Sunny Beach and The Gathering Oak

By Penny (Deaflegacy)

Sha (Becky Shamen) offered to take me on a tour of the beautiful Sunny Beach sim, and I took her up on her offer. The first stop we made was at the sky diving machine. "Click the floor," said Sha. I did and ended up flying in the air. Sha said that it is sky diving and I really enjoyed it.

The next stop is at the roller coaster. "My favorite ride," Sha told me. We got on the roller coaster and it was really fun, being on the roller coaster. This was so much fun riding the roller coaster and I was sad to get off the ride.

We stopped by a place where Moogles live there. I was impressed. Moogles are a cute small creatures.

Sha showed me the round table at the castle. It reminds me of the round table back in King Arthur's days. There was even a sword stuck in a stone there.

We went to the boardwalk shops after that. Sha suggested I try a ride called, "Wild Whale." When I got on it, I was so impressed. It was like riding a wild bull only this time, I'm riding a wild whale. After I got off, she showed me the rocking ships. It reminds me of a ride at Playland that looks so much like the rocking ships on the Gathering Oak. I'm not sure if it is still around because it has been over a decade since I last went to Playland.

Sha showed me the club jackets that she made as well as a fortune teller. According to Erik Mouse (erikmouse.dawid) who just joined us, the idea came from Erik when he was on a vacation over a month ago where there was a boardwalk by the beach.

I told Sha and Erik that I felt they were doing a good job. "We try hard to provide fun for the community," she said. The Gathering Oak club is really a fun place to be. "The DJ booth plays to the whole sim, we can have events anywhere. We hope to develop surfing events in the future." said Sha when I asked about the events happening on the club. "Surfing events could be co-ordinated with sim to the North, with party on both sims."

Sha showed me a beautiful woods, to take peaceful walks through. For those that need to get rid of tension, they have cannons to fire. She showed me how to use a cannon and when a ball flew out of that cannon, I can feel the tension I have going with it.

The Gathering Oak is run by Erik with Sha's help. Geerkil Ziskey is the most noted DJ at the club. You can see him on Tuesday night.

The Sunny Beach sim is an amazing place to visit and to hang out with your friends. Here is the landmark for the awesome place: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunny%20Beach/177/134/22

Penny

The Deathlands

By Bixyl Shuftan

Recently, a friend and I dropped by a rather desolate place in Second Life: The Deathlands. The place describes itself as "an isolated post-apocalyptic island community where a handful of hardy survivors desperately cling to what passes for life after the nuclear winter." Upon entering, a crow greeted us, "Greetings ... welcome to Deathlands! It is many years since the Nukes cleansed the Earth. Among the frail and diseased survivors there are few rules, so feel free to wander Deathlands and sample its many pleasures and perils." Almost as if on cue, the radio stream played the tune "Darkest Dream." Later songs included, "Love is Dead," and "Poison Remains."

The place is owned by Rebel Wolf (HermitBlue), considered the "mutant warlord" here, and Luddita Wolf (luddita) his consort. Seeing us, "We are the survivors," they showed us around. "You are under the care of Baron Wolf," he told us, "It's safe in Deathlands. Well, sorta safe. Probably should not drink the water." Showing us some NPC figures, one was a rather bloody doctor with a paitent who didn't look too good. "Hes the only medical we have," Rebel told us, "so he gets away with a lot."

There were a few places mentioned in the notecard that I'd gotten on entry, such as the Dead Tree where a number of corpses hung, "The Motel From Hell" in which the beds were bloody mattresses and the "bathroom" was a bucket with flies buzzing over it, the hull of an old Russian submarine that had somehow washed ashore and repurposed, and others. There was one not mentioned that Rebel wanted to show us: The Bunker.From the outside, the place was concrete and steel. Inside, there were bunks, machinery, and what looked like some kind of control center with access to satelites, "Some of us survived the nuclear winter in here!" For some reason, there were warheads of small missiles in there.

But not everything here was a grim survival story. There are two social spots. One is "The Music Festival Grounds." Rebel spoke of it, "The survivors built a dancefloor." The dancefloor itself was made of of sections of wood planking piled together with a rustic-looking stage in the back. The place was surrounded on three sides by chair-link fencing, presumably to keep the more drunken partiers from stumbling into the lagoon. But not everything about it looked safe as there was a yellowish-green looking cloud of mist in the middle. When I asked Rebel, he responded, "Oh, I think it's radioactive gas (cough)." As we were talking, a few more people came by, including one with a guitar. Before long, he was playing some music, and an impromtu party started.

After a while, the party moved to what passed for a high class club around here, "The Loser's Club." Advertised as a "notorious dive bar where survivors barter their favours in return for liquor and cigarettes," the peace was kept by a burly-looking NPC acting as a bouncer standing watch just outside the front door. "Dont mind Ivan outside," Rebel told us, "he just looks mean!" Another NPC, a waitress, handed out drinks on request. Those not dancing could sit on an old couch or one of the barstools. One seemed a little woozy from the gas earlier, "I may pass out soon."

There were other places in the distance that I never set foot on, such as a stretch of highway that came to a dead end over the water, a waterfall, and numerous other buildings in various states of repair and disrepair.

The Deadlands is in http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blue%20Eyes/118/159/22

Addition: on August 18, the Deathlands was moved to a new sim, at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Paradise%20Kingdom/88/35/22

Bixyl Shuftan