Faustus: 1.1%
[Healzzzorz]:That much more damage just from standing in the blue zone a bit longer?
[Ravenweal]:Over the fight it’s like seven seconds more damage
[fireballboy]:maybe its a bug?
[Ravenweal]:What does it matter if it worked?
Private Chat: Faustus/Ravenweal
[Faustus]:Okay, that’s the kind of perception that gets you a spot in the raid party.
[Ravenweal]:Put in a good word with Zoo for me
[Faustus]:Oh, I already told him.
[Ravenweal]:Was Alissa really upset when you guys didn’t win world first on the last raid?
[Faustus]:She was pretty upset, yeah.
[Faustus]:It was her third one and still nothing.
[Faustus]:And she was like you—was GREAT at figuring out the mechanics, but it never came together.
[Ravenweal]:We’re going to win this one for her
[Faustus]:Yeah? You think that’s going to do it? Dead sister/friend energy?
[Ravenweal]:She loved this game more than anything
[Faustus]:If you want to do it for her, be my guest.
[Ravenweal]:You don’t?
[Faustus]:If she cared that much about it, she’d be here doing it herself.
[Ravenweal]:I’m going to care about it for her.
[Ravenweal]:If you’d like to join me, you know where to find me.
Group Chat: Four-Player Party
[Ravenweal]:Let’s keep going, dungeon’s not over yet
Chapter 10
Ihit the level cap on Monday night.
I celebrate by spending Tuesday reading Children of Hypnos book three.
By Wednesday, I’m running high-end raids to gear up. This will take some time; the armor and weapon drops I need are rare, and I’m not the only one who needs them. But with Alissa’s guides as a primer, I go into the raids knowing what I’m doing, and with my own skills I’m able to improvise on the fly.
One of the other raiders in the guild, a nonbinary kid who goes by Mox, sends me specs for a gaming desktop. I have enough money saved up from working over the summers to buy it, so I tell Mom I want to get it as a birthday present for myself. Wewere supposed to go out to dinner to celebrate, but it’s too hard for me to eat right now, and Alissa was supposed to go with us. So she doesn’t argue about skipping the dinner and buying a computer instead. It’ll take two weeks to arrive; plenty of time to set it up and get used to using it before Dreambreaker comes out.
“I have the same one,” Ash says when I show him the model I got. We sit in the school courtyard at lunch. Neither of us is eating. The tree behind us has just begun to bloom. “An older version, though. If you want to see how it runs, you could come over later today.”
I tense up. “Will your parents be there?”
