One of the great pleasures of an interactive game like MUD is the ability to chat to other players at will. This is essential to your long-term survival or success in MUD. Some monsters, impossible to fight alone, can be tackled easily in groups of two or three. Some treasures inaccessible to a player acting independently can be found and gained through co-operation. Communication is therefore an indispensible aid in your quest to become a wizard or witch, as well as being fun in its own right!

There are three primary ways to communicate:

• shouting
• speaking
• telepathy

A shout is a text message which is seen by everyone in The Land simultaneously (well, except for characters who have been deafened!). However, players not in the same room as you will not normally be able to tell who did the shouting, they'll just hear you as a male or female voice in the distance. To shout, the command is SHout <message>, where <message> is what you want to shout enclosed in quotation marks.

• SH "HELLO EVERYONE!"

Speaking is used to conduct longer conversations with people in the same room. Your message is sent to everyone in the same location as you, but not to anyone else. People are told that it's you who has said the message (unless you are invisible, of course, then they'd just know 'someone' said it). The command is just <message>.

• "SO, WHO'S FOR ATTACKING THE VAMPIRE?"

Telepathy is a means of communicating with an individual directly over any distance. No-one else receives the message, and the recipient is told your identity. Telepathy is the most civilised way to communicate, but can have its drawbacks - people who appear to be impolite by ignoring you may in fact be deafened (which blocks telepathy), or simply in the middle of a fight where their minds are on other things! The command is the name of the player, followed by <message>

• RACHEL "HAVE YOU SEEN ANY ZOMBIES RECENTLY?"

If another player's message interrupts your typing, press control-r and the line you've typed so far will be redisplayed.