YAFAP, and a story I can finally tell... *There is something worse than YASD*.
Jeremy Turner
I have ascended once in Slashem before this (Cha-Fem-Dro-Wiz), but
what I really want to talk about is the time I ALMOST ascended...
This story has several titles, two of which appear in the subject line
of this post:
YAFAP, and a Story I Can Finally Tell
There IS Something Worse Than YASD
but the real title is:
Why I Can't Drink Scotch
This all happened about two years ago, and now that enough time has
passed and I actually did ascend, I think I can talk about it without
crying.
Misery was a Fem-Hum-Val, named after the Stephen King book I had just
finished reading.
My friends tried to warn me that this name was inauspicious, but I
held to the practice, common among poorer Muslims, of naming an
offspring after some terrible calamity (e.g. Marid = "sickness"), in
the hopes of diverting that calamity.
So Misery was born. Her childhood was uneventful, but when she was
13, she first encountered a priest of Odin. This encounter would
change her life forever, in more ways than she knew. She swore
allegiance to Odin, and one mornind, when she had learned something of
the ways of war, she received a visitation from her God, telling her
that she had been chosen to enter the Dungeons of Doom and win eternal
glory by liberating the "oY.
Odin... not Tyr.
So she entered the Dungeon. Her journey was long, and it all happened
several years ago, so I don't remember much in the way of details. I
recall that she received Mjollnir early in her adventure, and
gauntlets of power shortly thereafter, so she was throwing that
mothafudga at every damn thing she saw. Once she lost it in a moat,
stupidly trying to take out a giant eel, but after crying a bit I
realized that she could get it back...
Also, that was the game where I learned about never, NEVER putting a
/oC into a BoH... (since then, it seems every strong character I have
ever played has had to learn this lesson the hard way. I can be
really stupid with the @ key sometimes.)
Anyway, Medusa, Surtur, and the rest went down like the little
beeyotches that they are. Only big D put up a fight, but oh man! what
a fight! Misery tried every damn cutesy-pie trick she could think of,
including but not limited to scrolls of earth, buttloads of acid
blobs, c eggs (missed about 6 times in a row!), charming legions of
monsters to fight him, etc. Finally she blasted her last wish on a c
corpse.
And that's how Misery's uncursed +0 pickaxe became the uncursed +0
pickaxe named Demogorgonslayer. (I know, it was really the c corpse
that defeated him, but what's the point of naming something that's
just gonna rot away?) (Of course, I named it anyway... an uncursed
cockatrice corpse named Steve.)
So once my heart rate returned to normal, Misery plunged on, confident
now that NOTHING could prevent her from fulfilling her obligation and
winning eternal glory.
...
A little background: I was underemployed, drinking a lot, and sharing
a one-bedroom apartment with four other guys. We had no less than
four NH stations in the house (counting the 386 laptop my roommate
scored at a garage sale for $20), and five or six guys vying to be the
first to ascend. I was not heavily favored. My friends Eric
(estimated IQ: 200) and Jme (best time winning Axis & Allies, playing
as Germany: about 30 minutes) had both gotten characters into Gehennon
while I was still quaffing from the Oracle's fountains.
This friendly rivalry could sometimes get meanspirited. For a while,
instead of engraving Elbereth as a wand-tester, I took to engraving
"Eric will never find the Amulet!" :)
So when Misery started to show real promise, the tension in the house
increased. Eric and Jme started playing almost constantly (neither
had jobs), trying to catch up with me. But Misery kept plumbing
deeper and kept filling out that Kit. Even when I took a couple weeks
off (the further I got, the less I played, terrified of YASD), I
remained the front-runner.
Then, a fateful Friday. It was my day off, and payday, and I
determined that I would ascend before nightfall. This was gonna be
the big session, and afterward I fully intended to strut like I was
cock-of-the-walk. I was gonna invite all my friends over to watch,
thinking it would be convenient to have everyone in the same room so I
could gloat most efficiently. And, walking home from work with Jme, I
made the mistake which caused the other mistake which caused me to cry
like a teething infant for (literally) hours.
I stopped in to the liquor store and bought a handle of Clan
MacGregor's Scotch Whiskey.
...
So, anyway, when I typed in Misery that morning, I Restoring Saved
Gamed to the bottom level of Rodney's tower.
Oh, did I mention that Misery had long since passed 30th Xlevel, and
had... I don't know, probably 300 HP? Also, AC was way below -30, I'm
sure, and Mjollnir was at least +6. Could cast most spells with 0%
fail, wearing full armor. I'm sure many of you have had 30th level
Valkyries before, and you don't need me to tell you that nothing in
Rodney's tower posed the slightest threat.
I whooped that Wizard so hard he cried, and I only had to kill him two
or three more times. Although I know this sounds unlikely, I believe
that somehow Rodney had attained sentience (think Wintermute, only
crying and whining like a little beeyotch from the ferocity of the
beating Misery administered), and was simply too scared to keep
harassing me.
Moloch's Sanctum? Pah! More like Moloch's Spanked'em!
La de da, down the Tower, up through Gehennon, into the Valley, out of
the Castle, floating across Medusa's level (which, incidentally, was
swarming with about 50 gremlins... hehe), no time for you, Oracle!,
I've gotta get this Amulet to the Astral Plane!
By this time I had put away quite a bit of scotch, several of my
spectators had drifted away, and I was riding a curious wave of
intoxication, adrenaline, and mounting dread that I was gonna do
something really stupid and fudge it all up.
So I reached DL1...
Beware, there will be no return. Still climb?
Uh oh... better check my inv...
Wait, where the hell is the "oY?
Hehehe... congratulating myself on my careful playing, but shaking
with the knowledge of how close I had come to throwing it all away, I
descended to where I had last slain Rodney. There's the damn thing!
I up and walked away without it!
As Misery grabbed the Amulet, I grabbed my own little !oBooze, and
celebrated with a healthy belt.
Things were getting a little fuzzy by now... I tell a lie: things were
VERY fuzzy. But dammit, I had a job to do, and the sun would be going
down soon. I had been trying for a year to get this far, and I was
not gonna wait one more damn day. I wanted Demigoddesshood. I
DESERVED Demigoddesshood!
Back to DL1... back to the stairs. Have I got the "? Check. 4 ?oGD?
Check. 4 or 5 B!oFH? Check. Everything B that should be? Check.
/oD, /oT, /oDigging, and spares of everything? Check. Now half-empty
bottle of scotch? Glugluglug, and Check!
Elemental Planes? Pah! After staring down the barrel of a unicorn
horn at big D, a few fudging E are supposed to scare me?
Oh, and thanks for the book of dig, Rodney, you fudging sissy.
And so Misery entered the Astral Plane. A tame A with a Sunsword
seemed almost comical. My confidence level was so high I thought
about slaughtering him just to add one more to my list of creatures
vanquished.
The potion of Clan MacGregor had started out tasting like liquid fire,
but by this time it was more like a potion of oil: smooth.
Huh? What? Where am I?
The altar to the north was guarded by Pestilence, but after big D, not
even a Horseman of the Apocalypse seemed very dangerous. Misery waded
through a sea of beasties, hewing priest-flesh from priest-bone,
returning Angels to Heaven, flinging Mjollnir with a gleeful abandon
that would have put Thor himself to shame, and, of course, stomping on
lots of bugs. Pestilence didn't even get a chance to sick me; quick
zap of the old /oD put an end to his Ride.
And I stood on the altar. I stood there for a good five minutes. I
quaffed once more from my !oBooze, called all my friends back into the
room, took a bong rip, lit a cigarette, tried putting the "oY in a bag
to make sure it was the right one, quaffed the rest of my !oFH for
those last few maxHP, quaffed once more from my !oBooze, took several
deep breaths, laughed out loud, taunted Eric and Jme... you get the
picture.
One thing I didn't do, though... I didn't push :
I didn't push :
Let me say it one more time.
I
Did
Not
Push
:
...
I didn't push :. Instead I pressed Alt-O.
What would you like to sacrifice?
a
You sacrifice the Amulet of Yender on the Altar of Tyr.
...
.....
........
WHAT?
And so, we finally come to the title of this story. Yes, Virginia,
there is something worse than YASD.
You know, if Misery had sacrificed it to Loki, he probably would have
just killed her outright. I think that would have been a little
better.
But no, it was Tyr. And Tyr is a just God. He rewards those who
serve Him well, even if they didn't intend to.
So He spared me.
Misery, (Neu-Fem-Hum-Val), escaped the dungeon in celestial disgrace.
Let me just repeat that, for those of you who might be hard of
hearing.
Misery, (Neu-Fem-Hum-Val), escaped the dungeon in celestial disgrace.
Celestial Disgrace.
CELESTIAL DISGRACE.
Now, earlier I said that my mistake of buying the !oBooze caused the
mistake of sacrificing the "oY on the wrong altar which caused me to
cry like a teething infant.
That was a slight falsehood.
Teething infants don't know nearly as much profanity as I do.
Wordleslly I pushed the power button on the computer without even
Pressing ENTER to end. I grabbed the !oBooze and headed out the door.
Eric and Jme had not even spoken. Even though we were rivals, we
were friends, and they knew better than to speak to me just then.
They ESPECIALLY knew enough not to laugh.
If they had laughed, I think I would have done something very rash.
I went for a bit of a walk. In fact, I walked downtown and back,
about a two mile round trip. As I walked, I guzzled scotch whiskey
like it was going the fudge out of style. I seem to remember stopping
to puke by the side of the road. (You vomit! You can move again.) I
lit cigarettes while I still had a half-butt burning. I'm pretty sure
at some points I had three going.
Two words were bouncing around my soft brain... I bet you can guess
what they were... Here's a clue: the second one rhymes with misplace.
I considered throwing myself in front of the next city bus I saw, but
when I tried it, I realized I was at the bus station and the bus in
question wouldn't be moving for another ten minutes.
So I laid in front of it in the rain for a few minutes until the
rent-a-cop told me I had to get up, and that I wasn't allowed to walk
around with a half-gallon of scotch in my hand. I pointed out that it
was actually only about 1/32 of a gallon of scotch, but he didn't seem
to understand what I was saying.
Suddenly there were two rent-a-cops, and it occurred to me that
perhaps I was hallucinating and he was really a gremlin.
I suddenly vomited. I could move again. Everything looked SO boring
now. As I heard the shrill sound of a guard's whistle, I dropped my
!oBooze, realizing that it must have been cursed the whole time.
Then I either blacked out for a while or I stepped on a teleport trap,
because suddenly I was back on my front porch. I heard the sounds of
courtly conversation and maniacal laughter in the distance. I tried
to open the door, but it resisted. I kicked the door. Wham! I tried
to kick it again, but my right leg was in no shape for kicking. I saw
a door open. Jme was standing there with a look of pure compassion on
his face. I stepped into his arms and started to cry. Time stood
still as Jme and I lay in each other's arms. I felt down in the
dumps.
Then suddenly I heard maniacal laughter close by. Eric had been
trying to hold it in, but suddenly the dam broke.
The air crackled around me. I pointed at Eric and cursed.
Jme chastized Eric, and Eric apologized, but I could see he was still
trying not to smile.
I explained that I had dropped the cursed potion of booze while
running from some K, and I gave Eric my PYEC and sent him to the
nearest delicatessen to buy a new one. When he returned, he tried to
give me a !oFJ instead, claiming it would make me feel less nauseated.
When I demured, he tried to give me a !oWater.
Motherfudger.
I began quaffing from the new !oB, and pretty soon after that I
thought about Maud.
...
Epilogue:
A few weeks later, I created Nona the (Cha-Fem-Dro-Wiz) and started
to seriously whoop slashem's ass. This time, I ascended with a
minimum of fuss. You can be sure that I was mighty careful on the
Astral Plane that time, but even when the heavenly choir began to
sing, there was a sour taste in my mouth, as though I had drank
biologically contaminated slime mold juice. And I've tasted that
sourness for two years now. It was only today, just before I started
this post, that I finally felt like a new man.
I remember a few other things about that fateful friday. my
girlfriend came over and laughed at me, which was when i realized we
would never get married. jme gave an impromptu eulogy, even though
Misery was not, technically, dead. We laughed as we recalled how she
nearly lost Mjollnir, and how scared we all were during her fight with
the big D. late that night we used a magic marker to engrave
"6-14-02, Misery escaped the dungeon in celestial disgrace" on the
computer monitor, where it stayed until, several months later, we
threw that monitor off a roof.
Several things have stayed with me from the experience. First and
foremost, I learned that it never hurts to push :. Second, I realized
that I would never ascend a Valkyrie in nethack. For one thing, it's
too easy, but more importantly, the knowledge that Misery is still
alive somewhere, walking the earth like a fudging highlander, cursed
to live out the rest of eternity in celestial disgrace... it just
wouldn't be right to start another Valkyrie. What if she ascended and
took Misery's rightful place beside Odin in the heavens (or worse,
beside Tyr!)? The enormity of my error is already a fudging cursed
loadstone of guilt, ascending another valkyrie would be like reading a
damn scroll of punishment to go with it.
But the main thing is that I can't drink scotch anymore.
1 4292978 Dogstar-Mon-Hum-Fem-Cha ascended to demigoddess-hood.
151 [151]
Jeremy Turner
5-12-04
turner...@yahoo.com
Gabkin
>Misery, (Neu-Fem-Hum-Val), escaped the dungeon in celestial disgrace.
>
>Celestial Disgrace.
>
>CELESTIAL DISGRACE.
Quite a tale, but I cant resist doing this...
/me points finger
HA HA HA HA!!
sorry, that was very insensitive of me.
P.S.
BWAA HAA HAA HAA!!
lmfback
turner...@yahoo.com says...
> This story has several titles, two of which appear in the subject line
> of this post:
> YAFAP, and a Story I Can Finally Tell
> There IS Something Worse Than YASD
>
> but the real title is:
>
> Why I Can't Drink Scotch
Best goddamn story this month :-)
Eskimo
P.S. So you ditched the girlfriend then?
--
//------------------------------
//Remove tämä all the way to and including soomee to mail directly.
//Ascended:W,V (genopolywish),P(ill ath), T,K,H,S,B,C,P,W
(naked),Ro,Ra,A,W,almost pacifist A
//In progress:PAIN
Thomas Wallander
I had the same experience with my first char to reach the astral
planes. Didn't take i quite as hard as you though, but i did have to
delete the record file after that as i felt the hi-score list was
mocking me.
Thomas
PS
Were you the first to ascend?
Luis Oliveira
> Second, I realized that I would never ascend a Valkyrie in nethack.
Easy? Is that supposed to make me feel bad?
--
Luís Oliveira Lisp is the red pill.
Reply-To: luismbo (@) netcabo (.) pt -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Equipa Portuguesa do Translation Project
http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard/po/registry.cgi?team=pt
Panu Lahtinen
[killing Demogorgon]
> So once my heart rate returned to normal, Misery plunged on, confident
> now that NOTHING could prevent her from fulfilling her obligation and
> winning eternal glory.
Been there, done that :-) In my first ascension (Norppa-Wiz-Elf-Mal-Cha), I
also met Demogorgon. After killing him, what's there to stop you?
Nothing. Except YASD, but that doesn't count.
Man, that was a nice feeling..
--
Panu
"You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home",
Twoflower in "The Light Fantastic"
Adam Trace Spragg
: Why I Can't Drink Scotch
Best freaking post EVER!
: Odin... not Tyr.
In literary terms, we call this *foreshadowing*. :)
I only wish I knew more nethack players to email this to. Nice work.
Adam
Jeremy Turner
> In article <85891c40.04051...@posting.google.com>,
> turner...@yahoo.com says...
>
> > This story has several titles, two of which appear in the subject line
> > of this post:
> > YAFAP, and a Story I Can Finally Tell
> > There IS Something Worse Than YASD
> >
> > but the real title is:
> >
> > Why I Can't Drink Scotch
>
> Best goddamn story this month :-)
>
>
> Eskimo
>
> P.S. So you ditched the girlfriend then?
well....
actually, she ditched me. i don't think she could ever look at me the
same after seeing me cry like that.
honestly, who could blame her?
;)
jeremy turner
Jeremy Turner
> [snip great story]
>
> I had the same experience with my first char to reach the astral
> planes. Didn't take i quite as hard as you though, but i did have to
> delete the record file after that as i felt the hi-score list was
> mocking me.
>
>
> Thomas
>
> PS
>
> Were you the first to ascend?
y'know, i think i was... but it was in slashem!
no offense to any diehard slashem fans out there (i dig it myself),
but it's just not nethack.
slashem is to nethack as dr. mario is to tetris...
jeremy turner
Jeremy Turner
> Jeremy Turner skribis:
> > Second, I realized that I would never ascend a Valkyrie in nethack.
> > For one thing, it's too easy [...]
>
> Easy? Is that supposed to make me feel bad?
well, no... but i really think valkyries are, all told, the easiest
class.
but (not sure if i mentioned this in the story) we had all been
playing a LOT, for probably a year before Misery. So i sent many,
many, MANY valkyries (and others) to that great bones file in the sky.
but with what i know now, i could probably ascend a valkyrie in a
couple of tries, RNG willing...
since misery and nona, i've been trying the "second tier" of powerful
classes (IMO, valk, wiz, bar are first tier, monk, priest, sam are
second, and everything else ranges somewhere below) (although i'm
sure MANY folks out there would disagree with my rankings... there
must already be a "best class" thread somewhere in this group)
i'd probably bump rangers up to the second tier if they started with
better stats...
i think i'll try a tourist next... i don't usually use pets very much
(Dogstar lost her pet very early, and never kept another one for more
than one Dlevel), so it might be a nice change.
jeremy turner
Jeremy Turner
> turner...@yahoo.com (Jeremy Turner) writes:
>
> [killing Demogorgon]
>
> > So once my heart rate returned to normal, Misery plunged on, confident
> > now that NOTHING could prevent her from fulfilling her obligation and
> > winning eternal glory.
>
> Been there, done that :-) In my first ascension (Norppa-Wiz-Elf-Mal-Cha), I
> also met Demogorgon. After killing him, what's there to stop you?
> Nothing. Except YASD, but that doesn't count.
>
> Man, that was a nice feeling..
one other nice side effect of my Misery experience. YASD barely makes
me cry at all anymore...
whenever i get too upset about the loss of a good character, i just
repeat those two litle words to myself, and i remember how much worse
it COULD have been...
:)
jeremy turner
Jeremy Turner
'sokay... i deserved it...
but you wouldn't have wanted to laugh like that right after it
happened... nosirree....
i wouldn't have stopped at casting aspersions on your ancestry, that's
for sure.
:)
jeremy turner
Gabkin
wrote:
And the award for most amusing (almost) YAAP post goes to .... JEREMY
TURNER.
No seriously, that was the best (almost) ascension post I've ever read
here, thanks!
Kevin Wayne
>This story has several titles, two of which appear in the subject line
>of this post:
>YAFAP, and a Story I Can Finally Tell
>There IS Something Worse Than YASD
>
>but the real title is:
>
>Why I Can't Drink Scotch
You've got my vote for the most hysterical story posted on rgrn! I'd
figured out early on what was going to happen in-game, but your
description of what went on afterward...priceless!
--
Kevin Wayne
"Stark raving sane."
-- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Jeremy Turner
thanks for the kind words, everybody. I really appreciate the
feedback, as i am an aspiring writer of humorous fiction. for years
i've known a really good story could be written about nethack, using
lots of quotes from the game, etc. unfortunately, the target audience
for such a story would be small indeed!
dammit, i wish more people were cool enough to appreciate the glory
that is nethack.
back when i was living in that one-bedroom, some of my friends came up
with the 'nethack rap'... my buddy jme had a little 'magic box'... one
of those self-contained recording studios that fits in your pocket.
he and the gang used it to record a rap song one day while i was at
work... i came home and they played it for me... i couldn't believe
that about four guys had written and recorded this thing in a few
hours... it sounded PROFESSIONAL... oh my god... it was the greatest
thing ever... GREATEST THING EVER!
but i can barely remember any of it... i know one line went:
you'll know i'm comin' when i step on a squeaky board
:)
ye gods, it was beautiful... i've been trying to get hold of jme to
see if he still has a copy anywhere... if i can find it i'll post a
link on this group... no promises, though... it's probably long
gone...
we were gonna do a whole nethack album... the other one i was excited
about was a barry white-style love ballad about a succubus... we were
gonna get my girlfriend (who had a very sexy voice) to do the "take
off your helmet, let me run my fingers through your hair...", and so
on...
:)
use your imaginations... f***ing hilarious!
i'm very interested in creative writing and poetry inspired by
nethack... especially if it's funny... anybody who has anything like
that, i'd appreciate it if you e-mailed it to me...
again, thanks, please keep the comments coming, feel free to e-mail
me, etc...
jeremy turner
Keiran
wrote:
>i'm very interested in creative writing and poetry inspired by
>nethack... especially if it's funny... anybody who has anything like
>that, i'd appreciate it if you e-mailed it to me...
>
>again, thanks, please keep the comments coming, feel free to e-mail
>me, etc...
You'll want to check out V'rgo's stuff for sure:
http://www.audentes.ee/~virgo/Nethack/stories.shtml
--
Keiran
Jeremy Turner
looks like good stuff... unfortunately, the stories won't load!
anyone got copies they can e-mail me?
jeremy turner