Morning Goal Setting

“The goal is to get to level 44 today. We should be able to do it if we run five dungeons.” I lay out, eating another spoonful of cereal. “We’ll be a bit tired afterwards.” Mia comments. “I mean yeah, that’s what happens when you spend half of your waking hours either fighting or waiting to fight.” “Can we get more dungeons done in a day after you raise my wisdom Gemma?” Ivy asks.

“Yeah we should be able to. Your mana regen is the current bottleneck that we need to work around. You need to heal us all completely from the damage we take during the fights, as well as have a full mana bar yourself, ready for the next fight. The fact that your mana bar still takes about 45 minutes to refill is a bit annoying, but we can cope.” “She knows dummy. She just likes the sound of your voice, and she knows you like explaining things.”

I look at Mia in surprise, then my gaze turns to Ivy. She blushes slightly and looks away innocently. “I hate that you’ve figured me out so well.” I tell the both of them. “Awww honey, no you don’t! Stop lying!” Mia teases back. “…..anyway, where’s Georgia? Does she normally sleep in?” I ask, changing the subject. Mia giggles before answering.

“Yeah she doesn’t normally get up until like lunchtime. She doesn’t normally like staying home either, she’ll be out meeting friends sometime this afternoon or tonight.” Mia explains. “Fair enough. Think she’ll want to come train with us?” “Eh maybe at some point. She’s not super motivated in that area, she doesn’t see a whole lot of point to it.”

“Understandable. It is quite tiring at times.” “Awww is somebody complaining because they have to work to get stronger?” “Shush.” I chuckle. Breakfast continues cheerily until Mia asks me a question that dampens my mood slightly, because it’s difficult to think about. “You’ve been researching more into autism, right? How’s that going?”

I sigh as I contemplate it. “It’s…difficult. When I actually look into the symptoms beyond all of the stuff you hear regularly, they fit with things that I do and feel, even down to little things.” Mia nods and Ivy takes my hand in hers, gently rubbing her thumb over the back of my hand. “Are you okay?” She asks.

I nod, smiling at her. “Yeah I’m alright. It’s just a really weird thing to come to terms with, especially since it makes so much sense. I remember having mental breakdowns when I got home from school, wondering why I was so different from everybody else. I never thought the same as others, I never acted the same. No matter how much I tried to fit in, I was always the weird kid.”

“I never understood why that was. I learnt to just accept that I was different and that was that. Now finding out that it’s because I might have autism, it’s a weird thing to think about. Comforting and validating in one way, but very difficult to deal with in another. I thought I knew myself, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Do you think you have autism?” Mia asks gently. I sigh in response to the question. “I think it’s a definite possibility. A lot of little tells are there. The fact that I can’t stand walking around barefoot, the fact that I think differently to a lot of other people, the fact that I get hyperfixations, the fact that I genuinely do not understand the purpose for social norms.”

“Things that are described as neurotypical patterns of behaviour, I find myself having trouble understanding the reasoning for. Common social etiquette like what the appropriate amount of eye contact is and how most neurotypical people don’t expect a legitimately honest answer to the question ‘how are you?’, it escapes me. The fact that I have always connected the best with diagnosed neurodivergent people is not lost on me either, neither is the fact that the schooling system gave me a ton of trauma and hardship that is extremely common with neurodivergent people.”

“Ultimately, I have my suspicions, but I don’t think I can be sure unless I see a proper psychiatrist who can diagnose me.” Mia takes my other hand in hers, and looks me in the eyes. “You know just as well as I do that self diagnosis is very much seen as valid, within the community.”

“Yeah I know. It’s difficult to let go of the perception that it isn’t. I was raised to believe that nothing was ever a problem unless a doctor said so.” I reply. “You don’t live with your parents anymore. You know yourself, your own body and your own mind better than any doctor can. It is good to get things checked out by doctors, but just because something hasn’t been diagnosed yet, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.” Comes the kind response from Mia.

I sigh again. I know all of this logically, but it’s difficult to accept it subconsciously and emotionally. How could it be easy? I spent 18 years having all of this drilled into me with my parents’ harsh rhetoric and abusive behaviour. “I know.” I reply simply. She kisses my hand and smiles lovingly at me. “I’m so proud of you. You’re handling this really well. A lot of people would just dismiss this outright.”

I smile at that. “I’m too self aware…wait, maybe self conscious is a better word for it. I’m too self conscious to not properly consider whether a criticism of me has merit.” Mia swats my hand on the table. “Bad girl! Autism is not a flaw, it’s just a trait. No self deprecation!” I giggle at the treatment. “Ivy and I are gonna have to punish you if you keep this up.” She threatens.

“Oh nooo, whatever shall I do?” I mock, giggling happily as Ivy closes her hand gently around my throat. “Whatever we tell you to. No self deprecation. And no holding yourself to unrealistic standards! I’m in your head, I know that’s where your self consciousness comes from.” Ivy scolds me. I poke my tongue out at her.

She sighs and I giggle victoriously. “You are so getting broken tonight.” Mia mutters. “I love this so much. Being a switch is the best.” I declare, as Ivy releases me and goes back to her breakfast. “You are a brat, through and through. Shut up.” Mia shoots back. “Not happening. How would you learn anything otherwise?” “Oh you little…”

The three dungeons that we make our way through that morning are just about devoid of anything worthy of noting. The calculation of needing to make it through five dungeons today to get to level 44 was made with the base assumptions that each dungeon of our level provides 2500XP.

While this has been true so far for the majority of the dungeons we’ve run at this level, the Goblins dungeon sticks out for the fact that it provides less XP than all the others. This is likely due to compensate for the dungeon itself being relatively easy and extremely fast to complete. It might be more efficient from a pure XP standpoint, but I feel that getting experience with more difficult enemies is a good idea.

The other base assumption that was made to calculate the five dungeon number was that the XP I need to get to level up, has jumped up by 200XP per level. So far, this has remained consistent throughout the entire time that I’ve had my powers. It’s unlikely that Gaia would change it right now, but still possible.

As I find when I get to level 43 after the first two dungeons, the system is still the same for the moment. I have a hunch that thing might change at level 50, but whether the increasing amounts of XP needed to level up will change is something I’m still not sure about. Allocating our statpoints, agility for me and wisdom for Ivy, we head into one more dungeon before lunch.

“Oh yeah, so you’ll get to meet my sister, whenever she comes downstairs.” Mia says, causing Skylar to raise an eyebrow. “I thought you said she was away in England?” “I did say that. For whatever reason, she decided to cut her trip short and come home early.” Skylar nods, apparently satisfied with that explanation.

“Is she nice?” She then asks. “Yeah she’s nice.” I comment. “She knows about the guild and the relationship between Ivy, Mia and I. She doesn’t seem like she’s gonna cause any problems, if that’s what you’re asking.” “Nah she’ll be fine with all this. The worst thing about her being home is that we have to be quieter during sex.” Mia adds casually, and Skylar chokes on her food.

I look to her, half worried and half amused as her face turns slightly red. Mia giggles at Skylar’s reaction, and Skylar glares at her. “Shush!” “Your face! Oh my Gaia, that was priceless.” She cackles. The maiden of shadow rolls her eyes and I can’t help but giggle at her slightly embarrassed and adorable face. She’s quick to change the topic.