Vulnax's Vault of Virtual Veracity

A report of the recent MudMeet :

Day 1

Friday night.  17 August 2002.  Mud Meet Eve.  

Around 18:00 text messages where whizzing about, as the M6 car park was holding the early attendees up.  These Immortals were staying over the Friday Night as well as the Saturday, and we had agreed to meet up for a beer and a meal.  By 20:00 Vulnax arrived at the pub and chased the other attendees up from their rooms or the bar.  By new we had Foddy, Hawumph, Karya and Vulnax present.  Stories of the journey were swapped during the odd drinkie and discussion of who else may be turning up for the Saturday.  Hints of goodies to come were chatted over, which had the makings of a great MUDmeet.  Vulnax had pre-booked an Indian and also arrived bearing armfuls of menus for local eateries, to cover all preferences.  Indian was the majority preference, so a brief Taxi journey later we four were sat in a pretty decent Indian Restaurant in sunny Widnes.  Poppadoms, starters, and a range of mild, medium and hot and veggie main courses were ordered and delivered over MUDdy discourse.  Why does Indian Lager go down sooo well with a curry; the cider seemed to be suitable too!   Obviously not sufficient alcohol was imbibed ( although it WAS quite a lot! ) as no wizard secrets or game hints came Vulnax's way.... maybe tomorrow..... !

Around 23:30 we decided it was time to go as the local inhabitants had awoken from their drunken lethargy and were descending on the curry house, so a Taxi was sought.  The original taxi firm had a wait of an hour for a cab, so Foddy flexed his Arch Wizard muscles and summoned one from elsewhere.. which arrived in 10 minutes or less.  The Immortals were dropped off at the Hotel and Vulnax continued on to home for some much needed sleep, for the hectic activities on the morrow. 

Day 2

As the host I thought maybe I should get there early to greet the impending arrivals, still not sure just who was coming since a lot of people had said they would but then changed their minds or something came up ... holidays etc.  Droo even cancelled while overseas on holiday!!

Getting a taxi to the pub at about 1 pm, I found Foddy, Karya and Hawumph already well into the drinks.  I joined them and we chatted over who was likely to be coming.  Only a few more were  "confirmed" and a few more possibles, so it was going to be a small, tightly knit meet.  Actually it was almost a wiz meet as Vulnax was likely to be the only mortal present.... ohh to be in the inner circle!   Beer and chat ensued with some interesting sidelines.  Vulnax got out her big, blue, star spangled flashing wizards hat to the amusement of all, and Hawumph stole the show by bringing out his pet dragon!  A real life, walking roaring dragon.  Luckily it was only 15 inches high and didn't flame too much, but it was cute. See pics on links below.  

Foddy had brought MUDii.co.uk merchandise, such as T-Shirts, Pens, Mouse mats, which were shared out to the few attendees.  Nice! Using my mat right now!  These will be part of event prizes in future.

IIRC, we ate then, with some interesting hot stuffed rolls, and more beer!  A slight problem was that the ladies amenities were out of order as they were being refurbished that week, which meant poor old Karya ( Yes, she really is a girl !) had to trek all round the pub to visit the restaurants' facilities.

Shortly after 3pm Richard Bartle arrived, having had great fun coming up the M6 car park, sorry motorway around Birmingham.   Richard chatted generally and then got out his bulging photo album from previous mud meets, where we all tried to identify who was who!   Richard had also brought a couple of boxes of MUDii mugs to hand out, which unfortunately he was a little disappointed with and so left the lot with Karya!  The story of the mug design / manufacture is one you will need to ask Richard about sometime..!

Boggy and Antman arrived 4pm ish, having been slobbing in the sun till 2pm ish!

One of the entertainment / events came up now, a name the player from the pic quiz.  Which was now a lot easier following viewing Richard's photo's .. ohh well, !!  A bit later the MUD word square was attempted, and pretty well everyone completed it successfully!

Hawumph's food and drink quiz came up soon after, after more chat and beer.  A bit hard this one...  Boggy was not driving and was taking advantage of the fact and was working on drinking the bar dry... soon he was a bit worse for wear and spent a while in the little boys room reviewing his lunch!  Richard did his usual early disappearing trick for the long trek down the wonderful M6.

The Quiz the Wiz was a bit flat, due to the number of wizzes! and few questions - those who asked something got a reply at the time, I think!

Sometime in the early evening we phoned a few people such as Zordell, Pippin, Fruitbat etc.some of whom were actually answering the phone!

Dinner arrived around 9pm, ordered from the adjacent restaurant and was rather pleasant.

Foddy had nipped off to the room a couple of times in the afternoon / evening, and now it all became clear!  A laptop running MUDii and also webcam software was sitting on the dressing table, with our USA wiz Sepultura on the end.  A quick chat ensued, but the line was breaking up, but still a nice surprise to telecon those who could not make it.

Worse for wear, the pub shuffled us out and it was off to the respective beds.  A pretty good, if small cosy and wizzy meet!

The quizzes we had are here, if you fancy a go!    

Mud Shots             MUD Shots

MUDdled words    Words MUDdled in the swamp

Hawumph's MUD food and drink quiz can be found here on Muddled Times.

Other reports can be found here :