Etched in Water

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Happy Hour of the Damned
Unleashed (Kristopher Relisz)
Personal Demon
Night Life
Even For Me

I must go to the bookstore right now.

Unfortunately, it's a Tuesday night.

Damn it.

I can't believe I forgot that book during my urban fantasy binge a while ago.

What do you want to take off? [cost or ?*]

And I got all of the equipment for free.

Attacking a cockatrice as a green dragon stones you.

Duh.

  1     815907  Geira-Val-Hum-Fem-Law died in Fort Ludios [max 28].
                Killed by a fall onto poison spikes.                    - [119]

Second best game.

I think I may be improving. Or maybe I just have more time to play now?

This was a really, really stupid death. And weird, too. I know I had poison resistance (getting it is always one of my top priorities), and I didn't play much at night...

Actually, I think I can /sort of/ see what happened. I know I found an amulet early on- that must have been poison resistance, but I later took it off. All those "the poison doesn't seem to affect you" messages must have been from the amulet.

Really. Really. Stupid.

The game was a breeze...er, until I fell on some poison spikes. I had Grayswandir from a bones file, a +4 Excalibur, Mjollnir, and Fire Brand. My equipment were all +3s and +4s, and I was fortunate enough to get SDSM, a Cloak of Magic Resistance, and speed boots early on. That's practically most of the armor I wanted.

Afterwards I killed around ten silver dragons, several of which left scales. And after I wished for gauntlets of power, the RNG kindly revealed to me that there was a pair in the same level as me. *headdesks*

I hate the RNG's sense of humor.

"Oh, look, a swarm of ants...I suppose I ought to kill them before they kill me."
[pause]
"Great. Now let me heal a bit...The RNG probably won't send anything else against me for a while... Uh, was that around ten killer bees I just saw?"
[pause]
"Okay, now that's done too. Now it's time to rest. <sigh> Oh, look, some rothes are heading my way."

I just wrote 866 words in a blog entry.

Why did I do that again?

And I've lost a library book. I know where it's not:
1. My locker. (I checked.)
2. My backpack. (It's a pretty big book. I would have noticed.)
3. My table. (I would have noticed.)

That leaves:
1. Underneath my bed. (I always stuff books underneath it. Unlikely, though)
2. Around my bookcase. (Going to check later.)
3. In my room. (Checking later. I just cleaned my room earlier on, but maybe I missed it?)
4. My English classroom. (It was for a presentation, and I remember taking it out in class. On the other hand, I'm sure my English teacher would have returned it.)
5. The library. (Maybe they forgot to check it in? I'm going to check the shelf tomorrow; it'll be easy since there's only one copy of the book. Also known as the "It's Not My Bloody Fault" theory.)
6, Mars. (Well, it could be...)

I'm hoping for 5, 'cause I'm an eternal optimist. Or something.

Which one would be the most likely according to Occam's Razor? I'm saying 5. Believe in others' stupidity and your own genius.

I have break from tomorrow onward! I'm going to try and get at least past Gehennom again, and hopefully to the Astral Plane and then...dare I hope?. That may take a while, but if I manage to keep my newest character from dying...

So, avoid YASDs at all cost. Don't eat meatballs, don't try and kill anything I can't handle. Take it <i>slowly</i> It would suck to lose several days of work. (Why <i>do</i> I play NetHack, anyways? It's stressful, humiliating(Getting killed by a grid bug. A friggin' box. A rock. A meatball. In less than three month's time.), and nigh impossible to beat. I don't expect to win, but I keep playing anyways. Even after losing my best charries, I keep on going. Masochism? Stupidity? Do I secretly want to to suicide? Do I even want to know what is driving me to keep on playing NetHack?)

At least I won't have STAR testing. But with STAR testing, at least you don't choke on a meatball and lose all your hard work. But yeah, despite the fact that I'll have a battle of my own,. I'm going to laugh at people like Egu and hope they won't return the favor next week.

Someone brought up a topic on TDF today on Death Notes. What would I do with one if I found one? It took several rereads of the Wiki article before I finally understood what a Death Note was and how it works. Rather pathetic for someone who has a Death Note icon. *rolls eyes*

(I totally want a NetHack icon now.  I'm going to try and find some; if I can't, I'll make one of my own. How hard can it be? But back on topic...)

It's...intriguing. I enjoyed "Huntress" in Firebirds Rising, which is similar. Criminals punished by supernatural causes sounds...good. The only problem I had with the Huntress story was that the Goddess made it clear that She only interfered because Corey's family served Her...bad news for everyone else, including agnostic, Atheistic-wagering, selfish me. And She didn't interfere until Corey sort-of prayed.

And just how many stories of good vampires who hunt criminals have there been, anyways? Although that seems to be either a matter of practicality(culling the weak from the, er, herd) or a way of showing that the vamp is not all that bad. Cassandra(although she mainly stuck to drug addicts), Promise(She killed Jack the Ripper)...My brain is not working right now, but there are definitely a lot more. And Boggle ate muggers too, although that was probably just because they were easy to find.

I'm getting sort of off-topic.

But...imagine just how many cults could be destroyed if their leader died. Terrorists, rapists, child molesters, serial killers, dictators(although I'll have to think on the last one since it might cause more deaths)... Yeah, it is sort of tempting. But, how do you decide who should die? Using the law? A court is only as strong as its jury. Paraphrasing Atticus Finch there. If I, the Death Note holder, with all my prejudices and teenage stupidity, am the only member of the jury, then that's going to be bad. Just bad.

I don't even have the power, and I'm already corrupting. How much of a leap would it be from killing people who have seriously done something wrong to killing people who insulted me on the street? How much could I justify to myself if I got hold of and started using a Death Note?

And how long before I decide that the world is seriously screwed and that we should start over, with me as the power behind the throne? (I have stage fright, so I'd never make a good power in the throne.)

I doubt I'd ever become John Dee. But I'd certainly be way different than the person I want to be. Zealous, "end-justifies-the-means" crusader is not anything that I want to be.

And then, according to Wikipedia, in the anime version, people who use Death Notes go to nothing, or something like that. And in the manga version, everyone just goes to nothing.

That would totally ruin the attempted Atheist's Wager thing(or rather, too-lazy-to-do-Pascal's-Wager-or-Atheist's-Wager-but-still-doing-what-I-perceive-as-the-right-thing-because-otherwise-the-voice-in-my-head-would-kill-me thing-which-I-half-heartedly-call-the-Atheist's-Wager-and-hope-that-if-there-is-a-supreme-deity-that-he-or-she-will-accept-it-as-the-Atheist's-wager). That was hell to type, and probably doesn't make sense as well. And I still believe I have a shot at my library...

...Which strangely enough, bears a resemblance to Dream's library.  And Mr. Pennyworth's bookstore. I read Sandman after I came up with my library, but Charles de Lint's book before. Maybe Mr. Pennyworth's store influenced my library? I guess maybe every reader's dream is to read the books that were never written, will never be written, are no longer in print, will be written in the years to come, and are somewhere other than my library. And even those that are in my library. I'm probably the only one who added a snack bar and a computer with NetHack on it, though. ^^

I'm verging towards no, but...I don't know. Although knowing me, I would have my nose in a book and never find the Death Note. ^^

So I'll have to think on that a bit more before I posts to the thread. What would [i]you[/i] do?

My human valkyrie was very close to ascension when Pestilence snuck up on her (I guess he can open doors?). A few turns later, she was dead.  My death wands weren't working for some reason.

The sad thing is that she had several potions of extra and full healing, but they were in a bag of holding. Her unicorn horn just didn't work one time...and I had a dead charrie.

That's the farthest I've got. Before that, my best game was when my charrie drowned in the quest.

It was a pretty long game, at 150,000. I accidentally poofed my GDSM because I forgot to remove it before trying to enchant everything else, but the RNG was kind and gave me a silver dragon to kill. It took me almost 50,000 turns before I could find a scroll of enchant armor. The RNG continued to be kind; it gave me an amulet of magical breathing, several amulets of life-saving, and three- count 'em, three- wands of polymorphs.

My Orb of Fate charges had all been used and I had no scrolls of gold detection, but the RNG helped me stumble into the astral realm through sheer luck.  Then it decided to kill me.

The sad thing is that there were so many things I could have done...if only my stuff had been out of the bag of holding. *grimaces* Lesson learned, I think.

Overall, my best game.

I was so close to ascension...

I have two games going on NetHack, one for each computer. On one, I'm a chaotic elven ranger(I'm become fond of rangers-it's the arrows) and on the other I'm a lawful valkyrie.

Just had a close call on the ranger game. My character found a werewolf while stuck in a room. I could have killed him easily...except he summoned enough creatures to fill the whole room. Including two winter wolves. I had to fight to get to the door and then into the corridor, and I almost died twice. No potions, no scrolls to save me...apart from destroy armor, which wasn't very helpful under the circumstances.

Mars was a great help with that; he actually helped me, even though I certainly didn't wait long enough to safely pray. Someday, I'm going to sacrifice many corpses to him. As soon as I find an altar.

Found out through wizard mode that dragons could fly(DUR!), so they don't sink. So I went and got to the third level of the quest...only to sink in lava while blind. So anticlimactic. Verdandi was definitely my best character yet.

She had a friggin' dragon, although she couldn't ride it because of the lack of saddles. She could kill things easily and she had blessed +5 daggers (an idea I took from Ellora; they definitely helped keep me alive.) I had gray dragon scale mail for the first time and got myself a wish.

On the other hand, I also made some stupid mistakes.

Lessons I learned from this game of NetHack:

Unidentified wands + Bag of Holding = Kaboom.
Double checking before making a wish is a good idea.
Doing the Valkyrie quest while blinded is the dumbest idea ever.
Reading unidentified scolls is a bad idea. (I already knew this one, but this game really hammered it home. A scroll of punishment and destroy armor, which poofed my speed boots.)
Leashes and saddles come in handy.
Dragons are awesome. But bloody slow.

I was doing pretty well on NetHack. Found a nurse; spent some time with her for a little while. Then I found a magic lamp, that I then blessed and rubbed. I got myself blessed grey dragon scale mail, but for some reason it came out +0. I could have sworn I'd chosen +2.

Then, I found a polymorph trap and changed my dog into a gray dragon. Henry reduced Minetown to rubble, which was nice because I got tons of great stuff- including a silver saber! I'm twoweaponing with it, but the downside is that it brings my AC way up...

He also killed the priests of Odin and Loki, whiich was nice. Unfortunately, he didn't limit his killing to just them, which was not nice. Practically all the temples I've found so far are haunted now. He's also a slowpoke, and I don't have a magic whistle, a leash, OR a saddle. It means I can't get started on the quest, lest he drown. Can dragons drown? I don't want to find out firsthand. Maybe I ought to test it. How do those wizard tests work, again?

I'll figure it out somehow.

Then I made a really, really stupid mistake. I put a wand of cancellation into my blessed bag of holding. Kaboom. Good bye, 5 or so unicorn horns, smoky potions of healing, scrolls, magic markers, MJOLLNIR... ;_;

So now I'm just wandering around with Excalibur and Grayswandir, hoping that a saddle, a magic whistle, or a leash will magically turn up.

Back to playing NetHack again. Playing as a lawful valkyrie this time, although I'm playing her with way more daggers than I used to play my other valks. It helps. I still don't have Excalibur or even Grayswandir, which I was sacrificing for. Just a corroded rusty longsword that used to be cursed until the almighty Tyr decided to take pity on his humble follower. Converted two altars, but I'm leaving Odin's temple alone until I'm certain that I can take care of the priest.

So, I've got a bet going on that no one at school will remember my birthday, and it looks like it'll probably work. Especially since I've only mentioned my birthday to one friend, and that was in passing. ^^ The person I'm betting against was kind(or stupid) enough to give me the suggestion to tell people my birthday for April Fool's Day. I did that to one of my friends, and needless to say, she didn't believe me. Telling her "April Fools" afterwards may have helped. ^_^ See, it is an April Fool's joke, just a very complicated one. I'm trying to fool people into thinking that April 3rd is not my birthday, so I'll win the bet and earn three dollars...the three dollars which have been sitting on my desk for month. But whatever.

I'm divided on whether or not I want to try NaBlo or not. Maybe I could trick myself into trying by writing posts on NetHack?

I'm starting a new chaotic elven ranger. Named Thessaly (II). It was the first word I saw; I had a Sandman review in the background.

'nyways, I'm going to keep a "journal" as I go along, which will hopefully keep me from being stupid.

I'm just unlucky and impetuous, I guess. A horrible combo.

I've just leveled up to three, which is nice. Found a shop and a small mimic- it seems as though killing a mimic is an initiation rite for my charries. Level three now, with one scroll of identification.

As usual, Sirius is being a big help, killing just about...well, everything.

I found an altar on Dungeon Level 3. A pity it's to Venus and not to Mars.

More exploring, just the run-of-the-mill hack and slashing. Only with a lot more shooting. I killed a killer bee and ate it. Got lucky this time; now I've eaten it and got poison resistance. I swear, the RNG is psychic. I was thinking to myself that I would never get poison resistance at this rate.

Any chance you'll send me a unicorn to shoot to death, RNG dear? Preferably not a black one.

Okay, found a bone level. And a ranger one too. I have a little dog currently trying to maul me to death. Killed it. I feel so heartless for killing innocent little animals.

I'm going to play it safe and let Sirius handle the dwarf lord.

...Managed to ward off the dwarf lord with my expensive camera, but then got killed by a lizard.

...Anticlimatic, yes.

Lesson learned.

I only have five minutes left before bedtime(CURSE YOU, CLOCK!), which isn't long enough. I wonder what's going on at the newsgroup?

I've started playing NetHack again, but my endless horde of valkyries and barbarians were boring me. There's only so much bashing you can do before you want to scream.

Most of yesterday I spent practicing my elven ranger skills. At around 5:00 PM yesterday, another chaotic elven ranger began her journey to the Dungeons of Doom (and Despair). Her name was...I can never remember, and now that she's dead, there's no way for me to look at the save files. >.>

Just looked at the log file. Her name is/was Osha.

The beginning of the journey was uneventful; I went just past the Oracle, realized that I was way over my head, and went to the Gnomish Mines. The only real danger was a swarm of killer bees that reduced my strength to 6 for a while. Fortunately, I found a unicorn a few minutes later and killed it using my +2 elven arrows.

I got lucky equipment-wise. I found a couple of enchant armors early on, as well as many of potions of hallucination and object detection that I diluted and then blessed. Well, got blessed. I had almost eight unicorn horns, most of which I stashed around in chests, a blessed bag of holding that I'd found on, er, the body of another one of my chars. I had my +3 small shield from my valkyrie character, a +4, and my elven cloak was +5. If not for rust monsters and puddings, I would have had an AC that was at least -20.

There were a couple other close runs, such as the bit at Mine's End and a group in Sokoban. Otherwise, it was pretty easy, and I was in a position to bait trolls for the first time. ^^

Sirius died in Minetown, so I promptly got another dog named Maera. She died on our second trip to Minetown. As a lycan, I summoned two wolves and a winter wolf: Heiress, Dog (You can tell that I was feeling a bit uninspired by then.), and Ghost. Ghost, the winter wolf, was the only one I kept; I ditched the others. Many moves later, Ghost ate a chameleon and turned into a jelly. >.>

At the end, I got to level 13 and dungeon level 13, had 3 artifacts (Sting, Trollsbane, Ogresmasher or whatever it's called), the spellbook of haste self(a gift from Mars). And I converted my first altar. I spent some time as an arch-lich after I ate a chameleon, which was lots of fun because of the low AC. And of course, the ability to kill just about everything I saw.

Then I made the mistake of deciding to try on rings in the Minetown temple, got a ring of conflict...and the rest is history.

Rest in peace, Sirius, Maera, presumably Ghost, and Osha. We will remember you.

This has got to be my longest game yet. It's also, as I've already mentioned, the only game where I've converted an altar. That made four altars in the whole game, which were useful, especially combined with my "create monster" spell. I actually find it easier to kill things as a ranger.

I might as well start another game right now. I don't feel like roleplaying much.

You know there's something wrong when your mother is talking about Chinese proverbs, and your first thought is "Buy Low, Sell High." I am not kidding, I'm afraid.

A thread on an aSoIaF forum got me thinking about what I'd do if I went to a fictional universe. In fact, I've been obsessing about that for pretty much the whole day, asking just about everyone what they would do. It was rather disappointing because no one would take me seriously.

Pern(Post-AIVAS)
An opportunity to get a dragon/fire lizard of my own? Great! Because I'm a greedy bitch and all. Mostly I want a fire lizard, though; a dragon is too high maintenance and mating flights sound...inconvenient. So a male firelizard, preferably blue.

Of course, I'll probably never get to that point. :( Fire lizard eggs are rare, and I doubt I'll just happen to stumble over a nest. Pity.

I'm around the right age for Impressing a dragon, but I'm about as empathetic as a brick and, anyways, the mating flights sound icky. I'm a bit too old for apprenticeship, and since it's post-AIVAS, wowing the Pernese with my technological know-how is probably out.

So I'd really have to get creative.

Or I'd starve.

Heh, that works too.

A discussion on Dragonlance lead me to think about the fantasies I do read(believe it or not, I don't read that much fantasy anymore. I'm starting to not care so much about epic battles between good and evil. Though reading about shooting undead in the back is still fun, naturally.)

I could only come up with two fantasy series that I still care about. The Malazan books and aSoIaF.

Which lead me to Google them.

Eventually, I found this gem.

http://www.towerofthehand.com/blog/2007/12/11_the_page_69_test.html#comments

With the book The World is Flat, I got something about the internet and how it rapidly became popular.

I'll try that with other books later and post the results.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=26324

And this is delightful, though a bit spoilery for aSoIaF.

I apologize for the crappiness of this post; I'm only posting it for NaBlo. Nothing much happened today; I didn't even do my chara analysis.

Regards,
Grim

While I did do well on the section competition and I'm proud of that, I also think that the way I achieved it was monumentally stupid.

Because, well, I didn't have a way. I only looked at the study packet a couple of times. And yet I still managed to get in the top five. It makes me feel slightly guilty because my parents are assuming that I studied really, really hard, when, in fact, I did not.

So overall, today- the FBLA Section conference- was way better than I'd expected. Even if I had to walk in high heels, which was fiendishly difficult while going down stairs.

Yesterday was horrible- there was the last minute shoe shopping and blouse searching. Erk. And of course I got blamed for it, even though I'd checked with my parents beforehand.

And tomorrow I have a character analysis. Yay.

I have the blues. I expect it shall be gone by bedtime, at which I shall be a)sleepy, b)meh, c)talkative, or d)ecstatically happy and energetic.

Go figure.

But right now, I really can't bring myself to do anything, let alone my business homework. Maybe I'll get started on my character analysis instead.

Maybe.

Let's face it, my NaNoWriYe goal is not going well, but at the same time, I don't want to give up.

Oh, and I owe someone a roleplay post. Not fun, especially since I have no ideas whatsoever. *hopes that tomorrow I won't be so apathetic and boring*

I think I might be doing NaBloPoMo again next month, just for the fun of it. Then again, I don't like having to get on every day; it's just so difficult, especially with me grounded right now.

Also, I am totally incapable of lists. ^^ They just don't go well with me. Maybe. Just maybe.