Nova

Part Deux Moonlight crept through window and slid over Brie's face, illuminating it as she tossed in her sleep, lost in her dreams. It was the same dream she had been having almost nightly since Dumbledore had shown up at her home after so many years. She was 10 and perched on a branch halfway up a large oak tree. At 10 she had, most often been halfway up some tree or rocky surface, always looking at a birds nest or squirrel den, or a snake, or lizard, mouse, bug, or so on. Often her mother had exclaimed that she was going to fall and break her neck someday. On this day she should have been right. --------------------- --------------------- ----------------------- The sound of a branch snapping echoed through her dreams and she felt herself falling, falling, spinning in the air, twigs and leaves getting tangled in her hair, hitting small branches on the way down. She didn't even have time to scream as the ground rushed up at her. She squeezed her eyes shut knowing, even at 10, that this could not end well. But a cry rang out among the bird song and rustling of the wind through the trees. “Wingardium Leviosa!”, and suddenly her fall was broken instantaneously as she hit what felt like a wall of air. It didn't hurt, but it was shocking nonetheless. Her hands raked the air as she slowly opened her eyes and tried to figure out why she wasn't simply a stain on the rocky forest floor. As her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, her brain tried to comprehend what her eyes were telling it they were seeing. She was hovering a foot and a half off the ground, completely horizontal, arms and legs still splayed in fear. A few feet away stood a man holding a stick in one hand, which he had pointed at her, and a tin can in the other. As he lowered the stick she slowly floated toward the ground. “You, young lady, are very fortunate,” he said, “that my portkey sent me to this precise spot at this precise time.” He waved the stick at the tin can and it vanished into thin air as she watched. She blinked in surprise while he put the stick into some hidden inner pocket of his strange attire. As he helped her up off the ground he gave her a brief inspection and brushing off, all the while lecturing that large oak trees are no place for young Muggle girls. “What is your name?” he asked “Gabrielle.” she answered. Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of what had happened and take in the mans strange clothes and words. “Portkey?....muggle...?” she said vaugly as she examined the flowing robes he was dressed in. “How....?” she pointed up at the tree. He ignored her questioning tone as he picked sticks and leaves from her hair. “Are you alright?” he asked. She nodded and continued to stare at Dumbledore, who sighed and asked her, “Do you believe in magic Gabrielle?” She nodded slowly, her 10 year old brain putting together what no adults could. “You are magic?” she asked Dumbledore right away. “Yes” he replied, looking pleased that she had caught on so quickly. He pulled his wand out of his pocket. “What do you think...” He never got to finish his sentence. “Then thats a wand!” she exclaimed as soon as she saw it, her near death experience already pushed to the back of her mind by this exciting new idea. “A magic wand! And you made that can disappear! Can you do that with my little brother?” --------------- ----------------------------- -------------------------- The dream faded out there as it always did and Brie slowly woke with a groan as she always did. She looked at the bedside clock. 3am. It never failed, always up at 3am these days. 'God, I hate you Dumbledore', she thought to herself as she rolled over and tried to burrow her way back into sleep, knowing that it wasn't going to work but trying anyway. Dumbledore had never really offered her a full explanation about magic. Being 10 at the time, she hadn't needed it. She had simply believed him without question that day, and had made a solemn promise never to tell anyone what had happened and to be more careful in trees in the future. In exchange for that promise, a promise she had never broken, Dumbledore had answered any questions about magic that Brie had come up with. And she had come up with many. At the age of 10 she had been exposed to the bare basics of real sorcery and from that day on she never doubted that the entire world held magic, though she never again saw any proof. Not until the day Dumbledore had disappeared into thin air right in her living room and Severus had been thrown from her front door by some unseen force. Now that would cause anyone to lose sleep. Any Muggle anyway. She gave into the wakefulness with a sigh as she threw off the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. For a few minutes she simply sat and stared into the darkness watching the shadows on the wall change as clouds slid over the fat full moon. She wondered when she had started to think of herself as a Muggle. Well Severus said it about 23 times a day, that must be it. As thoughts of Severus Snape surfaced in her mind she sighed, pushed herself off the bed and started to shuffle down the hallway to the office. Since Severus had started to play her online game it had been very difficult to get near her own computer. She hadn't checked her e-mail all week so she might as well go do that since she was awake already anyway. When she reached the office door she found it was closed. The tell tale soft blueish light was shining beneath. With a half sigh half chuckle she turned the knob and entered the dimly lit room to find Severus sitting in front of the computer screen with his head laid on his folded arms, softly snoring and very slightly drooling. She leaned over his shoulder to study the screen. Hocus was harvesting toadstools. Well yes, that would put anyone to sleep. Smiling, she studied his inventory window, impressed when she noticed that he was wearing a medallion of life already. Severus had been very busy this week if Hocus could already harvest toadstools and had earned enough gold for a medallion of life. And a harvester cape, she noticed with a smile. She glanced down the skills list to the potions level and snickered. It was his lowest level out of all the ones he had started to work on. 'Not so easy is it professor?' she thought with an outright laugh. Severus woke with a start at the sound of her laugh, sat up and quickly wiped the wetness from his cheek. She stifled another laugh and pointed to the small puddle on the desk. “You might want to get that too.” she commented Blushing, he pulled out his wand, muttered “Evanesco”, and vanished it right before her eyes. This was the first bit of magic he had performed in front of her since he had arrived, other than the spell she had interrupted on the night he had started playing. She was thrilled, but tried to play it cool as she tugged his chair away from the desk, which had become the custom over the past week whenever she wanted the computer. “Oy!” he exclaimed as he and the chair rolled across the room. “Oh I get to use my own computer at least 10 minutes a week.” she said as she bent over the keyboard and reached for the mouse. She clicked a few times. “There, you are fed and harvesting again. That buys me at least 8 minutes.” Severus darted out of the chair and across the room. He reached behind the computer and unplugged the mouse. Pulling out his wand, he cried “Accio”, and the mouse flew out of Brie's hand and into his. He mirrored her gesture and words of the week before and twirled the end of the mouse cord in the air. “Now I have the wand and the mouse. What are you going to do?” He asked with a smirk. She simply stared at him for a second, ignoring the fact that he had once again used a spell on her. With a smirk of her own she turned back to the screen and proceeded to hit various keys on the keyboard. Severus' smirk disappeared as he watched the windows open and close on the screen. Brie glanced back and laughed at the look on his face. “Keyboard shortcuts are a Muggle's best friend with a cocky wizard around.” She giggled as she reached over to snag the mouse from his hands and plug it back in. “Here you go Houdini.” she said as she turned and strode to the door. “I'm going to make coffee. Oh, you should work on that potions level by the way. Its your lowest one.” The last was said with a grin as she disappeared around the door frame and down the stairs. Severus turned to retort only to find she had already gone. That was for the best, he thought to himself as he turned toward the screen again, he hadn't thought of anything good to say anyway. Potions was proving harder to work on than he thought, and the wine to make the potions was expensive. He much preferred alchemy. And magic, of course. He could heal now, himself and others. He could also make both the essences needed for those spells himself. Much of Hocus' time was spent harvesting and mixing so he could run around and heal other players as they trained. Severus found this very satisfying for some reason. Just last night there had been an invasion and he had had Hocus dancing between the invasion monsters, healing fighters. He had died about 12 times and lost plenty of essences but had still had fun. After reading some of the potions section in the encyclopedia again, he checked on Hocus, who was still harvesting. Coffee actually sounded like a good idea, so he scrubbed his hands over his face, stretched his arms above his head, rose and made his way down to the kitchen to find Brie sitting at the table with her head resting on her folded arms. Glancing at the coffee maker, he noted that the little green light was lit and was glad she had gotten that far. Earlier in the week Brie had banned him from use of the coffee maker after a disastrous attempt at using that dreadful Muggle machine to make coffee for himself. After pulling 2 mugs from a cabinet and placing them near the coffee maker, Severus pulled his wand from his pocket and placed it on the table as he sat. The sound of the chair scraping back woke Brie, who sat upright quickly. “Sorry.” he said softly Brie shook her head to clear it and replied, “Don't worry about it. I wasn't asleep, that was more like.... drifting.” She rose and went to the cabinet for mugs, pulled out 2 and turned to the coffee maker, surprised to find 2 already there. “Oh,” she muttered and put the 2 in her hands away. “I don't remember taking those out.” Severus suppressed a laugh as he rose and led her back to her chair. “You didn't, I just did.” After pouring, he placed one of the mugs down in front of her. “I've noticed that you don't function well until you have had a few of those.” he said and gestured toward the mug which she had practically dunked her whole head into. “Keeps me going.” she muttered between sips. “Most mornings I can barely form a simply declarative sentence till I've had a hit of caffeine.” He sipped his coffee and replied, “Most mornings you can't keep me from voicing declarative sentences until I've had my caffeine.” Brie giggled at Severus' twist on her words as she felt the miracle of her chosen vice kick in. “That doesn't surprise me.” She said as she rose, went to the refrigerator and pulled out a grapefruit which she cut in half. She pushed one of the halves in front of Severus as she sat again. “Sugar?” He asked as he poked the grapefruit with his spoon. “In the canister on the counter.” She answered absently with a roll of the eyes. “The one that says SUGAR.” He glanced over at the counter, then down at his wand, then over at Brie, who saw right away what he was thinking. “Do it.” she said when he looked at her. “Please.” She added when he raised his eyebrows and frowned slightly. He tried to think quickly. His time here was the longest he could remember without doing serious magic. He wasn't sure why he had been refraining from using magic in front of Brie. She obviously knew he was a wizard and it seemed that Dumbledore had filled her in vaugly about the wizarding world at some point. He had slipped up this morning and used the vanishing spell in front of her while he had been half asleep and her reaction had been mild. She had acted like it was an everyday occurrence when he had used the summoning charm to take the mouse from her. “Accio sugar.” He said, and the sugar zoomed off the counter and into his hand. Without looking at Brie he scooped a ridiculous amount onto his grapefruit and used a Hover Charm to replace the canister. “Would you like a little grapefruit to go with your sugar?” When he made a face at her Brie grinned into her coffee and tried to resist asking magic questions but she just didn't have that much willpower this early in the morning on only one shot of caffeine. “So...” she began, trying to seem nonchalant, “that first spell... you used that earlier to steal the mouse. Is that some sort of... grabbing spell?” Severus choked on his bite of heavily sugared grapefruit at the term 'grabbing spell.' “You stole it first.” he replied after he stopped coughing. “It was a summoning charm. And the 2nd was a hover charm.” he said, anticipating her next question. “Charms.” she said to herself as she dug into her grapefruit. “I see. So there are charms and spells.” With a sigh Severus launched into a lecture on the differences between spells, charms, jinxes, hexes and curses and their basic usage and for the next half hour or so gave into her barrage of questions. He demonstrated a few basic spells, explaining about wand movement being important. While he was explaining Incendio, he accidentally used the proper wand movements without noticing as he mentally worked the spell. Suddenly the vase full of flowers on the kitchen table burst into flames. Brie jumped up from the table with a cry and ran to the sink for water. After a second of shock, Severus cried, “Aguamenti!” and extinguished the flames with the jet of water that erupted from the end of his wand. Embarrassed beyond belief, he turned to Brie who was standing by the sink in shock. “That has never happened before.” He said. “I'm sorry.” Brie looked at his horribly embarrassed expression and burst out laughing. “Oh if I had a nickel for every time I heard that.” He looked at her blankly for a moment, then understanding dawned on his face. With a blush and a chuckle he made a new bunch of flowers sprout from the end of his wand to replace the smoking sticks that still sat in the vase. Shocked all over again Brie pulled out a chair and sat back down. “Can we take a break from the demonstration part of the day?” she asked weakly. “I don't think my brain can handle anymore right now.” He nodded, placed his wand back in his pocket, and sat again. For awhile each sat and drank their coffee, lost in their own separate thoughts. “Sooo...” Brie ventured a while later. “Hocus' magic level seems to be coming up nicely.” “I've been healing other players.” He replied. The sun began to rise, washing the room in golden light as Brie and Severus discussed the best way to gain magic levels in the game. Eventually the conversation turned to the difference between magic in the game and wizard magic, then to game potions and wizard potions. “Wine is very expensive, it makes working on potions hard.” Severus commented as he contemplated a fourth cup of coffee and grabbed a banana from the bowl of fruit on the table. Surprised, Brie looked up from the orange she was already peeling. “You haven't done the wine quest yet?” she asked. “Quest?” he questioned around a mouthful of fruit. “Shoot, I forgot to tell you about quests.” She handed him an orange slice and launched into an explanation of the various quests for gods and cheap goods. “So I can serve the god for magic and get more experience for all the spells I cast?” He asked once she had finished. “Yep.” She replied from the sink where she was washing the sticky citrus juice from her hands. “There are quests for each god and each quest gets you more experience up to a certain percent. You can serve 3 gods at a time. You can also leave a god to serve another, but you lose the extra experience if you do that.” Grabbing a dish towel to dry her hands, she turned around to find that Severus was gone and she had been talking to an empty chair. Her hands jumped to her hips when she saw that she had been chatting away to an empty room. 'Well, how rude.' She thought to herself as she grabbed the coffee mugs off the table and rinsed them in the sink. Upstairs Severus was exploring his newfound information about gods and goods. He could get inexpensive wine and leather from 2 separate quests and he could also serve up to 3 gods who each had 7 quests to complete. He immediately chose alchemy, magic, and potions and set about finding the temples. Magic was his first priority but finding the temple proved a bit tough. As was getting to the magic god's priest. This was not as easy as just walking up and talking to him as it had been for the alchemy god. Eventually he gave up and decided to work on the alchemy god's first quest, which was simple enough. He completed the first task quickly and eagerly went back to find out what the next would be. His jaw dropped when he read what he was supposed to provide. Perhaps the wine quest would prove easier for a new player. Half an hour later he was ready to rip his hair out. What was he supposed to do? He didn't understand why the NPC at the winery wasn't giving him a task to complete. The leather quest then, he decided. Maybe that one was possible to complete. He would be happy if he could just get it started. Sometime after he had started on the leather quest, which was turning out to be doable but very annoying, Brie wandered in. “Severus have you seen my glasses? I can't find them anywhere.” “Over there on the table.” He jerked his head in the direction of a small end table and large overstuffed chair next to a bookcase. “Oh perfect.” She said as she flopped down in the chair. “They are on top of the book I was reading. I was looking for that too.” Sliding on the glasses, she cracked open the book and began to read and for awhile all was quiet. Then suddenly Severus' screen was full of blue words. “Today is a special day...” He read out loud. Brie glanced up from her book with interest. “Oh yeah? Which one?” Don't let the word special fool you, some 'special' days really suck.” She rose and peered at the screen. “Ohhhh!! Day of Joule, get outta my way!” she cried as she spun the computer chair around and attempted to dump Severus out of it. “Everything you mix takes only half the food it usually does today.” Severus had instinctively grabbed the mouse when he felt Brie start to spin the chair around, now he clung like a bur as she tried to shake him out of it. After a few seconds her explanation of the special day started to sink in and he redoubled his efforts to stay in the chair. “Half food?” he said. “There is so much I can do!” “Yes, there is so much I can do.” she replied as she gave up on the chair and tried for the mouse instead, which he had hugged to his stomach like he was protecting a baby. “Gimme that mouse. You have been playing for days.” she grunted as she tried to pull apart his arms. “No!” he exclaimed. “Its my first special day! Haven't you had lots of them by now?” She continued to grab for the mouse, but now halfheartedly and Severus went in for the kill. “Take pity on a new person, everything takes so much food.” he said while trying to suppress a smile because he sensed he had won. “Fine, FINE!” she exclaimed as she stalked across the room and pulled out her ancient laptop, all the while muttering about bad graphics, and poor man mode. He might have even heard her say craptop once or twice. He tuned out her annoyed mutterings and turned back to the screen, trying to figure out what he was going to do first. He really should run to the potions seller for Potions of Feasting. If you asked his opinion Potions of Feasting were absolutely the best thing ever. He glanced back at Brie, who still looked annoyed, and decided not to get her opinion on it. Once he had his potions, he made his way to his favorite storage building where he sat and started to happily mix his Health and Magic Essences. As he did, he idly watched the local chat. Thus far he had mostly been a chat observer, but not a participator. He was still having a hard time adjusting to the odd way the letters were laid out on the keyboard. Suddenly Thalia's name popped up on screen and he quickly shifted from console mode. Thalia was sitting facing Hocus. The characters were knee to knee and Thalia was quickly dropping health. Slightly panicked, Severus had Hocus heal her several times. “What is happening to you?” He asked Brie. “I'm using toadstools as food and they are poisoning me silly.” she replied as she hit the restore icon and prepared to drink a Poison Antidote because she had been poisoned by more toadstools than she was comfortable with. “Everyone in storage is using them. Look.” He changed his camera angle and saw that many of the characters sitting in storage were indeed dropping health quickly. This was like a magic training gold mine, he thought to himself as he had Hocus start healing everyone within reach of his spot. When he ran out of mana he went back to mixing. By the time six hours had ended Severus had made more essences than he had in his whole game career, but he had absolutely no drive left to go make use of them. “Bed.” He grunted at Brie as he rose and headed toward the door. Surprised, she looked up from the book she had gone back to after she had gotten bored with playing. “Its the middle of the afternoon.” She stated after glancing at the clock. “If you sleep now you will be awake all night again.” “Probably.” He answered. “But you will be too, and I bet you don't plan to sleep now.” The grim reality of that hit her hard. “True.” She conceded. “See you at 3am.” With a sleepy half wave, he disappeared down the hall. Fully clothed, he tumbled into bed and a sleep that was, mercifully, dreamless.

Found bag 1 \o/

Hi all, Considering how many people have posted or spoken in favor of banning the sale of gc for $, I am really curious what the ratio is. I have created this poll to get an idea of the community's opinion. Radu has already said he is not in favor of making this change, but I am still curious about people's opinion. As such, this poll IS NOT OFFICIAL. It is not binding in any way shape or form. I know the rule would not eliminate the practice, as people would invariably find ways to get around it, but my hope is that the volume will be drastically reduced. PS - This poll was supposed to be created by Quesar, not Nova - I didn't realize she was already logged in when I posted this, I thought I was under my own account.

The topic description pretty much says it all. Make an NPC that you can pay to make you PKable anywhere. Maybe make it a pay by the hour deal, X amount of gc for 1 hour, x amount for 2 etc. A delay of a minute or two between when you pay the NPC and when you become PKable may also be a good idea to prevent people just hanging around the NPC waiting for people to use it. A delay would give a chance to walk or tele away. I think this could be a really fun idea. It could bring spice into PK, get gc out of the game and it would probably burn a few bricks too.

Not paying to be PKed, paying to have the option to temporarily play as PKable on more than just a few maps. just a few maps? srsly? Compared to the whole of Draia, yes just a 'few' maps

Not paying to be PKed, paying to have the option to temporarily play as PKable on more than just a few maps.

I voted no, though i think the no answer is worded very poorly. ***No, if I can't afk-harvest with all of my alts while playing with my main, EL life isn't worth living!*** I have 2 characters of different builds and i enjoy playing both at once. Having an alt to play while my main is busy harving or magic training makes the game more fun for me. While both my characters harvest quite a bit, neither 'harvests' gc. Lets face it, some projects you can take on, making your own creature food for example, are tedious and require long hours of afk harving. Having another character to play makes those long periods much more fun and make it less likely for me to just give up playing altogether. While I do think a solution for this problem needs to be found, I don't think this is the right one.

Not everyone has an account on PK server, or many don't want to spend time lvling all over again.

I think people would learn very quickly to be wary of red named players hanging around storage And do you think that there would be that many misclicks, to make it worth paying to be PKable for a hour just to hang around busy storages? Plus there is always the chance of another strong player wandering by the same storage and engaging the other strong PKable player. Then a good show is put on for all Mainly with this idea, I just keep picturing good friends, or PK guilds all going PKable then playing deadly games of 'hide and seek' all over Draia. But I am sure there are 'evil PKer' activities that I am not seeing.

Yes but Radu doesn't