A 6000 cycles run that turned out far, far better than I was expecting it to. Pretty solid RNG all the way through, except for the very end.

New strats include:

• slightly refining the duping of items to speed it up somewhat.
• using Save/Quit to bypass certain checkpoints and allow the characters to keep their drow weapons through the game.
• using two mages with the Ring of Wizardry to keep Haste permanently active in dangerous areas.
• deliberately triggering random encounters in certain areas to finish them off quickly with Haste active and run the counter down.

NB: Capture software did not like LiveSplit, so it doesn't show. Game begins at 0:48 on video; ending screen entered into on 36:08. Timer showed 35:20.