Being nostalgic for the reason of having so many good memories from the game i went hunting for our old account names and passwords, and after a couple of hours i had managed to download, install and access my account. Yay all my characters were still alive in their 2D glory! Hmm wow 500 gold and a bank full of cruddy stuff. Time to change characters. HMMM 4000 gold and even less crappy stuff.
After several character changes i came to realize i couldn't go on a mad shopping spree at one of the five million houses that covered the land and since i didn't have any reagents or recall scrolls left in my rune books i decided to change over to my wife's account. Gold checks? swords of Vanquishing sitting in some 'Adept' scribes bank?? Weird items that could have only been some old school rares???
Well i wasn't that surprised since in every game we have played together over the years i always ended up having to pvp for my 'loot' as i always ended up broke trying to craft or buy my wife cool stuff.
"Kill the Dolphins and get extra dish-washing duty"
I should have realized this way earlier from when i was living in England and had just started adventuring in a brand new exciting experience called an Mmorpg, namely Ultima Online.
Of course online communities had been around a while but never set in a high fantasy realm such as Britannia and with no 'general chat' and only local talk, this made a really new experience.
I sucked at thinking ahead of what my characters goals were going to be so i had some sword skill, some healing and some camping (remember griefing people by setting up campfires in town so they automatically raised their camping skill?). Anyway i was also lazy and didn't have any Recall Scroll making abilities. (these let you fast transport to places you had marked with Recall Runes anywhere).
After a few weeks there some some female in cool Grandmaster clothing that was selling recall scrolls and i politely asked if i could buy some. “of course” she said “500gold each *S* ” (i might be lying about the price but i remember back then feeling i was getting ripped-off, oh and she used *S* a lot also for a smiley emote). So being desperate to quickly head to where my friend was killing Ogres and Ettins i went ahead and bought some.
Even after being ripped off i didn't learn my lesson and unsurprisingly a couple of days later i was in need of more scrolls. Damn! No cheap scrolls for sale anywhere, instead the same girl with the overpriced goods was at Moonglow bank, with black sandals!11!!! (those things were uber rare back then). Oh well, so i politely asked again if she had any to sell and she did not but if i waited around (for her to dump untold rich peoples stuff beyond my wildest dreams into her bank) she would craft me some.
We got talking small talk to pass the time and even after she had ripped me off again over the scrolls we continued talking. I was enjoying the conversation so much i didn't even nerd rage over the price this time around. I guess at some point she offered to sell me a bulk supply of them and i had to decline and explain how my ventures in selling complete bone armor sets had failed so much i was flat broke.
Instead of laughing at me or making some lame excuse to get away from the newb, she offered to show me a few spots where this things called 'wires' spawned and how people would buy them at a good price. “Wow that's cool, thanks!” or something i replied and so we went to a few spots. After finding a few of them the subject of Treasure maps came up. At this point i though you opened the map and ran around the world looking for a spot to pick up a box. Nope, so we decided to go do a level 2 treasure map.
After finding out how to actually do them and getting chased by hardcore skeletons and Mongbats we just sat down and talked more on things. By this time i realized that it was around 4am in the morning and that i had to be awake for work in 3 hours. So i made my apologies and thanks and left.
While trying to stay awake at work i started thinking about how much fun the rares and treasure hunt had been and that i was looking forward to meeting the person again. At this point it didn't matter if they were male or female as i was just looking forward to doing new crazy adventuring with new friends. The next, or rather the same night, i recalled back to Moonglow (after getting my corpse since i didn't know before hand that all level treasure map spawns can happen anywhere and so i logged into a gang of Liches and Air Elementals), and proceeded to just hang out in town watching thieves getting guard-whacked and/or making off with angry peoples goods.
My recall scroll selling treasure hunting friend came over and said hello. We went off to do some more spawn farming and lowbie treasure hunts. This type of thing went on for a few weeks, in which i learned that my new friend lived in America and had 3 children. One i met in game and got on well with him. Well we both got kicks out of exploiting guards at Moonglow so they got stuck on the fence for archery gains and provoking npcs in town to force a guard beat down on random people at the bank.
I spent so many weeks in this online world meeting and going on fun adventures with my friends from across the Atlantic. After a few months i realized that i was really strongly attached to the woman that i had never met in real life, but i kept my feelings in check since well she did live a few thousand miles away in a country i had never been to. At one point going inside the Inn in town to log out for the night she told me that she loved me and logged out! So i didn't even get a chance to respond! That was OK though as i was utterly confused with my emotions at this time. Actually i stayed awake the whole night reevaluating my own feelings and realized that her personality had made me fall deeply in love with her. The next day we decided to speak on the phone and she gave me her phone number with crazy long distance codes.
This being 56k era, i can say i probably pissed my parents off enough whenever i stayed with them and loaded up my AOL Connection and caused no end of extras to appear on the phone bill. The overseas phone calls were a selfish and probably bad idea but i was in love and so it didn't matter. That first phone call was strange. Hearing her voice for the first time (and that of her sons who ended up not sounding as l33t as he tried being in the game), was so very strange. I wish i could remember what we spoke of. Much of it was silence (apart from the pennies clinking in the phone bills jubilantly).
That silence was so full of emotion it was very sickening. Eventually i said “why don't i come visit you?” after a little while she had agreed and so i made plans on quitting my job (which was actually a pretty fun steady job) and just heading to America.
"No PK's Allowed at teh RP!"
In the mean time we were supposed to have an In-game wedding with some Games Master doing a ceremony and such. Unfortunately a day or so before hand i was in such high spirits i came across a young lumberjack just outside in Moonglow forest and being in such a good mood i went about hacking him to pieces with my Cutlass of Power. After i had chopped up his corpse with my dagger and laid the body parts in a tasteful spread eagle framed nicely by the wood he had in his packs i went back into the town.
At this point i started to be chased by the guards and the local npcs started yelling in corrupt olde English “remove thine self thou foul murderer!”. Oh crap! I realized my new title was 'Tanis the Murderer'.
Thankfully some friends and my future in game wife were around and managed to open a Moongate to her house on Ice Isle, where i spend the next few weeks banning people from the house and pking my future stepson with random weapons i found in the chests piled up against the walls.
Eventually the 'in game' wedding was put off seeing as we were about to meet in person and i was going to be flagged 'red' even longer from Pking future step-son. I used to work night shift and getting utterly drunk right before work, then leaving work without even telling my supervisor to pack for my flight in eight hours was probably not the best pre-planning. Actually trying to get a little sleep before hand was worse since i nearly missed my taxi, train, bus AND plane, but i guess karma was on my side and i managed to make them all.
The following day (flying cross-Atlantic with a hangover and sleep deprivation REALLY sucks), we met in person for the first time. I think we just stood there holding each other for a good hour or so.
Now nearly 10 years of marriage and duoing in a million different games later, i still remember those really events with a smile. From our first meeting in game ripping me off to pking my stepson with ingenious methods will always stay with me.
It just goes to show that personality and friendship can lead you on weird and wonderful paths down the road.
