The Great Lady
I meet a young guy Naraz. He wanted to get a house together with me. Houses were expensive as money was hard to make. He wanted the house because he wanted to be a PK, he wanted me to go red too but at that time I had no plans about going red.
We did make the money for the house, me from killing monsters, not sure about his way to make money, I heard something about summon horses and selling them before they did vanish again and some was a little angry at him.
When we got the house, we placed a vendor each to hold the key for us as houses was very unsecure at that time. You got a key to the house and a master key in your bank but was not able to changes lock and key if you lost your key. The one who had the key could access anything inside the house. It was not possible to lockdown or secure items so everything was loot able.
As there was no decay inside the house, you could fill it with stuff and lose it very easy too. With the key in a key ring on vendor, you could use the key direct from the vendor and unlock door, open door and lock it again before you step in and close the door after you. You could always open the door from inside and close it again from inside or outside without unlock it.
Many did lose their first house, when they got killed with a rune to the house and a key in their backpack. Best thing was to keep house rune in bank and recall from there and have key on vendor. If you had it in your backpack, you would risk to get killed with it or a thief stole it.
Having a house and how to keep it
One day, I came back to my house; I saw a player corpse outside my house. His ghost was not around so I looked of his body ands found a rune and a key. I went to town, made a copy of the key, placed copy and rune in my bank and brought a vendor deed. I then recalled from the bank to the house. Placed the vendor outside and placed the key in a key ring on vendor as not for sale. I looked inside the house. There were some boxes. One was trapped, and when I tried to open it, I died. I found a healer and made it back to the house to get my items from my dead body.
I did not really want anything in the house; I more wanted to teach him not to run around with the key and rune. I was stupid enough to tell a friend about it. That friend ended up as an ex friend. He asked me to show him the house and when he got inside, he started to loot and destroyed the boxes and furniture’s with an axe. I got him to stop and got him out and locked the door again.
I later found the house owner at the bank. I gave him the key and a rune and told him to be more careful. I removed the vendor again. I also told him, I was sorry about the damage to his stuff in house. I think he did forgive me, but he did seem sad and I’m not very proud of that story L
A thief did get the key to my house once; he was waiting invisible at my door. My sons and I hunted the thief and his friend for an hour or so, but the key was never on the one we killed. I then gave up, told him, I did not mind to share my house but not my stuff.
They moved in and did leave my stuff alone. The floor was filled with bags of with stolen stuff. The thieves was funny and ended up ad good friends. They also told their thief friends to leave me alone, that was really nice. One day I lost connection; my char was still standing in game. A thief almost emptied my backpack. When I was back online, I told him, I was protected of my 2 friends and he was a little sad, when he had to give all back.
After a month, the thieves got their own house and moved out. It was nice to have my house back, but I did miss them.
Naraz also lost the key a few times I think or he used some of my stuff. I got tired of sharing house with him and brought a new one side by the old one and let him keep the old one.
How to survive in the forest
Naraz did go red and I learned to know some of his red friends. I learned that not all PK’s was nasty, they could be good and loyal friends too and my view on PK’s changed. I could let them in my house and I could trust them.
It becomes a challenge for me to get to know the reds I meet on my way and make them to friends. I had a lot of fun with it, it was not always easy. Sometimes I died a few times before I got contact to them and yes, there was some, I did not want to have as friends.
Lots of times, I was attacked of a group of 4-6 reds, before they saw it was me and I or some of them yelled STOP. Most times I got to know a few more this way.
I die once, I was to close to some Anti PK’s, and a good friend of mine killed me, before I could stop him, I did not fight back, I drop my bow in my back, I would not give the anti’s a chance to get him. He managed to pick up my stuff, with 7 anti’es around him. He called me via ICQ, and told me to go to my house. He could not res me so he gated me to the chaos shine, I had never been there before and someone kill me when I ressed and I lost the gate back. I call him and told him to make a gate more and I ressed again and run in the gate back to my house. I invited him in my house and I got most of my stuff back. One of the anti’es got 200 bolt, I never got them back and 2 of my guild members had a little of my stuff. My guild member, who had been between the anti PK’s call me to tell that they had been to scared to try to get some of my stuff, they knew the PK was my friend and was afraid he would kill them, if they took anything but I sure, he would not do that. My PK friend told me, that my guild members had the rest of my stuff, so he knew some of the Anti PK’s was from my guild. He was alone, when he killed me, and he did not run, when there was 7 around him, trying to get him.
He was a cool guy. He was one of the PK’s, who did not speak, when he killed someone. I had to find him on ICQ to get contact to him. His name was Man O War he was very powerful in PvP. He scared most of the shard. Sadly he is long gone from the game.
I have a few memories about other reds I learned to know.
I remember one fight, a guy Kiljox, attacked me. We were fighting long time with bows and healed a lot of times. When I could see, that I would lose, I did not recall, but I stayed to fight to I died, I did not want to recall away from him, when he had fought so hard to get my loot 🙂
He turned out to be a nice guy, he did stay to speak with me, and he said thanks for a good fight. I ask him, “can I keep some of the stuff; you don’t need. He gave me some armor and weapon (not my magic stuff ) and 10 of each regs., he become one of my best friends, until the stat lose kill him, and he quit the game, I did know a lot of PK’s like him, but quit the game long ago. It was PK’s who did like a good fight and care for there victims.
When out chopping wood on my other char, Malinko attacked me when he saw 2 monsters also attacked my char. I had never seen him before, so I recalled to my house and changed char to Freja and found him again. He hided and I tried to speak to him but could not get him to speak or unhide before I told him; I was not going to attack. I told him, I did not like PK’s, who attacked players who was already busy fighting monsters. I was chatting with him a while.
Then Malace showed up. I knew him from earlier. When we was chatting all 3, a newbie came. He asked, can I hunt with your guys? They both laughed at him. The newbie then asked, you are not PK’s; are you? I said, yes they are. He moved a little away but went back and asked why he was not killed. Malace said we are not in the mood for killing right now. The guy said, guess I’m lucky and Malace said guess so and the newbie left us.
The rules for PK’s were changed, so they lost skills, when they ressed after dead. The sad thing is, it was the nice PK’s who gave up, the nasty ones just tried to be safe in numbers and trained a new char, who could take over, when they PK char got destroyed of stat loss.
Now most red pk’s only kill weak players, or hunt in large groups, I miss the old ones, they were the reason for me to that I play the game. They were different from monsters, because they have a brain, and you never knew, what they would do, when you saw them. I remember Steel, he showed up and said to me ”I have never killed a Lady”, I thought, damn, I will be his first Lady victim, but no, he meant that he would never kill a Lady, he quit too, he was Danish like me.
Stat loss for PK’s was one of the worse things they added to the game. It killed a lot role play and it did not make blue more safe. They would still die to PK’s but now they would not get a chance for a good fight as the PK’s could not afford dying.