Isaiah’s player was feeling defeated. He died twice and lost levels. He typed the ‘quit’ command to log out and go watch some anime instead of playing this MUD.

The text scrolled across the screen: “Thanks for playing, see you back soon.”

The game just assumed everyone would be back. It was awfully confident for a computer program to assume that each player would be back. Isaiah could just not log back in. It was not like he was addicted or anything. He had some dark thoughts about the last session. Light had told him to go where he did. Maybe she wanted him to get killed. Maybe it was her fault. Light was a half-elf. Elves don’t like half-elves. No, that was something Gabrielle would say. He was not like that. The reality was that Light had been nothing but supportive of him. If he confronted her she would likely just empathise with him and say she was sorry. She had no reason to be sorry it was his own fault for poking around because he was curious. The reality was that the game was incredibly punishing. Tharis sewers were basically a trap. And Al-radin stabbing anyone that looked at him was much the same. The Tharis guards had racial bias coded into them. Even though he hated that city’s sewers he still wondered what else was there.

He imagined talking to Gabrielle about his tale of woe and thought her reply might be something like, “Yes, I see the goddess Loviatar has blessed you with suffering. Rejoice because pain and suffering are her blessing. Through trials and tribulation you will be forged into the sharpest of blades.” She would definitely say something like that.

Isaiah’s player watched the anime depicting a japanese school girl who got sent back in time and lost some gem that all the yokai wanted. It exploded into shards and there were many episodes of harrowing fights to just get a single shard back. He felt for that Kagome girl trying to get back what she lost. His character had lost experience and levels and she lost the gem her ancestor had spent her whole life protecting. Well if a high school girl can endure being spirited away Isaiah could do the same. Maybe he’d become the hero of justice he envisioned Isaiah to be some day. Isaiah’s player watched the white-haired red-clothed dog boy defeat enemies left and right against all odds. That was a true hero of justice. When faced with failure he just dug deep and defeated the monsters before it was too late. He wanted the same for Isaiah. Yes, it was a fantasy. But what was a world of swords and sorcery if not fantasy?

Isaiah logged back in the next morning. The elf would be a hero of justice. He would stand up to evil and those that did dark deeds would flee him because he would bring retribution to those that deserve it. The road ahead would be difficult and there was one thing he was sure of.

He was sick of killing goblins. Anything but goblins...he had to find a new place to level. Following Light’s advice, he decided to head towards the next closest place to shadow than the Goblin Stronghold. It was a path leading north past the quiet forest road just west of shadow. The room’s description read road to echo mountains. He exited the forest and began walking along a path in a canyon. He followed the path upward and it opened up into a pair of paths. One of them led to a cave and another out into an open area of the mountain. The cave looked more dangerous so Isaiah went to the mountain path. The path ended at a temple. Isaiah went in and it was an open airy temple. This windy place was the goddess Akadi’s temple. Isaiah read the charge written on the altar. It said something along the lines of ‘seek freedom lets the winds blow as they were’. “Chaotic stuff,” Isaiah’s player thought. Akadi was a deity for those of the opposite alignment as him.

Isaiah says: “Hmm, neat.”

Isaiah bows.

Isaiah waves.

Isaiah leaves.

There was no reason for Isaiah to be in that temple. Akadi was likely a neutral deity. Players of chaotic good, chaotic neutral, and chaotic evil would be who would fit with that goddess. Chaotic Evil? Maybe that was Nightfall’s alignment. The archetype of a chaotic evil character was a psychotic killer. He portrayed a villian in a slasher film. That is what comes to mind for a chaotic evil character. Isaiah bowed and waved goodbye to Akadi’s place and headed into the cave.

The cave was filled with dwarves. It was a bit of a confusing layout. Several branching passages that winded a bit and Isaiah got turned around a few times. Elves and dwarves were not supposed to get along but he was about to start murdering dwarven miners as an experience source. Lawful Good characters didn’t do that. Eventually he found something different than stocky bearded fellows banging at rocks with picks. There was a stock bearded fellow blocking one of the exits.

Dwarf blocks your path.

Dwarf says: “The path below is overrun with ogres. Are you sure you want to go?”

Isaiah tried to go north again.

Dwarf blocks your path.

Isaiah hmms.

Isaiah says: “Yes, I would like to go.”

Dwarf stops blocking your path.

Dwarf says: “Be careful they will try to kill you.”

Isaiah went down into some abandoned mining caverns. There were ogres more than one in each room and they attacked him as soon as he entered the room. They missed mostly and he hit them. He also tried out a feature that made combat a bit less wordy. He typed ‘briefcombat’ and it simplified things. The downside was that it was impossible to tell how much damage was being done.

You hit ogre.

You hit ogre.

Ogre missed you.

You hit ogre.

You hit ogre.

Ogre drops dead before you.

Isaiah’s high dexterity was likely playing a huge roll in this. 19 dexterity was nothing to sneeze at. Humans couldn’t even get that high. He was the pinnacle of elven nimbleness. He continued on eventually running into deep ogres. These ones hit a bit more often and if he ran into a big group he’d have to use his hit and run tactics.

You hit deep ogre.

You hit deep ogre.

Deep ogre hits you.

HP: 35/40

You hit deep ogre.

You hit deep ogre.

Deep ogre misses you.

You hit deep ogre.

You hit deep ogre.

The sword tells you: I will summon the demon lord to protect us!

Rabbit appears before you.

Well, Isaiah’s sword of insanity still works. His bold rabbit protector was good for at least one hit. Isaiah continued along until he cleared the place. It took a while and eventually some of the ogres dropped the gear then hat. Isaiah used detect magic to see if any of it was magical. Most of it wasn’t. It seemed like the ogre’s gear was randomized. Sometimes spears, sometimes swords, sometimes axes, sometimes polearms, sometimes leather armor, sometimes chainmail. However one thing was the same for all of it. All of the drops are sized large. He couldn’t equip any of it. Casting his detect magic spell he found a few of them that had a faint blue glow. There was some +1 stuff. He was not able to use any of it. Isaiah was able to equip any of it. He used to ‘offerall’ command to just make it vanish. Isaiah however did collect the coins they dropped. It was not much more than the goblins but every bit helped. He needed to stock his components bag and had nowhere near enough gold to do it.

While echo mountains didn’t have much to offer in gold it did have it’s upside. The monster density was a lot higher than in the goblin stronghold. The experience was about the same as killing goblins. He was leaving a big pile of ogres and deep ogres because of their greater density. However, most every room had at least two ogres in it. Isaiah took some grazing hits mostly from the deep ogres but he was racking up experience points faster with the increased body count. He continued along tunnels going this way and that. He tried to stick to the left hand rule. Always take a left to avoid going in circles. It mostly worked. He didn’t need to large gear on the ground so it just sat in the rooms. It was a reminder that he had already been in that room and was doubling back on himself. He doubled back a lot. The rooms respawned every 15 minutes so eventually his odd wandering led him to a room with discarded large-sized gear and more ogres. Trying to navigate a world made from text is difficult.

He eventually found a room with a young dragon. It had red scales and attacked him. He expected to get completely killed but it didn’t have any special attacks like the more advanced goblins. It could however hit him a lot more than any of the other ogres. The red scaled beast didn’t blow fire or do anything dragon-like. Isaiah killed it after a few back and forth passes pausing in the next room over to use the ‘heal’ command. He felt like this dragon was a bit of a disappointment. What self respecting dragon didn’t do a breath attack? He felt a little guilty when he collected the several hundred gold coins from the corpse after he killed it. No roar or anything just:

Young dragon drops dead before you.

Well, Isaiah got experience points and money. That was something. He was very close to getting his levels back that were a result of his unfortunate demise. After spending countless attempts to visit every room in this abandoned mine Isaiah eventually found something that looked a bit different. He ran into a room with some giants. They actually hit hard. Not instant death hard but double digits of damage hard. They were wielding two handed clubs and for a large-sized creature to need both hands to wield it it had to be very very large. One even had a special attack where he hurled a boulder. Throwing a boulder was a very giant-like attack. Isaiah’s player approved.

There were a couple close spots in the enter-exit fight with the giant. It must have been considered a boss of the echo mountains. However his bone dagger and sword of insanity were up to the task. He didn’t feel like much of a hero of justice eating mana in the middle of a fight and being surrounded by half a dozen rabbits though. Also of note, the boulders were just text in the special attack. The giant wasn’t actually using the throw mechanics with the boulder. That would have been cooler because the game actually supported throwing things. Anything wielded could be thrown. It would just appear on the floor in the room after it was thrown. There could have been a pile of boulder-style throwing weapons. As for loot, sadly like the rest of the items they were all large. Of note was a cloak of fir. It was some kind of cave-man style fir pelt and casting detect magic changed the name to fir cloak(surrounded by a faint blue glow). Isaiah had found his first magic cloak. Sadly this was a magic cloak that was too big for him and he couldn’t equip it. He hoped it was worth something though so he picked it up to sell later.

And so, painfully Isaiah made his way back the way he came. It became very apparent how directionally challenged he was as he kept seeing the same piles of loot he couldn’t use. The mess got bigger as the rooms reset and the things in them remained. Is there an ogre maid that could sweep by after his little incursion to clean it up? He didn’t offer things because the piles of trash(they might as well be) were landmarks to him so he could identify when he’d been going in circles. After about an hour and much ogre death Isaiah found a room with an ‘up’ exit and headed south past the dwarves who were still mining away. It took less running into dead ends to get out of the dwarf mine part of the echo mountains. Also, not having a gang of ogres attacking in most every room made things a little less hectic. He had a new understanding of the term ‘hackfest.’

Isaiah eventually took another wrong turn trying to make his way back to the quiet forest road. He ran into a small cave near the temple of Akidi that he must have walked past before. It was a one room thing with a troll that attacked him straight away from entering. He decided to tackle the troll. It was a green smelly thing with pointed ears. Surprisingly it didn’t seem to regenerate. His dexterity and armor seemed to be good enough to make it miss. So he was able to tackle it with only taking a couple hits. Again, every attack was a melee attack. Much to his surprise the troll had a tidy sum of money on it. 326 gold coins was not a bad haul. With the pocket change the ogres had and the big money the young dragon had it came out of this affair a couple thousand gold richer. He’d need to do some components shopping soon. He had spells that he’d never cast before because he couldn’t afford them. Nevermind the fact that he had to find an alchemist that sold them. Isaiah’s player internally grumbled.

Back south down the canyon and then east along the quiet forest road past the Goblin stronghold and a temple he hadn’t ever seen anyone in. He thought it was Mystra’s temple...whoever that was. Isaiah’s first stop was the general store to offload all the gear drops from the ogres. It was all large armor and weapons. Large chainmail, large studded leather, large scale mail, large tower shield. What was a hook fauchard? What was a Voulge? Isaiah’s player had no idea what a guisarme was either. Whatever it was he sold about a dozen things and made a few hundred gold. He sold the fur cloak but it sadly was only 90 gold. 90 gold for a magic cloak? How does someone make some decent coins in this game?

Isaiah decided he’d put off swinging by the components shop in the mage’s tower in shadow and instead swing by Lathander’s temple to advance. He knew Light and Kaarell would sometimes hang out there so he might be able to chat with them a bit. Getting the experience back from that 10% loss twice was a hard pill at the time. Now though he felt better. Yes, he would just be advancing to where he was before but the thought of leveling up again was encouraging. Isaiah left shadow and buzzed down the quiet forest road to the west until he made his way to Lathander’s temple. He advanced mage and advanced fighter.

HP: 47/47

Hmm, that is odd. He was at 45 max hit points before. It looks like he might have found a way to game the system a little bit. He considered how he could abuse this. It didn’t take long to decide playing with death and RNG was a line he wasn’t willing to cross. If he got bad rolls on a level up he could just die and re-level. But he had spent hours in echo mountains grinding. Mostly because he got lost and ran in circles too much. But it was still a lot of grinding. Isaiah waited in Lathander’s temple for a bit thinking perhaps someone he knew might show up.

Someone (OOC): Need everyone online to meet at Fulgar’s in shadow. There is a project we are working on. And no stealing or killing unless you want to get a rid-bolt.

Isaiah’s player gulped. The immortals want all the players to assemble? This couldn’t be good.