It's not Halloween, but you can still have a party

"The easiest thing would be if we partied up." Pike explained this as though a human and a monster forming an adventuring party together was commonplace, but you had no idea if that was even possible to do. "When weak-ass adventurers start their journey, if they don't want to grind through tons of goblins, they like to find somebody stronger and party up. Now granted: the EXP split makes it so you're penalized for teaming up with somebody who's too much stronger than you and I'm like... way, way stronger than you. So we-"

You shook your wide, orange head and entreated her to wait just a minute. You felt like something she was saying didn't quite match up with the facts as you knew them. You repeated the EXP formula:

((Enemy Level – Your Level) x 10) + 100

That was actually ideal for you. All you needed to do was kill a total of three things to level up, no matter what they were! It could be cave toads, for all you cared. That said... you really couldn't kill anything unless it walked up and hugged you. Pike might be able to help by moving you around, but still, you didn't know about parties. You questioned Pike: what do parties do to the formula?

"Well, it's gonna diminish the whole party's EXP by the disparity of the level from the average. So... damn, I hate math... it's something like this... I'm just gonna copy it off the wiki." The elf stuck her tongue up and out of one corner of her mouth, then began busily writing onto a piece of parchment. She, frankly, seemed quite poor at writing, not that you were one to talk, with your lack of fingers. Maybe her intelligence stat was actually pretty bad? Your sense of that only grew as she lifted the paper to thrust it into your pumpkin face, allowing you to read her scribbly handwriting:

Party EXP = (Battle EXP / the number of players) x (1 - (.05 x average player level disparity)) ... The awarded EXP is rounded up to nearest whole EXP point

You put on your thinking cap- figuratively, you'd never actually taken off your lame Scarecrow Hat- and thought about the implications. Right now, you two were 15 levels apart. That meant that... .05 x 15 = .75 ... 1-.75 = .25... then halved for there being two of you... .125. Crap! You were going to be taking in EXP at 1/8 rate as long as you partied with Pike. That meant you needed to kill around 8 things for your first level, assuming no fancy bonuses, and 16 things for your next level.

"I'm just gonna take your word on the math. But still, dude, there's another problem."

There always was!

"I mean... There's no other monsters in this cave. I am pretty good at tricking people, but just leading people to this cave over and over again is going to be boring as butt, and also, maybe hard. I thought about carrying you around with me so we'd be in range for you to gain EXP while I just kill whoever, but when people see you, they aren't all going to be as generous as me. A lot of them will ignore me entirely and attack you. I'm no paladin or tank or anything... I'm the type that avoids getting targeted. I can't draw attacks away or take hits. Plus, if you were thinking of killing cave toads or something, remember why people hang out here: it's a barren wasteland as long as the Halloween event isn't going on. That means that there's nobody here for you to grow against besides players, and almost none of them are level 1, either."

You let out a ghostly groan, then did your best 1 dexterity approximation of crossing your arms contemplatively. It ended up instead looking instead like you were trying to flash some weird gang sign.

Wait just a minute...

Hadn't you gained some EXP a moment ago for doing something that didn't require killing monsters at all?

"Oh, yeah. You get just a tiny bit of EXP for some actions like, uh, that weird hand/vine action we did earlier. It's pretty insignificant compared to killing enemies, but-" The elf jumped as your eyes alit with fire, making you look momentarily spookier than your usual humorous appearance.

You told her that this was your golden ticket! That experience isn't mitigated by factors like parties or player levels! You thrust your vine out again and bent your head down towards it a few times, then flailed your arms excitedly above your head like you were what humans might recognize as an advertising balloon man for a car dealership. Eagerly, you begged her to keep whacking you off!

"Okay, for one, slow your roll, Jack. Just because you're a 'Jack'-o-Lantern doesn't mean I want to sit in this cave and 'jack' you off 30 times or whatever translates to 300 EXP." You thought you saw the elf sweating a bit; her eyes shifted back and forth between your pumpkin head and your vine dick. Her teeth bit her lip tellingly, before she hid her expression by lifting her face-mask back up. It was probably very hard for her to refuse any action you recommended, given the curse she'd inadvertently placed on herself.

You cleared your throat, then questioned if other sexual actions might yield more experience.

"H-How should I know!?" The elf crossed her arms standoffishly and grew red-faced. "If you're going to make me do stuff like that, I'm going back to the stabbing you to **** option."

You wondered if your powers of cursed manipulation would be sufficient to remove that option from the table... But no, you two were friends. Sort of. You didn't want to make her do anything she didn't want to. Still... you'd been hopeful she might agree to it.

"Besides, I hear there's diminishing returns on that too. If you keep doing the same mundane action- whether it's crafting, enchanting, or even something dumb like hosting a comedy show or having sex- over and over again during a single day, it'll become less effective. After a couple of hours, your EXP will be growing by 1 every time you squeeze that one little squirt out. I'm not buying that you have infinite plant-honey-sap-semen either."

How problematic... It sounded like if you wanted to become stronger and also build your lair to defend yourself, you were going to have to try all sorts of things, not all of them sexual. Still, you felt uncharacteristically optimistic. Maybe you could turn preparing the lair into a way to gain EXP? After all, the lair would need scouting, mapping, minerals, decorations... There were all kinds of things you could do that would hit two birds with one stone.

"Sure. But can I clue you in on one more little problem?"

You told her that if she kept doing that, you were going to have to ask her to use her knife and carve a few more zig-zags onto a face, making your pumpkin grin into a scowl.

"I'd get some tomes out of that, at least. But the problem I'm talking about: fame. Ironically, the way to get fame is to get well-known, but if you get well-known, you're going to get straight-up murdered. Most monsters don't accumulate much fame unless they're some kind of raid boss, because a famous monster just has a big target on it; I'm talking automatically generated hunting quests. Also, you guys die too fast in general, frankly. I mean, you specifically die slower than most with your huge stamina and your cash-incentives to kill you one poke at a time, but still, pretty fast. How the heck are we supposed to get you fame?"

Crap. That's a pretty good question. You decided to check your reputation so far:

Player "Pike"- This player regards you as a legend! +20 fame.
Total fame: 20

Hey, not a bad start! Plus, you felt a figurative blush spread across your pumpkin. A legend? That's how she sees you? How flattering! Most raid bosses don't even get that kind of recognition!

On the other hand, you really hoped there actually weren't more pumpkins out there, now. If there were, you'd lose your exotic quality and drop from legend to curiosity. You'd gladly trade every one of your doomed pumpkin brethren if it meant you could maximize this rare life you'd been given.

Pike tapped on your head a few times with her finger, causing it to roll backwards like a bobble-head doll's. "It's not like you to shut up. What's on your mind? Some kind of scheme?"

Come to think of it... there was a sort of a scheme forming in there. A ridiculous scheme, but a scheme nonetheless. You began to see a light at the end of the tunnel! Well, a figurative light. In actuality, a few hours had passed and the Halloween area had started to go dark outside. The thief hadn't thought to ready a torch yet, since she could simply use your lantern head for light.

Proudly, you began to lay out what you were certain would be your finest scheme yet- much better than the "I'm a player in a Pumpkin-Head" scheme you'd thought up earlier, which had a track record of 0/11 successful uses. This scheme would hit three birds with one stone!