ALT The show starts with a blast of the harshest white the bulbs can make. It then cycles nonstop through eight movements in random order: WEE-OO: the lamps trade full red and full blue. Strobe chase: a blinding white light hops from lamp to lamp, speeding up. Disco vomit: every lamp lurches to a different garish color, over and over. The fake-out: a slow fade to almost nothing, total darkness ("is it over?"), then a full blast. Seasick: the lamps heave out of sync between chartreuse and magenta. Lightning storm: gloomy blue split by random cracks of white, sometimes double. Red alert: the bridge's built-in alarm breathing, in red, on every lamp at once. Firmware frenzy: each lamp runs a different built-in effect (sparkle, prism, fire…) at full brightness.

ALT What happened: Surtur's palisade has two drawbridges over lava. A fire giant inside had a wand of striking and had already destroyed the south drawbridge by zapping at me. I opened the north drawbridge with a wand of opening I'd just identified, floated in, and stopped in its doorway to fight a fire ant. The giant zapped striking again. The bolt destroyed the lowered bridge, and whoever stands in its doorway dies outright ("blown apart by flying debris"). There is no saving throw, and levitating doesn't help on that square. I went from full HP to dead in one monster turn. What made it worse: the unidentified square amulet in my pack was an uncursed amulet of life saving. I never tested it, even though I passed co-aligned altars where I could have checked whether it was cursed. Worn, it would have saved me.