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A Trip Back to Memory Lane With....Lydana!

Guest blogger (and recently returned Immortal) Lydana has a bit to tell you about her time with Abandoned Realms!

You old timers probably know me as Chro. My most notable characters were Nara, a storm healer, and Nebai, a halfing warrior Justice, plus my Immortal Lydana. Now that the introductions are out of the way, it’s time to reminisce about times gone by. I don’t even really remember how I started playing Abandoned Realms, but I know it was back in ‘98 or ‘99 when I was in high school. I remember I had a typing class where I would always finish early and I would bring in my floppy disk with my MUD client on it so I could have a chance to play for a bit once I was done with my work.
Eventually I convinced a few of my friends to play with me. We were all total newbs but had a lot of fun. We would bring all our giant PCs and CRT monitors to my friend’s place where we would set up for our MUD party. My friend had just got DSL and had two phone lines, so the three of us were able to all get on at the same time. It was awesome. We also got killed… a lot.
Lydana chillin' at the back
I remember we were trying to learn to PK better and two of us would just watch while one of us would go to Emerald Forest to find an easy target. More often than not, we couldn’t solo and even more often the whole gang of 3 of us would get wiped out by one guy. It was just embarrassing.
Even more embarrassing was the one time my friends and I decided to dress up like our characters… It wasn’t my idea, but I went along with it because we were bored and the internet was down.

It takes a lot of courage to let anyone see this photo

Even with the three of us together, we never got any characters past about level 40. It wasn’t until I left for college the next year that I got ‘serious’ about Mudding. This was when I got my first to 50 (Nara, storm healer) and my first character in a cabal (Nebai, halfling warrior Justice). It was around this time that I got my Immortal Lydana and started to run Heralds. I think my biggest legacy is probably the Serin Mystique, which was always fun to organize and write. Probably the best part of being an Immortal (other than being able to smite people), was being able to role-play without fear of death! Woohoo! I eventually graduated college and moved across country, at which point I got too busy with life to play AR. I hadn’t played AR in several years, and got injured pretty badly and while in the hospital I started getting calls and letters from my AR family. It was pretty awesome seeing how strong the community response was, even though I hadn’t played in quite a while. So, now I’m back (sort of), and even playing some. I’m hoping to see the player base grow!!

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