Where we left off, Bambi the Skara Brae stablemaster lost control and got herself guard-whacked after realizing how crappy (manurey?) her job was in comparison to the adventuring that "normal" people get to do. We also discovered that through the power of music, the true power of the stablemasters could be unleashed. We wasted no time in testing this conclusion upon the aptly-named "Rider", Bambi's short-lived replacement. Rider made short work of this Necro fellow (don't worry, GuardianKnight will have his chance at him in the near future... read on)
This was the first town-killing of a non-NPC ever to occur at the hands of a stablemaster (to our knowledge). It would be far from the last. However, we still felt that we did not know everything there was to know about the stablemeisters. We thought we would combine one of our final experiments with an adventure for Rider. We knew that taking him adventuring would certainly cause him to release his anger on all whom he saw (as Bambi did), making him the most powerful jedi...err... stablemaster... in the galaxy. Our adventure took us where no stablemaster has gone before... the final frontier... for stablemasters (Star Wars AND Star Trek references in 2 consecutive sentences... impressive...)
Needless to say, Rider absolutely pwned the denizens of Cyclops Valley.
Rather than lug him all the way back to the stable, we took advantage of the dark enchantment that Lord British cast upon him in order to "poof" him back to the Skara Brae stable where he is bound. After teleporting there ourselves, he immediately began attacking us--our adventure had worked in making him realize how terrible his job and life (thanks to the evil enchantment) was, and so he went postal. The bazookas called in our human ally known as "a big sTinker" to help Rider channel his anger to appropriate targets.
He apparently doesn't like dogs (perhaps people had too many of them in the stables?)... or maybe that was just the nearest creature in the path of his rampage. It appears that dogs are "gateway murder victims", because it didn't take long before Rider started killing NPC humans!
Rider continued his killing spree, moving up the line of NPCs until he took on what many mistakenly consider the most powerful NPC's in Britannia--the guards. Rider made short work of her with his god-like power.
It was about this time that GuardianKnight appeared. Based on our analysis of the UO forums, GuardianKnight is a pretty 1337 dude. I was concerned that Rider might have some trouble with him... but it didn't take long for Rider to put those fears to rest. Since Rider was not interested in the loot, I gladly cleaned up after him (Note that no 1337 dude is caught dead without a pillow in his possession... GuardianKnight certainly wasn't--at least on this occasion).
My utterance of "lol" caused Rider, under the influence Lord British's curse, to poof back in the stable, but it didn't take him long to come out for more mayhem.
Lord Dyvim Tvar wanted a chance to put Rider down. He lasted longer than GuardianKnight, but mostly because GuardianKnight was g-healing him...
Perhaps the greatest discovery of all was discovered by our friend "a big sTinker" in the next moment:
Indeed, I suppose it should come as no surprise that Rider was the real murderer in this scenario. Why should "a big sTinker" be given murder counts when Rider, a perfectly sentient human being, was the person one or two-shotting people with his quarter staff?
Regardless, GuardianKnight got to have a rematch with our friend Rider. He didn't get much farther this time around. However, in some way (which I still do not know how, albeit GuardianKnight claims he called the guards as a ghost which I think is not possible), the guards took care of Rider and a big sTinker--it appears that the guards' one-shot-kill capability is limited to responding to criminal events only (since Rider could easily kill MANY guards, as was seen previously).
Now that a big sTinker was proficient in guiding the stablemaster's fury, he decided to try it out on a stablemaster who wasn't "jail-broken" like Bambi and Rider were (i.e. those who had never been adventuring). He was successful. This is fortunate, since taking stablemasters adventuring is a lot of work. Of course, it must be remembered that while the stablemaster is within in town (and thus under the influence of Lord British), the initial music has no effect upon the stablemasters, so a big sTinker had to bring them to a better place to unleash their anger (the fierceness of which Eluvium experienced first hand... no pockets would be picked this time around).
After this time, the bazooka brothers and their bardic allies unleashed the fury of the stablemasters upon many an unsuspecting victim. There would probably not be room in this forum to post them all, but I will try to create a stablemaster victim archive of some kind in the future. This will serve as a memorial to the once-not-invulnerable stablemasters that proved to be the most powerful weapon ever to be within the control of the bazookas (albeit a slow and somewhat difficult to control weapon). By harnessing the stablemasters, we certainly made great strides toward our goal of protecting Britannia by wiping the human race away from it.
Until next time...
. Keep it up with that Knight In Shining Armor complex Mr. Saint.