My first room on the second floor has a shrine to Inconsequentia, and I accept her quest because I am not a coward. The second room has another, and I accept its quest as well, for the same reason.
Third room? Monster zoo. Joy.
Some application of two Clockwork Drill Bomb bolts, a wand of fire, and much psychic shovery followed by skilled application of boot clears the place out. It was a smallish zoo. My reward is a Robe of the Beige Warlock, which isn't much better than my leather cuirass. I put it on anyways.
I level up, and put my point into Unarmed. This doesn't get me anymore keep away, but the capstone ability for Unarmed is just sooo desirable.
Another Krong altar, I try to get my cuirass buffed, maybe make it better than this dumb robe, but Krong is displeased. Such is life.
I kill another Toady, and this brings me to level 7. I am now Master of the Dragon Foot Technique!
Next priority, points in Dodge for Knight's Leap, or maybe Burglary for Lucky Pick, or Piracy for Swashbuckling... and then points into magely stuff.
So the unique monster for one of those side-quests is one of those invisible great pumpkins. Ew. Ew. This, I actually want to keep away from.
My psychic powers have no damaging effect on it, but it isn't very aggressive... Fortunately, since it is a quest objective, I can track it on my mini-map. Feet seem to have more of a damaging effect, but I'll have to be careful here. Very careful.
It can bring dead monsters back to life, summon clouds of purple poison gas, and hits for about a third of my health. With a few very careful knock-back kicks, Nice Combos, Wand of Bling hits, Fiery Wand flames, and finally some bolts I manage to kill the unique Great Pumpkinn. My reward is an artifact mace (lame), and 2000 xp (pretty sweet). Much cheese was eaten during this fight.
I wish I could have gotten some better shots of the fight, but the monster was invisible...
The next side-quest monster is a unique Thrusty, but I'm near levelling, and he doesn't see me, so I leave him be to avoid xp-wastage. This takes some creative application of Psychic Shove..
I level up and decide on Lucky Pick because I'm out of lockpicks. I go to use the ability to spawn some more but there is no ability? What does Lucky Pick do anymore? Hmm. Seems I just open locks now. Not bad. Think I'll get the Knight's Leap next, then get Pyrokinesis. Or maybe the other way around.
The reward for killing the Thrusty is a little nicer. Somewhat better armor? I think? Sacrificing Nimbleness, Magic Power and some useless resistances for a little more protection and some blasting damage.
Krong curses my pirate pants, so I switch to some cutoffs, no big deal.
Heading to dungeon level 3 at character level 8, things are looking good. I didn't get a screenshot of the end of the level, but things didn't change much since this one.