Sometimes it's not good to be a (
wannabe)
thief.
OK, I admit it, I've had a fascination to repossessing things. It's not that I hold other people's stuff to such high value, it simply is exciting to do something forbidden. Now, before you report me to authorities, let me say that it isn't Real Life I'm talking about (though I did get caught from shoplifting once... but that's another story). It's BatMUD.
Ever since I was a small newbie, I knew I would never be a tireless Achiever, always killing monsters and making tons of exp every week, nor would I know all the secrets of myriads eq-monsters, I wouldn't be Explorer with known rooms percentage nearing 100%. I wouldn't be a Socializer, known and loved by everyone and a living legend of bat-channel, or even a feared Killer holding the entire MUD in a reign of terror. I'm an Idler. But that doesn't mean I can't do anything.
Since a legendary thief tried to steal our chests by shamelessly exploiting my gullibility, I've been fascinated by the noble profession of stealing other people's stuff. And so, when I finally had the chance, I took it. My spree of solo thieving was short but succesful, and though to this day only two people know it was me or even that there was a spree, I'm quite proud of that. I outsmarted the suckers. Ha ha ha. But of course it wouldn't stop at that...
I talked with some friends and managed to convince them it'd be fun, and so, when we spotted an interesting target, city far away from civilization, we started preparing. For many months I logged their comings and goings and we observed the place constantly to make sure we known where their guards are, and then, after some weeks of finding people to help and arrange our time schedules so we could spend all day killing their guards, we struck. For whole day we hit and ran, died and raised our dead, until finally the guards were almost down. My estimated time projection was about 30 minutes when, and I still curse that moment, one of the inhabitants logged in. Our party held its breath, hid, and waited for him to go away. He didn't. Finally, we decided to go for it, and attacked the guards once again. They screamed for help like they'd done for hundreds of times before, but this time there was someone to hear it. He came around, and when we were ready to attack again, he told us "don't go there! you'll die!".
We giggled, went, died, resurrected and then told him that we might let him keep his stuff if he just went away peacefully. Yeah, terribly theatrical, but pretty damn funny. He proceeded to squeal for help in a public channel naming his attackers, and soon enough he had an angry merchant harrassing us. We laughed even harder, though when maxed-level player started pkilling it wasn't quite so amusing. Except for me, of course -- he didn't kill me, apparently because I'm running an information service he found useful.
So what was the lesson of that story? Shrug... maybe it's that sometimes virtual worlds, really, can be more than just boring monster-bashing. Even if we hardly were any true thieves, to so pathetically fail in our first attempt, it was quite fun. And even now, three months later, if one of us is spotted by that same highbie in his city, he'll throw us out, and the fellow who ran into us in the middle of killing his guards will still bitch about "evil thieves who think they can do anything they want" whenever he sees us killing each other.
But wait, it's not over yet. The reason why I'm writing this today is because a friend of mine living in our castle, the same fellow who was along in that jolly raid (and was the only one to have his name mentioned in a public newsgroup in connection with thieving, by the way...) just logged in to discover his money purse has disappeared. Quite curious, really; we went through the possibilities, and the conclusion was I was the most likely culprit. Of our castle's inhabitants, it could personally have been done by four people, of whom none has the capability to pick open a door, but of whom one --me-- has the privilege level sufficient to let anyone in to pick the door open for him. Of course, due to a design flaw, in fact most anyone could theoretically do the same, it's just much easier for me. Of course I didn't do it, but if I were him I'd be more than little suspicious... ah well.
Meanwhile, in Real Life I haven't done much I'd bother writing about. Who cares about Finnish high school-equivalent matriculation examination results, bah. Though I must admit, those mathematics tests are harder than they look.