Librarian the barbarian is stronger than ever and about to enter the Valley of the Dead!

Look at me, I'm gorgeous!

That is one well equipped barbarian! Magicbane should be at +5 or +6 btw. I also have conflict, levitation boots for emergencies (since the QI 'only' has a toggle with invocation-timeout), lots of HW, food, a scroll of charging and a few remove curse, different BUC teleportation scrolls since I have teleport control, lots of useful wands including another wand of death and two magic markers (1:40 and 1:50 = 90 charges left) with assorted BUC blank scrolls. My magic whistle is in the BoH.

I also genocided h, R and L some time ago. Countless CM scrolls and wands were neccessary to get Magicbane, but with it I finally have MR and resist curses. Since I'm limited to basic skills when #twoweaponing anyway I decided to go with magicbane + silver saber. I learned a few spells after producing gain ability potions, maxing out my stats and getting the robe (from wishing) and quaffing all my remaining potions of gain level. As a result I just realized I am quite adept in spellcasting, even though I can only advance attack spells (basic atm, skilled max).

I spent my wishes on:

• blessed fixed +2 HoB

• blessed fixed +2 hawaiian shirt

• blessed fixed +2 speed boots

• blessed fixed +2 robe

• blessed fixed ring of conflict

• 3 blessed scrolls of genocide, since I hadn't found any yet and thus couldn't write them - I got all three!

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting one wish (3 charges, blessed charging for 3 more, 1 turning the wand to dust, right?), but I can't remember. Edit will follow I assume. Anyway, for the first time I didn't wish for GoP after reading up on 18/** vs 25 strength and decided to erodeproof my leather gloves instead.

Aside from the other invocation items of course I only need 2 more candles. I'll put off writing scrolls of gold detection for the planes until later since there is more loot to come, but I have the charges in any case. A ring of regeneration would be nice. I'm not wearing an amulet yet, but there will be a guaranteed AoLS later on IIRC. A ring of free action could be useful, as could a can of grease. I'm also not crowned, have no spellbook of ID or MM in particular, and am petless atm as the archlich finally bit it in the castle somewhere (against trolls, of all things). For the time being, I also left my superfluous gifts and gems in my lvl 6 stash. Oh, a wand of cancellation would be handy, if somewhat late to the party...

All in all, only YASD should stop me from ascending now!

Notable events:

• gelatinous cube ate 2 out of my 3 stashboxes. Sorting the loot after I killed him took a few hundred turns what felt like an eternity. Only the ice box remains, this time on perma-Elbereth, and also keeping 3 cockatrice corpses fresh.

• almost died in Fort Ludios against a Croesus-Orange Dragon tag team and went down to 44 HP - check their attack dice, survival wasn't guaranteed.

• Afterwards, spent a whopping 85k zorkminds in Minetown on more protection. Only 1 or 2 extra points after the first guaranteed 9 (of which I had ~4 or 5 before the 85k), sadly.

• Found a temple between Medusa and the Castle, making BUC-testing and further protection attempts feasible, even coming from Gehennom.

Time for an update!

A complete inventory, including skills and spells

I passed the valley of the dead and slaughtered Asmodeus, Baalzebub, Orcus (whacked him with a potion of paralysis while wearing my ring of free action, haha. The unidentified WoD in the BoH is his and only lost two charges) and Jubilex (I think - it was a swamp and he was green, but it was over too quick. I had lured down Asmodeus I think from his lair, intending to land on the stairs and killing him when the green guy showed up. Both died quickly.) Baalzebub was strange, he teleported away before I enganged him - I think my minotaurs attacked him. When I tracked him down on a different level he was still peaceful towards me, demanding payment. I refused, of course.

Noteworthy:

• before entering the valley I spent my last two (well, I could recharge the wand, but I'm saving my one scroll for WoDs, and am conserving MM charges atm) polymorph charges on polypiling - my first serious attempt ever. I used magical things only, making 6 piles in a straight row with 4 items each, some of which were stacks of potions or scrolls. Every pile had at least one unicorn horn, and I dropped in a few useless potions, spellbooks and scrolls. I didn't really care about BUC, some scrolls and potions were cursed. Both times the beam didn't reach all piles, and I picked out items and rearranged the piles between zaps. The result was awesome, considering I had most of my ascension kit ready: Ring of free action, spellbook of Magic Missile and Fireball, Amulet of Magical Breathing, 3 scrolls of identify I didn't have to write, and two potions of gain energy. A few more rings and things, including a ring of conflict I had wished for previously and never used, including up to now... Oh well. MM comes in handy due to scaled damage for anybody. As it happens, my wizard never used fireball or cone of cold, so this is my first char trying it out. Turns out, the basic version is a cool beam hitting one square and dealing splash/explosion damage to the sourrounding squares. The skilled version however is even better, even with the caveat that you cannot fire it in dark places like a beam - fireworks describes it best, and how appropriate for the impending new year! You can target any square within view and watch what amounts to a meteor shower, check the wiki description, I love this stuff!. A special thanks goes out to force bolt, which saves me from having to get out the pickaxe, smashing a boulder, re-wielding magicbane and restarting #twoweapon. I can't believe I never did that before, except my wizard maybe - knight, valkyrie and archeologist all did it manually. It has gotten to the point where I'm actually hoping to find a digging spellbook, so wallbreaking in the mazes could work the same way - I burned a lot of digging wands (the two in the BoH are reserved for the plane of earth)...

• I used up a lot of lamps clearing the mazes in between the lairs (I actually cast light all over the Valley of the Dead) and am down to my last oil lamp with only one potion of oil left, but teleport control is more than just great, let's leave it at that. This is my second game using teleport at will (via strg+t), and the results are very pleasing. My food reserves are respectable or insane, depending on your style, so the added hunger is not a problem. Use of the amulet of magical breathing is another first for me and comes in handy for giant corpses, overstuffing yourself and of course, being safe from drowning. This also means I didn't have to spend marker charges on another genocide for ; which can later be spent on something more useful/cheaper. I'm still missing one candle, depending on random loot and/or drops btw.

• I have been making good use of charm monster at 0%, taking in minotaurs whenever I find them. More than two pets at a time are a hassle, even with magic whistle, as you often have only two or even one space(s) at the stairs, making multiple trips neccessary. Pro-tip: not more than two pets. Currently, I intend to abandon the glass piercer and the bat, but the black dragon and the titan could be useful. I experimented with extra healing on pets after getting a stethoskope out of polypiling but that's more trouble than it's worth, and as long as you don't have silver dragons they will wander into a polymorph trap (funnily enough, that will always change them right away - starkly in contrast to the usual 500+ turns I spent whistling four (!) pets into a trap and having them refuse to change for eternities at a time. Guess which 4 I mean.), eat a chameleon or get eaten by a purple worm anyway. I charmed and lost about 5 or 6 minotaurs, one purple worm, a black dragon (not the one in the picture) and a mastodon I think. Fun! I wouldn't mind getting a silver dragon finally though, before the endrun.

• I may have finally found a wand of cancellation, but am too lazy to ID it as it's not critical anymore at this point. I'll use it for potions and possibly scrolls (if I really have one, that is) at my last pit stop, then keep it as an emergency wand, even though I have multiple fire and lightning, and three WoD that haven't been charged once - and remember, I can write a few more charging scrolls easily! Rodney and (most of) the Riders will be no problem!

• Since I passed Rodney's tower already and the entrance to Vlad's tower, my current plan is to first explore down to the vibrating square (digging out shortest ways between stairs through all mazes on the way down as I have been doing), locating the fake wizards' towers on the way, then levelporting back to the stash, re-sort all loot and make final kit descisions, then porting down to the temple I found for donating all my zorkminds, porting to the valley and crossing it, porting to Vlad's tower entrance, getting the candelabrum and then visiting Rodney aka 'the pointdexter of no return' - once the hassling starts there is no turning back!