Difference between revisions of "Black market (SLASH'EM)"
(make the article somewhat more gender-neutral (but it's still too SLASH'EM-specific; I don't really know enough about the black market to help with that, though); capitalization; other minor improvements) |
m (Bcode moved page Black Market to Black market: Capitalization: the games say "Welcome to One-eyed Sam's black market!") |
(No difference)
| |
Revision as of 00:05, 19 May 2013
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"This article is too SLASH'EM-specific."
In SLASH'EM and UnNetHack, 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. One-eyed Sam is the shopkeeper, and is very difficult to kill, even as shopkeepers go. They wield the deadly sword Thiefbane and are 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
Relieving Sam of their merchandise
The methods for robbing from Sam are not too dissimilar from those for robbing normal shopkeepers, but come with additional complications.
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. 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. You can also take the gold from it with #borrow instead of killing it. It is possible to build up hundreds of thousands of zorkmids in credit in the black market, more than enough to buy even a wand of wishing or a magic lamp. Additionally, 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. 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 this service.
Indirect theft, i.e. pets
Pets cannot follow you through the portal to the black market, nor can they follow you out. It is still possible to acquire pets in the black market by feeding a domestic animal, waiting for an egg to hatch, or applying a (blessed) figurine, but taming monsters through magic will not work here. 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.
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 them 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. Note that in UnNetHack this latter technique will not work, as the market walls cannot be phased through.
A somewhat safer method of direct theft is to read two scrolls of earth and build a divider down the middle of their shop, after moving everything you might want closer to the exit. Then zap Sam with a wand of teleport until they end 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.
You can dig pits around Sam to block them, 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 them in front of the shop door. Then kill them 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 them, and enchant the launcher. If you like you can use a ring of conflict to help get rid of their 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 they are high level so it may take a few wands. They also lack poison resistance, so a large stack of poisoned darts or arrows stands a good chance of instakilling them before they can even move up to you. Another way to kill Sam is to surround them or yourself with pits, and kill them at range, since they won't step onto a pit.
Wishing for a blessed figurine of an Archon may get you a pet Archon, which Sam will almost certainly be able to kill. If you are playing Slash'EM, a pet Solar can likely finish them off, though it will take several rounds. (The best pet of vanilla NetHack and UnNetHack, an Archon, is significantly outpowered by Planetars and Solars.) 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 in Slash'EM (but again not UnNetHack) 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.
One-eyed Sam
@ black marketeer 
| |
|---|---|
| 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%) |
|
A black marketeer:
| |
| Reference | SLASH'EM_0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line3813 |
One-eyed Sam is a special type of shopkeeper known as a "black marketeer". 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. They are not resistant to being drained.
Map
The black market is laid out as shown below; the shop encompasses all but the narrow corridor on the left:
|<|.......................................................................|
|.|&......................................................................|
|.|T......................................................................|
|.|&......................................................................|
|.|.......................................................................|
|.|.......................................................................|
|.|.......................................................................|
|.|c......................................................................|
|.|n......................................................................|
|.|.......................................................................|
|.|:......................................................................|
|.|T......................................................................|
|.|c......................................................................|
|.+.......................................................................|
|.|.......................................................................|
|.|H......................................................................|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The assistants are the nine monsters shown here. 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. They are initially asleep and peaceful; they will awaken and become hostile if you attack One-eyed Sam. Conversely, attacking them will make One-eyed Sam hostile as well. Using conflict to get rid of them, however, is safe. 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 (replaced with a salamander in UnNetHack)
- A rock troll named Thomas
- A cockatrice named Wilbur
- A frost giant named Goliath
Angering any named monster (or even previously named) in Sam's shop will anger Sam and their assistants. Therefore, one should be very careful in using the #call command in the black market.
The walls are undiggable. The level is non-teleport. In UnNetHack, the walls additionally cannot be phased through by a xorn.
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.
