Ancient Ruins (3) – abusing Teleport for fun and profit

I always thought the female Fairy hair looked stupid, but I still can't tell if that Elf is male or female.

I need a break. Old Palace lasted longer than expected and I wrote more than I thought I would.

Not that easy to spot unless you like having the camera almost horizontal.

So, those siderooms in the Ancient Ruins. There’s some nice loot in there, but at the point you technically have access to it, the large number of enemies in a confined space that guard each treasure will probably either make you run, crying, or kill you because you stepped too far away from the door and got stuck in there.
Now that I’m several tens of levels more powerful, I figure I can deal much more easily with the metal wisps performing guard duty. Specifically, ‘Extend Magic and Explosion’ ease, which kills them in a single cast if you catch them with both hits, or sometimes just a single hit if they don’t resist. You can get to them without needing to go through the boss first, if you know where to drop down, and MP expenditure doesn’t matter so long as I can clear two rooms of that in short order, then hit Teleport afterwards. If I keep Teleport on the autospell, I can even practice casting Explosion by command.
The metallic slimes are a bit tougher, but still go down to one or two Explosion casts, usually, and if not can be taken out by a few physical attacks afterwards. That’s MP-intensive, and I fail the command for Explosion half the time; a much more effective way is for me to just to put Striking on and throw Water Bullets at them if they try to jump on me.

Loot

Dropneal [Accessory] x3
[All]
Treasure said to bring the bearer great wealth.

Whoo! Dropneal the first time around! This handy little trinket increases the amount of experience you get, and apparently the chance of looting Fate Coins, to boot. It also increases the money you pick up, but that’s kind of worthless. I’ll probably take this along the next time I go to the Old Palace.
The metallic slime-things will also drop these.

Mirror Armor [Armour]
[Df.52]
[War, Dwf]
Silver armor with a fine reflective exterior.

Can’t remember if I covered this previously, before I started putting in the images. Well, here it is again, complete with icon. This dropped from one of the metallic wisp types.

Guardian Shield [Shield]
[Df.31]
[War, Dwf]
Made by warriors, increases magical power.

So, once again we have a non-Sorcerer, non-Priest, non-Fairy item that works on magic. It’s probably more related to magic defence, but that kind of description looks silly on any class that deals in melee and melee alone, unless they make heavy use of magical objects.

Guardian Robe [Armour] x2
[Df.92, MDf.90, Str.24, Con.24, ]
[Pri, Sor, Fai]
Powerfully protective. Made by hell’s guardians.

Yaay, Guardian Robe. But this is a little bit of a disappointment. Whilst it’s better than the Robe of Spirits by Strength, Constitution and Magic Defence bonuses, it’s worse in terms of Intelligence, Will and Power. And, well, basic Defence, but that’s because my Robe of Spirits has at least twenty Material Magics on it.
Worth keeping around for hitting the Fire Dragon, I suppose, as I’ll need a lot of Magic Defence in addition to regular defence. Based on its bonuses, it’s built for someone who’ll melee more often than use magic for attacking – at this point, a Priest, or a Fairy without or unable to use its Forbidden Spells. Or, admittedly, a Sorcerer in the Old Palace.
Oh, yeah. Note the red jewel that appears on both the Guardian Robe and Guardian Shield. Seems to be a common trait of Guardian gear thus far.

Guardian Sword [Weapon]
[At.75, Df.20]
[War]
Sword of the arcanes, strengthens magical power.

Another melee piece that ’strengthens magical power’? I’ve ranted enough about those. Like the Guardian Armour that I apparently found some time back, the Guardian Sword helps both Attack and Defence – put together, the pair give a very nice 91 Attack and 115 Defence, and probably a host of stat bonuses on top of that.
It’s also the first Guardian piece I’ve seen not to have a red jewel on it somewhere.

Silver Shield [Armour]
[Df.48]
[Rog, Hun, Elf]
It has fine protective sigils to turn back demons.

This is another random drop from the metallic-wisp-things. For something with little but a metallic body and eyes, they carry a lot of armour with them. Including things they shouldn’t be able to touch, if the ‘fine protective sigils’ here really worked.

Also:

Material Magic x4
One of these from a chest – disappointing – and one from a Gargoyle. The third from a metallic slime, and the fourth from a Chimera. This place isn’t quite as good as the Crystal Maze, but it’s a nice bonus if you’re hunting other things. Fifth from another metallic slime.
Incidentally, watch out for the Chimera. They know Thunderbolt, in addition to the much less dangerous third-level spells.

Ice Jewel x1
Dropped by one of the metal wisps.

Blood Extract x1
Brown wolves drop these. Actually, a lot of beastly enemies drop this – the undead bears in the Abandoned Mines, for example. More HP is always a good thing for survival.
Have I mentioned these before? I swear I have…

Of course, watch out for poison. Apparently if you finish casting Teleport whilst poisoned, and drop to 0 HP as you fade out to go to the map, you still get game over. Happily, I didn’t actually lose anything.
Aside from four Material Magics and three levels. Blast. Well, I’m done here, anyway; I’m going to run through Old Palace again and hope I don’t get Bolt of Larie this time.

~ by lioleus on June 15, 2009.