17 Apr 2024 - Rule 3 has been updated with a new entry: "Players who are complicit in cheating by aiding, abetting and/or consciously profiting from illegal actions of other players, may also be punished with 7-day banishment, 14-day banishment, 30-day banishment with or without a final warning, or permanent banishment, depending on the seriousness of the violation and the Player's criminal record." - This doesn't really change the way we enforce the rules, because such cases used to be punished as "destructive behavior". We decided, however, that it deserves to be stated explicitly in the Rules.
We also updated Rule 6.: starting from Apr 25, the automatic auction bans will be twice as long.
Check full changelog...
God Level: 25 Profession: Elder Druid Residence: Ab'Dendriel
Posts: 212
Re: Update Teaser I
“Three more pints!” a man, already half seas over, bellowed in a voice so deep and loud as if he wanted the whole island to hear him.
There was no need to shout though, for this early in the morning the tavern was still—or already—almost completely empty. Dwarves, who devoted most of their spare time to lingering here, were busy mining at this time of the day. Therefore, except for the three sturdy men in their prime drinking together at one of the tables, there was only an elderly man, slipping in and out of sleep in the corner of the room, his wrinkled face hidden behind a curtain of ragged gray hair and beard. If not for the rich stone ornaments that adorned the walls and the short dwarf with a thick beard who was opening a keg behind the counter, one could easily mistake this tavern for a human, not dwarven, establishment.
“They only want dwarves in the mines. And the money in pearling…,” hissed the man and finished his beer with a gulp that must have been as bitter as his current situation.
“Yeah, we're not gonna get much from that,” his comrade took over. “All the good spots in this area have been completely exploited.”
“Oy, if I could only get my hands on that bastard who told us all those beautiful stories about this place,” the third man grumbled as he reached for another pint that has just arrived.
“You're not the first, nor the last, who have fallen for the wondrous stories of Aruthang and its potential to make people rich,” the elderly man threw in. His head, resting with his chin against the chest, didn't move an inch.
“I arrived here on one of the first ships,” he continued, sitting still as a statue. “The land of new opportunities… Only when the dwarves showed up, they quickly got their greedy hands on anything that was valuable. But there are places. Places even they know nothing about. Ahem, my throat went dry…”
The three men exchanged dispassionate glances. A barely noticeable spark of curiosity must have begun to flicker, because the first man addressed the bearded barkeep, “One more beer!”
“Ah… Did you hear that? It's my stomach growling,” the graybearzd added, this time with some excitement. Then, with noticeable difficulty, he managed to lift himself up from his chair allowing the others to finally see his rugged face. Slowly, with a heavy limp, he walked up to the three men and took a seat between them. Still silent, he regarded them with a penetrating stare trying to determine whether his new companions picked up on the allusion. When the order for a bowl of warm stew has been placed, the graybeard leaned forward and glanced around theatrically, as if suggesting that whatever he was about to say should not be overheard. There was, of course, no one to overhear it, because the bartender had already disappeared in the back to prepare the meal.
“One day, just as incospicuous as this one, I set out to cast the nets. The sun was scorching hot, and my pocket was heavy with a flask of hooch freshly distilled by my dear friend Morris. I don't even know when I dozed off. What I do know is that I was awaken by the rumbling sound of thunders and the splashes of seawater on my face as the rising waves of the approaching storm were throwing my boat around like a pebble. I quickly realized that the nets broke and I was far from the coast. The currents here are very strong. I knew that I would not get back in time. Then, my eyes fell on a rocky islet—the Fang, as the locals call it due to its shape. The Fang does not have a shore where you can safely moor the boat. At that moment though, the Fang seemed to be my only shot at surviving that storm. When I approached the stack, I noticed this sort of a fissure that turned out to be a small cavern, and I decided to wait out the storm there. The opening was so small and narrow that I had to lie down and put the oars in the boat to squeeze in. As I entered, however, I saw a cavern much bigger than one might have expected. There was also some dry land. I was truly relieved. Expecting a long wait and having nothing else to do, I went to look deeper into the cave only to find out that it's branching off. My boat's dimming lantern did not provide enough light to see anything more. I made myself a promise that if I survive, I will come back to explore this place. As soon as the storm had passed, I set off to return to Aruthang. And once I was back, I rushed to tell Morris about my discovery. For some reason, having heard my story, he began inspecting all the bottles from his last batch of hooch—one of which he had gifted me. Finally, he sat down and said only one word—‘interesting’. Morris, just like myself, came to Aruthang driven by ambition and desire to get rich, and the only thing he ever got was scurvy. But at that moment I could see his eyes glowing, and I could almost hear the thought in his head—that the Fang might be hiding unclaimed deposits of precious metals and gems. All the local deposits were already controlled by the island administration and the still growing dwarven colony. For the next few days, we kept on returning to the cavern day after day trying to complete a map of all the long winding tunnels and underground hollows, which turned out to be a real maze. The walls bore traces of having been flooded periodically. But we kept going, venturing deeper and deeper, driven by the same ambition and desire for profit that had brought us to Aruthang. And yet, what we found in one of the caverns… Why, it was beoynd anything we might have ever expected.”
The old man stopped abruptly, allowing the barkeep to put the bowl before him in silence and, thus, making sure that he cannot hear a word of his secret.
“Deep underground, or maybe even under the seafloor, we discovered a cavern full of shipwrecks! We had no idea how they might have gotten there, though we did not dwell on that, because we quickly rappelled down on one of the wrecks and then below the deck. The cargo hold was still full of crates, but before I could even peak into one of them, I heard Morris's whoop. The rotten planks were barely holding under his joyous jumps. In the captain's quarters, or something that used to be captain's quarters long ago, Morris found a casket full of valuables. Finally, fortune smiled on us. Having forgotten for a moment about the crates in the cargo hold and about all the other shipwrecks, I reached into the casket and dipped my hand in the jewels to satisfy my senses. Then, Morris blurted out, ‘And you? What did you find?’ in a voice that strongly suggested the casket belonged only to him. I picked up on that, and to get ahead of him, I snapped: ‘I found this cavern’. And just to make sure he gets the message, I added that I did not have to share my discovery with him. Morris snatched the casket from my hands and began to rave, ‘Right, and who would have helped you then, ey? If it hadn't been for me, you'd have been scraping clams off the walls! Besides, I'm the one who has all the maps!’. And then, without a slightest sound, from the shadows behind him emerged hideous long tentacles! I was paralyzed with fear. Before I could utter a sound of warning, I heard Morris's cry, and the sound of his bones breaking pierced my ears. In the blink of an eye Morris's body disappeared in the same shadow from which that thing had emerged. And with him—his casket and all our maps.
“I dropped the torch and ran blindly in the direction we had come from. I did not know what was happening. I didn't even know if I was being chased, I just ran. I ran as fast as I could until I hit my head on a stalactite. When I finally came around, I wasn't even sure if it all had just been a bad dream or whether it had happened for real. I was surrounded by complete darkness and accompanied only by musty cave air and a bad headache. I can't tell how many days I spent wandering the tunnels trying to find a way out. To spare myself the death from dehydration, I had to lick the moist off the walls. The ground inclination was my only guide - I was trying to go upwards. Whenever a tunnel descended, I would turn around. The darkness, the isolation, and the fear almost drove me to insanity. I was already considering a theory that I had died, and that maybe I was in hell. But then again, I could not see Morris anywhere, so it couldn't have been hell. When I was on the verge of exhaustion, I spotted a faint gleam of light in the distance in one of the corridors. My eyes were already so used to the darkness that even this tiny gleam of light seemed brighter than the midday suns over Ankrahmun. There it was—I found the entrance or, rather, the exit from that nightmare. Our boat and the rest of our equipment were still lying there…”
The graybeard paused to take a slurp of beer and a piece of bread. The three comrades exchanged looks again, with a shade of embarassment for being such gullible listeners to an old storyteller, but at the same time with that hidden spark of curiosity which was almost ready to burst into a blaze.
