chapter 1 "Getting started: The Newbie Mansion"

You understand the basics. You've read the player's
handbook (you read that, right?), you now understand stats
and skills, you've customized your stats, and you're
ready to play. This chapter will now give you a walkthrough
of the first quest a newbie should perform. It is a *complete*
walkthrough! It is a SPOILER. If you don't want the quest
spoiled, stop reading now!

I'm going to assume your mud does not allow picking your
class at char creation, or that the class you picked is
"explorer". This is to simplify the walkthrough. This also
assumes you've just created this char and it is level 1.

We'll start in the reception room, with Jennybot (5 south,
3 east, 1 south, of the village clocktower). If you haven't
done so already, this might be a good time to:
activate bot

What she says is kind of boring if you're not new to muds.
But hang around until she gives you the baseball cap. It's
worth some money.

PROTIP: If she has already given you a cap before,
you won't get a new one.

Once you get the cap, go 1n, 3w, 5n, 1e, 1n. This is the village
shop. Remove and drop your worthless t-shirt and jeans,
and sell the cap to otik:

sell cap to otik

Sell any other crap you've picked up along the way. The newbie
mansion will have all the equipment you'll need to solve it.
But keep this hint book handy!

Now it's time to open a bank account. Believe me, you do not
want to be carrying around all your money if you die. So let's
go open an account and put our hard-earned cash somewhere safe:
1s, 1w, 3n, 1e.

request account from zoe
deposit all

Good! I feel safer already! Now let's head to the mansion.
From the bank it is: 1w, 3s, 2w, 2s. If you're still at newbie
levels, the mansion guard won't notice you slip by.

You're now in front of the mansion, but how to get in? The door
is locked! Pay close attention to the description...did you
notice that the mansion is described as having an open
second story window?

Go to the gardener's shack (1w, 1n) and get the ladder. Return
to the front of the mansion (1s, 1e) and:

drop ladder
climb ladder

You're in! You're now standing in the second floor hallway of
the newbie mansion. Time to get equipped. Go east into the
guest room, open the overnight bag, and get and wear the
following: leather jacket, leather pants, helmet, shirt, and gloves.
This is relatively decent newbie armor that still lets you
gather loot because it's not too heavy.

PROTIP: You can do stuff to more than one
item at a time, and when you do, worn items are ignored. Try:
open overnight bag
get all from overnight bag
wear all
drop all
Did you notice that you only dropped the things you were not wearing?

Now, go to the master bedroom (1w, 3s), open the wardrobe and
get the boots from the wardrobe and wear them. These are long
boots and are better than the boots in the guest room. These
boots also protect your legs.

Leave the rest of the stuff in the wardrobe alone for now...you
can loot the mansion after you complete the quest. Next, let's
get you a weapon. Go downstairs, just outside the kitchen (1n, 1d,
1n). The kitchen will be east. Do this, very quickly:

go east
get carving knife from rack
go west

Ignore the kitchen rats...kill them later if you want, for now
let's save up your strength for the mansion boss...and he's
next! Before we go on, though, let me ask you...did you get
both knives from the rack? No! just the carving knife! You see,
only fighters are skilled at using two weapons at once. As
an explorer, if you try to wield two weapons at once, you
will do very very badly in combat. The carving knife is an
excellent weapon. Just wield that, and drop the butcher knife.

Now go north and east...and meet your first quest boss. Yes,
the soggy thief! He's snuck into the mansion while the master
was away, and made himself at home! He won't like your
presence and will attack you, but he's really quite wimpy.
Just stand your ground and you'll defeat him with no effort.

Finished? Aren't you sad now? No? Good. There's plenty of
slaying to do in this game, if you're getting sentimental over
killing a burglar while wearing his armor (that you stole) then
this just might not be the game for you. Now, take his stuff
and look around. See anything that piques your curiosity?

get all from corpse
look

Maybe the rug is valuable...

exa rug
get rug

Weird! What if we...

move rug

Well what do you know! Open that trap door, go down into
the secret chamber, and you'll have solved your first Dead Souls
quest. Congratulations! You'll be awarded quest and experience
points, and if your mud is set to auto-advance, you'll
probably gain a level or two. If not, you can visit Dirk and
ask him to advance (Dirk is 1e, 1s of the village clocktower).

There's a bunch of loot in the chest in the secret chamber, as well
as a bag with money (don't just sell the bag, "get all from bag"
first!). You can now focus on robbing the mansion blind and
selling everything you steal. With the money, you can start buying
expensive equipment you need for the more challenging quests.

Loot tip 1: Go back to the master bedroom and move the bed.
Surprise! Enter the passageway and unlock the safe with the complex key
you took from the thief. Inside the safe you'll find stuff you
will want to keep, not sell. Trust me on that. Don't sell that stuff.

Loot tip 2: Search the room across the hall from the guest
room you looted.

Loot tip 3: Whether you sell or keep it, remember where the
bear costume is. It could come in handy later.

Loot tip 4: Sell stuff to Kim if you can, rather than Otik. Otik pays
with silver, which is heavy. Kim pays with dollars, which are light. Sadly,
Kim will not buy or sell weapons, but for everything else, her light
currency is very convenient. You can always exchange currencies at
the bank. Kim's bookstore is 1n, 2e, 1n of Jennybot.

Loot tip 5: If you advanced automatically, you might find that the mansion
guard no longer lets you past him any more...and you can't get rid of him.
Strategies for dealing with the gate guard are discussed later.