http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20220123-003717.txt

http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20220130-151148.txt

Another twofer - but it was a two-streak, they both did Tomb
excessively early, and I don't have much to write about the VpVM.

The VpVM was a distinctly scrappy win, nearly dying several
times. This was partly because I leaned heavily on OTR early on, which
worked very well but left me short of options for unpoisonable
targets. I'd later rely on Yara's, Iron Shot, Isk's Battlesphere+Magic
Dart, Orb of Destruction, and - thanks to a manual of Earth Magic -
Shatter. It helped tremendously that I found a ring with {Wiz rPois
rF+++ rC+ MR+} early on (D:9) and a +10 ring mail on Elf:3 - with
these, I could cast high-level spells with relatively good defences.

The breakthrough on Tomb was the realisation, after Shattering my way
into the corridor of bastards on Tomb:1 by accident, that I might as
well stay Bloodless and spam Shatter. At first I'd tried fighting with
less high-level spells and ended up salvaging the situation with
Shatter - but then I was Bloodless anyway owing to the huge food cost
of Shatter but also low on HP. Much better to start torment-immune -
sure, I'd take a few smites, but nothing could live for very long in
LOS and Veh would keep topping up my MP. By the time I hit Tomb:3 I
was just standing at the point I came in and bouncing on Shatter; it
took a while to chew up bennu, and I had to use up a few potion of
magic (and teleport eventually) but it was all pretty routine stuff.

I had much more trouble with a draconian pack on Z:4 than anything in
Tomb:3 - partly, yes, owing to our old friend overconfidence.

And there's a 15-rune Ghoul Hunter. Some day I may 15-rune something
that's not Punch Ghoul, but not today; where the last one relied on
Makhleb for HP topups in combat, this one used Usk to win fights
faster. This didn't always work out (but with Usk you have plenty of
consumables because you won most fights faster), but (partly because
of wearing faith almost all game) I managed to Grand Finale most of
the named panlords and hell lords, the Serpent of Hell, etc.

The game really took off when I found the scales of the Dragon King in
an Orc:2 shop; I had a little while to go before I could buy them but
then had very solid defences - in particular the extra MR was
invaluable. Maddeningly, I did then find a silent bazaar on Shoals:3
and a second bazaar on Shoals:4 and, of course, could buy almost
nothing.

After Dungeon/Lair/Orc/S-branches/Elf I went straight from Vaults:2 to
the Crypt and the Tomb. The Tomb wasn't completely harmless, but it
didn't pose too much trouble. Then Slime (which got very hairy when I
fought TRJ), Depths, Abyss (got the rune in almost no time), the
Vestibule, Pan (getting Holy Pan, which was not as bad as I expected,
but still pretty harsh), Tar, Coc, Geh, Dis.

Finally I bought a manual of Poison Magic to get OTR online in Zot
(where it gave some good service) and went for the Orb. Not much to
say about that except I had a nasty moment where I impulsively Grand
Finaled a curse toe on the Orb to find an OOF and an alich behind it,
but I drowned them in box beasts.

Saw one panlord on the orb run, but it couldn't catch me. I then asked
the RNG for my next combo - FoNe - and immediately splatted one, so
I'm back in my normal situation, a no-streak.