Second Life exploration (1?)
I've played a lot of Second Life in my first life, and over the years I've changed how I play. I started out being a fanthing of a youtube group, went through to Roleplay (and became a professor of gallifrey, if you can believe it!) and now I usually reserve my client for the boring days where I've got nothing.
For you see, today Second Life holds a great level of potential for me in terms of exploration. As a mahoozive fan of Science Fiction, I know fine well the transport opportunities present in Second Life - especially Stargates.
Stargates are brilliant in their main universe, but in second life they're really pushed. Anyone and everyone can and does have a Stargate - there's a whole grid-wide network of these bad-boys and best of all? They have a random dial mode. I can go anywhere over the grid without having to know and I can do this for hours! ..Which is ultimately what ends up happening.
Today started pretty boring, I was gating around and then it suddenly got very exciting. I stumbled upon Stargate Command.
There were people ~400 meters away, probably role-playing. I wanted to be the least distraction I could, so I tried to leave in a gate they had sitting in the storage room. Unfortunately, I accidentally activated the gate in the main room and had to quickly sprint out of it before anyone noticed.
The destination immediately after was pretty boring again, someone's private household, wasn't much to do, so I left. But the location right after that? Hooh boy.
I emerged in the transport area of the Valhalla Starfleet Station in the something-quadrant of space. It was an active roleplay - and I just gated right into the middle of it. They were a nice group, nice to talk to. I introduced myself as Baob Koiss, a Koith-like from the planet Goisrii. Y'know, roleplay stuff.
Apparently, they'd been given the Stargate by starfleet to investigate the technology of the gate, and hadn't actually used it yet. They had received lots of visitors from the gate who have passed on different kinds and levels of information about the gate, but their top priority at that moment was their vacation they were about to embark on - that I had interrupted. Whoops!
Chief officer had me fill out a medical on myself, where I had to declare the nanobots in my blood. After that, I requested to be sent to one of the visitor's gate addresses, and left on my roleplay-esq merry way. I hope they had a nice vacation, they had a borg daughter that was quite bite-y, and certainly not an android.
After that was a few more duds, they sent me off to some sex-sim (I guess I really did ask to be sent to one of the visitor's addresses...) until I started wandering around a quaint little space station I found. Tripped a few teleport networks (as you do) and ended up in a lovely wee interstellar mall.
It was quite pleasant! It seemed to be a mix of Science-Fiction on the top row, and medieval science fantasy on the bottom. I intend to explore there again - given I'd apparently visited the docking station before.
I had some lovely banana-flavoured candy floss from one of the vending machines. Lovely jubbly. I used another teleport which took away my candy floss before I could finish it >:( and ended up in a night club, on Earth.
Seemed to be a massive community! There was a board to join the group, ~200 new members today and ~4000 online at that moment! ...Nobody was there, and there wasn't much for me - not to say it was a total dud, because...
...There was a ride! ...I used a teleport network yet again, and I ended up in perhaps my new favourite sim. A lovely little place full of adventure. I doddled around some private property (as you do) and eventually I was given a quest by a cooky little inventor - To go bust some ghosts in the local forest!
I armed myself with the proton-stick and the capture backpack, and I headed into the depths of the forest! Damn, I thought I looked awesome. I still think so! Feel free to completely agree with me.
I zapped all 6 of the ghosts in a (mostly) swift fashion, and as a courtesy, the inventor let me keep one of the ghosts as a wee pet. Meet Slimey, my slimer ghost pet.
I kept wandering, got trapped in a shark, found an arcade, made contact with the Fae people, met a lovely chilling Raccoon friend - y'know how it is.
And then I turned a corner, up I went climbing a hill on the island, and I found a castle. Local lore suggests the castle was built for a big battle, and while mostly destroyed by said battle, it stood none-the-less and had a big dungeon carved deep within the mountain.
That sounded like tons of fun, so I wandered down into the depths of the dungeon.
I met this lovely gathering of goblins, and while I was careful to not touch their shiny stuff (they gifted me a sparkler, though!) I talked to one of the older goblins. They were old enough to remember long ago, an ancient dragon that stole 3 eggs from the land. They tasked me (of all people) to slay the dragon and recover the eggs.
I fought tooth-and-nail with little gremlin creatures, while avoiding the burning fires of a dragon and struck the crystals open to collect the eggs. It was grueling - I almost died! But with my quick thinking and my wits about me, I was able to recover the eggs. The gobby let me keep one of them, which I took to the central magical point of the island, and had hatch into a lovely new pet (sorry Slimey), a little pet dragon!
Of course, I kept exploring even after that. I found the goonies piano, and through a series of elimination (of both chord keys and the skeletons that kept attacking) I was able to discover the correct chord to open the passage to inferno. It was a neat little shipwreck, and a total reference to the goonies.
I wandered around the island more, until I fell into a manhole cover. Exploring my way around the sewers for a bit, I found a door. I went through said door, and climbed through a cracked tunnel up and out, and... I ended up in the streets of Babbage on a cold winter's day.
This is where I decided to leave my adventures for the day - the island still has a lot to discover and do, I never went to the depths of the caves where the giant is said to dwell, and Babbage is a whole other can of worms to look around and explore.
Before I close, I should mention that my favourite sim I discussed here, it was all static. Nobody else was there, there were little bubbles that you could press that would divulge the quests or provide lore. It had a whole combat system, really impressive stuff.
