.

So I read my scroll of teleportation to get out and let the dog deal with it. After putting the armor back on, I returned to the fracas, and something new had slithered in.

This multi-tile monster is a long worm. To my surprise, I not only killed it easily, but eating it brought no negative effects! It left behind a worm tooth as well.

Level 18

• $3,954, AC 1, Str 18, Exp 10
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 3 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

A scroll of magic mapping found early on revealed the level layout and enabled me to efficiently loot the level before anything too troublesome could spawn in.

Level 19

• $4,647, AC 1, Str 18, Exp 10
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 5 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

Seems like almost every room is dark when you get this deep, and the dog just loves to walk right in front of where I'm to about step, causing me to accidentally hit him over and over again. Anyway, I saw a dragon, I tried my luck, and it didn't work out so well for me.

Attempt 2:

Killed by an Umber Hulk and it didn't even confuse me.

Attempt 3:

Finally, I found a real store, one full of food, scrolls, potions, and even rings.

I had made a bunch of stashes in the floors above, but for now it didn't seem necessary to retrieve them. Unloading what I had, I was able to buy a potion of leveling, a potion of strength, a scroll of magic mapping, and all of the food and unidentified magic scrolls except for some READ ME scrolls I had learned in prior attempts not to read, as they cause amnesia. And I still had more money than I came in with!

The map let me find the exit efficiently, and I made an anchor save before level 20. The end has got to be near, right?

Stats and items:

• $6,243, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 11
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 11 food rations
• Four unidentified scrolls