Level 10 is not bad at all.
Certainly 90% of my non-wizard and non-save scummed game usually end with the death of my character before reaching level 8.
Anyways, always using the wizard mode, after the human paladin reached level 27 and had very good equipment (reached even 40 AC at a time), confident in some good cleaning flame and summon angel from Shiny One, with his very good divine wrath powered sword and a very good fire sword, i decided to get into the Zot realm that i never explored before (as usually i give up wizard mode way earlier).
And honestly considering how insanely difficult i found the game in the last floor of the Zot realm, i doubt i will ever have the chance to explore it in a regular (i mean non wizard mode) game
I think the main problem is that i had the bad luck to meet much dragons and draconians in Zot, and my previously prepared 8 teleportations scrolls and 6 Blink scrolls have been already -all- burned down by the various kind of fire dragons and demons threw at me in there.
So once i reached the last Zot floor, i had no teleportation way, i remembered i had dropped a teleportation giver item long time ago to deal with encumbrement and didn't remembered where, so i couldnt even get out to take it and come back.
So note for later : never ever drop a teleportation item, even if you think you have enough scroll, remember "fire meets scrolls" is no good for scrolls
Dealing with the Orb Guardians was no small feat, those things are hard to solo despite the high end paladin i had at this point, they even killed him once or twice when they caught him in the open and with their extreme insane speed surrounded him before he could reach any kind of corridor to narrow the fight (without even counting those fire orb that threw so much fire that even if i got a few teleport/blink scroll left, i would have ended with only ashes).
Anyways, entered in the final Zot Orb room, fetched the item and proceeded to run away using the cleaned parts of the temple in direction of the stairs.
Noticed a lot of demons were appearing out of thin air, and finally when i reached the last room before the stairs, this is what was waiting for me
:
With no teleport/blink item and scrolls that's not exactly the best of the situations, reminded me of the room full of those nearly unkillable titanic and enormous slimes i took a screenshot previously in Pandemonium.
Cleansing Flame is sure usefull, killed tons of those, but with the various summoners in this room (even a Pandemonium Lord ! ) every killed monster was replaced nearly immediately.
And to not make things easier, my character was under the effect of some heavy slow spell.
I don't know exactly how much time i spent just to reach the exit from that room, but easily at least 10 minutes despite it was just a few tiles away, and of course died a lot there.
Ah if only i had a few teleport/blink ready, damn the hundred of dragons from previous floors that burned them all.
At least this run would have showed me that going with a paladin character and not counting on spells will never allow me to get the orb in a regular game, can't count how much time he died in Abyss, Pandemonium and Zot.