Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  “You have to stop. You’re completely out of experience.”

  “You can keep my gear as payment. I only ask for a couple free spawns.”

  “No, I don’t want your stuff. I want you to knock off all your suicide runs.” Erilyn was dropping my gear at my feet.

  “Just one more. I want to get an even ten. This is all I ask.”

  “You said that two times ago. I won’t be part of this anymore. Look at yourself, what you’re doing to your body.”

  I was covered in scars from head to toe, as a result of getting sliced, stabbed, and skewered so many times. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel horribly tender to the touch. Even my eyelids hurt by merely blinking.

  “I just need to…die a couple more times,” I said through heavy breaths.

  “Will you talk some sense into him?” Erilyn turned to Moogi, who had tears welling in its eyes.

  My thoughts were getting cloudier with each run. I was starting to forget why I was so determined to keep this whole thing up in the first place. There was a simple script I kept repeating to myself, in order to keep my mind sane. Free potion, portal to boss, sip, stash, dodge, find dagger, attack, die, repeat. Free potion, portal to…

  I took a step forward and nearly collapsed.

  Erilyn caught me and put my arm around her shoulder. “You’re not well.”

  “I am just a little tired. No big deal.”

  She guided me over to the slab to lean on. “No, you’re going to get yourself recreated.”

  “Actually, it’s much worse than that. He’s going to get himself killed,” a voice said from out of the shadows.

  “That’s the whole idea. Someone…gets it.” I turned to face whoever was speaking.

  To my surprise, it was the bearded trainer. Only this time, he was smoking a long pipe. Something about this trainer was different, more casual and familiar than before. Behind his eyes, there was a sparkle of life.

  “Your body is dying. It was never meant to undergo that much abuse in such a short amount of time,” the trainer said.

  “What are you talking about? Is that you, Havok?” I asked. My friend had the ability to do illusions. This could be a prank of his.

  “If you die one more time, you won’t respawn—not here, not inside your chamber pod, not anywhere,” the trainer said, taking a long drag off his pipe.

  Erilyn let out a gasp.

  I knew what she was thinking, because I thought it too. Why was the trainer talking so candidly about the outside world? Something strange was going on.

  “Why are you telling me all of this? Is this some kind of trick?”

  The trainer blew a long breath of smoke right into my face and pressed a single finger over his lips. By the time the smoke settled, he had faded from existence.

  Erilyn grabbed me by the shoulders. “What’s going on? I’ve never seen the trainer leave his room before…or act like that…or any of it. What are you doing?”

  In a daze, I started to equip my armor one piece at a time. “I don’t know anymore. This is my one and only shot. I’m not going to give up—not on myself, not on beating this boss. I have been pushed around way too much. This ends now, or it ends me.”

  “Don’t do this. You heard what the trainer said. You could die. Like, forever dead,” Erilyn pleaded.

  I shuffled past her and looked at Moogi who wasn’t facing me.

  “It’s time to go, buddy.”

  Moogi wasn’t happy about all this, and it was protesting my decision by crossing its little ghost arms.

  “This is no time for a mutiny,” I said to its back.

  “Will you listen to yourself? Nothing is worth that kind of risk,” Erilyn tried to reason.

  But it was too late. The portal was already being made.

  Once I finished casting, I gave Moogi one final glance. Everything was ready to go—the portal, the potion, my gear. I just had to take myself there, and Moogi was coming with me, like it or not.

  “I’m sorry. I have to see this to the finish line.”

  “Well, at least take this.” Erilyn extended her hand out to mine in a friendship request.

  “I thought you didn’t take requests from strangers?”

  “I don’t, and you’re not. Besides, I’m the one offering it to you this time.”

  “How about you save it for when I get back?” I didn’t know if she was up to something, and I couldn’t chance it. Too much was on the line.

  “If you go in there, I swear...”

  As I jumped into the portal for the last time, I heard Erilyn cry out after me.

  Like I had done many times before, I avoided the ever-growing hoard of earwigs piling up at the entrance to the boss room and made my final run towards it.

  The corrugated wall came down behind me, blocking any chance of a retreat.

  Face to face, it was just him and me. There was no going back or room for redos. This fight might literally kill me, but you only regret the chances you don’t take.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Shadow of the Colossus

  I looked over at Moogi who was stern with determination. Moogi and I were not on the same page as to my choices, but that was all moot now. We both knew the very permanent stakes that were at play, and there was no sense in fighting about how we got here. If we were going to win, we had to be smart. We had to be diligent. We had to work as a team. This was our moment. Nobody was going to take it away from us.

  “Moogi. (The Wooden Knight Ambrose is at 24% life.)”

  This is it.

  I took off running, right past a flying lance attack, without a second glance.

  Ambrose was no slouch, and he came at me just like he had done eight times before.

  I turned left just in time to avoid a couple chops from the monstrous greatsword. Interrupting Ambrose before he was able to pull back his lance was key. It meant that I would be close to him once he reclaimed it, giving me time to recover valuable stamina in order to attack.

  While Ambrose did his business with the chain, I grabbed the Blood Dagger and four of the potions from my stash. I knew if I grabbed any more, my encumbrance would spike, and my movement would suffer. These were some of the little details I had worked out during all my trial runs.

  Normally, I would attack him as much as I could at this point. Instead, I only hit him once. I was trying to win the marathon, not the 100-meter dash.

  This was around the point where he would kill me. Only this time I rolled to the side, avoiding his next quick attack.

  The goal of the previous runs was to learn. I wasn’t necessarily trying to die, up until the last couple of times. After he had healed for more than I damaged him on the fifth try, I figured that the bleed DOT ran out during the time it took for me to respawn, and therefore he was able to heal a lot in that short amount of time. The math seemed to work out better if I got the bleed damage going and then died as quickly as possible.

  This was new territory for me now. I had no idea what move was coming next until it was already upon me. Each of Ambrose’s attacks had both visual and audible cues.

  I knew I couldn’t get hit without risking sudden death or further broken gear. It was the risk I had to take. I didn’t have massive hands like MacGavin did, dream powers like Camber, or even an energy shield to protect me like Po did. All I had was myself, and of course Moogi. My role was to act as the perfectionist, leaving no room for mistakes. Moogi was my eyes and ears, giving me notifications only when absolutely necessary.

  Chipping away at Ambrose’s leg, I used precise positioning to avoid his strike and countered with single hits, one at a time. We went back and forth like a solo game of tennis—a player against a program.

  Even though the Blood Dagger’s bleed effect slowed his natural healing, it didn’t seem to last nearly as long as it did against players like Krimson. This meant that I had to make sure the effect was always on him, or else he could heal back to full hit points. This was why the weapon was necessary f
or Bagmy and GDF to raid this boss.

  In the fight, Moogi was sharp to point out any pattern variations that it would find. We were a good team. It was a slow and steady grind, but one I seemed to be winning at the moment.

  Then something unexpected happened. One of my attacks accidentally stabbed between his toe and nail, scoring me a critical hit for a whopping eighteen damage. Unfortunately, this also triggered his skewering charge attack.

  There was no way to avoid this attack. I had seen Po try and fail horribly. I saw Mac, with his much larger hit points pool, get destroyed by it. And now here it was, coming straight for me.

  Just in case this was the end, I dropped my weapon at my feet as he reared up in preparation. With a potion now in each hand, I waited until the last possible moment and started to drink one down. He charged forward and plunged his weapon directly into me. I was riding on the tip of the lance, but it wasn’t going through me.

  My body glowed and shone as I gulped, and I felt nothing but pressure against my chest. By drinking the first potion, my Immunity skill had proced and blocked his initial charging attack.

  Seamlessly, I switched to my second potion and continued to drink that one down, as his attack went on to stage two—raising me high into the air. MacGavin and Po had never made it to this part of the attack, and I had no idea what was in store for me.

  As I swallowed the dregs of the second potion, the Immunity was negating the impact of the upward thrust, and I avoided a second dose of dying instantly. Only now there was a third element to contend with. Like a ragdoll, the move had flung me across the clearing, and I had no control over where I was going to land.

  A potion appeared inside my open hand, which Moogi had equipped for me. Popping the cork with my thumb, liquid leaked out as I twisted around and waited for the exact moment I was going to splat on the ground.

  “Moogi! (Now!)”

  I chugged what was left of the potion as I hit the hard surface.

  Still rolling on the ground, the potion was knocked loose from my grip. I took a couple damage as a result, but I was alive. My Immunity skill had literally saved my life three times in a row during that one attack.

  Based on the loud heaving sound coming from Ambrose, I knew what attack was coming next—the lance throw.

  Diving to the side, I felt the force of the huge lance as it zoomed past me like a locomotive. Debris lifted up in the gust of it all.

  I was much farther away now from where I had first been struck by him, and I wasn’t at all prepared for what came next. This was a new attack. Instead of pulling the lance back to him, the mighty Ambrose whipped his chain around, causing the lance at the end of it to tumble and bounce around like a fish out of water.

  I pulled out the last potion I had on me, but the shaky ground tossed it from my grasp. The tree lance was now tumbling at me, and I didn’t have the time to grab it before I would be crushed.

  Moogi showed me where to go, and as the tree bounced towards me, I slid on my belly, sharing the space with the ghost.

  The tree lance bounced over me, and I was still in one piece. I wasn’t completely unscathed though; a branch or root had caught me in the back for four damage.

  I turned back to collect my potion, but it wasn’t so lucky. All that was left was a pile of broken glass and a wet spot.

  Getting up and running at an angle, I tried to draw the boss closer to me while also getting back to my stash of potions.

  His patterns were out of control and frighteningly different, but I kept vigilant and calm.

  The potions were now within my grasp as the shadow of the chain was painting the area with dark circles.

  “Moogi! (Watch out!)”

  I looked up and Ambrose was uncomfortably close and whipping his chain around his head like a jump rope. This was also highly unexpected.

  Time seemed to slow down as I turned over my forearm to check my status. I was at sixteen hit points.

  First, I felt the breeze at my back as the chain descended towards me. The sheer force evacuated trash and debris all around me. Then the massive chain came down hard. The center of the links were too small to hide inside, but the metal links themselves were too big to avoid. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to get hit. My only hope was that my armor would absorb some of the damage for me before it got destroyed.

  Suddenly, my body did something unexpected. It tucked into a tight somersault, rolling clear of the attack and somehow avoiding the chain altogether. I felt like I was possessed by a ghost or something—like something moved my body against my will. Briefly, I ran the scene back in my mind, and there was no logical way I could have survived, yet here I was.

  I checked my hit points just to be sure. “Still sixteen.”

  Ambrose started to pull the chain back to rearm himself with the lance. This bought me a few seconds.

  Grabbing the last five potions, I looked at Moogi for answers.

  “Moogi! (You dodged it! That was a dodge.)”

  “Wait, how?”

  “Moogi, moogi. (When an attack hits, there is always a slight chance you might automatically dodge that hit, turning it into a miss. That is called a dodge. Dodging is based on your Luck and Speed statistics.)” This was the one and only time my helper friend didn’t seem to mind explaining the rules to me.

  Our chat was abruptly interrupted by the big boss in the room.

  Avoiding a couple greatsword attacks that I knew quite well, I managed to make my way back to my weapon and equip it once again.

  After my near-death experience, I had a rush of adrenaline. “Now, let’s get this facker,” I said to Moogi, while charging in for the kill.

  I decided to stay in close proximity to Ambrose, attacking only his armored sections, hoping to avoid doing too much damage and provoking another devastating charging thrust attack.

  Besides the added annoyance of having to constantly remove splinters, things were going well for me. I knew his attacks, and my timing was perfect.

  Before long, Ambrose was down to ten percent, and that’s when it all changed…

  He was now smoking from his unarmored joints. His attacks came faster than I was used to and left no opening to riposte. Narrowly avoiding a swipe to the face, I retreated a little. I had to find my rhythm again.

  At this, the most inopportune time, my bleed effect wore off, and he started to heal rapidly.

  “What do I do?”

  Moogi shook its head, as if it was just as stumped as I was.

  I had to press the attack, at least enough to reup the bleed effect.

  After missing a cue, a quick jab with the blunt end of the lance hit me in the back, dropping me down to three hit points. I tried to avoid it, but with all the splinters and the fifth potion weighing me down, it was like I was caught on video peeing in public—scared to death in an otherwise comfortable situation.

  “Oh, no!”

  While I was quaffing a potion, he did another lance throw, hitting me in the chest and knocking me to the side. The force alone caused me to spit some of the liquid out. I’d never seen him throw it at close range.

  All bets were off.

  Coughing and hacking, I nearly choked to death on the very thing I needed to save me. Luckily the Immunity skill had activated and absorbed the ranged attack. The potion, however, hadn’t brought me back up to full—not even close.

  Now down to only four of my potions, I had a choice to make. I might not be able to take another unexpected hit like that. I could drink one or maybe two potions and bring my HP up to ensure I could, but then I would be at a huge loss if I needed the immunity effect to shield me from something far worse. Dead was dead, no matter which way I looked at it.

  While Ambrose collected his lance, I brushed off the last remaining splintery brambles from my shoulder.

  No, I had to be bold. This meant I couldn’t attack his armor anymore because those splinters were too detrimental while he was supercharged.

  Holding the dagger
above my head, I went in fast and hard. Keeping close watch on my stamina. I decided to attack only his toe and exposed joints, praying that I didn’t get a critical hit.

  I connected hit after hit after hit. I was on fire.

  “Moogi! (He’s down to 3% life!)”

  Huge wild flames suddenly burst out of Ambrose and stretched out above him. I had thought I was on fire, but no; now Ambrose was literally on fire, which meant I couldn’t touch him anymore without getting burned. And here I had thought his last form was scary.

  I felt the heat singeing my flesh just being close to him. Shielding my face from the hot, bright flames, I brought the potion up to my mouth to drink. Except I noticed that the liquid inside my potion had started to boil. This was not good. I was going to try and run in and stab him while drinking, but then the potion shattered right in my face.

  “Come on!” Searing my face, some burning liquid got inside my mouth. I wasn’t sure if that helped or hindered me. All I knew was that I didn’t feel so great.

  “Moogi. (Run.)”

  It didn’t have to tell me twice. I took off, with the Wooden Knight chopping at my heels.

  “Moogi… (You’re at…)”

  “Don’t tell me,” I interrupted. “I’m still standing. That’s all that matters.”

  Just getting close to him hurt, a lot. If I couldn’t drink a potion without it exploding, this was not going to work. “I really wish this dagger was longer.”

  Moogi snapped its fingers, as if it just got an idea. “Moogi. (Krimson his face.)”

  The words weren’t exactly right, but I got what it meant. This was a dagger; I should use it as such.

  Now that I was out of his burning hot area of effect, I put everything I had into a spinning throw—like a shot put.

  The dagger soared through the air and hit him directly in the knee. Flaming splinters showered the area around him, starting a small spot fire. I was quite happy that I wasn’t next to him in that moment.

  It seemed Moogi had had the right idea.

  Without wasting any time, I took off, weaving back and forth through his pressing barrage of attacks while downing a potion, which was much harder than it sounded. Not only was the potion protecting me from heat damage, but it was also healing me. As an added bonus, it hadn’t exploded all over me. It seemed that as long as I kept the potions in my inventory, and not in my hand, I could avoid that disaster.