The Return

Alright folks, I have it on good authority that many of you really like these posts, and the at sign on my book shelf has been calling to me, so put on your Blessed +2 Spectacles of Dealing With It, because it's time for a Nethack Quest.

In preparation of this event, I had been installing Nethack on multiple devices so I could try out the experience on each platform. Sadly, none held the speed and versatility of a full keyboard. So Nethack lead me to the android keyboard project, which lead me to this bluetooth keyboard I'm now using to pen this post. From here, I'll be able to flip between the game and writing very easily, so this one might be more detailed than the other quests because they were written after the fact off of notes. Speaking of notes, I will be using dropbox's live text editor to keep notes. With this setup, I should be able to play, take notes, and publish from wherever I have an internet connection.

As to the software, I couldn't get past the convenience of a telnet connection to nethack.alt.org. If I got sick of the bluetooth keyboard, I could connect to the same game from any one of my android devices, my ipad (shudder), or my full computer... Suddenly I imagine playing nethack on the lappy connected directly to the large LCD teevee... It's glorious... So that will have to happen. Anyway, aside from some minor lag spiking, nethack.alt.org was the obvious winner. Also it allows spectators, and let's them send me messages while I'm playing, so you can tune in and heckle me when I log on. (Need to make a login indicator for the blahg so people can see when I'm online and tune in.) (And yes, this keyboard is very conducive to putting ALL my thoughts down, thanks for asking.) Oh look, a player list! Check here for user Aemaeth until I get that php going. ANYWAY... EDIT: Holy crap, I already did this! There's an annoying iframe under my email address on the right that shows if I'm online or not! Why is it so annoying? Because izf I'm online it has a blink tag because the gif animation I made is flagged as a virus by my hosting service! When that gets fixed it'll be slightly less annoying. Now back to your regularly scheduled post, already in progress!

To be honest, the true benefit of this tandem play/publishing will be found in me never again failing to update the quest because I died and am still sore about it.

Yesterday was a full moon, and a great day to start some Nethack, so I rolled a lawful human Valkyrie named Camilla.

The luck of the full moon rewarded me with a co-aligned alter on the first level, and a couple liquor shops a couple levels down. I didn't have much money, so I only bought the cheap potions of water so I could make holy water later.

I started pushing down to sokoban (per the New Strategem) until a Gnome threw a dagger at me and I remembered I needed daggers to make awesome Blessed Deadly Daggers (BIG hat tip to Ellora), and I hadn't had any daggers to speak of on the last few levels. It made sense to go into the mines for daggers and general shop goodies.

Delving into the mines was pretty easy going, I happened upon a lamp which I rubbed greedily, and a djinn popped out! "Thank you for freeing me! I'm all out of wishes." Oh... Well... Wanna hang out instead? The djinn stuck with me for some time, but he started to slow me down, and I needed to move fast more than a needed a pet (with apologies to the dog I started out with... or was it a cat...?).

By the time I was in the mine town I had a decent stack of daggers and a decent armor class. I also seemed to happen upon tons of rings that didn't have any obvious properties, so I had stacks of unidentified rings and scrolls. I was in no rush to test things out. I was playing fast, but I wasn't playing loose.
The mine temple was counter-aligned, and there was no damn way I was going to try to convert it or kill the priestess. Priests are tough and even if I won the fight, I've already been killed by a haunted temple... So I just set up shop in the temple with a modest stack of extras.

After getting annoyed with the stacks of scrolls, I blessed/cursed identified them, then I price identified them, and read the most expensive ones. The first was a blessed genocide scroll, and I greedily killed all the rust monsters and disenchanters because fuck those guys. Normally the first choice is liches or mindflayers, but they won't be along for quite a while yet, while I'll be dealing with rust monsters much sooner. Also fuck rust monsters. Seriously. The second most expensive scroll didn't seem to do anything, which was confusing to me, because I haven't played in a while, and couldn't really guess at its purpose. Maybe taming?

With my equipment in better shape, I set off for sokoban rather uneventfully. Picking up rings and wands and food on the way, I made it down to the last level. Spotting a ring on the edge of one of the holes, I put on autopickup and jumped in. My knapsack was full so I didn't pick it up, but I still brushed the ring and sent it tumbling down to the level below with me. Ruby ring. Same as the other one I have, but at least with doubles, I can drop one in a sink and see what it does. As I write this I check my ring stash and realize I have THREE sets of double rings. No idea how that happened, but I'll be hitting the sink soon.

As I made my way back to the stairs I caught a glimpse of a Yeti, which was odd for my level, but it seemed to vanish. I wasn't in any hurry to face it anyway, busy with my sokoban prize. As I continued on, a pony came around the corner where the Yeti was. Maybe they fought it out, I thought. (But if I would have thought about that a little bit more, I would have realized I didn't "hear noises in the distance" and put two and two together.) As I entered the long corridor to the room with the stairs the pony trailing behind me suddenly changed into a green dragon! Crap! It's a chameleon! I should have figured that out! What do green dragons breathe? A gust of poison gas shoots past me, bounces off the wall, and barely misses me. Poison? I'm poison resistant! I'll just get behind the door, lock it, and wait until it changes into something less lethal (and hope it doesn't turn into one of the liches I purposely didn't genocide!). As I write this, I realize that dragon scales are more useful to me than something else... I'm pretty tough. I'm going to fight it.

What the hell was I thinking? I went back to face the chameleon and found it had changed into a winter wolf. Disappointed, I stayed there, behind the locked door, and waited for it to turn into something more useful to me. Eventually it turned into a baby white dragon, which was unlikely to leave scales, but I'd give it a shot. I burn up a few turns unlocking the door, opening it, and entering the hallway, ready my daggers and square up with... a minotaur... I don't think I've fought a minotaur before... I don't like this. I'm going to run. I back through the door, close it, lock it, and wrap my towel around my head to focus on my clairvoyance. The minotaur approaches the door and I back away wondering if minotaurs can break down doors, then it changes into something simple, and I hop out to kill it, but then it changes into a wraith which leaves a useful corpse (as I write this, I realize chameleons only leave chameleon corpses so what the hell am I doing?), and I make a move for it, and it changes into a useless gecko. Damn...

So for a while, I'm sitting there in the hallway, waiting while the chameleon changes into different monsters for something useful and I suddenly realized the dangerously stupid thing I was doing and said aloud, "What the hell am I doing?!" That chameleon could have, at any turn, changed into a tricky, nasty, or gnarly monster that I would not have been prepared to deal with, and I was just sitting there, waiting for it to happen. The possibilities for horrible out comes were almost endless.

I do the same thing i was doing before, waiting one turn at a time, but this time with much more apprehension. When it turns into a newt I loose some daggers and drop it. It leaves no corpse, and I move on, still shocked by my stupidity.

As I approach the treasure zoo at the end of sokoban, I run into two dogs and a cat, who gladly join me after I feed them. Don't get all mushy just yet, I'm going to use them to soften up the room full of monsters at the end. The cat wisely stays away, but the two dogs do an alright job of taking out the monsters they can handle, and at least waking up the ones they can't handle so I can deal with them in the hallway instead of inside the zoo where an errant dagger may wake up something I don't want to bother fighting. Both dogs are lost, but the cat lives on.

I finish the last level of sokoban stealthily, and get to pick and choose my monsters. I did use a lightning wand charge on an acid blob I couldn't get around and didn't want to wake up and let corrode my stack of blessed daggers. I get the amulet of reflection, and pick up all the useful equipment lying around, burdening myself.

I check my inventory and see I've still got those cursed low boots that are probably useful aside from being cursed. I found them who-knows-where, and held on to them even though they were cursed. The idea was to throw them at a monster that picks up armor, and see if I could get someone to try them on before I kill them and take the boots back. Specialty boots are like specialty cloaks, very useful, and worth identifying. But I had forgotten to throw them at the monsters that could have worn them, so now they were just taking up weight where I could be carrying more daggers or something.

I pull the scrolls out of my bag (where I had quickly hidden them when I spotted a pyrolisk), and see I have a remove curse scroll. Well, time to take a chance... I put on the boots and find them to be -1 boots of levitation! Great find, and definitely a necessity for later in the game! I read my helpingyou scroll and remove my now uncursed boots. I'm definitely dropping something else to keep these.

I sort my kit for a bit and do some experimenting with some unidentified potions, scrolls, and wands, and generally tighten up my knapsack. Get a cursed wand of create monster, which is either my ticket to Mjollnir or an untimely death. Guess I'll have to find out at the altar to Tyr. But first; next stop, the sink on level 2...

Alright, the sink says I've got rings of regeneration, free action, and MF'ing polymorph control! Can't wait to find myself a polymorph trap, and now that I think of it, I've got an amulet of unchanging that I can put on to keep myself from changing back from whatever form I choose! Vampire Lord, here I come!

Ok, I'm not going to count my chickatrices before they hatch, I have no way of easily finding a polymorph trap (aren't there usually some on the bottom of the mines?), so I need to continue on as if I'm not yet a Vampire Lord... Because I'm not. So let's head to the altar and sacrifice some monsters with my scrolls of create monster, and maybe, if I'm feeling dangerous, that cursed wand of create monster... The more I encounter random monster generation the more I worry I made a mistake by not genociding Liches... Well, let's head to the altar and get to work...

That large cat has been following me around since sokoban. Normally I don't tolerate pets very long unless I have a magic whistle or a really powerful pet I'm afraid of letting go feral if I leave it too long, but this cat has been doing an alright job of keeping up, and I've been giving him some slack for some reason. Getting attached I guess. I might even have to name her.
On the way to the temple, I remember a large box, and drag it with me so I can make the temple more of less of a base. It burdens me to carry it, but I trundle to my destination without incident.

The temple was in shambles. A peaceful dwarf was there, mining away the walls for gems or gold or something, but he made a huge mess of what was a very solid, defensible area. I haven't got a pick axe yet, and I'd love to just drop him where he stands, but attacking peaceful creatures is not what Tyr stands for, and he wouldn't much care for it at a time when I'm getting ready to ask him for a present. So the dwarf lives... For now...

While I prepare my inventory for the horror of the cursed wand of create monster (get rid of everything burnable, everything I don't want cursed, everything I don't want rotted to nothingness) my large cat starts giving the dwarf the side-eye... She lunges at the dwarf and takes him down! Sweet! I check his inventory and see he had a good helm and dwarvish mithril! This banded mail was been weighing me down long enough! Hey... He left a corpse... Well, I didn't kill him... sooo... *my sacrifice is consumed in a flash of light* The voice of Tyr booms: [oh crap] use my gift wisely, mortal! [Sweeeet!] I just got Mjollnir on a random ass sacrifice! So lucky I don't have to mess with those create monster items! Awesome!

This seems like as good a place to stop as any.

These posts are easy to put together one piece at a time, and Nethack is turn based so I can just walk away in the middle of the game without worry. Both of these elements are conducive to life with a newborn, so I'll do my best to keep these coming.

How do I watched ET play nethack ¯\(°_o)/¯

I dunno lol!

ET plays Nethack on Alt.org, and you can watch him play live, look at his old playthroughs, and if you get a login, play the game in a browser (or command prompt) and send him annoying messages while he's playing!

How to watch:

First, you need to connect:

From a browser click here OR telnet to nethack.alt.org.

Once you're connected, click on the terminal screen then press "W" to watch games in progress, and press the letter which corresponds to ET's sooper seekrit username; Aemaeth.

If you register for a login: you send annoying messages to me while I'm playing live! (press "M" while watching).

Is ET playing live, right now? Lets see:

Eira's Quest part 2, Big Room Bollocks

When we last left our hero, she was below the Big Room, half-dead, blind, and lycanthropic! You could say she was having trouble seeing what a hairy situation she was in! (ba-dum tschh!)

Back downstairs, I confirm I'm still wearing the ring of warning and wait silently, afraid a clot of hill giants will round the corner and throw boulders at me at any moment. Luckily, the blindness wears off, and I'm able to wait until healed, and return upstairs with a new plan.

As soon as I emerge, I read a scroll of teleport, hoping I don't get dropped near that group of chickatrices. Luckily, I get sent to the other side of the map. Whew. Good thing I didn't have to take out that group of chickatrices. I take one step, and... The pyrolisk casts its fiery gaze upon you! Shit! Where the fuck did that come from?! I attempt a retreat, hoping the conflict will run it into some other monster, but it just keeps on staring at me. After a few turns, and a few near misses due to my displacement, I manage to take out the pyrolisk. But I'm low on health, most of my scrolls have burned up and potions have boiled and exploded (goddamnit), I'm on fire, and oh yeah, I'm stuck far from the staircase in the big room with no more teleports. Just when things couldn't get any worse, You change into werewolf form! AHHH FUCK! I FORGOT I WAS LYCANTHROPIC! I was going to wait until I was lower on health to pray! The transition tears through my precious cloak of displacement and my armor. Now I'm a weak werewolf, against a wall, low on health, and no armor. Oh! summon help! I wait a few turns to get my energy up, and summon help. I'm instantly surrounded by wolves who came to help, but they too, attack me viciously. Shit! Really low on health now! Way to leave conflict on! I quickly remove the ring of conflict, which first stops my pack of wolves from attacking me as I'm near death, and second makes every monster left in the room make a bee-line for me. I noticed I'm overburdened, and quickly drop any nonessentials so I can make a hasty escape. Lets see if I can figure a way out of this...

My wolf pack takes a few monsters down before dying surprisingly easily, but at least I can put my ring of conflict back on. I'm still low on health, and looking to make my way back to the staircase as a plains centaur and a winter wolf close in on me. While I'm waiting for them to close in on me so I can make some moves around them both, the centaur starts firing its crossbow, and the winter wolf starts shooting its ice beam at me! Fuck this shit! I retreat from my position, hoping I'm fast enough to make it around these monsters, and notice that as I leave my spot, there is a pile of stuff I didn't expect. Shit! I dropped my weapons too! I can't wield anything in this form, can I? Shitshitshit. I gotta go back. Already three spaces away, I return to the line of fire to grab whatever I needed to survive until I changed back to my human form.

Dodging crossbow bolts and ice beams, I make it back to my pile of stuff. Ok, what's here? I need my sword and daggers, *crossbow bolt* and this gray stone, I guess, it probably doesn't weigh much *ice beam* and definitely this wand of lightning, hey wait! I pick up the wand of lightning in my werewolf mouth, and level it at the centaur and winter wolf, making short work of them. Whew! Ok, still need to get out of here, but conflict seems to be less effective than it used to be. It's long past time to get out of here.

Quickly dodging through fighting monsters and missiles, I'm still nowhere near the staircase, and the pack of chickatrices are alternating between turning nearby monsters into statues and making several troublesome moves toward me, when I (luckily?) discover a level teleport trap! Hopefully I'll go up a level so I can go up to level two or something, and get another cloak of displacement. I'm momentarily blinded by a flash of light, and... Went down a level. Oh well, it's still better than where I was, trapped in the big room. I'm somewhat close to the stairs, and this room seems pretty protected. I quickly pray to my god to cure my lycanthropy, and he graciously cures me, but I wasn't low enough on health to heal me. Wow. That was almost terminally stupid. Forgetting I had lycanthropy, and that changing form would destroy all my sweet armor? Geez.

I wait around a bit to heal up, and check my inventory. I've got that cursed cloak that I think is good. It's a "piece of cloth," so I'm pretty sure it's invisibility, but no other armor to speak of... Oh yeah! Those green dragon scales! I put on the loose dragon scales, which helps my armor class a lot less than expected, and put on the cursed piece of cloth, which turns out to be a cloak of protection, but I didn't notice any AC improvement. This is far from ideal, but it's better than nothing. I'll worry about removing this cursed cloak later. I futz with my inventory a bit and heal up enough to venture back to the up stairs. The up and down stairs on the Big Room level are pretty close together, but I can't remember how many were in that area when I was there last. Or more importantly, where those chickatrices were! I still don't have any lizards, and a simple touch from one of those would end my quest!

I continue making my way back to the familiarity of the up staircase area, when I find a neutral altar! Sweet! Now I can sacrifice to my god, get a prayer back in case of some other stupid move, and possibly get Mjolnir! I hang out for a bit and sacrifice a few small monsters that come by. Fuck this, I'm zapping my wand of create monster. I greedily zap the wand and a damn plains centaur appears! Ok, maybe I should have waited until I healed up a bit! I eye my inventory for a way out, and realize that what worked before should work now, and zap it with my wand of lightning, killing it instantly. OK! Lets not try that again! I drag the centaur onto the altar, and sacrifice it for a little luck, but I need more monsters. Understandably gun shy, I leave the wand of create monster alone, and opt to wait around, healing, and trying to coax monsters into the altar room. One room over a hill giant breaks down the door. Shit! I don't need this right now! Please don't throw a boulder at me! It'll block my way back to the altar room! I quickly vacate the corridor for fear a bolder might block it, and luckily, this hill giant didn't seem to have a boulder. It very clearly passes on several opportunities to throw one at me, and closes in to melee me, which is definitely what I prefer. That's it, a little closer... Then it throws a boulder at me. AH FUCK! *WHEW* Dodged it! No longer afraid of boulders, I close in on it, and take it out. The next corridor has a lot of items in it for some reason, I check the pile and see the grave of a dead wizard, and all his kit. Well, most of it is probably cursed, but beggars can't be choosers!

I grab everything that looks useful and check the cursed status on the altar. Most of it is cursed, but some isn't. Quite a few cursed rings, and a pair of cursed leather gloves. I briefly consider the danger of those chickatrices, and decide to put them on. Woot! They lowered my AC by 3! There is an uncursed amulet, but I'll try it out later. My amulet of reflection is too important to me right now. Ok, time to try on some of these rings... Oh wait... I can't take off my cursed gloves to change rings... Genius. Wait, I'll just sacrifice some more and pray, and maybe I'll get lucky. How about this cursed potion? Potions are heavy, and even cursed, they don't usually have game ending consequences. I quaff cursed potion, and discover it's a potion of gain level! But cursed potions of gain level literally make you gain a level. I float up and through to the ceiling, and back into the Big Room! Genius... Well, at least I still have my ring of conflict on, and I found some scrolls of teleport. Here we go!

Back on in the Big Room, I see that I'm actually in a pretty good spot. Pretty much on the opposite side of where I was before, so I'm far from where the monsters were, and they will have to fight their way through each other to get back to me. This might actually work out better than expected! I take a step, and land in a polymorph trap! SSSSHHHIIII--wait! The scales are merging with my body? I'm turning into a green dragon! The transformation destroyed my cursed cloak of protection, and pushes my cursed gloves off of my hands! So... win? Hey! I can breathe poison and lay dragon eggs! Sweet! Never mind, not enough energy since I just transformed, but now I wonder how fast I am... Hey, I seem pretty fast! I dance around the chickatrices, making them run into other monsters, and contribute further to my Big Room statue garden. After the Big Room is pretty clear, I retreat downstairs to relax for a bit, and try out my new form.

[to be continued]

Eira the Valkyrie, and the new stratagem

After a series of promising, but ultimately dead characters, I started reading some ascension posts (posts about winning), and saw that these players were playing kind of fast and loose with their characters. It was risky to dive to sokoban for reflection or all the way to the castle for the wand of wishing, but both of those things exponentially increase your chances of surviving to mid-game. So was it more dangerous to go straight down to sokoban as soon as possible for reflection, or was it more dangerous to meander about, trying to stay alive long enough for the Random Nethack God to figure out a complex set of circumstances that ends in my death? I'd been playing each character like I wanted to keep it alive, but they're all very notably dead. Could being more risky be technically less risky? Only one way to find out. I switch back to the class I have the most experience with, and roll new Valk.

Eira the neutral human Valkyrie enters the Mazes of Menace...

---

I started out pretty well, found a shop with two cloaks of displacement for only 66 zorkmids. I couldn't buy one fast enough. I then, rather uneventfully, rushed down to sokoban, and solved it with little trouble. The amulet of reflection was mine, and at level 5 I was protected from a good portion of the insta-deaths Nethack can issue. Maybe there's something to this new strategy... Should I make a run for the castle? Why the fuck not?

I continue down, and find a few rings I can't check for cursed status with a pet because they've all died due to somesuch Nethackery, so I just hold on to them in the hopes of finding an altar. A kitten attacks, and I toss it some tripe for a cheap cursed item ID, and abandon it. Don't look at me like that. You knew what this was. I test out the uncursed rings, and find they are conflict and warning! Quite a find. Warning will show me where nearby monsters are, and how nasty they are. Very useful. Conflict will cause all the monsters on the level to fight each other. Extremely useful in certain situations. Later I happen across an uncommon find; a grey stone. It could be a few things, only one is bad, so I test it to make sure it's not a loadstone, and pick it up. Hey, could be a luckstone... Yeah, and a djinni could fly out of my ass and grant me three wishes! It's probably flint. Maybe even a touchstone. I'll check it later, but there's no harm in bringing it along. Despite the unlikeliness, I carry it in my immediate inventory as if it were a luckstone. Just wishful thinking, I suppose.

Further down I enter a new level, and begin searching for the downstairs when I suddenly stop. I furrow my brow and stare. Why the fuck is my ring of warning telling me there is a 5th level dangerous monster around the corner??? The ring of warning uses numbers to show how dangerous the monsters nearby are. If you can't see them, but are near enough, they show up on your map as the number. 5 is the highest I've ever seen warning go, and now I was seeing it extremely early in the game. This can't be right. Its gotta be a chameleon. Just be cool, back away from whatever it is until it changes into something easier to kill... I take two cautious steps toward the upstairs, and think I might have just dodged a bullet. I take another step, and it teleports into the room with me! It's a fucking Arch Lich! It casts a spell, and I'm surrounded on all sides by serious monsters! Among them an ettin zombie, two hill giants, and a goddamn green dragon!

okokok, don't freak out. Check your inventory for something to get out of this. I've got two scrolls of teleport, one cursed, one not. The cursed one will change what level I'm on, and the uncursed one will just move me around on this level. I'd rather deal with the chameleon now, so lets try the uncursed one first, and keep the cursed one in reserve. I read the uncursed scroll of teleport, and wind up two rooms away. I quickly put on my ring of conflict, and make a run for a corridor so I can deal with the monsters one at a time when they show up.

I hear noises from elsewhere, hopefully that ring of conflict is doing something. As I stand in the corridor, two "2"s show up in the room in front of me, but out of my visual range. I poke my head into the room, and see a cockatrice and a scorpion. I didn't know a scorpion was a 2... I back into the corridor and ready the few daggers I have for that cockatrice, when the 2 changes into a 1. I poke my head out, and see a small kobold where the cockatrice once was. It's the chameleon! Kill it while it's still weak! I rush over and kill it, then make my way the scorpion. On the way I see a 2 and a 3 making their way over to this room, so I dispatch the scorpion quickly, and fall back into the corridor. The corridor is at a bit of an angle, so I might be able to see what it is before it has a straight shot at me, so I back into the next room, which turns out to be a leprechaun hall! They're still asleep, so they won't bother us, but if things get hairy I can wake them all up, and with the ring of conflict, they should make for a good distraction. But this room is still a dead end. I hide around the corner, double check my inventory, and wait for the 2 and 3 to make their way to me.

The 2 enters the corridor, and I poke my head around the corner, and see that it's an ettin mummy. I should be able to take him... them?.. It. I position myself so I can hit it as soon as it sees me, and wait for the 2 to round the corner. As soon as its heads appear, I attack. It was tougher than I thought, but I killed it. The 3 suddenly makes a bee-line for me, I'm still at 2/3 health, so I need to know what it is. I wait until the 3 is in the corridor in a position where I can look safely, and peek around the corner. Green Dragon! Ok, it's kind of early for me to try to take one on. I know I have poison resistance... Fuck it. I've got a potion of full healing and a wand of digging in case it gets to be too much. No guts no Glory. I wait for the Green Dragon to get in range, and bash it with my long sword. It takes quite a beating, and gets my hitpoints down to the teens, but I drink the full heal potion, and finish it off in a few more turns. Sweet! Now I have green dragon scales that I might be able to turn into dragon scale mail!

I continue clearing out the rest of the level, and pick up a large cat as a pet. I open the door on the last room in the map, and it's full of chickatrices! I check my inventory and confirm I have a lizard corpse, but no gloves... I try to close to the door, but a chickatrice hops into the doorway! I have no reason to fuck around with these things, so I'm out. I back out of the corridor, slam the door behind it, and lock it. I'll deal with those guys later. Or never. At least my large cat was far enough away to keep from getting locked in with them...

On the way to the stairs down, I run into a gargoyle. I hate gargoyles. I check my inventory and zap it with a wand of lightning, killing it on the first hit. It drops a potion, which I quaff greedily. It was a potion of self knowledge!

You are piously aligned.
You are cold resistant.
You are warned.
You are displaced.
You are stealthy.
You are fast.
You have reflection.
You are lucky.
You have extra luck.
Bad luck does not time out for you.
Good luck does not time out for you.
You can safely pray.

That's odd... Why all the luck? Oh well, I won't complain.

The next level down is the Big Room, and I've got a ring of conflict! I slip it on and put some distance between me and my large cat. The monsters start fighting amongst themselves, most notably a pack of chickatrices, but the overall flow of monsters is still closing in on me, so I carefully made my way to the down stairs so I'd have an easy escape if it got hairy.

The chickatrices have been making tons of statues out of monsters, but they weren't making it close enough to keep me clear. Or do I want them to stay away? I fight as much as I can, and flee downstairs once surrounded, knowing that some monsters would follow me down.

Sure enough a zombie and a tengu follow me down, it'll be good not to have them around me when I go back up. As I fight them off, a hill giant appears in the doorway, but is far enough away that I'll have these guys out of the way before he gets to me. Suddenly the hill giant zaps a wand of lightning while I'm at half health! Shit! If this doesn't kill me, he's still far enough away to zap me multiple times before I can get to him, and my daggers are all upstairs! Should I escape upstairs? The bolt of lightning streaks toward me, bounces off my amulet of reflection, blinding me, and returns to the hill giant, killing him. Ok, that was close. Or did it just seem close? Whatever. Hill giants usually travel in packs, and the monsters that had surrounded me upstairs didn't seem too tough if I recall correctly, I think I'll hang out upstairs until the blindness wears off.

Back upstairs, I blindly fight off some minor monsters, but one bites me and I feel feverish. Crap! A werewolf! Ok, my god will cure my lycanthropy, but I don't want to use up the godly heal if I'm not near death, because I'm still low on health. I keep fighting, but the monsters seem too resilient. Fuck this, I'm leaving. I escape downstairs.

Eira's quest continues here...

Nethack strategery wins the day

After reading some nethack strategies, I started a Valk a little differently, and got crazy far with her. Things went so well, and stayed so exciting that I was up until 5am playing. Was just trying the strategy out, so I wasn't keeping notes at first, but there was some real drama going on, so I wrote some up. Plenty of excitement after that too, so this story should be a bit more entertaining.

I know you all come here just to hear about my Nethack characters. You don't have to lie.

Gargoyles, Chameleons, and Yeenoghus! Oh my!

[Herath's quest continues]

I test out the booby-trapped ring, and it's a ring of invisibility! This will help a bit. I leave it off for now and continue exploring. A tiger appears, and my horses make short work of it! Sweet! We find sokoban, and I brain fart on the first level and fuck it up. Goddmnit. I leave to go find a pick axe, and decide to just continue deeper. I still wanted to find an altar to get back in my god's good graces after accidentally killing my unnamed cat.

The next level down, we run into a few nasty monsters, followed by a bunch of zombies. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but one of my horses got surrounded, and died. Pushing on I discover the big room, and leave it for later, preferably when I have a ring of conflict. By now I've managed to pick up a bit of kit, and without an altar to test it out on, I'm going to have to go back to the mine town.

On the way there, my horse freaks out and starts attacking me! I avoid hurting it as best as I can, and then it starves to death. I guess it was crazed with hunger or something. It didn't matter, I didn't have anything to feed it. Alone again, I continue.

I find a general store I didn't notice before, and cost ID some scrolls. I have a general idea how much some scrolls cost, so if I get in a situation and have to take my chances reading unidentified scrolls, I can at least make an educated guess.

Back in town I sacrifice at the conveniently co-aligned altar, and get back in the good graces of my god. Instead of rewarding me with some useful item, he just summons the friendly demon Yeenoghu. I remember Yeenoghu from another game. He was kind of annoying, but he's kind of like a mascot. Yeenoghu teleports freely, and likes to jump in front of you, causing you to bump into him, and make the game ask if you want to attack him. He wasn't too much of a problem before, so I'll let him hang around. I dilute some potions and blank some scrolls so I can make some holy water and blessed scrolls of identify with my magic marker. As I start processing my equipment I realize I have a can of grease I hadn't used, so I grease my helmet, cloak, and bag. I prep my kit for the possibility of getting a full identify off a single blessed scroll, and luck out on the first try! My entire inventory is identified, but I don't really have anything gamechanging.

I maximize my kit, and bless my daggers (I still haven't been able to find more than 7 for some damn reason), and remember something I have to deal with. It's time to take on that gargoyle.

I head to the staircase, Yeenoghu teleporting around me all the way, and before I got down, I turn on my lamp, pull my +2 arrows out of my bag, and put on my ring of invisibility. He's not going to know what hit him. Yeenoghu actually follows me downstairs but doesn't get in the way too much as I put +2 arrow after +2 arrow into the gargoyle, which flails wildly trying to strike at my invisible displaced image. It took quite a beating, but it was a lot easier to kill when I could actually see it. I explore the rest of the level, and discover it is a bones level! A previous samurai died at the hands of a gargoyle (motherFUCKER!) and left a bit of kit.

After a short interlude of carrying everything from my previous character back up to the altar, I find a few bits of useful armor, but nothing too exciting. I update my kit, and continue deeper in the mines. I enter the level after the gargoyle, and wrap my towel around my head. My telepathy reveals a fucking demilich (!), a water troll, a baby white dragon, and bunch of other nasty monsters that I do NOT want to deal with right now. I quickly leave and return to town to regroup.

As I climb the staircase back to the town level, I use my telepathy again and see a fucking black dragon around the corner from me! WTF is going on!? I'm only level 10! I wait a few turns to stay by the stairs, and it changes into a newt. Oh, geez. It's a chameleon. Well, maybe I can wait until it turns into something useful... I stay blinded to watch it with my telepathy as it changes into some mediocre monsters for a few turns. Just when I think I should just kill it, it turns into a goddamn Arch Lich! FUCK! KILL IT! It teleports next to me and summons monsters! I remove my blindfold, and read a scroll of teleport! I need to stay away from it long enough for it to change into something else! I teleport across the map, and it teleports next to me and attacks me with its psychic powers! I put on the ring of invisibility and try to get away from it while staying out of the line of fire, and it turns into a yeti. I quickly drop it with 6 daggers and breathe a sigh of relief!

I decide to calm down with some potion testing, so I lock myself in the temple, and quaff away. Lucky me, the first potion I tested was hallucination. I blind myself so I can make sure I don't get surrounded while I wait off my buzz. I'm still a little on edge after the Arch Lich encounter, so I try not to freak out when I hallucinate at the Jabberwocky and Red Dragon that appear to be closing in on me.

I continue waiting, it's taking longer than normal, and I can't do anything without fear of accidentally attacking the Priestess, who would make short work of me. I continue waiting. Quite a while later, the monsters are massing outside, but I can't tell what they really are, and I'm still hallucinating! I can't do anything. Just sit. As I continue waiting, I hear crashing rock, which indicates something is digging through walls on the level. This is very bad, because if the monster opens one of the walls around the temple, monsters can get in, and I can't tell what they are and whether or not they're the Priestess. I luckily stop hallucinating shortly after that. Thank god that's over. I look at the monsters outside and realize I've got my work cut out for me.

The horde of monsters weren't that nasty, there were just a lot of them. I ready my arrows, open the door, and start firing. It takes quite a bit of time to thin them out enough that I can run out and grab the arrows to reuse, but somewhere in the fray, I manage to hit a guard, which brings all of them after me. Fortunately they don't want to enter the temple, so I'm somewhat safe from them. Dozens of salvos of arrows later, I think I've got everything. I sort through all the dropped kit (conveniently placed right outside the temple :]) and get a little better armor, and some more much needed daggers. I take out a unicorn that was a little late to the party, sacrifice it, and get its horn, which will keep me from having to put up with that hallucination crap in the future.

When everything is sorted, I realize I have a ton of money, and might be able to buy godly protection! Not sure exactly how much I need, I decide to ID some gems, and sell them for as much as I can get, and just donate it all. My god rewards my generous donation by improving my armor class by 3 points.

With the kit all sorted, and the horde dealt with, I decide to do some scroll identification. I lock myself in the temple again, take off all my good armor, throw on a pair of crappy boots, and wield a simple knife, and start reading. I find a scroll of remove curse, magic mapping, and destroy armor (good thing I wasn't wearing my good armor!) So now, faced with some nasties a few levels down in the mines, and the big room back in the dungeon, I decide it's time to deal with sokoban.

Picked up a pony on the way back to sokoban, but didn't have much hope for him. I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how I could fix my sokoban fuck-up, and figured out how to do it while breaking only two boulders. You can bet I was very careful for the rest of the puzzle, because I didn't want to lock myself out of the prize at the end. Along the way, my horse predictably starved to death, and I continued on.

I made it down to the last room, and realized I had taken them asleep! I carefully took out all the monsters one at a time, and got my reward; the amulet of reflection. Now I'm protected from at least some of the insta-deaths... I also make out with a few wands, one of which is a wand of fire! On the way out an ocre jelly tries to corrode my helmet, but it's protected by the grease. It also corrodes one of my thrown daggers I hadn't picked up yet. Damn! Down to 6 daggers! Where the fuck are all the daggers in this game??? I dispatch it with the silver saber I got from the mine town's watch captain, because the silver is protected against corrosion. What? He wasn't using it. I run into a kitten and dog on the way out, which join me as my new pets, but the kitten falls rather quickly to a clot of mummies. The dog takes a beating, but survives. With the pets, I do some impromptu testing on the new items, and try on some uncursed rings with no effect. I test out the wands, and all are obvious except one. I zap it at a monster, at my pet dog, and at myself. Nothing. Oh well.

Finished with sokoban, I wonder what to do now. I've got those nasties in the mines and the big room below my feet. I decide to make an outpost to get unburdened. A few levels up I find a chest, and lug it into a small, one entrance room, and start unloading when I make a startling discovery! What the shit?! When did I get blasted with water? All my scrolls are blank, and my potions are all water! Good thing I greased by bag, so its contents were protected, but still, wtf?! FUCK! MY MAGIC MARKER IS OUT OF INK! Shit! There goes all my scroll writing! Goddamnit! When the fuck did I get wet?! OH SHIT! What if I didn't get wet? What if that wand I couldn't identify was a wand of cancelation? Fuckfuckfuck! Shit. Well, nothing to do now but make this water holy. Back to the mines.

I return to the mine town, and make more holy water, and tweak my kit a bit. Still no more fucking daggers. wtf. I realize that that wand of fire might give me the upper hand against that demilich, and those other nasties downstairs. Hell, it's either them or the big room. I adjust my pack for the fight, and go back down.

Yeenoghu is waiting for me on the level above my destination, so I make sure he doesn't follow me down, because I'm going to need a clear line of fire at that demilich. There are a few gnomes I can deal with before getting to the demilich, and to my great pleasure, they start throwing daggers at me! Daggers! Finally, daggers! I quickly dispatch the gnomes, and pick up 9 more daggers! Sweet! Ok, demilich time now. The demilich seems to have trouble with me being invisible, and can't seem to corner me or hit me with any substantial spells. I dance around until I get a line of fire on it, Say hello to my little friend! I zap the wand of fire, and it turns to dust! WTF! The wand of cancelation cancels wands too?! Shit! I switch to arrows, and unleash salvo after salvo, but he keeps healing, and I can't wear him down! Eventually I run out, and realize I need to gather my arrows to try again! I unblind myself, and remember that it's invisible, so I can't see it now. Shit. It could corner me if I'm not careful. So I walk awkwardly around so as to avoid being cornered by the invisible monster, while picking up the arrows I will need to kill it. It takes a few swipes at my displaced image, and gets close enough to cast a spell on me! My boots disintegrate! Fuck these arrows! I'm out of here! I return to the town level, and intentionally leave Yeenoghu below me, because he's getting on my tits with this constant teleporting in front of me. I get some new boots from my pile of stuff in the temple, and identify and stack the new daggers with my old ones. Finally, I can start kicking some ass! I return to the demilich, leaving my god upstairs with Yeenoghu (he won't mind), and start pelting it with daggers. It heals once, and dies before it can recharge its magic enough to do it again. It drops a ring that I will not be trying on until I'm very sure it's safe.

Through some luck of the map layout, all the other nasties were behind another wall, and stuck there until I was done with the demilich. I grabbed my large dog from upstairs, and moved around the corner, still invisible, and started picking them off. I actually wound up with a nice corridor that they walked through while I pelted them with arrows. I emptied both stacks of arrows before I took them all out, but I was ok, and gathered up all the dropped kit. I was hoping the baby white dragon would leave scales, but it didn't. Lost my large dog in the fight. My poor pets...

I gather the kit, and ID it at the town. The ring was cursed, so I dipped it in some holy water to uncurse it and tried it on to no effect. Hmmm... Kit handled, I was going to to the demilich level, and FINALLY get to the bottom of the mines.

On the way, Yeenoghu had been getting in front of me in the small corridor on the way from the upstairs to the downstairs, so I went the long way up and around. I accidentally bumped into him (for the millionth time), and Nethack asked me if I wanted to attack him, except I was going up and to the right, which is "y" on the directional keys. I attacked Yeenoghu due to the typo, and he teleported away. Oh shit... that was bad... Where'd he go? Is he coming back? I gotta get the fuck out of here! I take a few steps toward the stairs, and Yeenoghu teleports right next to me, and misses me a few times, then teleports away. Fuckfuckfuck. This is bad. Maybe being invisible and displaced will give me enough chance to make it off this level. I take a few more steps and Yeenoghu teleports next to me again, and casts a spell! I'm pelted with hundreds of missiles! I'm at 13 health! Shit! That's low, but I don't think it's low enough that my god will heal me! I try for the pray anyways, and my god protects me for a few turns, but doesn't heal me. I've got one more turn left before I eat it. I don't have enough turns to dig a hole through the ground, and a scroll of teleport is useless because Yeenoghu will just teleport next to me again. I check my inventory again, and realize it's time to whip out something I was saving for a bad situation. Not a very good Hail Mary, but my only one. I reach into my knapsack, and pull it out, point it at Yeenoghu, and... "SAY CHEESE!" I take a candid shot of Yeenoghu with my expensive camera as he tries to cast a spell at me, he is blinded by the flash! RUN LIKE HELL! I move one space away from him, and he hits hits me with his missile spell. Apparently he doesn't care if he's blind or not... Herath the Orcish Ranger dies. Killed by a typo.

Ok, so, in the future? Yeenoghu is getting brought back to level 1, and ABANDONED. Thanks a lot Mars, fat lot of help summoning him for me was. He just gets in my damn way and fucking kills me! Bah!

10 Years of Nethack!

I recently recalled that I've been playing Nethack off and on since 2000.

10 years of being turned to stone.
10 years of drowning.
10 years of being zapped with wands of death.
10 years of being swarmed by insects.
10 years of being killed by priests.
10 years of starving to death.
10 years of chameleons being imitating nasty monsters.
10 years of dead pets.
10 years of rustmonsters destroying my equipment.
10 years of falling down stairs.
10 years of eating floating eyes.
10 years of poisoned dart/arrow insta-deaths.
10 years of pissed off Gods.
10 years of unaligned altars.
10 years of polymorphing pets.
10 years of teleporting away.
10 years of getting killed in expected ways.
10 years of getting killed in unexpected ways.
...and one exploding draw bridge.


In all that time, I've yet to get even remotely close to winning.


But for all the nastiness Nethack throws at me, for all the murderous brilliance it seems to concoct, when I look back, all I can remember is the fun.

It's not all fun, of course. There's a lot of fear. This is the only game I play where I will feel real fear when I play. The reason this game incites real fear is because you only get one life. You can have dozens of hours into a game, and a character, and just lose it all. You're mostly on borrowed time until you can find some protection from the game's many insta-deaths. Even then, survival is far from assured. But for a game that seems so unfair, for almost every death, there was some way for you to avoid it. So for the most part, your death is because of your ignorance.

To remedy that ignorance, you can read the spoilers, or you can learn the way I did. With blood. Elf blood, human blood, orc blood, dwarf blood. Dead valkyries, dead rangers, dead samurai, dead rogues, dead barbarians. As long as you learn from each death, you're improving.

So, atop of small hill of dead avatars, I quaff my potion of booze to 10 years of dead @'s, and to 10 more!



Sure it's the hardest game I've ever played, and it's the only game that does everything in its power to kill you in any way possible, and it comes with randomly generated insta-deaths, and you only get one life, and it's loaded with intentionally dangerous items, and its Gods are fickle, and it has a difficulty curve like a hockey stick, and... wait, where was I going with this?

Herath the Orcish Ranger

Herath the Orcish Ranger enters the mazes of menace, with his trusty dog Sirius in tow...

I check Herath's kit and see he started with a cloak of displacement (I forgot Rangers start with this!), and the usual; a dagger, and bow and arrows. A bunch of blessed +0 arrows, and even more blessed +2 arrows. I ready the regular arrows so I can save the +2s for an emergency, then switch to my alternate weapon, a +1 orcish dagger, and begin my descent.

I find a pair of riding boots that Sirius doesn't seem too bothered by, so I try them on and start levitating! Sweet! Boots of Levitation! These aren't too helpful now, but they can be useful later. I contemplate wearing them regularly to take advantage of the recoil of firing arrows, but I'm going to be trying to get my dagger skill up, so I figure they'll be more trouble than help.

Sirius is happy to take on anything he gets close enough to, and I'm happy to let him. It was especially easy to distract the monsters while Sirius attacked with my cloak of displacement. I'd prefer he toughen up before I start doing the same. I avoid direct combat quite well for a while, and we enter the mines so we can check out the town. We actually get two levels into the mines without me leveling up at all, and after I take a few poorly thrown weapons, and almost die, I realize that I need to get above level 1 if I expect to stay alive long enough to level up slowly. I start fighting, and get to level 3 almost instantly.

As we continue to fight, I realize I keep falling into the Valkyrie playing style (specifically, attack the thing until it dies), but this Ranger isn't as strong or hearty as a Valk. I actually get near death a few times before I realize I can't go melee with a dagger until I level up a bit. I switch to my bow and +0 arrows for now, and hope to find more daggers so I can start throwing them instead of shooting arrows. Arrows can break when used, but daggers don't break with normal use. One level before the town, Sirius takes out a dwarf, and I lug it all down to the town for cursed status identifying.

I get lucky with a coaligned altar in town. First time that has happened in a long time! I drop all my kit on the altar, and determine what's safe to use, and what's not. There's no chest or box here, so I just pile the useless stuff in the corner. After testing, I try on the armor I've found, and finally get my armor class to something acceptable. Whew! Hopefully that will keep me from getting my ass kicked so badly.

I checked the shops, but didn't find much more than a few apples, so I pack up for exploration before continuing deeper into the mines. I wanted to get the luckstone before I leveled up and was facing nastier monsters. The next level put me against some pretty easy monsters, so I had high hopes.

Next level down was kind of open around the staircase, and though it was dark, I could see with my orcish infravision (heat vision) that some weak gnomes were closing in. Sirius and I took them on, and I managed to pick up a few daggers that were thrown at me to add to my throwing pile, so things were going well. Then a freakin' gargoyle appeared right next to me, and attacked my displaced image! Shit! I couldn't see it because it doesn't give off body heat! I hate gargoyles! I dodged as best I could, trying to get a shot on him without getting hit by its heavy stone claws, but without a light source, I couldn't see it until it was right next to me! At least I've got some room to move around in, if this were in a small area, I'd probably be dead by now! I threw all my daggers at it, and hit it with +2 arrows whenever I could, but it just kept coming! Sirius jumped into the fray, and was struck down! Fuck! I gotta get out of here! I try to circle around the area, hoping to lose the gargoyle in the dark, but he surprises me from a side I wasn't expecting him! He's faster than I thought! I take a few good hits, and things look bleak, I try to rush for a corner, hoping to get a space away from him, and he gets me down to 8 health. Lucky he got me so low without killing me, my god will probably save me. I pray, and Mars heals my wounds. Time for an exit strategy.

I look at the area, the walls, and the location of myself and the gargoyle. I decide to try for the daggers I threw earlier before I escape. I need those daggers. Without them I'll be burning through arrows or going toe-to-toe without Sirius's backup. I move so that a newt I had been ignoring would get between the gargoyle and me, and was pretty sure I put a few spaces between us. I still couldn't see a damn thing, but I somehow managed to find the daggers and pick them up with the gargoyle finding an hitting me only a few times. I escaped upstairs plus a few daggers, but minus a faithful dog. I'm alone. I need to be more careful. I immediately go to the lighting shop, and buy a lantern. I don't want to end up running for my life in the dark again.

I type "goddamn gargoyle" into my notes for that level, and leave the mines to continue exploring the regular dungeon in the hopes of getting stronger, or a good item to help kill that goddamn gargoyle. I run into a kitten, and I give it one of the few food rations I have. I'd rather take my chances with hunger than lacking some backup. The kitten joins me, but I blank on a name for it. No names just yet. Don't want to get too attached.

We run into a damn Golden Naga hatchling Why does the RNG hate me?, but I'm in a good position to take it on. I threw 8 daggers and shot 6 +2 arrows to take it down. If that thing took me in another location, I probably would have eaten it. Lucky... I guess...

We found a hardware store full of good finds. I moved the kit around so my kitten would be more likely to steal the things I wanted first, and found a magic whistle! I bought it immediately, and used it to... facilitate... kitty's thieving. He's actually a better thief than most of my pets.

After a bit of shopkeep distracting, we've made off with a bag of tricks (good for sacrificing monsters to Mars), a skeleton key (good for locked doors and chests), and a freakin' magic marker! One hell of a good haul for a single shop.

The next level down I find a few more potions, and decide to do some testing. I find a room with only one entrance, and get my cat next to me. I quaff one of the questionable potions, and fall asleep. Oh well, that's why I have my pet next to me. I wake up with a weak zombie having beaten me down to 16 health! Where the fuck is my cat?! The zombie should be pretty slow, so I run for the far side of the room, and send send some daggers its way, destroying it. I start picking up my daggers, and my cat wanders in, oblivious to the fact that it almost killed me with its idle wandering. I walk past it angrily to pick up my last dagger, and a housecat rounds the corner, and starts attacking me. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but I'm already dangerously low on health! I try to put some distance between us, but I'm only barely outrunning it. Once I get a few spaces away, I've backed myself into a blind corridor, and don't know if it's a dead end, or leads to more room to run, so I fight. Since the housecat enters the corridor, and I throw a few daggers its way. I hit it a few times as it takes another step closer to me. Beyond the menacing housecat, my cat wanders dumbly into the line of fire, directly behind my target. I'm too weak, and too trapped, I need to kill this thing on this turn. I throw a salvo of three daggers. The first dagger kills the housecat, and the other two fly past its corpse, and into my poor, oblivious cat, killing it. Fuck... Poor little guy. Didn't even have a name. Alone again, I move on.

I enter a room, and spot a ring on the floor. Sweet! Free ring! I rush over the snatch it up, and-- KABOOM! The ring was on a landmine, and now I'm at half health, and in the hole made by the explosion. Well, it could have been worse. At this point, a horse appears at the edge of the hole I'm in, and starts attacking me, then ANOTHER horse appears, and starts attacking me! Shit! I'm in a really bad position! Horses are fast, and their both blocking my escape from this hole! I contemplate using a scroll of teleport, and check my inventory, but then I find the perfect solutions to both of these problems! I pull out the two apples I bought back in the mine town, and feed the two wild horses, who happily join me as my pets. I struggle out of the hole, and admire my new pets for a moment before moving on.

[Herath's quest continues]

I learn nothing.

I started up a new Nethack character because I hadn't played in a while.

Heidi the Valkyrie started on a new moon, which is bad luck, but I was willing to try my chances.

I lucked out with a first level altar. Though it wasn't of my alignment, I could still use it to identify cursed/blessed status. I found a cloak that Tim, my dog, thought was safe to try on. It was a freakin' cloak of displacement! I was VERY lucky! I pressed on, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Even more good luck when the second level had a fully stocked potion shop. I quickly priced everything, and put the stuff I wanted Tim to steal near the door. I distracted the shopkeep while Tim managed to sneak a few potions out. They helped a little, but I didn't get the djinni I was hoping for.

I returned to the altar to do some more identifying, and figured I'd try my luck at a conversion. The first attempt failed, and I didn't want to be on Tyr's bad side, so I stuck around until I got another chance, which succeeded! Woot! Co-aligned altar on the first level with a nearby chest for storage!

On the next level, I find a small dog. I check my inventory for tripe, but have none, so I see if he'll eat a food ration. He does, and I name him Jim. On the next level down, Jim wanders into a level teleport trap, and disappears to parts unknown. Damnit Jim! I soon find a ring of warning, and things are looking a bit better.

Further down I find a sink, a good place to look for a ring. I decide to take my chances with disturbing it, and kick it repeatedly. An incubus is summoned, but merely teleports away. Further kicking resulted in a black pudding oozing up from the drain. The black pudding is pretty tough for my level, but it's slow. I lead it next to Tim to see if he wants to step in, but he wisely stays out of it. I dance around, staying just out of its corrosive reach, while trying to kick the ring out of the sink. After a bit of this ballet, a ring appears! Except it the same freakin' ring I already have! What are the chances! Now I have a black pudding on the loose, and nothing to show for it. I retreat back to the altar.

I pick up a few items on the way which I identify at the altar, and manage to find some cursed boots that I bless so I can wear. The boots were -1, so they didn't affect my armor class at all since I wasn't wearing anything on my feet before them, but covering your body matters in Nethack.

I luck out with some good monsters to sacrifice, and Tyr gives me Mjollnir way freakin' earlier than I ever expected to get it! I'm pretty sure it's also corrosion resistant, so I should be able to show the black pudding who's boss! I fight my way back down to the sink level, keeping Tim far away from the level teleport trap as we pass it. I had hoped to see Jim by now, but I guess he's on a level under the black pudding.

I corner the black pudding and start beating it with Mjollnir. It has the bonus of not being an edged weapon, because edged weapons increase the chance of the pudding dividing. I hoped to end it quickly, but the pudding divided an amazing FIVE times before I realized I wasn't doing enough damage to kill it. I just quintupled my problems. Genius. But Tim came to the rescue! Apparently he had been doing more fighting than I had noticed, because he was ready to take them on now! He made short work of them, and we explored the rest of the level.

A few levels down we found a freakin' co-aligned altar! For starting on a new moon, I've been awfully lucky! The next level down was a bones level, which is both lucky, and unlucky. A bones level is the save of a level on which a character died previously. The lucky thing is that there is usually good gear on the corpses, the unlucky thing is that whatever took the character out last time is still around. I searched cautiously, and was surprised to find it was a double-bones level! I had died on it once before, found it as a new character only to die on it again, then found it this time. One of my previous characters had turned to stone, and I lacked a pick to free the items within the statue, but the other had plenty of goodies. With luck, some of which weren't cursed.

I check out a nearly empty shop on the same level, and pick up some new potions for testing. I get Tim nearby in case I get incapacitated, and quaff one of the potions. It's alcohol, and I remember that my stats take a hit for a while, but forget that I become confused. I take a step in the wrong direction, and accidentally attack Tim! With the power of Mjollnir, he died on the first blow. Goddamnit. I check all my wands on him to see if one is undead turning, but no luck. Poor Tim.

I'm more cautious now, without Tim's backup, I need to make sure I don't get myself in to a hairy situation. I find a kitten, which gladly joins me after some tripe. I name him Tim II, but he dies in the next room to a dwarf lord. Maybe I should just stop playing...

I return to the altar to reconcile with Tyr. He's probably pretty pissed about me murdering poor Timmy. After a few sacrifices, a counter-aligned unicorn shows up! After a bit of chasing, I take him down, and sacrifice him to Tyr for extra bonus reconciliation points! He gives me Werebane, which is really only great when fighting werewolves, which aren't much of a worry for me with Mjollnir. I put Werebane in my storage box in the altar room, and forget about it. I review the cursed inventory of my fallen character, and realize that I wouldn't have worn an amulet that was bad... In fact, I think there's a pretty good chance the amulet is a good one... I put it on while standing on the altar, just in case it's the cursed amulet of choking. It's the amulet of ESP! It's still cursed from being taken from a dead character, but it's not like I'll want to take it off any time soon! I decide to try for an uncursing, and take my chances by putting on a few cursed rings and pray to Tyr. He uncurses my ESP amulet. You know, the one I didn't want to take off anyways? Sigh. I suddenly teleport to another area. And one of the cursed rings I'm wearing is teleport. Fantastic.

Further down I am reunited with Jim! He doesn't remember me, of course, but he sure remembers the food I give him! He joins me happily, and I hope I can keep him alive until he grows into a large dog. Another level down I run into a werewolf that the Random Nethack God seems to have a soft spot for. I can't hit him at all. He gets a bite in before I can dispatch him, and I know I'm infected. I could pray to cure it, but I'm not sure when I last prayed, and I don't want to piss Tyr off, so I hope I can make it back to the altar to sacrifice a few more so Tyr will be more willing to help me out. I don't make it.

I turn into a wolf, bursting through my armor, and destroying my awesome cloak of displacement! I'm overburdened, and can't wield any weapons! I rest a bit from the transformation, and summon some wolves to my aid. At least I'll have some protection in my vulnerable state. I slowly make it back to the altar, stopping to summon more wolves (and one timber wolf!) whenever I can, but it's slow going with what became an enormous pack of wolves, and the teleportation that plagued me (wolves can still wear rings, apparently). I get an idea to get Werebane to see if it will purify me, but it only blasts me with energy, which I guess makes sense, since I'm a werewolf... I teleport again, away from the safety of the pack, and barely make it back. I have to pray. I'll take my chances.

Luckily, it wasn't too soon for Tyr, and he cured me of my lycantropy. Now I have an army of wolves following me around. I gotta find a polymorph trap or wand somewhere... I adjust my pack for exploration travel, and decide to bring Werebane with me this time.

I find a small general store full of food, which I quickly buy regardless of price. The rings I can't remove and useful amulet make me burn calories faster, so I need it more than I need the gold. Teleportation is wearing on my nerves. I get desperate and try to use a fountain to remove the rings. All the sacrificing gave me enough luck to avoid all the nasty possibilities of fountain use, but I still couldn't get the rings off. I wander back up, looking for a fountain (I should have kept better notes), and happen upon a sleeping nymph! I quickly separate myself from my pets, and take off everything I can, down to the two cursed rings. I slap the nymph awake, who dutifully steals something from me, and teleports away. She takes one of the cursed rings from me, and I get dressed and wait to find out if it was the teleport ring... I soon teleport into a nasty room, and fight my way out. As my wolves come to reunite with me, my ESP amulet shows me their encounter with the nymph, who falls quickly to my pets. Damnit.

My pack of wolves is becoming a chore to manage. They're alway wandering off, keeping away from me when I want to go down stairs, and staying too close to me when I go back up stairs to bring more down. I start to get very hungry before I can safely pray to Tyr to fill my belly. The pack of wolves is eating up everything in sight, and not leaving a thing for me. I scavenge for food and run into a freakin' mumak! It charges me immediately, and I take several very serious hits. It gets me from 103 hit points to 6 far to quickly. Without my displacement, I'm stuck dancing around, dodging through the pack. The pack is also aware that I've made a mistake, and aside from the occasional passing swipe or bite at the mumak, fails to dog-pile (as it were) when I need it most. The mumak ignores the lightly attacking wolves for many turns, trying only to finish me off, but I barely make it away long enough for it to turn on the wolves. Then the massacre began.

Every wolf strong enough to pick a fight with the mumak was obliterated in a few short turns, but I knew the mumak had to be weakening. Down to only a few wolves and Jim, the mumak turned back to me. I checked my inventory for something to bring down a mumak, and found a wand of magic missile I had forgotten about. I didn't have a good angle on the mumak, and didn't want to kill myself on a ricochet, or injure any of my wolves or poor Jim. I danced around the small room, trying to get a shot while trying to avoid the mumak's tusks. I hit the mumak three times before my wand sputtered empty. The mumak bearing down on me, I stubbornly believed it had to be near death. I put on the ring of plus damage I had taken off when I started to get hungry, and took one last swing at the mumak.

It fell right there. I was alive, still starving, but alive. One of my wolves jumped on the corpse and ate it before I could do anything. So there I was, surrounded by my dead wolves, starving to death. I did the only thing I could. I ate my pets' corpses. Tyr wasn't going to like it, but he'd soften up after a few sacrifices. But still... Goddamnit.

I returned to the altar to identify the status of some new equipment, then headed to the general store to see how much the shopkeep would give me for some of my unidentified scrolls. One of them was very expensive, even though it was cursed, so I held on to it, and returned to the altar for some safe reading. I got rid of everything that could burn in case of a scroll of fire, and read the expensive cursed scroll. It was a scroll of genocide! Good thing I found out it was cursed first, that could have been bad. I think a bit about what monster I want sent in, and get a great idea! I ask it to genocide all tengu because I know the cursed genocide scrolls teleport those creatures in instead of killing them all, and I can use the tengu for some thing useful.

Several tengu appear, and I annoy Tyr yet again by attacking a peaceful creature, and quickly scarfing down the corpse. I get lucky on the first try and get teleport control! Tengu teleport at will, and eating their corpses gives you a chance to get teleport control, or teleportitis. I just got lucky. FINALLY I can stop dealing with this teleport bullshit!

I spot a nymph nearby but the wolves get to her before I can get her to steal my cursed ring of teleportation. I start altar camping, and sacrificing anything that comes close enough for me to drag to the altar to get back in Tyr's good graces. I after a bit of a dry spell, a gaggle of chickatrices appear, and I get greedy. I quickly chase them down, but they refuse to leave corpses! I kill the last one, and it leave a corpse, and the wolves don't immediately eat it! Score!

I bend down to pick it up aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddd

I turn to stone.

Making yet another pretty statue of one of my characters.

I need to make gloves a priority. There were some cursed gloves on my dead character, but I didn't put them on. Obviously the negative hit of the cursed gloves would have been preferable to turning to stone.

I lean nothing.

Terin the Orcish Ranger

After a few false starts, I decided to try something new, and went with a new kind of character.

>Hello Terin, welcome to NetHack! You are a chaotic male orcish Ranger.

I must say that I liked infravision, auto-search, and cloak of displacement for a Ranger character. Maybe this is a winning pick. All my elvish Rangers started with an elvish cloak, instead of displacement, and I like displacement better than invisibility. Plus I lucked out and got a +2 cloak of displacement. At first, I was using my +0 arrows instead of my +2 arrows in order to keep them from breaking when used, but after a few close calls, I realized that I needed to focus on staying alive for the first part of the game, and I could always make more enchanted arrows if I manage to use them all up. Fortunately, the enchantment seemed to keep them from mulching as fast as the +0 arrows, and I'm betting that blessing them will make them even better. Still, I focused on using my dagger as much as possible, since it was better to throw daggers than arrows, and I could poison arrows without my god being mad at me for using such an underhanded tactic. Chaotic alignments have their perks, I suppose.

Sadly, the first few levels were not as fruitful as those of my recently departed previous characters. How I managed to mess up that Valk with the two general stores on the second and third level, I'll never know. But that didn't matter now. What mattered was Terin the Orcish Ranger.

I found a storage box on the first level, and began filling it up with everything I found lying around to keep it from being used against me, and for later perusal once I had an altar to help identify their cursed status. Since the pile was small, I used my dog Sirius to check for cursed items, and tried on the armor that was not cursed. I lucked out and found a +2 orcish helm, which I think gives me a +1 class bonus for being an orc and wearing an orcish item of armor.

We found the mines, and I realized the box was more useful there, so I laboriously moved the heavy box down two levels, and placed it next to the stairs to the mines. I found a ring, lucky for so soon into the game, and after it met Sirius' approval, I tried it on. Nothing. Normally I'd leave it on to see if any effects come up during play, but one of my recently failed characters' death by starvation hung in my memory, and I took it off. Rings increase your caloric usage to use their magic, and I was too fragile at the moment to risk starvation. My dog grew rather quickly, and was kicking butt and saving mine when I needed it for those first few levels, but once I was strong enough, we entered the mines to make our way to the town, and start working on my gem collection.

The going was rather easy, but a bit slow since the mines are dark. I quickly found a dwarvish mithril-coat, which dropped my armor class considerably, but while greedily chasing a pair of fleeing gnomes, I fell through a trap door, and two levels down into unexplored darkness. This was particularly bad because I hadn't found the down stairs on the level I was on, which meant I'd have to find the up stairs on this level, and the next, in the dark, unaided by my pet, and make it back in time to reunite with Sirius.

I passed on some good equipment in my search for the stairs, and was afraid I'd pay for it by facing weak gnomes with good armor and weapons upon my return, but I couldn't afford to be burdened, and I didn't dare take the chance of trying on cursed items. I wasn't that desperate yet. I needed Sirius to help me identify cursed items so I could use safe items, and get my armor class as low as possible, as quickly as possible, so I had to get back before he forgets about me, and goes feral.

After a lot of wandering in the dark, I made it back to Sirius, who still remembered me, and we fought our way down to gather up the items I had left lying around on my ascent. After gathering everything into piles on each level, we proceeded further, and found the next level was the mine town. Lying on the ground next to the stairs on the town level was an amulet. After a quick sniff by Sirius, I tried it on to no effect. I didn't think amulets made me as hungry as rings did (plus amulets usually have better effects), so I decided to keep wearing it in the hopes that some dungeon experience would reveal it's function to me. The town temple was a great place to identify things and try out new armor safely, but all the items were spread out. I needed to get everything down to the mine town. I wanted to run a clean dungeon, and the more items I checked, the more likely I was to find good stuff.

So, I started a campaign of tedium. Moving back up to the entrance of the mines, and slowly moving everything down level after level, unable to carry much, for fear of being trounced while lugging too much weight around. I ran into a kitten, who, after a tripe ration, was happy to call me master. This was particularly helpful, because as I was weighed down with items, I was quite slow, and monsters were able to pop around corners and get a few hits in before my next turn, but with two pets guarding me, I felt much more confident.

Still, this took a long time. A lot of moving back and forth, this pile to that pile, and on and on and on. But it was all going to be worth it, when everything was in the temple, tested for cursed/blessed status, and tried on by me.

On one of the last runs, I left the temple, and saw an ampersand down the hall from me. Ampersands are demons, and I figured this one would just be a succubus, or other minor-level demon. I checked the status and was startled to find it was a major demon called Nalfeshnee! What the shit!? There was no way I was ready to take on a major demon, but there was also no way I should run into one at this level either! I checked more information to see if I could get some other kind of hint.

>Not only do these demons do physical damage with their claws and bite, but they are capable of using magic as well.

That's not good. But it's also not what I was looking for. I need more information. I did a quick google image search to see what I was up against. OH FUCK! This is very not good.

Before considering my moves, I dumbly make a run for it. I take two turns, and he begins closing the the gap quickly. I go around the corner, switch to my bow, and make sure my +2 arrows are quivered. If only I'd had a way to bless them sooner. Sirius and my large cat are already rushing toward the corner, and I'm feel sorry that they likely won't survive this attack (nor, likely, will I), when around the corner comes... a blue jelly. wtf?

Blue jellies are very slow, so there's no way one was in that hallway ahead of that demon, which means... Its a chameleon! I unleash a salvo of +2 arrows at the blue jelly, and Sirius begins biting it as it changes form again into a rothe (a weak bison-like animal). Knowing I need to kill it before it turns into something even more nasty, I don't hold back, and hit it again with another salvo of +2 arrows. It falls, and leaves no corpse. Whew! Well, I guess a corpse might have been ok. Maybe one of my pets would have eaten it, and transformed into something powerful. Or maybe something weak. It's probably for the best it didn't leave a corpse.

That excitement aside, I finally finish moving everything to the temple, and gleefully begin processing all the equipment.

I'm so preoccupied with trying on new armor that I don't realize I've become hungry, and am startled by the message of hunger. Whoops! No problem, I've got plenty of rations! I tap 'e' to bring up the eating menu

>You don't have anything to eat.

What? I had tons of rations. I check my piles of stuff, and find no rations among them. Oh shit, I forgot how much food I ate while I was doing all that heavy lifting! I wrap my towel around my head, blinding me, and focus on my the telekinesis I picked up after eating a floating eye corpse. I spot a few edible monsters in the corner, but they are quite far away. I'm pretty sure I can make it to them. I'm sure I'll be fine. I step out of the temple, and spot a dingo in the opposite direction of the other monsters, and make a bee-line for it. I slash at the dingo with my dagger, and kill it, but it leaves no corpse. Damn! I make my way back toward the monsters in the corner, and faint from lack of food. Shit! I'm further along than I thought! Oh well, time to ask for some help. I pray to my god for his help.

>The voice of Mars booms: "Thou art arrogant, mortal!

He knocks knocks me down one experience level. Shit! I forgot I prayed to him for help when I got surrounded earlier! I asked for help again too soon! What am I going to do?! I hit 'e' again, and get the same message. I open my inventory, and double check for something that can get me out of this. I remove my unidentified amulet, to slow my hunger, but there's nothing to help. I turn my sights to the monsters in the corner of the map, and realize they're my closest source of food. I can do it. I can make it. I take a step... and faint from lack of food.

The next few turns consist mostly of me taking a few steps, and fainting. Fortunately, my large cat keeps me save while I'm helpless, but it also eats the corpses of anything that dies. I regain consciousness and take another step just as a tengu teleports between me and my large cat. What luck! It's like food delivery! I don't care if I get teleportitis when I eat him, I'm dying here! I make sure I have my bow ready, and my +2 arrows quivered. I'll have to risk missing and hitting my large cat, I need to drop this tengu! I fire, and miss the tengu, and my large cat, and promptly faint... My large cat fights with the tengu, and kills him! He leaves a corpse that I hope won't be rotten by the time I wake, and... my large cat eats the corpse! I'm so fucked! I regain consciousness, a few more steps toward my goal, and faint. I try to recall how many times I've fainted, and as near as I can figure, I'm not going to make it to the corner before starving to death.

I jab 'e' again.

>You don't have anything to eat.

I check my inventory again... Nothing! I think about digging through the floor in the hopes to land on a level near some monsters I can kill, and eat, but unless my pets are right next to me when I finish the hole, they won't follow me down, and I'll probably faint anyways once I'm down there, AND digging is hard work, and likely to make me even more hungry! Damnit! There's GOT to be a way out of this! I wrack my brain and decide to take another look around with telekinesis to see if any new monsters appeared nearby. I wrap my head in the towel, and focus on the location of monsters... Damnit! Nothing new! There's GOT to be something. I look at the nearby monsters, and see nothing. Just the priestess, who could kick my ass on my best day, a few soldiers I locked in a room on the far side of the map, and the two gnomes in the corner I'm trying to get to... Well... Technically, that's not ALL of them... My large cat is four spaces away...

I immediately cast the idea out of my head. I can't eat one of my pets! ... Wait... Can't I? I'm a chaotic character, so my god won't be pissed if I do, and I've got two pets... It just seems wrong... I think about it a bit longer. There's nothing else to do. If I don't eat, I'm going to die, and all that work will be for nothing. I start to eye my large cat. I might not even be able to kill it. It's faster than me, and easily tougher than me, especially in my state. I check my inventory, and spot a potion of sleep. Of course, if it was asleep... I hurl the potion of sleep at my poor large cat, it shatters, and leaves a cloud that puts my large cat to sleep.

Wait. What am I doing? Am I really going to eat my pet large cat? Just stop. Wait. Sleep on it... Ok.

I save the game, and try to think of a way out of my predicament.

Over the next few days I manage to generate exactly zero ideas to save Terin. Slowly, I come to terms with the extremely likely death of my Orcish Ranger, and actually allow myself to get excited about the prospect of starting a new Orcish Ranger.

When I think I'm ready to deal with it, I return to the game.

>You are lucky! Full moon tonight.

I don't think that luck is going to help Terin find food... I take one more look at my inventory with fresh eyes, and knowing death is imminent, I put on the unidentified amulet for a very remote possibility. I make sure I'm equipped properly and do the only thing I can do. I fire on my large cat. I loose two +2 arrows and faint. My large cat dances around, trying to get out of the way of my apparently accidental fired arrows. I regain consciousness, and fire off a few more arrows. My large cat moves around a corner, and I approach a few more steps, and faint. I regain consciousness, and take another step toward the corner when my large cat appears to see if I'm done accidentally hitting him. I'm not. I loose three more arrows, and my large cat retreats behind the corner. I faint again, sooner than last time, and regain consciousness. I round the corner, and see my large cat 5 spaces away. Even if I get him, I'm not sure I can make it over there to eat him (IF he leaves a corpse!) before dying of starvation. I quickly imagine my Orcish Ranger, inches from death, and feet from the object of his salvation, dragging himself forward only to die just before getting there. C'mon, you can get it! I fire a single arrow at my large cat, which misses my confused pet harmlessly.

I take another step, and faint for the last time.

>You die from starvation. But wait... Your medallion begins to glow!--More--
>You survived that attempt on your life.--More--
>You feel much better! The medallion crumbles to dust!

HOLY SHIT! It was an amulet of life saving! The chance of that was extremely slim! Good thing I put it on just in case!

I stand up; healed, and no longer hungry. I survived.

My large cat cautiously approaches me. I reassure him, and he purrs.

I hit 'C' and move the cursor to my large cat.

>What do you want to call your large cat?

"Menchi"

Ok, I think I may have used up all my luck for today. I save and exit the game.

Nethack Rage

That's pretty much how my nethack games have been going lately...

Kisho the Samurai

I started a Samurai (on the suggestion of someone in the irc channel), and decided to be aggressive. I tried to get my long sword leveled up as quickly as possible, so I barely used my bow. A few levels down, I found an armor shop. After some cursed/uncursed checking, I decided to buy some cheap kit. I bought some inexpensive armor and brought my armor class down to a tolerable level. Samurai start pretty lightly armored.

Down in the mine town I saw the temple was neutral, and I was lawful. Oh well. It's been a long damn time since I've seen a co-aligned temple in the mine town. I set up a small corner in the temple with my stuff and identified the cursed/uncursed status of everything, and tried on everything that was safe to try on. One of the shops had a can of grease, which I bought quickly. I wanted the can of grease to grease some of my items, because it can be useful. Greasing your outerwear (cloak, mummy wrapping, etc) will allow you to escape grab attacks, greasing your bag will make it waterproof. I did both actions, and remembered the other thing I could grease, a helmet. Greasing your helmet is to protect from a mindflayer brain-suck attack, I wouldn't be running into a mindflayer for a VERY long time, but I did it anyways.

After my kit was squared away, I decided to continue deeper into the mines to see if I can find something interesting before returning to the regular dungeon. I find a magic whistle and return to town and get an idea. I empty my bag, enter a shop, put all the items into the bag, and have Hachi, my dog, pick it up. It's easy to get your pet to pick up items, but to get them out of the shop before they drop the item is harder.. unless you have a magic whistle, and it teleports your pet to your side when you blow it. I steal the items easily with the help of my dog and magic whistle, then return to the shop and sell the items back to the shopkeep. I do this for a while, and get more money than I could possibly need. I didn't think to make an offering to the neutral priest for protection, because I didn't want to piss off my lawful god.

Surprisingly, a cockatrice appeared, and was quickly killed, leaving a corpse. I though about picking it up, and turning bad guys to stone just for fun, but I didn't really have any reason to take the chance, and didn't have any real nasty enemies to contend with. I decided to pass on it. As I wandered the town Hachi had been picking on the soldiers. Fighting a bit, then running away; well, he did it one too many times because he was killed by one of the soldiers. I was pissed, and that cockatrice corpse was still sitting there. I checked that my hands were gloved, and flew my black flag.

I picked up the cockatrice, and slapped the soldier that killed Hachi across the face with it. He turned to stone. Take that dog killer! I get the message, "You kill the soldier! You murderer!" Yeah, yeah, lawful characters aren't supposed to do that. Fuck you. A whistle blew as the soldiers descended on me. By the time I'm done the town is adorned with four new soldier statues. I realize my god is probably pretty fucking pissed at me, so I return to the temple and think about trying to convert the altar. I worried about the priestess, who would kick my sorry ass when I converted the altar, then realized that I was still holding a cockatrice. I'll probably die, but fuck it. It took a few tries, but I finally hit her with the corpse, and she turned to stone in two turns. Bam! The voice of Raijin (the neutral god) booms, "How dare you!" and he zaps me with a bolt of lightning, which I survive. I soon find a monster worth offering, and attempt to convert the altar. I fail! I converted myself! I'm now Kisho, the neutral Samurai. At first I worry about the change, but then I realize it doesn't make much difference. It occurs to me now that the quest artifact (an awesome sword) will dislike being used by me unless I'm lawful.

I sacrifice to my new god a few times, and he's much easier to placate than my previous lawful god. I use his power to make some holy water, and strip down to identify some scrolls and potions.

A little bit smarter, I leave the mines and continue down the regular dungeon. I'm surprised by the amount of monsters who won't bother you if you're neutral. What else have I been missing by playing lawful characters? On an unimportant level with not much going on, I run into an oddly strong monster; a hill giant. I evade him for a bit, then duck into a room to get him close so he won't throw a boulder at me. But when he comes around the corner, he's a FUCKING MINDFLAYER!

I freeze up, and after some careful consideration, decide it's a chameleon, and will change to something less dangerous soon. I back away from it, and try to keep a red mold between us. It doesn't work, and it catches up to me. It attempts to suck my brain, but can't get a grip on my greased helmet. Thank god I greased it! I keep hitting it while it keeps trying to suck my brain, and it changes into something smaller, and dies immediately. It leaves a chameleon corpse. If I eat the corpse, I'll polymorph. I wish I had polymorph control... I look at my unidentified rings, and decide to go for it. I lock myself in a room, check for monsters with my telekinesis, put on the two rings, and eat the chameleon. You feel a change come over you! What would you like to polymorph into? YES! I choose vampire lord, because they're fucking awesome, and the polymorph fails for some reason. Shit. I mark the rings as possibly polymorph control, and move on.

I decide to hit sokoban and unfortunately, had just gotten a new pet dog. Pets can get in the way in sokoban, but with a magic whistle, I wasn't too worried. I completed sokoban easily, and got a number of new rings and wands. Sadly, I got the amulet of reflection instead of the bag of holding... again. As I continue deeper, I lose my dog again. Shit.

In sokoban, I made myself invisible, and picked up some mummy wrappings so I could be visible when I chose. I was also playing on nethack.alt.org, which allowed other users to watch my game. I got a message of mail, which is usually logs on the linux computer I was playing on, but decided to read it anyways. It was a letter from "Jew" that said, "i see you as a . what are you poly'd to?" At first, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. After a while I realized that someone was watching me play, and had sent me a message. I opened the help where you can type whatever you want in, and typed that I was invisible. Weird. I've never had a viewer before...

Deeper I found a temple to the lawful god, complete with priestess. Luckily, it had a closet in the temple. I set up another closet there. I was accumulating a lot of stuff, and this looked like a good place to get all the new kit squared away. A short while later I had everything moved into the closet, and had picked out all the useful stuff. I kept losing pets as I was playing, and chalked it up to me fighting everything, and leveling up too quickly, resulting in tougher monsters.

A few levels down, I cleared out a bee hive, and ate a ton of royal jelly only to have a hill giant wander in. Damnit.

Around now I realized I hadn't leveled up my longsword skill recently. I checked it, and saw it was expert. I decided to work on my dual wield skill, and went into two weapon mode with a regular longsword in my other hand. Further down I found another treasure zoo, and bypassed it, choosing to go deeper. I found my quest level, and ignored it. A few more levels down I saw a mindflayer using telekinesis, and retreated. I didn't want to deal with that right now.

I went back up, and explored the levels until I got back to the treasure zoo. Eh, why not? I cleared out the treasure zoo easily, and found someone else had died there. There was a ton of stuff there, and most of it looked pretty cool. I sat on the throne there, hoping for a wish, but it was a bitch and vanished on the first try. Why can't I get a damn wish.

When dead players drop their stuff, it usually goes down a cursed level. Blessed stuff becomes uncursed, uncursed stuff becomes cursed, and cursed stuff stays cursed. I loaded up as much as I could, and went back up to my outpost in the lawful temple. After a few more trips I had everything moved to my outpost. Unfortunately, some douche bag gnome went pick-axe crazy, and dug around my door, opening my closet and my stuff to every Tom, Dick, and Fire Giant on the level. I decided it was about time to start cleaning up the nearby levels, and bring all the potentially useful kit to my outpost for identification.

I packed light, and set off with some extra tripe rations for any pets I might run into. I quickly ran into a few pets, and before I knew it, I had two cats, and a pony. Unsure of how I was going to feed the pony, and longing for a wand of polymorph, I wandered around gathering up all the kit. *Poof* my dog changes into a lizard. *Poof* my pony changes into a rock mole. There's a polymorph trap around here! I search for it, and eventually find it. Sweet! I've played with polymorph traps and polymorph control before with awesome results! Pet dragons, pet cockatrices, eating rings to make their powers permanent, or just changing into something killer. Notice that my pets are disappearing, and realize they must be going into the undiscovered magic teleporter to my quest. I decide to follow them, but not as myself. I put on my polymorph control ring, and hop into the trap. I polymorph myself into a vampire lord, but the trap disappears after I use it! Damn! Good thing I didn't start with a cockatrice or something! I hop into the magic teleporter, and see... NNNNNINNNNJAAAAASSS!!!11

I decide they're no match for an invisible vampire lord samurai dual wielding a +3 katana, and a long sword, and tear them apart. Sadly, since my pets were not optimally polymorphed into something badass, they all died in the ninja assault. (which was much tougher than the beginning of the valk quest)

I return to the dungeon, and to my outpost, and start eyeing all the sweet-but-cursed kit the dead dude left. I needed holy water. I needed a LOT of holy water. I needed to go all the way back to the mine town. It would be a long way.

I found all the nearby fountains, and dipped all the crappy potions I didn't want, turning them into water. I was loaded down with water, and started on my trip back to the mines.

On the way up, I ran into a sink I had forgotten about. I had a ring that didn't have any obvious effects, so I just said what the hell, and tossed it in. The sink revealed it was a ring of conflict. Fuck. I should have worn it more to see if its effects became obvious. Somewhere along the way, I changed back into a human. Fuck. I liked being a Vampire lord. Maybe I'll find a wand of polymorph, and re-up.

After a long trip to the mining town I sacrificed a few monsters to my neutral god, and he seemed pleased. So I dropped my water on the altar, and prayed. My god was happy to bless the water, and I was happy to have it. I dug through some of the stuff I stored there, and managed to pull out some more potions and useless scrolls, which I turned to water, and blank scrolls for writing on later. After some more sacrificing, I blessed another lot of water. I sacrificed some more, and got ready to take a chance. I put on some cursed but useful rings, and weilded a cursed but awesome sword, all picked up from the dead dude. I prayed again (after sacrificing some more), and my neutral god was happy to remove the curse of the items I had attached to me. NICE! My lawful god always found some reason to be mad, and screwed me on uncursing items I was stuck using.

So now, dual wielding frostbrand and my +3 rustproof katana, carrying tons of holy water, and eager to make it back to my outpost to get all that kit uncursed, I was ready to deck out Kisho.

After my neutral god's performance in the mine town, I kind of wanted to stay with him. Sadly, the samurai quest artifact is too valuable and useful to pass on. Maybe it will only blast me when I equip or unequip it. If it becomes too much of a burden, I'll probably just piss off my neutral god, and sacrifice to my lawful god again in the temple outpost... and hope it doesn't convert the alter, and give me two pissed off gods, and a mean priest inside the safety of my outpost.

We'll see...