Ok, you got the ring of wizardry and the ankheg armour - its not cheating unless you use CLUA by the way - and then you *sold* them?
Nashkel mines took me 35 minutes. Most of that was spent reloading a section of level 3 where the kobolds happened to have a large tactical advantage. No biggy. The reason for this is I never sell anything valuable. Ring of Wizardry firmly on finger, ankheg plate - dosent exist because DSotSC replaces it with a cloak. Various rings of prot+1, every tank has a large shield and splint mail at a minimum.
Gold is useless in combat. Never sell something you can use to good effect.
OH, and tell me you searched mulaheys corpse. Until recently ive always forgotten to do it, what with that cutscene. But I remembered this time, and what a haul. Viconia is *lethal* now