Life is Not a Game

Charlie

[7 years ago]

’Mars301: lv70/wm/lfg’ I typed into the area chat.

That just means I’m a level 70 white mage, a healer, looking for a group. I had just logged in to my favorite MMORPG, Watchtower. It was the latest online game that everyone was playing. I may only be 10, but I’ve already reached the top level in the game as both a white mage and assassin, but I prefer playing my mage character, Mars301. I’ve found that there are lots of n00bs out there that like to play white mage and end up pulling hate too quickly, causing the entire group to wipe. I hate dying and losing my XP, so I’ve found it’s just better to do it myself. XP is experience points, it’s what helps you become stronger in the game.

I made it to level 70 without joining any guilds. I’m not very good with people, even online, so I tend to stick to myself. Unfortunately, not having a guild makes it hard to find groups to form a party with, since many like to group up with their own. This helps increase the overall power of the guild. Most good players are in a guild, meaning I normally get stuck with not so stellar groups. It’s a good thing my skills are enough to make up for the difference.

After sitting in the center of town crafting armor for about ten minutes while I wait for a group, I see a party invite sent to me. I clicked on it and found that the group was full of level 70s and consisted of a black mage, monk, assassin, and warrior. It’s a pretty standard party makeup for this game, but was one person short of a full party, not counting myself. Most of the members seem to be in the same guild, so maybe they won’t be awful. I clicked to accept the invite, immediately adding me to their party chat.

’Hector08: Hi’

’Tidal: Yo’

’Mars301: Hey’

’Mars301: Thx for the invite’

’SeanTheMan: Waiting on 1 then we’ll go’

’SeanTheMan: He’s joining now. Meet at the East gate’

I quickly put on my XP gear and ran toward the gate to meet the party. My character is a female light elf with long pink hair and a bluish tint to her skin. I think she’s pretty, but I mainly picked the race and features because it gave a bonus to mana and white magic. I had just made it to the gate when the last member of our party joined up.

’LordoftheSky: What up’

’Tidal: Nice of ya to join us kiddo’

’LordoftheSky: Can’t all be old farts like you’

’Hector08: If you two are done, let’s go camp the rock boss, we can kill mobs there while we wait’

Sweet! The rock boss drops an awesome crystal that can be used to craft a staff for a mage, although the drop rate is pretty low. He also drops some more basic stones that I can use as crafting mats. Maybe we’ll get lucky with drops.

We made our way to the underground entrance where the boss spawns, and notice that we’re the only ones here. Yes! We quickly gain the attention of a few of the monsters in the area and begin to fight. It appears LordoftheSky is a paladin, as he quickly taunts to pull the hate off of the other players. This forces the monsters to focus their attacks on him. The warrior and assassin start attacking while the monk starts casting debuffs on the mobs. His debuffs really make our damage dealers dish out massive damage. I cast some buffs on my team to up their defense and attack, but save most of my mana for healing. After the mobs are down to about half health, the black mage casts an AOE, an area of effect spell, to hit all of them with fire, dropping their health to only a fourth left. The assassin immediately follows up with an attack that kills one mob, while the warrior kills another. The black mage finishes off the last two with one more AOE attack. After we take down the first group, I cast a low-level healing spell over the group, since no one had lost much health. It was obvious by how well they worked together that this was not their first time forming a party.

We continued fighting groups of mobs without much heartache until the boss finally spawned. I waited for the paladin to get the full attention of the boss before I cast my buffs on our players and the monk cast his debuffs. I noticed that the black mage cast a few DOTs for the boss, he didn’t bother with damage over time attacks during the smaller mobs, since they wouldn’t last long enough. For the boss, he cast poison and a slow fire attack that would constantly burn him over time. Since the boss was so much stronger, I had to more closely monitor the health of the party. When someone would get to about a third health left, I would cast a large healing spell, careful not to pull hate away from the paladin or warrior. Apparently, our warrior also had some taunt skills, so he would swap tanking with the paladin. At one point, our black mage got a little trigger happy and blasted two large spells in a row, drawing the hate. The boss quickly went to him and one-shotted him. Great! I waited a bit for the paladin to use taunt again and gain enough hate, then I cast my revive spell on the mage. If I die because this idiot pulled hate, I will be so mad.

Luckily, as soon as the boss turned to attack me, the warrior taunted, taking the hate back. Whew that was a close one. I healed up the black mage and he went back to attacking, still a little over zealous. I had to work twice as hard to try to keep him alive, since he kept pulling hate.

’LordoftheSky: What's up with this n00b’

I was surprised he messaged me that, but at least it was a dm, or direct message, rather than to the entire party.

’Mars301: Yeah, pretty annoying’

After another fifteen minutes or so, we defeated the boss. The black mage almost made us party wipe, but I was able to scrape by and keep the group alive.

’LasloLarks: Thanks for the party, gg’

’SeanTheMan: Thanks man, bye’

LasloLarks has left the party

’Hector08: Wow, that was a close one’

’LordoftheSky: Yeah, that dude was horrible. Why wasn’t Bennie on?’

’Tidal: Said he had a date. Some of us are actually old enough for that’

’LordoftheSky: What a poser, picking some girl over us. You won’t see me doing that’

’Tidal: Not until you hit puberty anyway’

’SeanTheMan: You guys are kinda bein rude to Mars’

’LordoftheSky: Sorry dad’

’SeanTheMan: Guys, why do we put up with this kid?’

’LordoftheSky: Because I’m the best paladin in the guild’

’Hector08: Sorry about them Mars. We’re gonna grab another black mage if you want to keep going’

’Mars301: Count me in’

’Tidal: Thank goodness, finding a decent wm is so hard’

’LordoftheSky: Mars, are you an old fart like these losers or still in your prime?’

’Tidal: and by old fart, he means 22, dang kid’

’Mars301: Um...younger than Tidal’

By now, we had a new black mage join the party and got back to fighting. Thankfully, this one was from their guild and pretty good. This made my job much easier, so I could focus on buffs and healing, instead of just spamming healing constantly. We ended up fighting together for about seven hours before I realized it was midnight. Shoot, mom is gonna kill me if she realizes I’m still awake and playing this late. She’s not home yet, but should be pretty soon. Mom’s a high-profile lawyer and has some important trial next week. She usually comes home late, but has been even later than normal recently. Between her job and Dad’s job, he’s a surgeon at the hospital, I don’t see my parents much. They hired a nanny to watch me, but she just lets me play video games all the time. I miss my parents, but I do love gaming.

’Mars301: Sorry guys, it’s getting late and I gtg. Thx for the party’

’Tidal: Wow, it is late. Mommy not telling you to sleep yet Lord?’

’LordoftheSky: Shut it Tide. But I should get to bed. My sis will rat me out if not’

’Hector08: Mars, you’re good. Want to join our guild?’

Join a guild? They were good players, but do I want to have to worry with talking to others? They seem pretty funny and seem to get along. What the heck, why not?

’Mars301: Um...sure’

You have been invited to join GuardiansoftheGods

’Hector08: Welcome to the guild’

’Mars301: Thanks, gtg though. Nite’

With that, I logged off and quickly put my computer to sleep and jumped into bed. A few minutes later, Mom peeked in to check on me, so I pretended to be asleep. They may be pretty busy, but still wouldn’t like me being up this late. Whew, that was a close one.

I continued to log on over the next few months and found out that LordoftheSky was actually 10 also. We ended up being good friends and always coordinated getting online together to play. The others in the guild call us the Sprouse twins. I don’t really get it, but apparently, they were famous twins in some TV show years ago. When Lord questioned it, the others just cracked up laughing calling us babies, so I didn’t say anything. I’m still debilitatingly shy, but getting better with the online people. IRL though, that’s another story. I have zero friends, since I can’t bring myself to talk to anyone. I don’t mind, however, since I focus on my school work. I know, I know. How much work can a ten-year-old have, right? Well, not a lot, but enough to keep me busy at school. After school, I’m all about my video games.