Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  Off in the distance, I could hear sporadic rustling noises.

  “Moogi, go in there and see what we’re up against.”

  It refused with a pouting stance and crossed arms.

  “Why not?”

  “Moogi, moogi. (I cannot be used to cheat the system. Even if I wanted to help you, it won’t let me explore outside your realm of knowledge.)”

  There was that notorious “it” again. I didn’t press the issue on what exactly was restraining Moogi’s limitations, for fear of annoying the thing further.

  Deep down I knew Moogi was a protocol program, or most likely an A.I., but right now it was the only real friend I had—despite having that Havok fellow on my friendship list. It was there for me and talked to me, and most importantly, kept me company. If that wasn’t friendship, I didn’t know what was.

  “Fair enough. Let’s discover the grasses together,” I said, pushing aside some long stalks.

  Moogi bowed, insisting that I go in first. Even though I knew that it wasn’t out of kindness but more about the fact that it couldn’t go somewhere I hadn’t been, I accepted the gesture, nevertheless.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Scooby-Doo! Unmasked

  I crouched down within the tall scratchy grass—pushing blades aside with my hands, as if I were swimming. The stalks weren’t terribly dense, giving me easy mobility when walking through them. Whereas the lower stalks were thin, the top growth fanned out, creating a canopy of shade. It was like another world down here.

  I heard a rustling off in the distance that was similar to a rattlesnake. We were not alone. I didn’t know why, but Moogi looked to be more worried than I did.

  “Relax, scaredy-cat,” I said, mustering up a false sense of bravery.

  Moogi puffed itself up as if it were also faking it until it braved it.

  I readied my axe and stood absolutely still. The sound got louder, faster, and much more intense.

  This is it. Strike hard and strike true.

  Right around the point where I was going to catch a glimpse of whatever was coming, the thing changed direction and scurried right on past us. That was unexpected and a little disappointing.

  We had only continued onward a bit before the rustling sound returned just like it had before. Again, I stopped and waited. This time, I saw the grass shift where the sound originated from. It was closing in on us in a zig-zag formation. Judging by the destruction in its path, it had to be big.

  This could be just the experience I needed to level. I just had to win. Thinking about leveling brought about a nervous tingling in my toes. My palms became slick with anticipation as I waited to sink my axe into whatever approached. But again, the thing never came. Instead, it went off in some random direction, giving up on the fight.

  A question mark appeared over Moogi’s head.

  “You got me. Maybe it doesn’t want to fight,” I said.

  Moogi did an emote that resembled a chicken pecking and scratching at the ground, looking for seed. The squeaking sound that it made when it moved, which sounded like anything but a chicken, really added to the scene. I had to admit it was funny when I wasn’t the butt of its jokes.

  “Let’s find something else before those turkeys get the wrong idea about you,” I said with a chuckle.

  We had moved deeper into the grassy field when it happened for a third time. The rustling sound was circling around us and closing in a spiral formation.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, flopping my hands against my side in frustration.

  The same as always, I stood motionless, awaiting my inevitable disappointment.

  This time, when the sound started to get quieter, I shook my hand against the grass.

  It was working. The sound was drawing it nearer again. I continued until it was almost upon us.

  “Hey, over here!” I said, getting back into my striking position.

  Then I was face to face with a snarling bagmy. This one looked much bigger and hairier than the ones I had encountered inside the mansion. I didn’t care if it was a miniboss. I was happy to have line of sight on a target, any target.

  Swinging my axe wide, I sliced through all the nearby grass blades like a scythe.

  Connecting with the bagmy, it howled in a gargling tone that made me happy its face was hidden behind all that matted hair.

  The bagmy rolled at me then delivered a double-swipe riposte.

  Even though its attack only did a couple points of damage, I remembered the stinging pain of those sharp claws all too well. I felt fortunate that I wasn’t up against three of them this time around.

  I brought my axe down, but the thing was swift and rolled out of my short axe’s reach before scratching at me again.

  “Slippery hairball.”

  Again, I swiped at it, but only hit the air where it once was. I wasn’t used to missing like this. It didn’t feel like the bagmy was simply dodging my attack. It was more like I lacked the skill to just outright hit it. Wasn’t there something about Intellect increasing accuracy?

  This bagmy would be much easier to attack inside a narrow corridor where it couldn’t roll out of the way. I had to change my tactic if I wanted to land another hit on it.

  The bagmy flailed its sharp claws at me like a pinwheel.

  I feigned a kick, as if it were a soccer ball. When the bagmy dodged right, I chopped down into its fur again.

  The furball hissed and moaned at receiving the bad end of five damage.

  Unfortunately for me, I chopped off a handful of its dreadlocked hair, exposing the lumpy form underneath. It was hideous and malformed.

  “Moogi. (A couple more hits like that and it’s a deadmy.)”

  “I don’t know if I can bear to see any more of it,” I said, sticking out my tongue.

  “Ouch.” I held my slashed arm, gripping through the pain. I needed to keep it at a distance but close enough for me to hit. There had to be a way to trick it into rolling where I wanted it to.

  I twirled my axe over my head, not giving away when I was going to strike.

  As I trimmed the tall grass above me, the bagmy kept changing which way it was facing in a confused manner.

  When it got close, I crouched down and we both hit each other in the exchange.

  After that hit, the bagmy’s rolls were uneven, like a bicycle with a flat tire. But it was still rolling and dodging my attacks, which was more of the issue.

  I swiped and chopped, but it went back to its routine, chipping away more of my hit points after avoiding my predictable attacks. I tried my kicking trick again, but it didn’t work a second time. Instead, it sunk its claws into my leg.

  “This stupid thing is learning. What should I do?”

  “Moogi. (Try harder.)”

  I gave Moogi my best WTF look. “Try harder? That is the best advice you have?”

  Moogi nodded profusely.

  Seeing me in the middle of something with my asset, the bagmy didn’t hesitate to jump on the opportunity—literally. It launched at me and started to bite down on my skull repeatedly, for two damage at a time.

  With a furball attached to my face, I aimlessly stumbled around. It was too close. I couldn’t swing my axe from this position. Not without possibly chopping my own head off. Erilyn would love to hear that death story.

  With my hit points ticking away at a rapid rate, I needed to heal sooner rather than later, but I hadn’t prepared a potion before heading up the road. A newbie mistake, I now knew.

  I activated my summoning ability, but the bagmy interrupted my casting with another chomp.

  I tried again, with the same outcome. I should have just stuck with fighting the earwigs.

  It was going to devour me one bite at a time if I didn’t do something quickly. Out of options, I gripped both my hands around clumps of its nasty hair, dropping my weapon. I felt a claw grip into me as I pulled it off my face. With all my might, I tossed the grotesque ball of rage off into the distance.

  “Fffffffffff.” I held my t
ongue. I wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction.

  Glancing at my tattoos, I was down to seven hit points. That was much too close for my liking.

  Reclaiming my weapon, I held it outward like a wall, for protection. Then I tried summoning my potion again. My hand glowed and swirled with energy while the bagmy hissed and snarled threateningly.

  It was giving me the respite I needed while it taunted me.

  Fixated on the task at hand, or rather in hand, I almost didn’t notice the bagmy launching in the air towards me.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  There was an outline of a potion forming in my open palm. I was almost there. Just a couple more seconds.

  My summoning spell was nearly done when something happened. There was a white flash, and my ears were ringing. The spell had stopped casting, and not because it had finished. My empty palm was proof of that.

  At first, I thought the bagmy had interrupted me again with an attack, but I still had seven hit points remaining.

  Unfortunately for both of us, my spell had fizzled. Except this time, it happened right into the face of my enemy, depriving it of its remaining hit points in the explosion.

  “Moogi. (Your failure to cast a simple spell has killed an elite bagmy. You gain 34 experience points.)” Moogi stood on top of the hairy corpse, dancing a little jig. I looked down at my arm. “We did it!” I had 303/300 EXP, just barely enough to level.

  I was about to start the potion summoning process again, when I paused. “Maybe I shouldn’t…yet.” Gently, I placed my weapon down at my feet and watched as the dot tattoos that represented my Luck went back up to two.

  Without my unlucky axe, I managed to summon a potion of instant healing without it blowing up, or breaking, or anything else.

  So, it seemed that my bad luck really did have everything to do with this weapon, but what other choice did I have?

  Faster than it took to summon the thing, I swallowed it down, bringing my health nearly up to full again. It went down easy. I licked my lips, craving more, but I only had five mana remaining.

  Snatching up my weapon, I made my way back towards the trail. It wasn’t hard to navigate back through the bent grass and trampled fields. Then I heard another rustling sound coming straight for me.

  “Not again.” Now I was the one who didn’t want to fight. Standing still, I tried to avoid the encounter. Having enough experience to level, I was quite done with this whole field.

  But the rustling didn’t stop or slow. It kept on coming straight for me, in a very direct path.

  I glared at Moogi who was still dancing around. “Right, you’re a ghost. It doesn’t care about you.”

  Crossing its arms, Moogi seemed to dislike my comment.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just, um, don’t think it can hear you, that’s all.”

  There was no time to argue the point any further because now it was about five feet away. This thing was coming, and I had to fight it. I beat one already. I could do it again, I supposed.

  I held up my axe in both hands.

  Out of the grass jumped another bagmy. Only, this one was even larger than the last larger one. I was about to lay into it when I decided to do a check swing instead, like a batter does to avoid a bad pitch.

  This creature was different somehow. This was the fifth bagmy I’d ever seen, but it was the first time I’d seen one walking on two feet instead of rolling around. Also, this bagmy held what looked like a short sword or large dagger. Also, all the other bagmy relied solely on their claws and teeth to punish me—no weapons.

  If things couldn’t get any more suspicious, it snarled but in a less gross sort of way. It was almost like it had to cough out a frog it had in its throat.

  With all my doubts lingering in my head, I waited to see what it would do. But it didn’t attack me. Not yet, anyway. Maybe it was a named one, like Sally. That would explain all the oddities. And maybe that weapon was part of its superior looting ability.

  “Moogi, show name tags.”

  Instantly, I saw its name. It was a bagmy alright, but it wasn’t special, despite the difference in appearance and sound.

  I leaned to the right and then to the left. Its hairy face followed both my movements.

  I thought they were supposed to be blind. Isn’t that what Erilyn said?”

  It feigned a lunge attack, and I flinched, taking a swipe at it.

  “Moogi! (Engaging in player vs. player combat has lowered your reputation from unknown to untrustworthy!)

  I turned to Moogi. “What did you do?”

  Moogi pointed at itself with an offended look.

  “I mean, what did I do?”

  “Moogi. (That’s not a monster.)”

  The bagmy grew to twice its normal size. This wasn’t a bagmy at all. It was just a player on its knees wearing bagmy gore as a disguise. A lot of time and effort went into this deception—making a character with the same skin tone and physical build as one of these creatures, although picking the monster’s name as its own really sold the whole thing.

  “Eat my blade, idiot,” the player named Bagmy said with a sneer. Bagmy swiped its dagger at the air, and three more magically glowing daggers materialized out of nothingness and projected themselves towards me.

  I tried to get out of their range, but when I looked back, I got hit by one directly in the face for eight damage.

  The projectile attack had spread out the farther away I got. If I had been hit by all three of the projectiles at once, that could have killed me in one shot.

  Ow, that hurts. It really hurts. Blood was pouring out of, or into, my right eye. I couldn’t tell. What I could tell was that my vision was obstructed by a blurry red hue.

  “Moogi. (You are bleeding.)”

  “Shut up, tutorial pet,” Bagmy said from a distance.

  “Moogi, don’t listen to him. Let’s get out of here, fast.” I wanted to fight the player over that remark alone, but instead I did what anyone in my position would do, I ran, even though running wasn’t in my character’s build.

  “Oh, I love to play hide and slaughter. Ready or not, here I killll.”

  I don’t like that game, or this game either.

  Holding my eye, I caught my breath behind a large rock, waiting for my stamina to come back. Luckily for me, this player also wasn’t built for running, unlike that Tag fellow.

  I peeked my head up just in time to almost have another face full of magical daggers.

  “Boo,” Bagmy called out.

  Moogi waved at me to follow it, and I did.

  Weaving left and right through the grass, I could hear the whistling sound of my attacker.

  He wasn’t even trying very hard to chase me down. Maybe because he knew it was only a matter of time before I bled out.

  “Moogi. (Hurry, this way).”

  I was keeping up the best I could, but it was hard with the grass getting denser. I had to start chopping it down just to get through.

  “I am not a ghost. I can’t just phase through stuff like you can.”

  I didn’t know where I was anymore, and all around me I heard the rustling sounds. This didn’t seem like a good plan. I had no idea what Moogi was up to.

  Just then, a dagger whizzed by, catching me in the shoulder for three damage.

  It must do less damage from farther distances. That was good news, but it was bad that I was already under half my total hit points.

  “You’re worse than I thought,” Bagmy taunted. “You know you’re leaving a trail of blood, don’t you?”

  I looked down and, sure enough, that bloody attack was no accident for a player killer such as him. I was not equipped to deal with such an injury, not while running for my life.

  There was a lot of thought that had gone into this level of griefing. Maybe an experienced player might not have fallen for such a trick, but that had to be why he was here, preying in this starting area.

  “Where are you?” I called out to Moogi.

  �
��Right here,” Bagmy said, in my ear.

  I turned to get a belly full of his large dagger.

  The pain was deep as he twisted and turned it for added discomfort.

  “Nice axe, noodlebutt.”

  Is that what all this was about, my weapon?

  “You’re a coward,” I said through blood-lined teeth.

  He gave the blade a final twist. That had done it.

  “Cowards live to gloat.”

  I tried to respond, but my hit points were already in the negative.

  “Losers don’t live at all.” Bagmy pulled out his weapon, and I fell to the ground, lifeless. “Oh, do you have a tummy ache?”

  The agony I was in hurt so much more than getting slashed by bagmy creatures or cut in half by Sally, and I knew it was no accident.

  He held up a bagmy-clawed glove and removed a ring from his finger. Instantly, I saw a gang tag that was previously hidden. He was a member of GDF, the same gang that jerk Tag who stole my earwig drops was a part of. The ring must have had an enchantment that hid his gang title.

  This ambush was thought out alright, and I never had a chance.

  “GDFRO,” Bagmy said, slitting my neck wide open.

  “Moogi. (You have been killed by the player Bagmy. Bagmy has been added to your enemies list.)

  ***

  Again, I awoke in the temple next to Erilyn.

  “Let it be known…”

  Pissed, I rolled off the slab, ready to get my revenge. “Add Tag to my enemies list too. In fact, automatically add any member of the GDF gang to that list.”

  “Woah, are you okay, Seph?”

  “No! I was just player-killed.”

  “I can see. Look at your eye. That must have hurt.”

  I felt my face, and sure enough, there was a scar indicating my injury.

  “The worst part is that I was about to level. And…”—I paused and looked through my things—“…yup, he took my only weapon—my Pincher Short Axe.”

  Moogi was next to me pounding a fist into his other hand.

  “That’s no good. I’m sorry,” Erilyn said in a consoling sort of way.