Miniature crystal ball

miniature crystal ball This gives you a very narrow window on the future. Type: familiar equipment Familiar: any Cannot be traded or discarded Combat Initiative +50% Randomly gives you either +50% Item Drops or +5 Stats After Combat Shows which monster you will encounter next (In-game plural: miniature crystal balls)

View metadata Item number: 10730 Description ID: 320248255 View in-game: view refreshedit data

Obtained From

Items

packaged miniature crystal ball

Notes

• At the start of the first normal combat in a zone, and all subsequent combats, "predicts" the monster you'll be fighting next. If you keep the crystal ball equipped and adventure in the same zone, you'll fight that monster next (even if you are no longer supposed to be able to).
  • Predictions are chosen based on the monsters available in the current zone at the start of the combat. If you are currently fighting monster X and that same monster is being predicted, the crystal ball will still force it as the next encounter even if it was banished.

  <familiar> gazes into the mini crystal ball. "Hey boss -- if you stay here, your next fight will be against a <monster>," they report.

  <familiar> looks into the crystal ball, and predicts that the next monster in this zone is going to be a <monster>.

  <familiar> looks into their crystal ball and tugs on your sleeve. "Look out, there's a <monster> right around the next corner," they tell you.

  "Hey look," <familiar> says, pointing at their crystal ball. "There's a little you fighting a little <monster>. Ooh, you're getting your little ass kicked." "Aw man," you say. "Come on, little me! You can do it!"

  "Hmm," <familiar> says, looking into their crystal ball. "How do you feel about fighting a <monster>? Coz that's gonna happen soon, unless you go somewhere else."

  "The crystal ball is predicting that the next monster in this area will be a <monster>," <familiar> says. "You know, if you believe in this kind of stuff."

  You take a look at <familiar>'s% crystal ball, and see a tiny you fighting a tiny <monster> in a tiny... here.

  You look in the mini crystal ball -- it looks like there's a <monster> prowling around nearby.

  You look over <familiar>'s% shoulder (or shoulder-analogue), and see yourself running into a <monster> soon.

  You gaze in the mini crystal ball that <familiar> is holding and see that if you stay here, your next fight will be against a <monster>.

  <familiar> holds up their mini crystal ball, showing you an image of yourself fighting a <monster>.

  From what you can see in <familiar>'s crystal ball, it looks like if you stick around here you're going to run into a <monster>.

• When you get bonus item drop, shows a message:

  <familiar> gazes into the crystal ball, and says "There is great loot in your future." (+50 Item Drops)

  <familiar> look into the crystal ball, and says "I see you gaining a lot of stuff." "Great! When?" you ask. "I don't know, I can't make out your wristwatch from here." (+50 Item Drops)

  "I see you gaining a bunch of stuff," <familiar> says, gazing into the mini crystal ball. (+50 Item Drops)

  "The crystal ball predicts a bunch of loot in your future," <familiar> says. "And also that you will be trapped inside a giant crystal ball? Maybe I'm interpreting that wrong." (+50 Item Drops)

  "The crystal ball says you will get a lot of loot," <familiar> says. "Does it say when?" you ask. <familiar> shakes the ball and looks again. "Now it just says 'OUTLOOK GOOD'." (+50 Item Drops)

  "You will gain a lot of treasure in the future," <familiar> says, looking into their crystal ball. "Aww, but I want it now," you complain. (+50 Item Drops)

  The crystal ball shows you a future where you find some sweet loot. (+50 Item Drops)

  You shake up the crystal ball, and see lots of little bits of loot floating around inside it. (+50 Item Drops)

• When you get bonus stats, shows a message:

  <familiar> peers into their mini crystal ball. "Looks like all the practice you're getting is gonna pay off," they say. (+5 Stats)

  "Do you see anything in your crystal ball?" you ask <familiar>.% "Umm, I see you... doing stuff?" they reply. (+5 Stats)

  "Nice job! Go you!" <familiar> exclaims. "Thanks," you reply. "Oh, no, I meant the little you inside the crystal ball." they say. (+5 Stats)

  "The crystal ball shows you having experiences," <familiar> says. "Do you mean 'gaining experience'?" you ask. <familiar> blinks. "Isn't that the same thing?" (+5 Stats)

  "The crystal ball shows your numbers going up in the near future," <familiar> reports. (+5 Stats)

  "It looks like your future holds experience," exclaims <familiar>.% "Well, that kind of seems like a tautology," you reply. (+5 Stats)

  Peeking into <familiar>'s% mini crystal ball, you see yourself. It's hard to make out the details, but it seems like you're doing a good job at... whatever you're doing in there. (+5 Stats)

  You look into <familiar>'s% crystal ball, and see the text at the end of this sentence that says " (+5 Stats)". (+5 Stats)

  You look into <familiar>'s% crystal ball, and see yourself growing more experienced and knowledgeable. I'm not sure what that looks like, exactly, but that's what you see. (+5 Stats)

  You look into the mini crystal ball, and see yourself. The fish-eye visual effect makes your head look extremely big. (+5 Stats)

  You see yourself gaining experience in the crystal ball. (+5 Stats)

  You watch the little you inside the mini crystal ball for a bit. They seem unusually competent. (+5 Stats)

• Sometime on or around 2021/01/06, the orb started making predictions at the start of combat rather than at the end of combat.
• On 2022/01/10, the orb received significant quality of life updates by allowing you to [ponder] your current predictions by pondering your orb, but made it so receiving any prediction would erase all other predictions. This means the orb could no longer be used to string together an arbitrary number of free fights. Clicking on [ponder] takes you to What the Future Holds, which lists all current predictions:

You gaze into your familiar's miniature crystal ball and ponder all the possible futures it has shown:

• A/an <monster> in <location>

• Is automatically placed in your inventory for you at the beginning of your run, with the message:

Your little crystal ball rolls in from somewhere and stops between your feet.

You acquire an item: miniature crystal ball

Strategy

• As long as you remain in the same zone and keep the ball equipped, the predicted monster is "locked in" as the next normal combat in that zone. Wandering monsters, noncombats, and superlikelies can all still appear, but the prediction chain will simply not be affected by them.
• If you don't want to actually encounter the predicted monster, it is possible to break the "lock". In order to do so, you must (a) adventure in a different adv.php zone, and (b) the prediction must be "old": that is, 2 turns must have passed since the start of the combat where you received the prediction. Some examples of successful resets:
  • Normal turn-taking fight in zone A -> spend a turn in zone B -> return to zone A
  • Free fight in zone A -> spend 2 turns in other zone(s) -> return to zone A
  • Normal turn-taking fight in zone A -> spend a turn, say, cooking -> free fight in zone B -> return to zone A
• "Toastergazing" is a strategy involving breaking the chain by using The Shore, Inc. Travel Agency, which is an adv.php zone with one adventure, which is an escapable combat (check out the gift shop). It's named "toastergazing" as the toaster is one of the gift shop items, and you'll see the gift shop a lot. This allows the following efficient escapes:
  • Normal turn-taking fight in zone A -> unequip crystal ball, do another turn-taking fight in zone A -> toastergaze -> re-equip crystal ball, return to zone A
  • Normal turn-taking fight in zone A -> spend a turn, say, cooking -> toastergaze -> return to zone A
• You can also reset a prediction by successfully encountering any predicted monster. An example using this to reset a prediction without advancing the turn counter would be:
  • Free fight in zone A -> free fight in zone B, receive prediction -> free fight in zone B, encountering predicted monster -> return to zone A

• Predictions will only respect pre-existing banishes (and sniffs and queue rejection (source)), NOT banishers used during that combat. For example:
  • You encounter a drunk goat, and the ball predicts another drunk goat. If you use a banisher, you will need to leave the zone for a turn, or you will still encounter the locked-in drunk goat next turn. (If it was a free banisher, you will need to leave for TWO turns.)

• If you unequip the ball, normal monster selection will resume. However, as long as no turn-taking adventures are spent elsewhere, the last prediction will be "held", and re-equipping the ball will resume the prediction chain.

• The predicted monster enters the queue, and does so before the monster actually being fought does. This can serve (briefly) as a sort of soft banisher, due to queue rejection mechanics. Note that this means you will fill (and then cycle through) a zone's queue twice as fast as normal. An example:
  • Say you enter a zone and encounter monster A, and the orb predicts upcoming monster B. Queue = B A
  • You don't want monster B, so you leave and return a turn later, encounter monster C, and the orb predicts upcoming monster D. Queue = B A D C
  • You remain in the zone, encounter monster D, and the orb predicts upcoming monster E. Queue = A D C E D (B has now been pushed out)

• It is possible to have multiple simultaneous predictions in different zones by using free fights and banishes. However, encountering any one prediction will clear all of the other ones.

• In practice, your single-adventure snarfblat quest tasks can be used to reset predictions. Some examples: finishing off the Cyrpt side-bosses; Clover Adventures; the Hidden City side-zone (post-liana) unlocker noncoms; the 5 bowling ball encounters; popping sneakisol for a Friars zone; using A-Boo clues or rusty hedge trimmers; lighting the fires at A-Boo and Oil Peaks; or even pairing a non-adv.php turn-taking task (killing the Bonerdagon) with a free adventure in adv.php (liana, PAP ghost); etc.