980321 - Overnight, Bryant sold out just about everything I had in scrolls and runes, including a dozen Resurrection scrolls. It's quite nice asking your vendor for status and get a five figures answer, especially so when he was almost empty the night before. I really should have spent some time replenishing the items, but I didn't. Instead I went out to hunt first today. Is it just me or has the spawn rate increased? I killed several animals in my normal hunting ground. I even found an orc mage accompanied by a giant spider, nice combination. Even a water elemental was roaming the area. Of course, now there are none of them left, they are too good targets for me to just ignore. And I admit it is kind of hard to ignore a water elemental, especially if it manages to paralyze you and get into your face. Anyway I had a nice field trip. Not too exciting but still acceptable fun. Zeus still has a troll locked inside his house. It roars at me every time I pass that area, and I get startled every time, a bit annoying, one could imagine I knew his house troll was there by now. But of course in my hunting area there is no house like that big smithy up to the north. Today it contained 4 orc mages, a gazer and a wisp. It's too bad all those nice creatures are locked up like that.

Later I met Lagsalot in the City Square of Vesper. There was some rioting going on, some uninformed individual thought you could actually hurt others by throwing explosion potions at others in town. There were bodies everywhere, but all of them came from the bombers of course, the guards were kept busy, and it was pretty fun to watch. I've realized I must start pushing my magery upward, to get those last fractions of inscribing. I summoned a couple of elementals, but unfortunately this attracted a lot of slackers who like to hang out and watch high magery. I think I'll do that kind of practice in my tower instead in the future. Having a crowd in front of the shop is not always the best way of making business, actually it's better being able to talk to your customers one by one. A ghost ran by, I raced Lagsalot to resurrect him, but he beat me to it. The poor fellow had been PK:ed by a crowd of 5 cowards, that's the odds those bedwetters normally need, 1 to 5 or 6 to even dare to make the attempt. Sigh! Then Real LifeÔ called me away and I shut down the game.

980320 - Shopping was particularly good today. For a total of only 226 gold pieces I picked up 5 very nice weapons, one a supremely accurate maul, another one a power sword and several multi-enchanted force weapons. None of these are sold to the public of course. Oh one of them, the least one, was a mid-range eminently accurate durable bow of ruin and weakness with a dozen charges, this little piece of machinery I left with the vendor. I often get requests from, well let's say not-so-experienced, players asking me "Do you have a weapon of vanquishing or power, duh?" Well yes, I do have them in my bank box, in very limited quantities, but whenever I'm asked that - well then I look them over, to see if they are Grand Masters. If they're not, and they usually aren't, well then, there's no deal. They are probably better off with an eminently accurate weapon of might than with a pure weapon of force anyway, but these types of uninformed customers do not understand that. Why is that, you might ask? Well, it's better to be able to actually hit your opponent often and hurt him every time, than to do a tiny bit more damage every 5th stroke and miss the other 4. Also, a weapon of might is so much cheaper than a comparable weapon of force or power, you could get 5 or 6 weapons of might for one weapon of power, so it's a much more affordable solution unless you're filthy rich like me. But as I said, those customers do not understand this. If I'm in a good mood, I try to educate them, but most customers of this type are too slow to learn and understand this anyway, ah well, it's their loss really. And somehow I get this feeling that if I should sell said type of customer a power weapon, I would be able to buy back that very same weapon from a supplier or on the open market before the end of the day [*evil smirk*]. That's how the market works, and it's fine with me, but the other reason I don't sell them, keeping such weapons out of the hands of the Dreads I do not know personally, is a much too compelling one to be ignored. However, good friends and very good and well-known customers occasionally get a peek at my really good cache, they are usually awed, rightfully so. And it's very, very neat to actually being able to give away a multiple enchanted power weapon, or a supremely accurate one, every now and then, that's a gift that counts for something, and works wonders for public relations.

A little bit later I met my sweetheart Lagsalot in town. He wanted to show me his normal hunting ground outside Skara Brae. It was terrific, we found all kinds of animals and even a few monsters like trolls and orc lords. But then lag froze me and I got kicked out from the game. It was impossible to get back in. It was also impossible to get through to the Official UO page to find out why. A quick survey of several news boards led me to the conclusion that the scapegoat this time was some obscure phone line somewhere in the states. American telephone systems are incredibly inferior, obviously, and their technicians are - ah well - go figure... But I'm not fully convinced that DIGEX is the only source of trouble. While being able to play, I found yet another bug (I don't tell about them all here - I only have 10 MB of web-space to play with), the "not being able to cast since you are already casting" bug. Being more and more convinced that it is a stupid thing to drop out of grad-school, after seeing OSI's performance, I shut down the computer and had a nice Friday night, fully expecting to log in as dead the next time UO is available....

But strangely enough I wasn't. I was still near Skara Brae, on the mainland. Lagsalot was gone unfortunately. I continued my hunting trip alone. A number of large animals, and a few monsters fell to my arrows and magic until I got tired. At one point I was fighting a troll and a grizzly at the same time, that was fun. But as I said finally I tired of hunting. I met a man in the area, Porthos, whom I talked to and finally gated to my shop to have a look. I sold him a few items, and gave him a rune for my shop after which I gated him back to Britain. I also had some cleaning up to do in my bank vault and had to reorganize my vendors again. Of course I continued writing scrolls as well, now I only have a measly 1.6 points to go before Grand Mastery, it will not be many more days, I assure you. I'm continuing to improve the quality of the weapons that Dulcie sells, as I dump out the low-level weapons, replacing them with more interesting objects, this will be a quality business. As a final note - not all jesters in silly hats are funny - even though they might think they are. There are few things I hate more than being interrupted by persistent dyslectic morons in the middle of a business conversation. But then again I always have that recall spell to go somewhere else...

980319 - Ok, now I figured out how to handle my vendors. Dulcie, who sells my weapons and accessories, is not affected by the item limit, she's still have a problem with the weight limit though. Bryant, who sells scrolls, has been reorganized though. First of all, I don't sell 1-3 circle anymore. Oh if I'm home, you can always ask me to scribe one for you, but I don't sell them in the vendor's bag anymore. Furthermore, I will only sell the lingerie and the complete city outfits on special order. You know I've got them, just ask me for them. This way I can still run a reasonable, but less fashionable, business. Speaking of scribing, visiting and double-clicking all the shrines made my inscribing unstuck, thank goodness, and I'm progressing towards Grand Master again. I'd say I have some 30 to 50 8th circle scrolls to scribe and then I'm there. The rearranging of the vendors was a tedious job, and finally I felt I had to go out to hunt and relax a bit.

Out hunting, I found nothing at first. Then suddenly a man runs into my screen chased by an orc. I asked him if he needed help and at just precisely this moment the server decides to start backing up. Unfrozen after the lag a minute later I hear the man yelling, "Yes, Yes, Yes". Then two more orcs, an orc lord and even an ettin appears on my screen. Only seconds later, my loudspeakers resound from the nasty sound of a player dying. Now who do you think all those 5 monsters turn their attention to, once they have killed their first victim? To little ol' me of course. But handling multiple monsters outside is my specialty. Hit and run, get one monster at the time to follow you, and kill them one by one. This took me over 15 minutes. By the way, the orcs were a lot more talkative in combat. While wielding my bow they harassed me by saying "You fight bad" and "That didn't hurt", I'm not that good as an archer yet. But once mana regenerated I made them say "Ouch, that hurt". I must prepare a reply-macro "Yes an Energy Bolt usually does. Have another one, honey pie". That was fun, actually, hearing them talk I mean. Most of the orc lord's loot was hidden in a bag under that stupid "No Draw" icon and I couldn't get to it, but I got the rest of what the monsters carried. Unfortunately I didn't get the dead players name and although I searched the spot where he died for a while, I couldn't find neither him nor his items, I assume he picked them up himself while I was busy with the monsters about 6-7 screens away. If he reads this, I do have his plate mail sleeves the ettin stole from him, and I will give it back to him of course, if he comes to the shop and identifies himself, by telling me precisely where he died.

Speaking of deaths, I did a bit of good community service today too. After returning to Vesper from my humanoid slaughter tour, I went about my business as usual. Just passing south outside of the Spinning Wheel I saw a person, Ramoa Delsenore, followed by a grizzly bear. Since many people have these, and even weirder animals, for pets, I thought nothing of it. Until I suddenly saw, on the edge of my screen, the bear rise up in attack. I rushed back, but the man was already dead. I then told him to go resurrect while I held his items. He proceeded by running out of town instead. His gear was so heavy I couldn't walk anywhere, but I stood around for 10 minutes writing scrolls. Then he came back, still a ghost, obviously he hadn't found any wandering healer. I told him I'd resurrect him myself and actually managed to cast that An Corp on him. He was very afraid coming back, I learned, fearing that the grizzly, which was still in the area, would attack him again. I assured him it had forgotten all about him, and healed him up with a single An Vas Mani. Then I showed him my shop and told him that this would be the perfect place for him to shop once he's beyond newbie status. Yes I know this is an insidious marketing ploy, but it still doesn't diminish the good thing I did, resurrecting him and healing him and looking after his belongings, or does it? Ah - whatever - it's a good way attracting customers, even resurrecting the dead to shop...

Hunting outside was very slow today, but Covetous was great fun, as it usually is this time of the day. I met several nice people in Gazer's Corner and we took turns killing, looting and building skills. Of course every now and then the newbies rush in and grab the loot. Oh well, but at least on one occasion a gazer spawned and attacked the newbies who fled screaming out of the room, with the blob lumbering after them shooting and biting. The more experienced of us yawned and laughed a bit of course. No, not even I try to save persons like that, they should stay out the Gazer's Corner altogether and go play with the harpies, the rats or the corpsers or something. A particularly nice acquaintance I made there was Hellblazer. We had a very nice and relaxed conversation while smashing the gazers flat, and when server shutdown time drew close, I gated us both to my shop. I always take the opportunity to show my shop to discerning customers. They are much more fun to talk with, than those lamers who run around and yell "I'M NEW! GIMME' STUFF!" and grab loot in the dungeon. Here's a small image of Hellblazer and me at my shop

980317 - This morning when I recalled around, refreshing a property I was attacked by a ratman hovering on my Main Office's doorstep. I do not like to fight in my business clothing at all, those fireballs make my dress reek with a sulphurous smell, and the static electricity generated by the lightning makes my cloak loose all the softening and get sticky and uncomfortable. After having killed a creature dressed in this manner, I usually have to wash my clothes all over again, and doing so once per day is quite enough. I've started to sell Resurrection scrolls at the bargain price of only 200 gold pieces each. I do scribe a lot of those during practice. I still won't sell anything else from the 8th circle, although I could easily sell a complete 8th circle nowadays. The thought of having all those summons scrolls and earthquakes in the hands of PK:ers is not an appealing one. That's the same reason I do not sell the best weaponry openly to public, I wish others would take this sort of precautions too. I also have put out a dungeon crawling kit, it's not fashionable, but it's great fun to those with that disposition, you really have to do something positive for all those Duke Quake'm (or whatever) rejects too. If for no other reason, then for taking all their money away. To take peoples money in a way that they still feel they got the better deal is really fun, and it's the hallmark of a successful businesswoman. If any of my readers start to think, "Well, I don't fall for that", then ask yourselves if you have Windows 95 or NT installed on your computer in Real LifeÔ . That ol' Micro$oft got you again - huh? You're not as immune to clever marketing as you might believe you are, I can tell you that offhand. But I never cheat on my customers of course, that would be terrible, and besides I don't need to. You get what you want from me and I get your money and everybody's happy. Of course I'm a little bit happier than you are, but that's beside the point. This is what I look like after fighting in my business dress, it's fashionable - yes, but not very practical, I can tell you that. Running in a fancy dress is quite difficult, it's so easy to trip and fall in a full-length dress.

Out hunting more formally today, I found a fair number of animals, the biggest of them a llama. Then an ettin came along. I can't handle an ettin with only archery, but repeatedly saying Corp Por to it helps. It doesn't like that at all. Next I found an OSI programmer, a.k.a. a headless one. Now that's a lowly monster, if it takes two Vas Flams there's no need to call me in the morning at all. Speaking of programming again, if you identify a Resurrection Scroll it will say you have a Scrol. Yes a scrol with only one L! And it's also confusing that the spell Meteor Swarm sometimes is called Meteor Storm depending on where you see it. On a deeper and more sinister level this of course means that OSI have no database management whatsoever, and that character strings can appear in a large number of places in the code - very, very bad programming indeed. But anyway, while hunting I saw HeLeK deLeon fighting a troll. I sat down on a log nearby and asked him if he needed any help. When he said yes, I started to fry the troll with my spells. It surely gives you a very relaxed look, sitting down on a log while casting powerful spells. We also found an orc lord, who insisted on chasing me around (why do all monsters want to eat just me?) but we killed that one too. After that, the nice gentleman had to leave, and after a while I too returned to Vesper to rest and buy some more reagents. I'm very curious about the brazier in my tower, maybe it could be stolen out of the bag, is there a very strong thief out there who can help me test this? Good money paid, just for making the attempt. I really, really want that brazier out of the bag NOW! Here's Mr. deLeon and me standing over the dead troll by the way, note the war fork that HeLeK's wielding - you don't see that many fencers out there.

The rest of the day was spent upgrading my weapon sales vendor. I no longer sell lowly durable weapons of ruin, but have moved up entirely to sell more interesting things. Of course, the very best items are still in my bank vault, and there they will remain until a buyer I'm happy with comes along. No it does not avail you to offer any sum of money - I have to approve of you personally to be able to purchase those. A boy with a very large allowance bought each and every resurrection scroll I had put out. Dear me, I must have sold things for 15 k today, but it's nice when business is booming - I like it. And I like it even better when I can spend the evening nicely chatting with my clients without having to answer stupid questions people can go read on the update center anyway. Sir Lagsalot, my sweetheart, dropped by late in the evening as well, that was the best visit in the entire day of course. I miss him when he's gone ... *sighs* ... but there's always the communication crystal of course.

980316 - I didn't like what I heard very late yesterday, that Sir Lagsalot was PK:ed by 3 persons. It did please me however to learn that he took 2 of them with him. Now it is trouble trying to move overloaded, I will scribe him some gate scrolls so that he can get away even after stripping the PK:ers' bodies from valuables. I also found something very nice while shopping late yesterday, a supremely accurate crossbow. And it only did cost me 68 gold pieces, very nice. I gave it away for free to Zeus as a promotion gift for being a good supplier; I like being able to give away gifts that count. I got a lot of nice scrolls in return. Speaking of scrolls, I'm finally starting to get those 8th circle scrolls to come out correctly without having to try 3 or 4 times every time, now I succeed maybe every other time - a definite improvement. I picked up a magical female armor today, it was nothing more than a lowly durable studded leather armor, but a magical female armor nevertheless, I have it for sale in my shop now, very fashionable. Wearing one of those studded leather armors under a fancy dress looks very peculiar though; the armor's side spikes protrude through the dress, making you look very bizarre indeed. It's the same look (and reason) that makes me abstain from selling axes, that "Lizzy Borden" look is nothing I would label as fashion, but I admit it could give you a particularly interesting paper doll. In my own opinion however, axes are best left to be wielded by the large male warriors, an axe-wielding woman with spikes coming out of her dress do look very strange indeed.

I'll be back with more news at the situation warrants. Until next time - stay safe from PK:ers

Even a tailor can walk around semi-nude in UO

/Sincerely