Following on the subject of summer, and being Swedish, I feel it is my duty to educate some of you in the ways of the Swedes. I shall start my monthly lectures by briefly introducing you to a very important day of the year. I have taken a passage from a book, written by a good friend of mine, called "Sweden - The Secret Files".

Midsummer:

"This is celebrated on the weekend coming closest to the real Midsummer Day, 24th June. A mass exodus takes place just before with thousands of Swedes evacuating the towns and cities and heading for their weekend cottages in the country. They erect a maypole, erect being the operative word as in fact it is a pagan symbol of fertility. It looks like a long thing with two round dangley bits... They dress it up in leaves and flowers (the maypole, that is) and then spend the afternoon dancing around it pretending to be small frogs. It's true. Swedes eat new potatoes and pickled herring (of course). Before long, it is not only the herring which is pickled as they do tend to imbibe large quantities of beer and akvavit. No wonder they dance like frogs afterwards."

So remember, if you ever see a Swede making frog noises, you'll know we're not quite mad. Yet. Next month I'll show you a song we like to sing about hell and gore.

Once again I went and interrogated a few random mumers with a question for this months column:

Do you have a favourite mume adventure that you will always remember when thinking back on your playing days?

Balok - I really enjoyed Lowyn and Hathol's wedding. Vaire had come down from the skies and was busy wizkilling people who misbehaved which was a lot of fun. Bardolf and I misbehave with the best of them!

Prist - Every whitie that I kill looks the same but there is one adventure which still sends shivers down my spine. The thrill on hidden Island is always there, every time I type this macro "st;e;rev lantern;w;pray", there is always a terrible question in my mind:
"Did the last lowbie bn reveal the last lantern or did he not?"

Whilst spamming me with good music, I managed to get pHector to tell a tale of his stories.

Hector - My ER profile says my favorite adventure is getting out of BM. That text was written over 4 years ago and even then it was sold adventure. Nowadays the things I enjoy in
 MUME are: playing solo – doesn’t really matter what I do, helping complete newbies do their first steps in MUME, sometimes role-playing with them, but the thing I most enjoy is labbing. Not because of its efficiency (our lab is often far from efficient), not because of having big group and being able to do a lot of things (enemies often just get bigger group and that’s the end of it) – its because of the things that go on outside of MUME and in lab. But we have had loads of fun in lab. Let’s see:  Luke leading labful of darkies to gloom, while talking on a phone and then walking all e from behind ancientslab and killing us all. Well, 2 of us survived while others were incapacitated, but it was sun outside so they couldn’t cure anybody. Me and Daniel killing my good friend Reno south abr, when he had blacksword. Then suddenly my phone rings, I pick up and its him telling me that he was just killed
by 2 orcs on abr. We were both no names and had no clue that it was him. Was kind of funny moment to find out you had just killed your friend and he calls you and tells you about it. So basically I value the relationships between me and the guys I play with more than anything else in MUME and my favorite adventure is playing this game with them not some specific battle in mume.

I was quite lucky to sit down with pRazoor over a kebab and coke and I managed to get an exclusive on his favorite adventure.

Razoor - My most memorable adventure took place about 4 years ago when i was quite new to MUME, playing my first character Evandaar (Now my Maia). It was a man warrior, which was suggested to me since it was rather easy to level and learn the basics with. I had, after much struggle (!), reached level 26 and was going out to PK with my MUME-teacher, p(Feagil), and his warrior Gabil. Together with us was p(Naga) with one of her casters. A mighty group indeed! Or so we thought, when we ran in to a solo troll at moors which I promptly ate bash from, upon which 4 other darkies magically appeared and started whacking my poor warrior-behind. Luckily wimpy-recover was still rather bugged at this time and I fled out on bad hp's, adding some pre-typed double-flees for good measure. Being several rooms away and completely safe (read: lost), I figured i had better increase my low HP's somewhat, and started curing myself. After about 3 seconds the darkiegroup enter my room, to my great surprise (How did they find me?!), and kept doing what darkies do best to poor lonely warriors. (*SMITE**SMITE**SMITE*SHATTER*) I fled again, probably ending up on Ford if I think back on it, and after making sure my group mates knew my current status (tell gabil EHLP NOW!!!1), I banged my fist on the movement keys running god knows where until I was moveless. There was no way i could move in a controlled fashion since my hands were shaking uncontrollably, and probably way too much to be considered healthy, rendering me completely unable to even write basic sentences. (No joke) After half-managing to shakily type out a message to Gabil saying i was safe (As if…) but moveless, i suddenly remembered what he always told me about PK, never forget to flush!!! Having gathered some 3 moves, i started flushing like a madman, and in the process managed to hit a ghost that was just passing by, and upon fleeing from said ghost ending up moveless in a room with a spirit. The ghost was of course not late to follow. Amazingly enough I survived this little encounter too (Must have been sw of warrens!), fleeing out on less than 10 hps. Spamming Gabil with some well thoughtout curses about dumb Estonians, ghosts and PK, he finally was able to figure out where I was, and give me safe dirs to the road! After finally rejoining with my somewhat shattered group (Down to 1 dwarf), and feeling the pounding in my temples receed and regaining control of my hands/head again, i get a tell from pNaga who just got out of mandos. She's wondering why i didn't rescue her, and calls me a f**king newbie :'(

What would a gossip column be without some gossip?
Here is some random gossip that I managed to snap up over the past months.

Thurge is currently living and working on a huge boat. His whereabouts are unknown but my best guess is that he spends most of his time on sea. Why a boat needs a troll aboard is anybody’s guess but lets hope he comes back safe and sound. Hope he remembers not to jump about. I don't think they have troll-sized life jackets...

Naga graduated from something. I am not sure what this something was but I am certain it's well worth a huge congratulations! Everybody give her a hug! And shining! *nod self*

Kelen had to drag her husband (Celint) away from the airport a few months back after he tried to book a single ticket to Sweden. According to some witnesses, it was a most brutal scene. Could this be the reason behind pCelints long hospital stay? More on this later.

There are rumours adrift about the possibility of Ajax being a long descendant of a famous Viking tribe in northern Sweden. After unearthing a picture of Ajax in his early years (rumoured to be from around the early 1200s) we can clearly see the similarities between him and his Swedish decedents. More to follow.

During a wild night on the 1st of May, when the drinks were flowing and the big fat squirrels were dancing, Razoor declared war on all "redshirts". I will not dive too deeply into the circumstances surrounding the declaration but rumour has it that the redshirt in question struck first (or attempted to) and now Razoor has sworn revenge on all his brethren. So followers, watch out! (I myself have taken the necessary precautions and I now don't own anything that's even remotely red!)

It is high time to update the levels list. Zaber, the highest level half-elf is now currently lvl 89! Staub has now overtaken Erebos as the highest-level dwarf, currently residing at level 87. Fayth has also been active to ensure the beornings are not forgotten and has now reach level 59! Congratulations all! Rumour has it that Woland has passed level 90 but at this moment this can't be confirmed. Same goes for Reno losing his place as the highest-level wobbit. If anyone knows any facts, please send me an email so I can update it for next month.

Over the past months it has been quite quiet on the justice department. But suddenly a large number of demotions were dished out and I hope it once again serves as a reminder to you what happens when you try to cheat. Stay honest people, for your and everybody else’s benefit.

Just recently, there has been a slight change to the Mume tp system. The overall amount of tps you need to gather will be the same, however, you will be required to get much less during the opening levels of the game, giving newer players much more room to easily gather some levels. Go see the Message 2206 : Travel points (Frór) thread for me details.

You can now post logs with the [NF] tag at the end. However, these logs should all be on the "other logs" page and should be used by less experienced players who want to constructive criticism on how to improve their play. You can read the full details on the "NEW LOG POLICY : Other Logs NF Tag" thread.

I am sure there have been plenty of birthdays over the past months. You're all a lot older and less beautiful! Congratulations!

That's all for this time. See you in a month (seriously!)

Happy mume hunting!