Ch.12 Tharis Sewer_Gaming on a MUD is difficult.

Isaiah had racked up what he thought to be a rather large amount of deaths in a short time. He thought about asking over the lines about deaths but didn’t want to get RID by pissing off some wizard. The people who ran this game seemed like jerks. It didn’t seem wise to risk antagonizing someone who could do much worse things than kill a character. The character didn’t even need to be online to do it. What he did notice when checking the help file for the ‘who’ command was that typing ‘who -p’ would sort the players in order of deaths. He did that and noticed he was not even close to the top. Double digit deaths seemed like an inevitability. Was there anyone with triple digit deaths? Did he even want to know?

Enough, Isaiah’s player had to fight giving into despair. It was just a game. He could fight back and grow stronger little by little. He learned this day it was a bad idea to look at Al-Radin. He had his things and the money from his corpse. He equipped his armor and weapons and left Azha. The city was functionally a dead end. The only road to and from it that was actually in the game went to the city Tharis. Maybe knight’s of Tyr would gather at the temple. But he hadn’t met anyone that claimed Tyr as their deity . He didn’t see a single player character in the Arabic styled town either. It was time to head back east.

Isaiah followed the road eastward and passed the path leading to the barrows. His player continued mashing the ‘e’ button for east until his stamina gave out and he passed out for a little while (whoops). Then he waited a bit for his stamina to recover. Stamina recovered just by standing still. He mashed ‘e’ some more and watched the text scroll by until. .

Tharis Gate guard blocks your path and points away.

Tharis Gate guard says: “Elves must take the east gate!”

Isaiah kicked the guard for good measure and headed north. Luckily the kick was an emote and not an actual attack. His recent untimely demise didn’t fill him with confidence that he wouldn’t die in a single round if it came to blows with the guard. He decided to be extra aggressive and spit on the guard. Ha! Take that you elf hater! Luckily, the guard did not respond. Isaiah’s player was a little worried certain emotes might set it agro. Isaiah’s player told himself it was silly to be worried.

The guard in reality was just a bit of code someone wrote up. It was not aware. Computers can only do what they are programmed to do, right? This whole game character developing awareness and behaving like people is just the stuff from fiction authors. Isaiah’s player felt like he got away with being a little naughty. At least he hoped he got away with being naughty.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The path outside the walls of Tharis city led north and then east. That same sewer entrance with the beggar was still there. Isaiah went into the sewers. He looked around a bit and didn’t see anything. One of the rooms stated that the new government didn’t know that sewers were being used by the elven underground to enter and exit the city. Again, it confounded Isaiah’s player that such things could be discerned just by looking at a room.

Isaiah tried to keep going south but there was a force that kept him from passing. He could peer past further into the sewers but the exit didn’t seem to work. There must have been something he missed. Isaiah’s player thought for a bit. What led him here? He talked to the beggar. The beggar gave him a key. Isaiah looked at the key and apparently it had some writing on it. He typed ‘read key’ and the only word on the writing was ‘friend’.

Isaiah says: “Friend.”

Nothing happened.

Isaiah says: “I’m an elf friend.”

Nothing happened.

Isaiah says: “FRIEND”

Nope, nothing.

Isaiah says: “Carebear friendship!”

Isaiah does the carebear stare of friendship for friends.

Emotes didn’t work either.

Isaiah just gave up. This was impossible. He typed ‘friend friend friend friend’ as his mocking final gesture before he left. The barrier dissipated and allowed him to pass.

Isaiah headed further into the sewer and the room descriptions changed to show that he was walking through flooded tunnels with so much water he was almost swimming. The mind picture of an elf neck deep in sewer water was not great. He turned a corner, went east. A monster attacked him.

A large gelatinous cube.

Gelatinous cube missed you.

You slash cube in the cube..

You stab cube in the cube with your bone dagger as it flashes.

Sword of Insanity tells you: What does this do?

Mana falls from the sky.

You slash cube in the cube.

You puncture cube.

Gelatinous Cube misses you.

Cube drops dead before you!

Isaiah totally walked into that one. However he didn’t even get hit once! The thing died in a couple rounds. His high strength gave him some good damage bonuses to melee weapons. Isaiah ate the mana and continued on.

A wiser player might have remember that the lower level elf that was Isaiah was not told Tharis was a great place for someone of his level. This was the problem with success. Success leads to overconfidence. Defeat one slime and they think they will never have a problem with them.

A couple rooms later while slushing through the sewer Isaiah rand into a second Gelatinous cube.

Gelatinous cube tickles you innocently.

HP: 44/45