Bleeko the Lawful Male Human Priest
2009-12-08: Ascended in 45197 turns
nethack.alt.org public server
version 3.4.3

Having ascended a number of times now, the early-mid game is still
quite varied and exciting, but the late game tends to be mostly the
same and pretty anticlimactic.  Well, this time it got interesting.

This priest had good luck finding things in the early game, with some
truly epic scroll shops on early dungeon levels.  In fact, the only
random shops in the dungeons were scroll shops.  An enormous one on
DL2, another on DL3, and a third (with many mimics) on 9 or 10.  They
yielded mostly identify and nasty scrolls, but I did find charging,
genocide, and taming, plus a good number of enchant armor and weapon.

Found a bag on the floor in the mines, but did not go below minetown
for fear of polymorph traps.  By the time I had reached soko, I had
found a shield of reflection and had taken speed boots from a troll
that hit very hard and very fast!  Round about DL20, I used a throne
wish for GDSM then went back to the mines for the luckstone.

Had real trouble keeping pets alive.  My starting cat Gomez was killed
in a few dozen turns by a falling rock, and another cat, Morticia, met
her demise soon after.  A later pair, Fuzzdoom and Deathpaw, stuck
with it for a while.  Hatched a tame soldier ant named Bitey McScuttle
who was quite hardy and had no problem keeping up until a soldier in
Ludios took him out with a wand of death.

Oddly enough, I didn't find a single glove until about turn 20k, which
made me very nervous about footrice corpses.  Not so much that I might
accidentally try to pick one up, but rather that someone else would.

Once I made it to the castle, I wished for a ring of levitation and
the Sceptre of Might then threw the WoW (1:2) in the bag.  Otherwise I
was in pretty good shape.

On turn 33907, I was ready to go after Rodney, but was starting to
forget spells, so I planned to pop back up to my stash to study spell
books.  I had previously found a wand of polymorph, and out of habit
was saving stuff to randomize.  I was getting heavy with all of the
extra junk, so I had put just about everything except my weapon and
armor in my bag. I made a brief stop in Orcus town to pick up some
useless wands and things that were in the shops.

Why am I getting "You don't have that object" when I apply my bag?  

Oh joy.  My very first bag explosion. I am normally extremely careful
with wands of cancellation, but forgot that bags of tricks act in the
same way.

My first priority was candles, since the game is unwinnable without
them.  I'd also need to replace my ring of levitation, scrolls of gold
detection, holy water, and food.  

I remembered seeing a candle in the mazes, so I went back and found
that.  Methodically using detect treasure on the mazes, I also found a
wand of polymorph.  Add in a cursed pair of water walking boots, and I
was able to head back up, collecting and blanking scrolls, potions and
tools.  Itzack only had 5 more candles, but I was able to poly for one
more, and eventually popped a ring of levitation as well as bunch of
scrolls of charging, genocide, and other useful stuff.

I had previously been crowned, so while at my stash, I offered up a
lichen or kobold just to make sure I was safe to pray on the planes.
And pop!  There is Snickersnee at my feet.  Looks like I'm on my own
in the planes :-)

At that point, I had everything I needed, and the rest was pretty
straightforward, although Pestilence did come close to getting me in
the final scrum.

==> See the final stats.