The Eye of the Aethiopica
" The Eye of the Aethiopica | |
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Base item | amulet of ESP |
Affiliation | |
When carried |
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When worn | (none) |
When invoked |
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Base price | 4000 zm |
Weight | 20 |
The Eye of the Aethiopica is the wizard quest artifact. It is neutral for wishing purposes; if you are a wizard, it will adjust its alignment to your starting alignment.
Its base item type is amulet of ESP, so wearing it provides extrinsic telepathy. You can also abuse the naming artifacts exploit to determine whether an unidentified amulet is ESP or not.
Special effects
Apart from being worn for extrinsic ESP (from the base item type), all other effects are available simply by carrying The Eye. This is handy as you can wear another amulet, say an amulet of life saving instead if ESP is not essential for you.
You can invoke the Eye to branchport. In other words, you can immediately teleport to another branch of the dungeon that you have visited. You arrive on the previously-visited level of that branch which is closest to your current location. Attempting to branchport to the branch you are currently in gives the message "You feel very disoriented for a moment." and has no effect. Adjacent hostile monsters will follow you through the gate into the new branch; this is a common method to transport many wraiths from the Valley of the Dead so they are more likely to leave a corpse. The branchport ability of the Eye makes Sokoban an ideal stash location. A typical branchport menu might look like:
Open a portal to which dungeon? ---------- |........-#### ------------- a - The Dungeons of Doom |........| #######-...........| b - Gehennom |........| |...........| c - The Gnomish Mines ---------- |..@........| d - The Quest --------+---- e - Sokoban # f - Fort Ludios # (end)
While carried, The Eye provides half spell damage protection, magic resistance, and fast power regeneration. With fast power regeneration, you restore at least one power per turn -- this is far quicker than you would otherwise.
In the opinion of many experts (such as Rast and Eidolos), the Eye of the Aethiopica is not only the best artifact in NetHack, but also the best item.
Encyclopedia entry
This is a powerful amulet of ESP. In addition to its standard powers, it regenerates the energy of anyone who carries it, allowing them to cast spells more often. It also reduces any spell damage to the person who carries it by half, and protects from magic missiles. Finally, when invoked it has the power to instantly open a portal to any other area of the dungeon, allowing its invoker to travel quickly between areas.