---------LEGEND---------

PLAYER/USERNAME

Alexander/AlexFae

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[YOU DIED]

“Fuuuuuuuuck!!!” Alexander said as his avatar's body vanished into many colored bubbles. His killer, the sort of mixed breed between a European dragon and Gyarados - its HP bar was still half full - started walking around the arena as if it was expecting to see someone else suddenly pop out and resume the fight where Alexander left it, taking advantage of the fact that he had reduced its health to half. Gankers started appearing and being a problem from level 10 onwards, to the point that they were almost a plague in the time it took him to get close to the minimum level threshold needed to reach World Level 2.

The world of LotA had five World Levels, this mechanic was inserted in order to maintain an acceptable level of challenge for each player at each level, who by going up in World Level found more powerful monsters with greater possibilities of dropping useful objects. For each WL it was necessary for your character to obtain twenty levels - therefore, 20 for Level 2, 40 for Level 3 and so on -, the problem was that the closer he was to that point, the more his kills were being stolen by other players, who appeared out of nowhere and tried to deal the final blow to the miniboss he was fighting in an attempt to obtain the rare item with minimal effort.

What an unsportsmanlike attitude. The LotA Team really should have considered making a patch that allowed friendly fire on certain pests.

The screen became black and a loading bar later AlexFae was back at the last city he visited.

It was the fourth time he tried to kill it to obtain the Mythic Helm of the Forgotten Draconic Knight and in the best case he managed to reduce its life to 1/4, a good result, but good results alone do not reward.

Exhausted and beaten, Alexander decided to log out of LotA and opened YouPipe instead, maybe seeing some meme compilation would calm him down from all his frustration.

“Um?”

The YouPipe algorithm had shown him some LotA streamers who were live at that moment, among them there was a small channel which judging by the number of subscribers and views must have started its career just recently. Out of curiosity Alexander focused his attention on the live broadcast and his NexNet showed him the video.

[Welcome to my very first stream of this channel! This is Davina, and I am your companion on this fantastic adventure…]

He didn't know the streamer with the Frostbinder character but the two figures who accompanied her were not new to him: Lasair and Genevieve. Alexander still had their contact in his friends list... and they had also accumulated several levels since their meeting! They must have followed his advice not to keep the EXP-increasing items since they had both reached the tenth level; This made him feel a bit like he was getting lazy about leveling up since he had only managed to advance three levels since his encounter with them, reaching the eighteenth level.

“If I don't start dedicating more time to the progression of experience points I will definitely fall behind,” Alexander commented, also observing the technical progress in the game. Lasair and Genevieve seemed very well coordinated in combat and had enough mutual understanding to know when to use their spells and in what order. Surely if they had decided to fight Rock Manifestation they would have won at this point.

Alexander followed their adventures inside the dungeon, it was among other things one of those he visited frequently when he was at their level and therefore he knew what awaited them in its recesses.

“Be careful, there's a fire trap there,” he muttered to himself; the trio of bold adventurers in their splendid dresses stumbled into the trap and although the player called Davina took some damage, it was promptly restored by Genevieve. “It's a good idea to use healing spells if you're lucky enough to have a [Guardian] in your party since the MPs, unlike the HPs, regenerate with time and you can therefore save on healing crystals…”

Even if any healing item heals more than an healing spell of the same level.

Which brought him back to a question that had been nagging him for some time: should Alexander join a party or not? Within two levels he would have reached the treshold for ascending to World Level 2 and at that point it would have been very difficult for him to continue his mercantile career as a solo player

Joining a party, of course. That's an easy thing, practically no one reached World Level 2 without being in a guild or at least in a party.

If only he wasn't afraid of been took for a creep…

Alexander witnessed the entire exploration of the dungeon until the three girls reached the final room where the boss was waiting for them. The final creature of that dungeon vaguely resembled a purple-skinned Japanese demon, with long horns like those of a bull and legs ending in dark hooves like those of horses.

The arena consisted of a circular area dug by nature with vegetation and moss growing along the rocky and disordered stone walls, the place was illuminated almost as if it was noon by the sun, which entered from above as if the sun was right above the arena.

Alexander shouldn't have done it, considering that he was trying to accumulate the capital necessary to move away from his remote and claustrophobic town of Lakeland Ridges in favor of some larger city where he could have molded in bette, considering his... choice of dressing style, but he owed something to Genevieve e Lasair for his broken promise.

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Meanwhile the fight was raging inside the arena; the demon was three times the size of an average human and equally muscular, armed with an ax that he wielded as if he was holding an object no heavier than a toothpick. Genevieve was keeping him at bay and keeping the aggro on her while Lasair ran around him forcing the demon to divide his attention and chipping away his health continuously, Davina was at least thirty feet away and was using the limited magical arsenal that a sixth level [Seeker] had at her service. Spears of ice and arrows made of flame were thrown with no end in sight, they were winning, but they had not yet reached 30% of the boss's HP. When they reached that point, the demon unlocked his special attack, changing the pace of the battle and inevitably ending up pushing the two girls on the back foot. They were relaxing or getting too used to the same attack patterns.

“Come on… come on…” Alexander whispered in a low voice, he was now caught up in the cheering and had – only temporarily, unfortunately – forgotten what had pushed him to abandon his mini-boss fight that evening.

Genevieve and Lasair were at 40% health; Alexander swallowed knowing how powerful the boss's special attack was and when he began to whirl his ax after a roar that petrified both fighters for a moment Alexander jumped on the chair, he was still connected to the NexNet and therefore he couldn't move his real body, so just his mind jumped. Both parties were hit and from a situation in which the three girls had the upper hand in both numbers and overall health they found themselves below the demon's HP, Davina exclaimed some power of friendship stuff and tried to draw the boss's aggro on herself using a series of spells that did little damage but hit in rapid succession.

The sensor Alexander had placed on the door to warn him when someone wanted to enter his room sent the signal to Alexander's NexNet, which he turned off so to interact with the people made of flesh and blood that were his relatives. He sighed and took a few moments to regain contact with the less flashy and colorful reality.

“Coming,” Alexander said, rubbing his eyes and getting up from the bed to go to the door, unlock it using the key and then open the door. In front of his door was his young little sister, their parents had him when they were twenty-three and her when they were thirty-four, this meant that Alexander was over twenty when his sister had just turned ten, with the result that to him little Mary was more like a daughter than a sister.

"Sorry if I disturbed!" Mary said, clasping her hands behind her back and rocking on the balls of her feet. That day she had her long brown hair tied in two ponytails behind her ears and the movement of her body made them sway like pendulums.

Alexander shook his head, “no trouble, sis. What's up?"

Alexander invited her to come in by moving away from the door. His room wasn't exactly the most welcoming as he was staying with the light off and therefore the only sources of illumination were his computer screen and a lava lamp which outlined the silhouettes of a floor dotted with dirty clothes, snack bags that he had abandoned around and a desk covered in papers, bags and boxes of something Alexander had bought online who knows how long ago and various computer parts that he had put on or removed in an attempt to improve system performance.

Mary took a few steps into the room, walking around her brother while smiling widely and holding something hidden behind her shoulders, “you should turn on the light! It's dark in here!”

“Sorry, right,” He flipped the switch next to the door and quickly raised a hand to his eyes when the first flash of light reached his pupils, “mph…”

"Thank you!" Mary smiled at him again and looked up at his face, starting to rock her shoulders back and forth as if she was hiding something from him and trying to make him notice it.

Alexander picked up his skirt as he bent down, bending his legs to bring himself to the same height as his sister, “what are you hiding from me? Come on, let me see!” Alexander exclaimed, smiling at her and reaching out to pat her head.

Mary chuckled, enjoying the headpats “no! I won't let you see it!"

“Oh, no?” Alexander said in a playfully threatening manner, “Then I'll have to force you!”

“Nooooo!!!”

Mary began to wriggle and try to hide against his chest while Alexander tickled her sides and under her armpits with his fingers, she bursted out laughing in amusement and he laughed along with her for the next few minutes, until she was satisfied to pretend she was putting any resistence and decided to try to get away from him.

“Okay, I'll show you…”, Mary brought her hands in front of her and raised them to show to her brother her smartphone. The screen was lit and showing a web page; he closed his hands around his sister's to keep them still while he read quickly.

[The 1st edition of the Maritime Cup is about to start! Create a team with your friends who reside in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and participate in our competition. All you need is a stable and fast connection, all matches except the semi-finals and finals are played from home and the 1st prize money for the winning team is $20,000]

“Twenty thousand dollars…”, Alexander swallowed, even divided by four it was still much more than his monthly salary, the fact that he would have to show up in person to play the semi-finals and the finals was an obstacle, but not the biggest one considering he would have to get there first and he didn't even have a party to play with yet.

"Are you happy?" Mary asked him lowering her arms, the smile and happiness of a moment before had vanished. Alexander didn't need to ask what was wrong, it was something they had already talked about many times.

“Little sis…” Alexander stretched out his arms to wrap them around his sister's neck and brought her closer to him to hug her, “do you know that I love you?”

“But you want to leave me!”

Alexander sighed. Separating from his sister was heartbreaking but he didn't want to remain locked up forever in a tiny village where everyone knew each other and any liberties he would have taken would have been there for all to see, and to discuss with his family, "I'm not doing it because I don't love you, I'm doing it because I don't want to live my whole life away from civilization.”

“But then you will go away from me!” Mary said hugging him.

“I'll come back to visit you often, maybe when you're older you can come to town too!”

“Are you really going to do it?” She asked, lifting her head to look to Alexander in the eyes.

Alexander nodded at her vigorously, “of course! And I'm not leaving anytime soon anyway!” he patted her forehead. “How about we play your favorite video game together now?”

The sadness of the moment faded and was replaced with joy, one of the best things about being a child, “yes! I will be right back!"

Alexander let her go and Mary ran out of his room to go get her portable console, he retrieved his and sat on the bed, waiting for her. His reflection in the window showed a person with long, straight, brown hair with a sad look. He looked down at his legs and straightened his skirt. After Alexander finished playing with Mary he restarted the streaming where he left it, to see the rest of Lasair and her friends' boss fight and maybe send them a message asking if they could meet up and talk.

“It's hard to be a femboy in a small town of two hundred inhabitants...” He said to himself. Alexander hated the idea of moving away from his family, but he saw no other alternative.