Punishment

You can be punished by your god (for praying while your deity is angry), or by reading a scroll of punishment. A heavy iron ball is attached to you by a chain: 0_@. If you are polymorphed into an amorphous, whirly or non-solid creature when reading this scroll, the ball and chain will appear but fall off immediately.

If punished while already being chained to an iron ball, the ball's weight is increased by 160 (320 if the method of punishment was a cursed scroll of punishment).

The heavy iron ball

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Name	heavy iron ball
Appearance	heavy iron ball
Base price	10 zm
Weight	480+

The chain cannot be picked up, but the iron ball can. It is a unique object which appears in its own section in the inventory. The iron ball will follow you around everywhere, including going up and down stairs where it may hit you or drag you down, causing some damage. This damage is reduced but not eliminated if you wield the ball while going downstairs to prevent it hitting you.

Strategy

The iron ball makes a surprisingly good weapon, doing d25 base damage, with an additional d(x*4) damage, where x is the number of times the ball has been made heavier. The downside is the extreme weight - only 20 units short of a loadstone and the same weight as 48 daggers. Thus, the ball can be used as a weapon, but you should ditch it as soon as you have something more effective.

The iron ball also gives you a limited ability to jump, while it is chained to you. Throwing it will pull you along in that direction for up to 4 squares, but beware using this method to cross water - the ball will travel 5 squares, and if that lands in water, you will be pulled down into the water with it.

Removing the heavy iron ball

Removing the iron ball is enough to end your punishment. There are a number of ways to do this:

1. Zapping a wand of opening or casting a spell of knock down at the chain
2. Reading a scroll of remove curse, of any BUC status, while not confused
3. #praying: punishment counts as a minor problem
4. Have it stolen by a nymph
5. Have it eaten by a metallivore
6. Polymorph into a nymph and remove it using the #monster command
7. Polymorph into a metallivore and eat the ball away
8. Polymorph into an amorphous, whirly or non-solid monster and thus slip out of the chain
9. Drop the ball in a pit and fill the pit with a boulder
10. Ringing the blessed Bell of Opening
11. Crushing the ball or chain in a drawbridge