Friendships

(...with a little help from my friends)

Tonight didn’t start until well after 9 – both boys were hosting friends for a sleepover so the house was nuts! One boy even lost a tooth to a Cap’n Crunch square. I logged on and Fhox was on already. He said something about a game being cancelled allowing him to play. He also mentioned something about his mom bringing company over which leads me to wonder if Stoik isn’t the only one to misjudge another’s age…

After some more gear and d-box work I met him in lower Jeuno. He wanted to go to Rolanberry [S] for his final Enspell II drop, from Emerald quads. Aryianna met us there and we spent 10 minutes hunting all over for the elusive turtles. Eventually we found one and got busy with the beating. With aggro, a repop and a death wish, we fought four in quick succession requiring all of our MP, Bene from me and a near-death experience with Fhox as he chose to Convert while having a little too much hate.

I wound up doing a lot of tanking especially on the third quad – I almost never lost hate and needed cure support while I kept recasting Stoneskin and throwing out Hexas as fast as I could.

The teamwork was very solid and I enjoyed that romp in the past. Fhox got his final scroll and I got to see Aryi again, who was also on WHM. She needs some club SU work to reach Hexa – maybe we can plan a lower level SU party since my staff is where her club is.

From here Fhox and I returned to Uggalepih and eventually found the coffer in a room full of other adventurers whom we thought were racing us to the spawns. Fhox and I split up then, just after Kushiel got on and asked what I was up to.

The timing was good too – I got the map not 5 minutes after Kush’s first tell. I met him on the Holla crag and he said the help needed was with the Tele-Dem scroll quest. Which involves a ton of back-and-forth running…

Our first stop was Bastok, to flag the quest itself. After running around the city he found the NPC and couldn’t flag – not enough fame. He’d been at the quck-fame thing earlier and hadn’t expected this. While he worked out what else could be done for quick fame, we chatted.

It was actually quite nice, and I got a very nice compliment out of it – he said I had a calming influence and that I was soothing but still fun to be around. This followed from his comment that he forgets I’m not a girl IRL. Awkward as that might sound I simply take it to mean I’m balanced personality-wise. One thing that seems to work for me and Ape is the fact I’m not overly “manly mannish” – I can be sweet and sensitive one minute and then competitive and protective the next. I like working on cars and computers, but don’t mind shopping or quiet dinners.

And, in real life, as in Vana’diel, I strive to be the “soothing healer” sort – I’ve always been the peacemaker and negotiator. If you recall an earlier post, I claim to be an empath. Not full-on mind-reading empathic ability, but certainly, I’m hypersensitive to others’ emotions and so I always seek to keep everyone balanced.

We also worked on some macros – I said I needed something better than the standard /blush and (nonexistent) /hug when it’s time to be affectionate. There’s definitely an ear-scratcher coming up.

As we parted ways I thanked him saying I really needed to see a friendly face this week. This nonsense with Y&A has been bugging me for days now. I feel…betrayed…in some way. Like my friendship with either of them wasn’t valuable enough to warrant at least a good-bye. I don’t expect an explanation, and if the speculation is correct, I wish the two of them well and that they find the answers they seek. But damn… I have never liked it when people leave without at least a good-bye.

Hopefully Fhox will be back on regularly, and with Stoik, Aryi, me and Isa (?) maybe RDB can flourish again. I suggested to Fhox it needs a clear purpose to sustain it whenever key members are out for short periods.

Also, it honestly seems to me with Y&A’s departure, GD has slowed down some. I hope that’s just a faulty reading on my part – I don’t want to see either shell fail.