Forum:I think I just took the cake for weirdest death...

< Forum:Watercooler

So I, someone fairly new to NetHack, was playing a game as a dwarven Valkyrie since I can't get to sleep. Things were going well-I'd made a generous amount of money by training my dog to steal from shops, and I'd made it to the Oracle level. I was level 5 and dipping for Excalibur.

This is where things get messed up.

After lots of sword-rusting and a water nymph, I end up attracting a water demon. I was nervous, since I know the nasty little buggers LOVE to summon more of themselves faster than I can kill them, but I had quite a few (unidentified) wands and potions, so I wasn't *too* scared.

But then something other than a water demon shows up (I play with the graphic version, by the way). Wondering exactly what the hell was going on, I peer closely at the screen to try and get a closer look (which is pretty silly, considering we're on computers, but that's not really the point here). This odd new monster looked like a blob with eye-stalks. I decide to attack it...

"You were swallowed by Jubilex!"

"Do you want your possessions identified?"

---

I was confused as hell. Even more so since my killer actually had a name. So I looked up Jubilex on this wiki.

Difficulty 26

Juiblex:

   * can fly.
   * can flow under doors.
   * can survive underwater.
   * has no head.
   * can see invisible creatures.
   * is acidic to eat.
   * is poisonous to eat.
   * is not a valid polymorphable form.
   * is a demon.
   * is a lord to its kind.
   * is male.
   * always starts as hostile.
   * can follow you to other levels.
   * is nasty.
   * wants the Amulet of Yendor.
   * waits for you to come.
   * has infravision.
   * appears only in Gehennom. 

WHAT THE HELL WAS HE DOING ON THE ORACLE LEVEL AGAINST A LEVEL FIVE PLAYER?! O_O

---

By the way, is there a way to get a log of some sort after quitting the game? I'd very much like to get a screenshot for proof and posterity.

-DarkLightDragon

Were you, by any chance, playing on a shared computer? It occurs to me that you may have hit a bones level. From the Juiblex article: "Juiblex is one of the demon lords who can be summoned and made peaceful, when a Chaotic player sacrifices his own race on an aligned altar. This means he can appear quite early in the dungeon." So my guess is that someone had summoned Juiblex before, was killed, and the level became a bones level.

Also, instead of peering closely at the screen, I suggest you just use the far look command. :)

A screenshot is something you are just going to have to take by yourself. (See Wikihow for further instuctions.) I haven't really tried the graphical version of the game, but I'd suppose that you could just highlight and then copy the textual messages, they are displayed in some separate window/text area, aren't they?

—ZeroOne (talk / @) 12:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

No, it was not a bones level, and this is not a shared computer. I recently had a game where I was lucky enough to have gauntlets of dexterity AND helm of brilliance very early on, and another where I'd been wearing a helm of opposite alignment, but I can't remember if either of those were the game where I got killed by Jubilex.

I have had a bones level come up on the Oracle level since, but thankfully it wasn't the Jubilex one. Still an incredibly nasty bones file (lots of water demons and a foocubus). But at least is wasn't Jubilex. By the way, I worked out how to open the log file and got a text screenshot.

I came across another weird thing in the game I died in just then. Pity, since I'd picked up a cloak of invisibility and found a blessed elven shield (still 1 point of AC inferior to my small shield, but still pretty cool). Also a crystal plate mail. Anyway, I was in Minetown. I'd decided to start quaffing the fountains there since I knew I should get a warning.

SHOULD.

Anyway, on my first quaff, A water nymph shows up and the guards get rather ticked off at me. I'm forced to kill a few, getting the murderer penalty of course, then the captain comes along and does me in.

"Minetown fountains always dry up without warning when digging to create pools, or when the special effect from dipping a longsword into the fountain occurs. This also angers the watch."

Says nothing about attracting nymphs =/

-DarkLightDragon

Well, then I don't know how you could have encountered Juiblex. I guess you couldn't have summoned him by yourself earlier, either... You would have noticed it if it had happened.

Read the fountain article -- it clearly says that attracting a nymph is one of the possible outcomes of quaffing from a non-magical fountain. :)

PS. Please sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~. That creates the timestamp and such automatically.

—ZeroOne (talk / @) 22:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The Juiblex death is a rare situation but not all that weird. See the Demon summoning spoiler. When any demon creates minions, usually it will bring in something of its own type or weaker, but there's a small chance of generating a demon lord instead. I've had a level 2 character get killed by Yeenoghu because I dipped trying to remove a curse. 99.183.213.175 05:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)