Ragnarok and a Dollar

Yeah. Ragnarok Online. Just started playing today.
Never thought it’d go smoothly without a glitch. On my laptop, that is.

During those hours I’ve waited for the patch download to complete, I’ve read the Ragnarok manga/manwha(?) to psyche myself good. Well, it actually turned me into an impatient whelp. I got excited thinking about raising a Swordsman patterned to my RP character, Salvatore, a Warrior of Light.

**A long, seemingly endless entry about being poor and playing Ragnarok.
Skip it. Skip this entry for the good of mankind! -shot-

I. 

It’s Saturday today. Perfect day for gaming. Not. Earlier today, I had to go to school. Woke up early and all. Just before I left, I received a text saying that classes are suspended. But I knew there was a catch somewhere. We still had to go back to school for dance practice. It’s for our tribute to our seniors this coming Monday. 

Since I had some time left before practice begins, I decided to finish the patching until then and play even just for five minutes before I go. I was successful, but there was a short power outage… My laptop was running by direct power source without its UPS (yeah, I’m trying to preserve the battery). Since I am very– very particular with my gadgetry, I couldn’t help but feel furious. A sudden shutdown. I can only imagine the (possible) damage it can cause to my dear beloved laptop. 

Thus I left home with quite the frown on my face.

Oh, that was not the only reason why I was frowning. Going to school with only $1 in my wallet made it worse. Ahaha, please. Go ahead. You won’t go to hell for laughing. It’s just Father got a new job, and his paycheck schedule is still uncertain. Still, I’m not one to complain over trivial(?) things.

Or not.

As I arrived at school, I was warmly greeted by familiar faces. I once swore to never lose my self in my mood swing tendencies, so I forced up a wide, transparently half-hearted grin. My foul aura was still evident– Monroe asked if I was okay. Ah, dammit.

No, that is not the last of it. A few moments after I’ve arrived, Jewel went ahead and invited all of us to eat out first before anything else. It was only 10 AM. The time we’re supposed to start practicing. And I always arrive on time– never too soon, never too late. And I did my best to psyche myself into this dancing gig of theirs. And what do I get? An invitation to eat out while my wallet’s writhing in agony in the recesses of my pocket.

It’s no one’s fault, I suppose. Just terrible timing. Terribly horrid timing. I woke up too early, my laptop had a little accident, my pocket has this gaping void, not to mention I’ve been having some weird, allergy-like skin condition that pops up randomly either in the day or night. I could go on with this list. But, nah. 

Whatever. I went home (secretly) after letting them go on ahead. No practice. Didn’t even bother checking my phone ’til this moment. Haha, childish, I know. I’m merely avoiding unnecessary stress because I think it is the one which have been causing the hives for these past few weeks. It’s terrible. I can’t afford to wear my cargo shorts in case there’s a breakout in the middle of the day. And I don’t have the money to have this checked out by a dermatologist. All I can do is to buy some sedating antihistamines for myself.

Enough of that. I want to write about my first day on Ragnarok.

II.

So. When I got back home, first thing I did was to play. Nothing else lightened up my mood than some good ‘ol gaming time. Started out as a novice with long, spiky silver hair. Yeah. Though I wasn’t so sure of the initial stat setup I had for Salv (I named it Salvatore, hurrrr).

After getting my base level to 18 (the heck?!), I finally decided on doing the job change into a Swordsman. I should’ve done that earlier, I know. I got lost plenty of times. Man, I wasn’t expecting Ragnarok to be so harsh to noobs like me. The map is so expanded, just thinking of town-hopping makes me feel tired already.

I didn’t feel at home. I was a nomad. I had no destination. I had no purpose there. My dream of becoming some kind of sword-wielding hero just sunk along with wallet in some infinite hole. Hngh.

After pointlessly talking to some NPCs, I happened to come across one in Prontera who asked me to go in Al Debera (???) to meet up with some big shot. He said it was due north, so I just followed the road ahead. The streets were packed with merchants and cool-looking characters whom I’ve learned to be envious of.

At the end of the road was a castle-like structure. I entered and continued onward. Then it finally spat me outside to some area with another castle thingy. This time, the place was desolate. It felt somewhat sad, but such is the way of the warrior. Lolwut.

The map indicated warp zones in that very area. I went to the northernmost one. As I tried going through, it seemed like I was walking against an invisible wall. It probably was a bug, but it did not matter. There were a few other exists, not to mention the one I came out from. I went to the one on the east. Then on the west. Nothing. Then one more off-road. None. So I decided to go out the same way I came in.

Oh Freya, pity my soul. I was trapped. A Swordsman who had no warping capabilities nor the capacity to commit suicide so I can respawn back to Prontera, I wondered if my 5+ hours of playing would end there.

Sat in front of the gate for an hour or so while checking on Google for any solutions. No such luck. My only recent plans of diligently raising Salv into Swordsman-> Crusader-> Transcedent into Paladin just… Argh.

Then someone showed up. Someone named DoodLez. A wizard player, maybe? He came in by way of teleporting. Finally. Someone who could probably help me out. Since I thought he wouldn’t be there for long, I knew I had to type in something quick.

"Ah, excuse me…"

DoodLez teleported back just after I had hit Enter. Curses.
Shortly after, there was a seemingly lost character walking around. 

Then another flash of light.

"Yes?"

It was him. Again. My hopes were definitely up. Before I could send a message, the other guy with me asked to be warped out. I asked for the same.

DoodLez spammed his [Increase AGI] skill in front of us. I felt choked. Mustering all of my good will, I had let go of my pride as a warrior and typed, "… Please?"

After a few more showoffs, he disappeared. The hell.

That left me and this other guy by ourselves. In this kind of situation, I suppose it’s a nice opportunity to finally get to chat with someone in the MMORPG. We remained in front of the gate, waiting for someone less of a douchebag to extend a hand. While waiting, silence was not an option. Guess I’ll tough it out with this guy named Lightweight.

"Damn!" The other cursed understandably. "I searched in Google for a solution and found nothing…" was all I can say.

"We can wait for a GM to go online and we can just PM him. :)) 
And I just turned into an Assassin. Bad luck, hm."

Then I just thought up of something. "Hey… what is this area called?" I wasn’t able to type that in Google since the in-game map was being stingy about my current whereabouts. He replied with some code, and other things I just had no idea about. I tried the code and some other keywords, still nothing. So I just went back to the original plan– wait for help.

"About those things you said. I don’t quite understand. I’m new here. This is my first day playing today."

"As in? You never played Ragnarok before? Ever?"

"Well… I played once. I’m only playing now because it’s a free server, unlike in the past. Didn’t have money to play with. xD"

*laughs* "Well, I just got back recently myself."

At that moment, a familiar face came back. DoodLez opened up a portal. I could not believe it myself.

"Come over here. Let’s go." Lightweight must’ve been relieved as I was.

We stepped in. In a second, we were both transported to a jungle-like area, and the aggressive, high-leveled monsters ganged up on us. LW managed to type "F*CK!" before we died. Some troll that DoodLez was, indeed.

Before respawning, we added each other as friends. We might have just spent a few minutes together, but I felt that it was enough to make us comrades. Not bad for a first, hm.

Salv woke up in the backstreets of Prontera. A group of players was in line and was being buffed by an acolyte/priest(?). The sound effect was eerie; it gave me an impression of witnessing a ritual by cult people.

**
Lulz, look at the length of this entry.

Well, my first day/night in RO surely is memorable. I couldn’t think of anything more to add here since my hives are acting up. It’s so damn itchy and it’s all over my body. Hngh, it’s very annoying. To suffer from this for almost a month now… I have more reasons why I should just stay home and play Ragnarok.

Right. I’ll try to sleep this off since I don’t have any meds left for it.
Ciao.