Your startup script is running twice. Notice how directly below the second instance there is "../src/rom 8888"? That is the second startup script launching your MUD for you. You should kill the first copy of the script with kill -9 <pid>. So, kill -9 22977 to end it.
The line with sshd: is your connection to the server. If you kill it you'll disconnect yourself :). Also below that is your current shell environment, bash. 27644 looks like the sleep routine in your first startup script that pauses it from looping; if you kill the extra copy of your startup script you won't need to worry about that. The last is the command you ran, ps x.
All you really need to know is how to start the MUD (which you know). If shutdown from in-game doesn't work just kill the PID of your MUD, 25655 in this case.
Still having trouble using startup script..
$ cd area
::~/area
$ chmod u+x startup
::~/area
$ ./startup 8888 &
[3] 23014
::~/area
$