Rules don't apply

Being a mule is a degrading condition that I would readily wish on my worst enemy, because I hate my enemies with a passion and couldn't do worse than give them this fate. Still it has some advantages over being an adventurer.

For one thing, we can trade Rare/Exclusive items.

I got tired of waiting around in the Woodcutters Den and decided to give the Boss's weathered scepter a little more wear than when she gave it to me.

Star Marmots infest the Central Forest. It's like Carbuncle went around spreading his light to every below-average intelligence female squirrel, chipmunk, and groundhog in the world. Star seems to imply condescending kindness in the form of a golden sticker to promote a false sense of achievement. If these vermin have luminosity, it's millions of light years away.

Lesson number one: even though Star Marmots are the lamest, low-level monsters, they will kill you if you stand there trying to figure out if there's still auto-attack like there was in Vana'diel. There isn't.

Their special attack is nut-kicker. Adianoeta at seventh-grade level!

Fortunately, in this world death seems to be punishable only by inconvenience. I haven't seen evidence of experience or skill point loss as a result, though maybe that punishment is saved for higher ranks when it would hurt more. Square likes surprises like that.

Once I got the hang of spamming my limited abilities, experience and skill points flowed like mucus from an opo-opo's nose.

That brings me to lesson number two: I hate monkeys.

It's really easy to get lulled into complacency. You target a marmot, spam abilities until it is dead, target a funguar, spam abilities until it is dead.

You might never notice that colored dot they told you about that is supposed to measure the difficulty rating.

You might see an adventurer faceplant next to a partially beaten Young Galago.

You might, caught up in the battle lust from playing at pest control, /shout VENGEANCE! and attack the monkey without noticing his red dot.

In hindsight, the gray name of that adventurer should have been a clue. Monkeys are apparently hard-core bad-ass.

I, apparently, am weak to having my teeth kicked in, and having poo flung at my head. Speaking of which, since when was lead part of a monkey's diet?

Back at the Gridania Aethyrite, I checked the time. Still plenty of time before the boss would notice. I kept grinding until Gontrant would give me levequests at Emerald Moss (yes, if I'm holding a garbage scepter, he'll speak to me. Jerk.) so I could kill monkeys for revenge.

The first quest was simple enough. Kill 4 Carrion Chiglets and 4 Curious Galago within 30 minutes.

I headed in the direction of the glowing arrow and found the first group. Finding all 8 monsters is easier than you expect, because monkeys and their fleas duo adventurers.

I blasted the Chigoe. It died, but its Galago friend was pissed. Seriously? I killed your flea. I did you a favor. Die in a fire.

It was easy. I was filled with confidence as I headed off toward the next group marked on my map. I didn't know to think it was weird that the other two groups weren't marked yet.

Shouldn't be difficult to repeat the previous strategy. Black flea. Check! Kill monkey. Check. It put up a good fight, and left me fairly bloody, but I killed it. I hate monkeys. I was about to shout about feasting on the monkeys entrails when I noticed something unsettling. A levequest target appears.

What was that?

Lesson 3: Sometimes, when you kill a levequest mob, aggressive new ones spawn on your head.

Curious Galago hits you for 57 points of damage.

Carrion Chiglet hits you for 43 points of damage.

Critical! Carrion Chiglet hits you for 140 points of damage.

Curious Galago hits you for 73 points of damage.

Emerald Bees hits you for 98 points of damage.

Lesson number 4: Bees are also aggressive.

Reeree> You guys do realize that my spells are all area effect?

Reeree> You know, those spells that I can't cast when I'm targeting myself 

Reeree> and fumbling through the controls desperately trying to target one of you 

Reeree> while you beat the candy out of me like I'm a piñata.

Reeree> Or, for example, after I'm dead.

I got XPed on by a 5 member party of monsters. They didn't bother with a healer.

I returned to the Aethyrite and ran back to them while still weakened. This time, instead of wading into the river of doom where they could reprise their gang-rape battle strategy, I picked one off from afar and took each of them out one at a time.

I prefer my battles to be fair and honorable... sniping. Barbaric thugs ganging up on the weak is only acceptable when they're on my side.

An Aethyrial node appears as I finish my quest. Before I took advantage of it, there was something I had to say to the Emerald Bees.

I traded them "Damnation" for their Bee Baskets.

Quick check for time back at Emerald Moss, and still hours before the Boss notices I'm gone. I initiate another levequest, this time I need to play exterminator again and clean up a mole problem.

Naked Moles? Who names these things? I'm going to find that guy and cast Fire on his pants.

The quest begins with a lot of walking west. Couldn't they have found problems for me to deal with that were a little closer to the camp? If I had an entourage of adventurers to babble advice at me while we walked briskly, we could make an episode of The West Wing.

All four of the moles I need to murder are hanging out together. This looks too easy.

Reeree> Okay, listen up. We're going to do this in an orderly fashion. You each take a number.

Reeree> One, two, three, four. Mole number one, you're up.

BOOM!

Reeree> Mole number two, nice initiative coming over here for your turn. Well done. 

BOOM!

Reeree> Mole number three, thank you for waiting. You're up.

BOOM!

The levequest target is attempting to flee!

Reeree> Seriously? Mole number 4, I understand your perfectly rational fear response after what I just did to your little friends, but don't run away.

Reeree> You'll just die tired.

Should have known it was too easy. How the hell did Goblin Smithy manage to punch and stab adventurers while running behind them? All I managed to get was "The target is too far away" messages while increasing the distance between us.

I gave up on running after him - I wasn't gaining - and went for the whole horror movie classic slow walk stalking.

Reeree> You have to stop running some time.

Reeree> And I have to kill you for this quest, so I'm going to find you eventually.

Reeree> Have a little dignity. I'll make it quick.

Reeree> Do you have any last words?

Naked Mole> Inc T THM. 

Naked Mole> Long pull. 

Reeree> Wait. What?

A levequest target appears!

A levequest target appears!

Nuking five moles to their death is not something outside of my abilities. Simultaneously, however, is.

Am I talking to myself here?

Planning a revolution isn't easy. It's especially difficult if all your resources aren't disclosed. How am I supposed to count how many disposable people I have to throw in the front lines if you never post comments? Don't even tell me to have Jeine use her "psychic" skills to figure it out. I will burn you.

It seems that Square is reading. I mock the auction house and later that day they update it to change the names to sensical categories. Now when I want to sell sticks and branches, I go to the Woodcutters Den. It even tells you when you enter which categories of items enjoy discounted taxes there.

Now, the Battlecraft area is still full of morons. It's first on the list to choose from, so rather than selecting it on purpose to sell things that belong there, people select it by default to sell garbage of random and assorted varieties.

But other than that, it's sort of working. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not going to find my boss those Leather Himantes she wanted, but that's more of a problem with me not caring about her needs compounded with nobody is selling what she wants anyway.

She asked me for some dyes, and after figuring out which area dyes were appropriate for, I managed to find one mule who was selling some. Crazy, right?

Of course, I have no idea if the price for them was fair, or even whether another guy standing five fulm away is selling them for 1 gil. It's still inconvenient, so that makes me somewhat happy.

It also made me happy to watch her fail to craft with that dye. It's like trading gil for illegal fireworks that force you to have to repair your underpants.

Boss> My underwear got damaged.
Reeree> There's a word for that.
Boss> What is it?
Reeree> Oversharing.
Boss> I've got the appropriate material to fix them.
Reeree> Great. I'm not only a slave, I'm a slave to someone who has sheep leather patches on her crotch.
Boss> But I can't fix them.
Reeree> If I'm supposed to ask "why not?" here, I won't do it.
Boss> Because you can only fix items if you take them off.
Reeree> Okay, turning off visualization centers of the brain. You can feel free to stop talking.
Boss> And you can't take off underwear.
Reeree> Not picturing you naked, that's what I'm doing right now.
Boss> You can only swap them for different ones.
Reeree> Remember mandragora? Weren't they way more fun than marmots?
Boss> And no one seems to be selling them. I'd make new ones myself, but I'm not high enough yet.
Reeree> For the record, I refuse to touch - let alone sell - your used underclothes. Don't ever ask me that.
Boss> Oh, I would make Snuggleteddy sell those.

And the block on visualization snapped. I couldn't stop myself from imaging the big dumb galka, excuse me Roegadyn, and the way he would handle ladies panties. I could still hear the sound of his sniffing noises when I smelled burn hair.

Boss> You cast Fire at my head!
Reeree> I claim self-defense.

Auction House?

You might think that returning to a life of slavery would be just about the worst thing that could have happened to me upon arriving at this new world.

You would be spot on.

That is not to say that this gig is all bad all the time. Just this morning, I had this delightful conversation.

Boss> I'm leveling Pugilist...

Reeree> You mean monk?

Boss> No they don't have monks here.

Reeree> You punch things?

Boss> Yes.

Reeree> Do you get an ability to bite ears off?

Boss> What?

Reeree> Nevermind.

Boss> Right... so, once again, I'm leveling Pugilist.

Reeree> Monk. Never use a big word when a diminutive suffices.

Boss> Huh?

Reeree> Precisely.

Boss> I need you to go to the Auction House and get me some Leather Himantes.

Reeree> I'll go as soon as it opens.

Boss> When is that?

Reeree> Never.

It's supposed to be a means of preventing RMT, not having an centralized Auction House to be taken over by gilsellers. The logic is simple:

Step 1. Implement Homeland Security methodology where "inconvenience = security."
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!

Boss> So there's no AH?

Reeree> There's bazaars.

Boss> How does that work?

Reeree> Think of it like shopping in a thrift shop. You browse for hours through piles of garbage that someone decided to sell rather than throw away. You can do this from the convenience of the Market Wards, which are like identical second-hand shops in a strip-mall in the poor part of town. You can also do this from the convenience of anywhere adventurers are found.

Boss> By "piles" you mean shelves organized by category and sub-category for convenience.

Reeree> No, by "piles", I mean piles. What you get when you empty one of the trucks they use to clean out houses on Hoarders.

Boss> Is there a search function?

Reeree> There's a manual search function. You walk around and you look at each individual bazaar. Sometimes you get lucky and find a great deal. Mostly you find marmot carcasses and carrots.

Boss> Maybe I'll just craft them, then. I've done some Leatherworking levequests. What's the recipe for Leather Himantes?

Reeree> Oh, you can easily craft them. Looks to be a level 11 craft. It just takes 6 wind shards, 4 earth shards, leather knuckle guards, bronze himantes grips, undyed canvas cloth, fish glue, and an antelope sinew cord.

Boss> Have you seen any of those ingredients in any of these bazaars?

Reeree> Nope. Not a one.

Boss> Well, how about the Leather Knuckle Guards, how do you craft those?

Reeree> Oh, you're not high enough level yet. That appears to be a level 21 craft.

Boss> In order to make a level 11 item, I have to first be able to make a level 21 component?

See, giant fireballs aren't the only way to cause pain.

Reeree> You know, as part of your contract with me, I can search for items you need so you don't have to click through all those unsorted, uncategorized bazaars.

Boss> That sounds great. Get me either the weapon, or the components to make one. That'll be awesome.

Reeree> No problem. All you have to do is hand me an item you're looking for and I'll get you as many more of it as you give me the gil to purchase for you.

Boss> Wait. What?

Her eyes literally bulged out of her head. I could hear something snapping inside her even over the sound of my own laughter.

Boss> Are you saying that in order to find an item I want to buy, I have to already own it?

Reeree> Simplifies the finding process immensely.

Boss> But that doesn't make any sense. If I already had one, why would I be searching for another one?

Reeree> To make a matching pair?

Boss> Aaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrggggghhhh!

Reeree> Your eyes are bleeding. And there is brain fluid leaking out your nose. I would like to state for the record that I did not cast any spells or violate my retainer contract.

Vision in the Crystal

I was peering into my light crystal and saw a vision of a new world. A world in which crystals do not fill your gobbie bag, but instead have their own separate inventory.

In this alternate universe, items in your bag automatically stack without requiring you to sort the contents constantly... which is a good thing, because there doesn't seem to be a way to sort your inventory at all.

In this other place of my vision, the moogles left the cities and went to go live like hippies out in the woods, talking to trees. Adventurers can get them to do favors for them by offering them some kind of herbal drugs.

These favors do not include housekeeping or gardening, unfortunately. In fact, it appeared that all the adventurers were basically homeless and spent their time standing around near the Adventurer's guild, or just outside the Markets, or surrounding Aetherite at various camps. Most of these hobo adventurers were desperately trying to pawn off the litter they had collected as they wandered throughout this world. Many busily worked on learning a respectable trade by frying acorn cookies out in the woods during a rain storm on a cast iron stove they apparently carry around with them everywhere, or turning marijuana into sweaters with a spinning wheel and a rusty needle.

I went to ask the moogle in my house in Jeuno what it could mean, but he was gone. He had left Jimi Hendrix playing. There was just a note saying he had gone shopping, as we were out of Selbina milk and pearl clover fruits.

I don't think he's coming back.

Welcome to Eorzea

It's time for the Revolution to move to a new world. Vana'diel is so 2003. Eorzea is the new hotness. I packed up my bags and left my mog house to set out for Gridania as a new base of operations.

I overheard some conversations saying that Gontrant was the one to talk to in order to start massacring the local wildlife for fun and profit, so I headed up to his counter. He took one look at my empty hands and ignored me.

Gontrant> Retainers need to sign up with Gyles.

For his sake, he better not have just referred to me as an orthodontic device.

Gyles> You new around here? No? Ah... I'm terrible with faces!
Reeree> Of course you are. I'm looking to start taking over the world.
Gyles> Anyway, what can I do for you?
Reeree> I'm going to need lots of gil to fund my Revolution and rid the world of filthy adventurers.
Gyles> That's nice. What kind of skills do you have?
Reeree> I'm a Black Mage.
Gyles> A what? Do you mean Thaumaturge?

Was this tool trying to impress me with vocabulary?

Reeree> I warp the fabric of reality with my medulla oblongata, causing people and monsters to die in fires.
Gyles> Well, you don't seem to have a Disciple of Magic weapon equipped, so what other experience do you have?
Reeree> I seriously don't need to cuddle a maple branch to immolate you.
Gyles> One moment. I think I have something for you. It will just take me some time to draw up the paperwork.

See, that's how it's done. You have to show these NPCs who is the boss. A little death threat goes a long way. He began speaking with an adventurer. I sat down at a table and listened to a couple of adventurers hold the sort of argument that justifies every harm I could possibly visit upon them.

Bago Noob> It's levy-quest.
Bucketo Noob> No, I'm telling you, it's leave-quest.
Bago Noob> Nuh-uh. It comes from level because you level up doing them, you just don't pronounce the 'l.'
Bucketo Noob> But your way sounds retarded.
Bago Noob> No, your way sounds retarded.
Bucketo Noob> Hey, let's ask this Lalafell to resolve it for us.
Reeree> You're both retarded. You both lose. At everything.

I felt eyes on me and a sense of dread washed over me. I looked over at Gyles and forgot all about the Noob twins. What the hell was she doing here? My old boss, who just vanished one day without a word. I only knew she had gone when the lights went out and left my mog house in the dark. She was talking to Gyles. And she was pointing at me.

By the time I pushed my way through the lag-inducing crowd of bazaar idiots, she was gone.

Gyles> Congratulations, Reeree! You've got a job!

He handed me a paper with my old boss's signature on it. I scanned the contract while he babbled on.

Gyles> You're now a retainer! Here, take this special linkpearl. All you have to do is show up when she rings the bell, hold on to her stuff and gil, and bazaar the occasional item.
Reeree> You have got to be kidding me.

Okay, what I actually said was a lot less polite, and may have caused some nearby children to cry.

Gyles> Just head on over to the Golden Oak Markets in the Market Wards.
Reeree> You will die for this.
Reeree> I might cut out your heart with a stick and mount it on my wall as a trophy.
Gyles> You get to keep a percentage of everything you sell.
Reeree> What was that? I get to steal some of her gil?

Maybe the long game could work...