What's wrong with this battle?

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Ok folks, your opinions please.

In the red corner, we have the ice devils Oriax and Cimejes. One is armed with an athame and enchanted shield, the other with athame and shield of the accursed. Both are wearing winged shoes, starshine skullcaps and red DSM and carrying pendants of luck. One has an antimagic amulet and the other has a heart of life. Oriax has 88hp and heroic precision (bummer); Cimejes has 174hp with heroic toughness.

In the blue corner, the nataraja SliceyDicey. She's wielding four mains gauche of parrying, and is wearing the armour of virtue and a starshine skullcap, plus winged shoes and a burning pearl. Her paths are A3W2E1S3 (S4 with skullcap). She has 144hp.

All three cast quickness in round one.

Round two, SliceyDicey casts Personal Luck and Ironskin. Protection now 29. Both ice devils cast Breath of Winter and then fly across to the nataraja.

Round three, SliceyDicey casts Astral Weapon and attacks. All four attacks appear to miss. She has 22 total attack (four stars plus quickness plus pearl) - one ice devil has 20 def, the other 26. So I assume she was attacking the tougher one, though not necessarily, given that all three combatants have Luck.

Still in round three, the ice devils' attacks appear to miss - SliceyDicey still has 144hp, she does not have regen, and the Returning does not trigger. Yet Oriax now has 101hp instead of 88, and his fatigue is way down. (Cimejes still has 174hp and fatigue as expected - consistent with his attacks missing.)

So, suspected bug #1: the life drain on the athame appears to give life even when no damage is dealt. I suppose Oriax could have scored a hit which was not strong enough to penetrate the 29 protection, but I fail to see why that should result in him gaining life + fatigue.

Round four, SliceyDicey appears to miss eight times. The astral weapon spell should ensure that the minimum damage from a successful hit is well over 20 (~25 str plus 3 from the main gauche). Oriax's hp drops from 101 to 99 (which I assume are just the excess from lifedrain "wearing off") and Cimejes' hp are unaffected.

Yet SliceyDicey now has a horror mark, consistent with having hit the bearer of the shield of the accursed. Can anyone explain how this can happen? Can you get such a mark from merely attacking, even if you don't hit??

Then the ice devils attack and the Returning triggers, so I assume one of them scored some damage.

Can somebody tell me how flanking is supposed to work? It's -1 def per attack beyond the first each round, I think. Does that include attacks from the same creature?? ie. is my nataraja's 8th attack going to be with a -7 def penalty for the defender, if all 8 attacks are on the same target? Or is the penalty limited to -1 per attacker?

And if you can't beat ice devils with 43 def and astral weapon, how do you beat them? They both have >20 MR so spells are unlikely to succeed ...

Confused,

CC