There is something interesting and awkward that can happen if someone logs in a populated space. Unlike in real life a character will suddenly appear at the last place they were logged in when they log off. There is no warning. Poof and the character is there when the login is done it doesn’t take any time at all. It can be a bit startling or extremely awkward depending on what is going on in that room.
Luckily he didn’t interrupt lovers sharing a heart-shaped bed together in an inn. He logged in and popped right back into the temple of Lathander where an elf and a half-elf were chatting.
Light, the Master priestess
Kaarell, the low master priest
Apparently Isaiah has just popped in on some kind of one on one meeting for Lathander clergy.
Also, when someone logs out it unequips all of their things. If someone doesn’t have anything worn they can be treated like they are naked. Isaiah’s player typed ‘wearall’ and equipped his rather modest gearset.
Light says: “Hello Isaiah”
Isaiah smiles.
Isaiah says: “Hello!”
Isaiah says: “How are you doing Light?”
Light says: “It is a nice bright morning don’t you think?”
Light looks and watches the sun rise.
Isaiah smiles at Light.
Isaiah says: “Yes, Lathander blesses this dawn.”
Light says: “Have you met Kaarell yet? He is one of Lathander’s flock.”
‘Oh, maybe I’m interrupting something’ Isaiah’s player thought when he noticed kaarell’s lack of… well anything. Isaiah’s player’s mind spun with speculation. Were Kaarell and Light an item? Kaarell was being completely quiet. What was he thinking? Maybe Kaarell was thinking ‘what the hell, why did this 3rd wheel show up and ruin my alone time with Light?’ What did he think of light? Did he like her too? If he did then Isaiah didn’t stand a chance. He was still just a newbie. Newbie’s were to be ignored. Isaiah’s player decided to just keep talking to avoid his own thoughts.
Isaiah says: “No, I haven’t met Kaarell before. I might have seen him in passing but we didn’t talk or anything. I’ve been busy fighting goblins. I even killed their king. It took a couple tries though. Somebody named Nightfall killed me with a stab to the back in the street of shadow. I don’t know what I ever did to him, maybe he just doesn’t like elves or something. But I’m still going, haha.”
Kaarell blinks.
Kaarell says: “Well met, Isaiah.”
Isaiah looked kaarell over. He was a dark-haired green-eyed elf. And unlike him, he had good gear. His gear looked enchanted by how blingy it was colored. Isaiah felt...inadequate.
Isaiah says: “Nice to meet you.”
Isaiah smiles.
He wasn’t smiling on the inside though he felt like Kaarell was a better version of Isaiah.
Kaarell says: “It is always a pleasure to meet another cousin.”
Cousin? How were they related? It took Isaiah’s player a moment to get it. ‘Oh, elves call themselves cousins on this mud!’
Isaiah says: “Yes nice to meet you cousin.”
Crap… he just repeated what he said earlier almost exactly.
Isaiah’s player felt like disappearing. It was time to make a hasty exit.
Isaiah says: “Well, I going to go see if I can get some more scrolls from the goblin stronghold. I’ll see you later”
Isaiah waves.
Light says: “Be safe Isaiah, Lathander guide you into the new dawn.”
Kaarell says: “Lathander’s blessing upon you cousin.”
Isaiah exited the temple and was mentally panting. Why? Kaarell seemed like a nice guy, there was no reason to get all worked up. He needed to try to focus on something else. Yeah time to get some scrolls from the goblin witch and the goblin mage.
Checking his inventory he realized he already had a scroll on him he forgot to transcribe. Whoops. The scroll was burning hands. Yay, now he had 3 level one spells. Mage’s can cast up to level 3 spells when they are a level 5 mage? Hmmm, well so what 3 spells is better than 2 spells and he didn’t use his mage class that much anyway. He was making progress. That is what matters.
Burning hands looks like a similar spell to magic missile. It does instant damage but with a chance to hit extra targets. It should work nicely on groups of goblins. The help file for the spell didn’t say exactly how much damage it did but according to the sourcebook it was based off it did 1D3 plus 2 for each level of experience the caster had with a max of 1D3+20. (1d3 means one three sided dice… what shape is a three sided dice anyway) Compare that to the magic missile spell which does 1D4+1 for each missile. Also it gets another missile for every 2 levels. It also doesn’t have a cap so at high levels that spell could hurt a lot more than that burning hands spell.
Isaiah went back and tried the new spell on the gate guards. It shot a stream of flames out of his hands. Sometimes the message would show it burning more than one enemy which was cool. He had to unwield and remove his armor so it got hit more. It wasn’t that great of a trade off sadly. Given that he had to use the heal command to very slowly recover a handful of hit points at a time it made every loss of hit points painful.
Isaiah’s spellbook was very light. Now that he had a renewable source of low level scrolls he’d have to farm it for all it was worth. He farmed the lower level goblins for experience as he did his run of the goblin stronghold. The king and the royal guards were a pain to kill. He couldn’t beat them without running away and healing a few times still so he just ran past them to get at the goblin witch and goblin mage. Dryzil was around but oddly, not in the same spot. It seems like he spawned in random spots in the goblin stronghold. Isaiah got a couple more scrolls and added them to his spell book. This time he got a Light spell and a detect magic spell.
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The light spell made a globe of light. It made the room he was in brighter. It was not terribly useful most of the time. Elves had low light vision so when night came they could still see. It was the same for half-elves. Other races like humans could be in a bad way if they were out at night without a light source. The exits would be hidden and all the room descriptions would say ‘it is too dark to see.’ It might be easier to die and get back to a town then fumble around in dark with no way to tell what to type to exit the rooms. He hoped it would never have to be in that situation. Isaiah offered the globe and it vanished from his inventory.
Detect magic showed if an item was enchanted. He cast it and after a while figured out when it was active and he checked his inventory he could see some text added to the description of his items that were enchanted.
For example:
Sword of Insanity (glowing faintly)
Glowing faintly, did that mean it was a +1 sword? His first magic sword. Did that make him a real adventurer? It was nice to get something better than the store bought longsword. Well, was it even that? He didn’t get it by spending his own money; it was a gift from Light. It also did weird things in battle.
Goblin missed you.
You slash goblin in the right leg.
Sword of Insanity tells you: I will now summon the demon king!
A rabbit appears before you.
Rabbit attacks goblin!
Goblin headbuts rabbit furiously.
Rabbit misses goblin.
Goblin stabs rabbit.
Rabbit drops dead before you.
Apparently the sword had a chance to randomly summon a rabbit that would attack and tank a couple hits for him. It was not much but it was also huge. His biggest problem was healing. Isaiah’s build really lacked sustain. He could tell that continuing to use the heal command was not sustainable. It would only get worse as his hit point pool grew more with levels. Having a random rabbit show up to help him now and then was nice.
It had another special too.
You slash goblin in the torso.
Goblin tickles you lightly in the head.
HP: 34/35
You stab goblin in the waist.
Sword of Insanity tell you: What does this do?
Mana fall from heaven.
You slah goblin in the head.
Goblin drops dead before you.
Okay, that was kinda weird. There was a corpse of a goblin and mana sitting in the room after the battle. Looking at the mana just said ‘magical food from heaven’. I guess the description for the item was short and to the point. Because it was food he ate it and got a hit point back.
HP:35/35
Oh that was nice. This sword was a handy little tool. True everything it did was completely based on being able to hit and RNG. However every little bit helps even if the possibility exists that it won’t go off when it is needed most.
He killed the goblin witch and mage again collecting scrolls and other gear from the dead goblins. Eventually Isaiah’s inventory was full and he headed back to shadow to offload the gear at a vendor for a few hundred gold coins. Also, killing goblins again had got him enough experience points to level up again. It seemed like it wasn’t putting as big of a dent in getting him to the next level because of how the experience needed roughly doubled for each level. He’d need to look for another place to adventure soon. He planned to do that after he got all the low level scrolls he could get from the goblin casters.
Isaiah headed out past the gate guards and onto the road that led to shadow. Gabrielle was there.
Gabrielle starts casting a spell.
Is this the end? Gabrielle, a high level priestess of loviatar, is casting a spell. There is a second or two delay between casting and when the spell goes off. So is a player is really quick they could have typed one of the exits and got out of there and avoided the spell. In this case north, east or west would have been viable options. Alas, Isaiah’s player had not honed his instincts to dodge a spell with a second’s notice so he took the spell full force.
Gabrielle touches your nose and heals you completely.
HP: 35/35
Huh? It wasn’t an attack spell. Isaiah’s HP was completely restored. He was at around 50% health because he was dragging his feet on using the heal command to painfully restore them a few HP at a time until he got back to town.
Isaiah just sat there dumbfounded for a few moments. He expected death or dismemberment but got the opposite. What was Gabrielle’s game here?
Gabrielle smiles at you.
Gabrielle says: “Greetings cousin.”
Isaiah says: “Hello.”
Gabrielle says: “Stay safe Isaiah.”
Isaiah says: “...Thank you.”
Isaiah waves.
Isaiah bows.
He left east heading back to town in a rush. He focused on what he came to town to do. Sell some goblin loot. At the general store he sold everything he had in his inventory that wasn’t equipped. Luckily, the vendor didn’t buy his spellbook when he unthinkingly tried to sell it. The vendor just said it was worthless and it stayed in his inventory. However, being on autopilot noticed that did in fact sell the scrolls he wanted to transcribe for his spellbook. Grumbling internally, the list of things the shot had for sale had some scrolls that shouldn’t be there by default. And worse, they were marked up about 20% from what he sold them for. It sucked to waste coins by being careless but he wasn’t thinking straight and needed to collect his thoughts.
First, Gabrielle is an elven high priestess of Loviatar. Loviatar is the goddess of pain. Isaiah expected to get blasted into negative hit points and meet the gods showing off the wall they made out of faithless souls….again. Isaiah’s player tried to gather his garbled thoughts. Second, she did something nice to him. Why would a goddess of pain offer her clergy healing spells? Shouldn’t they only have spells that hurt? Lastly, the grim facts. This MUD had evil characters. Evil roleplay was a fact of life here. Isaiah was lawful good. He expected his adventure in this land to be the tale of a hero of justice.
So far his stay in this land had been helplessness against higher level players, relying on the generosity of them, and goblin genocide. Maybe Gabrielle didn’t want him dead but what did she want? Trying to understand women was never a strong suit for him.
Trying to do something he could do, Isaiah transcribed the spells into his spell book. The first spell was ‘acid arrow’, and the second spell was ‘know alignment’. He got a little lucky with these scrolls. They were both level two. He could finally say he wasn’t a mage that only cast level one spells. Know alignment didn’t need components. However, acid arrow needed three components to cast.
Acid Arrow:
Shoots a magically created arrow by a ranged touch attack. It does damage per round that lasts longer per level. Material components are a dar, powdered rhubarb leaf, and an adders stomach.
Okay, it was time to figure out these spell components. Isaiah’s player took to the lines to ask a question. Hopefully the wizards didn’t snap at him this time.
Isaiah (OOC): How do spell components work?
Gabrielle (OOC): You need to have a component bag with them in it to cast the spell. They sell the components at the alchemist's shop. Most towns have at least one.
Isaiah (OOC): Where is shadow’s?
Someone (OOC): Ask in character….
So Isaiah headed back to MAH hoping to see if someone was there that he could ask about spell stuff. Today seemed to be the day he crossed paths with a lot of elves. Because there were two elves standing there chatting. Daelmas and Ambrosia were chatting to one another almost like they were on a date or something. Isaiah entered and tried to think of a good segway to ask them a question. He didn’t think of a good introduction though.
Isaiah says: “Hello.”
Daelmas looks you over
Daelmas says: “Hello cousin.”
Ambrosia looks you over.
Ambrosia smiles.
Ambrosia says: “Hello!”
Isaiah bows to the other elves.
Isaiah says: “Greetings, I am isaiah, elven mage and I’m new I was hoping to ask for directions.”
Daelmas raises an eyebrow.
Daelmas says: “Pray tell what are you looking for?”
Isaiah says: “I am looking to cast spells that need spell components but am not sure where to find a components bag or the components to cast them.”
Daelmas hmms and nods.
Ambrosia giggles.
Daelmas says: “Cousin Isaiah, there is a shop south of here that has what you seek, also south of the southern gates is the mage’s guild. They can sell you what you need there too.”
Isaiah says: “Thank you Daelmas! I’ll go do that right away!”
Daelmas smiles at Ambrosia
Daelmas says: “Princess Ambrosia, let us leave.”
Ambrosia nods and smiles.
Ambrosia says: “Nice meeting you Isaiah good luck with your magic!”
Daelmas begins casting a spell.
Ambrosia begins casting a spell.
A blue light envelopes Daelmas and when it dissipates he is gone.
A blue light envelopes Ambrosia and when it dissipates she is gone.
Isaiah went south and found the mage’s tower. On the second flood he found an odd shop with a shopkeeper selling components. A components bag cost 10 gold. He bought one of those and checked the list of components that the store sold. He was bombarded with a massive wall of text.
Aluminum chaff 48 gold 72 stored
Bat guano 10 gold 22 stored
Clay model ziggurat 48 gold 30 stored
Diamond 960 gold 35 stored
Diamond dust 1200 gold 88 stored
Eye of roc 2400 gold 24 stored
Copper 5 gold 80 stored
Granite dust 48 gold 15 stored
Mini shovel 48 gold 6 stored
Nitric acid 72 gold 95 stored
Rose petals 2 gold 53 stored
Spider 10 gold 1 stored
Sulfur 24 gold 12 stored
Tiny chest 72 gold 40 stored
Vermilion 18 gold 47 stored
Oh getting the things he needed was going to be such a pain. Next stop go and find the other alchemists in town. Also, likely find another town. It seems like the shops don’t have a comprehensive inventory. Instead, they are each randomized from what was available. Also there was a limited amount that one kept in stock so they could get their whole inventory bought out. Getting components could be done but it promises to be a very time consuming task.