Attempt #6: The beginning went wrong this time. First blood was drawn by the very first monster on DLVL 1 Weird, but true. Skeleton.. However, the rest of it went fine. Many healing scrolls & pots collected, 2 or 3 short bows, eerire shrine and a book of healing, some mana pots too.
dlvl 2 turned out to be a greater challenge: I had to fight rotting corpses and even came across some skeleton boss pack, I don't remember its name Bonehead or something, apart from that all went fione. I even got lucky to acquire a cape of helath (-1 dfe).
Nothing special on dlvl 3. I discovered Leo's pack in a far corner behind several doors and left them at that. Continued on with leveling. Found a hunter's bow at last, that's what I remembered from this level.
dlvl 4 went good, sure I had some difficulties but nothing special. oh, I found abandoned shrine there. small bt pleasant
nothing else, level was finished and I was standing next to the gate to catacombs
..and this is where my sweet life ended
Right next to the room where I arrived shadowcrow appeared. Fortunately, I noticed a small goat room woth shrine and again fortunately there were no goatmen in it. I stood in doorway and took out little bastards one by one. Shadowcrow hit me several times, I remember, nearly sending me right to attempt #7 ))) but somwhow I survived. Bow damage wasn't enoughto stun him effectively, but eventually I managed to survive. The rest of the level didn't give so much adrenaline.
dlvl 6... Here I found what I didn't want. Hounds. I had to dodge like crazy to avoid taking damage and unfortunately while doing so activated abnormally large gathering of fire goat archers. This was a harsh test for quick attack and run using happy feet skill because I had no doorway to retreat to and also didn't have a lot of space for maneuvering But I survived again
Advancing further was quite challenging because level was populated mostly by horror archers, hounds and fire goat archers. All shooters. I took eastern direction, cleared it ther and returned to continue upper side of the level. That's where I found Deathspit and its pack.
I had to use dungeon layout to my advantage and I didn't lose a single hitpoint in this battle. The rest of the level went smooth and was finished. By that time, I had beaten my record!
level 7.. starting with giving me creeps right away. As it turned out, not in vain... The first room I stepped in had no monsters in it, but in the corridor behind it I faced Blightfire with his gang of sissy archers. Again, dungeon layout proved helpful but not as good this time. I used several pots this time.
Also, I had to find some gargoyle bosspack - Nightwing. Level was finished, I survived again.
level 8 was again populated by fire archers, I met also mudmen and familiars. The only boss was mudman with hidden attack type. I didn't see his name because I was shooting from decent distance. Quite challenging, but nothing really hard. level 8 was finished.
level 9.. that;s where serious problems began! There were only runners. Frost and Mud, same time. Not too far away from from stairs I met Breakspine pack, to make it worse, he was accompanied by incredible amount of frost chargers. Fortunately, I had 1-10 bow with lightning arrows 1-6 there. but still in that battle I lost lots of life and mana pots.
I survived level 9, but this was already not that evident.
level 10. Here it became even worse. Lava lords (worst type) and blue lightning demons (forgot name) started convincing me it's time to give up. I took out as much of them as I could but my pots ran out and I realised I wouldn't be able to continue fighting. My bows got broken too and I had two basic bows of moderate damage left. There would be no problem to continue, but without pots I was doomed.
I decided to take a look at what's happening on floor 11. I saw some hellstones there and two obsidian lords. Those managed to corner me and this is where I finally died.
So, attempt #6 was finished on level 10. It's my record, but hinestly I was hoping fo more this time. It took me 4 hours to get there and I must say playing this way was really scary and gave me lots of creeps.