To retrieve gems, I'll need to dig away rock. My dig spell, even with the helm of brilliance, just isn't good enough... not 100% fail, but it's the only one not at 0%. I'm unskilled in matter spells. Back to DL1 - the only other matter spell I ever knew (which IS at 0%) is knock, except I've forgotten it. Reread the spell book.

Walk to door. Lock it. ZAP. Unlocked. Lock it. ZAP. Unlocked. Repeat; sometimes not even bothering to lock the door. God, I'm bored. Finally, I can #enchance. Better! I also relearn the Stone to Flesh spell before going down - bonus points if you can think of why! Of course, I'll also need the detect treasure spell for my gem retrieving, and as I recall that spellbook is DL41. *roll eyes* Walking is getting tiring... #invoke my Quest Amulet. (Hey, I can 'port to Ludios?? Sweet, that's just a bit below my major stash!)

Back in Gehennom, via Vlad's. Relearn detect treasure. Realize I meant to bring the silver bell from the closet on DL26 down here... oh well, next time. Grab some cursed stuff while I'm here. Learn remove curse spell to use for later. (Yes, I'm employing spells! See, all of a sudden I'm so much more like a Wizard!) Walk back up to the Dungeon proper. Start at the bottom, DL26.

ZAP detect treasure. Hm, gems over there. ZAP dig. Nope, they're worthless glass. How about these gems? ZAP dig. Ooh, some of these are good. Next level. And so it goes. I also pop back into Fort Ludios and cast stone to flesh... on that errant nurse statue. (Did you guess right?) She heals me up more! *happy smile*

To make a long story short, the dungeon gets a little, um, messy. What with all the digging. But I get a lot, um, rich. *wink* (The Mines and Quest level are also tackled for gems.) By now Vita's peaceful on DL4 (gave her some tripe much earlier). I also summon and kill a vault guard to see if they have any stuff; nope, apparently not.

I leave all the gems I've found on DL1 - will pick them up on the way out. I even find a few gems that I hadn't previously identified with ID scrolls, and ID them with my spell! ID does run out though, so I have to assume this last grey stone is a touchstone, given I've identified the other three greys. (Left the loadstone behind, by the way. Duh.)

Now, of minor concern is the fact that my life HP is currently well exceeding my spell energy. As a Wizard, I should have better spell ability. But the only way I know of to up my max spell energy is: potions of gain energy, sticking Magicbane in some spellcasting creature (rare occasions)... or walking on magic traps and absorbing their energy.

Ponder.

Walking on magic traps has a much BETTER chance of summoning monsters instead. But then again, I'm still hoping to find a silver dragon.

Ponder.

I start walking on magic traps. (Also sit on thrones, to no avail.) I soon discover the traps are a bit of a thankless exercise; I only seem to gain 2 points of energy when they blast out of existence. Still, I do this for one in the mines; one at the bottom of the Quest level (mostly vampire bats there); also one on DL25. While on that level, I get this whacky idea to sacrifice something in the lawful temple. (In fact, this idea may have happened on the way up the first time, looting gems.)

I don't remember why I did it, really - might have been a wraith corpse, and I was satiated (hate wasting those) or might have been getting bored. I convert the altar. The priest of Ptah gets angry! The priest of Ptah is no match for my Magic Misteltein. *smirk* He was wearing a robe... hey, that's supposed to help in spellcasting, and it's +1. I ditch the cloak of displacement for good. With my new robe (called Ptah, in memory) and helm of brilliance, I don't think I'll have problems with spellcasting ever again.

That was almost too easy. I'm starting to get cocky.

Wipe out the mimics in the store on DL23. Buy anything else useful (already bought Kopasker's +1 Hawaiian shirt back in May), and work my way back up yet again. In Annootok's store on DL8, I kill the giant mimic named Yikes (I named him? Guess I must have). Hm, the storekeeper is selling a wand of digging, AND a pickaxe in here.

Ponder.

Well, when you think about it, that's just asking for trouble.

Ponder.

I'm chaotic. I have to try this. *giggle* I round up all his stuff. I zap the wand of digging down. Annootok grabs a lot of my things and summons the Kops! However, I'm now on DL9, with him next to me, and I escaped with over 100 zorkminds of merchandise. *proud smile* As for you, angry Annootok, you have a lowly wand of striking and I'm am HAYATE THE SORCERESS!

Misteltein!

He's dead. That was fun! (Maybe too fun!) Remove mummy wrapping, put robe back on, and go back up to check out DL8.

....

Wow, the stairs are completely surrounded by Kops. Like, there's at least 15.

Ponder.

Deal with them later. Bring stuff back to DL22. Also at some point in here, I run into an angel on DL21. I fire at her, she fires at me, I fire at her, she teleports away, I go find her, (I dodge the incubus,) I kill her. She has a blessed, rustproof +3 Demonbane! Artifacts are nice. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a sword I can advance with either. *sad face*

I have lots of wands of create monster though, so back on DL22 I do a LOT of creating and sacrificing. This nets me... Werebane. Anhur's making fun of me now! Just a sabre? (I mean, it allows me to advance the skill, but I ditched the blessed +1 silver sabre in my magic box not long after waking up from my 3 month nap.) The wands also create a titan, which I quickly kill (they spellcast), and then discover that eating those doesn't confer strength. I'm still at 18/99. *roll eyes*

Some monster also quaffed another speed potion, and now there's a peaceful djinni floating around this level too.