Nerva day 1:

Nerva's Prescription for a successful independent start.

The only assumptions being made in this guide are as follows:

1. The newbie knows the basic operation of the client.

2. The newbie uses razor and understands the basics.

3. The newbie knows how to get around on foot and can use the compass and radar (alt-r).


Let the prescription begin!

Nerva was born about 10pm EST on January 11, 2006. She was born as a warrior. Other birth choices were considered but warrior was chosen for the fact of simplicity, antiquity, and consistency. That is, warrior skills and methods are among the most stable, date from the earliest days of the kingdom, and they require no particular "tricks of the trade" to get started.

Nerva's goal is to amass a good set of skills for slaying overland spawn to gather enough gold to perhaps allow the birth of a brother or sister with better gold making skills. She hopes to have an extended family someday but for now the responsibility of setting a foundation for future siblings falls to her.

Another goal that Nerva has is that she will make no alliances and seek no help. Nerva is a solo!

Nerva was born next to the town-crier who stands just a little off the southwest corner of the West Britain Bank. She instantly banked all that she carried. Soon the thieves realized that she had nothing to offer. She realized that had she hesitated, she would have been picked as clean as a week old carcass on the African savanna.


Nerva immediately left town, knowing that running up to the Britain Graveyard was a newbie mistake. Almost any town other than Britain is a better place for a solo person to grow up.

Being a warrior Nerva knew that bandages would be important for her. Nerva departed for Skara Brae. Going directly to the docks, she crossed and ran to see if she would be safe picking cotton in the cotton fields just south east of the east side docks. No one seemed to be around. There were a few people in a tower right by one of the fields but they seemed to be occupied inside the tower and showed no interest in Nerva. Nerva picked cotton for a while, making several trips back and forth to the bank as she could only carry 33 cottom balls at a time. Nerva was very weak. She collected about 100 cotton balls and banked them. Nerva shook the dust of Skara Brae off her feet.

Nerva departed for Vesper. At the Vesper Bank Nerva counted her gold, finding just a little over 200 gold pieces. She took 100 gold pieces and ran over to Vesper's Tinker shop. She bought a butcher knife and a hatchet. The knife was for filleting fish. The hatchet was for lumberjacking. Nerva has been inspired by Norbert. She wants to be an effective axer. She will gain lethality and a swordsmanship bonus from her lumberjacking skills. She then ran to the Vesper docks and found a fisherman to purchase a fishing rod. After purchasing a fishing rod, she went down to the shore and began to fish.

Nerva fished until she pulled in a enough to bank about 120 fishsteaks. Now she needed a frypan and a place to cook. Nerva ran all over Vesper looking for cooking tools, She went to the tinker, the baker, the provisioner, and more, all to no avail. She postponed the cooking tools for later.

Nerva also pulled up a pile of boots, shoes, and sandals. With her scissors she cut up all the footwear into leather. As you will see Nerva saves all commodities. Opinions will vary on the matter of saving everything but Nerva has no doubts.

Nerva worked on laying in a supply of food because she knew that food is really important on Angel Island for refreshing stamina. She knew that someday she'd be able to buy refresh potions but for now those are too expensive.

Nerva planned to go hunting mongbats as soon as she could get a supply of food layed in. For the fish to be food it needed to be cooked. Where to get a frypan? Nerva banked everything so that she would lose nothing should she run afoul of another adventurer.

Nerva ran up to the town of Minoc and checked at the tavern with no name all the way to the north of town. Nerva finally had some luck. A cook named Moon had 20 skillets! Frugal Nerva bought one and she ran back to the bank to get the fishteaks to be cooked. But it turned out that she should have bought several. The skillet wore out and vanished. Nerva also blundered as a cook. She kept all 120 fish inside her knapsack. When she attempted to cook up the fishsteaks, she failed and "lost some of her materials." Nerva lost half of her fishsteaks! Groaning at her blunder, she place the remaining 60 steaks on the floor and attempted to cook them one at a time. Her success in cooking was poor but the rise in skill was dramatically better. Soon she would be able to cook without fear of excessive loss of her raw material.

Now she had to fish some more to make up for the blunder.

Nerva went back down to the Vesper docks and fished for quite a while. While she was on the docks, a pirate, a red, came running after her on the dock. Nerva ran for it. The pirate pursued her calling, "Wait! Wait!" Nerva decided to take the chance and see what the pirate wanted. With fear in her heart and ready to run she stopped. The pirate, Lythandesi, announced that he was tired of chasing Nerva and he was hungry. He just wanted some cooked fishsteaks. She said that she had 9 cooked steaks back at the bank. Nerva, not exactly thrilled about parting with her 9 steaks, asked what would be offered in return for the steaks. Lythandesi put up some gold in trade window. Nerva said, "Ok." Off the bank they went and completed their business. W00t! Lythandesi gaver her over 200 gold for 9 steaks!

Nerva saw quite a few pirate kin come through the area of the bank while she was doing business. They looked her over closely but were about their own business.

Nerva, having completed her business with Lythandesi, grabbed her fishing rod and went back down to the Vesper docks. She stayed until she had about 200 fish steaks and then walked over to the bakery and began wearing out skillets. She got about 40 steaks to a skillet. Her skill had risen to the point that instead of getting about 10 steaks per 100, she now got 25 per 100. Nerva banked the cooked fish steaks hid in the town and called it a good first day of life.


She had accomplished many things. She had accumulated about 50 cooked fish steaks and 100 cotton balls. She had raised her strength, dexterity, hiding, fishing, and cooking significantly. Thanks to unexpectedly doing business with Lythandesi, her wealth had risen to 360 gold pieces.

Razor played a role in all of these accomplishments. Whenever Nerva was running around a hiding macro played in the background. When Nerva fished a macro made her casting and retrieving a little less monotonous. When she was cooking one steak at a time to concentrate on raising cooking to obtain reasonable yields, it was razor that made this bearable.

Tomorrow (her tomorrow when she logs in again) spinning cotton to yarn to cloth to bandages will be the first priority. Hunting mongbats for gold and lumberjacking for wood will also be at the top of her to-do list. Can skeletons be far behind?


Nerva\'s day 2

Nerva\'s day 3

Nerva\'s day 4

Nerva\'s day 5

Nerva\'s day 6

Nerva\'s day 7

Nerva\'s day 8