Microsoft Zone Archive/News & Events/For the Love of Dereth
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For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
Valentine's Day -- when a young warrior's heart turns from carnage to more romantic pursuits. In honor of the holiday, we asked our players to send in their tales of love (or woe) in the course of Asheron's Call. The results proved as varied as they were plentiful: Stories of marriages made and marriages strained, off-line romances blossoming, even mournful accounts of unrequited love. To celebrate the day, we'd like to share some of our favorite tales that we received, and give hearty thanks to everyone for writing in!
Tales of Love
Tales of Woe
Tales of the Truly Miscellaneous
Love and Marriage
For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
Love and Marriage
Since our wedding day, my husband and I promised that we would write to you and thank you for "introducing us." Without Asheron's Call, we would have never met and married. We married on December 30, 2000 -- just two months ago.
Chris "Trip" Lee and I, Christine "Morrigana" Lee, lived about four states apart. We met on Asheron's Call, shortly after Solclaim came up. One afternoon, Trip approached me and asked if I'd like to hunt with him. I turned to look at him. I wondered who he was, why he was talking to me, and if I should run away really fast. I asked him if he was planning on getting me killed. He replied, “I'd never do that to any of my friends.” I concluded that he had me confused with someone else, but I went with him to the Disaster Maze anyway. We had a wonderful time draining Tuskers. It was an awesome “first date.”
Hours later, we returned to Baishi, and upon our arrival, he asked me what it would take to marry me. Nervously I said, “I think we should date more first.” However, after that day, we were inseparable. We soon started e-mailing each other and voice chatting. We'd chat late into the night. We'd try to fall asleep near our computers so we didn't have to say good-bye. Miraculously, my family planned a Thanksgiving vacation located about two hours away from where Trip lived. I told him about our vacation, so he and I made plans to meet. It was love at first sight. We spent a glorious holiday together. We knew in our hearts, this was “it.” A week after I had returned home, Chris proposed, and I accepted. A month later, we married!
Thank you AC Team!
--Christine and Chris Lee
A Family Affair
For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
A Family Affair
My boyfriend Lee and I both play Asheron's Call. He's been playing since the very beginning, while I started playing late last October. I would have to say that, for the most part, it has been a positive influence on our relationship. He helped me tremendously at the beginning, making sure I had armor light enough to wear, supplies, weapons, and tools, as well as helping to keep my poor first-level cook from getting almost killed by wimpy monsters like Gnawer Shreths and Drudges! And, since he has two computers at his place, we actually play together quite often -- and I have the game on my machine at home, so we can play on evenings we don't spend together. He has a character who is my alter-ego's "boyfriend" and who has come to my rescue when other players have flirted too much. It's kind of cute.
There are times when it causes stress . . . like when he came home to find me in tears when I got turned around fleeing from monsters and ended up running all the way from Holtburg to Cragstone in a panic and couldn't get back. There was also the argument when I needed a grinder desperately, and when he came into some pyreals he spent them on armor for his new archer! Or the little annoyances on both our parts, like my insisting on searching EVERY corpse and having to stop to kill too many rabbits, and his killing things before I get to them, or telling me I'm not strong enough to attack something while he goes off and one-shots it.
But overall it's definitely been more good than bad, and AC is definitely a big part of our lives. His brother and sister-in-law also play, so it becomes quite fun when we run into them online.
And when we have a disagreement "away from keyboard" -- there's no better way to work off the frustration than to go out and kick some Drudge butt!
--coco
Miles Apart and Still Together
For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
Miles Apart and Still Together
I am twenty-seven years old and my husband is thirty. Currently, I live in Washington and due to army schooling, he lives in North Carolina. He has been there for about eight months and will be there for at least eight more.
When he is able to, we play Asheron's Call all the time. Long distance bills being what they are, we can get together in AC for sometimes the entire day and be able to feel like we are together even if we aren't. With the 3000 mile separation, it is very nice to be able to connect this way and do something fun together (vs. opening a monotonous chat window for a couple hours and trying not to fall asleep).
In real life I have pledged myself to him, and likewise in the game I have become his faithful vassal. He performs his husbandly duties in AC taking care of me and making sure I have whatever I need to keep in good health. It might not be the same as having him at my side, but it is the next closest thing.
--Alcestis of Leafcull
Equally a Mistress
For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
Asheron's Call: Equally a Mistress
My entry might be a little different from many that you receive; it's a third person narrative. To set the scene: I'm the wife that the essay refers to. My husband is the "Dereth adventurer." I hope you enjoy it.
It comma nds his time without waiting its turn and teases him with ideas of uber-loot and the ever-present promise of leveling. His face shines, radiantly, in the soft glow of the computer screen and his hearing responds only to the eerie death shrieks of high-level Drudges or the spawning swoosh of a Virindi Servant. With his headset on, he game-voices his way through the plains and dungeons of Dereth. Never is a pause made to remember the wife that he has left at home -- sitting, ten feet away, on the sofa. In the real world, conversations center around friends-unseen-with-last-names-unknown or computer upgrades and improvements. “All the better to experience Dereth with, my dear. . .”
Screams of frustration and loud yells of sheer fright can go unanswered. . . because they were rhetorical, anyway. The perceived laughing of Tusker Guards once his back is turned is met with renewed determination and the voicing of the intention to attack and destroy.
Spectators swing between the emotions of amusement and concern as they watch the schizophrenic behavior of a man living in two worlds, two minds, and two realities. Daring to speak is a risky business. Break his concentration and the penalties could be steep. It could mean a trip back to the lifestone for the offender and fifteen years of vitae.
Hours and minutes that drag by for his wife -- still alone and lonely in the real world -- pass by at sheer warp speed for our Dereth adventurer as he pounds at his keyboard and “screams like a girl.” Mesmerized by the multi-colored text of conversation and of battle, he doesn't acknowledge the disappearance of his wife to bed and the -- by comparison -- animated company of her fiction novel. Oh, well. . . just one more thing away from the screen that he has failed to notice.
--Gina
A Love Not Meant to Be
For the Love of Dereth!
February 14, 2001
A Love Not Meant to Be
It was a relationship not meant to be. With her beautiful pale skin, green eyes, and pretty face. And there was me, born with an ugly face, in armor that never matched. But for some reason we both loved each other. She had a high and pretty voice, almost one like a cat's meow. Mine cracked and squeaked. Yes, I do not know how we stayed together for so long. . . until the end.
For that one fateful day we decided to hunt together, and I have doomed our relationship ever since. She had just leveled up, I distinctly remember, and I was not sure what level she had achieved. I clicked on her in order to assess her, but accidentally clicked attack low. . .
"You smite Drudge Skulker mightily!"
--Devastation (Solclaim)
--Dark Bow (Wintersebb)