Tomb asp

Tomb asp
Monster ID	469
Locations	The Middle Chamber
Hit Points	155
Attack	170
Defense	145
No-Hit	180
Initiative	70
Meat	80-120
Phylum	beast
Elements	None
Resistance	None
Monster Parts	head, tail
Drops charming flute, unidentified jerky
Manuel Entry
refreshedit data

 You're fighting a tomb asp

Prior to the Days of Yore, the monarchs of Loathing were buried with huge urns full of grain, for use in the afterlife. The people doing the burial, knowing that the grain would be a temptation for thieves, trained a species of asp to hide in urns and protect the grain from greedy fingers. Archaeologists have deciphered an ancient document that seems to be a set of instructions for the preparation of one of these traps. It translates as follows:

Step 1: Put a hole in an urn.
Step 2: Put an asp in the urn.
Step 3: Get the thief to open the urn.

You just performed step 3. You deduce that step 4 is either to fight this thing, or to get poisoned. Maybe both.

Hit Message(s):

It wraps itself around your neck and squeezes. You feel like you did the last time you had to wear a necktie. Eek! Oof! Ugh! Ow! Ouch!

It scrapes its scales over you. Man, nothing hurts like an asp rasp. Ooh! Ow! Oof! Ouch! Ooh!

It slithers over and pokes you with a fang. Fangs a lot, man. Ow! Argh! Eek! Ouch! Ooh!

It bites you in the mouth. Man, you never go asp to mouth! Argh! Oof! Ouch! Ooh! Argh!

Critical Hit Message:

It coils itself tightly inside the urn, then springs into the air, taking the urn with it. It lands on top of your head. The heavy urn causes you a great deal of unurned pain. Ow! Oof! Ow! Oof! Oof! Ouch! Argh! Ooh! Ugh!

Miss Message(s):

It tries to bite you, but you charm it. You aspmaster, you.

It scrapes its scales over you, but it's not a particularly raspy asp.

It tries to poke you with a fang, but you say "no fang you."

It wraps itself around your neck, but you remember to keep your neck muscles tight, old man.

Fumble Message:

It slithers toward you, intent on sinking its fangs into your tender flesh. Fortunately, before it can reach you, a window to another dimension opens and a badger's paw reaches through and grabs it. Another snake takes its place. (FUMBLE!)

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After Combat

You gain 80-120 Meat (average: 100, stdev: 8.56)*

You acquire an item: charming flute (7% chance)*

You acquire an item: unidentified jerky (12% chance)*

You gain 42-43 <substat>.

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Occurs at The Middle Chamber.

Notes

• A successful attack from this monster has a chance of poisoning you:

You acquire an effect: Really Quite Poisoned (duration: 10 Adventures)

• Poisoning happens on the hit messages that involve biting (2/4 normal hit messages, not the critical hit message). This means you get poisoned on 50% of regular hits, and 0% of critical hits.

References

• The "set of instructions for the preparation of one of these traps" refers to the Saturday Night Live digital short "Dick in a Box".
• Some messages pun on the words "asp" and "ass," for example:
  • One of the hit messages refers to a scene in the movie Clerks II which features several repetitions of the phrase "you never go ass to mouth!"
  • One of the miss messages plays on the slang term "assmaster."
• The miss message "It wraps itself around your neck, but you remember to keep your neck muscles tight, old man" refers to Bruce Willis' character in Sin City.
• The fumble message references the Astral Badger familiar and the famous "Badger Song".