Part V: German Discotheques & Firearms

I'm starting to understand this crazy place a little more. And, that saddens me a little. At first, I thought 2nd Life was one big crazy realm to meander on through. But since joining and exploring a little, I'm starting to realize it's divided up into different sections, often divided by an impenetrable barrier. Hence the need to teleport to and fro. Take Hilary's unofficial headquarters island. Once you're there, you cannot fly back across the ocean to get away. It's sad because it makes the virtual universe a little smaller to me. Oh well, at least some of these sections are pretty damn large so there's plenty of exploring to do.

When I last left, I was still in a quadrant that hosted the likes of Ron Paul's political headquarters, a zoo, a brothel, and various other gin joints. I also met a nice woman named Charlot Dickins on a rooftop altering her appearance. I figured I'd explore the area a little more before I teleported to some other section. Now, three days later, I'm jacked in again and who do I discover on that same rooftop? Charlot. I went up to her and expressed my amazement that she was still in the exact location three days later. She said it was the only spot she could build things. Some nuances of 2nd Life still confuse me. I was still under the impression you could build things almost anywhere, but I did not want to express my noobness and relate that to her so I simply asked her what she was trying to build. She said a foot. This looked to be true because I looked down and noticed she only had one foot. I didn't feel like taking too much of her time in the foot building process so I wished her well again and told her I was off on more adventures.

I flew on down the road and noticed a large gathering of people and veered off in that direction. A strange site to be sure. There seemed to be a lot of people painting on transparent canvases. Apparently this was a depot where you could pay to alter your avatar. You know my money situation if you've read my exploits to date, so I just watched them for a while. Then I noticed a mini-mall in the near vicinity and checked it out. It turns out it was a weapons shop. I didn't even know you could have guns in 2nd Life. I'm a peace mcluvin kind of guy but still, I was intrigued. Would you be able bust a cap in someone's ass even here? Since I recently learned you could pay to have sex with someone's avatar, I guess nothing should surprise me.

Apparently scantly clad women sell guns in 2nd Life as well.

The base price for most of these guns was around $600. I have $0, so no weaponry for poor Huygens today. You bet I tried to steal some. No luck. It was time to move on.

A little ways down from the gun shop was a German disco. I think that's German everyone is speaking. Aside from a few people getting funky, there were only two other dudes. They struck me as the bouncer types. Do Germans get rowdy enough to need that kind of thing here?

Anyway, I took up camp at the bar to soak it all in. There was a "lean on bar" icon floating by the bar so I walked up and enabled it, and therefor lean I did.

I don't know, I think the bouncers were making fun of me. Maybe it was the torch. Being linguistically challenged, I had trouble deciphering the conversation though. I had my first instance of getting a weird vibe in 2nd Life. Like when you're at a real club in real life and you don't get a nice feeling about the place and you leave. So that's what I did.

I decided I felt like flying down the street to map how large the sector I was in was. After breezing down a few miles, I ran into someone hovering in the middle of the road.

Now floating in the road is nothing unusual, but this gentleman stuck me odd for two reasons. His outfit for one. He was clad in a tank-top with extremely high cut-off jean shorts, topped off with a newspaper folded sailor hat. The second thing was the object he was holding, a high-power silenced sniper rifle.

Our conversation went from pleasant to weird. He said hello and asked what I was doing here. I told him of my exploits at Paul's, the brothel, disco, etc. and he had a good laugh. He then professed sadness at getting kicked out of an adjacent sector, apparently where simulated combat took place. I told him I was sorry and asked him if that was a real gun. He said yes. I told him to shoot me, for kicks. He said no. It would cause me to die and I would get logged off and have to sign back in. Sometimes, he said, you might not even start back up at the location you died.

So that's how the gun think worked, I thought. You could actually die here. Although, unlike the Matrix, you don't die in real life. Thankfully. I asked him what if he just shot me in the leg, would I still die or would I just limp around? He said I would die. Cool, I says.

Harold says he had the total freedom to snipe anybody he wants, but the Servers do get pissed if you go around and indiscriminately pop other 2nd Life citizens. Especially when the victims complain about it. You might be banned from that quadrant or 2nd Life altogether.

What a fine line to walk, I thought. Having the power of extreme mischief but curbing the urge to use it. But alas, with no money, I would probably never know the temptation. Then our conversation took an interesting turn.

Harold said I should go over to the battle ground to, as he called them, pay those "fuckers" back that kicked him out because he was too good. At this point I was thinking, how could someone so good dress like Harold did? I bet he was causing trouble and that's why they kicked him. But, seeing how he was the one holding the high-powered rifle, I was not going to share these thoughts.

I told Mr. Nurmi I had no money, no guns and didn't even know where this "battle zone" was. He then said, "I'm going to give you the name of the place. And I'm going to give you some guns."

I was kind of in shock. As of yet, no one had offered me anything in 2nd Life yet, except a free t-shirts or two from a dispenser box. Now someone was offering me weapons? But then the dialog boxes popped up, letting me know he was indeed giving me guns. Three different kinds I think, plus the name of the battle zone.

I didn't know what to do. I told him I was at work and needed to log off and go home, which was true, and that I would have to enforce justice on his aggressors at a later point. I was nervous he might think I was just getting his loot and was ditching him, which actually was true as well, because I had no intention of carrying out his vendetta either. It worked. He wished me well and said to carry on his mission when I get back on.

Sucker. I am just going to take his firearms. Not knowing the other "fuckers" side of the story, I will not follow a cause I know nothing about. I'm just hoping Harold isn't around when I log back in.

In any case, my interaction with Harold has changed things. Forever.

Oh sure, I'm still Huygens Sideways, lovable/homeless/penniless vagabond.

But now, I'm Huygens Sideways, lovable/homeless/penniless vagabond....with some guns.