Heala the Elf Healer

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Play style: Random character, everything default.

Text in red is game mechanics.
Text in green is fiction from outside of the game.
Text in quotation marks is in-game text.



There are a lot of races to choose from.



Random chooses Elf. From the Manual:

“There are a number of distinct races of elf in the world. Elves are all physically slight but long-lived people, quicker-witted than humans but sometimes slower to learn new things. Elves are especially good at using those skills which require a degree of finesse, such as stealth, sword-fighting and archery, but tend to be poor at using brute force and inelegant forms of combat. They find heavy armour uncomfortable, and make the finest, lightest armours to be found anywhere. Elves are particularly good at using elven weapons.”

Elves can be:



Random chooses Healer. From Manual:

“The Healer is a priest of Elyvilon. Healers begin with minor healing powers, but can gain far greater abilities in the long run.”



Heala has quite average stats.



He has no special equipment apart from the very effective potion of heal wounds.



Heala knows a few skills that are being trained when used. By turning some of them off he can choose to specialize in some skills. He also has the Lesser Healing invocation; it costs 1 MP and some hunger to use.

The Goal: (from the manual)

“You goal is to locate the Orb of Zot, which is held somewhere deep beneath the world's surface. The Orb is an ancient and incredibly powerful artefact, and the legends promise great things for anyone brave enough to extract it from the fearsome Dungeon. Some say it will grant immortality or even godhood to the one who carries it into the sunlight; many undead creatures seek it in the hope that it will restore them to life. But then, some people will believe anything. Good luck!”

Dungeon Level 1



Heala enters the dungeon and kills a rat and a Goblin.



He kills a Kobold and finds 21 bolts. He enters a bigger room and sees a Goblin and some stuff. He “hears a shout!” He kills the Goblin with one strike and it drops a scroll labelled: “RYL PE”. He finds a robe, a spear and 2 potions of heal wounds and 22 poisoned arrows. He cuts up the Goblin into chunks of meat to carry with him (D).

He encounters a Goblin and examines it. It is wielding a dwarven dagger. He kills it and finds stairs leading down. He fast moves back to the big room by clicking with mouse on overview map. He then kills a Rat and a Kobold and advances to level 2 (17 Hp). He finds a dart that was fired from a trap at the Kobold and picks it up while avoiding triggering the trap. He throws the dart at another Kobold slightly injuring it. He finds orcish banded mail, a quarterstaff and a shield and stairs down. The level is explored.

He tries the scroll. “It crumbles to dust. You feel strangely unstable.” The next turn Heala is teleported to a yet unexplored section of the dungeon level and encounters a Hobgoblin.



Heala misses with the dart but kills the Hobgoblin with the quarterstaff and suffers only a slight wound (16/17 Hp). The dart disappears but he soon finds 23 more.

He steps in a trap and gets hit by a dart. (13/17 Hp) He rests to fully heal (by pressing shift-5). “His equipment suddenly feels to weigh less.” It’s the Goblin chunks that rotted away. He encounters a Small Snake. It’s fast and moves two steps for each dart that Heala throws. He misses with both darts but squashes the Snake with his staff.

He finds ring mail, scrolls and some potions. Tries the scrolls. “Nothing appears to happen.” He reads a second. “Your +0 quarterstaff glows green for a moment.” (It is now +1 to hit +0 to damage) He fights a Giant Cockroach. It’s tough and wounds Heala before he can kill it (11/17 Hp).

He uses his Lesser Healing ability (heals to 16/17 Hp, loses 1 of 2 Magic Points) and feels somewhat hungrier. He has three similar scrolls and tries one. His quarterstaff glows black and is cursed. He can’t unwield it or draw a new weapon. “The smell of rotting meat makes you sick.” He drops the rotting meat. He searches for a way out. He tries two potions. He gets fast and refreshed but still can’t find the way out. The dungeon is now empty of monsters. He is getting hungry.



Suddenly a Kobold attacks. It carries two scrolls of blank paper. Heala is getting hungry but doesn’t want to eat kobolds. Then there’s a fierce fight with a Hobgoblin, Heala has to drink two potions of heal wounds to survive the battle. He can’t butcher and eat the corpse because he can’t switch to a sharper weapon because of the cursed quarterstaff. He is hungry. He got the Purification invocation. He tries a scroll. It shows all cursed items.

He searches for a secret door like crazy and is getting hungrier. Finally he sees a door in the top left of the dungeon. The Kobold and Hobgoblin must have come through it.



He enters and kills a Hobgoblin and finds a scroll. He reads it and it takes away the curse from the Quarterstaff. Finally Heala can butcher the Hobgoblin and eat some chunks of meat. “This raw flesh is not very appetising.” He has to eat two pieces to become satisfied.

Now that he knows which items are cursed he can try to wear the others (and they get identified). He wears a +0 orcish banded mail (AC:7) He finds stairs down but no other obvious exit. He goes down.

DL 2
He finds a glowing robe, kills a Hobgoblin and becomes hungry again. It doesn’t leave a corpse. A Snake attacks. Heala is poisoned. He hits the Snake but do no damage. He is moderately wounded. He wields the runed short sword instead and finally kills the Snake (6/17 Hp) and advances to level 3 (22 Hp). He chooses to raise his Intelligence (he could also choose STR or DEX). The poison wears off. He is still hungry. He cuts up and eats the snake. He is no longer hungry. The Hobgoblin chunk he had forgot begins to rot. He isn’t hungry enough to eat rotten meat so he throws it away. He checks his religion stats.



He puts on an elven ring mail. “Oops, that feels deathly cold.” It’s cursed and sticks to his body. He is now overloaded with items and has to drop some. All items that have no special appearance, like “glowing”, are dropped (they could still have bonuses though). He reads a couple of scrolls. The first one blinks Heala to a chosen square. Nothing happens when he reads the second scroll.

Later he has a dart-throwing duel with a Kobold. The Kobold hits and makes more damage (14/22 Hp) than Heala but runs out of darts. When the Kobold reaches Heala it is moderately wounded and Heala kills it with the runed short sword (7/22 Hp). He uses Lesser Healing and becomes hungry. He eats a Hobgoblin chunk. After throwing lots of darts the darts and throwing skills get higher. He eats a rotting meat chunk and gets sick! Luckily it last only for a short while. He then reads a scroll of remove curse and drops the elven ring mail and wears an elven scale mail (AC:5) The level seems to be explored. He moves down one of three stairs. (red dots)



DL 3
He sees some guy called Ijyb. He hits with three darts and Ijyb is lightly wounded and “grins evilly.” The two last darts miss and Ijyb engages in close combat. He is quite tough but makes light damage. He finally perishes from the repeating hits from Heala’s quarterstaff.



He advances to level 4 and becomes more dexterous. He reads a scroll and identifies a +0 hammer. It seems about half of the level is left to explore but he finds no exits. He is about to go up to try another set of stairs down. On the way back to the stairs he encounters Jackals and Snakes. A new door is now visible. He finds and reads a scroll of enchant weapon II that made the quarterstaff +1 damage.

In the next room he spots 5 Orcs and 1 Kobold. He kills them all in the corridor when they come for him. He advances to level 5 (30 Hp, 7 Mp) and then kills a though Quokka (some kind of large rat?) He eats a ration and gets full. He reads a scroll and it reassembles itself in his hand? He kills a Kobold and takes its blowgun of venom.



An Orc ambushes Heala and hits him with an orcish flail making massive damage (taking away half his HP). Heala kills it and uses lesser healing and his invocation skill increases to 3. He encounters an Orc Wizard. “It gestures wildly. Heala feels troubled.” Heala hits the Orc Wizards with a few poisoned darts and it is looking sick. Heala closes in but “the Orc Wizard mumbles some strange words. A puff of flame hits Heala.” Heal kills the Wizard. Level is explored and seems to have 3 stairs down.

DL 4
He finds Orklacuaxyq’s Assorted Antiques and buys two unidentified scrolls. The store has a couple of enchant weapon scrolls but Heala can’t afford them. Around the corner is Cij’s Magic Scroll Shop. He has cheaper scrolls. He buys one scroll of remove curse. He tries an unidentified scroll. It curses Healas armor. His Spellcasting skill increases to 1. He reads his scroll of remove curse and his armor is no longer cursed. He finds a square platinum amulet and reads a scroll of identification. It’s a amulet of conservation? The glowing robe is a robe of cold resistance +1.

He finds Hokih S’s Assorted Antiques. Heala wants the Crystal Ball but can’t afford it.



He then finds Hfrxtaw Byweqe’s Food Shop. It has lots of food. Good to know. He steps on a teleport trap and enters an unexplored region. He finds and wears a pair of boots (AC:6) He finds and wears a dirty hat and it’s a +2 hat of the Alchemist (AC:8). He finds a shop and buys 2 scrolls of identify. The blowgun of venom is +2, +2. The level has four stairs down and he tries one of them.

Dl 5
This is a large open room with a Hobgoblin Zombie. A Centaur shoots two accurate and heavy damage arrows each turn. (8/30 Hp) Heala quaffs a potion of healing wounds and fires poisoned orcish needles at the Centaur. It looks sicker with each hit. Finally it dies and Heala advances to level 6 and chooses to increase strength. (36 Hp, 11 Mp).



He finds a red rock staircase leading down. There’s a bunch of dangerous creatures. By hitting each one with a poisoned needle they die or get moderately wounded from the poison before they can engage in close combat. Heala had to use lesser healing several times in the middle of the fight with a Giant Iguana and a Worm to survive. He finds a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple. He finds a glowing ivory wand. He finds a red rock staircase leading upwards and yet another wand. A Phantom attacks. It teleports on and off, is difficult to hit and damage. A Hound is also attacking. Heala has to heal now and then. He is threatened and tries one of his wands. It’s a wand of magic darts and the Hound is heavily wounded as is Heala (5/36 Hp). He zaps the Phantom and it is moderately wounded. The Hound flees after a hit from the quarterstaff. Heala has to heal himself in between the Phantoms blinks and becomes hungry and has to eat. A long duel later the Phantom perishes and Heala advances to level 7 (41 Hp, 12 Mp). The level explored Heala notices a big empty square in the middle, it has to have a secret entrance. He goes down to the Ecumenical Temple.

Ecumenical Temple
This temple is a large room with lots of altars and fountains. He finds the altar to his god and offers some weapons to his god by dropping them on altar and then praying. He tries a plate mail and it’s cursed (AC:12). He goes up again and collects a lot of weapons and goes down and offers them at the altar. Elyvilon is very pleased and Heala can now call upon Elyvilon for moderate healing. He goes up and then down another set of stairs to look for stairs leading up into the empty square in the big room above.

DL 6
He meets an Orc Wizards that casts puffs of frost that freezes and shatters potions. It is dangerous and Heala drinks a potion of speed to kill it (20/41 Hp). He then runs into a Phantom without healing first and decides to go up again. He uses his new moderate healing power to fully heal, goes down again, fights the Phantom, uses moderate healing again but now loses the ability. He finally destroys the Phantom. He explores a section until there are no more exits, goes up, goes down another set of stairs and explores a new section. He finds the stairs down to the Orcish Mines. He fights yet one more Orcish Wizard and a Hobgoblin.



The Orcish Wizards speeds himself, attacks with a dagger, shoots magic darts and blinks away. They are though and Heala has to heal himself several times to win the battle. He kills the Orcish Wizard with a couple of zaps from the wand of magic darts.



He finds a Jewellery Shop with amulets and rings but can’t afford anything as the shops don't buy stuff. An Orcish Warrior wearing splint mail and wielding a halberd attacks before Heala has time to heal himself fully. Heala hits with two needles from the blowgun and zaps the Warrior two times with magic darts, emptying the wand, but the warrior is still only moderately injured. Heala has a difficult time making any damage with the Quarterstaff. He quaffs a potion of speed and finally kills the Orcish Warrior.

Heala goes up the stairs and heals some before going down again (36/41 Hp). He finds a Food Shop. Three Orcs attack. It is getting dangerous down here. Heala critically wounds one Orc but the other get two very good hits with his Orcish scimitar and kills Heala (you can see the one with a scimitar in the picture).



His items are identified and he had a wand of paralysis and a ring of magical power.



The scimitar that Heala was slain by was an orcish scimitar of slicing (20 damage).

Lessons learned: When you barely survive each encounter it’s time to play safer. Go up, identify items, and buff everything possible, and work out a good tactic for your character type. Beware of Scimitars of Slicing!

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