First attempt going for an epic - killed by a frost salamander

[cottreau]

I have never won with an epic ending, so I am hunting for an amulet of life saving.

I have a wizard with a teleport spell and teleport control, and decide I just have to go to darkforge and try the pools there on the off-chance I get a wish.

While drinking from the pools, I get cursed and doomed AND lose my teleport control, so I assume I am screwed, BUT, I also get teleportitis and eventually invisible intrinsic (and am aged into middle-age - it happens) and am hopping all over the place. I drink every pool dry, and am still cursed and doomed when I leave. I had decent DV/PV, and acid ball, so managed to get past the steel golems, and steal the crown of science. The armor room had "Nature's companion", which was pretty sweet.

I wander into the some of the random dungeons after that, find a massive tension room of giants and an altar. I got my inventory cursed when I convert the altar, but manage, because of how many giants there are, to get crowned and get un-doomed. I remember a scroll shop in the tomb of the high kings and find an uncurse scroll that I bless and phew... all my equipment is back to at least uncursed status.

I'm then wondering what else to do, so decide to do some Ice Queen quests. I realize while crossing the training grounds that I'm not cold-proofed, so decide (yes, in the middle of the crazy fighting) to swap nature's companion with the mummy wrappings. I take the armor off, and a frost salamander starts hitting me, but I'm not really paying attention, and bang, I'm dead.

Ultimately, all my deaths are stupid ones where I am not paying attention to something!