Well, That was Exhilarating.

Curse you, false vertigo! Jumping from the roof of a tall building in City of Heroes makes my stomach flop as much as jumping off a real building (or, so I imagine). Even worse, I did this as a frail, fragile level 1 blaster.

I have no idea why, after creating eleventy-berzillion characters, I haven't explored the Outbreak zone, but I haven't. Until tonight. So, I'm wandering around the zone, hither and yon, glowy-eyed thugs pitching rocks at me, when I muse... "huh. I wonder if I can get on top of any of the buildings in here." And, if fact, there are a few whose fire escapes are low enough that if you spring off some nearby refuse, you can just reach it. That's the easy part. None of these things go all the way to the top. Oh, no... Once you get as far as the ladders will take you, you have to figure out a way to leap 7+ stories from window ledge to window ledge until you reach the roof, and brother, that ain't easy.

So once I was up there, I admired the view, took a few pictures, and then ...of course... had to find out if a level 1 would splatter from this height. After several moments that were equal parts anxiety and foolishness that actually made my palms begin to sweat, I took the leap (pictured here). After the rush had passed, I learned that even this wouldn't kill a hero in the tutorial zone, but it does slam you right down in the land of blinking red life bars. After the landing, I decided to let the local citizenry have their way with me just to see where you'd go if you died in the tutorial. (Same place... zone hospital ...which, I didn't realize, was right at the beginning of the zone.)

So, if it's just a video game, why was my heart pounding before the leap? The answer, of course: because I'm a half-wit.