Brogue: appetite for destruction

Previously, in the Brogue game diary…Brian’s monkey has burned to death, he’s found a ring of stealth, and he’s gone blind from drinking a darkness potion.

I head back down to depth 5, sticking close to the walls, until I find a shadowy alcove to hide in until my vision slowly recovers enough to venture onward. I find a potion that turns out to be Fire Immunity. I have not seen any fire on this level yet, though.

After the jump, say hello to my little ogre

A potion of Confusion takes out half of a room full of goblins and jackals with friendly fire, and when I go in to mop up the survivors, I find a captive Ogre. Much better than a monkey, if I can keep her alive — her health is at almost zero.

The rest of level five contains only a few unknown, probably harmful potions, some gold, and some random solo monsters. We head down to depth 6, the ogre having recovered almost a third of her health.

We’re presented with a large pool, probably chock full of eels. I look for a way to circumvent it, but the only way past is through. Four eels attack the moment I step into the water, nearly killing the ogre. A potion of Telepathy reveals the four eels and a fifth on the far side of the pool. I try throwing some darts, but while they’re submerged, they seem to be immune to ranged attacks. Then a Pink Jelly wanders by, so I deal with that while waiting for the Ogre to heal up enough to take on the eels.

When you can see them, the eels are not quite as dangerous, so I stand by the edge of the pool and try to hit them as they swim by, managing to kill one. The other three retreat to the center, and we make a break for it to the dry corridor beyond — which contains a fully-grown Bloodwort stalk! The Ogre heals up just in time to defeat a swarm of Vampire Bats and an Acid Mound.

I decide the time is right to try out some of these scrolls I’ve been accumulating. For some reason, I choose a hallway, and the first one is a scroll of Sanctuary.

I learn that even pet monsters cannot pass through those sacred glyphs of Sanctuary. My ogre is now trapped in a dead-end room. I search for secret doors to no avail, and then I start reading scrolls, hoping one of them is Shattering. First one: Recharging. If only I had a staff or a charm to recharge. The second is Negation, which apparently has no effect on sacred glyphs.

The third scroll is Shattering!

As soon as those walls finished melting, we can be on our way. Before heading down to the next level, I find one more scroll of Sanctuary, but nothing else of interest.

On level seven, the first thing I see is a monkey running off with a teak staff. I’m on level 7 already and that’s the first staff I’ve seen. It turns out to be a staff of Discord. I’m not entirely sure why I know that the second I pick it up, since I have yet to identify a single staff, wand, or ring so far, but I’ll take it. There’s also a potion of Creeping Death and a willow staff lying nearby. That one remains unidentified.

I find a room full of sleeping Acid Mounds. So I toss some Creeping Death into the room, which turns out to be a great move — beyond the acid mounds, a group of Goblins and Goblin Mystics are now trapped behind a relentless, growing carpet of death.

I leave them to their horrible fate and discover a room filled with explosive gas, along with a Healing Staff behind some highly flammable wooden barricades. There is a fire trap in the room, which I thankfully discovered before accidentally immolating myself and my ogre friend, but there’s no safe way for me to set it off.

Around this point, I see a disturbing message:

I don’t remember ever running out of food before — I halfway assumed that the game just threw some food into a level whenever you ran out, which I’m pretty sure is not how Brogue works, but the point is I’ve never worried about food before. I set the worry aside, confident that I’ll find some food soon, and continue scouring the level. I’ve got to leave the Staff of Healing behind, though.

I find some Goblin Conjurers and Mystics guarding some leather armor, chain mail, and a potion of Strength, which I immediately drink. I’m finally strong enough to wear that Banded Mail I found back on level … one?

Uh-oh:

That happened faster than I thought. Again, at this point I usually just eat some food, because usually I have some. I’m mentally replaying all the time I wasted: waiting for hallucinations to wear off, waiting for darkness to wear off, hiding in the shadows, and slowly regaining health. In retrospect, those are starting to seem like poor choices.

There’s nothing left to plunder on this level — certainly no food — so I make a beeline for the stairs. Surely, there will be some food just lying around on level 8.

A scroll of Enchantment, some gold — no food in sight.

I’ve never seen this message before. I’m getting frantic, desperate for some food, a mango, anything. Plate armor, a potion of Descent, no food.

Shit. Now every step is taking a chunk out of my health. I head towards the nearest unexplored room, my health ticking away with each step, hoping against hope there’s something to eat. But of course not — I’m rewarded with a potion of Paralysis, and a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I start reading scrolls — maybe one will be Teleportation, and it’ll send me to a room with food in it. Of course, this seems vanishingly unlikely, but it’s the only hope I’ve got. And things can hardly get worse.

Of course, the next scroll I try is one of Discord. My ogre clubs me, after all I did for her. I read a scroll of Sanctuary, protecting me at least from her, but I only make it one step away before collapsing from starvation and dying.

So that’s where my delve ends — on level eight, trapped by a backstabbing Ogre, done in by being overly cautious on the earlier levels.

Tomorrow: learning from what happened