Azrael Makes Wiz!

It was 11:00, or thereabouts, on a Saturday morning, and I had just woken up after an almost-successful night of wizrunning which was, annoyingly, cut short by NTL. They had decided, when I was at the dizzying heights of 190k, that they should cut me off during a fight, plummeting me downwards to under 180k. Thankfully Foddy, who had also just come on, took pity on this poor overworked mage and restored the lost points in time for me to start my reset on the score I had before the cut-off.

Reverence became visible. I, being the paranoid type that I was, immediately took this as a sign that I should fear the infliction of (possibly) stick-based violence upon my person in the impending reset.

Fortunately for me, this was not the case. However, I soon found myself having a shaky start to the reset. As my seafaring vessel of choice was not yet available to me, I instead opted to go for its big chunky brother, the dinghy. For reasons which now elude me, I went in pursuit of this via a dodgy route for one so vulnerable as myself, and as I had feared, I ran straight into a mobile I have never been on the best of terms with - the exceptionally large goblin10. At the best of times he'll go down in a couple of hits, but unfortunately this did not appear to be the best of times. Numerous attempts to put him to sleep and drain his stamina failed, taking their toll on me instead, and - having forgotten to supply myself with a wafer or two beforehand - I had no choice but to retreat up the stairs on 7 stamina, which was low enough to avoid any points loss.

Now came another problem. Completely kitless, I was not only moribund, but vulnerable to any sorc or necro (of which none were in the land, but hey, you can never be too careful) who fancied their chances of summoning and killing me for a nice juicy 38,000 points. So I went back and reacquired my kit from the goblins I had fled, knowing that if one of them attacked mid-string, I'd be dead in two seconds flat. This didn't happen, though, and after sleeping up to near-full health I sedated my previous assailant and sneaked past to get the dinghy.

A qs from about this time, if anyone cares:

qs Azrael the mage eff str 78     eff dex 90     sta 88/120      mag 58 pts 190,744     gam 24

Time to pay a visit to dragon isle, I thought. Now, anyone who's done his homework will know that this thing is not my favourite of all mobiles, having killed four of my previous mages and god knows how many warlocks and below. Not wishing to suffer a fate similar to that of Death, Inept, Renegade and Vaevictis, I took the hint that the dragon didn't currently want me to loot his isle, and returned to the mainland.

For the most part, the remainder of the reset was pretty unremarkable, playing out just as any other reset. I equipped myself as well as I felt the need to, set up a site, and then went about getting that all-important 14,056 points. However, after reducing the dragon's life expectancy to under ten minutes, it happened again - I lost connection in another fight, this time against zombie3, whom I had attacked so that maybe he wouldn't be able to keep blocking me. Naturally, as a paranoid mage, I expected to come back about 15k the poorer for it. Fortunately this did not happen, and when I came back out I could pick up where I left off, albeit with reduced strength and dexterity, and with no points for killing the dragon when it died.

So, anyway ... the crown was swamped (twice, thanks to some vial-based antics), the icons were swamped (all four ... hey, I'm wizrunning, it's allowed), an unusually large qw-list of inquisitive spectator mortals were kept informed of my progress, the dwarfs were slaughtered, and I found myself at the rarely-seen score of over 200k ...

qs Azrael the mage eff str 50     eff dex 83     sta 74/120      mag 120 pts 200,105     gam 25

Equally nearly novice!? With no-one on with a Cccc-style army of fodding sorcs, this seems highly unlikely. A bit of surface t, a few mobiles, and the lower floors of the keep, and I'm within 2k of wiz - and if you've ever been there you know how I feel. If you haven't, then I won't try to explain. Although I had four wafers left I was reluctant to take on the griffin, as he's one unpredictable bastard and it's not like I wouldn't be able to get to wiz without the keep treasure anyway. But after a descent from the top of north mountain I realised that the great gate, which over the past few months had seemed to rust beyond all recognition, had somehow decided to open! I had 203,354 points, and with a whole world of easy t at my disposal, now my transcendence to wizdom was virtually assured. > So after eating the lotuses, swamping the ground t and killing a couple of apes, I was but four hundred and seventy eight points from wiz. A shout of, "O.K., here goes!", and I ran to get the cannon-related paraphernalia. And with a >CRACK<, here is the slightly edited version of what happened next ...

(*)s Fountain room. The fountain glows blue with its magical power. Transcribed below it are the words: "Enter me and know.". (*)enter fountain The fountain changes colour from blue to yellow, and you suddenly feel more relaxed, confident, and sure of yourself than you did before you entered... You have completed a Task which you have done before. (Persona saved on +100 = 204,422). You have changed experience level from mage to wizard. Azrael is now Azrael the wizard! You forfeit membership of house "AFW". Azrael (leader of "AFW") has achieved immortality without a successor! There is no captain to replace you as leader: house dissolved. House "AFW" has been dissolved. (Persona saved on +450 = 204,872). You get drenched in the water. (----*)roar You roar.

And it's difficult to describe exactly how I was feeling at this point. As my now-immortal form emerged from the fountain which still to this day harbours my mortal soul, I felt nothing short of ecstatic. I had finally managed what I had failed to do so many times before.