Your stats

The bars

Name and level

The title is who you are and how far you have come. Every level is ten more hitpoints and five more mana for a man; the Race entry in the help has the other peoples’ numbers. It does not change what you can carry: the bag is twenty-five slots for everybody

Health

What you can take before you fall. While a potion is working on you, the stretch of bar past where you are now is the healing still to come: it is where the window will leave you when it runs out

Mana

What is left to cast spells with. A character starts with none and holds more every level, and gets it back slowly, faster every level, but only while you are fed and not inside a protection zone. Spending it trains the magic skill. A mana potion puts some back over a few seconds

Experience

How far through the level you are, and how much is left to the next

Food

The bar is what is left of the meal you are on. It is spent only while wounds are closing, so at full health it does not run down, and when it runs out the food that will free a square of your bag soonest is eaten by itself. The Food row under it is the whole of it: that meal and every meal in your bag, added up — how long you can go on mending before you have to find more.

The rows

Hold a row

Every row here, and the meal bar, has a hover saying what it means and how yours comes to it. Hold the row on a phone, or right-click it, and that hover is written in the message log, under the row’s name, to read at leisure or copy

XP rate

The experience you are earning an hour, worked out from what you made in the last fifteen minutes, so it shows how well the way you are hunting pays now rather than all evening: move to a better spot and it climbs within minutes, walk back to town and it runs down. It is counted on the clock, so time spent standing about, resting or walking counts against it as it does in a hunt. It starts over when you log in, reload the page or die, and reads – until it has watched a minute; until fifteen minutes have gone by it is the rate over however long it has watched

Next level

How long the next level will take at the XP rate above: 40 min, 2 h 05 min. It reads – while you are earning nothing

Attack

What one swing of yours takes off, before their armor, written as the range a swing rolls: 0–24 is anywhere from 0 to 24, evenly. Your swings roll from 0, so one can come to nothing; a monster’s roll starts at a fifth of its top, rounded up. Now and then a swing is a critical: it rolls from the top to twice the top instead, and CRIT! goes up over whoever it lands on, in the colour of whoever landed it, the same as their damage numbers: yours for your swing, red for a monster’s. Monsters crit on the same terms. Spells never crit. It is the weapon in hand scaled by your skill with it, or your bare hands scaled by fisting when there is nothing in them — a weapon replaces your fists rather than adding to them. A fist is worth 5, four fifths of it untrained, and all of it once you have punched your way to fisting 2, so bare hands read 0–4 at first. A weapon that hits some creatures harder adds the range it rolls against them in brackets on the line under it. Its hover shows your own sum, ending on the number the row shows

Defense

The range your shield’s block and weapon’s parry are rolled in against each blow, written like Attack’s: 0–8 means every blow loses a whole number anywhere from 0 to 8, evenly, before your armor meets the rest, so it can come up empty. Only the first two blows in any two seconds are met by it; the rest meet your armor alone. Shots are never met by it, and do not count among the two. The top is your weapon’s parry × (8 + melee)/10 plus your shield × (8 + shielding)/10. With nothing in your off hand, your bare hands dodge 2 × (8 + fisting)/10 instead of a shield, beside your weapon’s parry. A two-handed weapon that parries takes the off hand and the dodge with it; a bow, which parries nothing, still dodges

Armor

What a blow loses to what you wear before anything else is asked: a roll between half this, rounded up, and this, which is natural armor plus the armor on your back, the cloak over it, the helm on your head and your shield’s block, before skill. The number is the ceiling, as a weapon’s attack is — a suit always soaks at least half what is written on it, and sometimes all of it. A blow no bigger than the floor shows sparks; one the roll only stops by going above it is a puff. It is rolled against every blow that connects, and a suit is on your back whichever way a blow comes, so it has a floor where your defense does not. The row is written as that roll, 7–14 for armor 14, the way Attack and Defense are; bare skin is a plain 0. It is on the panel at every width, debug or not

HP regen

How fast your health comes back on its own, in points a minute: faster every level, only while you are fed, but in a protection zone fed or not. 0 (hungry) is an empty stomach and nothing in the bag to eat. Potions are not counted. The row is only there with debug on

Mana regen

The same for mana: faster every level, only while you are fed, and never in a protection zone, where it reads 0 (protection zone); a level one, who holds no mana, reads 0 (no mana yet). Potions are not counted. The row is only there with debug on

Speed

How fast you walk, in tiles a second. It grows a little every level. A diagonal step takes longer than a straight one, and the ground counts too, for you and monsters alike: a road or a bridge is quicker than grass, sand a little slower, snow and swamp much slower. The row is only there with debug on

Clank

The noise your gear makes, in tiles: every monster notices you this much further off than it would somebody wearing nothing at all. The pieces in use, added up, though quiet ones take off only what the quietest of them does; what is only in the bag is silent. It is always shown on the stats panel. Its hover shows your own sum: your racial clank, each loud piece and the quietest quiet one, and the tile a great ring takes off.

Sight

How far you make others out, in tiles, written dark / light. You see something only if you hear it, and then within your dark sight if it stands in the dark, or out to your light sight if it stands in a light. Above the ground by day the sky lights everything; at night it is as under the ground. Other players you see as far as you can hear them, lit or not. Monsters notice you the same way: they have to hear you and see you

Stance

Whom you may attack: white, only whoever attacked you; yellow, those and anybody protection zone locked; red, anybody. Changed with the stance button in Controls; see Fighting players

Ping

The last round trip to the world: how long it took the server to hear a ping and answer it, through the same loop that moves you. Under 100 ms nothing notices; past 300 your steps and swings arrive late

FPS

Frames a second: how many times a second the world is drawn, counted over the last second. A phone draws at most 60; under 30 the world starts to stutter

Position

Where you stand, as three numbers: the tile across, counted from the west edge of the map, the tile down, counted from the north edge, and the floor, 0 being the ground, +1 the floor above and −1 the one under it. The row is only there with debug on

Statuses

Everything currently true of you, written out in full: in a fight, in a protection zone, what spell is still up and how long is left of it. They stack onto as many lines as they need — a status nobody can read is not a shorter status, it is a missing one — and they never make the panel wider, so the panel beside them keeps its place on a phone

Every bar and row says its own piece on its tooltip, so hover one for just that.

Inventory

Opening it

Where the slots are

In the Inventory panel, which the bag in the row of icons under the world shows and hides.

What is behind it

The world, still being played. The box has no wash under it, it takes no keys, and the arrows still walk you while it is open — so a potion can be drunk out of it while you are backing away from something

In a trade

It opens by itself when a trade window or a shop does, since you trade out of it, stays shown for as long as the window is up, and closes again at the end unless you had it open already

Clicks

Click a slot

Use what is in it: drink a potion, wield a weapon, take up a shield, put on armor, a cloak or a helmet, cast a fishing rod at the water beside you

Shift+click a slot

Look at what is in it, the same way shift+clicking the ground looks at what is lying there. The answer is the same sentence either way, since it is the same thing however you came to be holding it — but it goes to the console alone, without floating over your head, since your eyes are on the bag. It asks rather than does: a shift+click never wields, drinks, eats or offers. Pressing both mouse buttons together on a slot does the same

Right-click a slot

A little menu on the item saying what it is and offering every way of using or letting go of it — drop or sell as many as you pick, or store, Equip it (Unequip once it is on, which leaves its place empty as Take it off on the Equipment panel does), or Pin it to the top of the bag (Unpin once it is pinned). Sorting the whole bag by weight, or back by kind, is on the bag icon instead: right-click or hold it. A dropped thing lands at your feet, or on the nearest tile with room on it, since it looks for clean ground rather than landing in the blood

Ctrl+right-click

Drop the whole pile at once. A slot is a pile, and a click that put all forty rocks on the floor is not a click to make by accident

Long press

The same as a right-click: the same menu, on a touchscreen

At the depot

Standing on the depot floor, every click on a bag slot stores it instead of using or dropping it, and a click in the Depot panel takes it back out — the whole of it a click, if you can lift it. Holding a slot either way asks how many

What is in it

Any number of kinds

The bag holds any number of kinds of thing, the same for everybody; its one limit is the weight. The depot has no limit either, since it is a building rather than a back

Stacks

Everything stacks, so a slot is a pile of one kind: five hundred rocks are one slot, and five thousand gold coins are one slot.

How full it is

The bag’s icon says how full it is, by weight: see the next entry. Hover over the panel between the squares and it says how many kinds of thing you have, such as “12 kinds of thing”. Only the slots with something in them are drawn, so the grid shows what you carry

The fill on the bag’s icon

The bag’s icon fills from its foot as far up as your bag is full: what it weighs, of what you can lift. The fill is muted while there is room, turns amber from four fifths of the way, and past the line it is red and hatched, with a red border, and fills again from the foot up to twice the line, the most you can carry. Hover the icon for the numbers — what you carry against what you can lift in cn, the percent, and how much is free or how far over you are — and what the weight does; long-press or right-click it for the same, with a button to show or hide the panel. Up to the line weight costs nothing. Past it you are overloaded: you walk at half pace until you are back under it, though a horse goes at its own pace whatever you carry. Whatever would take you past twice the line is left where it is; a sale or a trade that leaves you lighter still goes through.

Outlined slots

What you are actually fighting with: the best weapon, shield, armor and helm in the bag are used without being equipped, and the best cloak over the armor with them. A click picks one as your choice and a click on a picked one puts it away and leaves you bare, which stays that way until you say otherwise. Something better picked up for the first time goes on by itself, over a choice too, and what it replaces stays in the bag

Pinned kinds

Right-click or hold a slot and choose Pin, and that kind of thing goes to the top of the bag, with a small gold dot in the slot’s top right corner; Unpin in the same place puts it back among the rest. The pinned kinds come first and everything else after them, each lot in the bag’s own order, by kind or by weight. A pin is on the kind, not the pile, so it stays when you run out and the next one you pick up goes to the top again. Your pins are kept with your character, so they follow you to another device

Tooltips

Hovering a slot says what the piece does, what it weighs, how likely it is to break, and which click it is about to be. A shift+click on it says the same numbers after its sentence

Weight

Everything you can carry weighs something, counted in coins (cn) — the weight of one gold coin. The bag’s icon says what your bag comes to against what you can lift, and the tooltip on each slot says the piece’s own weight and the pile’s. What you can lift grows with your level: 7 500 cn at level one and 375 more for every level after it, and a belt at your waist adds to it. Gold is what fills a bag, more than gear: hauling a hoard home is a trip to plan, and the depot, which is never weighed, is where the rest of it waits. A pile on the ground too heavy to take whole is taken as far as you can carry and the rest left lying. Past that line you can carry as much again, at half pace on foot. Nothing is ever taken out of your bag: at twice the line, you keep everything you have and simply cannot pick up more until you put something down

Your skills

How they grow

By use

Every swing, shot, punch, blow taken behind a shield or cast of the line is a go at the skill it belongs to. Hover a row for what the level on it does, how far you are to the next and, once it has moved lately, about how long the next will take at your pace over the last two minutes. Hold a row on a phone, or right-click it, and the hover is written in the log. Time away costs nothing; dying costs some of the practice under every skill

Magic

Counted in mana rather than in goes: one use for every point spent, whatever it was spent on. Higher magic makes damage spells hit harder. Some gear counts as levels more while it is in use: what it adds is written in blue after the level, so 12 +5 is twelve earned and five lent. Hover the row, or hold it on a touchscreen, for what adds what

What they do

Melee and ranged

Skill multiplies your gear: attack × (8 + skill)/10, for melee and ranged alike, so four fifths of the attack untrained, all of it at 2 and twice it at 12. Melee scales a weapon’s parry the same way

Shielding

A shield puts its block × (8 + shielding)/10 into your defense, the top of the roll every blow by hand meets before your armor does, which is the Defense row on the stats panel, and its block as it is into your armor. Shots go past the defense, so only blows by hand teach shielding, when the shield takes something off them

Fisting

The same arithmetic on the 5 an empty hand hits for: 3 untrained, 5 at fisting 4, 11 at 20. It scales the dodge of 2 your bare hands have when your off hand is empty the same way, and a blow the dodge takes something off trains fisting

Fishing

Take a fishing rod in hand and it casts by itself at any fish in reach, on your own level or in plain view below you from a roof or a hilltop: every cast is a go at it

Players

Who

Everybody in the world right now, you included, with their levels: the tallest first, and by name where two are level, the same list and order the Online row opens. Your own row is picked out. It keeps itself up to date — somebody arriving or leaving, a level gained or lost — without anything to click

What they play on

For admins, and for your own row: under each name, the browser and system they are playing on — Firefox on Windows, Safari on iPhone — as their browser describes itself when they connect. Nothing is shown for somebody whose browser said nothing recognisable

Hidden

A shut eye on your own row, just before the platform marks, means you are off everybody else’s list: an admin hid you with /hide, which takes you off the highscores too, or, for an admin, you went /invisible. You still see yourself here, since this is where you check you are in the world at all, but nobody else does. Hover it, or press and hold it on a touch screen, for which it is and how to come back: an admin’s /show for /hide, /visible for /invisible. Only your own row ever carries it

Skulls

A skull beside a name is the same mark that is beside it in the world, with how long it has left: they killed somebody who was not protection zone locked. They stay locked while it runs, so no protection zone will take them, and attacking them locks you out of nothing. Nothing beside a name is no skull

Experience

A player who dies loses a tenth of their experience. If whoever killed them was a lower level, that tenth goes to the killers: shared by the damage each did, among everybody lower than the one who fell. Killing somebody at your level or below pays nothing

Clicking a name

Everybody else’s name is underlined, since it is something to press. A click opens the same menu as a right-click on them in the world — look, follow, attack, trade — while they are in sight of you. Somebody further off is too far away for any of those, so a click on them opens the spells said at them by name instead, as a right-click does. While the chat box is open for typing, a click (or a tap) on a name types it into the chat box where the cursor is instead, spaced as a word, and the box stays open, so you can write to somebody without spelling their name

Spells on a name

Right-click a name, or press and hold it on a touch screen, for the two spells said at somebody by name: blood bond and find person, each with its mana. Choosing one says the words and the name, exactly as typing them would. A spell is greyed, with the reason on its hover, when you do not hold it yet, cannot pay for it or are waiting out its cooldown; a blood bond is laid standing together and out of the protection zones, so they must be in sight for it, while find person reaches anywhere in the world. On somebody you already carry it says it takes the bond off, for nothing. Your own row has no such menu

The vendor

Where

Within three tiles of somebody who keeps a shop: click them and choose Trade. The shop, a window over the world of what they sell, opens while you are near them and shuts when you walk away

Click an item

Buy one, for the price in its corner, out of the gold in your bag and, while a depot box is in reach, your depot’s too: the bag pays first. The foot of the shop says how much that is, as Available gold. Rocks come five to a lot, so a click on them buys five for the price shown; everything else comes one at a time. If you cannot afford it, your bag has no slot for it or you cannot lift it, you are told so in the console and nothing changes hands

Hover an item

What it is and what it does, the same facts a bag slot’s tooltip gives, and what a click on it costs. A lot your purse cannot reach is dimmed

Selling

While the shop is open, every slot in your bag she would buy says what she pays, in yellow in its top corner, and nowhere else does the bag say what anything is worth: 2 for two gold each, and 1/3 for one gold for every three, which is how she takes the cheapest things. Drag a slot of the bag onto what is for sale to sell it. If there is more than one lot of it to sell, a box asks how many — a slider and a number, moving a lot at a time. 1, Invert, Half and All only move the slider — to one lot, to all there is less what the slider says now, to half of what there is and to all of it — and Sell (or Enter) sells whatever the slider says, and says on itself what that fetches and what she pays a thing: Sell 3 for 9 gold (3 each), following the slider; Escape keeps them. Buying asks in the same box, where All is as many as your gold pays for and you can lift, and Buy buys the slider’s number. On a touchscreen, hold the slot and choose Sell from its menu

Buying ten

Use the counter itself — click it while you stand beside it — for the window that buys ten at a time with a right-click

The market

Where

Beside any depot box: it is the third column of the depot screen, which the depot’s chest icon opens (the Market tab on a phone), and what you buy there goes into your depot. Close in its top corner, Escape, a press outside it on a wide screen, or the stall icon again shuts it. Every lot players have listed is on it, whether or not they are in the world

Buying

Lots of one thing at one price from several sellers are one row, which says how many lots it is, and a buy takes from the oldest listed first, running on into the next. Each lot says what it is, how many are left and the gold each; sellers are not named. Type in the box to filter by name, and pick an order: newest, name, cheapest or dearest. Long press a lot, or right-click it, to look at what it is. Say how many in the box beside a lot of more than one and press Buy; the gold comes out of your depot first and your bag after it, and what you buy goes into your depot, so nothing is weighed. A buy you cannot afford is refused with the reason, and nothing changes

Selling

Under Sell are the things in your depot the market will take; what you carry is not offered, so store it first. Pick one, say how many and the gold each, and press List: it leaves your depot at once. Up to ten lots at a time, and no fee. A lot sells at the price you ask for as long as it is on sale. Listing more of what you already sell adds it to that lot at its price as it stands, with no new price asked: to price it again, take it back and list it anew. A different make is a different lot. Gold and a few things nobody could sell are not taken

Your lots

Your own lots are edged in gold and say yours. Take back returns what is left of one to your depot

Collect

When something of yours sells, the market holds the gold and you are told, or told when you next come into the world. Collect into depot on the depot screen puts it all in your depot and lists in the log every sale since you last collected: what, how many, the gold and how long ago

Equipment

The squares

One for every place something is worn or held, what is in your hands first: Hand, Off hand, Head, Body, Cloak (over the armor), Waist (a belt) and Ring. Each shows what is there; an empty one shows the name of the place. One you chose yourself is marked along its foot in gold, one you took off on purpose is dashed, and the off hand is dimmed while both hands are on an axe, a rod or any other two-hander, and choosing a shield there puts the two-hander away for it. With a bow or a crossbow in hand, the off hand shows its arrows or bolts and how many your bag holds, greyed at nought when there is nothing left to shoot. When the panel is short of room it scrolls to the squares it cannot show rather than cutting them off

Press a square

A small menu beside it of everything in your bag that goes there, each with its picture, how many you carry, its name and all its numbers under the name (what it hits, parries, blocks and soaks, its clank, light, weight and what it adds), the one in use ticked, so the choices can be weighed without a hover or a hold: choose one and it goes on, in place of what was there. Long-press or right-click a square instead for the same box a long press on that piece in your bag opens: how many you carry, its numbers and what a look at it says, with Drop, Unequip, and Sell, Store, Use, Pin where they fit, as in the bag; with the arrows or bolts in the off hand, it is theirs. On an empty square it says why nothing is there. The best in my bag hands the place back to the bag, which puts on the best you carry, as it does for every place you have not chosen. Take it off (Bare hands for the hand) leaves the place empty on purpose until you choose again. Something better than what a place has, picked up or found in a chest when you carry none of it yet, goes on by itself, over a choice or an empty place too, and what was there stays in the bag; a two-hander does not put your shield down for it, nor a shield your two-hander, and a launcher waits until you have something to shoot. A ring is never swapped by the bag: its place holds the ring you chose, or nothing, but a ring picked up or found while you wear none goes on. A weapon put in your hand waits a second before it swings, and a shield a second before it blocks, however it got there

And the bag

Clicking a piece in your bag still chooses it, and clicking it again still puts it away: the panel is the same choice, a place at a time, with the bag’s own choosing to go back to

The depot

Where

Storage boxes stand in several towns, and every box opens the same depot: what you store in one you can take out at any other. Arriving beside a box brings its chest icon, glowing gold; press it to open the depot screen. Stepping away hides the icon and shuts the screen. Once you have seen a box, it is drawn on your map

The depot screen

Your bag, your depot and the market side by side over the world; on a phone the depot stands over the bag and the market is a second tab. The filter at the top narrows all three by name. Along the foot are the gold in your bag, in your depot and waiting on the market, Collect into depot for what the market holds, and Store all gold. Under the bag, Store loot stores everything but gold, potions, food, what you have on and the kinds you have pinned. The info panel puts itself away while the depot screen is up, and comes back when it shuts if it was out. The four corners beside Close are the full screen button (see Full screen), there because the depot screen covers the one in the corner of the world. Close, Escape, a press outside it or the chest icon again shuts it

Click a stored item

Pick it: the bar under the depot names it, with Take and, for what the market will take, the form that lists it on the market, with the cheapest anybody else asks. Click it again to put it down. Take is how you take it out, into your bag — the whole of it, since a slot of your bag holds a whole kind as a depot slot does. What comes out is weighed: a shelf heavier than you can lift stays where it is, whole, and the log says the numbers. Hold the slot — a long press on a touchscreen, and a right-click with a mouse — and the box that asks how many lets you take as much as you can carry, with the rest left on the shelf

Shift-click a stored item

Look at it: what it is and what it does, the same answer a shift-click on your bag or on the ground gives, and nothing leaves the shelf. Both mouse buttons together do the same. On a touchscreen the hold’s menu says the same above its buttons

Click a bag item

Store it. While you are standing at the boxes every click on your bag is a transfer — a click stores the whole slot, and so does ctrl+right-click — because emptying a bag is what you came for and a full bag was twenty-five right-clicks. Hold a slot for the same menu of amounts the shelves have: one, half, or the lot, duplicates shown once. Using a thing is still there at the foot of that menu, since the click that used to eat or wield is now the transfer

What it holds

Any number of kinds of thing, in the building rather than on your back, and a slot holds a whole kind however much of it there is: a hundred thousand coins sit in the one slot, and nothing here is weighed. What you buy on the market at a box goes into the depot, paid from the depot’s gold first and your bag’s after it. There is no limit at all. Stored goods survive death — and dying spills all the gold you carry, so bank it

The controls

Next target

Target the next monster, nearest first, never a player. Tab does the same; the button is there for touch screens, which have no Tab

Next player

The same, but only players, passing over every monster: first those your stance lets you fight, nearest first, who are attacked, then everybody else, nearest first, who is followed. Shift+Tab does the same. With nobody in sight it says so

Stop

Drop the target and stop attacking, chasing, following, and any walk in progress. Esc does the same

Stance

Whom you may attack, a press stepping round the three: the white hand, only whoever attacked you in the last minute; the yellow hand, those and anybody protection zone locked; the red fist, anybody. Clicking a player it allows attacks them, anybody else is followed, and chain lightning and fire nova refuse while anybody it forbids would be hit. Only red locks you for attacking. The Stance row in your stats says which you are in

Auto

What you swing at without picking it, a press stepping round the three: none, only the target you pick; aware, only monsters in reach that know you are there — hunting you, fighting you, or close enough to notice you; all, any monster in reach. Aware and all both go for one that knows you are there before one that does not. The Auto row in your stats says which you are in; a new character is all

Chase

On, you walk after whatever you pick a fight with. Off, you fight from where you stand: hit whenever it comes into reach, shot at if you have a bow, never followed. Remembered with your character

The spells

The panel

A grid of icons in the Spells panel, one for every spell your mana pool can hold, cheapest first, so the costs read as a ladder, and the five utility spells — sanctification, find person, levitate, blood bond and eagle — after the rest. Pinned spells come before all of them: right-click or hold a spell and choose Pin, and it goes to the front with a small gold dot in its top right corner; Unpin in the same place puts it back. Your pins are kept with your character, so they follow you to another device. A spell that costs more than you can hold yet is not listed, and typing its words turns up the level you can; a level one’s panel is empty and says which spell comes first and at what level for your people. While you are dead the panel says so in place of its icons, and no spell can be cast until the temple takes you back. The star in the row of icons under the world shows and hides it, like any other panel, and dragging the star along the row moves it

How many across

As many as the panel is wide enough for, with the rows following. Each icon is a bag square exactly, as big as the menu’s Button size makes the squares, 32, 38 or 44. Every spell is always shown: under the world on a narrow screen they go along one row that scrolls sideways, as the bag does, and down the side of a wide screen they stand in one column that scrolls down. Want more at once? Long-press or right-click the star icon and choose 1 to 4 columns beside the world or 1 to 4 rows under it; the bag’s icon has the same choice, and this browser remembers both. The same menu’s Show spell names lists the spells one to a row, each with its name, and choosing it again goes back to the pictures alone. They were a rail down the left edge of the world for a few hours; a panel does the same job without taking a strip of the world to do it

The icons

Each is a drawing of the spell with what it costs under it, and its name is in the hover together with what it does. Pressing one says the words for you — they are spoken aloud, and everybody near you hears them. Find person is the one that does not cast on the spot, since the spell is half a sentence without a name: it offers everybody on the Players panel to choose from, with Type a name… last to finish the words in the chat box yourself

On a phone

A finger cannot hover, so press and hold an icon. A box opens with the name and the cost at the top, what the spell does and the reason for its colour under that, one button that casts it and one that pins or unpins it — the same hold, and the same box, as a long press on a bag slot. Holding a spell never casts it on its own: let go and nothing has happened but the box being open, which Cancel or the escape key shuts

Green, gold, red

An icon wears exactly one of the three. Green will go off. Gold will go off and do nothing worth the mana — a light over a light, eagle where it knows you nowhere else, provoke with nobody near — and its hover says what it would waste. Red the world would refuse, and its hover says why: not enough mana (and, in a protection zone or on an empty stomach, that none is coming back), a fight you are still in, a protection zone lock. The colour is a hint and not a lock — click a red one and the world itself tells you why it will not go off

Running

While a spell with a duration is running on you — haste, light, or a blood bond you are holding up — its icon fills with its own colour behind the drawing, and the fill drains from the right as the time runs out. The hover says how many seconds are left

By hand

The words can be said into the chat box instead, and /cast name says them for you if they have gone out of your head

Mana

What they are paid in: the second bar on the stats panel. A level one holds none and every level adds some, more for an elf and less for a dwarf, so an elf can cast each spell a few levels sooner. It comes back faster with every level, but not inside a protection zone. A mana potion puts some back over a few seconds