Naughty Sorceress Quest

From TheKolWiki

[edit] Description

The Council of Loathing wants you to take care of the Naughty Sorceress. Go to the Lair of The Naughty Sorceress and defeat her -- as a reward, you can ascend.

[edit] Council Text

On initial visit:

Now that you have proven yourself, the Council has deemed that it is time for you to embark upon your final quest. Seek out and destroy the Naughty Sorceress, who has plagued these lands for so long, and rescue King Ralph XI, whom she has imprismed.

Go forth to her Lair, east of the Nearby Plains! Beat her down!

On subsequent visits:

Be strong, Adventurer! You must defeat the Naughty Sorceress! You'll find her Lair just east of the Nearby Plains.

[edit] Tasks

[edit] Required Items List

To get to the Sorceress' Lair, you'll need to complete a variety of tasks. This table lists the items you'll need to make it to the top of her tower. The items you need to defeat her are listed later in the article. You may also want to print out the Needed Items Checklist.

Periodically, you'll need to leave the Lair to do things like change your equipment and heal between encounters. You don't need to start at the beginning every time you return. For example, once you reach the Hedge Maze, you can click on the Hedge Maze instead of going through all the entrance caverns. You can also click on the tower itself and bypass the maze, and once you have entered the chamber, it, too, can be clicked to bypass, well, everything!

However, you need to go through all gates at once. If you use that (mostly) potion to open the first gate, then go away to get what you need to open the second, the first one will be closed again if the effect has worn off. Once all three gates are open, they stay open forever.

[edit] The Entrance Cavern (1)

[edit] The Three Gates

At this point in the quest, the adventurer confronts three gates, selected randomly from a large set of possibilities. Each gate requires a different effect to pass. You must have all three required effects simultaneously -- if you try to do the gates one at a time, they slam shut again as you retreat from the next gate.

[edit] The Huge Mirror

To get through the Huge Mirror, get naked. Unequip all items and your familiar's item. The mirror breaks, and gives you the huge mirror shard.

The "unequip all" link on the equipment page is the fastest way to remove all of your items (don't forget to unequip your familiar equipment, too!).

Note: On Friday the 13th, this bonus text appears when breaking the mirror:

You get the feeling that maybe you shouldn't've done that.

Damn it.

[edit] The Entrance Cavern (2)

[edit] A Perplexing Door

At the Perplexing Door, you insert each of the six keys, and solve a puzzle for each key:

• The balloon monkey is not required to pass the entrance cavern. You can return to the entrance cavern once you have defeated the Naughty Sorceress in order to collect your balloon.
• The chances of rolling 11 against the skeleton are 2 in 36, or ~5.55%. In 50% of all runs it will take 12 or fewer attempts; in 90% of runs it will take 40 or fewer attempts; and in 99% of runs it will take 80 or fewer attempts.
• A current HP total of at least 30 is required to attempt the skeleton door.

[edit] A Perplexing Odor

Combine the following:

Category:Combines	fish hose	fishtank
Category:Combines	hosed tank		fishbowl
Recipe	makeshift SCUBA gear

Category:Combines	fish hose	fishbowl
Category:Combines	hosed fishbowl		fishtank
Recipe	makeshift SCUBA gear

Equip the makeshift SCUBA gear and enter the Perplexing Odor.

[edit] The Stone Mariachis

If you gathered everything before adventuring you should be fine here. Just click on the mariachis after the door and odor.

You have to have in your inventory the following six items:

• stone tablet (Squeezings of Woe)
• stone tablet (Sinister Strumming)
• stone tablet (Really Evil Rhythm)
• acoustic guitarrr, heavy metal thunderrr guitarrr, stone banjo, Disco Banjo, Shagadelic Disco Banjo, Crimbo ukelele, Massive sitar, or Zim Merman's guitar
• stolen accordion, Rock and Roll Legend, or Squeezebox of the Ages
• tambourine or bone rattle

[edit] The Hedge Maze

This is a multi-step puzzle.

1. Adventure in the Hedge Maze until you get a hedge maze puzzle. The topiary golems may steal the puzzle while you are working on it, but the action you attempted to perform is still carried out. Still, it is more convenient to have two or three puzzles before beginning. Be aware that it is possible to complete the maze using just one puzzle, and any extra puzzles are a waste of adventures.
2. Use the puzzle and rotate the pieces so that the white portions of the pieces form a path from the entrance (bottom arrow) to the hedge maze key. Some people find it to be easier to work backwards from the section containing the key to the entrance.
3. Adventure again in the Hedge Maze to get the key.
4. Once you have the key, use the puzzle again. Rotate the pieces so that the white portions form a path from the entrance (bottom arrow) to the exit (top arrow). Again, some people find it to be easier to work backwards from the exit to the entrance.
5. Adventure again in the Hedge Maze to get to the Sorceress' Tower.

[edit] Notes

• If the topiary golems steal the puzzle while you are working on it and you have no more in your inventory, adventure in the Hedge Maze again until you receive another one. (Or two or three, if you think you will need more to get the key and go through the maze.)
• The hedge maze puzzle does not change or reset when it's stolen.
• The topiary golems in the hedge maze are a very good enemy to fight to gain stats. So, if you're looking to boost stats, this might be a good place to do it.
• Once you have gone through the door beyond the maze, you cannot return to the maze. This is true even if you have a hedge maze puzzle and rotate the pieces so that there isn't a path through the maze.

[edit] Surviving the Topiary Golems

The topiary golems can be avoided if your Moxie is high enough (roughly 245). A similar Muscle rating is required to be able to consistently hit them (if your Muscle is too low, you can only hit them with a critical hit). If you are a Disco Bandit, using the skill Disco Face Stab can prevent you from being hit at lower levels of Moxie. It helps to have a powerful attacking familiar, like a 20-pound Misshapen Animal Skeleton; if your Disco Face Stab and the familiar's attack are both successful then the topiary golem appears much less likely to be able to attack you successfully.

The biggest trick here is to use an item you maybe told yourself you'd never try. Goofballs give you 20% added Muscle and Moxie, and if you ascend today, you'll never see the withdrawal. Even if you don't, you can remove Goofball Withdrawal tomorrow by purchasing and consuming another bottle of goofballs.

[edit] With Reagent Potions

If you still aren't powerful enough, the best strategy is to use potions made from scrumptious reagents, if you have access to them. Consult the table below and raise your main stat, using the appropriate equalizer potion as needed. You will probably need to use healing items such as the scroll of drastic healing, tiny house, and phonics down. These are more economical than any of Doc Galaktik's items; furthermore, they prevent you from wasting buffed turns on resting. Radium Radicality, obtained by using radium-flavored potato chips, is also useful to boost your Moxie.

If you can get the required Moxie to take no damage (and therefore usually gain initiative), then you can whittle away the golems with any never-miss attacks available, down to the weakest 3-MP spell. If Moxie is your main stat, five turns of the serum of sarcasm or Connery's Elixir of Audacity may be all you need to complete the maze. Else, use an equalizer to your main stat and a Moxie potion together. Only focus on Muscle if you have no other option, as high Moxie will save Meat and adventures on healing.

[edit] Without Reagent Potions

Muscle Modifiers has a full list of items which will increase your Muscle, but these will be easily available to most players.

If you cannot raise your Muscle high enough, raising it to a level where your increased hit points enable you to survive a few hits may be sufficient. Mysticality classes should use a high-damage skill like Weapon of the Pastalord or Saucegeyser. Deleveling skills like Disco Face Stab or Psalm of Pointiness (especially with a Cocoabo to heal you) might also be useful here. Entangling Noodles can also greatly improve your survival rate and allow you to get by with less Muscle, as long as you have enough HP to survive the first hit and are able to deal enough damage (without using Thrust-Smack or Lunging Thrust-Smack) to defeat them quickly. Using a toy mercenary is also a viable strategy, assuming you have a familiar that can attack the golems or heal you.

[edit] The Sorceress' Tower

Quest information continues in The Sorceress' Tower.

[edit] References

• The key sequence for the digital key is known as the Konami code, a cheat code that worked in most of the Konami games on the NES and SNES.
• When a wrong code is entered there's a hint to look for a code for the game called Contra (the text in red). When entered at the beginning of the original Contra game for the NES, the Konami code would give you 30 lives, which is also mentioned in the riddle.
• The three gates at the beginning of the the lair are a reference to the book Die Unendliche Geschichte, (in English, "The Neverending Story") written by Michael Ende.
• The Huge Mirror is likely a reference to the Magic Mirror Gate in The Neverending Story. In the movie adaptation, the scientist says, "The worst one is coming up. Next is the magic mirror gate. Atreju has to face his true self... Kind people find that they are cruel, brave men discover that they are really cowards. Confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming!"
• The Mariachis reaching a "dire crescendo" is poor usage of the term crescendo, which means "to get louder." It is a process, not a destination.