Annotated Playthrough Magma Mines

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Annotated Playthrough of Magma Mines - Complicated Task 6

This is a demonstration of one approach to the Complicated Task (Part 6) Quest, which requires you to beat the Magma Mines as a Priest without using health or mana potions. The approach I will be demonstrating is one of the more simple, and it's commonly referred to as the "poor man's bloodmage". In essence, I will play as if I were a bloodmage and hope to find the BLUDTUPOWA glyph.

In terms of preparations, I have chosen the 25 gold allowance, magnet: fireball, and the crystal ball as my locker item. I will be playing as an elf.

Normally for this approach you would prepare the apothecary preparation and a Schadenfreude potions as well. The goal would be to buy as many Schadenfreude potions as possible (which do not preclude you from winning this quest) to boost your mana in place of mana potions. I will not be doing this, even though it is massively beneficial for an elf.


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This is one of the luckiest finds you can get in the current build, immediately locating an altar to Jehora Jeheyu. His boost health and boost mana boons are not only very powerful, but their only downside is that he takes away your health and mana potions. That is completely irrelevant to me, so this is the perfect deity. This is so good... that I'm not going to use him for this demo.

Instead, I turn my attention to a nearby goblin level 3. He's too strong for me attack, but I can start bombarding him with my fireball glyph. Every time I cast a spell, I build up charges on my crystal ball. When the ball is fully charged, I should be able to toss enough fireballs to kill him outright.

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See? I have 12 charges on my crystal ball, and two more fireballs will knock out that goblin. I've also begun worshiping Mystera. She is a decent deity for this approach, but not nearly at the same level as Jehora Jeheyu.

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This level 4 Minotaur is going to become the next victim of my fully-charged crystal ball. Always ensure to cast as many spells as you can, since a fully-charged crystal ball is better than drinking two mana potions!

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This level 5 wraith is an excellent target. Between a few fireballs and the priest's +100% damage against undead, I can take him even without my crystal ball. Notice that I am not converting glyphs that I find on the ground. I intend to use Mystera's “refreshment” boon later, so I only want to convert glyphs if I need to boost my MP to do something in particular.

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Taking down a monster three levels higher than yourself? Bah, between refreshment, my crystal ball, and +100% for a priest versus undead, I could take on a higher level wraith than this if I could find him. Too bad, I'll just have to settle on taking down a level 7.

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I found the subdungeon and curiosity got the better of me. It's Draco the Dragonspawn and his magic heart that gives +3 HP every time you level up. Now I've gotta escape with the heart. Normally any character that can actually make good use of the heart can't defeat Draco to escape, but that's why I brought the WEYTWUT glyph. Why kill him when I can just slip past?

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Woo, a level 9 wraith! Too bad I need to use my crystal ball here. I'm just shy of being able to take him without it. I could convert some stuff to get up to 18 mana, but I'd prefer to reserve my glyphs for the boss to use refreshment, plus I still have some space to recharge my crystal ball.

I can't begin the boss battle until I've found all three bosses, so at this point I just want to explore until I find boss #3.

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Time to take out Hurr, the physical resist boss. I will barrage him with spells, then convert glyphs to capitalize on refreshment, which will give me more than enough fireballs to take him out even without my crystal ball.

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After killing one of the two mini-bosses, the other is immediately reduced to 1 HP. I need only tap him to knock him out. If you can't survive a hit, that could be a problem, but you can always use either Binlor or Mystera to reduce his magic resist. Anything less than 100% and you can land a killing blow.

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I'm out of mana, I've converted every glyph except for BURNDAYRAZ, and I've used my crystal ball. Looks like I'm out of resources, right? Of course not! I painstakingly fought only powerful monsters to level up; the dungeon is still littered with weaklings that I can slaughter for XP. This will give me a full-heal and mana restore.

I also have 100 piety with Mystera, so I could easily convert to a deity like Glowing Guardian, Dracul, or Jehora Jeheyu to request their boons for assistance. I have not purchased the flames boon, so my melee attack is still fairly potent (though as an elf it's nothing to write home about). I also have an enormous sum of gold to buy pretty much whatever I want from the shops.

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A few more fireballs after levelling up and Herp the Foreman is out for the count. I lose some piety from Mystera since I had to kill many spellcaster monsters; this is one reason why you usually convert out of her religion for these sorts of end-game situations.

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Overall this run was played at a significant handicap, with suboptimal preparations, ignoring the best deity available to me, not buying stuff from shops despite a massive amount of spending cash, not capitalizing on the massive synergy between elves and schadenfreude, and so on and so forth. I also didn't find the best glyph for the poor man's bloodmage – the coveted BLUDTUPOWA glyph. I did nothing except charge up my crystal ball and use it to repeatedly incinerate monsters many levels higher than myself.