I don't normally bother with these posts, since I consider every one of my deaths to be stupid, and I don't want to take up the whole board. However this one was not only particularly annoying, but also entirely avoidable, so I feel the need to vent a little. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.
Ok, so, I randomly rolled a sword born human wizard. I hate wizards, since I've never got one beyond level 6 or so, so I didn't have high hopes. I started out with light, lightning bolt and bless. True to form, my regular trip to the waterproof blanket in the small cave was cut short at level 4 after several close calls. I decided to go and rescue the puppy regardless, fully expecting to die to the ants on PC2. Despite me pessimism, I managed to scrape through, by extreme caution, even managing to find a couple of herb bushed on PC3; nothing I could farm, since they were all in corridors, but I managed to eventually get my To and Wi up to something a little more respectable.
This really is where my luck started to change. On PC4 I found a pool that gave me intrinsic invisibility. Using that I managed to clear out the gnoll vault on PC6, although I miscounted a lightning bolt range and destroyed the lightning bolt book. Doing so I found an adamantium broadsword and tower shield, which set me up nicely for killing things, a book of strength of atlas and a book of cure serious wounds.
After handing the little girl her dead dog, I shot back through the small cave to the UD, where two lesser vaults (mixed and more gnolls) on UD1 and 2 got me up to level 12 in short order, with a good stock of wand, potions and scrolls. Another pool on UD3 gave me TC, see invisible and sleep resistance.
UD4 was the killer, on seeing a third pool, i decided to sip once, but no more (I didn't want to push my luck). That one sip made me sick. I tried to wait it out, I read my scrolls until I found an ID scroll, ID'ed potions, and found I had nothing useful there. I zapped all my wands hoping for wonder: nothing. None of my herbs were curia mancox. I hadn't found an altar, so praying gave no luck, just healing. Cure Serious Wounds and plenty of food kept me alive until I decided to leave the room out of sheer boredom, in the hope of finding herbs or potions, or anything of use.
On the next level I found an ogre tension room. I decided to clear it, again, hoping for potions, or even a book of cure disease. It went fine until an ogre mage I didn't notice took me down to 20hp with a frost bolt. I tried to run away, but he caught me with another one, and I died.
Entirely avoidable. My lesson learned is not to drink from pools unless I have all the precautions in place.
Rant over.