Miss Belle Zenwhistles is a noble warriorwoman who came to the Dungeons of Dredmor with the might of an Oni, the wit of MacGuyver, and the luck of Donald Duck. A certified Wind-up Warrior, Belle is determined to defeat the lich in his deepest, darkest hole using the powers of technology. Skillset: Clockwork Knight. The core of the "build", as it were. Bushido. What kind of warrior doesn't have a code? Silver Tongue. She's the noble kind of charming warrior who would rather talk than kill. Ish. Wind Magic. She got confused in school and thought that they meant wind magic, which would totally have been keen for a Wind-up Warrior, but then figured she had a knack for it and stuck with it anyway. Demonology. She figured what better way to eventually become a Paladin than to study her foes. Smithing. How do you think she got so buff? Tinkering. 'Cause, seriously, what's clockwork without it? Of course, Belle being honorable, the first thing she did when she came into the dungeon was discard the uber-wrench that she wasn't technically supposed to have (it being a fix for an already-fixed bug, after all) and look about. What lie in store? Only kicking down a door would tell...
Well, if this is popular and works out, I'll do a Ninjitsu/Trickster/Poisoneer build and see how it runs. And I have no experience at all with (video) screencap software -- any suggestions?
Sticking with the rigorous, logical, "follow the left wall" approach, Belle kicked in the right-hand door, discovered a sleeping Wight, and crit it clean in two. The next door lead to a dead end where some poor adventurer had previously perished, leaving behind a useful belt and a nicely-sized wooden crossbow. Belle prayed for her fallen peer and dedicated the loot to vengeance in his name. The very next room over contained a shrine to an obscure goddess of little relevance to the outside world. Being a devout worshipper of everything holy, however, Belle felt it was important to heed the goddess's request and destroy this Destroyer of Turnips and his followers, the Insignificant Shuggoth. She vowed to do so even though it wasn't directly important to her mission. Immediately beyond that shrine lie another, of a very different kind. A magical altar called out to Belle and bade her put her blade on it's surface. It came back charged with magic power, which Belle wasn't terribly impressed by, but certainly didn't mind having. With so much activity (and so few enemies) in the first few rooms of the dungeon, Belle thought that perhaps this whole quest thing was going to be easier than it seemed. After exploring a brief side-hall (and noting the location of some downward stairs she might be willing to use later), she happened upon an entire room full of books. She learned of the creation of many things, including something so amazingly complex she hadn't even the slightest idea how to make the things the book said she would need in order to build it. Someday, she figured -- someday...
A while (and another anvil shrine) later, Belle found herself in a sticky situation -- a trap she wasn't certain she could disarm lie in front of her, and failure would almost certainly spell her doom. Fortunately, she remembered her 'wind' magic before she made a fatal error, and used a series of short gusts to push the offending trap out of her path. At some point, she killed a Sickly Diggle and had a spontaneous epiphany into the workings of hammer, anvil, and traps. (Because the next level of Clockwork Knights isn't really useful until Floor 2, and I wanted more trapskill, but I also wanted the spare Burliness. ) She was shortly startled to learn that the Goddess of Sidequests was apparently a much-favored deity in these parts, for a second shrine offered her a second reason to focus on something other than the lich...and she accepted it, aware that many floors of evilness stood between her and her prey regardless, so she might as well take her time. The Sufferer of Waffles -- sounded dangerous. She would have to be on her guard with two evil captains running about the dungeon with her. And boy, howdy, was she right! That sumbitch was all but immune to her normal attacks, requiring a clever combination of wand use, traps, more wind magic, and even a Potion of Replenishment to take down. ..but eventually, down he went... The rest of Lord Dredmor's 82nd was somewhere out there, but that part of the story will have to wait...
The rest of the 82nd turned out to be slightly less than threatening -- a bunch of tubers. Shortly thereafter, the Goddess Inconsequentia deigned to bestow on Belle a 'gift' -- a completely useless enchanted traffic cone. A short while later, Belle stumbled upon a strange-looking chest that had an extraordinary locking mechanism -- and it was already open! Unfortunately, it's contents were largely useless. Until, that is, Belle turned a corner and found herself confronted with a porcine Demon willing to trade her junk for Zorkmids, the currency of his foul realm. Belle happily unloaded everything, including her collection of 3 prized artifact Traffic Cones, including the one from Inconsequentia. Several uneventful passageways later, Belle opened a door and found herself beset by intelligent speaking bats! Praising her luck at finding Bats capable of understanding English (was Fus Ro Dah actually English? she wondered), she proceeded to talk them out of attacking, and into a deep and abiding slumber... ...and then wake them all up by slamming one with a massive Samurai shout-and-slice technique she picked up from her Japanese sword-teacher. Slaying the bats in Samurai fashion led her to deeper understandings of the ways of Bushido, which she would soon need. (She needed the HP and occasional regen provided by Mt. Self if she wanted to make it to DL2 at the rate she was going.) Because shortly thereafter, she stumbled across the dreaded Destroyer of Turnips! She unleashed one of the extraordinarily complex Clockwork Drill Bombs she had found earlier on the dungeon floor, and watched as it blew him the f**k up, nearly singing her in the process. The Destroyer of Turnips would not die that easily, however, and it took another boring Dwarven speech followed up by a Samurai-style kiai to eliminate the thrusty beast. The reward was as ineffective as the Goddess' previous, but no doubt the demon pig would like it... Belle continued to explore the dungeon for quite some time, at one point suddenly realizing that she had a better grasp of the language these strange creatures occasionally used, and she used it to talk herself into a whole new level of ability. (Figured Fake It would go well with the smattering of other craftiness I'd get from Clockwork Knights.) Eventually, Belle found another sidequest... ...and then another! It was starting to feel like Inconsequentia's true purpose was to aid Dredmor by distracting his opponents with all of her silliness. But Belle had promised the Goddess she would persevere, and she did, first slaying the Eater of Cinderblocks... ...for which she received another so-called "artifact" that would turn into a couple hundred Zorkmid if she was lucky. Obviously Dredmor's plan was to depress his foes into insignificance. Then, she handly bested the 99th platoon, getting yet another enchanted stick. But knowing that only one small corner of the map remained to be explored thrilled Belle to the loins, for she knew that she would soon be descending one level lower -- one level closer to her ultimate goal. Killing Dremor!
Just want to say that since there have been no responses, that this is actually really fun to read, and I do hope you continue with it. I don't know how many other people read it though sadly. It may have a rather low audience.
I read it! I thought I had commented on it... guess I didn't... Keep it up, it's fun to read! I'd do something like this, but I refuse to play without being on hard mode and permadeath, and since I've never beaten the game before, a sudden stupid death would be very likely, and would probably be annoying.
Hey, now that my mod's got images, think it could make an appearance in a sequel? I ask mostly because I can't install multiple mods at once, seems to be a mac bug And I'd really like to see it in action with some other skills!
We'll see. I'm unfortunately not going to have massive amounts of time to keep up on this story as it is -- it'll probably have to be dropped down to once or twice a week. But if Belle dies early, I'll try to work SwiftStriker into the Trickster/Ninjitsu build I have planned for Round II.
I like these kind of threads. Sadly they don't seem to last long. Keep up the good work. Ill be watching this thread .
DAMMIT. I had a huge post here about Belle's adventures, but I hit the Back key by accident and lost it all right when I was about to post the last of 20+ screenshots. Now it's time to make dinner, so it'll have to wait -- but more is coming soon, I promise.
