So, I died for pretty much the same reason as every other person does: overconfidence.
Pecan, the trollish healer, had lots of promise. Started with a strength of 30 and toughness of 26. Brick wall, especially for a healer. Always fun in early game. Took the Guth'Alak quest and went straight down to his level, so that he was generated. Made a quick run to the vault in PC in hopes of good items. Ok haul. Few necklaces; lots of gold. Ran through the UD to ultimately get to CoC. Nothing too crazy happened in there, thankfully. Made good progress though the upper levels of CoC. Ran into a ring merchant who happened to have a ring of ice, which I of course purchased. Cleared the first 10 fights in the arena. Pecan was pitted against a freakin' cat in one round. Had no way out of it, so I knew that meeting the Cat World would be interesting. Started boning up on missile attacks in preparation for that. Managed to buy a longbow of accuracy from the Dwarftown merchant.
Then it happened: Through selling items to said merchant, I learned that I had acquired a spear of devastation a few levels back. Just sitting in a room. Never got a weapon of devastation before (as far as I had ever indentified, anyway). Almost came when I saw the damage multiplier. Strapped it on and started to melee my way through all but the last of Thrundarr's quests. Many, many monsters fell at Pecan's hands with that weapon. I tasted severe melee prowess for the first time in 5 years of playing this game, and it tasted good. Of course, that (predictably) was my undoing. I became drunk with it. I skewered my way through the onslaught of undead at the Dwarven Graveyard. Bloodaxe proved to be a bit of a challenge, but my excellent healing ability (by that time) narrowly spared my ass.
Should have taken that close battle as a warning, and perhaps done some grinding for a bit elsewhere. Nothing doing. Was too drunk with power. Naturally, I was rushing my way through this game. I was only level 11, and only had 38/11 DV/PV (my armor was damaged at that point). Tried to melee Nonnak. I figured I could take him with such a great damage output. Of course, I came to my senses too late. Duh, "damage" doesn't equal "hit". I had him moderately damaged before I realized I needed to turn tail and heal before trying to engage him with missiles. While fleeing, I ran into a blindness trap, and ultimately stumbled my way into Nonnak's icy clutches.
Here's hoping if I ever get such a weapon again, I'll be smarter about it.... if anything, have more patience. Had to learn the hard way. It's amazing how I continue to not learn from my many deaths in this game over the years. Oh well. It's too much fun!