Bleeko the Monk
2006-05-03: Ascended (second in a row!) in 64534 turns
nethack.alt.org public server
version 3.4.3

This game was very different than the previous (Bleeko the Tourist
ascention) Got lucky with wishes from thrones, and had a lot of fun
with pets, but eventually did something Really Stupid(tm).  Managed 
to avoid YASD however!

Watched my food carefully during the early game.  Prayed for food as
often as I could manage. Found +4 elven boots that really helped, as
well as and amulet of reflection and rings of levitation and conflict.
Set up a base at a co-aligned altar on DL10 with a priest.

On DL11 I ran into a silver dragon, which was odd.  It was a bones
level, and the dragon may have been an orc that had hit a poly trap.
I left it alone and went off to soko, which yielded another amulet of
reflection.  Used conflict a bit to make the zoos easier.

Went back to the mines and found a cursed magic lamp in the shop.
Retreated to my DL10 base to make holy water.  Thought about the wish
for a long time.  I needed a bag, but you don't have to carry as much
if you know what things are.  In the end I went for a spellbook of
identify, because it would give me more options.

In the rest of the mines, found the bones of a wizard with with only
his starting equipment.  The cloak of MR was useful because I had hit
a poly trap and ripped my robe turning into a storm giant.

Cleaned out the mines and relayed all of my stuff to the base camp.
Went searching for vaults to lower my AC a bit when I ran into some
orcs with a bag of holding.  Ka-ching!  A gremlin got my stealth, but
I had elven boots, so it wasnt a problem.

While practicing sleep spells at my base camp, I accidentally hit the
priest and pissed him off. I fled until I could do something about it.
Three levels down found another co-aligned priest on a level with two
co-aligned altars.  Chih Sung-tzu is popular!  There were quite a few
throne rooms.  Used a cockatrice on one and stealth on the others, to
avoid dealing with Trolls.

A throne let me genocide mind flayers, and the next #sit was a wish,
but Earthlink dropped the connection while I was typing.  Noooo!  It
worked out though, because I got a wish from another throne and asked
for three blessed scrolls of taming.  I went back up, chilled out the
priest and did a little polypiling.  Came up with a ring of slow
digestion, gauntlets of dexterity, and a tinning kit.

Now that I could get rid of the trolls, I went back down and cleaned
them out too.  Got another wish from a throne and went for a ring of
free action.

Fought my way down.  At one point was up against an arch lich and a
demilich at the same time!  Thank goodness for my cloak of MR!  Used
conflict to make the castle easier.  A titan kept pulling in baddies
until I took him out.  A master mind-flayer and disenchanter were the
only ones left and I handled them with some wands of cold and fire.

The WOW was fully charged.  Asked for 4 scrolls of genocide but only
got one.  Asked for a +3 tshirt, but got it at +0.  Got the Orb of
fate and a magic marker.  Used a confused scroll of taming to befriend
all four dragons in the back of the castle.  Named the two silver ones
Zak and Weezy, the gray one Cassie, and the yellow one Ord :-)

The orb was heavy, so I had to watch what I carried.  Having my pals
along made the quest pretty easy.  They ignored Master Kaen, but took
care of the other critters pretty effectively.

Went back down to the Valley of the Dead and my buddies and I cleaned
it out.  Unfortunately Cassie ate a chameleon corpse and changed into
one of the most useless pets possible - a trapper.  I zapped her with
my wand of polymorph until I got something reasonable -- a Yeti.

In Gehemon, I picked up two more dragon pals, Quetzal and Lorca the
blues and a white named Falkor (I ran out of Dragontales characters)
To keep them all happy, I broke boulders and used stone-to-flesh for
some meatball treats!  All Dragons (and even Yetis) love meatballs!

I tried to keep my crew healed and happy, but there was a good amount
of turnover in the ranks.  By the time I started my run on Rodney, my
posse included:

h       a humanoid (tame invisible master mind flayer called Zoidberg)
w       a worm (tame invisible purple worm called Pops) 
V       a vampire (tame vampire lord called Fangs)
q       a quadruped (tame mastodon called Stampy) 
X       a xorn (tame invisible xorn called Xyzzy) 
D       a dragon (tame invisible blue dragon called Quetzal)
D       a dragon (tame invisible green dragon called Cassie II)
D       a dragon (tame invisible white dragon called Ord II) 
D       a dragon (tame invisible black dragon called Lorca II)
D       a dragon (tame white dragon called Zak III) 
D       a dragon (tame invisible white dragon called Weezy II)

A tame purple worm is great against mind flayers.  One gulp and they
are done!  However, a tame Master Mind Flayer is a bigger treat.  Not
only do they take out conventional critters in one round, but you get
messages like:

  Zoidberg concentrates.
  A wave of psychic energy pours over you!  It feels quite soothing.

Taking out Rodney was easy enough, and I tamed a more pets in his zoo.
I had a little trouble in the sanctuary though.  Rodney came back and
kept dodging my wand of death (getting a clear shot with the pets was
also tough).  He had the amulet and started Double Troubling me, while
popping back to the stairs.

It was late and I was getting fatigued, so I thought "it probably won't
work, but maybe I can zap myself with a /oTeleport to get to the stairs
quicker".   Well I mistyped.   I didn't use the wand of teleport.

I used the wand of cancellation.

"Hmm, that's odd.  Why did I just become burdened?  Doooh!"  My AC
went from a -27 to -6.  Being a humble monk, I had no weapon and was
resigned to a poor AC anyway, so I used the opportunity to swap my
(previously +4) gauntlets of dex and elven boots for the +0 GoP and
speed boots in my sack.

I figured that folks have ascended naked, so my monk was still quite
viable.  I had the PYEC to recharge the wands, and the Orb of Fate to
take the sting out.  On DL34 I used my one scroll of enchant armor to
make scale mail from a blue dragon that happened to drop some scales.
That took me to -15 and I wore it until I got to the plane of air.

Getting the pets up the stairs with the "Mysterious Force" was quite a
challange.  While in the sanctuary, I had over 20 but getting them all
up the stairs was proving to be quite an excercise in patience.  Also,
I had one gremlin coming up out of the sanctuary, he hit the moat and
suddenly I had a dozen :-)

At one point I had two pet Master Mind Flayers, but when trying to
tame a third, he got an attack in and I became a bit forgetful :-) All
of the MMFs eventually fell prey to purple worms or trappers and I was
down to 2 purple worms, 3 dragons, *one* gremlin, a xorn, and a ghost
:-) (The ghost wasn't really useful, but was a fun souvenir!)

Going to the Planes, I accidentally left one worm behind because he
was eating, and killed the other one first turn on the plane of earth
with the ricochet from a WoD at Rodney :-(

The plane of air was the toughest.  I was only hitting tougher
monsters half of the time, so I ditched the scale mail and went back
to letting everything hang out in the breeze.  I managed to clear out
the left side of the board and was recuperating when a titan appeared
and began summoning baddies.  

I figured that it was time to get moving, but while going through the
clouds, I was repeatedly frozen by thunder and lightning (even though
I was wearing a ring of free action!)  At one point, I was frozen with
three Jabberwocks and a Dragon beating on me.  I watched my HP drop
from 300 to 20 and figured the jig was up.  But I was able to drink a
potion of full healing, broke a wand of teleport and skedaddled!

The planes were tough on the pets.  I ended up taming some Dragons and
elementals, but eventually ran out of spell points.  Arrived on to the
Astral Plane with a two fire elementals, three water elementals, a red
dragon, and a steam vortex, then used my last spell to tame a black
dragon that was right next to me.

Using the Eyes of the Overworld, I saw Famine in the middle branch.
Since I had no spell points for casting Cure Sickness, and my AC was a
nigh invulnerable -6, I figured that was my best option.  Turned out
to be the right choice!   

The final game dump said that I ascended with one elemental and a
guardian angel, but I did have plenty of other pets around.  I guess
then need to be on an adjacent square when you #offer the amulet.

==> See the final stats.