I will never forget the day I joined my FC. It was years ago, while most brave heroes were tackling the dragon threat in Ishgard, I had just returned from a break after laying low the Ultima Weapon. An old friend rings me up, and asks me to join them on fighting an even stronger version of Leviathan. Having only bested the strongest Garuda, I was worried but willing. I entered with them, a lowly level fifty, surrounded by level sixties. Without knowing what I was doing, I was cast off the barge time and time again, but the fight was still bested.

They asked if I would speak with them, and I accepted. However, when I greeted them, it was not the voice one might expect to come from a female Miqo'te. They were greeted with the deepest most masculine voice they had ever heard, and the laughter that started there lasted through a dozen more attacks on Leviathan. After the festive night, they asked if I needed a free company to join, and without hesitation I join. A group of people who laugh and fight alongside you, sometimes laughing at or fighting you, but who, when life had you down, were always there ready to aid you. To be the shoulder to rest on when you need it, to be the anchors when life tries to blow you away, to be the friends that stand side by side no matter how many times you mess up mechanic. That is what an Free Company is to me, and why years on, I remember the moment I joined them.

And so I say, here in the halls of the free company Valhalla, to my fellow champions. Here's to four years of drunken revelry, to challenging the hardest fights, and to enjoying the company of your fellow champions! Skål, To all our past accomplishments and failings. To the day Andrea became known to you as Andre. Andre the deep, Andre the giant, Andre the drunk, Andre the healer. Skål to all the accomplishments and failings to come. To savage raids bested, to new people met, to friendships formed, and to all the endless adventures to come. For in Valhalla, the brave may live forever!



Scarf of Wondrous Wit