**Feels figgity and nervous, hands begin to sweat and head is already wet in sweat**
**Tries to find an exit out of this but realises there's no exit, so he cant escape**
**Gathers some air and begins to introduce himself, trying to hold his speech steadily
**
This story takes place in the Southern lands of Europe back in 2000-2001, where the great Atlantic and the Mediterranean sea meet, where a young 12 year old boy called Alex and his friend Javier decided to enter a cybercafe in the hometown of Javier, where he and his friends use to hang out and in this place was a group of individuals played a game called Ultima Online. Alex and his friends were curious and decided to ask this older group of individuals if it was cool for them to learn and join them in this new found game....
The owner of the cybercafe was owner of one of the pieces of the broken gem of immortality (Pirate Server) and had a land of his own were he was the God and he could make all this magical things appear and spawn instantly.
This new found GOD, instantly set Alex and his friends up with accounts and living beings in this new world. Alex took up a barbarian style warrior called GROO, strong and fast and deadly as well, the others took a mixture of mages and warriors. They were all suited up and armed up to the teeth, they ran all throughout the lands killing unmercifully, while laughing and screaming in happiness and joy without a worry in the world.....
The group keep running around lands killing and having fun and finally arrived at Brit bank, where they were all going to drop that well earn cash they had made for slaying the all foes and enemies. Alex and the group was chatting away, when the group of older boys that normally played came by them, invited Alex and the group for a hunt and with the promise to going to kill something....
This new found friends opened a mystical red gate to a new land full of new creatures to slay and new dangerous enemies..... Alex and the group had never ventured there or heard of its existence....
Alex and the group hungry for enemy blood and greedy for money from these fallen creatures, ventured and ran straight into the mystical red gate not knowing what to expect....
The group rapidly exited the red gate and grouped up, the older boys group also came through and everything seemed calmed and relaxed, not a enemy on sight....
The group quickly wondered why they were there and asked frenziedly why they had been brough here by the older guys, while they all just just sat silenced and suddenly burst to laugh out loud in all of the cybercafe, and instantly and without any prior warning, all the older boys char began to throw down magical spells while the warriors hacked our limbs and the fire burned our bodies up.....
In a blink of an eye, the entire group was wipped out and killed, leaving all our dead bodies all spread throughout the floor..... These one powerful group didnt even stand a chance at what came their way, the whole group just sat looking at the black and white screen in disbelief.
**OOC: Us, a group that we all played videogames at that age, losing in a game didn't seem to happen too often to us, so was a bit of a shock**
The Owner of the Cybercafe had seen all of this happen as we would later find out that he was one of the characters in the group that had slain us....
We all got ressed and sent back to what we would learn to call the facet land of Trammel and we also learnt that day about the facet land of Felucca.
For many days during the summer the group met up at the cybercafe and played together countless hours of adventures and killed many creatures.
As autumn/fall came and the group returned to school and couldn't hang out everyday any more and play together, Alex had to find an alternative to play this game without needing to go to Javiers hometown and meet up with all group, as sometimes they would fail to turn up because they were studying.....
Alex asked the owner of the cybercafe if it would be possible to play from home, the cybercafes land, but the system couldn't be operated from Alex's home, but that there was a way for Alex to keep on playing Ultima Online without having to quit entirely. The owner proposed that Alex buy the original game and play online on the OSI shards.
Alex for a couple of weeks saved his pocket money so that he could buy the game, One day he asked his mother to drive him to the local game store in the small town he lived, but the game wasnt there!! Alex couldn't find this game in none of his local game shops, so he resorted to looking on the internet and located a game store about 50km away from where he lived. He rang up in numerous times to confirm that the game was in store but the game was sold out, but he managed to get himself written into the priority list for when the game arrived. Finally one day the magic phone call came in and the gameshop worker, explained the game was in store and that was ready to be collected. Alex inmediatly rang his mother on the phone and persuaded her to drive him all the way down to the gameshop to pick the game, in exchange for making dinner and cleaning the dishes for a week!!
As Alex approached the counter in the game store, he overheard the store manager explaining to a customer infront that the game was fast selling and all units had been sold out that same afternoon... Alex waited for his turn and asked for the latest Ultima Online: Third Dawn game, the store manager (OOC: I believe was gonna say the same thing to me than the customer infront), but the store worker beside overheard the conversation and came over with a copy of the game and explained that a copy had been reserved for weeks and that he had previously spoken to him on the phone. Alex smiled very happily paid for the game and saluted goodbyes to the store manager and worker and hurried back running to the car where his mother was waiting for him and they both quickly hurried home.
Once at home, He ran to his room and started to download the game, He couldnt wait to play.,,, The game downloaded but started to patch...... He knew this meant he wouldn't be able to play that very same night if the patcher took to long to update as his bedtime was coming close, and his internet connection was an ISDN by then at home, so he couldn't have it hours on at a time as it was expensive... The patcher took hours till he finally gave up patching and went to bed. It would have be one more night till he could play.....
Next day, School day, He went and did his usual school stuff and returned home, quickly finished all his homework, so that he could have more time on UO. Finished patching and entered the game without knowing what to expect, Another warrior was made in Europa as it had the best connection speed, and quickly entered the game......
He was astonished at the number of people, he was used to seeing maybe groups of 10-15, but in this world, there was 1000s of people everywhere, with all different armours, names and pets.
For various months he trained his warrior, in cemeteries killing skeletons, and training lumber jacking, hacking away at trees, each day becoming stronger and stronger.
He would take the occasional stroll about in Felucca but them lands where riddled with red PKs, killing and attacking the innocent and creating chaos. He joined a Guild and hunted with them some champs in the Lost lands in Felucca, especially in the City of the Dead, where he had numerous encounters with reds and other strong creatures, as also making lots of new friends and allies.
One particular female guild member was keen on Alex's warrior and they organised a wedding that was held at the Guild House and honored by the Guild member, it was marvellous and glorious marriage and everyone envied the couple while it lasted, as a few months later, it was found she was having an affair with the guild vice-leader!!!
By this time, summer had come again and Javier and some of the group had bought their own copies of UO and where also playing from home.
They all logged in and played together when they were all at their own houses or when visiting they would played 24 hrs non stop, each taking sleeping breaks, always being alert for the magical POWER HOUR!! Where we knew we had to train at 200%!!
Months passed, hours spent playing in UO and the ISDN line constantly running......
The phone/Internet bills each time kept going up and up at Alex's home and also as we was a minor, he didn't have a credit card so was using his mothers card too and the fees each month kept coming....
The situation got to a point of out of control in the sense that the bills were enormous now and that was starting to cause unease with Alex's parents......
A new discipline was learnt, to economise the time of play or to stop playing completely as claims that the internet wouldn't be paid.......
So he undertook his new regime and economised his time playing for various months and concentrated in his studies a bit more as some heavy studying years were heading his way but he didn't even know it.....
Years went by, Alex would log in and out intermediately playing for months and reactivating/deactivating his account when needed or concentrating on his studies......
He would catch up with old friends and make new ones and felt the sorrow for the loss of others.....
Secondary school, College, University and post-graduate, all them stages of his life that he had gone through, a bit of it was spent in UO, sometimes bringing some of his friends and acquaintances to play the game. Alex had grown but UO had also grown beside him and sort of walked all the way with him.
The story seems to unfold that he returned with full strength and force about 2 years ago, he was magically directed and had the felt the urge to return to the mystical lands of Britannia. He seems to currently reside in OSI shards, playing mainly in Europa, where he calls home and has set to live, although he has many house members in Atlantic and other shards. He likes his EM Rares and is plaining someday to make a small museum if he can and his gold, has his touches of roleplaying and loves to play warrior chars.
****I hope you all enjoy my experiences and my story of how I came to know about UO, even if my first encounter in this game I was PKed in the 1st day!!!! I am sure that will make a few of you laugh. I really love the game and I am great fan of it. Probably my kids when they grow, if the game is still about they will play it!! ***
