Isaiah looked over Bandallar.  He hoped reading the NPC’s description would give him a hint as to how to get offered the quest his elven friend told him about.  The idea of doing a quest where the only display has lines of text scrolling across a screen seemed awkward to him.  In final fantasy for example a quest would just be to walk up to someone and press a button and a box with text in it would pop up.   However, in this game the lack of any interface but a telnet client would make such things impossible so there had to be another way. 

 

Bandallar is a middle aged woman with a look of worry upon her face.   She has deep lines from stress and long brown hair held back in a ponytail.  (part of her description was written in 2nd person reeee) She looks at you as if seeking help.  Perhaps you should try saying <hello> to her.

 

Isaiah decided to give it a shot.

Isaiah says: “Hello.”

Bandallar says: “Hello Isaiah, you look like a capable adventurer.  Perhaps you could <help> me.”

(Isaiah’s player noted it was a little unnerving that she knew his name even without introducing himself but whatever)

Isaiah says: “Help.”

(no response)

Isaiah says: “could I help you?”

Bandallar says: “Could I interest you in a <quest>?”

(apparently it was case sensitive, help is not the same as Help.)

Isaiah says: “quest”

Bandallar says: “I have this letter to give to my friend in the dragon’s den caverns.   It is north of shadow on dragon pass road.  Don’t worry, there are no dragons there no one knows why it is called dragon’s den caverns of dragon pass road.  Maybe at one time there was a dragon there but not anymore.  Now it is just filled with foul things, orcs, kobolds, gnolls.  I’m worried for my friend who lives down there. Would you give him this note?”

Bandallar looks at you expectantly.  

Isaiah says: “yes.”

Bandallar smiles.

Bandallar gives you note.

Bandallar says: “Good luck with your quest.”

Isaiah nods.

 

He headed out north through the city walls.  Archers above him peppered him with arrows if he stayed too long in one room.  Eventually he weaved his way through shadow city.   He headed through the main road and north onto dragon pass road.  The pathway was through the mountains.  Isaiah’s player had to boggle a little bit about how the geography of this city flushed itself out.   North was mountains, south was forest.  West was farmland and further west was forest.   There were the echo mountains a bit north off of the quiet forest road and more mountains to the north.   However, straight east of the city was desert.   It didn’t really matter that much but the transitions to different biomes seemed a bit weird.  

 

He continued along for a bit and found a fork in the road.   There were a couple wolves that howled every once and a while but they didn’t auto-attack so he left them be.   He was here to find the dragon’s den caverns not to fight road wolves.   The mountain pathway dead ends to another temple.   He went to the temple and like his other visits to other temples this one had no players in it to talk to.  The temple was to the god Talos.   Talos is the god of storms and destruction.   The temple was open air like Akadi’s wind temple but this was more sinister.  It also had a constant storm overhead complete with thunder and lightning.  Isaiah high tailed it out of there.   This was obviously the temple of an evil god.  He followed Lathander now and had no place here.

 

Isaiah backtracked hoping it was not lost somehow.   He walked past the two howling wolves that he had seen before and continued north.  The road branched again.   West headed into a field while north continued into what looked to be the entrance to the city.   The rooms stopped being called dragon pass road and the name changed to ‘road to Antioch.’   He walked up to the gate and peered down the main stretch of road.  The city looked like a ruin.   There were some rooms that had zombies in them as well.   

 

Isaiah entered the first room because it had no monsters in it and just a sign with some ruined gates.   The sign said this is an adventure area for parties around level 15.   The wizard who ruled Antioch has gone insane and is destroying this town with terrible magic.   Brave adventures are sought to kill him and end his tyranny.  Isaiah’s player added killing Ignatius and ending his tyranny to his mental to-do list.  This list also included saving the elves in Tharis…well first finding them.   Exploring that barrow west of Tharis.  It did not include going back into the Tharis sewer.  That place sucks.

 

Isaiah went back a few rooms and stopped at the wolves howling at the moon.   He did note that it was daytime outside.  But who was he to judge about wolves howling at the moon when the moon was not visible.   To each their own.   Isaiah’s player decided he’d risk asking over the lines for help.

 

Isaiah (OOC): So is the dragon's den not north of shadow?  I seem to not be able to find it.

Someone(OOC): Ask IC.

Isaiah (OOC): Sorry

 

Isaiah’s player grumbled from where he was seated in front of his computer.  It was never going to be that easy.  So Isaiah headed back south down dragon pass road and through the north gates of shadow seeing if there was anyone he could ask for help.  There was a male human riding a war horse by the name of Soth alone in the main adventurer’s hall.

Isaiah says: “Hello Soth.”

Soth frowns.

Soth says: “Lord Soth if you value your health.”

Soth looks you over.

(Isaiah’s player internally cringed.  Was he about to get PK’d for being rude to nobility?)

Isaiah says: “Sorry Lord Soth.”

Isaiah bows.

Isaiah says: “Could I trouble you for a moment of your time?”

Soth nods.

Soth says: “Yes, speak young Isaiah.”

(Isaiah was an elf, and technically speaking he was almost certainly older than this human.  But he did value his health so he didn’t mention it.  Adult age for elves was 60 to 75 years.)

Isaiah says: “Well, I am trying to find the dragon’s den caverns but I kept going along the road north of here.  I found the temple of Talos and a city called Antioch.  I didn’t see any caverns but there was a field that was the only place I didn’t check.  Is it that way?”

Soth shakes his head in disagreement.

Soth says: “The place you are looking for is not obvious.  Walk the road north slowly and look more closely at each room.   Also, I would suggest investing in some climbing tools unless you are a thief.”

Isaiah nods.  

Isaiah thanks Soth.

Isaiah says: “Thank you for the help Lord Soth I’ll be on my way to the general store.  I think I saw climbing tools for sale there.”

Soth nods slowly.

 

Isaiah went to the general store and checked the list.

A beacon lantern     58 gold

A bullseye lantern    29 gold

Flask of lantern oil    96 gold

A large cloth sack    2 silver

A sharp dart        1 gold

A torch            5 copper

Silk rope        5 gold

Climbing tools        29 gold

 

Isaiah bought the climbing tools and was down 29 gold.  It wasn’t too expensive and it was something that he needed for his quest.  He then went back north past Soth who still seemed to be sitting on his horse in the main adventurer’s hall.  He just continued to the north gate of shadow.   He didn’t want to annoy Soth who likely had knightly things to do.  Isaiah made a point to not look him over even though Soth looked him over.  If he did look him over than Soth would have noticed.   His mind drifted to the look he gave Al-Radin followed by a dagger of the assassins in his back.   Soth was riding a war horse so he just imagined him as a knight.  So he could be a paladin or an anti-paladin.   Would that mean a lance to the back if he decided to attack?   Isaiah would prefer not to know the answer to that.  Thank you very much.                   

Isaiah continued along Dragon pass road much slower looking at the room descriptions.  Then he noticed one had an extra sentence added to the end.  ‘There is a small opening in the side of the mountain.’  Ah-ha!  Isaiah had found the place he was looking for.  However there still were only two exits to the room.  North lead to Antioch and south led back to shadow.   There must be a way to get into the cave.  He just needed to figure out what to type.  

Now that Isaiah realized his mistake he had made it to the entrance to the Dragon’s Den Caverns.  Dragon pass road had around 50 rooms that looked exactly the same except for one sentence difference.  Because of this it had him questioning himself about what other things he might have missed hidden in secret rooms or behind secret exits.  Luckily in this case the obvious answer was the correct one.  While the room didn’t have the exit listed, typing the word ‘cave’ got him to the next room.  

 

The first room of the cavern also appeared to be a dead end.  There was only one exit: out.  But it was described as a large natural cave.   There was moss growing on things and a large hole in the middle of the room that went straight down into darkness.  The hole was the clue here.  If he was just powering through rooms like when he traveled north along dragon pass road it would have thought this was it and that there was nothing here.  He tried typing ‘hole’ hoping that would lead to the exit but it didn’t.   He got the default prompt for an invalid command: <What?> There had to be a way down there and it didn’t appear to just be to guess the right word for the hidden exit.  He had tried ‘down’, ‘cave’,’cavern’,’dragon’.  None of the things gave him more of the default <what?>. Isaiah’s player was frustrated.  This reminded him of the old king’s quest games where there was a little window on the screen where the player had to type things to do what they had to do in that area.  He had never finished a king’s quest game; he got stumped and gave up when he couldn’t figure out the right phrase to type.  He knew that this room was not a dead end but to him it might as well be if he couldn’t figure out the command to type.  

 

Isaiah’s player decided to go AFK (away from keyboard) for a while by typing the ‘inactive’ command.   On the ‘Wholist’ this would show him with a [inactive] after his name and title like ‘Isaiah the low minor seer[inactive]’.  He walked over to the small kitchen and poured some water into the coffee maker and added some grounds to the filter and set it in place.  Isaiah’s player listened to the whir and watched the dripping of brown liquid into the glass pot as he took stock of the situation.   He had already failed once to figure things out on his own.  That Lord Soth fellow gave off the feeling of a villain.  Would Soth think of giving him a hint as a boon where Isaiah would owe him a favor later?   Light had warned him about the evil players.  They were dangerous.  All that he neglected to do was to carefully read the room descriptions on the dragon pass road.  He mentally kicked himself for that.  In hindsight it was not something that should have been hard to figure out.  He could go back and ask Soth, but he nixed that idea.  Soth didn’t even seem to like being talked to by some nobody elf.  If he asked Light or Kaarell for help that might be seen as giving away OOC info and the immortals frowned on that.  He wasn’t sure what the punishment would be but that Tristan fellow seemed to have a hair trigger on his rid-bolt.  He imagined another post on rid board ‘Isaiah, and Light rid for sharing and taking OOC info.’  Yeah, he didn’t want that to happen.  He could just go sit down at the computer and stare at the same paragraph of a room description and get frustrated again after 15 minutes.  Standing before an unbeatable foe and breaking through your limits only worked in shonen anime.  Computer games were completely unbending from what they were programmed to do.  Something that he had glossed over were the climbing tools he had bought.  Maybe the climbing tools were supposed to let him get down the hole.  He formed a small plan but it wasn’t a very proud one.

 

You are no longer inactive.

Isaiah (OOC): I’m trying to use these climbing tools to climb down this hole does anyone know how they work?

Vethor (OOC): Climbing tools or skills tend to be either climb or descend.

Isaiah (OOC): Thank you Vethor.

 

Vethor helped him.  Like Soth and Nightfall, Voadkyn struck him as another evil villain.  But it was out of character so it didn’t count right?  Isaiah’s player decided it didn’t count.  With that thought he typed ‘descend’ and this time it took him into the next room with the message ‘you climb down the hole.’  

 

As soon as he got into the next room.

 

Rat attacks you!

Rat misses you.

You hit rat.

You hit rat.

You hit rat.

Rat drops dead before you.

 

Isaiah looked around the room.   It had a similar appearance to the room above.  It was a natural cave only with a hole going up rather than a hole going down.  Also, there was a corpse of a rat on the ground.  The only exit was north.  He peered north and it was another room but it had two rats instead of one.

 

Rats… why did it have to be rats.

 

Also the corpse of the rats seemed to have a pile of coins in it.  Isaiah offered the corpse and picked up the handful of copper coins.  Rats with coins on them didn’t seem right but why turn down even this small amount of money.  

 

Eventually it led to a main room.  It was described as a big open cavern with smaller tunnels splitting off in each direction.   There were eight exits: North, northwest, west, southwest, east, northeast, southeast, south.  South was the direction he came from and he suspected the only exit.  He decided to go north.  Instead of rats he ran into kobolds.   Kobolds are like small serpent people.  Of course this one attacked as soon as he entered the room.

 

Kobold attacks you!

Kobold missed you.

You hit kobold.

You hit kobold.

You hit kobold.

Kobold hits you.

HP: 45/47

You hit kobold.

You hit kobold.

You hit kobold.

Sword of insanity tells you: “I shall now summon the demon king!”

A rabbit appears before you.

Kobold drops dead before you.

 

The kobold dropped a small pile of coins and a spear.  Isaiah checked the spear to see if it was magical.  It wasn’t magical.  It was also small.  Apparently kobolds are considered small sized like goblins.  He took a second to use the heal command to top off his hit points and continued on.  Some of the rooms had groups of kobolds, sometimes two or three kobolds.  He was able to take them out slow and steady just using his bone dagger 

 

He and his rabbits kept going and further in there were kobold captains that hit a little harder and seemed to have a bit more hit points but it went okay.  He really liked when his sword of insanity dropped mana so he could get a few hit points back each fight.  That heal command was terrible to use.  Sometimes the kobold captains had some randomized armor like leather, studded leather, chainmail, banded armor.  He assumed that it was just a randomized list of armors to equip them.  

 

At the end of the tunnel there was a pool.  He searched the area and found a button in the water.  He typed ‘push button’ and luckily this time his first guess on the syntax was the correct one.  

 

There was a pleasant surprise from the corpses of one of the captains.  Along with a handful of coins it seemed like a set of full plate armor had dropped.  Full plate armor was very expensive in the armor shop.  Isaiah figured it was better than what he had.  He cast detect magic on it and found it was non magical.  Apparently he wasn’t lucky enough to find full plate armor so easily.  However it was likely better than what he had equipped.  However when he tried to wear it.

 

This armor is not fitted for you.

 

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.  It looked like for full plate the game was going to make it difficult to acquire.  The good news was that if he could sell it for 10,000 gold that would be his biggest windfall yet.  Isaiah held onto the plate armor to sell later in town.

 

Isaiah went through the other 6 branches of the main room he hadn’t explored and found different races in each one.  One had orcs.  One had goblins.  One had gnolls.  One had bugbears.  One had beastmen.  The last one was a short path that dead ended.   However, when he had pressed all of the buttons.  There was a new door sitting closed in the last room on the tunnel with no monsters.  Isaiah opened it and peered inside.  There was an old man in a wizard’s robe in the room.

 

Isaiah entered and looked around.  This place was a private study and lab for this old human mage.  He had the stereotypical gray hair and big gray beard.  He wielded a quarterstaff and had a silk cloak on.   Isaiah cast detect magic and it said: “Silk cloak(surrounded by a blue glow)”  Isaiah had only seen stuff with a faint blue glow.  Those turned out to be +1 magic items and this one was +2.  Isaiah could really use a +2 cloak.  Maybe that was the quest reward for delivery of the note.   Isaiah gave the note to the old human.

Wizard says: “Ah!  Thank you.”

Wizard reads the note.

Wizard says: “It is good to know that Bandallar still thinks of me on my birthday.  I suppose thanks are in order.”

Wizard hands you a pipe.

Wizard hands you pipe weed.

Wizard smile.

You have completed the quest <Pipe quest>!

 

That’s it?  All this slaughter to deliver a note and the reward is a lousy pipe?   Isaiah left and went back to shadow killing the rats a second time as he left the Dragon’s Den caverns.  He really could have used that cloak.