Warning: this is flamable stuff.

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There he was. Viil, the lvl 14 gnomish thief in the HMV minding his own business.

And then: oh! a pesky ratling duelist! I know how to handle that! Missiles!!!!

YEY!

shot 1 - hit the duelist!
shot 2 - hit the dueslit!
shot 3 - hit the duelist!
shot 4 - hit the duelist! the duelist dies!
shot 5 - hit Leggot, the shopkeeper!


...



AAAAARRGH! Damn finger inertia drove me to a truly horrific battle. With that I fell from L to N=, losing any praying possibility while also getting cursed! With high speed I managed to put myself in a corridor above the shop and started to deal with the thugs. They fell pretty easily even in Coward mode. Then, there was Leggot. Here, TH starts to save my life.

Previously, I found an awesome crystal tower shield [+13 , +4] which took me to 81 DV in coward mode. This along with potions of invisibility and poison made the fight with Leggot possible. Ventriloquism helped a lot in confusing him (for several turns actually) after he missed a lot of attacks and the others were mostly denied by my 24 points of PV (Holy Scarf from precrowning doing a greeeeat job here). After some poisonings AND a bleeding effect, he panicked and died out of my LoS.


Anyway. Leggot died and my thief's career had its first big scare. Now, the dagger of penetration would have been nice, but it could not have done that much damage fast enough to stop me from dying (I reached 30ish HP at a certain point with no possibility of running or healing). The DV really saved me here.


And, as every TH user believes: the shield was because of TH! Yes it was and there's nothing to convince me of the contrary. =P
Even the potions I used (invisibility to deal backstab damage to the thugs was also used). Fruits of TH!


Blessed be this talent! Patron Saint of Hoarders!