1.4 ENVIRONMENT

This scroll is intended mainly for those who are not familiar with the
basic way in which text MUDs work.

Imagine a world, complete with continents, mountains, rivers, cities,
deserts, forests, and so on. Then, imagine that world divided up into
sections of varying size. These sections, called ROOMS, can be of any
size, from a nook in a hall to a large section of a desert. Generally,
indoor rooms will represent much less space than outdoor rooms but this
rule, like most rules, has exceptions.

Imagine yourself standing in a room that is a box canyon. To your west,
you can walk back out of this dead-end of a canyon. Or, you spy a small
animal trail heading up the side of a precarious, but barely traversable,
mountain-side. You could then go either UP or WEST, simply by typing
one of these commands. By typing LOOK you will see a description of the
room you are in including exits. You will learn more about this sort of
thing in later help scrolls.

So then, rooms have exits leading to other rooms. Possible directions are
north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, up,
down, in, and out. Now, there are also many items and DENIZENS (creatures
or people controlled by the game) that you can interact with. To see if
there are any in the room with you, type LOOK and read what is there. If
you can use ansi colour, you can type ANSI ON. Then, items in a room
will be a different colour from the description of the room.

One important thing to understand about items and denizens (monsters and NPCs)
is that they all have a unique identifying number. You may see this number by
typing INFO HERE (or just IH) for things in a room with you, or INFO INV (or
just II) to see things in your INVENTORY (see below). This number may be
substituted for the name of the item or denizen if you wish to specify a
particular vial, or a particular sword, for instance. Example: a shining steel
sword#2034

Finally, you should understand the concept of your inventory. This is
basically what you are carrying on your person. Likely as not, you will
end up with quite a collection if you play for any length of time. Typing
INVENTORY (or just INV) will show you what you are holding.