I have concluded that Changes move in packs. This is based not only on my own life, but on my observations of my friends. For instance, one estimable lady of my acquaintance broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years, moved to a new apartment (note she wasn’t living with him), got a new haircut, got a new job, and changed her legal name in the space of approximately two weeks. More recently, my sister closed on a house and got engaged on the same day, which was her birthday. And now here am I, taking possession of a house November 1 and a job November 5. As my friends and my imaginary floating wiser me have remarked, I better not get pregnant.

Perhaps these flocks of changes do not always alight where they are welcome—but I am glad, excited, frightened, and generally rejoicing. In a way the very fury of the pace is part of exhilaration of the change. I keep saying, “I’m so busy! I’m so busy!” but it is more a chant of celebration than a plaint.

← The Emperor

At this, his August Splendour the Emperor Adelmar sat up slightly in his gaudy throne, pushed his crown back so that his hair could be brushed out of his eyes, and studied his guest with some interest. She did not look somber like the servants of the Empire, nor was she flushed with bustle like the people of the City that he sometimes saw. She was different, and, as anyone who has ever been a ten-year-old Emperor holding audiences in a half-built fish-bowl will tell you, different is fascinating.

“Where are you from?” the Ruler of the Perfect Empire asked Isabella.

“Over -”

“She improperly utilized a Phare, my liege,” Wallace the Seneschal said, eyeing Isabella haughtily.

“How’d you do that?” the Marvelous Magnate of All asked Isabella, transfixed.

“It was quite-”

“The mechanisms are designed to be very simple, Sire, in light of the limited capacity of the Phare Keepers.”

Isabella frowned at Wallace, and Adelmar the Mighty looked inclined to agree with her sentiments.

His Imperial lower lip began to bulge, as it were to balance the ominous protrusion of his brow. Returning his majestic gaze to Isabella, he said, “Did you come on a boat?” He immediately swung his head (imperiling the diadem perched thereupon) towards Wallace with a look of Imperial ire, and Wallace immediately found the question quite innocent and below his notice.

“Indeed, Your Majesty,” smiled Isabella, “your chessmen were kind enough to send a ship to transport me.”

“Chessmen? Impertinence!” muttered Wallace like an operatic baritone about to launch into a recitative, “Imperial servants sent to investigate…” They ignored him.

“You see, I’ve never been on a boat,” said His Diminutive Excellency, with a touch of wistfulness.

Isabella blinked. “But, Your Regality, you have four or five score in your harbor.”

Wallace, bursting out in stentorian tones, said, “His Exalted Wisdom is quite busy with matters of State, and cannot be bothered to take care of boats that take quite good care of themselves!”

Isabella studied Wallace, who looked like a very unhappy man, and His Superlative Formidability, who looked like a very unhappy boy, and said, “Surely there is nothing more fitting for a potentate to do than to tour the ships of the line?”

“There is nothing for an Emperor to do but direct the construction of his Palace,” sighed the Seneschal as if Isabella were a child pulling his coattails.

Isabella raised an eyebrow, crowding a dozen wrinkles dreadfully, and said, “I see no hammer about his person.”

“Of course not!” declaimed the Seneschal.

Tilting her ear to catch the far-off shouts of men, she added, “I do not see him giving orders.”

“Of course not! The day-to-day matters are the province of far lesser…uh, personages.”

“In that case, he has delegated the real work, and shall now have a pleasure cruise, and I can think of nothing more Imperial.”

The lad sprung from his throne, which gave his golden robes to billow loosely, and grinned at Isabella and at Wallace. “Indeed!” said Adelmar.

“But… Your Supreme and Eternal Incandescence!” Wallace began in tragic tones.

“Now, now, Wallie!” said Adelmar, with a real incandescence in his dusty hazel eyes, “I go where I like, and I do as I please, and you can’t say better than that.”

The Galleon →

I have been offered employment at OHSU West Campus! I shall get to work with lots of people, scientist people, people with odd accents from exotic climes! I shall help get grants for Important Research, and work in a big airy atrium! And drive about 20 minutes each way! Joy and arpiness! Oh frabjus day! Calloo, callay, I chortle in my glee! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Of course when I try to blogcast a nethack character, she doesn’t do well! Shortly after her first encounter with Gnomemeat - yucky but satisfying - and her success against the dreaded giant ants with her mighty magic missile, she stepped upon a magic trap, which decided to, this time, blind her and summon some monsters. Quickly reduced by the Invisible monster to 6 of her 20 hitpoints, she #prayed to Anhur, that he might see her plight and mathematically determine her worth saving. Alas, chaotic gods are often fickle, and while he indicated he was pleased with her, he interceded not. She attempted flight, but found the unseen beast not only moved as quickly as her, but had time to attack on a turn when it moved! In desperation, down to 1 hitpoint and having neither teleportation wands nor scrolls nor wands of digging with which to make good her escape, nor wands of fire or lightning to Engrave the sacred Elbereth withal, she fired a magic missile at the beast, hoping it would not also hit her faithful pet. Alas, the beast did not succumb, and on turn 1910 Esk-Wiz-Fem-Cha, doubtless the 30th or so of that title, died.

Vanquished creatures
a leprechaun
a ghoul
2 giant ants
an iguana
2 giant rats
2 gnomes
a gnome zombie
a gecko
2 jackals
2 foxes
2 goblins
2 grid bugs
5 lichens
4 newts

(Score) 1556 Esk-Wiz-Elf-Fem-Cha died in The Gnomish Mines on Level 5. Killed by a dog.

Turn 1310
I begin to grow accustomed to the Dungeons. So far I have found little to interest me - the crude armor and weapons that lie here and there have little interest for a student of the arts arcane.

I did find a series of stairways down further into the belly of the Dungeons, and it was on the fourth level that I had a most singular experience - I found a chest in one of the rooms, and on eagerly lifting its lid to examine its contents, a curious gas emerged! Before my eyes, my familiar Piwacket became most unfamiliar indeed, seeming first a Dragon of no known species, then a person, then some other monster whose form was unknown to me! I scarcely trusted myself anymore to remember that this horror might be my cat, and rather leaned on the chest and waited for my eyesight to return to normal. Whilst I waited, I did see a mortal battle betwixt two of these everchanging, dizzying creatures, and was most heartened to see the fearsome victor shrink back to the form of my dear blue-point Piwacket chewing on an unfortunate gecko. I think in future I shall make some attempt to untrap such containers.

At any rate, the chest contained some 30 pieces of gold, a strange scroll, and a magenta book of arcane lore! ...Being as how I am tired after my hallucinating episode and the dungeon’s travails, I shall not right now attempt the book. Which is to say, I don’t think I would understand it, and such an attempt might hurt me. But later, as my power grows, I shall wrest all the magical secrets from the tome and the dungeon hoards!

Turn 1769
Curious! This fourth level of the dungeon seems to have not one stairway down, but two—a feature I might have overlooked had I not been determined to explore each level thoroughly. While one stairway seems to let out upon a dungeon of rooms and corridors similar to the one before, the other gives access to a warren of almost organic caverns, where the occasional din of a hammer gives notice of industrious miners. However, the locals, a race of small and surly Gnomes, seem hostile as well as industrious, and therefore have seen a savage side of both myself and Piwacket. Nothing must stand between me and my quest! Nor between me and knowledge!

Esk-Wiz-Elf-Fem-Cha, St:4 Dx:18 Co:14 In:17 Wi:10 Ch:8, Dlvl:5 $:614 HP:18(18) Pw:55(55) AC:9 Exp:4 T:1775 Hungry, signing off.

P.S. I wonder if Gnomes are tasty.

I ask you, how did I get back into wearing nylons? I had sworn I would never subject myself to that torture again, but then I found some that were more comfy, and here I am again. In my nylons, on the day I have a big second interview, with a run of unknown origin racing from my upper thigh down to mid-calf. This ONLY happens when you need to make a good impression.

I guess I’ll leave extra-early and stop at Fred Meyer’s—maybe I’ll pick up some extras to throw in my office drawer, too. Curses!

In a recent article, I blathered on vaguely about the joys of Nethack, and may have left some of you confused.

This new feature will not unconfuse you all that much. For that I recommend Fargo, whose article on the topic of nethack is probably funnier than mine shall be, and certainly contains the useful graphics that I am both too lazy and too minimalist to make.

However, I doubt the verity of Spyke, Fargo’s ASCII archeologist, and his adventures. While they all COULD happen in nethack, they seem unlikely. I mean, a werejackal walkin’ around with TWO wands, both of them useful? Yeah, right!

So I’ve decided to bring you what may very well be the first Reality Nethack Blogcast. It may not last very long, depending on Esk, her kitten Piwacket, her god Anhur, and her luck. Updates on Esk will appear daily or something until she goes to the big score-list in the sky.

So, meet Esk: @. And her little cat, Piwacket: f. It is turn #1, and this intrepid young wizard, a chaotic elf, has descended into the dreaded Mazes of Menace, there to seek out the Bell of Opening, the Candelabrum of Invocation, and the Book of the Dead, to bring them to the stairway to Gehennom, open the way to the Underworld, and from thence bear the Amulet of Yendor, yea, even unto the High Altar of Heaven, there to sacrifice it for the Glory of her God, Anhur! In short, she’s frickin’ insane. But, you know, she also is motivated by the desire for knowledge—her wizard teachers have really not prepared her very well, and she knows the dungeons have spellbooks and scrolls just sitting around!

Let’s have a look at how meagerly the wizards have equipped their brave little sprout:
Weapons
a – a blessed +1 quarterstaff (weapon in hands) —Standard ish.
Armor
b – an uncursed +0 cloak of magic resistance (being worn)—Ditto. V. useful.
Scrolls
i – 2 uncursed scrolls of light
j – an uncursed scroll of magic mapping -You get 3 randomly generated scrolls - 2 of “light” is pretty weak.
Spellbooks
k – a blessed spellbook of force bolt -Standard - is a decent attack and breaks doors, boulders, et cetera. Pretty useful.
l – a blessed spellbook of magic missile—A pretty kick-ass attack spell. Maybe the old wizard profs aren’t so bad.
Potions
f – an uncursed potion of enlightenment —All it does is tell you your alignment and magical abilities and such.
g – an uncursed potion of gain ability —Nice. I’ll probably hold off on quaffing it until I can bless it, though. That way it raises each of your abilities by one!
h – an uncursed potion of object detection —Enh. Mildly useful, and easy to identify in-game, as almost all nymphs carry ‘em around.
Rings
d – an uncursed ring of polymorph -If I get lucky and find a ring of polymorph control, this baby is my ticket to greatness! You can polymorph into really gnarly critters with great intrinsic abilities - like dragons, for instance - great armor, can still wear amulets, rings, et cetera, can FLY, are very strong, have a breath weapon - and if you’re lucky, you’re a girl dragon, and you can lay loyal little dragonlings! Of course, without polymorph control, you could just as easily polymorph into a newt.
e – an uncursed ring of teleport control-Very very nice! This means I can freely eat nymphs and leprechauns. Both have a good chance of conferring intrinsic teleport - which is the pits, unless you can control it—in which case it’s very useful indeed.
Wands
c – a wand of striking (0:4) —Same effect as my spell, force bolt. No great shakes.
Tools
m – an uncursed leather drum —Another randomly generated perk of being a wizard. What is it for? It awakens any monsters that may be sleeping nearby, or scares them if I’m lucky, and it makes it more likely that the game will lower my wisdom. In short, it’s there to confuse people until they’ve identified the drum of earthquake.

In short, not a bad starting kit. You will notice I have no food - wizards never do to start, and often starve. Oh, and no gold, either. You may have noticed my references to “identifying” items. These items, that I start with, come identified. Almost all the others I encounter won’t be - I can do tricks to identify them, try them out if I dare, or use a scroll or spell of identify to give me the rundown. For instance, scrolls I haven’t identified say things like “VENZAR BORGAVVE” and “TEMOV” - randomly assigned labels - and both types of drum look alike. The blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items is also revealed by identifying. In general, cursed stuff is bad (DUH). For potions, scrolls, et cetera, it gives a bad version or a bad twist on the effect—for armor, rings, amulets, and so forth, you can’t take it off! Many of the items that appear in the dungeon at random are cursed and bad. Just to make it more interesting. Well, that’s a run-down on Esk’s starting luck. Good luck, Esk! More bulletins as events warrant!

Sometimes I miss the sea. Even now that I am within easy reach of it, there are days and times, as now, when the surf’s absence pounds in my ears and I am wistful and distant for a while. How our mother enchants us.

Should I tell you? You’re competition! But you’re my audience…I shall! Powell’s is giving away the OED to celebrate that beautiful tome’s 75th birthday. 20 volumes! A $3,000 value, they say! How can they set a value on that book! How I’ve missed it since I left the sheltering nest of the CWRU IP block…How glorious should it be mine!

Hey, I see you entering! It’s mine! SCAT!

Today I am wearing a full, peasanty skirt out of something approximating denim, and after months of alternating between pants and “secretary skirts” - more professional, A-line, knee-length affairs - I had forgotten what a joy such a garment is. I can run more freely than in pants! I can crouch to get a book off a shelf or rummage through files in perfect comfort. Some of you may say, “Ha! She must be wearing uncomfortable pants, if she can’t do that in pants!” but here’s the rub—you’re used to it. You don’t even realize that pants and jeans are pulling or constricting until you’re free of them. The peasanty skirt is long enough you don’t have to be worrying constantly about maintaining modesty, and full and forgiving enough that you can flop down on a sofa or a couch in any strange position and be comfortable.

For a little while the pundits were making noises about how man-skirts would be the next big thing. There was only one guy who believed them - or maybe it was the voices in his head - at my high school. Apparently both pundits and voices were wrong, and all I can say is, you poor poor men.