My level 12 troll shapeshifter of Okawaru was happily exploring dungeon 12 and encountered a gnoll unique wielding a -2 light spear of distortion. The gnoll hit me exactly once and banished my into the Abyss. Ouch.
I mostly wanted back out, the Abyss is no place for a level 12 char. I encountered 4 stairs deeper into the Abyss and 2 altars of Lugonu but not a single up/out stair. Are these stairs supposed to be equally likely or is it supposed to be that much harder to get out than deeper in?
There is no up/down stairs haha.
There are irresistibly portals leading deeper into the abyss (supposedly more dangerous realms 
)
Portals leading out are rare I must say.
One way to make get out is fall into Lugonu’s trap (altars) or kill things to warp the Abyss in hopes of manifesting a portal out. Now the question is “can you kill the creatures in sight or will you give in to Lugonu in any way”.
Exits are much rarer than stairs to deeper Abyss. From the Wiki:
Delving deeper will increase the chance of an exit, and holding the Abyssal rune will cause exits to spawn much faster:
A:1 = 1/7250 revealed tiles
A:2 = 1/6000
A:3 = 1/4750
A:4 = 1/3500
A:5-7 = 1/2250
Holding Abyssal rune: 1/1000
You may also kill monsters to eventually create a gateway out; higher XP contributes more. However, going deeper than A:5 gives a (Floor-4)x XP penalty for purposes of stair creation.
Getting banished at level 12 can be a death sentence, I’m afraid. It’s not easy to kill enough monsters to generate an exit with such a low-level character. High stealth would help to avoid monsters (even though they are awake, they might not notice you). I wouldn’t advice to go deeper to find stairs because monster generation is also faster there.
Although a level 12 character can already be called a veteran, the Abyss is chaotic indeed. Still, many have escaped at around that level. A Troll of Oka should stand some chance.
Gotta be careful tho. There should have been a - - more - - warning when Grum came into view with the spear of “distortion”.
Should have read the wiki article completely, thanks. I think I survived there for quite some time but probably not a couple of thousands tiles worth. Killed a bunch of stuff including a Zykzyl and avoided a bone dragon and a starcursed mass. But at one point I got two wretched stars malmutating me at once and that was too much.
And I did see the warning about Grum but with a -2 spear he has a 40% or so chance to hit me, with his 40 or so hp it only takes me 3 or 4 hits to take him down, banishment is only a 1% chance on a weapon of distortion. The chance was there but what happened to me was extremely unlikely.
Isn’t it 5 % though?