One for the Baron

My last post from months ago was about how combat systems have changed. I have given up, for now anyway, the idea that I will ever be good at that again. I do want to find, meet, and rp with my sl "dad," and that may involve a raid or two, but I'll keep my blade out and  hope for lag like the old days if that happens.

I have been trying to go back in world time to time to visit. I have not been rezzing. And if the combat systems have developed, that is nothing compared to what has happened to the client. My god. It was worse than my first noob day. I am using Phoenix Firestorm which is at least something like the original client, but much is different.

Luckily, one of the times I was looking at myself as a puff of smoke and wondering what to do, my dear sl sister Kalia logged. She is a treasure. It turned out my hair (or something) was not rezzing....maybe it was outdated, and she gave me and entirely new "folder" whatever those are. Now, I am the current edition of noob, I think called Craig, something out of Snowcrash, but I can see myself. And she has agreed to fix me back into more of what I used to look like after another friend gave me an extreme makeover. The results were impressive, but it was not Tele.

And so, now that I have a corporis again, I went into world last night when I had a bit of free time (rare these days that I do). And I did not know anyone online, or the few I knew online were people I did not really know, in Gor or Caledon, save the Baron. Those from the Steamlands all know the Baron W.

And now a moment of history: when I first landed in SL more than five years ago, I was pointing and clicking on the open map at whim. That is how I found Torvaldsland. That is how I found Caledon. And when I first came to Victoria City, just a few days old, when Caledon was only 4 sims though already gorgeous, I met a girl there who was having her house built by a seven foot lizard; I think in the Moors but I am not sure. At least this is how I remember it. She had sparkles on her shoes which was quite innovative for the time (I apologize if I have told this story before; I cannot recall). I was entranced with the Moors immediately, with Vic City, and made a friend request which she rejected. I did not understand the friend thing yet; my first friend was, and remains, a woman I met on Orientation Island, someone who accepted my request right away. She was probably the only person I had tried to friend when the young Caledonian denied me. I did not understand her caution at the time. My intentions were certainly good.

It was an awkward start for me in the Realm of Roses. Later, when I was role playing in Caledon, living there, I asked about who she might have been and no one knew. I never saw her again. But even after her rejection, I kept landing in Vic City and flying around over houses, watching the sims develop. It was there that, flying over one particular house, I heard the words of a Scottish toast. I responded, and was invited in by a very friendly group: Hotspur, Lady Kate, someone else I forget, and Lady Eva before she had assumed her peerage. That group was so welcoming to me, so warm, that I never forgot it. The grid can be cold as hell when you know no one.

The rest is a story everyone who knows me knows: I lived in Gor, but kept visiting Caledon, and eventually a joint Caledon/Torvaldsland event led to me living in the Cay, serving the Duchess Loch Avie, all remarkable times.

And now back to last night (that was more than a moment of history I confess....Tele is five, very old for an av, and he wanders). The only name I knew on my fl who was online was the Baron W. He was at a poetry reading in Winterfell, and I asked if I could come. Of course, he said yes.

What a delightful group that was. I could not remember how to sit on a stool, how to move in and out of camera view...for a while I was actually trapped between the bar and a bar stool (not the first time....grins) and yet everyone was so very kind. I met, and saw, my first fae, or Petite. How superb her design! Even her supersized Tinkerbell AO...not remotely possible in the old days. The Baron and a member of his family demonstrated the new dance anims. He very kindly gave me landmarks for clothes (which I badly need once Kalia helps fix my face and shape) and landmarks to the many new sims which have sprung up since the old days. It was purely lovely. Oh, a cask of Skye whisky on the bar! Hah! I was home.

My sincere thanks to all who were at the poetry event last night and who let me, noobed out but still heavily armed and wearing a meter (which I was afraid to try and detach), attend; no one blinked an eye. Well, except for a very sweet mechanical girl, I believe the Baron called her a clockwork, who was not feeling well though I think it was not my presence that disturbed her. She said something very poetic about the wind injuring her.

I have taken hundreds of words to say what can be said with few: it is something indeed to come out of the cold night into a warm circle of persons, even avatarial persons.

I hope to be around a LITTLE bit. My RL is so consuming...I need a break time to time. And SL has less calories than single malt.

My love to all. Oh, I found the Duchess' new home with the Baron's help and am camped on the edge of her lawn. I left a note. I hope this is acceptable. I went to Cymru looking for Lord Vid; I miss him, and what a grand castle still, but all was empty.

Love to all. I hope to see my old friends in world time to time.