Volume Seven Issue Twenty
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..../ /_/..\______/./_____/./__/.../__/./_______/ MUD
.../________________/ running on mud.legendmud.org 9999
64.7.5.163 9999
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VOLUME SEVEN, ISSUE TWENTY August 24th, 2000
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
**Special Announcement**
Calendar of Events
NEWS & REPORTS
Industrial Echoes:
Trivia Results
Port of London Updated
The Comedy Club Challenge
LEGENDITES
Announcements
Clan News
Barren
The Deathtrap Looters
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/__| SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT |__\
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The location of the LegendMUD is changing this weekend, and as a consequence,
the mud will be unavailable for a relatively short period of time. We will be
taking the machine offline on approximately Saturday afternoon, and bringing
it back up Sunday evening.
What this means to you as a player:
Our IP *number* will be changing, but NOT our addresses. Please continue to
connect to mud.legendmud.org:9999 for the mud and www.legendmud.org for our
web pages. If you have any difficulty connecting, make sure you are using
mud.legendmud.org 9999, or try the IP (64.7.5.163 9999).
Why we are making this change:
While we've been fortunate enough these past 7-8 months to have the mud
machine sitting under Rufus' desk at work, we have had to look for a new home
as Wombat Games is closing. So a big "Thank you!" to Wombat Games for hosting
us while they could! We looked into the possibility of other DSL locations in
Austin, but we were unable to find a suitable place that had increased
bandwidth as well.
However, Ea! and LadyAce were lucky enough to buy a house that was located
close enough to a Central Office in Chicago to get an increase in bandwidth
over what we currently have. Thank you, Ea! and LadyAce, for volunteering to
make this possible without having to go look into more expensive co-location
options again.
-Kaige
Note: This change should be invisible to you, but if you have any questions
or want more information, please feel free to speak with an immortal or
attend a Q & A Session (Thursdays at 7pm mud time).
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/__| UPCOMING CALENDAR OF EVENTS |__\
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[All times are system time unless otherwise specified]
o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_August_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o_o
LegendMUD Summer Odyssey continues...
A monthlong celebration of the Industrial era.
Thursday, August 24 at 7:00 pm Q & A in the OOC Auditorium
Thursday, August 31 at 7:00 pm Q & A in the OOC Auditorium
Immortal Applications are Due Sept. 1
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/__| NEWS AND REPORTS |__\
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Immort Application Forms are available from
http://www.legendmud.org
New Immort Proposals are Due September 1
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Industrial Echoes:
Industrial-era updates and events
part of LegendMUD's Summer Odyssey
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Modern-Industrial Trivia Results
Congratulations to the winners of Wednesday's Industrial-era trivia
challenge! Bronwyn came in first with a score of 6, followed by Kendrik,
Lilian, and Fatale with 5 each, and Ganymede and Nietzsche with 4 apiece.
Keep watching the events list for more
A few select questions -- answers appear at the end of the LT.
1 - What George Orwell book is a allegory of the Russian Revolution?
2- The Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska commemorates the heroic 'Serum Run'.
What disease was the serum to cure?
3- What is the capitol of North Korea?
4- By what other name was calculus originally known?
5- Who discovered that comets follow an orbit rather than only passing the earth
once?
6- Who wrote 'The Pilgrim's Progress', an allegorical account of the life of
a "true Christian"?
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Industrial Echoes: Port of London Updated
As LegendMUD's Summer Odyssey continues, the Port of London has gotten some
revisions. No, this isn't the big expansion. During the month of August,
several industrial areas will be getting this treatment to go hand in hand
with events sponsored by the PR department.
There's a new captain with a route to Philadelphia and back. Finally, a use
for that ticket to America! If you have a ticket for London that isn't
recognized by the captains, see a full builder, admin or department head for
a new one.
Many mobs now have fight acts, so be cautious when fighting there for a
while. Like Lima's update, most of the changes are geared toward low level
players in an attempt to make the hometown more friendly. Expect to see some
new denizens and a lot of little confusing things cleared up. The outfitter
has gotten in some new books that may be of interest to players of higher
levels. There was one strange exit fixed so you may have to adjust your
routes slightly in and out of London.
-Kaige
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The Comedy Club Challenge
On Saturday, August 19th, the walls of the already-raucous Belching Chinaman
were ringing with laughter. Six stunning comedians -- Medmen, Trixie, Radar,
Hope, JamaciaMan, and Hassan -- faced off, and shared their best jokes and
riddles. In the end, there could be only one voted best by the audience, and
that one was JamaciaMan, crowned the King of Comedy. Congratulations,
JamaciaMan! And cheers for Trixie and Hope, runners-up and Princesses of
Comedy!
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o O | Wonder what folks are |
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/__| LEGENDITES: Information Regarding the People of Our World |__\
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Announcements
Dun has reached 100 million experience!
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Clan News
Autolicus has disbanded the Silent Shadow, and the Kingdom of Kastuul Clan
disbanded due to low membership, leaving 19 RP clans and 10 PK clans, and 2
free spots for new clans to form.
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Barren.
A cold, hard ugly word. But Embeth had to face facts.
She was barren.
For seven years she had been married to Ganelon, and never once had her
belly swelled with his child. She hated walking through the village now, to
be inflicted with the hard stares, the cruel whispers, the pitying glances.
It had been worse in the days when Ganelon accompanied her. He would look
at the children with a soul-hunger almost as great as her own, and her
generous heart would ache for his pain, instead of her own.
He didn't accompany her anymore.
Embeth looked about the cosy cottage. There was the comfortable armchair.
They had made that together in their first winter as man and wife, he
carving the frame, she weaving the fabric for its upholstery. The
beautifully designed rosewood chest, part of her dowry, was filled with baby
clothes she had made herself, before she had finally realized the bitter
truth of her infertility. It would be hard to leave this home. Once it had
been filled with laughter and love and hopes and dreams. Now it spoke of
long empty days and longer emptier nights. She had wondered why he stayed
out late so often, coming home at dawn sometimes, now she knew.
He had taken a mistress. Jenny Fleming. And Jenny was now pregnant.
Ganelon was putting her aside. He had seen the priest about an annulment,
based on the fact that she was barren, and was sending her to a nunnery.
Instead of this cosy cottage, she would be spending her life in the
cloisters. There would be no comfortable armchairs, no dowry chests. No,
those would belong to Jenny.
NO! I will not stand for it, Embeth thought. I am a daughter of the old
religion, he will NOT send me to a life of devotion to a god I do not
believe in.
She would go and study with the priestesses and priests of the old ways,
they would appreciate her creative talents, and would set her feet firmly on
the path of learning the art of magic. Jenny would not claim Embeth's dowry
chest, or the armchair they had made with love. Jenny would not have
Embeth's cosy cottage. Quickly, before she could change her mind, Embeth
threw her few personal possessions into her hand-embroidered velvet bag,
took a brand from the hearth, and with one last look at her home, set fire
to the chair and the clothes in the chest. Embeth's hopes and dreams had
been turned to ashes by the new life Ganelon and Jenny were creating. Now
as Embeth was creating her own new life, she would make ashes out of their
hopes and dreams.
Smiling, Embeth walked out, closed the door behind her as if nothing was
wrong, and headed down the road to her future.
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The Deathtrap Looters
A figure in black, sharply silhouetted against a background of gleaming gold,
strides confidently back down a dank passageway. The source of his apparent
satisfaction is tucked securely into his belt, glimpsed occasionally through
the folds of his longcoat. The glint off the golden surface of the object
quickly fades as the figure makes steady progress away from the main chamber
and the only source of light. Confidence dangerously buoyed by the recovery
of the hidden treasure, the figures' usual cautiousness is forgotten. A foot
swings out over a chasm. Too late he realizes his mistake, as he pitches
headlong into the abyss - the bridge crumbled to nothingness after his first
passage. A hiss of dismay passes through clenched teeth before he is neatly
skewered on the rows of spikes that rise from the depths. He briefly
registers the insistent tugging at his clothes before consciousness
mercifully fades.
The deathtrap looters quickly finish their work stripping the corpse
completely bare. Far from silent, they squabble amongst themselves and
gibber excitedly over choice pieces of equipment, all the while leaping from
spike to spike like demented fleas. Within the blink of an eye they are
gone, their final exit heralded by the lazy sound of a single gold coin
twirling to rest.
With a fizzling pop and a sharp smell of sulphur, the prone figure reappears
3 feet above the ground in a stinking Bengali flophouse. He has time to
register his new breezy state and apparent exception to the laws of gravity
before crashing heavily onto the sticky floor. His body, crisscrossed with
scars, appears like a road map - major highways are gouged across his flesh
by a constant traffic of slashing steel. Over these old wounds are the new,
evenly spaced indents of deep puncture wounds. These he touches gingerly,
wincing with pain as he wipes thick coagulating blood away. As usual, the
scar tissue underneath has already formed - an angry livid pink in sharp
contrast to his corpse-like pallor. He attempts to reassemble the right
angles of his body in a vaguely vertical position, succeeding on his third
attempt before stumbling out into the darkness. The owner of the
establishment pauses in the pursuit of spooning the contents of one ear to
frown at the fresh dark stain on the crusted rug.
The huge door clicks and rumbles before swinging reluctantly back on massive
hinges, allowing a sick light to play across the deathtrap and its dutiful
rank and file of sharpened spikes. The figure carefully sidles into the room
and grimly assesses the the tenuous structure that now spans the gap. His
heartbeat quickly increases to the point where he thinks it will deafen him.
He had lost his corpse and equipment in the occasional deathtrap before, but
this was the first time he might be able to retrieve it from one. Inching
out across the bridge, he takes a labored breath before carefully lowering
himself to a sitting position. He locks his ankles in position before
dropping backwards in a neat gymnastic maneuver that leaves him dangling
upside down above a pitful of spikes, and in the unique position of being
able to look his own grinning corpse in the face. The grisly visage makes
his brow crease in puzzlement. Not from the fact that he is confronting the
unpleasant physical evidence of his recent death, or even the disappointing
state of undress of the corpse, but from the ordered piles of gold coins
stacked evenly across its back.
With considerable effort the figure hauls himself back onto the bridge and
scrambles over to the far edge of the chamber, where he examines the coins
clutched in his trembling hands. Why would someone, or something, carry off
all his clothing and equipment yet leave behind all his money? Whilst
pondering this his eyes happen to rest on the small ledge in one corner of
the room, or specifically the lone gold coin shining upon it. Questions
forgotten, the figure immediately focuses on the ledge and the coin, his
coin. A fall from the ledge, which was even thinner than the bridge, would
mean another fatal encounter with the spikes below. However with nothing
else to lose, he had nothing left to fear. Without a second thought, he
leaps across, nimble as a cat. He picks up the coin in his toes and deftly
flicks it into his waiting hand. Pleased with himself, he leans back into
the corner to examine his find, and promptly falls through the wall.
Even from behind the illusion looks solid enough, except for the fact that
his legs are sticking right through it. Rolling onto his stomach, he notes
the obvious tracks leading steadily downwards, before regaining his feet.
Cursing quietly as he bumps his head on the low chiseled ceiling, he
stumbles along in a Quasimodo-like lurch. Eventually the small passage leads
into a larger one, but the tracks continue downwards. Other passages also
lead off the main one at regular intervals, and to his surprise he can read
the ancient script etched into the stone above these offturnings. The
elephant trap, the pirate ambush, the crushing waterfall, the old well, and
on and on and on. Sweat begins to bead on his forehead as he descends - the
temperature steadily increasing with each labored footstep. Then, without
any warning, he is out.
At first he believes he must be outside, but the mustiness of the air and
the unnatural light forces him to think otherwise. His mind reels as he takes
in a cavern so massive, so staggeringly enormous that he cannot perceive its
far walls or ceiling. Grasping a wall to steady his spinning head he slowly
focuses on his immediate surroundings. Immaculately spaced rows of low
shelves march off to vanishing points on the strange concave horizon. He
totters unsteadily over to the nearest one to inspect its contents.
Maps. Thousands of maps. All neatly stacked and ordered. He pulls one off
the top of a pile for closer inspection and immediately recognizes the
streets and sites of Viceroyal Lima, his old hometown. He chuckles at its
crude depiction and places it back on the pile. Next row across are racks of
crude weapons - rough clubs, small daggers and practice swords. The ones
nearest to him are sharp and shiny, the blood on their edge almost fresh.
Further down the row they gradually become dull and dusty before arriving at
another rack with a different collection of identical weapons. An idea sparks
in his mind, and he jogs across the rows searching for a particular item.
Boxes of rings flash past, and boots and bracelets and earrings and belts and
shields.
He stops suddenly and picks up the first pair of gloves from the
rack in front of him. The worn riding gloves are practically falling apart -
a large hole has been roughly punched through its palm. Pulling it gingerly
on, the hole neatly frames the pink scar tissue on the palm of his hand. He
removes and returns it before striding off past piles of identical gloves,
and it is not until he is well down the row that he pauses again. The gloves
he picks up are identical to the rest at first glance, but appear to have
been sitting here for some time. It is not until he puts them on that he is
sure he has found what he is looking for. He punches at the shelf
experimentally, and grins in satisfaction as it smashes to splinters -
impressed at the additional damage he has caused. Throwing the old gloves
back onto the remains of the shelf, he quickly moves on - there are obviously
greater prizes to discover here.
Often the figure had suffered to listen to the rantings of the old
adventurers, bragging of their collection of old equipment that had
disappeared from the world and reminiscing about pieces that they had lost.
Occasionly these rare pieces would even come up for auction and would be
sold for huge sums. Gaebolgs, hunting horns, the riding gloves, even old
cloaks of midnight would all be in here somewhere - their final resting
place after a foolhardy adventurer stumbled into a deathtrap, an overrent,
or permadeath.
A little while later all that can be discerned of the figure is his blacks
boots as they totter unsteadily towards the exit, underneath a huge swaying
pile of looted booty. They falter and stop at the sound of many skittering
claws, and one low ominous growl. He grins evilly to himself and grips his
old bellclapper a little tighter. The poor little critters never stood a
chance...Fur flies and bones crack as the figure flies amongst them at an
eye-blurring speed, skittling the pack in all directions before his dropped
booty even has time to hit the floor. Drowning out the sound of his deafening
warcry and the screams of the dying is the earsplitting GONG! of the
bellclapper at work. Ears bleed GONG! Drums burst GONG! Brains liquefy GONG!
Heads explode GONG! Floor cracks GONG! Walls crumble GONG! The roof caves
in...
With a sticky thud the figure quickly reacquaints himself with the flophouse
floor. Bloody and bruised and naked once again, he staggers once more off
into the night. The old equipment is buried forever, good riddance to it.
Preacher Kaine
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Trivia answers: 1- Animal Farm 2- diphtheria 3- Pyongyang
4- the concept of fluxions 5- Halley 6- John Bunyan
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Legendary Times is published by the immortals of LegendMUD. Please send
all replies, additions, or corrections to our address at [email protected]
for inclusion in the next edition. We, however, reserve the right to
moderate this discussion, and may object to some submissions.
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