| I. Introduction A. General Information How disoriented and overwhelmed I felt when first I found myself in the bustling city of Crossing! I have vague memories of being led from street to street at a whirlwind pace, never really knowing where I was, where I had been, or how to return anywhere. While I am an avid cartographer, I found the map given to me by the old woman to be... somewhat less than useful. I had no idea that Crossing had magical directions that are so easy to obtain! Ask for DIRections on any street in the city of Crossing and directions to many places within the city will instantly become clear to you. Unfortunately, the Moon Mage Guild is not within the city of Crossing. More on that in a moment. Use the magical DIRections to find the various shops in Crossing (DIR GENERAL store, DIR ARMORY, DIR WEAPONsmith), READ CATalog to see what items can be purchased there, and ORDER (item). When the shopkeeper suggests a price, you can sometimes barter for a reduced price by OFFERing <amount, such as 250, slightly less than the price named>, but be careful not to offend them by offering too little. Besides these magical directions, there are many other resources available to new adventurers. You can LOOK to see where you are, or LOOK at yourself, another person, or an object. Deep within your subconscious mind, you have INFOrmation about your own abilities (such as strength, stamina, agility, wisdom, intelligence). You can improve these abilities by TRAINing at locations specified in DIRections. Training involves monetary costs and costs in terms of Time Development Points (TDP's). Different races have different advantages and disadvantages in training specific abilities. Also, the greater your abilities, the more TDP's it takes to improve them further. As you work on training your skills, you mentally keep track of your EXPerience. You can also check your HEALTH, your FATigue, your WEALTH, your BALance (both standing balance and the balance of your deposits in the bank), and your INVentory (not to be confused with your INFO). You can ASSESS your combat situation, and you can ASSESS TEACHing to determine whether anyone in the room is teaching a subject which you would like to learn. There are over a score of topics you can magically access, when you ask for HELP and ADVICE. If your question is not answered through any of these resources, you can always get DIRections to the Jadewater Mansion and ring the door bell to summon a Mentor. If you do so, please wait patiently for the Mentor. There may be only a few Mentors in the realms at the time, and they may need a handful of minutes to conclude their previous activity and hurry to the front door to assist you. |