Filthy Bee Sympathizers

When I first started my career as a mule, my Master originally intended for me to live full-time in Bastok. He even purchased basic equipment for me, and sent me out to learn how to fight.

He suggested that I focus on bees.

How naive and innocent I was in those days. I did not yet realize that my Master has a reason for everything.

His reason, of course, was that he desired bee bits for alchemical purposes and cooking - beehive chips and honey. How was I to know of the spiralling hell of fighting bees?

You see, bees in Vana'diel are not soft fluffy bumblebees. The things that bees of Vana'diel need to pollinate get up and walk around. They also have area attacks. Of necessity, bees are hardy and rather oversized. Plus they have a vicious sting.

As a first level warrior, I felt that I should easily be able to take on a simple bee. How was I to know the bees can regenerate? Or that they have two vicious sting attacks, one that sacrifices its own life, and one that just rips away yours? After a series of pathetic deaths, epic battles where I drank more Selbina milk than was healthy for me (or an entire kindergarten class for that matter) to counteract the bee's pollen move, and losing at least one battle due to a badly timed Final Sting, I found myself with 10 hp left, no milk left, and in deadly combat with a wicked bee with a sliver of life remaining.

It was at this point that SHE walked by.

SHE was with someone else, and they were chatting in /say as if that wasn't incredibly annoying. Perhaps to some completely pathetic people, the story of her life was actually interesting. Needless to say, I would never have noticed her inane existence had she not spoken of me: "omg lookit that galka fighting a bee."

Her companion pointed out, "it's looks like he's losing, why don't you cure him?"

"wut no!" SHE said. "i don't like galka, nd i think itz lame when low lvls fight bees. let him die. i like the bees beter." Those words appear with all the mindless abbreviation and misspellings that SHE used.

I was stunned for a moment, and I think the bee was also. What kind of immoral, soulless creature would prefer the life of a bee over that of an intelligent, if somewhat inexperienced being?

An insensate rage filled my being. What kind of person would sympathize with a bee? I swung at the bee and scored a ciritical hit, and again and again! The bee readied a sharp sting, but my sword swung down first, and with yet another critical, the bee was dead.

It dropped both a beehive chip AND honey. Without a word to the wretched bee sympathizer, I stepped over the bee's corpse and headed to the auction house to send my prizes to the Master. In days to follow, I found that the memory of her hideous bee-loving tendencies enabled me to quickly finish off the strongest bees.

I gained levels of experience this way, but finally my Master decided that my skills at dealing with the auction house were more valuable than my bee slaying skills, and sent me on a long journey to Jeuno. As I sit here in this peaceful, crowded city, I cannot help but wonder: Who kills the bees now?