Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  “It’s fine. I just…gotta go.”

  “Okay…well…good luck,” she called out to me.

  Without slowing, I grabbed the candlestick that had previously respawned. “Back to this again.”

  Exiting the temple, I looked down at my arm tattoos, and to my surprise, I was down to zero experience points.

  “That facker. He must have taken half my experience, and with Erilyn taking the other half, I can’t even level anymore. I’m back to square one!”

  Moogi raised a fist in the air, sharing my emotional pain.

  “That’s fine. Let’s just grind some more.”

  Heading back into the Twisted Forest, Moogi and I took out all of our frustration on the earwigs until even the candlestick gave up on us and broke.

  Normally something so trivial would have broken me, but I was already far past the breaking point. I continued on, punching earwigs with my fists. I didn’t care that I was taking damage from their counterattacks. I kind of liked the feeling. It was starting to calm me down out of my rage. I was hoping that I’d be able to level up twice, once I reached the training grounds—if that was even the right place to go.

  After drinking my third potion, I was ready to move on. With 608/300 experience points, Moogi and I both looked at each other with vengeful determination. It was unspoken, but we both knew it was time to get us some levels.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gauntlet

  A fter trading in all the pincher parts, bug gore, and scales, I managed to procure myself a pair of basic boots and a wooden plank shield. I figured I needed something to protect myself from projectiles. As for the boots, apparently wearing any footwear helps a lot with stamina and exhaustion while running.

  “Thanks, Marv,” I said, bowing my head towards the temple shopkeeper.

  “My pleasure. Good luck in the Proving Grounds.” Marv was already stacking up my bartered goods in an organized pile. It was quite a haul.

  “I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but are you really going over there?” Erilyn asked, making her way over to us.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because if you are, I wanted to ask you for a favor.” She pulled me aside by the arm as if she didn’t want Marv to be privy to her request.

  “I don’t think I’m your guy.”

  “Hear me out first.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you need exactly?”

  “I wanted to ask if you could take this package to the trainer for me.” She pulled out a blue box from her inventory. It was medium sized and bound with golden string.

  “Oh, no. Can’t you find someone else to do it for you?” I wasn’t trying to sound harsh or unreasonable. I was still a little amped up from the murder parade I was on. I wanted to keep up that energy and not get sidetracked with some errand.

  “Not really. People have become disinterested in going there lately, with the increasing amount of gankers about.”

  “That is a really good point. I’m afraid that’s why I think I would mess it up.”

  “I’m sorry GDF has been giving you problems.”

  “We just got off on the wrong foot.”

  “I don’t think you can reason with a bunch of no-life jerks.”

  “Well, this is my back-up plan.” I held my plank shield up to my chin.

  “If it makes you feel any better, they harass everyone.”

  “It does and it doesn’t.”

  “Don’t fret too much. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

  “I think you better find someone else. I have been quite unreliable.”

  “That’s why you’re the perfect man for the job.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means…I need your help. I can hold on to your unbanked experience for you in case you don’t make the trek.”

  “But I need my EXP in order to train up. That’s the whole reason I’m going there in the first place.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. How about I give you two free resurrections, no matter how much experience you have?”

  I didn’t want to think about how many experience points I would have right now if I hadn’t had to pay her all those times. It wasn’t like I was exactly mad at her, more annoyed at the whole situation and the game mechanics.

  “What if the package gets stolen? You said it yourself, there are plenty of gankers out there.”

  “It won’t matter. This quest is based on the contingency that you attempt the journey, not on the completion. As long as you don’t steal it for yourself, the reward will be paid.”

  As much as I wanted to find a catch or flaw in the proposition, it did seem like a win-win for me. “I’m going there anyway. I suppose I can do it.” My voice got a little softer as I conceded to her request. Two free respawns was much too sweet of a deal to pass up.

  “Wonderful! Here, let me set it all up for you.”

  After a beat, she held the package out to me.

  I let out a long sigh and took the box.

  “Moogi. (You have accepted Erilyn’s quest: Delivery Service. Would you like to read the details?)

  “Nah,” I said to Moogi with a wave of my hand.

  Erilyn looked at me curiously. “The package is very important. So no peeking.”

  “Funny, I wasn’t curious until you brought it up right now,” I said, first smelling it and then shaking the box, listening for what was rattling around inside.

  “Careful! It’s fragile. Are you sure you can handle this?”

  “No, I can’t. I told you that multiple times.” I extended the box back to her, hoping she would rescind her quest.

  “This is going to be a snap. I believe in your ability.”

  What ability? Why didn’t I ask what was inside it before I accepted the quest?

  We both looked at each other blankly, letting the silence overtake the conversation for a long beat.

  “Whelp, good luck on your journey,” Erilyn finally broke the tension.

  “Thanks,” I said. Luck was something I really needed, and not just the statistic.

  Turning, I made my way out of the temple yet again.

  The journey to the crossroads wasn’t serene and beautiful this time around. I was still angry, and I wanted to keep it that way, to keep myself sharp and ruthless.

  I knew what I had done wrong last time; I had attacked Bagmy first. Even though it was a mistake, he used the game mechanics against me, and that wouldn’t happen again. For starters, I didn’t have anything to attack him with, other than my two fists and my trusty shield. He wouldn’t attack someone who was unarmed. That would be dishonorable. I was hoping that honor had something to do with a character’s reputation score. And Bagmy wouldn’t want to ruin his reputation.

  Walking up the path towards the Proving Grounds, I held my shield up high, peeking over it like a vampire over its cape.

  To my left and right there were strange rustlings, but I didn’t dare leave the safety of the path. I was hoping they were just some of those wild turkeys and not, in fact, more bagmy, or even worse, the player named Bagmy.

  I kept turning from one side to the other, just in case something decided to jump out at me.

  Moogi followed my lead, looking at the opposite direction as we continued on, slow and steady.

  Then I spotted it—an enormous tree with a door in the center. This had to be the trainer because the sign above the door said exactly that, “Trainer.”

  “We did it!”

  “Moogi! (Yay!”)

  Then I felt a familiar sting in my back. It was one of Bagmy’s magical daggers. On the ground next to me was a dead turkey, who seemed to have been hit by one of Bagmy’s other dagger projectiles.

  He just shot the food.

  I spun around and saw Bagmy’s smug grin. He was carrying my short pincher axe on his back. But the joke was on him, because just having that thing was bad luck.

  “Back for more abuse, are we?” Bagmy taunted.

  “I already
made it to the trainer. You’re too late.”

  “I have all the time in the world. You, on the other hand, should have invested more in Health.”

  I glanced at my arm, and sure enough, I was bleeding again from his attack.

  “You attacked an unarmed opponent in the back. Your reputation is just as tainted as mine.”

  Moogi looked at me with a big fat “no.”

  “That’s not how it works, nooblet. You shouldn’t have attacked me last time. Now, anyone can attack you until your reputation is repaired. It is an act of justice. You really should look into getting your life back on track.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Moogi nodding along.

  “Moogi, whose side are you on, anyway?”

  My companion gave me its best WTF look. “Moogi, moogi. (He isn’t wrong. At your current reputation level, you have to be the victim of four player kills, or forty hours of good behavior until you’re back up to neutral again.)”

  Well, that was something to think about now, wasn’t it? I had no idea how important reputation was. No wonder Bagmy went to such great lengths to deceive people if he could kill a player five times with no repercussions.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than griefing starting areas?” I scolded, getting worried about my steadily dropping hit points.

  “No, we don’t,” another voice said.

  Out of the tall grass emerged Tag and a player I hadn’t seen before.

  Moogi showed me his handle: Kaah. He had a mohawk and pale green skin, which told me that his race wasn’t human.

  One thing was apparent, they were all members of that GDF gang.

  “Three against one. That isn’t fair.”

  “But you have a shield. None of us have shields,” Bagmy countered, getting nods from the other two.

  “By the looks of it, his shield was made from an old outhouse,” Kaah added.

  Yes, maybe my shield wasn’t the greatest, but it was something I had that they didn’t, and I was going to use it to the best of my ability.

  I matched their advancing steps with backwards ones of my own, holding my shield up to my nose.

  “Actually, I’ve been looking for a shield like that,” Tag said.

  “No, dude, it’s mine,” Kaah countered.

  “You literally just said it looked like an outhouse,” Tag countered, trying to lay his claim.

  “It does, and I need something to shield myself while I’m dropping a deuce,” Kaah admitted.

  “I didn’t know you were so modest.”

  “I’m private. I like my privacy.”

  “You are one big private…part,” Tag joked.

  “You guys can stop arguing, because neither of you can have it,” I said, interrupting their banter.

  “Oh, yes, they can,” Bagmy declared, throwing a barrage of magical daggers with a single swipe of his hand.

  Ducking behind my shield, two of the projectiles stabbed through the splintery board. Luckily, they didn’t manage to break all the way through before they dematerialized. My plan had worked, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever—mostly because my bleeding body couldn’t last forever, let alone ten more minutes.

  If only I had summoned a potion before setting out on this excursion. It was my plan to do just that, but Erilyn distracted me with her little quest. No, I couldn’t blame her for all my problems. It was my responsibility to remember, and I just hadn’t.

  Holding the shield out, I started to run sideways towards the tree.

  Tag whizzed right past me. I had forgotten how fast he was.

  I was surprised that he didn’t attack me. Instead, he went straight for the door, beating me to the finish line.

  I went up the five steps and swung my shield at him, using it as a weapon.

  He slipped inside, and I slammed into the door behind him.

  “Bravo,” Bagmy said, starting a slow clap.

  I tried to open the door, but the metal latch was closed. I pulled it open, and it instantly closed again.

  “What the heck.”

  Kaah and Bagmy were both slowly flanking me.

  I tried again, with the same result. Over and over I pulled the latch, only for it to shut faster than I could manage to open the door. Then it hit me—Tag was locking the latch from the inside just as fast as I was able to unlock it, maybe even faster.

  Laughter erupted from my side of the door, and then they jumped on me, Kaah using some glowing-force attack from his fists and Bagmy wielding my old axe. I could only block one, so I went with Kaah’s fist blasts.

  A deep cut spread across my side from Bagmy. It was massive and painful.

  Now dual-wielding, with his dagger in his other hand, I was hit with a couple more quick stabs in the side, and then I was done for.

  Moogi buried its face inside its hands.

  Again, I fell to the floor, bleeding out. These guys were professionals. They knew when to attack with everything they had and when to stop, to maximize my pain and humiliation.

  “Really great attempt there. A+, would kill again,” Bagmy taunted.

  Tag walked out of the trainer’s door to join them. “Hey, you left some for me after all. I am touched guys. Really, I am.”

  Out of nowhere, there was a bright light. It exploded out of me like a spotlight. Following the blast was a huge shockwave that touched everything within twenty feet of us. I saw the skin rip right off of all three of their bones.

  What just happened?

  I noticed that the box I was supposed to deliver for Erilyn had opened up. It was more than just fragile; it was lethal.

  Moogi looked up, excited. “Moogi, moogi, moogi! (You have killed the players Bagmy, Tag, and Kaah. You have been rewarded 1074 experience points and 40 copper pieces. Please select one reward from each corpse.)”

  I was still bleeding heavily, so I had to be fast about it.

  “Moogi, get my axe and whatever else. I just want my axe. And maybe that stuff Tag stole from me.” I was surprised that I was able to communicate to my asset when I couldn’t talk to other players while bleeding out.

  Then all turned black, and I faded from existence.

  “Moogi. (You have succumbed to your injuries. What a way to go!)”

  ***

  “Seph, hurry. Wake up!” I heard Erilyn’s voice once again.

  My eyes shot open. I had died, but I was back now. I launched off the slab with anger filling my eyes. “You set me up to kill the trainer! Are you some kind of terrorist?”

  “No, I am not. There isn’t time to explain it all. You have to go, now!”

  “Go where?”

  “To the trainer, of course.”

  “Why? So, you can try and blow him up again?”

  “Do you want to level up or don’t you?”

  “I can’t. I…” Looking down at my arm, I had 1682 total experience, which was a lot more than I had last time around. “How is this possible?”

  “Moogi. (You have completed Erilyn’s quest: Delivery Service. One out of two free resurrections expended.)

  Here I thought Bagmy had killed me and taken all of my EXP, but it seemed that it was the other way around.

  “Currently, those GDFs are looking to get resurrected. I won’t do it, but someone else will—most likely a reanimator inside their own gang. Right now you have the advantage. Please don’t waste it.”

  On one hand Erilyn tricked me with that whole box thing, but maybe she did it for a good reason. I had the opportunity to get a leg up, and so I took it.

  Without a fond farewell, I ran out of the temple and into the darkness. This time, I didn’t stick only on the road. Instead, I cut across a couple of switchback trails to save on time. Unfortunately, this forced me into a situation where I had to avoid a couple of hungry creatures that I had managed to aggro along the way. Left and right, things were snapping and swiping at me. They were mostly shelled lizards, which were about as fast as they sounded. So it wasn’t very hard to outrun them.

 
Soon my eyes adjusted to my surroundings, and I continued on, not stopping to attack, only pausing long enough to let my stamina recover. My boots were helping a lot, but they weren’t without limitations.

  At the fourth mandatory stop, I decided to use my time wisely and equip with whatever it was that Moogi had looted for me. I reached behind me and grabbed the first item I touched. It was a pair of earwig leggings. They had armored scales that almost looked like petrified leaves. They felt strong and heavy against my legs.

  “Were these from Tag?” I asked.

  Moogi gave me a sly nod.

  Next, I pulled out a chest piece. It was tattered cloth reinforced with a leather breastplate and some leather straps around the stomach region. “Kaah’s armor?”

  I got a wink from Moogi.

  Then I felt around for my weapon, but it wasn’t there. I would have recognized if it were. Maybe Moogi ran out of time.

  “Where’s my axe?”

  With a devilish grin, Moogi shook its head.

  “What do you mean ‘no’? That was the only thing I specifically asked for. You can’t disobey me.” Apparently, it could and had.

  Moogi gave me a hateful scowl for my degrading remark.

  There was only one item left in my inventory, so I pulled it out. To my surprise, I was holding Bagmy’s dagger. It had a leather wrapped handle and a large red gem embedded in the hilt. It had a particularly long blade for such a small weapon. This made it look more like a miniature longsword than dagger or dirk.

  “What did you do?”

  “Moogi. (Blood Dagger +2. Damage 1-8. Speed: 900. Weight: 65. Upgrades: Chance to cause bleed damage increased to 70%. Item quality: Limited 2)

  “You beautiful creature! You can disobey me anytime you want.” I went in to hug my companion, but my arms went right through it.

  Moogi tucked into the embrace despite physical limitations. It was as if my stupid comment had instantly been forgotten over our shared excitement.

  I wanted to inquire about the level of the weapon and its upgrades, but it was time for me to run again. So off I went.

  Continuing on, I finally spotted the trainer door, which was illuminated by a pumpkin lantern off in the distance.

  I had to take another break and recover some stamina in order to make it to the door. An ever-growing mob of creatures followed behind me like paparazzi. Their scurrying feet got louder as I rested, though I was confident that I could reach the trainer before they reached me.