Game #34

3340   Bill the Mountain Dwarf Berserker (level 9, -16/79 HPs)
       Demolished by an abomination on Level 8 of the Dungeon.

This was a very strange game, full of things I had never encountered before. On Level 6, I discovered an artifact buckler surrounded by translucent rock walls. I annotated the level, intending to return once I found a wand of digging, only to have the imp I was fighting teleport inside the translucent rock room. He picked up the bucker and teleported out. After I killed him, I took the buckler for myself.

On level 7, I encountered a wizard. He had the same icon (@) as the unique humans, but I don't think he was unique, given that he did not have a name. However, he did have the ability to cast Crystal Spear, which I have never encountered before. It took me from full hitpoints to 6 hitpoints in one casting. Luckily, I had a potion of extra healing and was then able to go berserk and kill him.

Finally, on level 8, I discovered a couple of small rooms. The first was full of treasure, but the second was full of abominations - four capital X abominations and six lowercase x abominations. I had never fought them before, so I immediately went berserk. However, the capital X abominations are extremely tough foes, and it took me so long to kill them that Trog would not allow my berserking to continue, so I became exhausted after killing one and severely wounding a second. I had absolutely no escape options (no blinking, no teleportation) and no fast attack options (such as a good wand - I had a wand of flame that I quickly discovered was empty). The abominations quickly killed me, as the big ones hit for a lot of damage. Not really sure what I should have done in that situation. It seems like once I opened the door, I was dead, no matter what tactics I tried.

Lessons Learned
1. How not to fight a large abomination.