Of course, my natural instinct was not to answer, since I thought the clueless newb (hereafter referred to politely as "the petitioner") must have been poorly informed at best.

Boy was I ever wrong.

I switch out of 1st person into an external camera, and what did my wandering eyes behold? Only myself and the petitioner.

So I says to myself...."Self? You need to edumacate this fella!"

The Petitioner says, "$#*&@#$ sow me already! it's for a cr"

Feeling as if my feathers had been ruffled a bit, I do a "/who all dumb*%^" (um..pardon..I meant "/who all petitioner")

This is where I discovered the "/who all" bug. Certainly it must have been a bug, right? There's NO WAY IN CREATION the dumb...err...petitioner could have been a level 31 Dark Elf Wizard, right???? RIGHT????? /em begins to cry like a little girl.

Well, needless to say, I couldn't have been any more shocked than if my pet began dancing an Irish Jig. I quickly begin the arduous task of maintaining my composure, while deciding how best to deal with this tricky situation.

I say, "Necromancer's can't cast SoW".

Petitioner says, "@#*%@#$%! you cast a spell while you were running and you sped up! i couldn't catch you until you sat down! if you're not going to sow me just say so you dont have to be a *^*# about it (I know, he didn't use any punctuation in that last sentence.)

I say, "I have JBoots."

He says, "what are they"

Before I have a chance to pick my chin up off the floor....

Petitioner asks, "can you buff my hps my hp sux"
I say, "I can't buff you, dude. I'm a necromancer. I only have one buff that you would probably want."
He says, "yeah the one you won't give me "

Ok. Time to have fun with the hopelessly clueless.

I say, "Why do you need a sow?"
He says, "i need to get to burned woods to hunt. sumbody said its perfect for my level"
Yep. That's what he said......"burned woods".
I say, "man are you ever in the wrong place."
He says, "?"

Apparently he found the "question mark" key conveniently located nearby other various and sundry communication facilitators.
I didn't answer him.
He repeats, "??"
Found it twice...good for him.
He repeats, "???"

Having an IQ greater than plantlife, I sensed a pattern forming.

I say, "You are NO WHERE near Burned Woods."
He says, "my friend told me it was in kunark"
I say, "Yeah, the operative word there is 'WAS'. There was a major patch a couple of months ago after a bunch of complaints were filed about 'static content'."

He says, "?"
I say, "!"
He says, "?"
I say, ","
He says, "w&*"
I say, "no, already have some."
He says, "????"
I don't respond.

He says, "so where the @#$% is burned woods"

He lost the question mark button again. Probably popped off when he was sniffing his feet.

I say, "Well, THIS week it's south of Freeport. It changes with every patch, since they began randomizing zone locations."

My guild is hysterical at this point. And I haven't even told them the ENTIRE story yet. Just snippets.

He says, "@#$% i just got off the boat"

I say, "You don't need the boat."
He says "why"
I say, "You're a wizard!"
He says, "how you know that"

I say, "I did a /wh...nevermind....the important thing is you have teleportation spells."
He says, "oh yeah the green ones"
I nod.

I say, "Yep. The 'green ones'. Pretty nice how you have them grouped by color."
He says, "thx"
I say, "How'd you think about doing it that way?"
He says, "they were all @#$%## up when i got this char"
I say, "Sit down and mem the spell 'Fay Gate'."
He says, "why"

Question mark key is on the ground in front of your chair, guy. Mixed in with your collection of boogers.

I say, "It's going to put you within spitting distance of Burned Woods."

He says, "how do you know"

I say, "All patch messages come with a zone connection map."
He says, "oh"

I say, "Ok. You have it memmed now?"

He had just stood up after what I assumed was meditating/looking at his spell book.

He says, "yeah"

I say, "Ok. Cast the spell and let me know when you get there."

Dumba...errr....Petitioner begins to cast a spell.

A LONG time goes by.....ok, maybe 5 minutes I still haven't heard from him.

Getting curious:

I tell petitioner, "Are you there yet?"

No reply. No reply at all. [Yes, I'm a Genesis fan... ]

Obviously he's there, or my tell wouldn't have gone through.

I tell petitioner, "Hit the 'r' key to reply to me."

He replies, "i'm here now where do i go."

Right idea....wrong punctuation mark. Oh well. "C" for effort.

I tell petitioner, "Ok, do you see a hotkey on the screen that says 'Sense Heading'?"
He replies, "no"
I reply, "Hit the arrow buttons one by one until you see one."

It was a guess, but an educated one.
He replies, "found it"
I reply, "Click on it."
He replies, "north"

I reply, "Ok, you need to head east along the path. Keep going until the path turns north. When it forks to the right,take the right fork."
He replies, "ok"

Who knows, maybe the guy who sold his account on Ebay worked his Felwithe faction up.

He replies, "sumbody told me i shouldnt be here cause i'm a dark elf"
I reply, "They were roleplaying."
He replies, "oh hehe @#$%@#$ morons ;P"

Priceless. Utterly priceless, I tell you.
I reply, "Where are you?"
He replies, "i see something now. looks like a castle"
I reply, "Run into the castle as fast as you can. The guards might give you some trouble, just keep running."

Yeah...damned conscience started kicking in.

A fairly long period of time passes. Not sure how long, but longer than I was expecting.

I tell petitioner, "What happened?"
As if I didn't know....
He replies, "my spells are gone!"
I reply, "What happened?"
He replies, "i died why"

I reply, "Oh man! Did I tell you to run east or west?"
He replies, "east wt$???"

I reply, "Yikes. My bad. You should have run west."
He replies, "?"

I reply, "So where are you now?"
He replies, "how can i tell"

I reply, "Look right after you see 'Loading please wait'. It should tell you 'You have entered [zone]'."
He replies "it doesnt say [zone] there."

After smacking my head against my monitor....

I reply, "What does it say in place of [zone]?".

Get this....

He replies, "Burning Woods"

I nearly fell out of my chair! I couldn't have PLANNED it that way!

He replies, "is that the same as burned woods"

I reply, "No, but you're close. Start running south so you can get your corpse back."

He replies, "i have to get my corpse back?????"

/ignore petitioner

Moral of the story: EBay...Just Say No!

Out of sheer curiosity, I took him off ignore later to find out what happened.

I tell petitioner, "How's it going?"

He replies, "wt%? where you been"

I reply, "been afk, sorry."

He replies, "got my corpse back. some dude rezzed me."

My conscience somewhat eased...

I reply, "Really? Cool! Where are you now?"

He replies, "iceclad ocean"

I scratch my head a few times.

I reply, "Why Velious?"

He replies, "the guy that rezzed me told me burned woods was in western wastes this week"

I don't recall exactly how long it took me to stop laughing. I stopped breathing shortly before my dog dialed 911.

He replied, "@#$%&* wouldnt sow me either. what is that &*#$ gold?"

That's what finally killed me. I'm writing this from the afterlife.

-ranmasan
Station Member (www.station.sony.com)