A promising young 3.4.3 caveman has just stumbled onto a trapdoor
hidden under a statue on Medusa level with an uncharacteristically
meagre inventory and is now stuck in between that level (Isle version)
and the Castle with one maze level to make it somewhat less boring. No
levitation, water walking, striking, pick-axe, teleport, scroll of
earth, source of music (the latter doesn't really matter as there is
no suitable boulder on Castle level either), identify and most other
potentially interesting things.

The caveman has a wand of digging though. I vaguely remember that a
hole on an upper level can be used to get past the Castle if all
trapdoors there happen to be blocked. Tried that, didn't work after
50+ attempts. That's probably the main question here - should I keep
trying (and what are the chances of falling through to the Valley?) or
is it not possible at all?

Finding something useful in the Valley is my main hope at the moment.
Failing that, and keeping in mind I am not really prepared to go any
further anyway (no fire and magic resistance), do you have any other
suggestions? I mean, I can probably wander the maze level for a while
feeding on spawned monsters (fortunately they are typically rather
fat here) and hope for a scroll of teleport or a wand of striking or
a pick-axe (the latter two for a chance of levitation boots in the
statue) to pop up before I get absolutely bored. But... maybe I am
missing some other solution? I have virtually no useful items/spells I
can think of. I have a couple of scrolls of unknown BUC status that
can potentially be taming or genocide, but that too doesn't sound
terribly promising...

On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 15:19:56 UTC+10, Paulus wrote:
> A promising young 3.4.3 caveman has just stumbled onto a trapdoor

UPD: An hour, many thousand moves, 2 scrolls of teleportation (both
just shuddered for a moment), wand of striking (just an empty sack),
a full set of food-conveyed intrinsics and about 50 extra strength
later finally released by a pack of winter wolves.

Still wondering if there was a quicker way out...

Paulus <andrei.poliakov@gmail.com> writes:

> A promising young 3.4.3 caveman has just stumbled onto a trapdoor
> hidden under a statue on Medusa level with an uncharacteristically
> meagre inventory and is now stuck in between that level (Isle version)
> and the Castle with one maze level to make it somewhat less boring. No
> levitation, water walking, striking, pick-axe, teleport, scroll of
> earth, source of music (the latter doesn't really matter as there is

One thing you didn't mention is a wand of cold.
Do you have one (or preferably two or three) of those?
Polypiling might also give you something useful if you have a wand of
poly.

--
Jukka Lahtinen

On 18.05.2021 07:19, Paulus wrote:
> A promising young 3.4.3 caveman has just stumbled onto a trapdoor
> hidden under a statue on Medusa level with an uncharacteristically
> meagre inventory and is now stuck in between that level (Isle version)
> and the Castle with one maze level to make it somewhat less boring. No
> levitation, water walking, striking, pick-axe, teleport, scroll of
> earth, source of music (the latter doesn't really matter as there is
> no suitable boulder on Castle level either), identify and most other
> potentially interesting things.

I don't quite understand that. Why do you need a boulder if you'd
have a music instrument and can open the drawbridge with it?

Another question I have is why didn't you bring the scrolls of earth
with you?

>
> The caveman has a wand of digging though. I vaguely remember that a
> hole on an upper level can be used to get past the Castle if all
> trapdoors there happen to be blocked. Tried that, didn't work after
> 50+ attempts. That's probably the main question here - should I keep
> trying (and what are the chances of falling through to the Valley?) or
> is it not possible at all?

Hmm.. - that's at least something I'd also have tried.

I seem to recall that (in earlier versions at least) it was possible
to pass (with decreasing probability) a lot of levels. I faintly also
recall that there were special cases (the quest?) where it wasn't
desired (and probably changed in newer versions). Since Castle and
Valley are special levels something might prevent it (generally or
now); after 50+ tries I'd expect some variance.

>
> Finding something useful in the Valley is my main hope at the moment.
> Failing that, and keeping in mind I am not really prepared to go any
> further anyway (no fire and magic resistance), do you have any other
> suggestions?

That's difficult to answer; you have mentioned a lot of *standard*
items that you *don't* have. It would thus be at least useful to
know all the items you *do* have to make appropriate suggestions.

> I mean, I can probably wander the maze level for a while
> feeding on spawned monsters (fortunately they are typically rather
> fat here) and hope for a scroll of teleport or a wand of striking or
> a pick-axe (the latter two for a chance of levitation boots in the
> statue) to pop up before I get absolutely bored. But... maybe I am
> missing some other solution? I have virtually no useful items/spells I
> can think of. I have a couple of scrolls of unknown BUC status that
> can potentially be taming or genocide, but that too doesn't sound
> terribly promising...

So, what else do you have?

Janis

On 18.05.2021 07:19, Paulus wrote:
> A promising young 3.4.3 caveman has just stumbled onto a trapdoor
> hidden under a statue on Medusa level with an uncharacteristically
> meagre inventory and is now stuck in between that level (Isle version)
> and the Castle with one maze level to make it somewhat less boring.

I'd thoroughly search the maze for traps, specifically level-teleport,
but also polymorph might open options. (Mind specifically the locations
where traps are typically set up in mazes.)

Janis

On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 18:07:17 UTC+10, Jukka Lahtinen wrote:
> One thing you didn't mention is a wand of cold.
> Do you have one (or preferably two or three) of those?
> Polypiling might also give you something useful if you have a wand of
> poly.
None of those in the game so far, and not much fodder - initially - to
polypile anyway. Wand of cold would be an obvious solution, and I
actually ended up getting released by repeated cold attacks from
winter wolves. But, since I was kind of asking for an obvious (to anyone
except myself) solution, thanks for your suggestion!

On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 22:16:16 UTC+10, Janis wrote:
> I don't quite understand that. Why do you need a boulder if you'd
> have a music instrument and can open the drawbridge with it?
My bad thinking. As I normally use striking to enter the Castle it
didn't occur to me that with passtune there is no need to bridge the
moat. Anyway, in my situation that wasn't particularly relevant.

> Another question I have is why didn't you bring the scrolls of earth
> with you?
Basically I didn't intend to go pass Medusa, just happened to fall
through. Also, I was moving some stash prior to that and so chose not
to carry some of the regular equipment (the pick-axe in particular, not
that it would help in this particular case). I always carry some cursed
scrolls of teleportation with me, meaning that in this game I hadn't
come across any yet (but teleportation failed me twice anyway as
mentioned above). I would say a lesson learned seems to be "always
carry earth and striking". At the same time... two scrolls of earth
are probably not enough to traverse the non-Isle Medusa level, they can
come cursed, sometimes you don't have a bag until fairly late etc...
But yes, in this particular case even a single uncursed scroll of earth
would likely suffice.

I think I also had some unidentified boots that I would normally carry
when coming to Medusa level by intention. But, alas, I hadn't taken
those with me either.

> > The caveman has a wand of digging though. I vaguely remember that a
> > hole on an upper level can be used to get past the Castle if all
> > trapdoors there happen to be blocked. Tried that, didn't work after
> > 50+ attempts. That's probably the main question here - should I keep
> > trying (and what are the chances of falling through to the Valley?) or
> > is it not possible at all?
> Hmm.. - that's at least something I'd also have tried.
I gave up on that, surely did over 100 attempts, so if it is possible
at all to pass the Castle this way the odds are slim compared to
normal.

> That's difficult to answer; you have mentioned a lot of *standard*
> items that you *don't* have. It would thus be at least useful to
> know all the items you *do* have to make appropriate suggestions.
Basically nothing, but I agree, I probably should have explicitly listed
anything remotely non-trivial in my inventory.

On Tuesday, 18 May 2021 at 22:37:20 UTC+10, Janis wrote:
> I'd thoroughly search the maze for traps, specifically level-teleport,
> but also polymorph might open options. (Mind specifically the locations
> where traps are typically set up in mazes.)
Thanks, that's actually a good suggestion, I should have walked through
the maze visiting every location, as if searching for vibrating square.
In reality, in my somewhat random wanderings I found two polymorph
traps (useless, but at least didn't destroy my armor) and no levelports.

And the topic of wandering the maze reminds me of one item I didn't
mention, the magic lamp. My only one, and cursed. You'd probably
agreee there would be little point trying to burn it unless the situation
became life-threatening, but it should have been mentioned of course.