My story is a strange one. At the urging of my friends, I entered the portal to Leafcull, not as a fighter, but as a supporter. Aletris was born as a trades and ID mule. She only came to see what Dereth was like, never to stay. She ventured thru the portal in May 2000 and has never been allowed to leave.

Things were very different then, ID skills were actually useful. She had never been in a virtual world before and was in awe of Dereth. She lived in Yanshi. She fletched and sold her arrows and made money. She cooked and gave food to weary travelers. She met many people in Yanshi, at that time it was a very busy town.

She had to do something with the money she made, so she bought armor and weapons that people came to sell. Then she couldn't hold everything, so she talked a friend into coming to live in Dereth, so Purple Llama was born to hold "stuff".

>From May to August 2000, Aletris fletched, ID'd, bought "stuff" and made friends. She figured she had to do something with all that "stuff" since she couldn't find a portal out of Dereth, so she made a look-a-like clone and named her Alletris. Only Alletris was different in that she was trained in the art of Unarmed. When she was level 9, she was accepted into the allegiance of Animus ot Smok. Of this she was extremely proud, as it was a very noble and caring allegiance.

But Aletris still had the yearning for a mage. She had stood for hours watching Avail's and Pivit's previous chars buffing along with Heaven Sent, Anikan Sky (Obi Wan) and Loki Wolvish. She just couldn't get the mage thing out of her mind.

So in May 2001 when Loki Wolvish approached her about making a Battle mage and swearing her to his new Battlemage, Blackwave (who was under Obi Wan at the time), she said yes. And so, Lathina was born.

Lathina and Aletris are different from a lot of people in Dereth in that they have never had Decal on their machine. They do their own work, be it buffing or fletching or fighting. The only third party software they have used in their stay in Dereth has been Split Pea.

They have never used buff bots or the like. Since the original Blackwave stopped playing the game, they have not even been in an allegiance. Therefore, they are much behind the majority of the other people in Dereth at this time. There is so much macroing and exploiting going on in Dereth now that they don't really feel at home anymore. They really haven't ventured our of their houses since April, and here it is in August. They ask me why they have to work so hard to level, when others are in chains and level 126 and above, and I have no answer for them, except that I think we have to earn what we get.

I'm still looking for that portal out of Dereth, I just hope when I find it that I'm not too sad about leaving my girls here to die.