I had been playing UO for a few months, hovering around Noble Lord but never rising any higher. I read about a tavern that was going to be opening, Silk's Tavern, that would welcome all players, Dreads and Great Lords, and hopefully show that you could hang around someone of opposite alignment and not get a disease.

For the first few weeks, everything went okay. Thieves stole the furniture until it was nailed down, but once everyone felt comfortable there was always half a dozen folks around; on Saturday nights there might be 50 or more, from the Red Capes of Justice to the Insidious Brotherhood, role-players and kewl-doods, hanging out and bs'ing, going on dungeon crawls, learning that just because someone was red didn't make them a murderer.

Eventually though, folks realized that this was one spot that they'd likely find that dread that killed them last week, and before long 3-4 groups a night would come pouring out of a gate and start killing the dreads, while those of blue alignment stood around doing nothing, not willing to go 'red' and face daily attacks.

I had met some cool dreads there though, and one night when a saw some friends of mine getting murdered by noto-pk'ing losers, I jumped in. I had just that day hit Great Lord, after a good 3 months of busting my ass to get there. Well, another 'Great Lord', Grizzly of KOR goes running past, chasing some poor dastardly bastard. I Vas Flam Grizzly (jeez, remember when fireball was a killer spell?), drop to Noble Lord, and he stops.

"Dude, wtf"? he says.

"Only a loser kills someone cause they're red", I say, as I nail him with another fireball, knocking him to 1/3 life, and me to Noble. He takes off running through the jungle, and I chase him. "Red is evil. Blues kill evil, a$$hole"! he screams as one more Vas Flam nails him, and sends him to a dirt nap.

As I'm rooting through his possessions and making jerky from his carcass, his ghost manifests and starts OooOOooo'ing me. Eventually I succeed at Spirit Speak, and listen to him curse me out for a good 2 minutes. I asked him if he'd been a Great Lord long, and he said he'd been one since the day after he started playing (fricking exploiter).

"Well then, if a jerk like you is good, then I'll go bad". I killed 2 more of his pals that night, and by the end of it I was a dread myself. Three months to make Great Lord, and 30 minutes to make dread.

And you know what? I never regretted it. My best friends in-game are all old dreads, and a more loyal, more trust-worthy bunch you'll never find.

Unless your a blue...haha.