Just as she was beginning to doze off, her phone started buzzing, alerting her that she had a text message. JiYeong peeked one eye open, seeing that the message was from Lilia.

Lils: So are you going to tell me

about this skill?

You: What skill?

Lils: JiYeong!

You: It’s really nothing to be worried about Lils. It’s just a random skill that I must have picked up during a quest or something.

Lils: And the headaches?

You: Probably because y’all keep me up at all hours of the night and this old lady is sleep deprived.

You: anyway, you and Zaos looked pretty cozy on that couch. Have you decided to join his guild yet?

Lils: Have you??

You: You know perfectly well

I’m not joining his guild.

Lils: Why don’t you just start

your own guild?

JiYeong looked at the message, taking a moment before answering. It wasn’t as if she never thought about starting her own guild, but the more thought about it the more she knew she didn’t want to be leader, or anyone with that much authority. It seemed like way too much responsibility, and she did not have the patience for that.

Her phone decided mid-sentence was the best time to die.

“Oh well.” JiYeong rolled over to plug her phone in. Lilia would get a response in the morning. She adjusted herself, flipping her pillow over to the cool side and closing her eyes, hoping sleep come soon.

⚔⚔⚔

JiYeong was still in Farron when she logged on the next morning. As much as she wanted to sleep her internal alarm clock still forced her awake at eight, and she couldn’t fall back asleep.

She pulled up the in game map to see how far Blackmeadow was from where she was in Farron. It was the origin point of her current quest.

“Too far to run.” So she typed in the command to warp, and within seconds was at the entrance of Blackmeadow.

The graphics in the game were always breathtaking. Because Blackmeadow was just outside Sylfelia and on the other side of the forest, it was sunny a majority of the time. The trees looked the same as they did in Farron; reds, oranges and yellows were mixed in amongst the green. There were a great deal of trees inside the town since Blackmeadow sat mostly inside the forest.

JiYeong loved to just sit for a time and look at the scenery of different towns. Occasionally she would take a screenshot of the different views Allumia Crossing had to offer, using a couple for her desktop background and phone lock screen.

The leaves on the trees moved ever so slightly, as did the hair on her character, showing that there was a small breeze.

Allumia Crossing had one of the best weather systems JiYeong had seen in a game by far. There were plenty of games where there was only one type of weather, or even no weather at all. Weather changes were a frequent thing in Allumia Crossing.

And even though there were certain towns like Blackmeadow where there was a set type of season all the time, there were still things like rain, fog, and clouds that could happen at any given moment.

It was a thing that took her quite a while to get used to, but after years of playing the game she couldn’t really see herself going back to how other games were. JiYeong had been spoiled.

JiYeong made sure the items obtained from the dungeon runs yesterday were in her pack before going to the small hut the quest giver was at. She was a Faerie named Iridia, and the items were needed to create some type of catalyst. She admittedly never really read the quest information before accepting one if it wasn’t a quest that was important to the main storyline.

Still, she turned in the items, earning twenty gold and a decent potion to raise her characters health in case it got low. Not that it did too often, unless she was doing a higher level dungeon.

The last reward was a status boost that was actually surprisingly good. It raised her strength quite a bit, and her total health got a boost as well. The boost lasted seven in game days, which was another perk. It barely equaled to three hours in real time but it was still three hours of a boost that would get her fairly far.

Soon after finishing the quest she got a message from Lilia.

They decided to run a couple of lower level dungeons in order to gather some items that could only be found in that area for a Botany quest Lilia had to do.

Leveling their secondary classes wasn’t a priority because they were usually focused on their main classes. But Lilia was still half asleep from what she could tell, and leveling Botany was easier than trying to kill monsters as a White Mage who didn’t have very many or very strong offensive attacks.

The dungeon was one she could handle by herself several times as a Guardian, so Lilia stayed on her Botanist class to gather the items she needed.

Shadow Ritual became available much sooner than it had before. They were nowhere near the last boss of this dungeon. If anything, the monster in front of them acted more as a mini-boss. The amount of effort it would have taken her to kill it with just her regular skill was minimal.

Using Shadow Ritual again was a bad idea. The last two attacks were still burned fresh in her mind, but so was the thought that nothing about what had happened made sense. The headaches couldn’t have been a direct consequence of using the move. Not from a computer game, she reasoned.

And yet, her body doubled over with the immediate onset of pain as JiYeong used the Magick.

Each headache was more intense than the last. She wanted to see what the attack was doing on screen but just the thought of opening her eyes made her head hurt worse.

A full minute went by before she was able to move without the need to vomit increasing. There was still a dull throbbing when JiYeong finally opened her eyes. The chatbox was full of questions from Lilia, but she was still unable to answer as she had even less of an idea what was going on than she had the first or second time.

Lilia: Did you use Shadow Ritual

again?

Lilia: Stop using that attack you

idiot!

Lilia: Hey.

Lilia: JiYeong are you okay

what’s going on??

JiYeong: Okay that’s the last

time I swear…

The dungeon, aside from the last bit of it, didn’t take them long. They decided to run it a few more times. Shadow Ritual was greyed out like before, and when they made it to the boss it remained unavailable. She didn’t mind. Another headache, especially when her head was still aching, was not something she wanted to experience.

⚔⚔⚔

They sat in front of her house, Lilia taking care of the garden (which was in reality Lilia’s garden since she was the one who started and took care of it the most). JiYeong switched to Culinarian and made Lilia some food to help speed up her gathering stat.

Lilia: So, you never responded to my text about starting your own guild.

JiYeong: Phone died.

Lilia: So?

JiYeong: I don’t want to start a guild. That’s more work than just joining one.

Lilia: You’d be really good at

being a guild leader.

JiYeong: Maybe, but don’t want to be in charge of people. Why don’t you start a guild?

Lilia: You think people will want to join a guild run by a WM?

JiYeong: I would. But only if it’s

you.

Lilia: Whaaa? o.o the ever elusive JiYeong, who is notorious for hating guilds, would join one started by little old me???

JiYeong: I don’t hate guilds, Lils. I think they’re a great thing for players who need them. I just find playing by myself, or with a small group of friends funner and more comfortable.

JiYeong: Plus being a GL would be way out of my comfort zone.

Lilia: I guess. I still think you’d make an awesome GL but its up to you.

Lilia: There! Garden is back to being pretty, you should really not let it get like this.

JiYeong: Bite me.

Lilia: only if you ask nicely ;)

wanna kill some orcs?

JiYeong: only if you ask nicely