Gvzk's Story

Introduction: The Tale of the Ten Thousands

August 30th, 2003

Hi.

I'm Gvzk.

Once, I was one of the players of a popular online game, until I "died" while serving by the Hand of Sarus. That's not important, though, because I know that you will be starting soon, and whomever you are acting for, they will be glad that you listened to me first.

Lesson One

Once you become a player, you will start getting Orders and Requests for Assistance. It is important to AVOID answering any of these at first, because there are some groups of people out there who will take advantage of certain properties that new players are given in an unlawful way.

I was never the sort of person who learns well from a Lesson, though, so I'll go on and tell you a little of my story, so you will understand why this lesson is important to remember.

Back when I was new to the game, there were a lot fewer people online. It was still very easy to get into trouble by following errant Orders, though.

Before I start talking about how the orders got me in trouble, I have to give you a little background about my standing and place in the game. My first week, I was recruited by one of Sarus's representatives, a seedy fellow by the name of Lake. He promised everyone who followed him a challenging and difficult journey, filled with hardships, but ending in glory. As the fool I was at the time, this sounded reasonable. Everyone had heard the legends of Aiuto, and her exploits still scarred the skies with light. I signed up in a heartbeat.

Sarus

Sarus was one of the early players, who was first in reaching a state of Glory transcending that of the main tester's character, AVR_5. Sarus was integral in organizing us into the HAND, whose fingers stand together strong, rather than being bent one by one. I met Sarus once, but may not speak of it.

The Hand

The HAND of Sarus is his force in the part of the game that will be most important to you new players, AVRIKA. The HAND is composed of a surprisingly small number of players, but of that "active"s are surprisingly frequent--one in three today, I think.

Lake

Lake was one of Sarus's friends from the beginning. It is whispered that he has been playing longer in our time than Sarus, but in the game he is pretty young for his dates. I don't think that he has done much travel or adventure himself, but he is friendly enough, once you get past the initial shock of meeting his unconventional icon. (Of course, today there are much nicer, 3-d representations of everything except on the thinnest of platforms. But I digress.)

So, my first assignment in the Hand was to be an orderly member of a unit mostly composed of the ALAS members, who weren't sure what to do and would look to me as an example. I'm sad to say that I don't think that I was the best choice in trainers, but times were short then, and there wasn't much choice among people.

We were sent to hold siege to a fort held by some heroes following AVR_5. They had apparently come into posession of one of the few artifacts left over from the Formative Times, and were in danger of using it to our great loss. Our job was to retrieve the artifact intact and unactivated, and bring it to the Tower, where Sarus could store and examine it at leisure.

But while we were enroute, some arguments started as to what we were exactly supposed to do upon arriving at the fort. Were we to ambush the enemy at night? Assault through minecraft? Rely purely on Archery? No one was sure, and everyone had its own theory.

Once we arrived at the staging area, we were told via Direct Message that we were supposed to wait until some of Sarus' elite warriors arrived. (It has been said that, upon rising, Sarus turned his attention to a few new players, and personally advised them as they increased themselves in rank (but not in file). These nine were more powerful than a thousand, but appeared ordinary at first glance. It was actually theorized by some that the presence of these nine supercharacters was the direct cause of the casual cease-fire that was observed in the load zones, but no one can say for sure if the reason is right or wrong.) So we sat. And waited.

It was at sunrise of the third day that our discipline disappeared, and, enwafted in chaos, we swarmed at the fort like 'mazed maniacs. Our casualties were well-nigh innumerable, and it was not until our numbers had been decimated that the survivors realized that something was seriously wrong. But with this realization came fear, and with that, panic. The former formation lost any semblance of order, and we fled in terror in all directions.

Our number was of Ten Thousand, and we though ourselves strong until that day.

With what I know now, I believe that the cause of the problem was as follows:

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