Memory Snippet of the Week #153

For MSotW this week, I wanted to give a shout out to an old browser game called Abyss-UK. All traces of this game seem to have been scrubbed from the web, but this was a browser forum game that, according to Archive.org, seems to have started around late October 2003 and ended around September 2015. It was located at https://www.abyss-uk.com/, and the game involved creating a vampire character and then walking around a large grid-based world with a bunch of NPCs and the occasional idle player to bite/fight and gain blood from, and I believe a bunch of quests to do.

There was also an integrated phpBB2 forum where people hung out in both in-character and out-of-character, with subforums for chatting with each other, and other subforums for roleplaying. I played the game for a couple of months from October 2007 to January 2008 or so, and joined a small guild there where I made a couple of friends. They were girls a couple of years younger than me from Europe, and did a little bit of RP with them. One of them, the person who ended up “siring” me in game, was Nexus, a girl from the UK. Siring was a character linking thing, where a higher level character could “adopt” a lower level one and get a “childer”, whereas the lower level one would get a “sire”. I don’t remember what this mechanic did.

Anyway, I know from Nexus’ Yahoo profile that her name was Rachel Faulkner, possibly with a middle last name of N, that she was a few years younger than me, and that she had a friend from the UK as well that we played with but I have long forgotten what her name was exactly. I do remember, however, that this friend had a pet lizard or something that she would let crawl around and on her now and then! I feel like our guilds had a few other older people as well, but I don’t remember associating with them and have no idea who they are or what the clan was. But my name there was Alesha, so maybe they’ll find me via this way at some point in the future!

While the website itself is gone, it looks from archive.org like Abyss-uk started at another site called Ravenblack Vampires. I have no idea what that is, and was definitely not there during that time that the site was around, but it was a very interesting look back in time. It is also possible that it’s somehow linked to this Vampires! The Dark Alleyway thing since that also invokes the Ravenblack name, however I was unable to find any link or reference in a cursory look at their Livejournal pages, and that game and all the Discord links seem dead now as well anyway. I never played it or heard of it while it was around. I feel like there’s this entire vampire RP Internet subculture that exists just out of my current reach though.

Anyway, I thought it was fun to dump a few artifacts that I had saved from this time period here as well. Firstly, here’s my one and only screenshot from the game itself:

I took this screenshot back on Jan 28 2008 because there were an inordinate number of bugbears on screen, which were some sort of NPC that I could fight for experience. I think the humans were victims that I could suck blood from or something. I can also see from that screenshot that traversal around the city was done via movement in the 8 cardinal and ordinal directions, that my Sire was Nexus, and that the city’s Master Vampire was Lilamara Morea, or rather Lilamara Mórea, neither of which had a Google search result until now. I assume that represented the top player in the game in some measure or other.

Next, you can see an AbyssCityMap.gif tab open but not displayed in my Firefox browser in the screenshot. I actually have a copy of that map as well, and as I can’t find it online as well, this might be the last living copy of AbyssCityMap.gif on the open internet.

I’m not sure who this Essence that maintained the map is, and it’s almost certainly not the LotRO friend that the hover text for that name refers to, but great job. That map is from Oct 25 2007.

I also have a picture of Nexus’s character that I think she commissioned, as well as two versions of the forum banner that she used as a signature in her posts on the game’s forum:

Nexus: All the best bits! Next, I actually have some text snippets that I saved from the game in a random text file. Like this flavour text from a random NPC‘s attack:

[00:19 Today] Minion Number 9 says: “Run in haste, for this is but a taste!”
[00:19 Today] Minion Number 9 used Nuclear Cucumber on you, causing 90 damage.

And this one, which I don’t understand the context of at all:

Grudge Woman [180] – Nether [A Scary Cat]
Jigsaw [26] – Slums [Jigsaws Key]
Cat Woman [247] – Everspring [Whip]
Jack [190] – Charon’s [Fire Axe]
Cryptkeeper [71] – Cemetary [Storybook]
Lettuce Head [7] – Residential [Salad Dressing]
The Great Pumpkin [16] – Industrial [Pumpkin Pie]

And this one, a bunch of flavour text from some Bartender NPC:

The Bartender says: ‘My favourite musician is Moby. Ever heard of him?’
The Bartender says: ‘It’s said cheap drinks do little to loosen tongues.’
The Bartender says: ‘You’re kind of funny looking.’
The Bartender says: ‘You know, I didn’t wash that glass.’
The Bartender says: ‘Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular.’
The Bartender says: ‘I heard a really good group yesterday: Apollo 440 I think they were.’
The Bartender says: ‘A procrastinator’s work is never done.’
The Bartender says: ‘Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?’
The Bartender says: ‘Ack! A bug! Squish it! Dear Noko there seems to be a lot of them around lately.’

And this other Bartender snippet, I assume it’s the same guy, but this time it actually includes a location and what seems to be a quest:

(10) – Draper’s Tavern – Pilchard and 48th

The Bartender says: ‘That’s a mighty fine looking cloak you’re wearing there.’
”Oh, by the way. There was this girl in earlier, saying she was ‘going to rid the world of the Vampire evil’. Imagine that!’
Go after her?

The Bartender says:’Yeah, I think she said she was going to be at Amethyst and 49th.’

And then there was this other player who drank my blood while I was offline, as apparently you don’t disappear from the game when you log off:

[05:34 Today] Sabbath drank 11 blood from you.

And a few gameplay tips I saved somehow:

Energy of 112 combined with Celerity 10 gives one the fastest MP regeneration rate possible – about 3 minutes.

Pairing Alacrity 3 with Thievery 3 allows one to find items off of humans.

I also have a couple character roleplay background snippets from the game that I have absolutely no memory of writing, but they were definitely mine since it was part of a larger clan application or something similar that I did. I present these here for other people’s viewing pleasure while I go cringe in a corner.

This first one was some sample writing I did for the application but was not an actual character that I played or anything like that. As far as I remember anyway.

Linna Gaustad’s story basically began in the basement of an old antique shop, where the proprietor ran his side business, the man being a collector and purveyor of rare books. An American with distinctly European looks, Linna was employed by night to take care of the small library, working from dusk till dawn to serve whatever few customers came in now and then.

The waxing gibbous moon was concealed this night, behind a front of storm clouds, and so thus was her own turmoiled soul hidden behind a rebellious, gothic front of clothing style that she favoured. Her short black hair spiked, hard eyes draped with eyeshadow, cheeks heavy with blush, and with a little pair of slim metal rings each piercing her earlobes and eyebrows, and even one upon the tip of her tongue.

Her entire outfit screamed goth as well, the girl clad in black cloth and leather from head to toe. A short baby-doll cloth shirt adorned her torso, the words, “I’m a Bad Girl – Love Me” scrawled upon the front in a pink font that tries to emulate dripping blood. Her skirt was a pleated leather mini, stretching halfway down her thighs before ending off, set low on her hips several inches below the shirt, and with a belt of studded metal wrapped loosely around her waist. She wore no bra, so one might be able to see the faint shape of nipple rings pressing against her shirt in good light. Her feet had been seduced by a black pair of open-heeled clogs, not much more protective than flip-flops at all. Around her neck was a thin, black leather collar, several bright studs and four D-rings stuck into it at intervals.

The place was not very well known except to collectors and mysterious garbed people, both of whom she would help when requested, but would never associate much with, instead sitting by her desk to read a randomly-chosen book from among the historical and hobby books there – they had everything from history books to occult and the paranormal to medicine and science. Tonight, however, there were no customers, and that was strange in itself, since even on slow nights there would usually be one or two lonely customers that would huddle in a corner to read.

Still, she wasn’t sure, queer as those people were, that they would brave a storm just to come down here to read. Or maybe they thought the place was closed, for even the two dim lights set outside the shop had both blown out after the lightning had brought down some lines nearby. Leaving her alone in the near darkness, a single woman struggling to get along in life with a couple candles.

Not that that was such a bad thing, Linna thought to herself – for she wasn’t sure of the sanity of some of the patrons that frequented the store. She still remembered the bearded man last month who had asked her to climb a ladder to retrieve a book for him which had inexplicably got stuck on top of a bookshelf. When she had grabbed hold of the book, he seemed to slip and bump the ladder from under her legs, causing her to shriek and fall amidst a pile of books before he caught her and apologised profusely. He must have done that on purpose just to see her legs and cop a feel!

And the funniest thing was, though she had a multitude of little scrapes and bruises in the fall, she also suffered a strange wound just above her right ankle, two weirdly-shaped puncture marks, as though from some sort of small, sharp object or canine teeth. She had searched after and not found the source of that wound.. but at least it didn’t turn out to be anything serious.

But she shook those thoughts out of her head. Trying to calm the frustration in her heart that she felt toward most of the creepy patrons of the little library, the little lecher of a boss she had, and life in general. Letting it simmer, but not get out of hand, as she tried to staple her eyes to the book. It just so happened that the first book she had picked up after the power had gone out was a scouts’ handbook on ropework, and her eyes blurred a little from all the diagrams as she gazed upon hitch knots and butterfly knots and sailor knots and what not! So that didn’t help her lose herself in reading.

But she didn’t stand to change her book. Honestly, Linna was a little spooked.. just waiting for something to happen, something palpable in the thickness of the air in the room, or so she felt. For the past few weeks inexplicable things had been happening.. chairs moving about seemingly of their own volition, when her back was turned.. books mysteriously disappearing and reappearing somewhere else, or falling to the ground when no one was near them.. never in front of her, but always registering in her consciousness immediately after.

She tried to convince herself that that was just some of the other patrons playing tricks on her, whether on purpose or otherwise. It couldn’t be a poltergeist, despite the occult books she had read, there surely was no such thing! Plus, it had only really started in the last month or so. Still, she knew that there was no one else in the library this night. But huddling by the guttering candle by her desk, shadows loomed dark and forboding in the bookshelves to her, piles of unevenly-stacked books casting strange shapes across the floor every time she glanced up. Lurking, waiting for the perfect moment..

Her hands tightened on her book as she willed her eyes down again.. too much imagination was a bad thing sometimes.

The second was my actual in-game character’s background and personality blurb, and I concluded from there that characters started as humans and eventually got sired and turned into vampires. Here’s the background:

A first-year medical student at the local university, Alesha lived in a small apartment in a run-down neighbourhood of the city, that being all she could barely afford with her student loans after subtracting off the cost of her tuition. It was worth it though, she always reminded herself, in order for her to achieve something with her life and avoid plying the street trade like she had seen so many women forced to do.

Especially her late mother, after Alesha’s father had abandoned them both before she was born. Her dear mother had sacrificed her body and soul to raise Alesha up, and she always preached to the little girl, then growing teenager, that she loved her child with all her heart and would do anything in her power to protect her. The two enjoyed a strong relationship, and even though the girl grew to knew what her mother was doing for income, and why her mother cried herself to bed some nights, that only made their bonds all the stronger.

Her mother had made enemies though, and in the rare spurts of time when she needed a shoulder and would confide in her daughter, she whispered in tears about strange men and women, factions, gangs, that controlled the street and were always jostling for power in the escort industry. They were rumoured to somehow be not human, but monsters, supernatural vampires and other beasts that were involved in an intricate web of power struggles in the city’s underbelly. And that one day if she was to not return, that her daughter had to avoid them at all costs but build her own life for herself, and hopefully do better than her mother.

And so it went that Alesha entered university, though it put them heavily in debt, but at least there was hope. She was the one shining light in her mother’s life, and strived to do her proud. Then one night the unthinkable happened, and her mother did not return. Night stretched into day and night again, and though Alesha prayed fervently, deep down she knew the truth and it chilled her to the bone. If her mother was not to return, she was lost, alone in the city, and saddled with a heavy debt, but who could she turn to for help! Hardly the men listed in the business cards that her mother kept, that was for sure!

No, but she had to trudge on, she had no other choice now. And as days turned into weeks, her panic receded to a dull ache in her heart, a sad, fond memory of her mother that accompanied her as she tried her best to push on with her studies. The light at the end of the tunnel was definitely much dimmer now.

And here’s her personality!

She’s generally a pacifist, hard to provoke into hurting others or fits of anger. Shy at first contact, avoids big crowds, and very blushy in general. She tends to be submissive, especially to those who play her correctly, and thus tends to be more of a follower than a leader, and is easily seduced by the right bribe, offer or occasion. That being said, once befriended she’s fiercely loyal and she would do more (and die more) for her good friends than she would do for herself.

ICly, if and when it happens that she becomes a vampire, she will hate how others (humans) have to suffer and die in order for her to un-live, and might proceed slowly down a path of self-flagellation initially. She has all this power at the cost of others’ lives, and no idea what to do with it, yet is afraid to squander or misuse it and waste the cost of all the lives so far. To that end she will take up the mantle of a cleric and look to see what sorts of small good deeds she can perform for others, whether they know of it or not, and appreciate it or not.

But while that might be her overarching worry, that does not preclude having some fun in the meantime, for the warm winds of laughter, happiness and hope help to blow away the gloom and help her keep in touch with her humanity.

Any special weaknesses are hidden for now. 😀

The warm winds of laughter, happiness, and hope huh??? I did immensely enjoy going down this rabbit hole of my past though.