980227 - I will be on vacation a couple of days. Therefore I had to restock my vendors a little bit extra today, I hope it helps a little. BlackTouch sold me a nice object of fashion - an Order Virtue Shield. I can't use it myself of course, but it looks nice sitting there as a small sign with my vendor in Vesper. Oh, sorry, it's not for sale - it's just supposed to look good - that's all. The problem with my reagent bag was surprisingly easy to solve. The wizards and alchemists in Vesper were fully stocked for once, and could sell me what I wanted at reasonable prices. I also marked a few more runes of course. On top of this nearly all my sets of city fashion clothes were gone, if I can find the time I will manufacture a few new sets before my holiday.

I didn't go hunting very much today, having much too much to do with my business, but a harpy fell victim to my magery practice. I like killing harpies, every time I kill one I feel it's payback time. I also killed an orc, he proved *very* difficult to kill indeed, as orcs go that is. It seemed like as he resisted every single spell I cast at him, for some peculiar reason. Make no mistake though, I killed him after a while, when I run out of mana, I switch to my bow and arrows. That works just fine as a backup. I must also apologize for the poor quality of the pictures from the troll-hunt on my image page. Somehow geocities just refuse to download those two first pictures correctly, I've tried three or four times, but what you can see on my image -page seems to be the best I can do at the moment. Now you all have a nice weekend in UO. I will have a nice weekend someplace else, I'll be back on Tuesday...

980225 - Inscribing scrolls is my normal way of starting off the day. Today I tried to inscribe a couple of summon elemental scrolls for my own amusement, but the result was very depressing. Losing 50 mana every time I fail, and I do fail 8th a lot unfortunately, is a hindrance to my other business. After tailoring a while, inscribing some other things I was requested to do, refreshing my property and generally re-supplying my vendors, I finally gave up business for the day. Playing outside prime-time means that I do not see very many customers and if I can't chat with other people I get bored. I get especially bored when I fail inscribing an 8th circle scroll 5 times in a row, that's downright depressing. Please don't ask me to scribe any of those commercially, I simply refuse to do it. But as I said, I got bored and changed clothing to outdoors attire, bought some arrows and reagents and went out to hunt. At least hunting is usually good outside primetime.

I searched a while at my usual hunting grounds for animals, but found none. Then suddenly a harpy appeared screeching. I do carry a bit of a grudge against those bird-women ever since I got torn to pieces by one a few days ago while being disconnected. But now it was time for revenge, a course best served cold, and I dropped my bow into my backpack and readied my most deadly spells. With a triumphant "Ha-ha" I advanced against the harpy and brought it almost to it's knees (does harpies have knees, if not what do they have?), expecting an easy kill. But then from the opposite side of my screen there came not one, not two but three large trolls all targeting little ol' me. My "Ha-ha" turned into a very high-pitched "Eeeeeehhhh" as I turned around and ran at top speed. The harpy is a pretty fast monster and followed me, although I managed to shake the trolls. Some distance away I turned to make my stand against the harpy. I killed it in one more shot, gathered its belongings and started to walk back towards Vesper, since there was not any knight in shining armor nearby to help me out. But then I re-decided, thinking "Hmm, three trolls - all just for me", and went on a crazy troll-hunt in the vicinity. By using the hit-and-run, drive-by-shooting, trying to get only one of them at a time to follow me technique, I actually managed to kill all three trolls. This took quite a while, I ran out of arrows completely and my supply of reagents became disturbingly depleted before finally killing the last troll, the whole thing took nearly 20 minutes, all the time with me running like crazy through the terrain. Only when one of them got seriously hurt I closed in on it, just to make sure it couldn't rejoin with its companions, at a few occasions I even wrestled them just to slow them down. However, getting hit over the head with a troll-club, and you *will* be skull-bashed when you are completely unarmored like I am, is not recommendable. After getting hit by any of them while wrestling I had to retreat a short distance and since I was busy regenerating mana for my offensive spells all along, I couldn't waste mana on healing myself. This was a very peculiar, but also a very fun fight. Today I enclose a small picture of me posing in some of the looted magical troll-gear I found after the battle. From this image you understand that trolls do not have the slightest concept of fashion, which, in my book, carries a death penalty...

I gave back Pyret, Leafbeach's cat, to his rightful owner today. The cat didn't seem to like the ham I'd created for him, but maybe he wasn't hungry. I also managed to pay back Barak the small sum of cash I borrowed from him when buying my mage tower. He didn't want any interest in gold at all, but he accepted some scrolls I made for him. That's good, cleaning up old debts is something you should do as soon as possible. Barak reported a funny piece of news. As he had visited Occlo and Skara Brae and giving money to beggars, he had heard repeated rumors about powerful weapons carried by a certain person. In the end Barak had suddenly realized that the beggars were talking about *his own* vendor. Now that's what I call free advertising!

980224 - I managed to misalign my mage tower slightly, accidentally blocking the entrance to Barak's smithy. After some time however, a GM must have taken care of the problem and separated the buildings somewhat. I do not know who managed to call down a GM, I had no luck during the time I was logged on, but at least that small matter is settled. A house is so much more useful if you are actually able to enter it from time to time. Trying to catch up with the time I lost when I died, the turn had now come to replenish my Island hopping kits. The three kits I made today took somewhat longer than usual, I stopped and chatted with other people in every single tailor shop on every single island I visited. I know, I loose some time doing so, but it's actually much nicer talking to people while working as a seamstress and regenerating mana, and getting friends is more important than anything in UO. If I didn't think so, I too would be running inside cities like a lamer... In Occlo I met the petty thief SadButTrue. Being unsuccessful looting me, he instead tried to lift a chair from the sorcerers' guild. He failed. The chair stayed on his body only to get picked up by yours truly. Picking up loot from a failed thieving attempt is perfectly safe, as you know. All the way on my marking trip I used the chair to sit on while tailoring. It looked quite stylish having your own chair, but it weighs too much to be a constant companion on my trips unfortunately.

Now that I have my tower, my next project will probably be a guild-stone. No, no, don't get me wrong, I'm not forming a guild, I just want it for the purpose of being able to title myself Fashion Queen of Vesper. That, and because it looks nice and stylish outside your house of course. Oh there's also the small matter of furnishing the tower. That might take some time, a tower is huge. Hunting today was more or less disappointing, I did not find one single thing to hunt, though I found a lot of hides which I converted into female armor. But in the end a thing found me, a big fat axe-wielding troll started to chase me around. I don't know what he really wanted, but after my third energy bolt I don't think he thought it was fun anymore, mainly because he was dead. Now this troll was not only quite tough, he was also rich as a - ehm - troll. A large pile of gold, a nice gem and not one but two very nice pieces of magical chain mail were lifted from the dead troll's body, after which I recalled home to Vesper to rest.

I also manufactured a number of my city outfits for discerning women today, I've been almost sold out of these. They are a real bargain for 119 gold, and for just 10 gold more you can have one with a pair of magical boots. Now, though I'm too old to model my armor anymore, leaving that job to my younger top-models, I still take great pleasure modeling my city outfits. In the small picture below you can see four of the models included in my line-up for Spring Fashion '98. As you can see they are all very nicely designed to make you stand out in the city crowd and hopefully turn some heads.

980223 - Today I am very, very proud of my huge mage tower. It dominates the not-so-small town of Sora Bal situated in the middle of the city as it is. From up on my roof I can see out over a lot of buildings there. I'd like to say a special "Thank You" to Barak for loaning me those 2 k, saving me a tremendous amount of time while buying that tower. I only wish geocities' servers would work with me a little bit more, it has been quite impossible to publish the pictures to my photo album so far... Now I'm really into the real estate business, I currently own

• A mage tower in Sora Bal
• A 2nd story building outside Vesper - my main office
• A small house and a vendor in Vesper (the original Lingerie and Curiosity Shoppe)
• An open forge and a vendor in Minoc
• A training center at Crossroads which is leased to and run by BlackTouch.

I'm also in possession of various other keys to houses which are not mine, but they might prove handy to have if need arises.

Today the connection was very bad to Ultima Online, I kept getting dropped over and over again. I didn't dare to go out to hunt when the lines are that bad, it's quite enough becoming harpy food once a week. And besides I had to tailor a bit to whip up some cash to be able to pay Barak back with some interest. Even though I don't like loaning money to other people, I hate it even more being in monetary debt to someone. Luckily I haven't forgotten how to tailor. My talents as a seamstress is very profitable, and I need to practice some down-to-earth working form time to time unless I want that skill to athrophy on me. I also replenished some scrolls, ah well, I *always* do that, nothing new with that admittedly...

980222 - Getting killed means that I loose time. It's very inconvenient indeed. I've had a serious scroll deficiency with my vendors ever since that harpy managed to get me. I managed to mark some runes today so I at least had some to sell. All my kits have been sold out too, I have some serious catching up to do. It seems like Zeus has gone into the real estate market; I was wondering whose 2nd story it was standing next to my Main Office - now I know. Tinkerbell's house in town (which was originally built by Zeus as you might remember) came down today due to lack of maintenance, now *that* is a good spot to build on, wonder how long that spot will stay free from a house? I have Leafbeach's cat Pyret residing in a room in my Main Office, I hope the feline creature doesn't try to open any boxes, if it does I'll have to give him back to Leafbeach in small pieces. Due to the unfortunate loss of one of his house keys and even more unfortunate event that it was found by someone else, Leafbeach keeps his entire belongings on a small ship parked just outside my Office (in *my* ship docking space I might add). At least the fact that I converted all his hides into more profitable and easily handled armor will make things a little easier for him - I hope...

Despite that I really should have stayed in town working, I went out on a long hunting trip today. The terrain was not overflowing with creatures, but as I searched I found some things to shoot my arrows at, from rabbits to timber wolves. A gazer attacked me to the far northeast, but I know how to handle gazers nowadays, and it went down fairly easy. It was actually carrying around a good deal of cash, but little else. In my wanderings I came as far as the spawning ground outside Minoc where an ogre tried to eat me. It didn't, I electrocuted it fairly quickly and stole what little it carried. Then I saw something peculiar, a lot of items were laid out on the ground, and I approached cautiously. It was a smart move being careful, a certain Dread Lord X, readied his bow and attacked me. Now being very short of mana after my battles with the gazer and ogre, I can still outrun any Dread Lord in armor, and so I did. When he finally managed to get back into my screen again, I was already recalling home. I thumbed my nose at him before disappearing. He didn't look so ferocious though. Maybe if I meet him with full mana the outcome will be different, but then again, I know there are several of them Dreads residing there. Taking on multiple Dread Lords alone is quite suicidal, and I have my share of dying for this week - thank you very much. As besides, getting your hard-earned monster loot into your bank vault has priority over PvP-ing...

In Vesper, I saw a Chaos Virtue Guard attacking an Order Virtue Guard at the northern bridge. It didn't seem like the Order Guard was interested in fighting at all. I healed them both (to the Chaos Guards great annoyance) before the Order Guard managed to recall away. There was a *lot* of stupid lamers running around trying to hinder everybody and colliding with each other, and the language of the so called Chaos Virtue Guard was certainly not becoming a Great Lady. Why are all Virtue Guards idiots? If there should happen to be a Virtue Guard out there who consider himself or herself not, then I'm sorry, but it's still "Guilt by association". I can't understand that anyone, except a *very* stupid person, want to carry around those shields and associating themselves with the lamest bunch of stupid bug exploiting cheaters that ever roamed Sosaria. Great Lords/Ladies my *ss... (Oops - pardon my French). I have more respect for the Dreads, at least they have the guts of showing their true colors, instead of hiding behind some lame shield...

980221 - Though I really didn't loose anything important in my untimely demise yesterday, it still took me well over an hour to get together a new bag of reagents, recalling around searching for what I needed, and even shopping at Thrax 7-11 reagent shop - it's expensive but convenient. All this time saying nasty things about the speed bumps on the electronic superhighways, though I will not reprint these here, it would not be a fashion-statement at all. Besides, I can afford to loose 2 k when I die, but it is so darned annoying doing it because of an out-of-game occurrence, I would have taken it better if I had become PK:ed, at least that would have been from something that exists within the frames of the game itself. But as I said, it could have been worse. My friend Leafbeach had it worse, not only did he got lag killed a couple of days ago by an orc mage - now a looter had found the key he was carrying at the moment of his death. It is certainly not fun at all having other players getting unauthorized access to your property. I hope the situation takes care of itself as time goes by. I would also like to say "Hello" to sucraM from the Brotherhood of Light, as you see I can help out if asked. I'm sorry I had to leave so quickly, but sometimes Real LifeÔ calls, and very hastily so... As you might understand, I didn't do very much else today but restore everything to it's previous state so to speak, besides writing 3 dozens of scrolls of course, but that I do under any circumstances, even newly resurrected....

My hunting today was also rewarding. Even though llamas do not generate hides, mountain goats do. I manufactured a few items for my shops from their remains. Then a mongbat flew a cross my screen, stopping in front of me and just stood there looking. I looked back for a while, until I put the question "Vas Flam?" to it. Dead mongbats don't answer of course. Then I found a human head in the wilderness. Human heads are usually the sign of a Dread Lord nearby, and I started tracking for any sign of humans. It wasn't a human at all, but a big fat ettin standing around looking very pleased with itself. I probed it with a Lightning (fearing a polymorph), and I didn't harm it significantly at all. Then I switched to Corp Por (Energy Bolts), I was very surprised, my second bolt wiped the ettin straight from the face of Sosaria - now *that* was fast. Unfortunately, this ettin, like the one I killed with Balata yesterday, was a poor one, the best thing it carried was a gnarled staff of clumsiness - bah. The most dangerous thing I encountered today was actually a bull, I ran out of arrows when hunting it (O.K. - I admit - most of the time *it* hunts *me* while I run around and shoot at it), and I had to resort to magic to kill it. It's kind of strange that an ettin is weaker than bull, don't you think? But bulls produce a large quantity of hides - I cannot carry them all most of the time - I'm not a strong woman at all, especially now, since my strength just dropped as my intelligence increased.

But then the ever so mysterious Internet struck me in full force. I got disconnected for more than 15 minutes leaving me standing unarmed and unarmored in the wilderness, and when I finally managed to log back on I was greeted by the merry message "You are Dead", and a black screen. From my ghostly point of view I seemed to had been killed by a harpy. Needless to say I ran back to Vesper to resurrect and ran out again, but, alas, my bag of reagents was gone (the only thing of value I carried). Oh well. Certyl reported having the same thing happening to him at approximately the same time, making it probable that it was connection from Sweden, and not OSI, that was the culprit this time. At least he got killed by a gargoyle so his death must have come swiftly, I later examined my skills and found my wrestling had gained 4 (!) points. I'm glad I didn't have to watch that protracted death struggle - it must have been quite grizzly. Those death robes look a bit like my morning gown, why don't they come in red? Red would look so much nicer and be more of a fashion-statement, and besides it would hide the bloodstains better.

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