Thread by @TheGameChief

Wait... a FIVE charge fire wand on level ONE of the dungeon? This is gonna be a GOOOOOOOOOD Brogue run! If it stays good I'll post more shots.

Okay this is getting cool! A +3 mace would be good enough at depth 5, but also *of paralysis* -- this character is going DEEP! Armor still mediocre. Unhesitatingly enchanted fire wand up to level 6 as soon as inventory started to get tight.

ULP! Shit just got real... inventory was full so I started "trying out scrolls". Found a map, glyphs, aaaaaaand "summon monsters". My armor is protected from that acid blob on the right, but not my weapon. Gonna further enchant my go-to fire staff to try to burn an escape route!

Whew! Burned out the acid blob. Now the sanctuary glyphs from the other scroll (those green colons) come into play. Bad guys won't cross them and I can clean up at my leisure. Also that dar blademaster got "discorded" by one of the earlier scrolls and is fighting the Ogre. :-)

5/ Who turned on hard mode on depth 10, anyway? At least they're asleep, but I'm terrified of them as my chain mail armor is not very good (hoarding enchantment scrolls until I hopefully find better armor).

6/ Had a potion I had detected was "bad" with detect magic but didn't know what it did. So I threw it at the bad guys, now they're on fire! Which is thematic for my character but my staff was out of charges (thus my earlier terror)...

7/ Looks like depth 11 starts with a Zombie. Who spews nauseous gases. But now the gases are on fire (because this guy) and yet he spews even more: permatorch! Just need to "wait him out". Will retreat to the lake if needed to stay not-personally-on-fire.

8/ The dry way had a roomful of goblins worshiping at their totem, so Ima swim across this lake "like you do". Hopefully I don't end up chasing my loose items around in the current...

9/ Ulp! Wave off! Lake is secretly full of eels! Electric ones. Roomful of goblins it is, then!

10/ After seeing the eels, the goblin room strangely looks less hard. Trying to conserve fire staff charges for big things, so I will try to aggro these one at a time and draw them over to my side of the room for some private mace-o-paralysis action...

11/ Well hello, beautiful! This will work great with my fire staff - every 3000 moves or so it will let me fully recharge all my staffs! Fire staff now at 8 charge capacity for my maximum burning convenience... Might even enchant this charm to make it work quicker. We'll see!

12/ Shoulda known it wasn't just "lying there on the ground". Now the floor is collapsing!

13/ Ooooooh! Lookie in that locked treasure room! Plate Armor is endgame-worthy & would do a lot to solve my terror-of-big-monsters problem. Must find key to room! (BTW made it out of that earlier room before the floor collapsed - and used the stairs like a civilized adventurer)

14/ Errr... large creatures "immune to fire" is not friendly to my fire-staff-centric character build! I threw a "potion of confusion" at this guy and he blundered off the edge of a cliff, so I'll file as "problem deferred" to next level as he'll be there waiting...

15/ Ahhhh! Just past the pit that the salamander fell into was a potion of life! Will hold out as long as possible before using: although it increases my total health it ALSO completely heals me and removes effects like burning/confused/poison, so it's a key emergency resource.

16/ Aaaaaand... around the corner we're apparently already up to Trolls. BIG. Regenerate-y. Trolls. Time to play how-many-licks-does-it-take with the Fire Staff, and the answer is 3. I can burn a troll out if I'm willing to expend 3 charges.

17/ Past the Troll I at last find the door key I have been searching for. Apropos of previous pic I should mention that in Brogue, staffs slowly recharge themselves over time, unlike wands. My 8-charge staff regrows one of its charges every little-while... just never fast enough!

18/ Fool me twice, shame on me... floor collapsing yet again, and this time I didn't run fast enough, so I'm now trapped behind a cliff. I may have to jump down it to next level, taking damage - yuck! Plus then find my way back up to use my key!

19/ Before jumping, time to check the item list: I have one potion I've identified as one of the 3 "good" unknown ones remaining. So there's a decent chance it could turn out to be Levitation which would be just what the doctor ordered. Let's give it a whirl!

20/ I'm floating in the air, hooray! One of my most triumphant moments in deductive-item-checking in a while! BTW I'm totally not going that highlighted path any more: with levitation I can take a short cut!

21/ Look mom, I'm floating over lava! (Trained professionals: do not try this at home!) This was the shortcut I had in mind, to get back to the treasure room with the key.

22/ Plate armor at last! I have been hoarding enchantment scrolls against this moment (armor having been up until now my main weakness) and promptly take it up to +3 or so, which makes it at least "viable" at my presently low strength. As I gain strength it will become awesome.

23/ And if you were wondering why I wasn't excited about all those OTHER cool items: in Brogue you can only have one item from a treasure room. (Well, at a time. If I found an awesome armor next level I could come back and trade in my plate armor - not likely to happen though)

23a/ A quick shot of my helper for "live-tweeting" my game of Brogue, which was totally not the plan for today.

24/ Okay back to business: remember that Salamader we "filed for reference" earlier. Well here he is waiting for us (still confused however - if only I had a wand of negation to remove his invulnerability to lava!)

25/ Well I didn't have a way to negate him, and he's immune to my fire staff, so we had to go with MACE. O. PARALYSIS and bludgeon him down. Took about half my health. Better than I thought it would go - didn't have to use the potion of life, let's see if I can "heal naturally".

26/ And two moves later here's a Naga. A Naga that can kill me in three hits, great. At least she's a water-creature-out-of-water so I'm guessing she'll LOVE catching on fire. And I wasn't exactly using up fire staff charges against that Salamander...

27/ YES! While retreating before the (burning) Naga I wandered into this room which has a bloodwort tree! These are quite common in the upper levels but rather uncommon down here - I bathe in its soothing healing bloodworty gases!

28/ See that green stuff? That's a swamp. With swamp gas. EXPLOSIVE swamp gas. So I don't want to be standing here next time I use my fire staff. But it's a GREAT place for *someone else* to be standing when I use my fire staff, if you get my drift. Brogue "physics" FTW!

29/ Through the swamp I find a coveted potion of strength (permanent stat increase, helps me use my armor and weapons better). Also goblins, but that goblin mystic is a one-shot burn. Another reason I pumped my staff up to 8 charges: every charge makes EACH fireball bigger too!

30/ Urp! There's goblins AND ogres worshiping in that room. And ogre totems mean an Ogre Shaman, who can freaking *summon* ogres. I'm gonna go back and try to find another way around.

31/ Well I went all the way around, and it turns out they're right next to the stairs heading down. I can't hope to sneak around them in their brightly lit room (and me in clanking plate armor), so it's time to gird for what may be a BIG battle.

32/ Here's the inventory sitch going into battle. I'm tempted to switch at least temporarily to this war axe in case I get swarmed. It's way too heavy for my strength but it hits every adjacent enemy. Backup plan... potion of life and run away until staff recharges!

33/ Okay, expended all the staff charges setting various ogres on fire. Then read two rando-scrolls hoping for "scroll of recharging" (reasonable chance). Ended up with an acid-protected war axe instead and hit *teleport* scroll which is sort of an indirect way of recharging :-)

34/ They were still there when I got back, just a little more burned looking. Ran past them down the staircase and here they come with their friend the Zombie. Here I try out my new Staff-of-Obstruction (2 charge) to try to seal the ogre in with the (burning) Zombie for a respite

35/ WHEE! In one direction was ANOTHER room full of ogres. In this direction I'm now backed into a corner by a new Salamander (he of not being able to be set on fire) and meanwhile the other Ogre(s?) and Zombie are still behind me too. What, me worry?

36/ Okay the mace-o-paralysis proc'ed quick on the Salamander, whew. Zombie still coming, but now he's (a) on fire and (b) encased in crystal (so that Staff of Obstruction is fully expended for a while, but man I'm starting to like it - maybe should enchant more?)

37/ The geometry of the area (and I found a ring of clairvoyance earlier so I can see a short distance through walls) made me think there might be a secret door here, and sure enough. (Searching for secret doors costs several turns and therefore "food". Gotta pick your spots...)

38/ It's like the game thinks I deserve a rest/reward for getting through that! (Nevermind that Zombie is still coming). A coveted enchantment scroll for either my armor, weapon, or one of my staffs. AND more food, to keep this brogue train moving down the tracks!

39/ So yeah I thought about 5 seconds and pounded that sucker right into my plate mail. Plate mail is a viable armor no matter how deep I get, so enchanting it to be better is never a waste. And anyway an EIGHT CHARGE staff of firebolt is already the most I've ever had. Ever.

40/ Oh dear, sometimes it's like this game has a sense of humor: literally as I step to pick up my food "reward" it's MORE OGRES, complete with Ogre Shaman who can summon EVEN MORE OGRE, repeatedly. Not sure my staff has enough charges, but we're totally focus-firing that Shaman

41/ Whew. Shaman is down at least from the screenshot you can possibly infer that I might have had to throw objects at him too :D Now it's, you know, "just an Ogre" (and a partially burnt Zombie still coming from behind me, presumably)

42/ It's time for a demonstration of the MACE...O...PARALYSIS!!!

43/ First, we begin by missing the ogre a few times. But he/she/they misses too, mostly (yay enchanted plate mail). And then we eventually get a hit where the paralysis procs! Ogre knocked back and helpless!

44/ Well, the Ogre turned out to be a "her" but I totally finished her off while she was paralyzed.

45/ You know what? I think I'm going to expend one of my telepathy potions to get some "intel". Looks like my Zombie got distracted and wandered back to that room full of ogres, whew. LOTSA goblins coming up though. And a centipede who saps *strength* when it hits. Good intel!

46/ Okay, here's the plan: there's a metric ass-ton of goblins in there, some of them spell-casty. Dangerous in numbers! But they don't see me yet through the door. So I'm gonna pop in, throw a "potion of confusion" into the middle, and see if they'll fight each other!

47/ In Brogue you can both quaff potions and throw them. So "bad" potions like confusion (or incinerate or caustic gas, etc, etc) can become useful! Their little worshippy totem is in a perfect spot to dash my potion bottle to flinders... here goes nothing!

48/ SURPRISE!!!! Also, did I mention that most gasses can be, heh heh, set on fire? So once everybody is all dosed up on confusion juice...

49/ Okay they're now having a fun self-skewering party in the main goblin room, and I was just about to "light them up" when "the goblin conjurer gestures ominously" -- looks like the goblins in the OTHER room are onto me.

50/ Somehow the "party goblins" have managed to set *themselves* on fire, bless their little hearts. Meanwhile I am backing into a tight space to get ready for a potentially long stream of spectral blades from the goblin conjurer: I only want one to be able to attack at a time.

51/ Being cornered by naughty spectral blades seems like a perfect opportunity for "War Axe Practice". I can swing at 3 of them while only 1 of them can swing at me. Also this says it will "reveal its secrets if I defeat 18 enemies with it". Hopefully spectral blades count?!

52/ War-axed the spectral blades. Alas they didn't count as "enemies" for that purposes, so I torched the goblin conjurer (in one freaking shot! I'm not used to a fire staff enchanted to 8!), he now being useless to me. It's starting to look like the party's over in there, too...

53/ Oh my gosh they had a potion of strength! That was completely worth it! For now every point of strength is removing huge too-heavy penalties from my plate armor, war axe, etc. So my combat resilience is spiking quickly! Will become more gradual tho, once i reach equilibrium.

54/ Ooooh! A +1 invisibility charm won't keep me invisible for long (just like 7 moves or so), but I could see it coming in very handy as I don't have many mobility & escape related powers in this run (No blink, tunneling, stealth, etc items, only a 2-charge obstruction staff)

55/ Welp, I found this weird ring. Gonna put it on and wear it for a while to find out what it is. I actually have a remove-curse scroll just-in-case, though I often can't stop myself from putting things on to try them out anyway. Will let you know when I figure out what it does.

56/ I *could* go finish off my old friend the Zombie down there, but actually I realize I don't need to: Ima just head for the stairs down before he sees me.

57/ Heading down immediately also means my telepathy potion still running and I get a peek at who's down here. Little white x's are probably eels. BIG white X's... oh boy. The single might be a phantom. The pair... uh... I shudder to think!

58/ So an Acidic Jelly is everything you love about Jelly's (split in two whenever hit) and Acid Blobs (melt your weapons and armor), COMBINED! My armor is protected; likewise my war axe (an oops during scroll-experimentation, I'd rather have gotten the mace). WAR AXE PRACTICE!

59/ Axes (and war axes) are great against jellys - the jelly splits into multiple parts, but the axe lets you hit all of them in one hit. Without an axe, I'd probably set them on fire first, because each split they keep half their hit points but the full state effect (burning).

60/ Irritatingly the war axe considers the 10 or so Jelly fragments I just killed to be "one" enemy defeated. Smartypants programmer!

61/ Another room, another group of ogres! Also there's this disturbing "cracks begin to form on the statue" message...

62/ I start setting ogres on fire; the ogre shaman starts hasting his ogres. I can't line up a shot to the shaman yet... he's the most important before he starts summoning more.

63/ I need to back into a choke point (e.g. the doorway) before they can surround me. After some internal debate (mace/waraxe/mace/waraxe) I decide to go for Mace-O-Paralysis.

64/ Holy Naga From Behind, Batman!!!! This could get extra-awkward! Fortunately the Ogre hasn't gotten to the doorway yet, so I may run back out into the room, remembering that it has a big pillar I can run in circles around. Which at least sounds better than a naga sandwich...

65/ Oh. Remember those white X's? And the cracks-appear-on-the-statues? Underworms!!! Either ONE of those suckers can probably kill me in about 2-3 hits/bites/swallows. The *only* good thing is they move kinda slow. The party just got bigger! My kingdom for a potion of confusion!

66/ It is at this point, as I kite three different flavors of giant monster around the pillar, that I notice a fire trap as I walk past it... and me with few if any charges remaining in my fire staff. Hmmmm!

67/ Pulled some maneuver shenanigans to get everybody conga'ed up behind the (slow-moving) Underworms, so that now *I'm* standing up here and *They're* standing down there. Down there by the little red fire trap switch...

68/ "Throw your dagger WHERE?", they ask...

69/ Monsters En Fuego!!! Few acts in Brogue are more satisfying than using the traps against the denizens...

70/ Lest I feel too relieved that those guys just caught on fire, I move a pixel north to notice (a) the Ogre Shaman didn't burn to death and (b) I've won a FREE EXTRA TROLL! And it takes 3 staff blasts to burn out a troll, but I might as well get started trying.

71/ Okay fuck that shit! Two Underworms, a Troll, a Naga, an Ogre Shaman, and at least 3 "plain ogres". I'm outta here! Gonna have to try to swim for it. YES I KNOW I SAW THE FUCKING EELS BEFORE - SHUT UP!

72/ So far the lake gods kind enough not to wash all my loose equipment away in the current, just a (useless) potion of hallucination. Meanwhile I swim peacefully past another room full of fucking ogres. I *really* want that scroll of protect-weapon for my mace. But how badly?

73/ Whew! Made it across the lake. They can almost certainly reach me "overland" but I don't plan to be on this level any more when they get here. If I miraculously ever come back through here with the Amulet, remind me not to fuck around on this level long.

74/ Stairs at last! I did, however, spot a potion-of-life up to the north, and squinting at the dark parts of the map it doesn't LOOK like that would be the direction all sixty Ogres and things come at me from. A Potion of Life is one of the best emergency items, so...

75/ Wow, and with a healing bloodwort tree too. The dungeon taketh away... but the dungeon giveth! I think my previous potion of life got emergency-expended on Salamander #2 in Tweet 35 and I forgot to mention it. It got me to like 15% health and I pulled the trigger.

76/ A little haha with some paralysis gas. But let's assess the inventory after that clusterfuck of a level... I think I've been carrying that nickel wand since like level 1 or 2 BTW - I'm trying to hold out for Scroll of Identify in case it's something awesome like Domination.

77/ AS IF there'd be a Wand of Domination on depth 1 of the dungeon. Oh wait, there was like a 5-charge Staff of Firebolt. So there's that. You know you want this dungeon seed. Okay it's 199528857 - "play along with Brian!". Also, here's an Ogre Shaman and a lake of lava!

78/ Was happy to discover that my Staff of Firebolt has a pretty decent range :-) Also in case I haven't mentioned it yet, every extra charge enchanted onto a staff makes each *individual* use (i.e. in this case firebolt) more powerful. Takes 25% off Ogre Shaman from the get go!

79/ Hmmm, some Sentinels. Weird statues that stand there & cast spells at you & sometimes Guard Important Shit. So let's check it out. Also those look like prime candidates for War Axe Identification Practice!

80/ Fucking Smartypants Fucking Programmer! Apparently Sentinels "don't count" for War Axe practice either. In case you're wondering what I'm even trying to find out, it's what enchant level the axe has - *could* end up being better endgame weapon. Or not. Depending. God Dammit.

81/ I burn an acid jelly in petty frustration. This by the way illustrates some jelly-fighting "best practices": *first* hit it with some state effect like burning, *then* hit it with a multi-target weapon like an axe (or back into a doorway. or cast discord on it)

82/ Is the game doing penance for earlier war axe fuckery? I find a secret door leading to what appears to be a secret treasure room! Enchantment Scroll AND potion of strength! It's like a full brogue "level up"...

83/ Oh. I see. The ogres were all just standing out of view across the room. "So now there's ogres, see?" Their Shaman just ate some serious fire staff though - my little interlude with the Sentinels gave it time to charge back up.

84/ Steamed Ogre, anyone? The steam vent cranks up right while we're all standing here. I must say that this has been a particularly ogre-y run. Although I will also admit I've spent precious little time down below depth 15. I think until my trip to Italy in Jan my record was 17!

85/ Meanwhile *I* need to get the hell out of the steam. I concoct a brilliant plan of staff-of-obstructing the ogres and making them stand in steam. Plan immediately fails because 2-charge Staff of Obstruction recharges at a glacial pace. (More Charges = Faster Recharge!)

86/ I know, I know. I would LOVE to have a NINE-charge firestaff. Or put a 3rd charge on my Obstruction. Or for that matter a +3 Recharging Charm. But I have a rule of thumb (entirely gut-based) that I want my armor class at least 15 as I head down so deep.

87/ One man's room full of goblins...

88/ ... is another man's ogre fry! (I'm possibly gonna wish I'd fried a goblin conjurer instead, but at least I'm sandwiched in the doorway).

89/ Errrh? I'm not quite sure why everything else just caught on fire, though? Just general goblins-living-in-filth-and-now-they're-on-fire kind of routine stuff? Or is there an off-camera Zombie? There would be both plusses and minuses if it were a Zombie.

90/ Okay it wasn't a zombie. This is going "less well" than I might have hoped though. Trying to make a stand here in the doorway. Low on staff charges; health decreasing against waves of spectral blades. On the plus side they all seem somewhat busy throwing up (skip some moves)

91/ Finally got a shot lined up against that goblin conjurer when waves of blades subsided for a moment. I'm still at about 75% health so that's good. Disconcertingly though, now there IS a Zombie. I'm wondering if he'd like to fry all the goblins to a crisp for me?

92/ Things sliding sideways a bit - on the plus side the goblins are all about to go up like little torches. On the minus side now *I'm* standing in the Zombie stink cloud, and if I don't pull out of the door way I'm about to get set on fire too.

93/ Didn't get out in time - nausea kept making me skip turns to vomit, so now I'm both nauseated AND on fire. Giant blazing zombie pushing me back through the so-called "secret treasure room". On plus side everyone else is already toast ("literally").

94/ I decide to engage the "encase burning Zombie in crystal" playbook, but it somewhat misfires by mainly encasing ME in crystal (staffs of obstruction are just "that way"). Now passing through 50% health and still on fire, but at least Zombie back to wandering. Also: new ogre!

95/ Hey - the encase-myself-in-fucking-crystal plan is going less bad than I thought. Zombie pulled back once it couldn't get to me, and managed to set the Intrudo-Bonus-Ogre on fire too! Meanwhile, I'm trapped in crystal but decidedly no longer on fire!

96/ The crystal finally let me out, but the doorway is still blocked, so I'm a little nervous about being trapped in this room. Zombie hasn't re-noticed me yet though, and is getting close to finally "burning out". Guess I can probably deal with a single ogre "manually".

97/ Zombie dead. Pixie fried. Now I pound this ogre. Also... how long has that Spark Turret been plinking me from the upper right corner and I wasn't noticing?

98/ I decide to get out of the turret's line of sight before settling up with the Ogre... and discover some of those goblins the Zombie cremated for me were apparently carrying useful trinkets! That charm will give me a "free quick telepathy peek" at upcoming levels...

99/ Man this has been a big battle. Let's finish it off with a ceremonial MACE-O-PARALYSIS session...

100/ If you'd told me I was going to do a 100-tweet thread this morning, I'd have run screaming. Meanwhile here's my free-telepathy-charm peek at the next level's denizens. Two more white X's... by placement I'm guessing a Phantom and a Bog Monster -- neither is too bad alone.

101/ Mistakes were made. See all those telepathy-peek monsters? They're all now making a beeline for directly for me because I stepped on an alarm trap. I can search rooms for traps, but it's always a tradeoff with food & tempo...

102/ In my haste to "hopefully find the stairs on the side of the map all the monsters aren't on", I step on another trap! This time fire! As in "Look Mom, I'm on fire!". This is how one mistake leads to more mistakes...

103/ Did I mention that fire trap was in an "explosive swamp gas" room? Well anyway it was. So I'm letting it burn down now, although was happy to discover that I have enough health now to "catch myself on fire" occasionally without it being overly taxing.

104/ Well the stairs weren't on the right side anyway, apparently. Now I'm fighting a Phantom which would normally be invisible except for my ongoing telepathy. Imagine the fun: usually I'd have a hard time figuring out where it even was so I could hit it. Yay telepathy.

105/ Seriously? A flame turret just appeared out of nowhere and caught me on fire from all the way across the lava lake.

106/ Telepathy about to run out, so trying to quickly memorize who's where, but I've found the stairs going down. Do kind of want to scout for items/food on the rest of this level though, now that we've cleaned out the worst of it.

107/ Two can play at that game! My experiment in "I wonder if flame turrets can catch on fire" yields promising results. I'm probably not walking all the way back around the lava to pick up those gold pieces, though. "I'll get them on the way back up", he blustered confidently.

108/ Depth 18 - I'm holding two magic mapping scrolls, so I decide to expend one now. Shows me all the traps as well as walls, so given how trappy its getting it seemed like a good idea.

109/ Inventory status: Hungry and low(ish) on food. Still no news on ring, war axe, or nickel wand. Holding one Enchanting Scroll in reserve against emergencies - hoping to have recharging charm finally recharge, use it to fill my staffs, and *then* re-enchant the charm.

110/ In a sign we're actually making some progress, apparently it's time to *mutate* the ogres. I think we should name this the Ogres-en-Fuego dungeon seed. So many horrible ogres. So much beautiful fire!

111/ Speaking of ogres, the mutant brought his whole family. My tactical plan is to sent some on fire and then kite them across the light blue " marks (dry fungus) which should re-up their flames for extra duration. On the minus side I have no good choke point to back into.

111/a (gimme a minute, I gotta get a drink. YES it will be alcoholic)

112/ Okay, they're on fire, time to "flee across the dry underbrush". Incidentally, all that red shit off to the right? Weird glowing embers. You can walk across them, sometimes safely, but sometimes they randomly burst into waves of roaring flame. So not that way.

113/ ALL SYSTEMS RED! 66% health, hungry, and no choke point to hide in from ogres, who mostly didn't catch on fire (whose stupid fucking plan was that?) and the shaman is hiding back where I can't get him. (Yes that was a #Murderbot reference)

114/ You know, that whole encasing myself "temporarily" in crystal thing actually worked out okay last time. So let's try it again to buy some healing/recharging time. Sometimes earlier fuckups are the seeds of brilliant plans! Let's hope.

115/ Crisis averted! The one ogre who I managed to catch on fire burns up. The rest get distracted and move off to the south. INSIDE THE CRYSTAL I QUIETLY EAT A MANGO (Just wanted you to know I use time wisely). IRL I took a sip from my glass of "bourgogne" pinot noir 2016.

116/ In retrospect I should have taken more screenshots of this because it was a fun plan: I retreated up the stairs knowing the Mutant Vampiric Ogre would follow me. But just before "she" got there I turned invisible with my little charm doodad and got an ambush stealth kill!

117/ Back down the stairs for the rest of those ogres, but hey, good news on the "What The Hell Is This Ring" front! +3 Regeneration - cool! Actually kind of explains a few things, like specifically why I'm even still fucking alive. Resting to heal did seem rather... effective.

118/ Meanwhile I've paralyzed a Wraith, which is kind of fun to think about, it being some weird undead thing and all. Wraiths, unlike ogres, run away when they get to low health - and then they heal and come back. Also they move faster than me, unlike ogres. This one's toast tho

119/ Okay I finally got down to this doorway to use as a chokepoint. Could it be time for... War Axe Identification Practice?

120/ I axed them a bit while there were multiples (because only the one squarely in the doorway can hit me, but I can hit the diagonal ones too with the war axe), but for the final one I'm going MACE...O...PARALYSIS! Because 66% health and because fuck you, ogres!

121/ Ah, a new charming dungeon denizen, the fury! Actually at least two. Not being super-familiar with furies (this is like my 4th-ish or 5th-ish time down this deep at all, rare fucking shit for the 200+ corpses I've left in here) I look at the entry, always a good plan.

122/ That having been a clusterfuck and all, I decide to go for some telepathy intel. I'm long on telepathy capability this game, short on mobility powers. Very very long on fires and ogres. But looking like a detour through Wraiths and Centaurs (though still very much fire).

123/ Like I said, Wraiths and Fire. Fire rather useful against wraiths because when they try to run away and hide they're, well, on fire. Which is less good for the hiding part, and also the coming back to fight me again part. I stand on the "ornate carpeting" and do some wraith!

124/ POP QUIZ! Three members of the "dar" family, one of each kind. If you're standing here, with my character, only slightly buzzed with wine, what is the right move? There is ONE best answer! #WhiteToMoveAndWin

125/ Did you guess... FUCK THEM WITH THE FIRE TRAP?!?!?! Because that's the right answer! You definitely fuck them with the fire trap! In this case by tossing a random full set of splint mail I've apparently been carrying around.

126/ Burn, baby, burn! I will now back discreetly into the doorway to try to avoid too many "repercussions"...

127/ Okay, this is NOT ACCEPTABLE. The blademaster one won't come into the doorway so I can kill him. Meanwhile the Battlemage has just set ME on fire, which is (repeat) NOT acceptable. Also not really tenable, gonna have to get a more "in your face" plan going.

128/ There, just taught the "battlemage" Who's Who on the catching-other-people-on-fire front. Also, I'm still personally on fire but shut the fuck up about it, okay?

129/ The dar blademaster (he of the won't-come-into-the-fucking-doorway tactical plan) just got a face-full of mace. A mace-full in face? Meanwhile I just had Brilliant Fucking Idea #214!

130/ This shot may seem confusing, but the key part is I have suddenly developed an urgent need to be holding a full suit of splint mail again, and have therefore personally retrieved it FROM THE PRESSURE PLATE OF THE FIRE TRAP. Also: A mango! (sight for hungry eyes)

131/ So I get back in the doorway all ready to pull the trigger on Brilliant Fucking Plan #214 (aka Fire Trap Part Deux), and then this Ogre Shaman appears. (EEK?) High on the list of things I don't need right now is an endless supply of More Ogres.

132/ Oh and yes, he brought his "regular ogre friends". Oh and also there were more dar "and here they are". It can only be time for my last stand: With MACE. O. PARALYSIS! (I want to say "Mace is his middle name", but it's obviously not)

133/ Holy crap! "You dispatched the ogre shaman, catching her unaware"!?!?! She never saw me coming! (That's what she said? No wait that's what HE said? Fuck it). For the uninitiated... if I hit a creature who hasn't SPOTTED me, I get a super-uber stealth attack because FUCK YES!

134/ Oh right: centaurs! In some long-forgotten tweet I remember seeing a vision of them, as if in a telepathic dream. Centaur briefing: (a) come in pairs, (b) shoot with crossbows, (c) run away from humans with maces, (d) FUCKING CENTAURS (see also: Staff of Firebolt, 8 charges)

135/ By the way, in my last "decent game" of Brogue I had a Centaur as a follower and trained him to "blink" and "cast haste on me". Made it to Depth 17 (Yeah this game has some weird other paths it can go down). Here I trade my very last dart for a pile of javelins (good trade!)

136/ Just found a weird new Unidentified Staff in one of the last rooms of the level. Since staffs (staves?) are self-recharging anyway, I will shortly be zapping it into some unsuspecting dungeon denizen (statistically probably an ogre) to see what happens!

137/ Telepathy charm peek at level 19. Relaxingly sparse and far away, in general. But there's an X (unidentified) thing IN THE LAVA? What the fuck SUBMERGES ITSELF IN FUCKING LAVA?! I'm going to try not to think about it.

137/a By the way, it's now "night time" (sun's still up, hooray!) on the east coast. So I might get told it's time to eat food or watch Man In The High Castle or something. And I will comply. But even if that happens, THIS RUN WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE BITTER END!

138/ Actually I have a magic mapping scroll, so let's use that too. At this point any consumable that might help me survive is inherently worth using.

139/ Okay this is a Fucking Problem. Apparently this wraith is also mutant and can "grapple" me, holding me in place. So I can't do the usual run away while it burns (or for that matter the it-runs-away-while-it-burns) thing. Also everything is on fire. Fucked? Note health...

140/ Chapter 140, entitled "Why God Invented Potions Of Life". It's still not even dead (the "Grappling Wraith") but thankfully it burned enough that it started running away and left me alone. JUST. IN. FUCKING. TIME.

141/ Hey look, food! OTOH I'm not sure how the whole "Imp (reflective)" mutation thing is going to go. Imps already teleport at will, and they already steal my shit. If I can't burn them to death, then... uh oh?

142/ Here is an example of A Bad Idea. I mean I thought I was brilliant as usual of course, but it was Extra Bad. I wanted to get the food. Didn't want to fight more fucking ogres. Solution? Scroll of Shattering! Disentegrate the walls! Easy walk to food. Yay? No. NOT Yay.

143/ No my "Fucking Brilliant Plan" opened up lines-of-sight from every monster at once. And the imp saw me and stole my telepathy charm. This is the comical moment when I'm about to fry it with my fire staff, and stop to contemplate the phrase "Imp (Reflective)" more closely...

144/ So no, upon "reflection" I decide not to incinerate myself with my own super-powerful firebolt staff, thanks. Instead I let the imp go and do penance by incinerating all the ogres, one at a fucking time. The Brogue gods accept my penance and offer me this life potion.

145/ Something invisible is attacking me (usually it's a Phantom). Need to get to a confined space so it's easy to know which way to swing my mace. Also... burned out a Dart Turret (those send weakening darts so they're bad).

146/ Yoyoyo! First scroll of identify in a while! Let's do that mystery wand we've been carrying like forever!

147/ Meh. I mean, yeah, slowing something down might be useful, but it only has 2 charges. And unlike a staff, a wand doesn't self-recharge. This was maybe not what I was hoping for.

148/ We're back with another Ogre pile-on! This time in a nice chokepoint where ironically the (otherwise dangerous) Ogre Shaman has gotten himself trapped right at the front. WAR AXE TIME!

149/ Well this part is "funny" - that dar priestess is back there healing them (almost) as fast as I can kill them. She'll have her turn, though. Good axe practice!

150/ Oh dear, a puzzle. If I walk on those "red colons" (glyphs) the mirrored totem teleports me over to it. Mirrored totem immune to spells & damage. I tried dropping items in the way, no luck. Wasted a levitation potion too (no luck). BUT I REALLY WANT ALL THOSE SCROLLZ!!!!

151/ Frustrated by the scroll room & waste of a potion, I try to get my telepathy charm back from the imp. It keeps teleporting away when I'm near, and I can't use magic on it. So I'm hurling a lot of javelins across a lot of rooms trying to wear it down.

152/ Aha! Goddamn Imp went IN the scroll room and inspired me to try again. This time I tried staff of obstruction near the mirrored totem - BINGO!

153/ NOW it's trying to cast its little fucking spell, but BLOCKED BY ROCKS!

154/ So many beautiful scrollz!!! Also hurling javelins at the imp, who promptly high tails it out of here. But a recharge on good consumable scrolls is fantastic at this point! Mapping! Sanctuary! And a mystery scroll...

155/ There's a Lich over there, hoo boy. Met them before in earlier "deep dungeon" games. First you kill them while they cast a bunch of spells at you and summon extra shit, then their "phylactery" appears for a while. If you don't kill THAT fast too, Lich is back full power(!)

156/ TAKE THAT YOU LITTLE FUCKER!!! Finally javelined down the imp. And look, my telepathy charm is just hitting 99% charge...

157/ Got my charm back. Lich doesn't see me yet - think I'll head down the stairs before that Lich gets over here. Plus "explosive bloats" doesn't sound like my kind of party anyway.

158/ Level 20(!) telepathy peek. Important Note To Self: NEVER GO TO LOWER RIGHT PART OF MAP! That looks like Bog Monster Hell. Meanwhile a bunch of furies and a family of Centaurs seem "on the menu". I've hardly ever been down to Level 20, this is freaky scary stuff...

159/ We'll start with a routine Centaur-cleansing. They need to be burned because they run around and shoot a lot. Oh and apparently they're playing in a room full of those "Sentinel" things. Hopefully that means they're guarding something useful.

160/ Um.... oopsie-fuck? Those furies got here awfully fast! They aren't individually powerful but getting surrounded in the open could end up being "pretty bad news".

161/ When the going gets tough, the tough... recheck their inventory! This scroll-of-sanctuary might be just what the doctor ordered. I can set up green colon-looking things that monsters won't step on, and then hide behind them. Just need to find the right spot...

162/ MUCH BETTER! I'm in here resting behind my green glyphs (you can see them in the choke point, they look like green colons) and seven furies can go fuck themselves while I rest and recharge.

163/ "Meanwhile, back at the war axe..." Apparently that last big doorway battle with the ogres/dar and the dar princess back there healing them must have put my war axe into self-ID territory. On the minus side it's only a +1 naturally. (And it's even now a bit heavy for me!)

164/ So now we can see by comparison that my mace is objectively better, except for that little "hitting multiple targets" thing that occasionally comes in handy. Also only my war axe is currently protected from acid so there's that. Hafta stay a two-weapons kind of guy...

165/ For fuck's sake. I come out of the room to get some furies and get promptly battered and fustigated to within an inch of my life -- scratch another life potion. Total fuckup, I should have lured them back to the glyphs, fight nearer my "safe space". #FUCKUP

166/ Good news is there's another strength potion down here. I should finally be "strong enough" for no negative effects on the war axe and plate armor.

167/ Now we get the final no-penalty readout on the war axe: its damage is lower but not THAT much lower. If this had been like a +3 or +4 war axe, it probably would have been our best weapon. But in this world, MACE. O. PARALYSIS reigns supreme!

168/ Well then! Just got snuck up behind in a corner by an immune-to-physical-attacks Revenant - ain't that just the cat's meow! In some runs this would be despearate times, but pleasantly not today: the Revenant is NOT immune to magic. As in firebolt-comma-staff-of!

169/ I'm getting a little hungry waiting for the Revenant to finish burning to a crisp. It swats at me a few extra times because it's "agile".

170/ Scratch one revenant. Actually it looked like this was a corner, but actually there's some kind of room over there. Gotta wait for this fire to burn out anyway.

171/ While revenant-embers burn down let's have a quick food check -- two rations and a mango is actually pretty decent at this point! I don't think *starvation* is our destiny. Which is good, because it's pretty embarrassing to starve to death carrying a giant arsenal of weapons

172/ Tasty food, yum! Still waiting for the revenant fire to burn out, ho hum.

173/ OH FOR FUCK'S ACTUAL SAKE! This is what happens when you "take a break". I totally said I WASN'T GOING TO THE LOWER RIGHT. And now there's bog monsters. Holding my fucking legs. And nobody fucking reminded me. Need to get the hell out of here fast before I get swarmed!

174/ Yeah this is not good. They're kind of all around me, and as soon as I bash one down another one grabs me. I don't think I have any potions of life left either. War axe won't kill them fast enough either. Only possible chance is fire staff, but this isn't looking good...

175/ I take a chance on the "mystery scroll", given I got it in a treasure room so it shouldn't be a cursed one, and score a full recharge of all staffs. On the minus side the bog monsters use the tempo to bash most of the rest of my health off, and I don't have any more healing.

176/ Bog monsters DO run away (and stop holding my legs) when they get low enough on health. Amazingly they fail to hit/kill me as I set two of them sufficiently on fire - one more to go. In hindsight maybe self-crystal-encasement was called for first (forgot that recharged too)

177/ UNbefuckinglievable. They're all actually fleeing and I can move again. That was CLOSE. Closest it's been this run. And I totally didn't deserve to live, either, for being stupid enough to go to the fucking lower right corner when I had SEEN these here on telepathy. SHIT.

178/ Yep, I'm loose and trying to go hide out of range (and so are they). At least one of them is about to burn to death, and the other one looks like it will get away for now. Didn't notice what happened with the third one. WHEW.

179/ Holy. Actual. Fuck. It doesn't even look like the same room with all the burning monsters gone. Remember the early parts of a brogue run where you power through whole levels in a minute or two and bash through monsters like they're nothing? Yeah. Me too.

180/ Okay. I realize I now look like a complete idiot but it makes perfect sense. I rested and healed to full health... and so did they. But I think only two of them and none of the rest of the bullshit. AND my shit is now charged and ready to go. Watch this, motherfuckers!

181/ Even two of them accounted for half my health bar before I burned them to the fucking ground. I think I'll treat myself to that pile of gold at the south end of the room, whoopdee-fucking-whee.

182/ We're back for more self-healing monster antics. Those two priestesses would love to sit and heal each other (and the jellies once they divide - BAD). So they're gonna get more intense fire-attention than I might ordinarily give them.

183/ This, by the way is OFTEN the last thing a brogue adventurer sees: an entire screenful of tiny jellies with low health but each with the full DPS of a healthy jelly. I, on the other hand, have a fully armed and operational war axe! Every hit attacks everything adjacent!

184/ We're getting a little side-entertainment from the priestess healing the jellies as I mow them down (side note: NEVER fight jellies in a room with a bloodwort healing plant, unless you want 19 jellies all at full health!)

185/ Jelly & priestess room cleared. I used a javelin or two on the priestess to save having to staff her twice and waste an extra charge. Other good jelly techniques are (1) fight in choke point, (2) poison them, discord them, or set them on fire BEFORE hitting them first time.

186/ Heh heh oops. Stepped on a paralysis trigger. Gas coming out both north and south and approaching quick. Paralysis could be a nothingburger, or could be fatal if something finds me while while paralyzed. Think fast, rabbit!

187/ Important brogue physical property: most gas burns! Fortunately I have just the thing to light shit on fire. This has literally been a whole game about lighting shit on fire.

188/ The door is containing the gas from the south (another little brogue rule -- if I *open* the door some would come out), and all the gas from the north is catching on fire. Crisis-of-own-making averted (I think).

189/ That was all apparently too much excitement for my fire staff, which now doesn't want to burn the pixie up. Pixie is mostly just annoying (slows me down and plinks me), but it flits around and avoids me, so killing it without the fire staff will require tricksiness.

190/ Oh yay, stepped on another trap. I'm sure some of you would say "you should search every room". I would search a lot more if I wasn't busy starving to death and getting found by wandering monsters. BTW only game I ever won of this I had a "+3 ring of awareness" (finds traps)

191/ Traps also have a certain "emergent comedy" value. Anyway, I found a new mystery wand, filed for future identification. I would *love* a wand of polymorph or a wand of domination. But anything "good" will help.

192/ One ring I have THIS run is a +3 ring of clairvoyance. Not nearly as useful as my regen ring, but it does have the useful property of letting me see 3 spaces through walls, sometimes revealing where secret rooms are!

193/ Inventory check as we reach level 21 (if I die now I will be the 2nd farthest I ever got). A few unknown potions held against future needs (some unfound types are useful ones). I forgot to mention that "entrancement" staff, easier to demonstrate it as soon as it comes up.

194/ Somehow got this screenshot in wrong order, but anyway here is a picture of depth 21 when I mapped it on arrival.

195/ OH FUCK! A freaking DRAGON just appeared out of nowhere. The fact that it's immune to fire is just a little extra haha on top of the fact that it's mostly unbeatable in both ranged and melee combat. In previous limited experience I carefully stayed far away from these. Oops.

196/ So. Remember that staff-of-entrancement I just remembered in my inventory? My new favorite fucking thing! Zapped dragon and now he has to move "mirror" of how I move for 8 moves. And we're right by a cliff. Dragon is now off-the-cliff (reality check: waiting for me depth 22)

197/ I think I need to re-look at my inventory to calm down. I've still got some decent stuff in reserve, but these encounters are getting consistently terrifying! It might be leading me to hold TOO much in reserve, like the fact I can't decide what to use identify scroll on.

198/ Okay, I got to level 22, and you can't see it except the scorch mark but the Dragon was *right over there* and burned 1/3 of my life off in one breath. I ran around the corner and now I think my "plan" is to jump off the cliff myself (aieeeeeee...) to get away from dragon...

199/ The lich looks at me quizically (I can only presume) as I land with a thud on level 23 (taking another chunk of damage, but less than it could be - all those potions-of-life do also increase my max health). I never thought I'd be happy to see a lich!

199/a Okay, point of order. That dragon made me tired, and it's getting lateish here. So Ima call it a night and we'll see what morning brings. This thing jumped the rails for being too good a run - I kinda "had a feeling" when I saw that 5 charge staff sitting there... but wow!