Well, now. There's not much left I can do. I begin to plan my Ascension run. First step is to transport other things up to Level 1, so I can pick them up on the way out. (Better not to be Burdened when running up from DL52!) On the way up, I of course have to kill that a bunch of Kops... they turn out to be regular pushovers. They tend to respawn, however, and I find a few wandering through adjacent levels long after I thought they were all dead. (End up with 40+ cream pies.)

Chat a bit with the Oracle, since I have money from Ludios and can't remember if I did that or not; she's occasionally useful for intel. Back on DL22, use potions of polymorph and a wand of polymorph to polypile some useless stuff. One potion nets me ANOTHER amulet of life saving! (Beats strangulation.) I actually have four of these now. I'm so unstoppable. I am now Hayate the Necromancer, your worst nightmare!! Or possibly your best dream. *wink* *blow kiss*

I also ID the last missing amulet (change) when it turns up through polymorph. Despite my best efforts though, there is no bag of holding. I get excited briefly when polypiling nets an unidentified bag, but it's an oilskin sack. Similarly, there's no spellbook of light, or wizard knock! I do get a spellbook of teleport away, but that won't be much help where I'm headed. *sigh* Time to burn some wishes. Let's get that wand.

What do I wish for? A blessed, greased bag of holding. *poof!* What do I wish for? An uncursed magic marker. *poof!* I actually have two magic markers already, but I'm about to do a lot of writing. I take my 30 uncursed teleportation scrolls and dunk them in the nearest fountain; those won't be helpful where I'm going either. (It was those or the 21 uncursed scrolls of create monster.) They blank. I bless the blank scrolls. I start writing.

First, some scrolls of charging (for the markers). Then some blessed scrolls of enchant armor... I write a lot of these, actually. Since they're needed for: my Hawaiian shirt, my robe of Ptah, my helm of brilliance, my speed boots AND my gloves of dexterity. Those last I'd found way earlier, but they were at +0; I ditch my +4 regular gloves for good here, hoping dexterity improves my dagger throwing and such.

I keep my grey dragon armor at +1. I'm still hoping to exchange it for some silver dragon scales. As an afterthought, I also charge up my small shield; with everything else improving my spells, this isn't going to hinder casting, and since I can't twoweapon, my left arm might as well be doing something.

My AC is now at -41 (everything +4 except +5 boots and shield). Any armor that wasn't blessed now is, on account of the scrolls. As a second afterthought, since I still have lots of marker charges, I write a scroll of genocide and say goodbye forever to mind flayers... the last thing I need now is a memory loss. (I tinned a master flayer earlier on DL41, so I'll ascend with that tin to show they did exist for a while.) Magicbane also gets enchanted from +1 to +3, and I enchant up my unicorn horn for (what I believe to be) more luck in healing me.

Now, I'm going to need scrolls of gold detection for finding the Plane portals. (So sayeth the rumours.) I write one... it's a scroll named ELBIB YLOH?! Pause. No, seriously? I've never even found ONE of these scrolls before?!

Hm.

Do I really want to write another three? I happen to know there's a blessed crystal ball with one charge on it, that I left in the Castle. Maybe I should use that instead. I mean, I've already depleted one of my markers (both charges), which leaves me with one unused, and one I just charged for the first (and last) time.

More pondering.

I'll save my markers. More stuff is shuttled back to DL1, including: that crystal ball, all my artifact weapons (except Demonbane, just in case I lose Magicbane), some stilletos (the weapon, not the heels - it's just so novel to have found two of them! I want to keep them!), a +0 bardiche (in memory of the cute blonde haired Fate, who got such a raw deal), all my amulets (Miaka showed they're worth money in the end too), all but one wand of teleport (for the Planes), all my potions of full healing (I'll make more soon, you'll see) and all the invisibility rings I pinched from Nazguls (killed all nine). I will realize later that I forgot to bring up the lenses I was keeping with my spellbooks. Pity, they were cute too!

Oh, also through here (and before) I shuttled the silver Bell of Opening to Vlad's, along with seven candles, and I used the remove curse spell to uncurse a lot of stuff, which among other things allowed me to: pile together uncursed potions, and obtain 11 +1 daggers for my main arsenal. (Some +1 daggers were cursed. No, I don't know why.) Also, in trying to streamline my route, I used my pickaxe to dig through the wall near my chest on level 1. "You break through a secret door!"

....

Unbelievable. I'm the most powerful wizard to date, and I still need my ring of searching to find stuff that's right in front of me. *roll eyes* That chest has been sitting next to the secret door since PART 4 of my story!! Oh well. An umber hulk also broke into the altar room at DL41, which was a little annoying. At any rate... it's time to get serious.

DL22. Quaff a potion or two of gain level. Dip potions of gain energy into potion of holy water. Quaff blessed potions of gain energy. Then, use somewhat illicitly obtained knowledge, so avert your eyes... I dip potions of healing into potion of speed. Quaff the resulting diluted potions of extra healing. Dip potions of extra healing into potion of gain level. Quaff a couple diluted potions of full healing, and chuck the other 12 into my new bag of holding.

Also in the bag, some backup rings (I already lost slow digestion once to a freaking blue dragon's lightning), my wand of wishing (with one wish left), two wands of death (one from Orcus, one from some soldier in Gehennom), a magic whistle (dropped by a kill while scavenging gems; I have no pets now but may need it later), a tinning kit (you'll see why), some scrolls of scare monster and other miscellaneous items.

I then relearn all the spells I think I'll want, including finger of death... in fact, this is the first time I've read that spellbook since I got Crowned so long ago. Now, for the first time, I'll put it to good use! One final prayer, to check in with Anhur.

He gives me a gift!

Un-freaking-believable. Spellbook of light. I get it NOW? (I'd zapped clean a few wands of light earlier! My starting wand included.) *shake head* Oh well, I can make lots of light my way down. Better late than never, it'll help when I'm coming back up with the Amulet of Yendor.

Because I will have the Amulet.

I am Hayate. I... will... ascend!!! (Or, at the time I had high hopes. *wink*) Incidentally, I was also lucky; there's a full moon tonight.