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Chapter 11: Caverns of Chaos V

While I hunt for secret doors, corruption catches up with me once more!

However, this is a good corruption. It increases my health regeneration rate at no penalty.

...this is as good a time as any to go into this.

CORRUPTION
The power of chaos is slowly expanding into this world. Accordingly, the deep parts of the world are filled with constant background radiation that slowly corrupts anyone in it.
Corruption starts at 0, and increases both due to corruptiong traps and monsters, and due to background radiation - at my current dungeon floor, I gain 1 corruption every 20 turns, plus an additional point every 60 turns. For every 1000 corruption points, I get a Corruption, which can be good or bad, but is usually a combination of both. Once corruption reachs 19,000, I become a writhing mass of primal chaos, ending the game.
Once 90 in-game days have passed, all background radiation doubles, and corruption starts to fillter up into even the wilderness map.

It seems that there are no secret doors! Is this just a small level?

Let's use a scroll of monster detection to check!

This is what the special message for this floor meant.

There's something massive hidden in the walls.

Dig! Dig through the walls!

Welcome to the Water Temple.
The home of the first of the Chaos Orbs.

x
Water grue
Threat Level: 6/10
Special: Corruption, ignores water, vulnerable to fire
Corpse: N/A

Fire magic is my enormously useful friend here, as is having a way to cross water! Fortunately, I have both of these, although I'm nearly out of castings of Burning Hands, and my only source of Fireballs is through wands.

First strategy is to slowly work my way around the outer wall of the temple - not all the monsters can cross water, and this way I save the strongest enemies until there's nothing else left to worry about.

And nothing left now but to penetrate the inner sanctum.

This is not an advantageous area for me to be fighting in! Line of sight is impaired by the narrow corridors, and fire bolt doesn't bounce.

s
Snake from Beyond
At first appearing to be a huge variety of water snake, this beast is revealed as something corrupted into a horror all its own. Easily twice the size of a water snake, its surface is much denser, perhaps due to its deep-water origin, where it had to endure much greater pressures than in this easy realm. It is fast for its size, attempting to bit if it cannot wrap its victim in its body, drowning and crushing them with its watery essence.
Threat Level: 8/10
Special: Chaos guardian, corruption, poison
Corpse: Massive corruption

Before I can worry about the guardian, though, I need to deal with this group of water elementals! They're good at shrugging off my fire bolts, and they can easily break through my PV with water breath.

Next step: Lure the snake off of this floor!

The reason: Teleportation is impossible on the floors of the chaos temples.

Since the Snake from Beyond is a melee boss, he is now my bitch!

I pelt him with fire bolts until he gets close...

...and teleport away when he gets too close!

AAAAAND dead.

CHAOS ORBS
~~Chaos Orb of Elemental Water~~
Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire
Chaos Orb of Elemental Air
Chaos Orb of Elemental Earth
Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana

This Chaos Orb can be equipped as a Tool to grant +10 Willpower, and used to restore massive amounts of HP. However, wielding it slowly corrupts, and using it corrupts MASSIVELY. Both of these are reduced by wearing the Elemental Gauntlets, but it's still not worth it.

And onwards we go!

Bees!

This is actually a good thing.

HOLY SHIT

I FOUND

A WAND OF WISHING

First priority!

CHECK

Just out of curiosity, how many charges does this wand have? I bet it's, like, one.

........................

Counting the one I just spent

And the one I can get by wrenching a final charge out of the wand...

FIVE WISHES.

TIME TO GET EVERYTHING I WANT

Things wished for:

Red dragon scale mail. This grants me fire immunity when worn.
Rings of ice. Plural for insurance. This protects my worn equipment from fire damage. Between this and my blessed fireproof blanket, I am now prepared for the tower of eternal flames.
Helms of mental stability. These make me resist confusion. Extremely useful for certain fights.
Seven league boots. These make me walk at double speed.
Cloaks of invisibility. Obvious advantage.

I am now a demigod.

I'm not going to wear the cloak normally, though - it massively increases food consuption rates.

b
Giant bee worker
Threat Level: 2/10
Special: Poisonous suicide attack
Corpse: Inedible

b
Giant bee warrior
Threat Level: 3/10
Special: Poisonous suicide attack
Corpse: Inedible

Found the beehive! Now to make GOOD DECISIONS.

KICK IT

b
Giant bee queen
Threat Level: 4/10
Special: Poisonous attack
Corpse: Inedible

And done.

Both of these are important items!

The bee wax will be handy later. The royal heals scars (my corrupted super regen leaves behind scars that reduce Appearance), restores HP, and cures disease and poison.

LARGE BATS: 12/20

I found an artifact!

This is not in my weapon skill category, AND it's a cursed corrupting weapon, so it's not worth it despite the insane damage output. However, I'm totally holding on to it.

LARGE BATS: 13/20

Once you get poison resistance, dark elves more or less stop being dangerous. The warriors are only a threat because they poison in melee, and the casters just summon spiders, who also poison.