Chapter 0049

By the end of the five-hour farm fest, Sylphie called a halt. Altreyes hit level 14, Rayael hit level 12 and Leviene level 9. Leviene’s bags were full, her body was tired but she was happy with the loot. The girls picked a clearing off to the side of the road to have a little picnic. A certain greedy little Perrian Let spent the time going through the loot.

4 silvers 10 coppers, 128 pixie dust, a slew of grey junk, one yellow common cloth chest piece which she equipped right away on Leviene and a bunch of citrine and malachite, cheap jewels used for one of the professions no doubt.

The loot quality went from grey (junk) to white (normal), yellow (common), blue (uncommon), red (rare), green (super rare), orange (epic), purple (artifact) then gold (legendary).

By the way, the Amulet of Endless Love Leviene gave to Honored Lady Valdis of Tainsoar is a legendary item. Leviene easily gave away the amulet because she doesn’t think she can fulfil the requirement to equip the amulet, one of which is to be level 10,000.

It is better to give it away and obtain immediate benefits from it rather than holding on to it in hopes of equipping it.

Sylphie was going through her loot as well. It seems she fared better than Leviene with two common yellow equipment, pixie dust and gems, but her level was unexpectedly low. Sylphie was level 14 and Ayerez was level 12. Leviene had thought since Sylphie was gamer, she’d genocide the pixie so fast, the respawn rate couldn’t keep up with the two of them. Turns out, Sylphie stopped to mine some ores and picked up some herbs which cut her experience rate.

Erica was level 16. With only one character to level, she should have been higher, but she didn’t know how to farm a game, so her inexperience slowed her down. She also stopped to equip new loot.

Erica was quiet during the grind. Now she unleashed her pent up frustration on her relatives. She started off with a monologue about her abused feet segueing into her lack of upper body strength with her generous endowment taking most of the space. Catching snippets of Erica verbal diarrhea cause Leviene to grind her teeth.

“These boots are the ugliest boots ever. I don’t know why we have to wear these awful things. There no benefits whatsoever in equipping it. They’re ugly, they give no stats, they clomp around making me strain my thigh muscles. My arms are tired from swinging crappy swords at the big dragonfly for five hours…”

Leviene tuned her out after a while, though she did get an endurance point off of it.

[Leviene whispered to Sylphie]: How do you put with Erica’s rants?

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: What do you mean?

[Leviene whispered to Sylphie]: Erica’s bitching. I wouldn’t put up with it if I didn’t get endurance points. How do you handle it without trying to kill her every time she opens her big mouth? Doesn’t it get on your nerves?

Sylphie looked at Leviene, a confused expression marring beautiful her face.

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: What endurance point for Erica’s bitching?

[Leviene whispered to Sylphie]: You tolerate her all this time without knowing you get the stats points. Tell me your secret. Tell me!

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: Tell me what stat points are you talking about first.

Leviene rooted around her combat log, took a screenshot of the endurance point she received from Erica’s verbal torment and forward it to Sylphie.

Arashia copied their mechanics from virtual reality games from Earth. Leviene played enough game so she thought to send the screenshot the same way she would have sent it in Dark Drake kingdom. Luckily it worked.

Sylphie studied the screenshot Leviene forwarded to her critically then glared at the short Perrian Let so hatefully, Leviene flinched and pulled back away.

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: Damn it. Now I have to listen to her bitching.

She turned the evil glare of doom towards Erica, but it just bounced off her shield of obliviousness. Sylphie turned back to Leviene and hissed.

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: I’ve put her on ignore. Now I have to listen that! Thanks a lot you viperous cousin!

[Leviene whispered to Sylphie]: You had her on ignore the whole time? How did you react to her talking and why didn’t you tell me about it so I can do it?

[Sylphie whispered to Leviene]: I was reacting to you, not her. I have a macro command to take her off ignore when I’m speaking with you. You’re a gamer, you should remember the ignore list! Now I have to pay attention to her.

[Leviene whispered to Sylphie]: You don’t have to do it.

Leviene offered her cousin an out knowing she wouldn’t take it. Gamers do many things, go to great lengths to trick out their toons. Those like Sylphie, who want the best gear in the game, once shown the method to improve their toon would sit through the nagging wife demon from hell harangue to get the stat point. There are no other options for them.

Leviene did wonder about her personality though. Was it evil of her to tell Sylphie about the endurance stat point. The short Perrian Let looked at Sylphie, misery, then to Erica, company. Nah. Sylphie deserves it for not reminding her about the ignore function of the game.

Leviene tuned into Erica’s tirade, “...and seriously, trying to kill these nasty bugs in these clunky shoes. It’s like we’re asking for a beating. Those insects can hear us a mile away. There no use trying to sneak up on them!”

“Did anyone bring food for the picnic?” Leviene asked, interrupting Erica’s rant. Sylphie and Erica looked at each other then as one turned to look at Leviene.

“Aren’t you responsible for food?” Erica stated like it was a forgone conclusion that Leviene was supposed to handle the food.

“No. I’ve never leveled cooking either. And don’t say I took every profession and cooking was one of them. Sylphie, you knew I never took cooking in any of the games we played. Matt always did it.” Leviene vehemently denied. She doesn’t cook, in game or in real life.

Dark cuisine, a meal so toxic it will kill a man after a single bite. Baka and Test Mizuki Himeji’s cooking! Leviene isn’t as bad as Himeji. It takes three bites to faint.

“But we thought you bought some food. It’s your responsibility.” God knows how Leviene want to smack the haughty expression off Erica’s face.“Why do I put up with her again?” Leviene thought to herself, “Oh yea the endurance point.”

“Nope. Cooking is out of my jurisdiction. I eat.”

“I take it none of us has any food?” Sylphie clarified.

“Not me.” Erica and Leviene said at the same time. By her questions, Leviene can infer she didn’t bring food either.

“Damn.” Sylphie sentiment was heartfelt.

“Then I guess it’s time to get back to farming.” Leviene said. “I don’t think there is a penalty for missing a few meals.”

Sylphie look like she was spared the guillotine. She didn’t have to start earning those endurance points the painful way yet. How can Leviene let her beloved slave driving cousin off the hook so easily. Such action were for compassionate people, non family compassionate people. Her greed would do her in just like it did to Leviene, so what if she torments her a little. She could put Erica on ignore. Ha! Like she would do it.

“Actually, I think we should have over to the personal instance now. The mobs here are level 12. My highest character is 14. It doesn’t give enough experiences to farm grey mobs.” Leviene said innocently.

“Don’t you have a third character that can use the experience, Leviene?” Sylphie looked at her cousin desperately. If they head over there now, she would have to listen to Erica. Something she wanted to put off.

After their previous conversation, Sylphie was sure Erica would take great pleasure in driving Sylphie insane if she knew how much her monologue irritated her.

“Yes I do, but Erica is already maxed out. The mobs here won’t give her any experiences. We shouldn’t waste time here anymore. We should head out now to the personal dungeons. Beside, we might be able to buy some food at the vendor over there.” Getting to the personal dungeon will be a trial because Erica is was raring to unleash her tirade from staying quiet for 5 hours. Sylphie will definitely earn her endurance point. A happy cousin cheering her along the way might make her gain endurance stats faster. Once they get to the dungeon, they can go our separate ways for a while.

“Don’t leave on my account Laurie. Seems you been doing so good, with your ghost doing all the work and you being your lazy ass self, leaching from the hard working, gracious host around you.”

“Ahh, you only wished you chosen the Assassin class. Cat got your tongue? Didn’t you brag about the advantage of the Sword Dancer class over the Assassin class to a certain hot guy who couldn’t get away from you fast enough.”

“Sword Dancer dps is higher than the lazy Assassin!” Erica defended her position. “And the hot guy wasn’t trying to get away from me. He was running away from your ugly face!”

“You said it yourself, Sword Dancer dps can only trump lazy Assassin. If we try, we can beat your dps every single time. And kiss my ass,” Leviene bend over tapping her butt to emphasize her point, “that hot guy was desperately trying to get away from your nagging personality!” The tail. The unruly tail she barely got control of sticked out of her pants and gave her cousin the bird. Or it would be a bird if it had two other digits to bend. The shape of it was enough to convey the sentiment.

The look on Erica’s cousin’s face. Woot woot. Leviene is beginning to love her tail.

“The other Perrian Let didn’t have that little bonus. What is it supposed to be? A dog’s tail wagging after it’s master?” Erica’s tone turns saccharine sweet. “Or the tail of a bitch in heat advertising?”

“You’re jealous. Admit it. Once I’ve trained this baby up, my dps would outclass yours a thousand times over. You’d never win in a fight against me again.” Leviene deliberately wagged her tail side to side, then grabbed a rock with said tail and threw it to her. Score!

“You want a fight! I’ll give you one.” Erica pulled her two swords and went into a fighting stance. Leviene wagged the offending tail side to side to taunt her some more.

“No fighting!” Sylphie yelled.

Damn it. It was getting fun too.

“But Laurie started it.”

“And you will end it. I don’t care about your verbal arguments. I draw the line at a physical altercation.” Leviene doubt it. She believed Sylphie was enjoying their verbal spat. And poor Leviene was getting the upper hand too.

“Fine! You better watch yourself, Laurie.” The experienced gamer wonders if Erica realized the significance of her playing a tank and a healing class. In a group situation, if one of dps pulls the attention of the mob, also known as aggro or threat, the tank doesn’t have to pull the mob’s aggro back to him or her right away. The less defensive dps have handle the mob until someone else pulls the aggro, the tank pulls the aggro back, or the dps dies.

The healing class is less obvious and sneakier. Healers don’t heal the dps unless they have to. Healers can easily justify their actions, saying they have to heal the tank or someone else, and who could fault them? Raid leaders can’t watch everything! Now convince all the healers in the raid not to heal the poor dps, then all you see is the poor dps dead on the floor or if the dps is smart, popping a defensive skill to save their behind. If they do the latter, they trade dps for survivability. In a high end raid where their egos depend on them doing well in a raid situation, someone always spams the damage meter in raid chat. A low dps doing low damage. Yeah. Bye bye ego.

“I take it everyone comfortable with their class?” With their confirmation, Sylphie continued, “Then we’ll head over to the personal dungeons. Since players can access the personal dungeons at level 10, we’ll kill the mobs along the way. I’ll switch the experiences setting from Friendly Freebies to Napoleon's Demand. Make sure you get the kill shot Leviene. Once you’re at level 10, I’ll change the setting.” Napoleon’s Demand is the experience setting which the lowest level person receive one-third of the experiences, the killer gets the other third and the rest is divided among the group.

“Fine by me.” Leviene said.

Erica, predictably, went on her irritating monologue. But this time, Sylphie glared at Leviene hatefully, while grinding her teeth, listening to the abuse, all for an endurance point she never would have known about if her cousin didn’t tell her.

Sweet!