Hi again Jim,
Npc's cannot speak unless an admin animates them for you, so they won't help you very much at all. I have seen this on other muds though, and it's pretty cool. You can almost have entire conversations with NPC's. Discworld MUD is one example.
A few commands and their syntax that should help you during your first days:
emote (with emotes you can also tag players and objects, and talk.) To tag a player use ~<character keyword without the brackets> and to tag an object use *<keyword>. To talk, simply enclose what you're saying in "".
An example of an emote using all the above extras would be
emote runs down the street from the north, accidently tripping and falling in to ~brown 's cart sending *apples flying everywhere.
In the game world this would then look something like this:'
Jim runs down the street from the north, accidently tripping and falling in to a brown haired, dusky maiden with large boobs' cart sending a box of rosey red apples everywhere.
With emotes, you can also use yourself in the emote at any point you wish, not just at the begining. This is done by adding @.
So, using the above example.
emote Running down the street from the north, @ accidently trips and falls in to ~brown 's cart sending *apples flying everywhere.
This would then echo like this in the game world:
Running down the street from the north, Jim accidently trips and falls in to a brown haired, dusky maiden with large boobs' cart sending a box of rosey red apples everywhere.open door <insert direction> This will open the specific door. This works in all cases except for guarded and locked doors. If the door is locked, try knock door/gate or nod guard <direction>.
get <keyword>This always you to pick this up. Don't use the brackets!
drop <keyword>Opposite of get

You can also add an emote and an omote in this command.
Example: drop sword (laying it down carefully on the ground, his eyes upon his aggressor) lies on the ground before @
World Echo would look like this:
Jim drops a longsword laying it down carefully on the ground, his eyes upon his aggressorIf you where to "look" in that room, you would see your omote'd sword lying on the ground (see helpfile on omote, pmote,dmote, voice, travel etc):
A longsword lies on the ground before
Jim.
Say / Tell / Whisper / Talk / ShoutSay (doesn't target anyone, though you can still target them by entering an emote with the say)
Syntax: say (insert emote here. You can still target ~characters and *objects).
Tell blond (This directs the say to a specific character. Again you can use an emote)
Whisper blond (You whisper to the person, making it hard to hear for others)
Talk (used when you are following someone in a group or they are following you. Again you can still use emotes)
Shout (Your shout can be heard in all adjacent rooms).
Examine board (lets you look at the list of posts made IG by other players)
There are board in most common rooms and clan HQ's. Though, the only one accesible to you at the start will be the one at the inn. It's description is
a group of patrons sit around discussing or something like that. Just enter exam board and you'll be fine.
Read Board 1 (will let you read the first post on that board).
Examine <object> Will let you examine an object
Examine / Look <character keyword>Examine gives you a quick once over without the desc of the character.
Look gives you the desc of the character too.
There, should get you through a few days I hope

Send me a PM if you need any help, or if you want someone to practice with in the guest lounge. Though, we're on opposite sides of the world, so it may be difficult.
I'm sure my fellow players will chime in here with other important commands

ETA:
List (lists all items available to buy from an NPC shopkeeper)
buy 1 (lets you buy the first item) You need to also enter the command ACCEPT to confirm your order.
eat (lets you eat. You can also add an emote like in a say command)
drink (same as eat)
jdidds out.