less than stellar moments

[cofresi]

a collection of .. meh .. moments on my last exploration.

so there I was down at 3750 and spot a vault consisting of 2 spiral permanent walls with 2 entrances on opposite corners and baddies locked in convenient boxes. Pazuzu being the very first monster in the entrance, I readied Taratol (my *cough* slightly disenchanted taratol). setting up an ASC with runes I readied for the fight but dug the last corner wrong allowing Pazuzu 1 step forward.

Fight #1 (the warmup fight):

There I was mauling the crap out of him with a mage when he summons a Hezrou. No big deal, there's no more summoning room. Pazusu mana bolts me and I'm at half health, no sweat I'll use my staff of healing in a sec... hit spacebar and Hezrou shoots a firebolt burning the ONLY staff of healing i've found in the game!

I let out a NOOOO!!! that must have inspired the fear of the nazgul in my neighborhood. He also burnt some of my books but I always bring spares.

Anyhow Pazuzu and his crafty minion went down but the damage was done.

***
The contenders (in order of fights):
-Cacharoth (!!)
-Tselakus
-Gabriel
-Lungorthin

***
Fight 2 (aka stalemate #1):

Debating wether to fight the ugly dog or not, I come across some bolts of slay animal and figure I can fill his hide pretty quickly with these using Umbar.
Once again I setup some runes/doors to avoid a time/aether/gravity Z catastrophe and mud the last wall between us. In spite of my speed advantage (36 to 20) and the appropriate resistances he breathes nether on me the moment I melt the wall. I'm down to 500hp but decide to take one step to avoid a summon. The dog mauls me and i'm down to 1/3 hp. At this point I decide that if he is capable of dishing out that much damage it's best to fight another day. So the dog was To'd.

Add this one to the Tarrasque list.

Fight 3 (no sweat)

After setting up runes and doors, I lured Tselakus away from the comfort of his wall by hiding behind a door. I closed the distance between us and closed the door. runed up and filled his hide with fire branded bolts, and mana storms. I finished the fight like a gnome, Activating Umbar to manabolt him. He did'nt even have time to flee to his wall.

This was an important victory, as his passwall ability had made him a constant thorn in my side. He along with Archliches have been among my most hated opponents.

Fight 4 (yet another stalemate)

I've got to hand it to my boy Gabriel, he puts up a mean fight. His AC makes him nearly unscratchable to my squishy mage and his moderate amount of HP don't make it easier. Plus I can't fallback on Umbar as he resists elements. Plus he teleports @ around. After a few manastorms it felt silly (as if manastorm = hitting him with a lollipop), it seemed like a waste of consumables, so once again i To'd him. In retrospect I should have dizzied him with Chaos Bolt but that's just wishful thinking at this point.

Fight 5 (the BIG upset!)

Runes/doors up and i melt the wall hoping to get the first move but no, Lung takes one step forward and he now has room to summon. Lung stares me down saying something reminiscent of " I must Break you! ", but the big lug doesn't scare me. The fight has just begun when he summons... a lesser balrog (not good, but it could have been greater). Determined not to let them turn this noble battle into a bad wrestlihg matchup I decide to limit their nasty tag team antics by blasting the lesser balrog with shock wave every few rounds. The tactic worked great, and I was just mauling Lung and alternating between wave and rune when appropriate (even Lung would occasionally lose a round to the spell). Lung was down to 3 * and his buddy was down to 5 on just shock wave alone. The Balrog of White fire breathes fire, one !healing and it's all good at this point. Lung breaks my rune again.
I hit the key for Rune of Protection!

AND*
..
...
*There is a SEARING blast of Light*
and it's over. the area is destroyed and my opponents have left the scene.
Thoughs scramble, what exactly happened. Then, the realization that pazuzus minion had burned 2 copies of 'Magic for Beginners' hit me. Lung had burned my last copy changing the order of my books, so my macro for rune of protection would fall on to the 'Kelek's' casting WOD !

And there you have it, some bittersweet moments from the squishy gnome/mage who may yet live to be my first winner.

Feel free to post some less than stellar moments of your own.

[emulord]

and that is why you inscribe books @m1 and use the numbered book and not the letter in your macros.

[Magnate]

Nice write-up .... the WWF of Angband. I think you were unlucky with Carcharoth, but Gabriel is a total ass.

My own non-fatal less-than-stellar moment comes from NPP 0.4ish, after an incredibly long fight with a ghost called Charles Teague the Spectre, IIRC. I chased him all over the dungeon (he could teleport) and beat him down about a dozen times, it was like fighting Sauron himself. He drained xp, he drained stats, he bolted me with about half a dozen elements - just about the only thing he didn't do was summon. I finally won, just after using my last consumables and just before giving up. Now, the reason to take on player ghosts in NPP is that they drop chests full of guaranteed great items (or so I recall). You've probably already guessed the punchline: one step towards the chest and I fall through a trap door.

[cofresi]

and that is why you inscribe books @m1 and use the numbered book and not the letter in your macros.

Ah!, that was well overdue. My books are all properly inscribed but I had neglected to update the macros to the #s.

Nice write-up .... the WWF of Angband.

I pondered this statement for awhile attempting to decipher the enigmatic *band acronym when it hit me, yes! The one that was not named after the World Wildlife Fund. I've moved on from that but not Angband.