I found Avalon completely by accident when a guy I was house sharing with was looking for a background image of a scroll and discovered the old Avalon website (loved that one by the way). A few weeks later I was bored one night, no-one was on any of the IRC channels that I chatted on so I went looking for the game with the cool website.

AvPlay was also my method of connecting and within minutes I found myself in Parrius, totally confused but enthralled. I followed the text and did the accolades in turn until the Quest to find North Ogg, which is when I had a problem with the boat. I remember yelling for help and within seconds a chap called Bastion had come to my rescue.

He helped me through the rest of the Accolades and then I decided I liked the sound of the Astrologers Guild and I joined, under the mastery of the wonderful Katala. It was he who gave me my Starflower suffix and I've kept it ever since.

Unfortunately Katala wasn't around much and, after getting to know the guys in Springdale, I moved guilds to the Prophets and cities and gathered around myself the best bunch of people I've had the pleasure to know - Orielle, Warfarin, Lothar, Magellan, Saphir, Eliot, Jared, Jebaman, Jasteron, Buttons, Arkane, Volpone, Hellchaser - all bring back so many wonderful memories.

I met Keldor, who I went on to marry in RL, although we're no longer together, married Bastion in game and made life long friendships with Lothar (best man at our RL wedding), Saphir and Eliot (also now married in RL), Elanna, Xanthe, Calagan, Telgalon, among others.

For many years Keldor and I hosted the London meets and we used to have all the stragglers and overseas guests staying with us, Orinoko regularly used to try and sneak into the students bedroom at my mother in law's house :)

I met Bumble and Fizzy, Mariah and Mestopholies in Liverpool, met Zeni, Threap, Damocles, Mhaedros, Magdalene, Cordon, Foxedup, Sugna, Allanon, Blueskull, Herbie - who provided the photo of a lifetime when he decided to get his pride and joy out for all to see in the upstairs room at the Round Table in Covent Garden. Lancelot and India, who used to be keepers of the Avalon meets photo albums, Plaman and Zane, bandits extraordinaire, and many others.

While I've gone on to be a life long MMO beta tester and gamer, nothing has ever come close to the heartache, joy and friendships I've had playing Avalon with the sole exception of meeting my partner Mike while playing Dark Age of Camelot. In the real world I spent almost 20 years as a journalist before becoming a mum four years ago to the most amazing little boy. All of this came about through Avalon and for that, I will always be forever grateful.

As to why I'm back, blame Zeni, he kept bugging me to come and give it a go again and eventually the pull of the game proved too much. So I'm here to see if I can add some new memories to all the old ones.

And, if you've got to this wall of text, well done, I've forgotten how to add paragraph spaces!

Mirri aka Louise.

Written by my hand on the 19th of Eleuthral, in the year 1310.