Black market (SLASH'EM)
In SLASH'EM, the black market is a shop that covers most of its level and offers a wide variety of goods but charges many times the usual price for them. Specifically, it charges 50x as much for magical items, and 25x as much for normal items. The portal to the black market is located between levels 22 and 23, and pets can't go through it.
One-eyed Sam is the shopkeeper, and is very difficult to kill, even as shopkeepers go. He wields the deadly sword Thiefbane and is equipped with most of an ascension kit (well-enchanted gray dragon scale mail, a shield of reflection and speed boots, as well as an amulet of life saving).
Contents
Map
The black market is laid out as shown below; the shop encompasses all but the narrow corridor on the left:
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The walls are undiggable, and the level is non-teleport. The assistants are the nine monsters shown here. They are, from top to bottom:
- A pit fiend named Hilvuuloth
- A rock troll named William
- A balrog named Njalnohaar
- A cockatrice named Simon
- A wood nymph named Daphne
- A rhaumbusun named Izzy
- A rock troll named Thomas
- A cockatrice named Wilbur
- A frost giant named Goliath
If the assistant's race has been genocided, it will be replaced with another monster with the same name (e.g. a winter wolf named Thomas). All of the assistants are initially asleep and peaceful, and will be awakened by noises such as explosions. They will immediately awaken and become hostile if you attack One-eyed Sam yourself - attacking them or any named monster yourself (including even previously named ones) will make One-eyed Sam hostile as well, so be cautious when using the #call command in the black market. Note that this only applies in the shop: if you can lure one of Sam's assistants into the hallway, you can safely kill it in plain sight of him without making him hostile.
Engravings in the corridor admonish would-be customers:
Pets are not allowed in the shop. Thieves will be killed. Sorry about the mess. Remember, ask if you need help! Don't even think about stealing anything.
One-eyed Sam
@ black marketeer 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 28 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 4d10 |
| Base level | 25 |
| Base experience | 891 |
| Speed | 24 |
| Base AC | -8 |
| Base MR | 50 |
| Alignment | -2 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | death magic, fire, cold, sleep, electricity, petrification |
| Resistances conveyed | sleep (100%) |
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A black marketeer:
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| Reference | SLASH'EM_0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line3813 |
One-eyed Sam is a special type of shopkeeper known as a "black marketeer", and acts as the overseer of the black market. In addition to starting off with ascension-gear equipment, being a black marketeer grants One-eyed Sam increased speed, increased damage, higher level, and inherent resistance to death magic and petrification. He is not resistant to draining magic, though.
Be careful
Be very careful not to damage merchandise. This applies to all shops, but even more so in the black market since costs will be so high that you risk not being able to clear your debt; it is a good idea to enter the black market with plenty of gems and gold just in case.
Don't eat tins or you might drop your artifact weapons and never be able to buy them back normally.
Turn autopickup off, or you might try to pick up a cursed scroll of scare monster.
Don't light candles, magic candles, or magic lamps.
Less expensive accidents, but still annoying, if you entered without any gold or gems: Don't pick up molds; they revive, and then you have to pay for them. Don't use tinning kits on molds or trolls to eliminate them, since you will be charged for their corpses.
Relieving Sam of his merchandise
The methods for robbing from Sam are not too dissimilar from those for robbing normal shopkeepers, but come with additional complications.
Pets
Pets cannot follow you through the portal to the black market, nor can they follow you out. But it is still possible to acquire pets in the black market.
Probably the easiest and fastest way. Bring a corpse, and revive it with undead turning. Also, check any ice boxes in the shop or near by. You can't feed it in the shop itself though, you have to do the actual taming in the corridor outside.
A good idea for this method is to avoid killing large dogs, large cats, and pit bulls near levels 22/23 (probable location of the black market). The easiest way to do this is by pacifying them by throwing a lichen at them. It's less cumbersome to just pacify them instead of taming them. They will be pacified by any vegetarian food, but lichens are the easiest to find. They will not eat the lichen or any other vegetarian food and become peaceful. You can keep a lichen ready in open inventory just for this. This is also a good trick, for the early game, to avoid having to fight with dogs and cats. Once you find the black market, start killing them until one drops a corpse. Don't forget to put it in your bag of holding so that you aren't encumbered.
Here are some other methods:
- Wait for a domestic animal to appear and feed it. You have to lure it in the corridor for this to work.
- Applying a (blessed) figurine.
- Waiting for an egg to hatch.
- Bringing in a statue and applying stone to flesh.
- Demon gating.
Some methods that don't work here:
- Of course, bringing pets in directly.
- Taming monsters through magic.
- Feeding domestic animals in the shop itself ("The tripe ration misses the large dog."). You will always miss. You have to do this in the corridor outside.
- Branchporting pets in with the Eye of the Aethiopica.
Once you have a pet, you can clear out the shop in the normal way, but this is a rather tedious procedure, given the size of the market. The advantage of this and credit cloning is that neither angers One-eyed Sam.
Baby dragon credit cloning
For lawful characters or those wishing to keep polyselfless conduct, one option to at least get anything you want from the black market (if not Sam's ascension kit itself) is to use credit cloning. If you wander around the black market long enough, eventually some sort of baby dragon will be generated. Impatient characters can bring a baby dragon corpse from the nearby Wyrm Caves, putting it in a bag to prevent it from going moldy. If you drop your gold, it will pick it up and follow you outside, where you can kill it and take back your gold. With a wand or spell of undead turning, this process can be repeated many times, as baby dragons will always leave a corpse to revive. With around 20k gold and a single wand of undead turning, it is possible to build up hundreds of thousands of zorkmids in credit this way, more than enough to buy even a wand of wishing or a magic lamp.
After you have bought all that you need from the market, you can still use the shop's identification service for other items in your inventory (at 750 credit/identification, this can be repeated many times), which is quite useful for those characters who cannot cast identify. Additionally, the uncursing service can also be useful to save you holy water and/or charges on your magic marker (from writing remove curse scrolls) if you run into problems with item-cursing spellcasters. One-Eyed Sam is guaranteed to have both services.
Direct theft
As with normal shops, it is quicker to directly steal what you want, albeit more dangerous, since it will anger Sam and all of their assistants. One way to rob the shop is to collect everything you want, move next to Sam and zap him with a wand of teleportation, and run for it. You can also polymorph into a Xorn or use the passwall spell to get directly to the exit.
A somewhat safer method of direct theft is to read a scroll of earth and build a boulder fort walling off the corner with the exit after moving everything you might want right next to the exit. Then zap Sam with a wand of teleportation until he ends up on the far side of your boulder barrier. You will have to deal with a few soldiers and Sam's helpers, but you don't have to kill Sam. You can generate infinite amounts of soldiers and their goodies this way by re-entering the shop and stealing another item, then leaving. Watch out for Sam's giants, who may pick up the boulders, thus opening gaps in your wall or exposing you to Izzy the Rhaumbusun's line of sight and paralyzing gaze. A ring of conflict can be helpful here. Here's how to build the fort:
Step 1: Move into position on top of your pile of loot
Step 2: Read your scroll of earth
Step 3: Close off the exit by pushing around the boulders; kick one if you need to wake up Sam's assistants to get them to move out of the way
Step 4: Zap Sam with the wand of teleportation
You can dig pits around Sam to block him, but make sure you have eliminated all of the assistants. If one falls into your pit, Sam and all of the assistants will become angry.
Killing Sam
A very easy way to kill Sam is to read a scroll of earth and use the boulders to surround him in front of the shop door. Then kill him with any ranged weapon. Firearms work well for this. Just make sure that you are of a sufficiently high level to actually be able to hit him, and enchant the launcher. If you like, you can use a ring of conflict to help get rid of his pets, or you can just kill the pets. Sam is also not drain resistant and so can be killed with wands of draining or the drain life spell, although he is high level so it may take a few wands. He also lacks poison resistance, so a large stack of poisoned darts or arrows stands a good chance of instakilling him before he can even move up to you. Another way to kill Sam is to surround him or yourself with pits, and kill him at range, since he won't step onto a pit.
Wishing for a blessed figurine of a Solar is a viable option as well. A pet Solar can likely finish Sam off, though it will take several rounds. This wish is essentially lost beyond its value for robbing the market, however: Pets cannot follow you through the black market portal in either direction, effectively stranding them there. However, if you are riding a pet, you can leave the level with it by branchporting from outside of the shop.
Another option is to play a Doppelganger or a character with polymorph control, and polymorph into a giant shoggoth, which is a quite effective way to get rid of Sam. Thiefbane is only as effective as a normal longsword against giant shoggoths, and their attacks are more than powerful enough to kill Sam in a few hits. Be aware that shoggoths are blind, though; telepathy is quite useful here, but if you are lawful or neutral you will lose it, while still polymorphed, the moment you kill Sam. Also, this is a somewhat minor concern, but it will leave Thiefbane thoroughly corroded. Furthermore, be sure that you are prepared for the attacks of Sam's pets. Izzy the rhaumbusun in particular may bring your assault to a sudden halt.
See also
Reference
From source blkmar.des file
