Nurse Dancing

It’s Friday, and I’m sick once again thanks to the infected (infect-head?) nature of my big-headed boy.  Sometimes I think Gabriel is sick more often than he is healthy.  

Anyway, my good friend Eric has recently smoked the Nethack crack, and he’s been filling my inbox and my IM windows with summaries of his progress through the dungeon depths.  During one of these regales, he brought up the topic of “nurse dancing.”  No, it isn’t what I do when cutting the rug with my wife, it’s one of those emergent behaviors that gamers have invented to leverage the system.  Think of them as gameplay hacks; legal actions (as opposed to cheats or exploits) that players have stumbled upon and then made popular means of gaining an advantage.  Most of these are clever, some downright brilliant, but what struck me is how many are rather ridiculous.  I began to imagine what “nurse dancing” in particular would look like if described from a characters viewpoint.

     I felt vaguely awkward as I stripped naked in the dank dungeon room.  I took comfort in the fact that I’d locked myself in and checked the door to make sure no one (or thing) would surprise me standing here with my dork hanging out.  I held the cursed evil scroll in my hands, and looking down I realized I’d subconsciously begun holding it over my privates.  Being cursed, I figured I should probably keep it away from my crotch.  
     It’s funny what thoughts meander to mind when you’re in your birthday suit, and mine recalled speaking with Lundina, the Valkyrie, about dancing naked with the dreaded “Nurses.”
     “It is really quite simple,” she began in her Scandinavian-accented English.  “Have you fought a nurse.”
     “Um ...” I don’t like to stammer, especially not in front of attractive and armor clad Nordic warrior women, but I couldn’t help myself, “maybe a little before getting a shot —”
     “No,” she interrupted, all business, “I mean the monsters called nurses.  They are killers, like most monsters, but we call them nurses because if you are naked and have your weapons stowed they will increase your health.  So what you want to do is find a no-teleport level and —“
     She stopped to recognize my raised hand.  “Did you say ‘naked?’”
     “Yes, now find a no-teleport level, which is important because otherwise they will quickly teleport away.  You will also need a cursed Scroll of Genocide.  You find an empty room with a stout door you can lock ... yes?”
     “Isn’t Genocide really bad?”
     “It is cursed.”
     “Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t call genocide a virtue.”
     “No, the scroll is cursed.”
     “That’s supposed to make it better?”
     “You do not understand.  A cursed Scroll of Genocide does not have the effect of a normal Scroll of Genocide.”
     I could only manage to stare blankly at this.
     With a Wagnerian roll of her eyes she explained, “A normal Scroll of Genocide will cause the extinction of any one type of monster you wish, unless it is blessed, in which case it will wipe out an entire class of creature, but a cursed scroll will instantly summon several monsters of the given type.  Since you have locked yourself in the room and removed your clothes and weapons, the summoned nurse will enhance your health.”
     “And you’ve done this?”
     “Many times,” she smiled like only a woman who aspires to collect the souls of the honored dead from battle can smile.
     “Were they female nurses?”
     That was the last time I spoke with Lundina, the Valkyrie.  The armorer who specializes in tall and buxom sizes told me he heard she killed a cockatrice, which turn anything they touch into stone, and then wore gloves so that she could wield the corpse of the cockatrice as a weapon.  She was so successful doing this that she made crazy amounts of coin, over-burdened herself with the weight of all that wealth, and tripped down a flight of stairs until her face went right into the cockatrice corpse and turned her to stone.