I'd just like to throw in a reminder that even if it was possible to buy a 'story skip' (which I still think is a terrible idea), leveling from 80 to 90 is still a rather time consuming endeavor. I've been dungeon spamming to get my AST down that very road and after many hours of doing so, I'm still not 90. So, unless the story skip also came with a lvl 90 boost, OP would still be a long way from catching up with their friends. At least cutscene-skipping through the MSQ gives a pretty nice chunk of XP, because the game was designed to level that way.