Things are now a bit of a blur, because as long as I'm careful, nothing's going to kill me outright. To improve my armour, I also tested every single shield (got blessed +1) and pair of gloves (got blessed +4) from the barracks. A ring of levitation got me to Medusa, and below her was a maze level; below that was the castle.

There it was a bit scary once again, owing to liches and/or demiliches... maybe even a titan too. But I cleared out the castle. Likely had more lich trouble in the Valley of the Dead. (HATE liches, HATE HATE HATE but no scroll of genocide yet.) Incidentally, the Valley on DL30 more than made up for the paltry containers before, with 6 chests and 7 large boxes. The castle's wand of wishing I stowed back at DL22 for later use; blessed ID scroll showed it to have only one charge.

Eventually, I get to experience level 14 for the Quest. Mostly by means of, er, incubi... one turned up on DL20, with another on DL23, and it just seems RUDE to turn them down. They love me, they really love me! (In fact, I was wearing my ring of Warning when I did the tango to get to experience level 15, and for a short while thought I'd been granted permanent Warning through sex.) Ahem. But I digress again.

Helped out Neferet the Green by killing the Dark One. Was a bit freaked out, knowing Fate's experience with him, but he didn't summon anything really bad. Bit of a pushover, really. (He didn't count on my being Crowned, I guess! *smile* Still a novelty.) Sacrificed a bunch of stuff to try and get more varied artifact weapons from Anhur, but all he sent my way was Ogresmasher and Dragonbane. Meh. Magicbane's better. Also found a cursed Vorpal Blade lying around somewhere. Very careless of someone.

Reached the point where there's nowhere to go but down... into Gehennom. (Even the statues around the Oracle I'd pickaxed to little avail; one useless spellbook. I think Fireball, mostly useless because I already had one, or maybe it was cursed.) "Are you sure you want to enter?" Yes, I go into hell, and bring along potions of object detection and scrolls of magic mapping. (Irritatingly, I still don't know those spells, though I'm an Expert in Attack spells now. Also, I cast Detect Food earlier to get my Divination off Unskilled, I'll need that if I find Identify.)

You see, Gehennom is all mazes (and one swamp). So the plan is, quaff object detection, and if there's anything I don't want monsters to get, magic map the level then teleport myself over. (Getting there though the maze would take ages.) The plan is derailed a bit with Asmodeus' lair on DL32, which telepathy says contains a master lich. I beat a hasty retreat. Shuttle the bulk of my gear from DL1 to my new Stash on DL22, use more blessed ID scrolls (a spellbook of identify would be nice too, sheesh!). AHA, a scroll of GENOCIDE. Bless it, and kill off all the liches. I hate when those twerps destroy my armor.

Oh, speaking of armor, I got myself some grey dragon scale mail by killing the necessary dragon, then reading the appropriate blessed scroll on the scales. Now I can cast spells better (no metal interference), plus it let me exchange my cloak of magic resistance for one of displacement. Now I'm still magic protected, and monsters aren't sure where I am! (Yes, displacement is a tattered cape, but come on, don't you think I look good in anything? *smile*) I have speed boots (mud boots) too, both worn +2 /and/ a backup +1. They were found that way.

Head back down to Asmodeus' lair. I figure, he's a lawful demon, I'll pay him off. However, because of my (suddenly less nifty) cloak, he gets my position wrong, gets angry, and starts fighting and zapping wands at me! Perfect. *sigh* On the bright side, I have learned how to deal with these guys who teleport away to the upstair as soon as you start to hit them. Wait, go downstairs when they're next to you, then bash away at them while on the upstair yourself. So I do this, and we're on DL33.

Start hitting on the demon prince, getting his HP down, when - Asmodeus zaps a wand of digging! He dives through a hole in the floor!

...

Awwww, WHO GAVE HIM A WAND OF DIGGING? *pout*

Fine. Magic map the level, pickaxe to the stairs, and follow him down to DL34. Oh, great, it's the swamp level. And again, Asmodeus wails on me, then makes a hole next to the upstair and escapes! Grrr. I take a break to deal with Juiblex. (No problem with him, just remember to use the unicorn horn, which I've blessed.) Also know cone of cold, and can freeze some of the water around the stairs (handy). Map the level out by levitating, then pursue Asmodeus to DL35. This turns out to be Baalzebub's level, where bash, bash, bash, ZAP.

Okay, I hate Asmodeus.

Remove my cloak and pay off Baalzebub, bad enough I'm dealing with one wayward demon prince right now. Then down to DL36, where... bash, bash, ZAP!

Grrrrr. I really REALLY hate Asmodeus. How many charges does he have in that wand, a full eight?! I take the time to explore around this level a bit for the downstair to conserve scrolls (spellbook of magic mapping would be nice, you crummy dungeon!). In the process, I kill a cockatrice. Aha. I normally really hate doing this... always afraid I'll fall into a pit, but under the circumstances...

Go down to DL37. Weild cockatrice corpse. Asmodeus starts hitting me; I smile charmingly, then hit him back. He's slowing down. Very quickly I have a nice statue. I throw away the cockatrice corpse. Break the statue. Collect his wands (fire and cold are already depleted, I think digging had a charge or two left). "You see here 20 rocks named Asmodeus."

Jerk.