24. Everyone Needs a Lunch Break

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." — Anne Lamott

While they were riding back later that day, Paul suddenly spoke, surprising Claire.

"Do you have any energy credits you can use?"

Somewhat startled, she turned and looked towards him.

"I have two of them now; I am broke right now."

Nodding his head, Paul continued.

"Would you be available tomorrow after the normal farming to spend one and go run some dungeons and level up a little? Sitting in that barn all day doesn't seem good for anyone's mental health?"

"Sure, that sounds good, although it would be nice to farm more hides for more money; we also need to level up so we are not so far behind."

"Awesome, we will grind mobs to level 25, then run through all the dungeons up to that level."

Paul wanted to get the skill points so he could level up Arcane Reaver and evolve it as quickly as possible. As such a strong skill, it would be easy to do many things once it was evolved, even if he only used one ability.

Leveling to 25 would also give them additional abilities, allowing them more flexibility.

"Do you think we can do all four dungeons available at 25 in that amount of time? We don't even have a tank or healer either."

Not taking her worry too seriously, he spoke somewhat dismissively.

"As long as you can weave basic attacks in between your abilities, as I taught you, and remember to always keep your damage over time abilities active, you will be in the top 10% of DPS right now, not to mention me. We can run through the level 10 and 15 dungeons with 5 DPS at our level, and for the level 20 and 25 dungeons, I can hybrid heal if we have a bad tank or healer."

"What can I do to get my DPS higher than that?"

"Well, it is mostly because you choose Suppression Seal as your ultimate ability at level 20; while amazing in group PvP, it is pretty useless for DPS; something like Overcharged would have put you even higher up."

They continued talking merrily as they continued their ride back to the barn.

"What class do you think is the best for DPS?"

"The balancing currently doesn't really matter. Every five levels, it shifts wildly. Once everyone gets to level 50, things will balance out well. At the end of the day, every class will probably be within 10% of each other at the high end. If you want easy DPS, Templar probably wins, though."

Hearing that, Claire thought about the abilities she had read about in all low-level classes; remembering Arcane Reaver, she felt like it was a potent ability. She did not doubt someone could stand there spamming that and do pretty good damage.

After a short silence, Claire suddenly had an idea.

"Before I was doing a dynamic world event, I added a healer as a friend; maybe she can help us with the dungeons. She is also level 34 right now."

Hearing her statement, Paul was somewhat stunned.

"Level 34 means that she has been grinding every day almost nonstop; why would she come to help us with low-level dungeons?"

"I think she might; we have messaged each other a few times, and she was confused about why I was on the same level for so many days straight. I told him I was trying to level my crafting skill line to earn money, and she seemed happy, saying she wouldn't mind helping me out."

Hearing Claire's explanation, Paul had to think deeply about what to do. Disregarding the suggestion and potential help would seem not only rude but also suspicious, not to mention that it would significantly speed up their dungeon runs. With his knowledge of the game and mechanics, he could sit on the boss and tank it if someone was spamming heals on him; the dungeons would be almost impossible to fail.

"What can you tell me about this woman? Do you think she would be nosey around our business or try to insert herself more often?"

"To be honest, I don't really know her; it was her mother who invited me to join their guild and told me to add her daughter as a friend and message her if I decided to join."

"Well, as someone very under-leveled, joining wouldn't be a good idea. You would definitely be doing a bunch of boring assignments or sitting there crafting all day."

"Yeah, I figured that out too Lazarus."

"Do you know what guild they were in and who invited you?"

"If I recall, it was called Eagle Imperium, and the person who invited me was named Eagle's Might, and her daughter is named Eagle's Light."

Paul was somewhat surprised to hear the names, but it wasn't a big deal. From his memories of Eagle Imperium, it was a medium-sized guild that mainly ran PvP in the Kingsfall region. It was better than the average team but would still get rolled by a group of genuinely skillful players.

"Well, that sounds fine; if you think she can help, message her; if we finish earlier, we can do a quest to get an extra utility ability. If she asks what you are running dungeons for, say it is for gear to deconstruct and skill points to level up Scavenger's Sight. It's an ability that highlights nearby resource nodes and makes collecting resources much easier; as a solo crafter, it is vital."

"I'll message her when we get to the barn now; what should we do about the tank and third DPS?"