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[ Home | The graveyard | The Valkyrie | The Samurai ]
Winning NetHack is called ascending. You go all the way down, take the Amulet of Yendor from the high priest at the very bottom, carry it all the way back up and out, through the Elemental Planes, to the Astral Plane, and offer it at your god's altar. Your god raises you up to demigod. The game congratulates you and then, because it's NetHack, it shows you a list of everything you were carrying that you never figured out.
In twelve years I've done it twice. Here's how, in case anyone wants to try it. Bring a lizard corpse.
NetHack 3.2. November 1996. Turn 47,962.
She was my eleventh Valkyrie that year. I'd been playing them on purpose, the way the newsgroup said, until I stopped making the beginner mistakes. With her I finally stopped.
Early. Down into the Gnomish Mines as far as Minetown, where I found an altar to check my things for curses, and a little shop that sold me a blindfold for later. I remembered 1995. Back to the main dungeon. The Oracle, the big room, a lot of Elbereth. I ate every floating eye I could find without touching one alive, and got telepathy, which you want when you're blindfolded. A soldier ant nearly got her on dungeon level 7. I went upstairs, like I tell everybody to.
Middle. Found an amulet of reflection under a pile of rocks, which still makes me laugh. So Medusa was easy: I walked up to her with it on and she looked at me and that was the end of her. Then the Castle, and the wand of wishing. I wished for gray dragon scale mail, for magic resistance; a blessed amulet of life saving, for insurance; and a blessed scroll of genocide, and used it on the liches. Then the quest. A Valkyrie's quest ends with a fire giant named Lord Surtur. He hits very hard. I hit harder, eventually, with a lot of Elbereth in between. I took the Orb of Fate off him, and the Bell of Opening too.
Gehennom. Mazes, demons, more mazes. I'd never been this deep before, and I went very slowly. The Wizard's Tower for the Book of the Dead. Vlad's Tower for the Candelabrum, and seven candles, which I'd been picking up all game without knowing exactly why. Then the vibrating square at the bottom: light the Candelabrum, ring the Bell, read the Book, and the stairs to the high priest's temple open up. He had the Amulet. Then he didn't.
Up. The trip back up is the worst part. The Wizard of Yendor keeps coming back for the Amulet and he brings friends, and every so often something pulls you back down a level. I used up the amulet of life saving around here. Then the Elemental Planes: Earth, where you dig; Air, where everything is fast and you can't see; Fire; Water, where the air moves around in bubbles and I nearly lost my mind. Then the Astral Plane.
The Astral Plane. Three temples, three altars, three gods, and you have to find the right one. The Riders are wandering around, Death and Famine and Pestilence, and you very much do not want to fight them. Angels come at you from everywhere. I found my altar on the second try, stepped on it, and offered the Amulet.
It was ten past two in the morning. I sat there in the dark in front of the screen for a while and then I went and woke up my wife to tell her. She said, "Is that the one with the dog?" I said yes. She said, "Good," and went back to sleep.
NetHack 3.2.2. February 1999. Turn 39,517.
After the eel, in October, I started another Samurai the same night, out of spite. It took four months of evenings.
A Samurai is fast from the start, and strong, with a katana that does real damage and a little dog called Hachi. My Hachi grew up into a large dog and was the best pet I've ever had. He killed a soldier ant on dungeon level 5 that would have killed me. He died at the Castle, to a soldier with a wand, and I was sorrier about it than I can reasonably explain to anyone who doesn't play.
A Samurai serves Amaterasu Omikami. The Samurai quest is to go back home, where Lord Sato sends you after a traitor named Ashikaga Takauji, who has the Tsurugi of Muramasa. I got it back. At Medusa I did everything right for once: reflection, a blindfold in my pack just in case, and I stayed away from the edge of the water. I shot the eels with my bow from dry land. You can do that. I hadn't thought of it before. I'd been going at them with my sword.
Gehennom went faster the second time, because now I knew where everything was supposed to be. The Wizard of Yendor was just as rude. The Water plane was just as bad. On the Astral Plane I found the right altar on the first try, which I'd like to say was skill.
----------------- |...............| |......._.......| |.....&...@.....| |....A..........| |...............| -----------------
That's roughly what it looked like at the end: the altar (_), me (@), one of the Riders (&) much too close, and an angel (A) who'd been following me around for a while. I stepped on the altar, offered the Amulet, and that was it. Demigod. 2:40 on a Sunday afternoon. My wife was in the next room. I told her. She said, "Another one?" and I said "That's only two," and she said, "That's two more than I've done," which is true, and she's never played.
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Brad Despain, [email protected]