Ha no I didn't eat the snake - I tend to play too slowly in general, and doubly so for this char as it was the first I'd got beyond Dwarftown since I started playing after many years away. It was around 90 days in by the time I died. Most of the corruption was from background in the DH and CoC (down to the wall of flames) since I tend to explore everywhere. I must have got Unholy Aura after returning to the CoC, I definitely didn't cross town with it.
I guess you're right about the corpse (Mana Battery was indeed the top corruption) but other corpses I'd picked up rotted away in about 5 turns so I didn't rate my chances much, and expected to be turned on by the dwarves when I started scaring them.
BTW had another funny death yesterday, and learned why not to do anything in the Wilderness: Mist Elf wizard, visited Terinyo to read books and get quests, popped over the the SMC and thought "oh, I forgot to check my equipment, I'll just see what I've got". Aha! 2 rings of mental stability - there's a nice PV+2 bonus. A mist elf wouldn't start with iron stuff would they? I'll just pop them on... Ah.
Gate closers: L+ DE Mindcrafter (p20), N= Gnomish Assasin (p20), N= Gnomish Mindcrafter (p23), N= Ratling Ranger (R49)