7/19/2004 05:24:23 AM|||Foton|||As part of Grumpy's new and improved life as a combat character on his stealth alt, he was hanging out in Anchorhead, his favorite Den of Thieves. He was working on his Medic skills, again -- hoping some year soon to become a Master Medic and hoping to get a TEF, which he's never had before and sounds kind of exciting. His gf/business partner soon joined him in the Den and suggested they find an experience group, so they could meet new people.

Grumpy tried to explain to her that people are overrated, but she was determined.

Some noob was starting a squill group so they walked over to the bridge and signed up. Squills sounded productive, they had actually duo'd a desert squill just themselves! and so felt confident that a squill GROUP might be just what they needed to master an elite combat profession in just one hour's time.

The leader was a TKM, and an 'ok' player even by Grumpy's standards, which is to say, a very good player and not an asshat; there was also a Master Doctor that kept reminding them every few minutes that he could resurrect anyone that died (which, in Grumpy's opinion, is not a good omen -- a resurrector that seems overanxious to do so), three Pistol-something-or-other people, a couple of rifle people and a creature handler in a pear tree.

The TKM Leader told everyone to get a shuttle ticket to Dark City, gave the squill /waypoints in group talk, explained the approximate direction to run and offered to lead anyone that was unsure. Grumpy figured that the only way the Leader could be more informative was if he would hire a taxi to deliver the noobs right to the squill camp. Which, apparently, would have been a good idea.

Three people shuttled to the wrong city and all the others, besides Grumpy, his gf and the Leader, ran off in the OPPOSITE direction of the squill cave.

Grumpy told his gf that he was glad they were meeting such quality new people. His gf reminded him that it wasn't nearly time to start blaming each other...yet.

Twenty or so minutes later, everyone had arrived at squill cave, except for one of the pistol people that had feigned a serious gastro-intestinal disease, obviously to cover up his instruction-challenged ass. Grumpy asked the Master Doctor if he would buff Health and Action (Grumpy would pay, if necessary), and when the Doctor answered that he didn't buff group members, Grumpy was positive then that this group had disaster written all over it.

About five minutes into actual squill KILLING (as opposed to squill STRATEGY, which was basically some secret strategy whereby the DOCTOR would heal COMBAT people that fought the mobs -- don't laugh, that strategy took a good five minutes to map out), one of the pistol dewds decided he was bored and they should all move to Fort Tusken, because apparently, actually GAINING experience instead of swooping around and waiting for late arrivals wasn't good enough for him.

The TKM Leader agreed and in hindsight, Grumpy thinks the TKM was just praying he would die along the way so he could make his excuses out of this group, which Grumpy was doing himself already.

Again, extremely explicit directions were given for Fort Tusken and again everyone got lost except the Leader, Grumpy and his gf. Once everyone finally arrived, and Grumpy's gf had shoved Grumpy awake again, they were ready to begin killing -- after the Master Doctor reminded them that he could ressurect so they should feel free to attack anything at any time as he could easily solo the entire Fort without even being at his keyboard.

For brevity's sake, Grumpy will just say that the Master Doctor decided he was the uber combat killer in the group, died, but not before dragging back most of the red and angry mobs to the group. One cloning later, Grumpy and his gf found themselves in one of the Mos Triplets healing their wounds, the Master Doctor nowhere to be found. Naturally, the rest of the group members suddenly had pressing RL ISSUES to deal with and couldn't continue with the group.

Grumpy wanted to say "I told you so" to his gf, but figured that might lead to a RL argument, which Grumpy likes to avoid at all costs. So he just adopted a wise look on his face (his "I Am Wise and Very Smart and Clever" look), shook his head sadly and told her...

She who thinks meeting new people would be a good thing, doesn't remember the other clonings when they met new people.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

|||109024004304988881|||Grumpy Told Her So! (12-30-03)