You're a clueless newbie until you've got the hang of MUDding, basically. Make sure they're not busy first. In combat MUDs, asking relatively high level characters is usually the way to find things out. Ask a friend to help you. Don't post anything in any newsgroup.
Some people seem to delight in killing.
This is an unanswerable Frequently Asked Question. Everyone's got their own reasons for acting as they do. If you don't like it, you can always go somewhere else or sometimes kill them back. Under no circumstances should you take being killed on a TinyMUD seriously. Just play by the rules of the mud you're on.