cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/24407950

I’m playing this game for literal months, hyperfixating on it for some weeks until I get into frustration cycle and abandon it for months.

Most of my characters meet their demise quite early on thanks to my impatience and bad risk assessment (permadeath isn’t great for risky players like myself :p).

I was playing around the new species (mountain dwarf) and the reworked god, Makhleb, to distract myself from a recent stress and suddenly found myself in the Realm of Zot.

After getting my runes from the Swamp, the Spider Nest and the Slime Pit, I headed to Zot. The area was pretty easy for my character except for one thing - Protean Progenitor.

The enemy would quickly build up magical contamination on me leading to some nasty mutations. I got berserkis before I realized this and couldn’t remove it with my pathetic supply of potions of mutation.

Nonetheless, I entered Zot:5 and very carefully cleared the East lung. Most enemies weren’t a problem except, of course, Orbs of Fire. I could kill them 1 on 1 with no problems but malmutation… well, according to the logs all the evil mutations I have gotten (including -scrolls) were from the first encounter with them.

In hindsight, I should’ve taken this as a sign to go raid the Crypt in hopes of getting some !mut but I was too excited. So, the moment I cleared most of Zot:5 (yes, most of - I decided not to clear the rest to avoid getting more mutations) I grabbed it.

It went really bad real quick. A brimstone fiend, Zot trap that summoned a vortex, unwanted berserk that activated in the worst moment and the inevitable demise.

Sad, but at least I learned stuff about Zot:5 and the orb run. I think I’m prepared for the next time I get to Zot.

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    suddenly found myself in the Realm of Zot.

    Yeah, when I got there the first and only time, I was also surprised how little separates you from Zot once you’ve made it through the Dungeon and the rune branches. Far too many of my characters have died on the final stretch…

  • Walican132@lemmy.todayEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    Insane congrats. I love DCsS and haven’t touched it in a few months. Didn’t know they reworked Mahleb, maybe you’ve given me some encouragement to play.

    I haven’t won in a while.

    • Lucy (she/them)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      DCSS got quite a few beefy updates recently, with reworks for Makhleb, Dithmenos, Yredelemnul and Beogh, many new spells (and a new spell school in trunk), reflavouring of Poison magic into Alchemy that allowed adding some more late game spells (e.g. Yara’s is hexes/alchemy now), return of mountain dwarves and a new species that can dual wield weapons, transmutation magic school being changed into talismans…

      I love the new changes and, for the first time in my DCSS obsession, I started playing trunk :D

  • themoken@startrek.website
    4·
    2 days ago

    Hell yeah, congrats! I get back into DCSS every few years but I have only escaped with the orb once, a lucky MiFi run. Just getting there is huge!