The Realm of Mystara was not the first roleplay venue in Second Life I participated in. Prior to applying to Mystara I had spent close to a year roleplaying in Incorrigible as a healer and before that I roleplayed in Active Worlds (1995), the predecessor of Second Life (2003). I had quite a bit of experience in online roleplaying before I ever passed through the mists surrounding Mystara to begin a new role as a healer. A role which I had more experience at than many because of my real life knowledge and use of medicinal herbs.
At the time Mystara was still fairly new and not all of the lead roles had been filled. There were no healers and the apothecary shop stood empty. This was my chance to play the role I had always wanted to play, that of the owner of an apothecary shop. I have the real world knowledge regarding the herbs used in healing and several reference books I use in my everyday life so I could be accurate with my role and safe guard against someone doing something not very smart in real life. The last thing I wanted was for someone to misuse a real herb in real life and possibly make themselves extremely ill or even cause their own death. After roleplaying in Mystara a bit (and discovering the lack of healers and a vacant apothecary shop) I applied for the lead role of Apothecary, was interviewed and was awarded the role on the spot. I was over joyed!
When I was awarded the Apothecary role I immediately went about setting up a forum to use for the healers group with all the information needed for the herbs being used, including images of each plant, scientific names, and a whole lot of other information to be used in teaching the healers what they needed to know and how to use that knowledge. I had plans to hold classes for the newly apprenticed healers. I also created a lot of items to be used in the Apothecary shop including charts and other useful visuals that I framed to hang on the walls as part of the decor. I worked on that forum and the props 18 hours a day for 3 days. That's 54 hours. I put in more than a week's worth of work in 3 days based on the normal 40 hour work week. Fourteen hours of overtime. IN THREE DAYS! I was exhausted but I was so happy with getting the role I didn't care. Finally! A lead role I could really sink my teeth into and actually educate people on the uses and dosages of real medicinal herbs at the same time. A dream come true! A short lived dream.
The morning after I had completed all the work I logged in (as I had been doing the whole time) and headed for the apothecary shop. When I arrived there was someone there putting out props as if they were the shop owner and apothecary. Naturally, I was a bit confused since I had just landed the role and had informed the sim owner that I would be working on the forum and props for the next 3 days and would have everything ready to launch, which I had done. She said that would be fine. I'm sorry to say I have forgotten her name. It's been about 8 years ago now.
Seeing someone putting out props in what was supposed to be my "domain" was a bit of a shock. So I asked the person what was going on. I don't remember the exact words used in the conversation and I do have it logged on my old computer that I don't have the room for to keep set up, although I could still access the harddrive if I jump through a few hoops. But the gist of the conversation was that the sim/region owner gave them the role I had just landed because I was too slow. WHAT? I was stunned. Completely taken by surprise and off guard. And she was really nasty about it. Surely the owner would have messaged me about the change with an explanation but there was nothing from her. Since the owner was not logged in at the time (and had approved the 3 days time) I could have sent her an offline message but I chose to wait and talk to her in person. In the meantime, I went to the tavern to wait for the owner to log in. I was devastated.
While I was waiting, one of the moderators (mods) came into the tavern. I don't remember who it was now but I do remember the conversation. I may not always remember names but I do always remember faces and conversations. In any event, the gist of that conversation was that the person who I had just encountered was only given the role to a) shut her up and b) end the drama she was causing by badgering the hell out of the sim owner for the role. The mod's advice to me was it would be best to just let it go and find somewhere else to roleplay. She warned me about what would happen, the stalking and harassing that would go on, if I tried to get my role back. And that it would never stop. I thanked her for her advice and took it after giving it a lot of consideration. I did consider trying to stay on at Mystara in some other role, not related to healing, but, after what I had just been told about the person who stole my role I decided it was best for everyone if I left Mystara altogether. Not because I would have caused problems as I would have gone out of my way to avoid the thief but because I knew that sooner or later something would happen and the stuff would really hit the fan. I'd already been a witness to a lot of that sort of thing in other RP venues not related to Second Life and had no desire to witness it again or be involved in it. So I left Mystara and went on to other roles in Pandora, Ur and a couple of other venues until I finally just stopped logging in one day for the next 4 or 5 years, until close to Christmas time in 2018. I had made my peace with what happened and moved on without ever speaking to the person who stole the role from me about the theft after that initial encounter. Unfortunately, before I stopped logging in, every venue I roleplayed in with the exception of one (Ur) sooner or later the thief would show up demanding roles and rule changes. So I left Second Life with no intentions of ever returning because it was no longer enjoyable due to the thief's drama mongering.
I never did speak with the owner of Mystara about what happened. I realized that if someone will take a role from one and give to another just to avoid drama instead of ejecting, banning and blocking, they'll do it again and to anyone. Had I known then what I know now about the thief, I would have talked to the owner of Mystara about getting my role back and discussed/made plans for, what could be done to prevent any unwarranted repercussions from the thief instead of walking away and moving on. I never did go back to Mystara and it wasn't long before Mystara was gone and another RP based on the same story took its place, same owner. I stayed away though since I didn't know if the thief was still there or not and I wasn't about to go asking and accidentally stir up drama.
Sometime later on, and before I stopped logging in, I'd heard that the thief had thoroughly trashed the apothecary role and created so much drama that she was finally banned from the Mystara regions. One of the mods had messaged me and asked me to go back as apothecary. My answer was a resounding no and I explained why. They understood and asked that I please contact them if I should ever change my mind. I never did and since I no longer roleplay in Second Life because the thief is known to circumvent Linden Lab bans and start drama in group chats and in roleplay regions over things that either never happened, or happened years ago, or was her demanding the rules be changed to suit her (and only her), or demanding roles she didn't deserve or have the knowledge and experience to perform the role properly. And of course there were always the roles that were already filled that she would demand to be taken from the person in the role and be given to her. She had learned that badgering people will get her what she wants. I can only hope she didn't learn that from what she did to me and had learned it long before that one brief, heart wrenching encounter.
The name of the avatar who stole my role? samanthaprater Resident. A name I will never truly forget now. Not after everything I found out about this person over the past 5 or 6 months. But that's the rest of the story.
Author's Note: I still have all of the logs from my roleplaying days. I had made it a habit to log everything, including private messages and group chats but mostly the roleplays I participated in. It was a means of going back and taking pleasure from re-reading the dialog and improving my own roleplaying, as well as being a record of events in any roleplay disputes that might have come up. I have logs going back to 2005, the year after I first joined Second Life.
Coming Soon! Chapter 2 - The Story Than Never Ends: The Beginning
