I'm playing this game for literal months, hyperfixating on it for some weeks until I get into frustration cycle and abandon it for months.
Most of my characters meet their demise quite early on thanks to my impatience and bad risk assessment (permadeath isn't great for risky players like myself :p).
I was playing around the new species (mountain dwarf) and the reworked god, Makhleb, to distract myself from a recent stress and suddenly found myself in the Realm of Zot.
After getting my runes from the Swamp, the Spider Nest and the Slime Pit, I headed to Zot. The area was pretty easy for my character except for one thing - Protean Progenitor.
The enemy would quickly build up magical contamination on me leading to some nasty mutations. I got berserkis before I realized this and couldn't remove it with my pathetic supply of potions of mutation.
Nonetheless, I entered Zot:5 and very carefully cleared the East lung. Most enemies weren't a problem except, of course, Orbs of Fire. I could kill them 1 on 1 with no problems but malmutation.... well, according to the logs all the evil mutations I have gotten (including -scrolls) were from the first encounter with them.
In hindsight, I should've taken this as a sign to go raid the Crypt in hopes of getting some !mut but I was too excited. So, the moment I cleared most of Zot:5 (yes, most of - I decided not to clear the rest to avoid getting more mutations) I grabbed it.
It went really bad real quick. A brimstone fiend, Zot trap that summoned a vortex, unwanted berserk that activated in the worst moment and the inevitable demise.
Sad, but at least I learned stuff about Zot:5 and the orb run. I think I'm prepared for the next time I get to Zot.
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The good news: you can be! Don't give up!