November 23rd, 2005
Vicinity of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
21:37 local time
Rain. All I saw that day was rain. And not just normal rain, no, very, very wet rain. That's what you get with water: it's wet. And water coming out of the air is not only wet, it's annoying, noisy and grey, and it messes up ones mood. What do you do when you can't go out, as the second you step outside you're wet to the bone?
One goes about the house, crouches in a corner, contemplating about the meaning of life. Having finished this, one takes a sandwich and looks around for better things to do. That's what I did that day. Better things to do usually didn't mean using my PC. But this day it did.
The computer, that wondrous, mechanical device we humans can't live without anymore, was dark. The electricity was being kept from it, as to spare me a high bill. I decided to allow the electricity entry; greedy did it find its way into the machine.
I was looking for a distraction of the mind; I read a computer magazine, PC Gameplay, that mentioned a computergame, being played over the internet - another of those peculiar inventions - and decided to check it out; it was free. We Dutch people like things that are for free.
The installation was a mental preparation for what was about to come.
Eternal Lands.
Eternal Lands?
And suddenly I found myself in a new magical world - a world without borders, in time as well as in space. A world full of possibilities, possibilities that seemed endless and always expanding.
I was no longer myself. I was Elminster of Shadowdale, the mighty Mage!
Wrong name. Elminster already exists. Damn it.
Elminsterr.
That's me.
And I was no mighty mage. I was new, I was young, I was unexperienced and I was small. Isla Prima seemed a large place, I was even scared to look beyond its borders. Bit by bit, I learned - I went on adventures, such as the well-known and vast Valley of the Dwarves Lilac Harvest Adventure, told in numerous songs and stories. I couldn't cast as much as a simple healing spell - but all that changed. I delved into libraries, read books, developed my knowledge and skills.
I went hunting - the powerful Elminsterr, hunting rabbits! Besides humiliating, it was painful, to hurt those cuddly little animals - but the warm hands I got from using their skins as gloves soon made me feel better. I did no longer have to worry about the rain. Then I remembered the rain was somewhere else, in a place where these fur gloves wouldn't help me.
Another day. The sun was shining, the weather was brilliant, the garden was screaming for the attention of me being present. But I declined.
Once more I was Elminsterr. And I would be Elminsterr very often - sometimes for hours and hours a day. I would dive into the mysteries and secrets of the game, I would develop my powers and skills to levels I didn't even dream of at my first arrival on Isla Prima.
I would walk around, to see that it was good - and that it would stay that way or get even better, as long as there would be knowledgeable, kind people helping those that arrived just as I did, that day.
It's raining again.
And I'm Elminsterr.
Elminsterr of Shadowdale
