[evilhack] What makes Medusa die?

[Janis Papanagnou]

Reached Medusa's level in EvilHack in visible shape with a shield of
reflection worn and (paranoid) an additional mirror for good measure.
A couple surprises...
No instant stoning from shield. Applied mirror does also not work.
Got slowed down despite a worn blindfold. I threw Skilled enchanted
spears from distance. The artifact Sword of Annihilation was also
quite ineffective, i.e. did not disintegrated her. Medusa stepped
into a mine which doesn't hindered her following me. I needed quite
a couple bites from my lizard to stay alive since her first attack.
And at some point it seemed that she rested some turns. And a few
turns later she just died without any further action.
Is Medusa now dying slowly? What are the exact conditions for her
to get killed? (It's not that obvious what happens here, compared
to Nethack or Slashem.)
Would it be possible to just run away (while in line-of-sight of
Medusa) to have her die from her reflected image in due time?

Janis

[Mobi Leuser]

Medusa can avert her eyes. Sometimes she doesn't manage that in time and then she turns to stone. The closer you are, the bigger the chance she will turn to stone (I don't know the precise odds). She also has extra stoning attacks from the snakes in her hair. She can also be killed with ranged weapons or in melee.
She is vulnerable to fire.
You can run away and have her die from her reflected image in due time, but remember that she can fly.
Stoning resistance is (of course) very nice to have when fighting her (from yellow-scaled armor or wielded Sword of Kas).

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Mobi Leuser
Medusa can avert her eyes. Sometimes she doesn't manage that in time
and then she turns to stone. The closer you are, the bigger the
chance she will turn to stone (I don't know the precise odds). She
also has extra stoning attacks from the snakes in her hair. She can
also be killed with ranged weapons or in melee. She is vulnerable to
fire. You can run away and have her die from her reflected image in
due time, but remember that she can fly. Stoning resistance is (of
course) very nice to have when fighting her (from yellow-scaled armor
or wielded Sword of Kas).

Thanks for the detailed information. The odds must be quite low,
though, since I was quite often adjacent to her (with all those
negative stoning effects on me). I had no stoning resistance, or
at least not that I know of. It seemed that my ranged attacks and
melee weren't very effective; she must have had a lot of HPs, I
suppose. With that experience it seems it would be the best means
to run away and wait for the incidental reflection-counterattack.

Janis