Ok, so I was running through greater faydark and met somebody at the PoD lift to sell some jewel pieces, and as usual the place was crawling with newbies. Now, I have nothing at all against newbies, I will often buff them up and send them on their way, but I do have a problem with beggars. So I see newbie_bard_01 hailing everybody at the lift and asking for "plat/equip". Grrrr, I think to myself, nothing gets my blood pressure going like a beggar. So, when he comes to me and asks for the usual, I respond as I usually do with '/d'. They never accept but at least it gets the point across and they seldom bug me after that. To my astonishment, though, this time it comes back, 'newbie_bard_01 accepts your challenge ...' Wow, I think to myself, what is this guy on? Of course with the guards there at the lift, I'm not about to start casting, so I invis myself and keep an eye on him until he decides to go hunting. I follow him out to wasp/wolf-ville and when I'm satisfied with the distance from the guards, start casting enthrall. It hits him and I don't think he has a clue what's going on. Meanwhile I sit down and mem beguile in plenty of time. I get up to see him frantically sitting/standing, and probably trying to move with any button at all. I throw a tash on there for good measure and hit him with beguile. The timing was pretty good as mez wore of a couple seconds later. He comes prancing over to his new master eager to do his bidding.

At this point I could do some really cruel things, like give him rune II and run him up through the orcs, leaving him eventually with a corpse right at the crushbone entrance, or I could just take him to some remote corner of the zone, break charm and nuke him dead. But I'm not that cruel. And I don't want to take the time. So, I just send him against wasp after wasp and finally against an orc pawn to finish him off.

Well, that was fun, guess I'll head back to the lift. He shows up a couple minutes later swearing at me up and down. I chuckle and ask if he needs help with his corpse. No, he says and asks what level I am. Up until this point I hadn't been anon or role but quickly type in /role to continue the fun. I'm level 5 I tell him, and he promptly replies that he's gonna log his level 5 necro for a rematch. Heheh, I agree. I take the time to get some more fun spells memmed, namely eye of confusion and curse of the simple mind. If you're not familiar, the first one is a blind spell that turns your screen black and freaks you out, and the second one an intelligence debuff that returns the message, "newbie_necro_01 looks stupid." Just some fun stuff.

He shows up with his necro, pet in tow all ready to rumble. He challenges and I accept, keep in mind still standing at the PoD lift. Immediately I see his pet coming at me and shortly afterward see him start casting. About 0.011 seconds after his DoT bounces off of me he is killed by guards. *sigh* That wasn't much fun. So I wait around for him to pop back on and send a tell, "Not a good idea to attack another player so close to the guards." No response so I wait at his corpse. He comes running along, loots the corpse and sits down. Alright, I'm feeling a little bad, so I throw a clarity on him, maybe he'll feel buffed enough to want another try. Ten seconds later he disappears, camped I guess.

The moral, well there's probably not a moral. I just really don't like beggars and have been waiting for that chance for quite a long time. Call me a cruel bas**rd if you want, but what does anybody gain from begging or from giving to beggars? Newbies get a free ride out of getting themselves established and learn very bad habits, and the older players lose a portion (a very small portion I admit, but still a portion) of what they have worked their own asses off for. Besides, that was some of the most fun I've had in EQ for a long time.

[31 Enchanter] Yizzelar (Unknown) <Circle of Radiance>