Choppers the L29 Gnomish Wizard. Not the way he expected to go.

Spoiler Space (nothing too spoily mind, but some particulars regarding a certain dwarf and his home).
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My most promising character since I (re-)started playing on Steam: Choppers saved the tiny girl's puppy, made it past the ToEF, got the RoHK and, my main aim since this part is new to me, got as far as meeting Rolf and getting out again, with his quest. He had been precrowned neutral with the Scorched Spear (gee thanks) and crowned with the Robes of Resistance (handy!), but most useful of all, found an eternium flail of devastation (+0, 8d4+19) which went nicely with an eternium tower shield (after I gave Rolf's back). As an aside, Treasure Hunter and a spellbook of Remove Curse is probably the easiest way to a rather OP character... Choppers spent a fair amount of time in levels 3-6 of the ID gathering books, up to and including Wish (learned but not casted).

Anyway, here's the thing, I was excited to get to Rolf's place, got in, got the Unpick Axe, went down and had a chat, handed him his stuff and got his quest. After bashing all the monsters on the level above to a bloody pulp with little resistance, using the occasional burning hands, frost bolt or ice ball, then on the top level bashing a few more stray statues, he wandered back over the bridge where a shark chose to harass the good gnome Choppers. He went over and gave it an admonishing bash, until it died, and I can't remember what he did but a couple waves more statues decided to come after him. So I WAITED on the Bridge, tapping the '5' key a few times so they would come to me, and then the TURTLE on the other side of the bridge simply WASHED ME AWAY! In ONE MOVE! I think I had something like 220 HP at the time and -55 after. (Some big antidiluvian orc roughed me up a bit downstairs or I'd have survived, hopefully long enough to stop tapping 5 and get away from there pronto).

The same Turtle had tried it on the way in, mind, and had taken out a couple of the sharks on the other side in doing so (funny). Choppers just looked on unaffected and thought nothing of it, but I see an Improved Fireball should've been the order of the day. Damn that Turtle Wash!

This was a hard lesson to learn.... Choppers really had what it takes. :'(

I see from the log I played 28 hours. Seems rather extreme.

I'm also shocked that there aren't more people posting to the forum... Where'd everyone go?

Ouch. I haven't explored that residence myself yet, but I've seen a few other stories about how incredibly dangerous those aquatic creatures are. I have very little time to play these days [silly "full time job" and "adult responsibilities" and so forth, instead of, like, being a student], so I've elected to play pretty heavily spoiled in pursuit of more fun outcomes. I still killed myself with a typo the other day (lightning bolt back-and-forth in a hallway instead of down the hallway), but at least I can avoid some deaths..........

I haven't been posting because, again, I haven't been playing much at all. I don't know why there's been such minimal other activity here--I had been wondering the same thing.