RuneScape Forum Archive | The Five People

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

~This story was written many years ago, but I never got around to posting it on the forums.~

The Five People You Meet In Lumbridge
Let's say you're playing RS. The swarm comes, your computer freezes. You're stuck. The swarm is hitting ones and twos on you. You can't get back on.
Finally, an hour later, you log back in.
Saradomin (or your deity of choice) has decided- you've died for the last time.
You find yourself in Lumbridge. After a short speech by your designated deity, you come to realize that Runescape, as you know it, is done.
But in Lumbridge, there are five people. People that you have only met in passing but whose life you have changed immeasurably, either in or out of RS.
"I opened my eyes there, staring for a second at the bubbling fountain, and could not believe any of this had happened. Could not believe it at all."
Who awaited me?
The first person introduced herself as Devlyn. She said she was 51 herblore when she met me. I had been standing in Edgeville bank, after getting a load of low level herbs from the men in the shack to the north of the bank. I smiled. I did not know what this was about.
She noted a remark I had made to a friend in the bank. "Herblore is stupid. Only a psycho would get 99 in this skill. You'd have to be stupid to want to stick with this for that long. Anyone that gets 99 herblore is out of their mind."
Devlyn told me she was sane at the time. She said my remark taught her that RuneScape was a damned hard lot of work sometimes. She had gotten the impression that it was hard sometimes, but the way I put my remark, she said, moved her to think about why she played.
I was still confused by this. I started to tell her that it was an offhand remark, that everybody feels that way sometimes, but she stopped me.
"Now," she said, "I talk". "RuneScape's only a mirror of the things you're willing to do outside that computer.

16-May-2009 00:50:23 - Last edited on 16-May-2009 00:58:03 by EBTx

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

If you're willing to sit for fourteen hours doing the same thing over and over each day for the most trivial slice of virtual fame, then you can do anything."
I knew this was true.
"What herblore are you now, Devlyn?" I asked.
"Fifty three."
"Why didn't you get 99?"
I knew the answer to this before I even asked. She didn't reply either, not right away, at least.
"It wouldn't have meant what I wanted it to mean." A pause. "Do you like dwellberries?"
"A little."
She placed two dwellberries in the palm of my hand, closed it, and then she was gone.
I was still looking at the dwellberries when a younger man approached me. He introduced himself as Chris.
"So, Chris, what can I do for you?"
Chris was a scammer. He had seen me walk through Varrock with my gold trimmed rune kite and plate. He decided right then he wanted to be rich, to have his own. Before the day was through, he had offered to trim two peoples' armor, one black, one adamantite, and scammed both. He'd been reported four times, none with sufficient evidence for Jagex to take against him.
This went on for days, he told me, each day increasing his profits, improving his guile, finding new ways to word what he said specifically so he could say he wasn't scamming people. He poked my arm in delight, gave me half a laugh, and looked me in the eyes as he went into detail.
"The best was when I figured out what to say. Instead of telling people I could trim their armor, I'd tell them that I could get them trimmed armor. If they protested, I just told them I could get them the trimmed armor, but never said when I was gonna get it for them."
I raised my eyebrow. It sounded like something I'd have said had I been a scammer. He continued.
"I eventually realized I could scam anything, take anything, have anything, and get away with it. You'd think that'd have made it boring, but it didn't.

16-May-2009 00:51:47 - Last edited on 16-May-2009 01:02:06 by EBTx

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I had everything I needed, so I did my best to clean up my act, merchant, trade for gold."
"And the moral of this story is?" I asked.
"There is no moral. You know I could give every gp I ever took back to every person I took it from, and the simple truth is that I don't have to."
"Well, don't, then."
"Didn't plan to." And with that, he was gone as well.
The third person spit at my feet.
"Interesting name." I remarked. He was gone by the time I opened my mouth again. Zamorak intervened on his behalf. "His name doesn't matter to you, you don't care. You were walking through Camelot with your black beret on, and walked right by this guy cutting oak logs. He spoke as you came by, offered to buy your beret. He had six burnt shrimp, three oak logs and an steel axe to his name. You would have laughed and left, and things might have been different had you even stopped to see his offer."
"Instead you said nothing and kept on walking. He went quietly back to cutting wood, raising levels, playing, enjoying the game. He became one of the higher combat people, level one twenty, I think. There were plenty of people he ignored as he walked by."
"But why did he spit at my feet?"
"Because you will never remember him as well as he remembers you."
"But he wasn't remarkable in any sense. He was nobody..."
"And just what Mr Popstar, makes you think that you are somebody?"
Zamorak would have himself proven right very soon, for as the fourth person came up to me, I was already trying to forget the third.
She had overheard the last thing Zamorak said, and proceeded to decry everything about it.
"He's not right," she said. "You are someone! You're special, you're amazing... you have no idea how precious you are to me." This stopped me, first of all, because I never knew I had any female fans. Second, because I wasn't exactly sure how I could be precious to someone on RuneScape.

16-May-2009 00:51:54 - Last edited on 16-May-2009 01:04:20 by EBTx

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

She had been training beside me one afternoon at the shadow warriors in the legends guild, dressed as a male character, male armor, male name. A server crash a little later on would have us never able to add each other, and long have since forgotten the name of the other.
"But what did I say that was so precious to you?"
"Nothing, really, but that you didn't care whether I was a girl or a boy, we were just there, you and me, keeping each other company in the late hours of the night."
"But doesn't that happen anymore? I mean, don't people just train together and start up conversations?"
"Sure they do, but it's always how much xp they have to a level, how many kills they made... It's never a person, it's a character. Don't you get it? There's so much distrust in this game, nobody can give out their address, talk about where they live, be who they are, and just for ten minutes not have to play a role in a role playing game? This is who we are, and it's what we do."
"But all those rules, aren't they there to protect people, you know, so they don't get hurt?"
"But don't you think it hurts more that two people, very similar, liking the same things, might never get the chance to meet each other, to share experiences, to live, love, and celebrate because of some stereotype, some stigma... Isn't that what you believe?"
"Well, yeah.. but I guess we sacrifice-" I was stopped mid-sentence. She put her hands in mine. The dwellberries slid from my palm onto the grass.
"I think I would have liked you... a lot," she said. Her lips rose to meet mine, but before I kissed her, she was gone.
"I think I would have liked you too." I murmured.
The fountain continued to bubble softly as the fifth person walked up, a boy, ordinary looking. He seemed a bit humbled by my presence.
"Thanks," he said. "You saved my life."
I laughed. "Oh, I'm not a real big PKer anyway."
"You don't understand," he continued. "You saved my ... life."
"Go on," I said.

16-May-2009 00:52:01 - Last edited on 16-May-2009 00:55:52 by EBTx

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I had died in the wilderness. I was walking through Draynor, I was crying. I had a suicide letter all written out. I had taken my mom's prescription pills. The open bottle was on the desk. You turned from whatever you were doing as I passed by, and you saw I didn't have any armor. You didn't know who I was. I thought I was sending a message to my friend telling him what had just happened, when I realized I had typed it out to you. I guess you were cleaning out your bank or something, but before I knew it, you had traded me a whole bunch of stuff. I was too embarassed or shocked to add you. I just kind of stood there, thinking... not everyone is savage and hateful, bent on taking, taking, taking. And it wasn't an ordinary death, either. My girlfriend and I had been pking, you know, for fun, and I had run low on food, and I was wearing most of my best stuff thinking she'd protect me. We'd been ... together for almost six months before that day. I had to look away from the computer, so I followed her, and she walked me right through the dragons, and I got roasted instantly. She PMed me 'lol" and blocked me."
"Oh dear God..." I had started. I was more disturbed at the thought that he would commit suicide because of that, but he went on before I voiced that thought.
"But that was only the last straw." He expanded his story by explaining more events in his real life that had made it ten times more horrid than anything I had ever experienced. He never went and got psychiatric help after that, but he admitted that I had given him a reality check. He had told nobody about what had happened that day, not his parents, not his teachers, not even the lady he married in real life that eventually started playing RS with... A person he found he could truly trust with anything.
Lumbridge slowly became silent.
The fifth person remained, but I was gone.

16-May-2009 00:52:08 - Last edited on 16-May-2009 00:56:22 by EBTx

EBTx

Posts: 487 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

So who are the five people you meet in Lumbridge? How might the actions you make be percieved by others? Do you stop to think how about all the meanings of the things you say, or do you let loose a flurry of words hoping the other person understands what you mean.
Or do you not speak?
Who are you? Are you the real person behind your desk, or do you pretend you're someone you're not. Are you big bad and greedy?
And if you don't know the answers to those questions, how do you think you will find out? Will it be because of the five people you meet in Lumbridge?

16-May-2009 00:52:15 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2009 12:18:25 by EBTx

Agila 77

Posts: 1,056 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I hope this doesn't break reserves or anything but this story has true meaning. Not comedy not fame but a moral. A moral. That sorta made me get a view of my life from that ever so hard to reach third person point of view.
This was an amazing story.

16-May-2009 02:28:17