You say 'i am ready'
Deliess Whurgirn, the Guildmistress of Shadowport says 'So be it, Lareawan. Good luck.'
Deliess Whurgirn, the Guildmistress of Shadowport brandishes a wand at you.
You feel yourself transported far away from the security of the Thieves Guild...
The Falcon exclaims 'Ah, I see my lovely lady has sent another would-be adventurer to risk life and limb in the search of gold and gear. So be it!'
The Falcon's backstab _demolishes_ you!

For the last little while I have travelled to Shadowport, keeping in touch with Deliess about the possibility of fighting the Falcon for his mask. Every 2 hours or so, when I remember, I run down there and find out if it’s time to fight. 3 times I’ve been rewarded with the sweet, sweet words telling me to prepare. The first time I didn’t notice that sanc ran during the fight, just as the difficulty ramped up. The second time I went LD just as I was reciting razorbait, damn unstable connection. This time … this time though …. The Falcon is DEAD!!

Twice during the fight he caught me with a gouge before I could hit true sight, scary moments where I was down to a couple hundred hit points …

Someone parries your attack.
Someone parries your attack.
Someone dodges your attack.
Someone parries your attack.
Someone thrusts its foot out and kicks you.
Someone's kick jolts you!
You dodge someone's attack.
Someone thrusts its foot out to kick you but is unable to connect the blow.
Someone's stab gashes you!
(something gets damaged)
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!
You feel seasick as murky waters rise from someone's hand.
Lareawan * * (408/1760h 622v |S|Someone is you're blind!)sty eva

It’s been a while since a fight got my pulse pounding but this one did it. Much the same feeling as playing Diablo 3 hardcore on a higher level.

This fight to me was more about the accomplishment than the reward but I won’t turn down the reward, the mask is quite a handy item that allows me to swap out the spaulders for leader sleeves, a dr less but 30 more hit points, which is a decent trade.

If you are planning to do this, all I can suggest to you is that preparation is the key. I spent a fair amount of time rampaging Olympus for ambrosia before setting out, living near Thoth in the Blasted Lands for triple heals, got my shockstone from Nevermore, Tree of Life for glyphs, made sure my equipment damage triggers worked and renamed the duplicate pieces if I could so they’d track better … and on and on. Any advantage I could give myself to help me out.

Ultimately the 131 dr didn’t do the job, the 1760 hp didn’t do the job, but staying cool when things went sideways was the real key. Even being very careful about curing blind if the gouge would outlast the true sight wasn’t a guarantee that I wouldn’t end up blind, I ended up gouged twice after true sight dropped due to sitting in a bash or circle lag, but reacting while blind and dropping to evasive and then healing to full as quickly as I could after the blind was critical. I was lucky that I didn’t get gouged again before I got the next true sight or have a huge damage round.

Lareawan *|* (1660/1660h 580v |A|The Falcon is almost dead)
The Falcon parries your attack.
The Falcon parries your attack.
The Falcon parries your attack.
The Falcon parries your attack.
The Falcon dodges your attack.
You dodge the Falcon's attack.
The Falcon thrusts its foot out to kick you but is unable to connect the blow.
The Falcon thrusts its foot out to kick you but is unable to connect the blow.
The Falcon thrusts its foot out and kicks you.
The Falcon's kick brushes you.
The Falcon attempts to distract you with foolish swordplay.
The Falcon lunges forward, striking with its blade.
The Falcon's swordstrike grazes you.
The Falcon leaps into the air and kicks you on the chest with both of its feet.
The Falcon's leap scratches you.
The Falcon vaults through the air and crashes feet first into you.
The Falcon's vault scratches you.
The Falcon says 'Your skills may be strong, but I am a true master!'
The Falcon tumbles out of the way and takes on an aggressive stance.
The Falcon's backstab _cleaves_ you!
(Set's ring of Power gets damaged)
That really did HURT!
Lareawan * * (1117/1660h 579v |A|The Falcon is almost dead)


A 500 hitpoint round like that would have finished me off when I was blinded, I went to around 400 hp twice, but a little luck saved my bacon. There’s other ways to deal with blindness, like blind fighting on humans or whatever but those weren’t options for me (dang it, I just got used to using optometrum on a ranger again …) .

Your circle hits the Falcon!
The Falcon is DEAD!!
As The Falcon falls, his most prized possession falls from his face...
The Falcon says 'You have done well to best me, Lareawan... You are a true master.'
You hear the Falcon's death cry.
You get 10895913 gold coins from the corpse of the Falcon.
You get the Mask of the Master Rogue from the corpse of the Falcon.

For those who haven’t seen the mask before:

Object 'the Mask of the Master Rogue' is infused with your magic...
It is a level 50 armor, weight 2.
Locations it can be worn: face
Special properties: dark unique
Genres allowed: rogue
This armor has a gold value of 23532.
It is one of the pieces of the set 'Guise of the Falcon'.
Owner: Lareawan
Armor class is 10 of 10.
Affects dexterity by 1.
Affects luck by 1.
Affects affected_by by hide.


Seeing as there is only one face wear location I’m not sure how much use the unique flag is here, but a bit of future proofing I suppose. The big thing to notice is the 10 ac. This thing can and will scrap, and though the quest tag can rot off so you can get another one, apparently it takes so long as to be practically never.


You take a closer look at the Mask of the Master Rogue on your body...
The master rogue knows the advantage of covering his or her face in the
midst of a sly deed, and this mask looks like a perfect solution. This mask
is also imbued with magic to enable its wearer to see much which cannot be
seen.

The mask has a small picture icon on the inside, along with the word:

Falcon


In conclusion, yes it is possible for a stock thief to do this, with a fair bit of luck. The shorter you can make the fight, the better, and that’s where extra dr will come into play. I did this with a Lifebane and a Darkfire Thrasher, not entry level but not ‘blivs either. With 500 hitpoint rounds not only possible but regular extra hitpoints will not hurt a darn thing. Overall, just have supplicate favour and don’t be afraid to go and try.