Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  “Did I do that right, Moogi?”

  “Moogi. (Sure.)”

  Looking at my arm tattoos, I discovered two things. One, I got fifteen points of mana back after drinking that potion. This told me that while summoning magic had a high initial casting cost, I would reclaim some mana after the summoned item was no longer present in this world. And two, I knew that the green number was my experience tracker because I was at 160/300.

  I definitely had an experience, but it wasn’t at all a good one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lady Bug

  Y awn after a series of yawns, Moogi looked as though it was about to die from boredom alone. We had been sitting around waiting for my hit points to regenerate. During this time, I learned that I had to be resting in order for my hit points to go up at all. This meant I couldn’t cast a spell, walk around, doodle in the dirt…nothing. Anything more than talking would interrupt my resting status. It was a slow process but also a safe one.

  “Just six more to go,” I said optimistically.

  Moogi gave me a look that said, “You said that two points ago,” which I had.

  “In the long run, you’re going to thank me.”

  “Moogi. (Drink the potion. Drink it.)” The ghost critter got up holding both its little paws against its chest, pleading with me.

  Before resting, I had used all but six of my spell points, or mana, to summon another instant healing potion, just to have ready in case something else attacked me out of nowhere. The only problem was that while my hit points slowly regenerated over a period of time, my mana did not. And if it wasn’t for the mana returned to me after drinking the last summoned potion, I wouldn’t even have enough to cast the spell a third time.

  “How many times do I have to tell you ‘no’? I am not going to waste it.”

  “Moogi, (What about time? You’re fine with wasting that,)” it said with a pout.

  “Yes, well, that’s different. I have plenty of that at my disposal—three whole years.”

  “Moogi. (Just have a taaaaste. A teeny, tiny sip.)” It held out two fingers showing exactly how much it wanted me to taste, while making a little smacking noise.

  “Wait, I can do that? Drink half of a potion and save the rest for later? I thought it was an all or nothing sort of deal.”

  With a wink and a finger gun, it gave me an affirming “yes.” Well, sort of.

  “This much?” I asked, trying to find the measurement the creature was showing me with its furry ghost paws.

  We measured our fingers together, then I marked it on the bottle with my thumb.

  “Okay, here goes nothing.” Popping the cork, I took a little drink and instantly started to feel great again—not that I had felt horrible to begin with.

  The problem was that it went down faster than I would have liked, and when I tried to backwash some back into the bottle, it ended up spilling all down my chin instead.

  Moogi was holding its hand over its mouth trying not to laugh.

  I wiped off my chin with my arm. “Well, that sort of worked. My life is full again, but I also wasted half the potion in the process,” I said, though judging by how Moogi had to use both its hands to stop itself from laughing, it already knew.

  “Sitting around wasn’t a total waste of time. My resurrection fatigue went away. I’ve got full stamina again.”

  Moogi started a slow, silent clap.

  “Okay, fine. Where to?”

  With a shrug from my companion, I went with my original idea—towards the Twisted Forest.

  Now that the fog had moved on, the area didn’t look nearly as ominous as before. It was almost cheerful.

  As we walked through the vine-arched trailhead, Moogi said, with a smile, “Moogi. (Welcome to Twisted Oak Forest. You have gained 5 experience for discovering a new area.)”

  “That wasn’t hard.” Looking at my progress, 165/300 experience wasn’t bad. I got this in the bag.

  My companion seemed much happier now that we were moving, marching along with a bounce and a squeak in its step.

  The surrounding trees had low-hanging understories, which resembled witch hands, with patches of leaves where the fingernails would be. The leaves were dark green, against black bark of the densely forested area.

  It didn’t take long before the path we were walking on disappeared underneath the fallen tree trash. I tried to brush some leaves aside, but it was no use. I had the suspicion that I was going to get lost.

  The only sound was a gloomy owl that gave two hoots about something, but I didn’t know what. I decided to keep an ear out for the owl’s call to help me navigate through the woods, which were beginning to look more like a maze.

  Even though I was pretty sure it was daytime, the thickness of the forest blocked out all light from above. Luckily for me, I had my candlestick, which was still burning bright.

  We walked deeper and deeper into the forest.

  Suddenly, Moogi stopped next to a heavily knotted tree.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Moogi placed a single finger to its mouth, as if to tell me to be quiet.

  I got down low, trying to see what it saw.

  “Moogi, (You hear something,)” it whispered.

  “No, I don’t,” I protested, a little louder than I had planned.

  Moogi looked at me like I was an idiot, and a thought bubble appeared over its head with a screen shot inside. The image was an alert message saying, “Your perceptive skill has detected a faint crunching sound off in the distance.”

  There must have been a bug in the system because I didn’t actually hear a thing. Not even the owl’s cry was able to be heard anymore.

  As if irony wasn’t as lost as I was in the forest, an alligator-sized armored insect jumped out at me with a terrifying screech. It had wild antennas moving every which way and some pincher claws on its back.

  As a reflex, I wacked the thing a couple times with my candlestick, doing minimal damage. This candlestick was not at all effective. I kind of wanted to run away. The only saving grace was that the inextinguishable flame on the tip of my weapon was doing some slight fire damage to it.

  With a big “thumbs up” from Moogi, I stayed the course.

  I kept circling around the thing, avoiding its menacing backside, which proved to be more for show than anything else. It was like a dance where we both stood a safe distance apart. When an opportunity presented itself, I went in for a hit.

  Even though my whacks were only doing one damage each, Moogi was supportive with the updates.

  This thing was big and scurried fast, but also a little dumb and predicable.

  “Moogi. (Ten more hits to go.)”

  This pincer bug looked a lot harder than it was. Occasionally jamming me with its head, it also only did a couple points of damage to me. Between the both of us, it was a weakling face-off.

  Ten whacks later, its shell finally cracked, and the thing dropped to the ground, lifelessly.

  “Moogi. (You crushed an Oversized Earwig. You gain 16 experience points.)”

  “Sixteen? That’s it?”

  Moogi held up a finger, and I knew what it was saying.

  “Fine, it was a level one creature, but that fish gave me 160. At this rate, I need eight more just to reach level two.”

  With a nonchalant nod, Moogi confirmed my suspicion that I would need a total of 300 experience points to gain the next level, as my forearm tattoo indicated.

  Slowly grinding out this area, the next four pincher bugs went down just as easily. A couple of charging attacks here, a ton of whacking there.

  It wasn’t long before I was at 245/300 experience and nearly at the next level. These bugs were dropping all kinds of gross eyes and appendages, which I had no desire to collect. Instead, I only took their armored pieces that were fair or good quality. Maybe someone would pay for these.

  The fifth earwig was different. It was nearly double the size, and it had a golden sheen to it. I could tell right away that this
one had a ton more fight in it.

  “Um, Moogi, why is it gold?”

  “Moogi. (I think it’s rare.)”

  “You think it is rare? No ‘I think it is rare.’ You know it is…what?”

  “Moogi? (Female?)”

  “Yes, but, no…what is the significance of it being rare?”

  “Moogi? (Better drops?)”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  Moogi gave me a satisfied and self-assured nod, which didn’t answer my question in the slightest.

  I glanced at my hit points. I was already wounded from the other encounters. I still had thirteen left, halfway between this life and the next. I was going to be fine.

  Being a little distracted, I was hit by the golden earwig’s charge attack. Unlike the past earwigs, this one knocked me clean to the floor, dishing out six damage. Stunned, and with the wind knocked out of me, I didn’t know what to do.

  The beast reared up on its hind legs, letting out a terrifying screech.

  After memorizing the past earwigs’ attacks, I didn’t expect this to happen. I had become a little overly confident by the third encounter. That was a huge mistake.

  Its pincer came down upon me, from over its head, trapping me in place.

  I reached for my potion, so I could drink the rest of it, but it fumbled out of my hand and just out of my reach. I stretched and strained, but the tips of my fingers only tickled the edge of the glass bottle.

  Then the golden earwig collapsed its pincher together, clamping against me like a vise. The pressure was so intense that it cut me directly in half, killing me outright.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thief

  E verything was black and felt stale. An endless nothingness of peace, until it wasn’t. I heard it—the muffled sound of veiled laughter. “M…Mo…Moogi! (You have been…brutally chopped in half by the earwig named…Sally. You are dead!)”

  Even in the afterlife, this ghost companion was haunting my patience.

  “Let it be known that this is a miracle I bestow upon you. Seph, rise from the ashes of your other life,” Erilyn said.

  I launched to my sitting position, again inside the same temple, in the same spot as before. This time, I took notice and saw her wiping away a tear for me. She does shed one for everyone.

  “Hi, Erilyn. Thanks for bringing me back.”

  “Nice to see you again. A little sooner than I thought. But, hey, thanks for the XP.” She gave me an endearing smile.

  I glanced at my arm and noticed that I only had 122/300 experience left. Like expected, half of my unbanked EXP had to be paid to her. Another thing of note was that my resurrection fatigue was far worse this time around. My stamina was down five points, and my hit points down two.

  Then I heard it—the sound of Moogi next to the slab, still laughing from before.

  “Come on, it wasn’t that funny.”

  “Mo…ogi. (Her name was…Sally.)”

  “Your HUD asset is quite amused,” Erilyn said.

  “Asset? No. Calling it an asset would indicate that it is actually helpful. This one only gets me killed.”

  “Moogi, (Sally isn’t a bug’s name,)” my companion said, wiping a tear away, but not in the same way Erilyn had done.

  “Let me ask you this, what is an appropriate bug name? Pinchy?”

  “Moogi! (Pinchy, hahahah!)

  I was only making things worse. There was no reasoning with my asset while it was in this gleeful state.

  “How do I turn it off again?” I asked, trying to undo the trick with my eyes.

  “What’s it saying?” Erilyn asked, seemingly amused by the ordeal.

  “You mean, you can’t understand this nuisance?”

  “Nope. Each asset is set to only relay information directly to its player. Assets have a secret speech that is encrypted, to prevent cheating. To everyone else, its voice sounds like gibberish,” Erilyn said, cupping her hand to shield her words.

  “Does that mean I can also speak to it in this secret speech?”

  “Sure does.”

  “How do I go about doing it?”

  “I don’t know. Just try.”

  “Moogi, get ahold of yourself. You’re making me look bad,” I said, then looked at her for confirmation.

  Erilyn tipped her head at me slightly. “See, you did it. Good for you.”

  “Moogi, (You’re doing that all by yourself,)” Moogi replied.

  “You really put the ‘ass’ in asset,” I said.

  “I heard you that time,” Erilyn said.

  My face felt flush. It seemed that as long as I said “Moogi” first, my words switched to our encoded language, but simply directing my comments to Moogi wasn’t enough.

  “Well, if you really want to know, it’s laughing at me because I got killed by a Sally.” I pulled up my shirt showing the large scar that wrapped around my torso.

  This statement caused Moogi to literally roll on the floor with laughter.

  “Like, a person named Sally?”

  “No…an earwig named Sally.”

  “Oh, wow. That’s a new one.” Erilyn, picked up a book and jotted something down. She had a smirk about her, but nothing quite as over the top as Moogi.

  “What is that?”

  “Just my journal of stuff I find interesting.”

  “Please don’t document my pain.”

  “I’ll leave that part out. Can you describe this ‘Sally’?”

  “It was bigger than the rest of the earwigs…also, golder. I mean, gold-colored.”

  “Fascinating,” Erilyn said as she scribbled down a couple of notes next to a quick sketch she had made.

  Looking over her shoulder, I commented, “Yeah, that looks perfect.”

  Was there really something interesting about this Sally encounter, besides me being the butt of Moogi’s joke? Erilyn seemed to think so, and maybe I should have too. Moogi had said that rare monsters could give rare loot, and I was in the market for some loot—rare or otherwise.

  Slamming the journal shut, Erilyn said, “If you don’t mind,” with a leading gesture.

  I hopped off the slab and paused for a moment. Erilyn was nice and non-judgmental. Stepping outside of my comfort zone, I decided to try something bold.

  “Hey, Moogi, send her a friend request,” I asked in the encrypted moogi language.

  “Moogi. (No way.)”

  “Moogi, why not? Just do it,” I responded in code.

  With an eye roll from my ghost asset, I extended my hand to her in the same way Havok had done with me—strong yet assertive.

  She paused for a moment. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t accept any requests from anyone. I’m sorry. I hope you understand.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. This is business.” Feeling rejected, I started to make my way to the exit as fast as possible—taking little, yet quick, steps.

  “Thanks for understanding. Sorry again,” I heard her say to my back.

  “No problem. See you later. Hopefully not too soon. But…you know.” I half mumbled through the sentence, like a bumbling idiot, as I held up a hand.

  It wasn’t like I was trying to creep on her. I just thought it was what you did with people you liked in-game, but I guess the feeling wasn’t mutual. Havok had been so quick to send me a request that I didn’t think it would be weird.

  One thing that surprised me was that Moogi wasn’t laughing at my expense anymore. Maybe it genuinely felt sorry for me.

  Instead, the asset silently patted me on the leg. Not that I could feel it, but it was a nice gesture.

  Reaching for my back, Moogi opened a bubble showing all the items in my inventory. I noticed that I still had one doom eel leather and four earwig plates. Everything was there. Well, almost everything.

  “Wait, Moogi…if I didn’t lose all my stuff, where did my candlestick go?”

  “Moogi. (Looted.)”

  “What do you mean looted?”

  “Moogi. (When you d
ie, whatever killed you has the option of looting a single item off of your corpse, as a prize.)” It moved its mouth mockingly as if it were really saying “Blah, blah, blah.”

  “But, monsters? What would they want with a candlestick?”

  Moogi gave me a look that made me feel oddly racist. “Moogi. (Monsters are people too.)”

  I had a slightly different opinion on the matter but decided to concede and keep my thoughts to myself.

  For something that was programmed to help and support, it wasn’t at all helpful or supportive. Maybe it would much rather be helping someone who knew what they were doing. Either way, we were stuck with each other, and having Moogi around was much better than dealing with the blinding display prompts, that was for sure.

  “How about I ask you less questions and you give me less attitude?”

  The ghost asset shot me a wink and a single finger gun.

  Swiping the second, and last, candlestick from the altar, there was a sudden rumbling sound. I was quick to exit out of the temple before I regretted what I had done.

  Making my way back towards the forest, I heard a voice from afar, “Hey, you…”

  I turned around and saw nothing.

  “Over here.”

  I looked up the path towards the mansion, and there was a figure waving.

  Confused, I pointed at myself.

  “Yes, you. Stay right there.” The man nearly tripped over himself as he rushed down the way.

  Moogi tried to grab my leg and pull me in the direction of the forest, but its hand went right through me.

  “He already spotted me. I can’t just leave. That would be rude,” I said.

  Moogi slunk its head and went over to a flowery patch of grass.

  “Hey, thanks for waiting. You got a minute?” the man asked, not even tired from the long jaunt he just made in record time.

  He wasn’t particularly strong or bulky looking, but glancing at his huge calf muscles, I knew he was fit, for sure. After sizing up his gear, he seemed to be some aspiring fighter class, with his rusty longsword and patchwork armor. His name was Tag, and he was in a gang called