Geekology 101: WoW (tag Julia)

[Levi Rubenstein]

Levi's mind was definitely not on school. It was all he could do to get out of the house in the morning and get his moped on the road, but somehow, through sheer force of will, he managed it. His mind, however, was trapped in Azeroth. Last night he had been fortunate enough to claim the Messenger of Fate, a dagger that made his rogue, Grook, nigh unstoppable! He used a lot of clout in his guild to claim it, and now he owed many guildmates a favor or two, but he had been looking for a better dagger for since he hit 70, the level cap. Alas, he had to make it through the boring school day.

As Levi reached his locker, he was delighted to find Julia at hers, which happened to be right next to his. “Hey Julia!” He said a little too enthusiastically. “You totally missed a great raid last night! We hit up Black Temple. Where were you?” Julia was one of the very few girls Levi felt comfortable talking to, mostly because the vast majority of their conversations were via ventrilo. It was actually quite a shock to Levi when he first met her. He hadn't expected her to be as pretty as she was. Granted, she was the only girl Levi had met face to face that played WoW, but he assumed that if a girl played WoW, there had to be SOMETHING wrong. “You'll never guess what dropped!”

[Julia Warner]

Julia still couldn't believe she had been asked to play the role of Liat. It wasn't as though her audition had been that good, to be honest, but apparently the fact that her brother was known to have talent had influenced that particular decision; she couldn't think of any other reason Ms. Griffith would have asked her to fill the role, instead of, say, Riley, who was absolutely gorgeous and also an extra. She was worried that she wouldn't do the role justice; she was going to be spending quite a lot of time coercing Connor and Jeremy into helping her practice -- although Jeremy had nearly fallen out when he realized they were going to be playing one another's love interests. She had to admit the thought was squicky, but it certainly would make practicing at home that much easier.

But for the moment all she really had to concentrate on were classes; why waste the entire day being nervous about rehearsal? That's what she told herself, anyway, though she wasn't sure that it was actually helping. What did help was the appearance of Levi Rubenstein next to her, filled with excited energy about World of Warcraft. She had been really surprised to find out that one of her guildmates attended school with her, surprised and pleased, as that meant she had another person to geek out with. He was one of the few people she knew in real life who played WoW, too, which helped. At least Connor had begun playing LotRO with her, though, so that was a whole two people she knew as flesh and blood people that she also played MMOs with.

"Levi, hey!" She greeted the younger boy. "Omigosh, I forgot about the raid! I had rehearsal yesterday, so I couldn't really get on." She frowned, just now realizing that she had not informed her guild about the play. "I auditioned for South Pacific," She explained, "and somehow I got in. I'm supposed to be Liat. And, I mean, that's awesome and all, but I probably won't be able to get online much until the play's over."

Still, even if she couldn't get on, that didn't mean she wasn't interested in the virtual lives of her guild mates; she was already envisioning all sorts of rare and powerful items that could have dropped. What sort of item would make Levi so excited? A weapon? Armor? A crafting item? "What? Whatwhatwhat?" She demanded, "Tell meeee, I won't be able to sleep at night without knowing!"

[Levi Rubenstein]

How could Levi have forgotten? The play! Grease! He had wanted to audition since the moment he heard Sandy had auditioned, but with the whole shooting thing he had completely forgotten! Was it too late? He wasn't sure, but there was nothing he could do about it right now.

Besides, he had much bigger things to talk about. The Messenger of Fate didn't just drop every time you took a stroll through the Black Temple! And Julia's excitement about the drop only added to his own. Even though he knew WoW was considered dorky, he felt totally cool that a pretty older girl was deeply invested in what he had to say.

“Okay, so we ran Black Temple, right? I used Grook, Tony had his Paladin, Tip and Chris were Mages, Craig a tank fighter, and Heff a Warlock. The rest of the team was a bunch of total noobs that had no place. I mean, we almost had to quit cause they didn't know what they were doing. And one guy had his little brother tagging along, too. I don't know where Tip is getting these people for the guild, but we need better recruitment.”

Until he met Julia, Levi wasn't sure if he had ever said so much to a real live girl that was not related to him. And somehow, talking to Julia was easy. It wasn't that Levi didn't think she was pretty, but he knew he'd never have a shot with an older girl like her. And knowing that somehow made it easier to talk to her.

Levi detailed in great length the epic journey of his computerized alter ego, not even knowing if Julia was still paying attention. Finally he neared the end, and taking a deep breath uttered the sentence he was most excited about. “And I got the drop... the Messenger of Fate!” Realizing he nearly shouted the last few words, Levi quickly glanced around, then turned to open his locker. “Super cool, huh? I was pumped! Anyway, that's neat you're in the play. Sorry to hear you won't be raiding, though.” He paused for a moment, thinking whether or not it was weird of him to ask what he wanted to. Either way, Julia was cool enough, maybe she'd agree to help.

Levi opened his mouth to speak, but for a brief moment nothing came out. Then, timidly, his voice appeared. “I was thinking, maybe, of trying to get in Grease. Since you know, uh, plays and junk, would you help me?”

[Julia Warner]

"Ugh, seriously?" Julia sympathized when Levi explained the lack of talent in the current raiding group. "He's probably advertising in General Chat again, that is so dumb, he needs to make sure people can play their class before he just accepts them. Just cause he thinks higher numbers make a better guild..." She rolled her eyes at this thought. How many times had she died because some stupid DPS class pulled aggro from enemies that their group wasn't even fighting, thus overwhelming them with more enemies than the tank was prepared to handle? Or worse, when she got in the way of some random idiot training enemies rather than fighting them....although she would be lying to say she'd never done that before. She realized that everyone had to start somewhere, and she was willing to be gracious up to a point, but when every PUG was filled with people who got the group wiped and who wanted to argue about even the most mundane drops....well, it wasn't like she had all the free time in the world to play! She had to share a computer with her brother, so she had to be picky about who she grouped with. Nothing wrong with having standards, right?

She listened with rapt attention to Grook's quest, nearly shrieking when he mentioned just what his character had attained. "Omi...Levi!!" She was so overcome with emotion that she flung her arms around him, "Eee, that's so cool! You're so lucky! It would cost a fortune trying to get anything near that good on the auction house."

She shrugged when he returned the topic to South Pacific. "Yeah, I just kind of tried out on a whim," A whim to break up her brother, that counted, "And I dunno, I got in somehow." She still couldn't explain it; there had to be so many better qualified girls at Silver.

"Oh, you should!" She beamed, intent on encouraging someone else to completely embarrass himself with her experience the joys of auditioning and performing in a school play. At least, from the way Jeremy and his friends talked about drama she assumed there would be joys. "Yeah, sure, I'll help! I mean, like, not when I have rehearsal. Maybe after though. Or during lunch or something. I think I was supposed to meet Danny, but I don't think he'll mind, he's kind of funny, you should meet him."

[Levi Rubenstein]

“Yeah,” Levi was starting to get feel quite full of himself, having Julia seem so intent on what he was talking about. “I was talking with Chris, and we thing we might try and message Tip about it. We need better players for raiding, and those noobs are just making us look bad. Every time some random kid got a drop Grook could have put to much better use, Levi wanted to log into his other account, bring up his human thief and do some major ganking.

Levi was proud of his story, but he never expected it would elicit such a reaction from Julia. The moment her arms wrapped around him, he froze. What should he do? Would it be weird if he hugged back? Girls that looked like her didn't just talk to Levi! It took him over a decade of living next to Sandy to get to where he was now. Granted, he shared a particular interest with Julia, but he hadn't known her for that long, and now she was hugging him! He tried to think of the last time a non-relative hugged him, and had trouble thinking of any memories similar to this. It felt incredible!

There was, however, one small problem. All of a sudden a tiny thought appeared in Levi's mind, one that instantly made him feel awkward and terrified to be standing in front of this particular pretty girl. It began to consume his brain and became the only thing he could think of.

What if Julia liked him? Like, liked him liked him?

Things with Sandy were going super well, and there was no way Levi would want to mess that up. But he couldn't help it if other girls liked him too, could he? Maybe it was just something about growing up that all of a sudden girls started paying attention to boys. It was all so confusing to Levi, and he realized he hadn't heard a word of what Julia said. All he caught was something about meeting some guy. But who?

“Umm.. sure.” Levi had no idea what he was agreeing to. He stood for a moment, just looking at Julia, but trying super hard not to look at her in that way. After a few awkward seconds he turned on the spot, opened his locker, and nearly buried himself in it getting his books.

[Julia Warner]

Julia hadn't any idea that she'd just made Levi uncomfortable. Instead she beamed at him as he rummaged in his locker. "Great!" She grabbed her own books, shoving her bag in on top of the ones she didn't need immediately and slamming the door. She hoped that Levi would try out for Grease. The audition had been more terrifying than she'd expected, but she'd actually made it in! So she ought to encourage other people to audition, too, especially if they expressed an interest. And it could be fun, helping Levi practice, it might make her feel less worried about her own role, even.

And she was looking forward to introducing Danny to the rest of her friends. He was kind of strange, but he was hilarious! She thought he would get along with Levi and Connor, even if neither of the other two boys were quite the huge Tolkienites that she and Danny were. It didn't matter, though, he was new and he needed to meet more people. Maybe he would start playing WoW with her and Levi! That could be kind of cool, although in the event that he had no previous MMO experience she would have to train him so he didn't get them all killed. Or, actually, he might be more inclined to play LotRO with her and Connor. If that were the case, she would have to convince Levi to get a subscription to the other MMO, too. The only question was would his parents be okay with paying two monthly fees for two different MMO RPGs? They might not think that was a worthwhile expense; parents were odd about money sometimes.

"See you at lunch, then!!" She called over her shoulder to the younger boy as she made her way to her first class.

((Wrapped for Julia))