(DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup)

I had a great summoner turned shapeshifter run (morgue file for those who can read it) with storm form and summoning spells up to Summon Horrible Things reliably castable (<5% failure rate), absolutely destroying the last floors of Elf, Vaults, Crypt and even Zot (tesseracts are soo cool~)!

Zot 5 is cleared and I step up to the Orb of Zot. Here it is, I only need to bring it to the surface. Why not doing in a fancy way? I have Apportation after all. Why not yoink it right in my electrified hands, and then jump onto a tele trap? Why shouldn’t I?

Well, I yoinked the Orb a few times (it resists the spell sometimes), then noticed that the Orb run had started so without a proper thought jumped onto the trap and started ascending to the surface. Enemies aren’t scary, I have my blinks and haste potions and wands of digging, all goes smooth. Until…

“Are you sure you want to leave without the Orb of Zot? That will be a game over.”

w h a t ?
I looked at my status panel - no “Orb” status indeed (this status persists in the entire Realm of Zot, so I couldn’t notice it until I left it, btw). Apportation started the Orb run but did NOT pick up the damned Orb. FUCK

I descended all the way back, spending my last remaining scrolls of blinking as the danger of the enemies increased. I took the fucking Ball of Flawed Design and went to Yet Another Stupid Dash to the surface.

And, just like the game knew that my patience was running low, it brought to me a panlord with three tormenting demons (torment cuts your health in half, with no way to avoid that), one of which could also hurl damnation (irresistible damage).

I misplayed. I should have, the moment I saw this hellish circus, bring my eyes to the sky and yell “Dithmenos, turn off the lights, I don’t want to see this shit anymore!!!” (Dithmenos’ most expensive ability literally makes you see nothing, deactivating all enemies for a while), and go in darkness until my teleport scroll activates or I reach an upstairs.

Instead, I summoned my own demons, hoping that they will distract demons for long enough for me to teleport. Stupid move, caused by my frustration at the whole Orb situation.

My health evaporated in a few turns, and then damnation killed me off. Game over. Hello my first Orb run death. Fuck torment. Rant is over.