Greetings,

My Yet Another First Ascension Post got me playing the Battlefield series
of FPS games. How's that possible? I'm glad you asked!

I recently remembered this anecdote while rummaging through my cabins and coming across a physical copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. See, I never posted my YAFAP into this newsgroup for some reason I cannot recall
anymore, but I did not post it nowhere either.

In 2010 the Opera browser was still a hot thing, and they hosted a
community event where you could win a copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2
by sharing your best gaming experience. Others shared experiences about
games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, or Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and
I, well, shared my first NetHack ascension -- and was selected as one of
the winners. One of the high points in my career as a gamer for sure. :D

I looked up the relevant pages from the Internet Archive: the contest
pitch and my story is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100416034716/ http://my.opera.com/community/blog/2010/03/04/win-a-free-copy-of- battlefield-bad-company-2?startidx=150 and the winners were announced
here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100415221022/http://my.opera.com/ community/blog/2010/03/08/battlefield-bad-company-2-winners

Just for the sake of completeness, I'll copy-paste my award-winning YAFAP
here. I hope you enjoy it!

====8<----

My best gaming experience took place on 22. March 2004. That's the day I
won a game of NetHack for the first time ever.

I had been playing the same character, lawful dwarven female valkyrie, on
and off for a month already. My previous valkyrie had also broken my
previous record score but suffered the horrible fate of getting poisoned
by the demon lord called Juiblex.

This time I was more careful and even though I had met several new
monsters and obstacles I had finally managed to get to the final level:
the Astral Plane. The journey through the Planes of Earth, Air, Fire and
Water had already been very difficult and exciting, but I remember well
the adrenaline rush I got for finally stepping into the Astral Plane.

The Astral Plane contains three altars, only one of which matches your alignment. You must then find the correct one by trial and error and
sacrifice the Amulet of Yendor to beat the game and to ascend to the demigodhood.

So, typical for my luck, I had to visit the two wrong altars first. The
Astral Plane is filled with incredibly powerful enemies, worst of whom are Famine, Pestilence and Death -- three of the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse -- and they had already managed to kill me once or twice. I had
had amulets of life saving but I was out of them now, so the next death
would be, well, fatal.

I remember my heart beating like crazy even though the game is turn based
and all that actually was on the screen was letters and symbols of various colors. In that state of mind I wasn't thinking clearly. When trying to
make it to the final altar my characted got burnened by all the stuff in
her inventory because of taking too much hit and because of the curses
from all the monsters that were able to use magic. In NetHack it is really important not to get burdened because it directly affects your speed, so I
got into even more trouble because all the monsters were moving twice as
fast as I was.

When my hitpoints were falling too quickly and the final altar was too far
away I made my final decision: I dropped my bag of holding after salvaging
a few of the most important items from inside it. This meant that I gave
up on many weapons, scrolls, wands, potions and such that would normally
help me stay alive but had now become just weight.

After abandoning most of my gear I got my dexterity back and started
fighting my final fight. The way to the altar was filled with monsters.
The Horsemen were all right behind me, so I had to either lose them or
endure their hits -- I couldn't lose any time fighting with anything
behind me anymore.

After quaffing all my remaining potions of healing and slaughtering lots
of capital A's, @'s, D's and whatnots I finally made it to the altar. Just
to be safe I looked at it, even though I knew the result beforehand: a
lawful altar. There were still several monsters around me but I now knew
that at this point they could not hurt me anymore: I was one turn away
from ascending to the demigodhood. I checked my next commands twice or
thrice: which keys to press and which item to sacrifice. After all, it
would be pretty embarassing if not instantly fatal to try to sacrifice
some junk item to Tyr when he was expecting the Amulet; not to mention the monsters around me waiting to land in more blows. But then, for the first
time in my life:

You offer the Amulet of Yendor to Tyr...
An invisible choir sings, and you are bathed in radiance...
The voice of Tyr booms out: "Congratulations, mortal!"
"In return to thy service, I grant thee the gift of Immortality!"
You ascend to the status of Demigoddess...

Even if an invisible choir had actually been singing I couldn't have heard
it for all the adrenaline filled blood that was rushing in my head, making
my ears hum.

====8<----

-Ville, aka. ZeroOne-Val-Dwa-Fem-Law
https://nethackmonsters.art/

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