by Dante Doom
Savannah considered the proposition. Something in Fingers’ eyes told her that he was afraid of the future. His offer was sincere. After all, Wild Cards and Grinders were kindred spirits in a way. They traversed an untamed land. The only difference was that Grinders eventually left the game.
He slowly extended his hand to her. “What do you say? We look out for each other?”
Savannah nodded as she shook his hand. “It never hurts to have someone watching your back, does it?” She glanced over at Timon, who was snoozing away. She really hoped that it wouldn’t come down to any kind of betrayals between them. She liked Timon, and… maybe on some level… she hoped that they could be friends outside of the Grind. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
Chapter Six
Savannah, Timon, and Fingers staggered out of the Krecius Cave, covered in webs.
“If I never see another spider again for the entirety of this near eternal existence in this game, it will still be too soon,” Fingers said.
“I agree with your verbose surmisement,” Timon said with a nod.
“Well, keep your wits about you, fellas,” Savannah said as she pointed to a long stretch of yellow land. “We’re heading west through the Geo-Forges.”
“Why are we going there?” Fingers asked. “That’s not a great place to Grind. I mean, all they have there are Machina, and maybe a few Virals.”
Savannah paused—she hadn’t realized that Fingers would try to give helpful advice which could undermine her actual strategy. She was trying to search for Hem by moving through all of his favorite locations. The Krecius Caverns was a favorite of his, as he loved fighting spiders, and afterwards he’d always head out to the Geo-Forges to relax and watch the shooting stars. She was hoping to find him or someone who’d seen him. With Fingers asking questions, she’d have to lie to prevent Timon from knowing the truth.
Did she have to lie, though? She wondered. Timon didn’t seem much concerned with anything… still, Savanah wasn’t sure. Then again, he was paying her to take him on a tour of the game for the purpose of Grinding points, and not her own personal business.
“Oh, yeah…” Savannah said, “well, the Geo-Forges, as you know, have some higher-level Virals. Since there’s three of us, we can risk fighting them.”
“I vote that we head to the northeast,” Fingers replied. “In the northeast, we’ll find all sorts of different Virals and even a few Instances. We gotta make good use of that key at some point.”
“Well, I say we’re going where Savannah goes,” Timon replied. “She knows her stuff.”
Fingers shook his head. “I’ve been in the game since before you were born. I know the layout of the land better than either of you.”
Savannah grimaced. “How about we compromise?” she offered. “What if we go to the Geo-Forges, then to the northeastern area of the map? We’ll cover both areas. It’s not as if we don’t need all the points we can get.”
Fingers shrugged. “I suppose. But I still think it’s a tremendous waste of time to go that way.”
“I’ll prove to you that it’s not,” Savannah said, knowing full well that the trip would indeed be a colossal waste of time. Still, Timon didn’t seem to have any objections, and she imagined Fingers would forget her promise soon enough, he felt so sure she was wrong.
“Lead on, then,” Fingers mumbled.
The three began to walk across the yellow landscape, moving towards the large steel platforms in the distance. These platforms were mining devices, designed to crash deep into the core of the planet and extract precious metals.
“Over there!” Timon shouted as he pointed at a large, dragon-like creature. It had no wings, but it was undeniably huge, nearly one hundred feet in length. Its body shimmered with the familiar yellow and purple energy that indicated it was a Viral. Above its head read the purple word Dragonfiend.
“That’s a raid boss,” Fingers said. “We don’t have nearly the number of people necessary to fight against it.”
“Raid boss?” Timon asked.
“Yeah,” Savannah replied. “When you go on a raid, you normally need several dozen players to take them down. They’re high risk, but very high reward.”
“Interesting,” Timon said as the Dragonfiend lumbered aimlessly through the middle of the empty valley. The creature paid little mind to them. “So, we’re skipping it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Savannah replied. “That thing probably has ten thousand hit points. Without a good crew of players, we could end up fighting it for weeks and still not make a dent in its health.”
“That’s too bad; I bet that thing is worth a fortune in points,” Timon said.
“Well, yeah, but when it’s divided by like forty people, it doesn’t seem worth the time,” Fingers said. “The real reward is the gear.”
“Raid gear is some of the most powerful stuff in the game,” Savannah said. “It’s rarely on the market, either.”
“Okay, I really want to fight that thing now,” Timon said. “Is there some way that we can get a group together to battle against it? That would be the coolest thing ever!”
Savannah looked at Fingers. His expression showed that he wasn’t anymore of a fan of the idea than she was. “Well, it’ll take a long time to get the right type of people together for it,” Savannah explained. “So, yeah, I’m afraid we’ll have to pass on it.”
“That’s too bad,” Timon said as he shook his head. “I would have loved to get some of that high-tier gear. Plus, fighting it sounds like fun.”
“I’ve been on plenty of raids, enough to tell you that they aren’t fun. One small mistake can throw off the entire adventure. I mean, I was once in a raid where one of our teammates thought it would be a great idea to charge straight into the fight before we had a chance to buff ourselves up for the fight,” Fingers said. “The whole group got massacred as a result.”
“Don’t forget, Timon—if you go down in the game, you’re out. Raids have the best rewards because they have the highest risks,” Savannah said. “Only the crazy, the desperate, or the bored go after them.”
Timon slowly nodded, conceding the point. “I see… so, really this game is all about learning to weigh pros and cons of actions, isn’t it?”
“There’s an entire world of action economics behind it,” Savannah replied as they began to walk past the giant creature. “Basically, you gotta figure out how many points you want to get, how quickly you want to get those points, and how much of a risk you’re willing to take. Then you build a strategy off of it. The people who want to win big immediately tend to die the fastest in this game.”
“But you know how it goes,” Fingers said as he walked alongside Timon. “The moment someone wins big by defeating a raid boss, everyone thinks it’s easy. And that’s where all of the Serfs come from. Folks who think they can jump into a big fight without the proper planning. If you really want to pull off a raid, you gotta plan for months in advance.”
“Months?” Timon shook his head. “That is quite involved.”
“You only get one shot,” Savannah said. “So you gotta think it through. If you don’t, then you’re in serious trouble.”
“Winning in this game relies on more than your ability to play the actual game; you gotta develop a style of thinking about the way the game works. We call it metagaming,” Fingers said.
Savannah paused, glancing to Fingers. She hadn’t heard that word before. Of course, compared to her, Fingers was like a thousand years older than her in the game, so he would know a lot more than she did. Curious enough, she listened intently.
“What’s metagaming?” Timon had asked.
“The more you understand about the way the game works, the better you can formulate a strategy around it. Shooting at Virals and finding treasure is playing the game, but sitting down to figure out what the spawn rate of a particular Viral is and then using that knowledge to increase your kills—that’s metagaming.”
“Interesting. So—” Timon’s words were
interrupted by the roar of the Dragonfiend behind them. Even though they were far from the creature, it was large enough for them to see that it was thrashing about, biting at something. Its health bar was slowly beginning to tick down.
“Is someone attacking that thing?” Savannah asked as she turned to watch the beast breathe fire out. They were too far away to see any details of the fight, but it was clearly struggling against some foe.
“You think it’s a raid or only an idiot?” Fingers wondered.
“If it’s a raid, we should join in!” Timon said. “I mean, they already did all the work, right? So let’s go fight against that thing and get some sweet gear!”
Savannah looked at Fingers. “What do you think?’
“Randomly join someone else’s big event? Not really the most respectful thing you can do to a private party, but then again… if they’re in trouble, they might appreciate the help.”
“It couldn’t hurt to check,” Savannah said as she pulled her shotgun out. “But if it looks too dangerous, we’ll bail immediately.”
“Let’s roll!” Fingers shouted. He drew his pistols and rushed toward the battle.
Timon ran alongside Savannah, Sniper Rifle in hand. “Man, this is going to be exciting!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Savannah said as they trotted forward behind Fingers. “It depends on how many people they brought. You gotta remember one pivotal rule in a raid, okay? No matter what, you always do what the raid leader tells you to, and as quickly as possible. It’s all about timing in this kind of fight.”
“Got it!” Timon shouted. The expression on his face was one of boyish excitement, though—he didn’t seem to care that he was about to rush into a life or death situation. Savannah frowned, realizing it. She had seen this before plenty of times. The Grind was so gamified that sometimes a player would forget that this was a crucible meant to determine their position in society. She’d have to keep an eye on Timon and remind him of why they were in the game to begin with, before he got too careless.
They reached the Dragonfiend only to see a silver-haired woman standing in front of it, her arms high in the air. Bolts of blue energy were blasting from her fingers, crashing into the monster. Its health was slowly dropping down, and the dragon was breathing fire at her and slashing with its claws, but she was fast enough to dodge out of the way of each attack.
“Is she fighting that thing alone?” Fingers asked as he looked around for anyone else. There was no one else around for miles.
“What is she, crazy?” Savannah asked.
“Well, we’re not going to be joining that fight,” Fingers said as he holstered his revolvers. They were still far enough from the Dragonfiend not to have to worry about Aggro being drawn.
“No kidding,” Savannah said as she shook her head. “That’s plain stupid.”
“Well, if we wait for her to die, we can loot her body,” Fingers said. “So this kinda worked out.”
“Shouldn’t we help her?” Timon asked. He still had his weapon out and was aiming it at the Dragonfiend.
Suddenly, the woman took a hard blow from the Dragonfiend’s tail and went sailing through the air, crashing onto the ground a few feet away from Savannah.
“Oh, hi there!” the woman said as she leapt back up. The Dragonfiend was rushing towards her, stomping as it came.
“Back up!” Fingers said. “I am not drawing Aggro from that damn thing!”
“I’ve got it under control,” the silver-haired woman replied as she held her hands up. An energy symbol hovered above her for a second and then lightning surged through her fingertips, crashing into the Dragonfiend. 500 damage hovered above the creature’s head, dropping it down to 9,000 remaining hit points.
“I don’t think you do,” Fingers said as he watched the dragon lunge at her and wrap its jaws around her right arm.
“Ah!” she shouted as the alert You are being Crushed hovered above her. The dragon’s jaws sank in as 25 damage hovered above her head. “No, you don’t!” she grunted, raising her left hand and releasing another torrent of electricity from her fingers. The blue energy arced across the dragon and it began to convulse. The word Stunned hovered above it as she slipped out of its jaws.
“You can’t kill that thing alone!” Savannah shouted. “Why are you even trying?’
The woman laughed as she turned back to look at their small group. “I’ve been playing this game for a long time; I know how to handle this kind of thing.”
“We should help!” Timon said. “Let her tank the thing and we’ll shoot at it.”
The silver-haired woman began to move away from the Dragonfiend, and it turned its body to chase after her once the stun wore off. Its health was slowly beginning to regenerate.
“No way, too dangerous,” Fingers said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Savannah glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. It was the Aspect that she had seen earlier. The yellow woman rose up from the ground beside her and chuckled. “You might want to get involved!” the Aspect whispered to her.
“What are you doing here?” Savannah asked. This elicited another laugh from Kireen.
“Don’t waste your time asking such questions!” Kireen said. “Therein lies the path to salvation!” She pointed her yellow hand at the woman battling against the dragon.
“Will you help us?” Savannah asked. Kireen nodded.
“Why’s an Aspect talking to you?” Fingers asked, suspicion written over his face. “Those things are nothing but trouble.”
“It helped us last time in a fight!” Timon said. “You should have seen it.”
“Aspects are bad business all around,” Fingers said. “Don’t trust them, man, and certainly don’t talk to them.”
Kireen’s hand began to glow, pulsating with red energy. “Here we go!” she said as she fired an energy bolt at the Dragonfiend. The bolt struck the back of the monster for 100 damage and it roared, turning its head to look at Savannah and her team.
“Uh oh,” Fingers said. “She just provoked the damn thing—let’s get out of here.”
Savannah glanced back at her team, then at the Dragonfiend. The silver-haired woman didn’t seem to have much of a problem fighting against it… and it would be worth a lot of points with only four people killing it. It was risky as hell, and stupid, but… maybe they could pull it off. This would be enough to propel Timon even higher in his score if they did, and would get her much closer to becoming a Noble.
“Let’s fight it!” Savannah said as she switched over to her Energy Rifle.
“Are you kidding me?” Fingers shouted. “We’ll get demolished.”
“Your dodge skill should be maxed out by now,” Savannah replied as she trained her rifle on the monster, activating her Overdrive power. “We’ll be fine.” She began to unload on the Dragonfiend, firing arcs of blue and green energy at it. 5 damage streamed repeatedly over its head. The health bar of the beast was still well-stocked at 8,700 points, but Savannah knew she could cut it down.
“Nice work!” Kireen said. “You’ve got it from here!” And with that, the Aspect faded away.
“We’re shooting?” Timon asked as he aimed his Sniper Rifle and began to charge it up. Rivulets of green energy began to collect at the front of his gun as he powered it up. Hopefully, the damage-piercing features of the Sniper Rifle would be able to break through the high-level damage reduction that the Dragonfiend had.
“Take it out!” Savannah shouted, trying to ignore the fact that the Aspect had lied to her. It was supposed to have stayed and helped them.
“You guys are idiots,” Fingers said as he pulled out a few grenades from his pouch.
The Dragonfiend took notice of the barrage of energy that was blasting against its back and turned to look at Savannah again. She’d been hoping that they weren’t doing enough damage to draw Aggro, but now the Viral began to move towards them.
“Seriously?” the silver-haired woman asked. “What, do you guys have a death wish or somet
hing? I was doing fine!” She raised her hands to shoot more energy at the beast and the notice 50 damage hovered above it.
Timon was blasting away and each shot was doing a decent chunk of damage. 100 damage hovered above the Dragonfiend’s head as his Sniper Rifle let loose another green ball of destructive energy.
“Keep firing!” Savannah called out as she watched her Overdrive power expire. As soon as the power deactivated, her gun began to deal only one measly point of damage per hit. This wasn’t good.
“Timon, I think it’s going to be coming for you!” Fingers shouted as another one of his grenades crashed into the dragon. The explosion was large, but the beast ignored the damage completely. “You’re doing the most damage out of all of us!”
“What do I do?” Timon screamed as he squeezed off another round. The dragon was getting closer to them. The stranger had managed to stun it again briefly, but now that it had recovered, it seemed to move even faster.
“I’ve got an idea,” Savannah said. “Keep shooting and, when I give you the command, use your Swap power!”
“Got it!” Timon replied.
Savannah took off running as fast as she could, sprinting away from the group. She ran past the dragon, but it paid her no mind. It was interested only in attacking Timon because of his high-powered Sniper Rifle. She ran opposite of the dragon, sprinting a few hundred feet away from the creature. As she ran, the silver-haired woman appeared next to her.
“I was doing fine without you,” she scolded. “I don’t think your team is ready for this kind of fight. You’ll need electricity-based weapons to damage it.”
Savannah shrugged. “Sorry, you looked like you needed the help.”
“Well, I didn’t,” the woman answered. She handed a glove to Savannah as they ran. “Take this; it’s a Lightning Glove, and should give you some ability to kill the damn thing.”
Savannah grabbed the glove and looked at the stats for a second.
Lightning Glove: