Buying lives
Two of the most common questions on the talker and the newbie channel are "I'm dead, what next?" and "How do I buy more lives?". This page seeks to address the second of these questions.
There are several methods to buy new lives: tossing royals to Pishe at her pool in her waterpark in Ankh-Morpork, tossing money in Pishe's pool in Lancre or through the Golden Chicken in Bes Pelargic.
Offering money to Pishe is reliable & straightforward but expensive, while the egg process, while potentially cheaper, takes more time and it can fail for several reasons even if you do everything you can.
Contents
Pishe's Temple (Ankh Morpork)
Where
At Pishe's Pool, which is located in the Temple of Pishe, in the Apothecary Gardens, in Ankh Morpork.
Directions from outside The Mended Drum:
4 west, 5 north (crossing Contract Bridge), west, north, northwest, 2 north, 4 northeast, northwest, north, northeast, 2 northwest, north, 2 northwest (crossing Lost Bridge), north, 2 northwest, southwest (into Apothecary Gardens), west, west (into temple), northwest (into life pool).
Note - entering the temple costs 1p per guild level except for adventurers, ghosts and Pishites.
The "Slide of restoration" is found from life pool: southeast, up
Help file
Part of help file in room with "Slide of restoration":
Buying Lives
Lives can now be purchased in the natural rock pool northwest of the main entrance to the Pishe Gardens. To see how to do this, use 'syntax toss' while in the room. Lives are slightly cheaper for priests of Pishe.
Note that you need to be at full strength to buy lives. There is a means, somewhere in the garden, to restore yourself to your full ability.
How
You buy lives by tossing royals into the pool. The syntax is:
toss <1 royal / n royals> into pool
Most people toss a single royal at a time, until they receive a life. This is indicated with a message such as:
Saving...
You feel like you have more life.
Pishe smiles on you and lifts the clouds from your heart, but the moment has been draining. Some rest will probably help.
The pool seems to have some memory and will remember for a time, no-one knows how long it seems, if you have to go away and get more royals part way through the process. However, most people prefer to make sure they bring plenty with them.
Cost
It varies. Random numbers, the phases of the moon, your guild level, how long since you last bought a life? Who knows (apart from the Cre's)? The following are based on my own perception:
- It seems to get more expensive with each life.
- It seems to be roughly Number of Lives Bought so far, divided by 5, in royals, with fluctuations of about 20% either side.
- It might be cheaper if you allow a bit of time between buying lives.
- The cheapest solution is to not die.
- It's cheaper for Pishites.
Warning
Remember that message above? Where it said "But the moment has been draining. Some rest will probably help." .... it wasn't kidding. Your constitution stat has dropped several levels. It will come back up over time, or with a "restore" ritual from a Pishe priest. (You can also get a restore by sliding down the slide in the tree, see below section) Your con stat is the largest part of your HP, so you have low HP after this. In addition, you may not have enough con to buy another life straight away. If you try, this happens:
You consider tossing one Ankh-Morpork royal into the pool, but decide to wait and get your strength back first.
Slide of restoration
Remember to pay respects to Pishe or else you will hurt yourself sliding down a dry slide
You will need at least 20 dollars to pay respects
pay respects to Pishe
You place some coins in the rain cloud above the slide. The cloud darkens slightly, as though heavy with rain.
slide down [water] slide {sitting|headfirst}
Heavy raindrops start to fall from the cloud and pour down the slide.
You cautiously sit on the top of the slide before gathering the courage to let go.
The water rushing around you quickly propels you downwards to the pool below.
As the restorative water rushing down the slide engulfs you, you feel your health return to you.
As your journey down the slide comes to a finish you fly off the end and splash into the water of the pool.
There is a adventuring.acrobatics.balancing skillcheck for this and you don't get the restore if you fail it.
Without paying respects, you get hurt sliding down (about 50 hp).
You run up and leap onto the slide, realising too late that there is no water on it! You painfully make your way down, exposed skin being scraped cruely by the dry wood. Finally you reach the end of your journey and fall into the pool with a splash.
Pishe's Pool (Lancre)
You can also buy lives at the pool of Pishe's Temple in Lancre Kingdom, a few miles north of Lancre Town.
Where
From Lancre Town, journey northeast, then journey north from the intersection, then journey west from the intersection, then go south four times. The room also contains a Pishe high altar, and there is a hut with a Pishite religious instructor just east of it.
How
The pool accepts donations of Lancre sovereigns (and larger denominations of Lancrastian currency) and as a basic calculation, two sovereigns are roughly equivalent to one royal. The pool responds to "syntax offer".
If you donate smaller denominations of Lancre currency, you may receive healing if you are in need of it, but it is not known if such donations are also credited towards a life or not.
There does not seem to be any link between the two locations, in that money offered at either for a life does not count towards the cost at the other one.
This pool also appears to remember partial donations, like the Ankh-Morpork one the duration of such memories is unknown.
The caveats about your constitution dropping apply here as well.
Golden chicken
In Bes Pelargic there is a Golden Chicken that wanders randomly. If you feed it enough chicken logs (purchased from a stall in the High Tide Road covered market) it can then be squeezed to lay an egg. If you then follow the egg around hugging, kissing, loving, and cuddling it, it may eventually hatch and you gain a life. If the egg is not catered to promptly & consistently, it breaks and is lost.
Typically it takes between 5 and 12 logs to get the chicken plump enough to lay an egg. The logs cost &&&&&&&&&&&+4000 8Rh 40s each, so this is usually much cheaper than buying lives from Pishe (and there is no stat reduction when using this method). However, it is much more time consuming and there is no guarantee it will be successful (e.g. the egg might roll into water and die, through no fault of and with no recourse for the player).
Belias's egg wobbles. Belias's egg wobbles alarmingly. Belias's egg wobbles slightly. A small crack appears on the surface of Belias's egg, which grows and spreads. Suddenly, the shell explodes in a burst of flame and vanishes, a bird-like form flying upwards out of the blast. The fiery bird spreads its wings and silently dissipates. You feel curiously full of vitality and life.
Typically it takes twenty to thirty minutes of chasing & pandering to the egg before it hatches. The egg moves 3 to 5 rooms at a time, after each interaction. It appears to pick the direction randomly from visible exits (though with a bias against going back the way it just came). It will enter stores.
The egg seems to prefer open spaces. Usually when it rolls into a shop (or similar, small building) it will randomly roll out again quite quickly. However, in larger buildings (e.g. the Dojo) it may end up remaining indoors for an extended period. This appears to be make it unhappy, and it may break consequently.
It is unclear if it can be pursued successfully with the pursue command - it seems to easily evade pursuit with low to moderate bonuses, at least.
It can be prevented from using an exit with guard, but this makes it unhappy and risks it breaking. This is still worth doing, however, for exits that will be fatal to the egg (e.g. entrances to waterways).
The egg does not show up through map door text, making it harder to track than normal NPCs.
The best places to work with the egg are large open spaces, such as Dragon Head Square or the Square of a Thousand Parades. The movement of the egg in nearby rooms will be shown, making it easier to follow its rapid movement, and these locations have no natural hazards that can kill the egg (such as water). There is little you can do to control the location in general, but if the chicken or egg are already near these locations, use of guard (or similar) can herd them in the right direction.
