YAS(BRH)D: Poetic justice
Artemis the Ranger
So, after about half a year away from Nethack on the grounds that it
was an addictive, time-wasting game, I decided to try to ascend
another character. Hmm...what class? Rogue sounds good. My second
rogue had incredible luck: boots of speed and cloak of invisibility by
Minetown. Two bones files, both from wizards, yielded magic
resistance, Magicbane, Frost Brand, and a whole lot of goodies
besides, Ludios yielded a ton of protection, and a cursed scroll of
genocide yielded SDSM.
Perfect! Here I was ready to ascend, without having used a single
wish! I was already contemplating my first wishless ascension by the
time I cleaned out the castle. No problem -- hardly a scratch. I was
sorting through the food room when a cockatrice came up. I dispatched
it with a few well-placed daggers. Then I got an idea. From here on
the game would get boring -- really boring. I HATE Gehennom. If I
could speed the VotD up, it would make me much more enthusiastic about
continuing. (Believe it or not, I have two ascendable characters
somewhere in Gehennom, both of whom I lost interest in.)
So I grabbed the cockatrice corpse and jumped through the nearest trap
door, landing in the VotD below. Now, I knew all about how dangerous
these handy weapons could be. So I decided to adopt a
better-safe-than-sorry strategy: I unwielded the corpse whenever I
took a step, wielding it now and then to smack a monster which
promptly turned to stone, then unwielding it again.
All I went well until I approached the third graveyard, not wielding
the cockatrice. Suddenly an incubus was whispering in my ear. Oh,
shoot! He stripped me of all but my body armor! Suddenly I was
standing there, confronted by a horde of angry graveyard inhabitants,
with no speed boots on my feet.
Hmmm. What to do now? Put the boots back on? Takes too much time --
the monsters wouldn't kill me, but they might do some damage, plus
there were wraiths and vampires in that horde. I didn't want any
levels gone. Engrave Elbereth? What, for a bunch of wimpy monsters?
Nahhhh, I thought, I'll just grab my handy cockatrice corpse and smack
a few of them with that.
I wielded the corpse. And, in horror, watched as the following came up
on the screen:
You wield the cockatrice corpse in your bare hands. -More-
<WHAT??!?>
You turn to stone. <NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!>
Numb with shock, I hit the enter key and watched as my plethora of
possessions was identified. And I was SO SURE I was going to ascend
this one!
I don't think I'll have the heart for Nethack for a while.
In retrospect, though, it provides a rather humorous scenario. I can
just see the faces of those graveyard inhabitants, their terror
turning to utter glee as they watch this strong, well-armed, almost
invincible adventurer grab a cockatrice corpse in her bare hands
(perhaps, at the same time, shouting: "I'll show you, you stupid bunch
of soon-to-be-statues!") and promptly turn to stone herself. They
probably had a little party afterwards, dancing around the statue and
shouting things like: "Hah! Thought you were going to stone us, didn't
you? Got a taste of your own medicine there! Who's the idiot now?" I
can even see the graffiti scrawled on the statue: "Stoned out of her
mind..." or, rather, stoned BECAUSE she was out of her mind. With
hubris.
No cockatrice corpses for me next time. If there IS a next time...
Artemis the Ranger