Ding!

Near 8:00 PM CST on November 20, I finally reached level 80. It was a rather monumental occasion, made even better by the story I am about to tell.

A guildmate, let's call him "Malady*," is a rather talented hunter (I am resisting the urge to refer to him as a "huntard"). Simply put, he knows how to play his character. His DPS is always strong, he knows his rotation, and he gears appropriately.

He is also a sponsored professional video game player.

Maybe you can see where I am heading with this. He is a very competitive individual. I'm sure you know of a couple of people like this. And if they play WoW, they are probably a DPS class. The two just seem to go hand in hand. His competitiveness is a blemish on his personality, if you ask me. He lets it consume him. And, in general, makes him a little douchey.

Either way, Malady here issued up a sort of challenge. "I'll beat you to level 80," he said, with me already having at least a good level and half jump ahead of him (this was around level 72). Again, being competitive, this was the taunt he used as the backbone of all of our future conversations, in game or in vent.

I didn't believe it. Here Doublevision and I were doing a four-day marathon of World of Warcraft (this will be documented one day). How could he catch up to us? He was flying solo and here Double and I were tromping across Northrend in a flurry of fur and evil magic unlike which Vrykul and Gorloc have never seen!

Through a strategy of endless instance runs and unemployment, he did eventually surpass me and Double. And not once did he ever let us forget it.

Do not worry, though, this has a happy ending.

Double is what you might call "barely employed." He makes good money, but he doesn't work more than a couple of hours a day. This was the perfect formula to match Malady. Double quickly caught up with Malady's level (level 76), which then lead to a pissing match of who would reach level 80 first.

Double did. And it was joyous.

Malady's personality, of course, caused him to be a little disheartened. Not one to accept defeat, in a private conversation with Double he prided himself that he would, at least, still beat me to level 80.

You don't push a bear and not expect him to ravage you with claws and teeth, with a dash of rabies tossed in.

Unlucky for Malady, his clanmates were demanding a lot of time from him to train for an upcoming professional video game tournament. During this time I gained a lot of ground and by yesterday morning we were both 79. I had spent quite a bit of time trying to be as efficient as possible with my questing, though you will remember my zone-specific strategy lends itself greatly to maximizing XP.

As I was leveling in Zul'Drak I was getting closer and closer to 80. Yet Malady was nowhere to be found. And then I saw a green bit of text that nearly made me jump to joy. "Malady has come online." Looking to me XP bar, I only had five bars to go and a quest log that would easily garner me a bar and half, once complete.

"Malady, how many more bars until you get to 80?", I asked in guild chat. "10," he quickly responded. Not one to give away my elation, I lied. No, I liked like a motherfucker. "Damn, looks like you are going to hit 80 before me after all. I just hit 79. :\"

And then I shut up and leveled as fast as I could, completing quests at record time. As I went to turn in my final quest, the one that would push me into level 80, I saw he had gone offline. It didn't matter. I was 80 before him and he would hear the tales of how Lushious had reached level cap and had been showered by scores of hot ladies swooning over him.

He did hop online shortly afterwards and was quickly teased by me.

At his own game, one which he was sure he could not lose, I bested him. And I wasn't even on a payroll to do so.

Until the next Faerie Fire pull...

-Lushious

*Names changed to protect the innocent