Girl Geek: A Gaming The System Prequel

by Brenna Aubrey

  Him: Yeah, ya do.

  I thought I’d get more of a laugh from FallenOne—or at least a mediocre “ha ha.” Maybe my humor was too immature for him or something.

  Or maybe, just maybe, I needed to go out and get a life. I chewed on my lip and tried to squelch that prick of despair that threatened to blossom into something more serious. Even depression, maybe.

  Sometimes a girl needed an escape from her worries and fears. Something safe rather than destructive.

  And that was exactly what the game was providing.

  Once we made it back to town, we gathered our items to turn them in to the quest giver for another quest. This time it was a ruffian named Dirty Deena, who had raided an armory and was prepared to give us—surprise!—shiny new breastplates in exchange for the random items she needed.

  We handed over our hard-earned seashells, mollusk-encrusted dubloons and torn sails salvaged from a sunken ship. Dirty Deena laughed and sang and danced a pirate jig. FallenOne, as a spearman, received a polished, studded leather breastplate that gleamed in the sunshine. I quickly emoted my excitement to him, cheering and clapping and roundly encouraging him as he popped on that badboy. He looked GREAT.

  Me: Show me the stats on the breastplate! I want to see how good it is.

  Him: Yours will have the exact same stats!

  So I checked my own reward. A noticeable improvement to the breastplate I’d been wearing for the last three levels. But what did the graphic look like?

  I removed my old breastplate from the “chest” slot in my character screen and equipped it. Then, I switched back to the main screen so I could see what the graphic looked like on my character avatar.

  Cue sad trombones. Wah wah waaaaaah.

  It was nothing more than a glittery bikini top, perfectly tailored to show off Eloisa’s ample bosom and cleavage.

  Cue female player RAGE.

  Me: W.T. Actual. F.

  Him: It, uh, looks good on you.

  Me: Shut it, spearboy. Before I take that spear and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

  Him: Touchy, touchy.

  Me: You would be too if all of Yondareth were conspiring to force you to go into battle wearing nothing but an armored loin cloth. You wouldn’t dig that, now would you?

  Him: Well, no. But look on the bright side?

  Me: Bright side? There’s a bright side?

  Him: Yeah, our breastplates have the exact same stats. Same armor class, same hit points. Same protection all the way around, but yours weighs a lot less.

  Me: That’s because it’s TWO MICROSCOPIC TRIANGLES OF ALUMINUM FOIL.

  Him: But there *is a plus side…

  Me: Yup, you’ve convinced me. I’m now all for showing the whole of Yondareth my virtual cleavage. NOT.

  Him: This isn’t going to make you rage quit, is it?

  Me: I’ve got my finger on the rage quit button even as I type!

  Him: Deep breaths, Mia. DON’T do it. You know you love Dragon Epoch.

  Me: I’d love it more if they remembered that not every woman wants to show their girls to the world.

  Him: Maybe they are implementing changes even as we speak. Maybe they’ll give women a choice of the type of armor they want to wear…

  Me: I can’t possibly be the only female who rails against this. I know Kat isn’t a fan either.

  Him: They’ll take all our feedback to heart.

  Me: You go ahead and keep hoping for that. Girls just want to look badass, ya know? More Joan of Arc and less Princess Leia in the gold slave bikini.

  Him: But Leia killed Jabba while she was wearing that gold bikini. She was badass AND sexy as hell.

  Me: Sigh. Maybe that was a bad example.

  Him: Changes may very well be coming.

  Me: OR more likely…. the next quest will give out skintight metal hotpants that match this bikini top!

  Him: /sigh

  Fallen continued to listen to me rant at length. First in chat, then when I’d gotten tired of typing, I turned on my headset and did it over the voice channel. Once I’d calmed down, we headed toward the town square, were we needed to do some housekeeping tasks to prepare for our next big quest binge with the group. There, we’d be selling our junk to vendors, buying food items and supplies, then putting extra stuff in the bank so we wouldn’t have to keep carrying it around.

  On my way to the bank in Cormir City, however, I came across a curious gathering. A female avatar—a sexy elf with miles of flowing golden hair down to her ankles and clad in the skimpiest of shiny armor, jeweled breast cups and all—stood on a platform surrounded by quite a few other characters.

  The dialogue being shouted out in the general chat channel made it sound like there was a live auction going on. And from the looks of the set-up, it appeared as if the subject of the auction was the elf avatar herself.

  FallenOne appeared just as perplexed as I was when I sent him a message asking him what in Yondareth was going on.

  Him: I have no idea. It appears that people are bidding on “alone time” with the elf, named LadyHaHa.

  Me: Alone time? For what?

  Him: Uhhh…

  I continued to follow the proceedings for a few minutes as Fallen emoted shaking his head and feigning disbelief. Eventually, the innocent little virgin girl—that would be me—caught on.

  The elf girl was auctioning off cyber time. As in cybersex. People were offering to pay to have virtual sex chat with this “hot” elf woman, whose double G breasts weren’t even real. Hell, she probably wasn’t even played by a real-life female.

  Me: Holy crap. I can’t even.

  Him: Yeah. And here I thought I’d seen everything in my years of gaming… I’m speechless.

  Me: You’re always speechless. You only type in chat.

  Him: Funny.

  We bantered back and forth like that for a little while longer, but Fallen soon let me know that he had to log off. Me, I stayed to watch the shitshow for as long as it lasted. Eventually, a winner was declared, the agreed-upon fee was exchanged and the two participants filed off into a private room somewhere in the basement of an inn to emote sexually to each other.

  Wow. The oldest profession existed even in Yondareth. Disturbing or ingenious? I guess it depended… on so many things. Consent and age of accountability being first and foremost.

  With a shrug and a frown, I made a note to investigate this phenomenon further when I had some extra time—possibly as a future subject for the blog. There were so many things at play here, and it could become a rather complex issue—most especially for the people who ran the game.

  Over the next few days, I had to admit that elf girl gave me a lot of food for thought. If she was of age and the other participant was of age and she needed the gold…then why not?

  Was anyone being hurt, really?

  ***

  Our gaming group stopped playing over the holidays. Christmas break led me back to the ranch, where the Internet was less than stellar for gaming anyway. Heath was going to spend time with Brian’s family in Northern California, and Kat had double shifts at work. Fallen had whatever the hell Fallen had, which he was not forthcoming about—no surprise there.

  When I arrived home, not a word was spoken about our little spat. I was received with open arms, a hug and a kiss. And, thank all the powers that be, a more vigorous looking, if noticeably thinner, parent.

  But… I was not dissuaded from getting to the bottom of her financial mystery. Only this time, I waited until she left the house on some errands before I began to snoop.

  Her desk was completely clean. Suspiciously so.

  It never ever looked that decluttered unless she’d purposely cleaned it to keep the contents out of my reach.

  Undeterred, I went straight to her books. As I used to help her keep the books when I was a teen, I knew exactly what to look for.

  I opened to the page that listed her outstanding bills and my jaw dropped. How could she be so far behind?

  My mind r
aced as my eyes slid down the balance column. Mom still wasn’t well enough to re-open the inn, and even if she were, the busy season didn’t start until mid-spring.

  Her bank balance was in the negative.

  I went in search of her bill remittance notices. After about five minutes, I found them in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. I removed a fistful of late mortgage notices and a crapload of medical bills that I could hardly fathom.

  Unpaid statements for her chemo treatment…charges for her prescription medications …bills for in-patient therapies. She’d had no medical insurance to cover any of them.

  My hands shaking and my stomach in my shoes, I knew what I had to do.

  Unlike Mom, I did have some money stashed away. It was only a few thousand that I’d been skimming off my scholarship and grant money by living frugally, in hopes of slowly building a nest egg to start medical school.

  It was that money that I deposited into her bank that very day. When it cleared a week later, I pulled out her bills and balance book—while she was out watering and feeding the horses, of course—and mailed off the paid bills before she could protest.

  That way, when I told her, it would be a done deal and she wouldn’t be able to undo what I’d done.

  I was able to cover almost all of the remittance forms outstanding.

  Except for the mortgage. I had no idea how far behind she was, and I could only do so much with my little nest egg. I’d have to figure out the rest later.

  What this meant for medical school, however, remained to be seen. If I even managed to pass the MCAT.

  But I’d find a way.

  Minutes before kissing her goodbye, I told my mom what I did.

  “Mom, um, check the balance book before you pay anything, okay? And please don’t be mad.”

  She looked at me as if I’d just spoken Russian before understanding slowly dawned.

  “Mia…what did you do?”

  I smiled. “You can’t undo it. So being mad at me is not going to solve anything.”

  She paled. “Mia…”

  “Goodbye, Mom. Happy New Year.” I got into my car and shut the door.

  “Stubborn goddamn girl,” she muttered.

  I rolled down the window. “Totally heard that. If I’m stubborn, it’s because I inherited it from you.”

  She watched me pull away with worry and guilt in her eyes. I had no idea if that guilt was borne from the secret she’d been keeping or the fact that she’d needed her daughter to bail her out. Anyway, it didn’t matter.

  I tried as hard as I could to ignore that look of guilt. Maybe she still knew something that I didn’t. Maybe there was more she was hiding.

  Maybe, just maybe, this dark weight I’d been carrying inside me for the past few months—for the past year, really—was about to get heavier instead of lighter…

  Chapter 12: Manifesto, Ahoy!

  “ERP, or Erotic Role Play –Should it Stay or Should It Go?”—Posted on the blog of Girl Geek.

  If it stays, there will be trouble…

  Oh never mind, this blog post won’t be quoting moldy old songs from the 80s today.

  Instead, I’d like to talk about the darndest thing I encountered in Town Square on Dragon Epoch. A—ahem—professional erotic role-player.

  Yes, you read that right. A professional who engages in erotic role-play.

  That’s right—she’ll please your avatar for the right amount of virtual gold. She’ll type dirty things to you in chat if you pay her for her time.

  The oldest profession has found a place in Dragon Epoch. Is this type of behavior against the game’s Terms of Service? You know, that screed that scrolls across your screen and you click “I accept” every time there’s a change to it—but you never actually read it? We all know you just lie and say you did.

  Well, I took one for the team and actually read it, so you don’t have to. Draco’s Terms of Service do not explicitly forbid naughty role-play, but they do, of course, dictate the appropriate use of game resources, particularly when minors are present. Because there are a lot of peeps under 18 playing this game—and boy, are most of them a pain in the ass—the age of the person behind the avatar is definitely something to keep in consideration.

  Personally, I think that as long as the participants are consenting adults and they take pains to verify that fact to each other—both the ages and the status of consent—who am I to oppose what goes on in private chat?

  Prostitution is illegal in many countries. Should its equivalent be made illegal in Yondareth? I think there’s a healthy discussion begging to be had for either side of this argument. Chime in and share your opinion in the comments.

  ***

  Brian and Heath broke up. Just like that. No warning.

  Well, besides the fact that they had a crappy relationship, there was no big fight or eruption that caused it to happen.

  One weekend Heath drove up to Anza with me to help my mom with some maintenance issues at the ranch, and when he got back, his condo was cleaned out. That little turd Brian didn’t even leave a note. Just took his shit—and then some—and left like the cowardly child he was.

  And Heath was devastated.

  Cue Mia with her broom and dustpan to swoop in and clean up the shattered pieces. I always did suck at housework.

  I told him to pack his laptop, some clothes and bring his sleeping bag over to my place so we could camp out. I couldn’t keep a good eye on him where he was. When he hesitated, I insisted. Actually, I drove over there and packed his bag myself.

  With slumped shoulders, he resigned himself to his fate. He was going to stay under my watchful eye until I was satisfied that he’d be okay.

  We spent a lot of that week gaming, in between my classes, shifts at the job and studying for finals. Only a few more weeks, and I’d be on my last semester of school with no classes. I still had to face that unanswered question of what to do about medical school, though.

  Babysitting Heath’s broken heart served as an excellent distraction from my own problems.

  “Guess what I read on the Dragon Epoch forums this morning?” he asked toward the end of that week.

  “Were you trolling forums instead of getting your work done?”

  He gave me a sheepish grin. “They’re my most understanding and patient client. They’ll wait. A little while, at least.”

  I took a deep breath and raised my brows but didn’t reply. He seemed to be in much better spirits today, and I didn’t want to say anything to ruin it.

  “So you didn’t guess…and you probably won’t, so I’m just going to tell you.”

  I nodded. “Please do.”

  “There was a mysterious post on the forums this morning providing inside info that a ‘secret quest’ is being implemented in the game.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. “A secret quest? What do you mean?”

  “Well, no one really knows. Just that we’re supposed to be talking to all the NPCs, and there’s going to be a storyline involving the Princess Alloreah’ala—or however you pronounce it. Some kind of mystery to solve that will involve finding clues.”

  Something about this new intel struck a chord. I frowned, remembering a conversation I’d had with my gaming group months ago…

  I’d love it if there was a secret quest…Like something hidden in the game underneath the obvious quests. Maybe we’d have to look for clues or speak to NPCs in order to get a hint that leads us on secret quest chains.

  What Heath just described to me sounded exactly like what I’d been talking about!

  How weird.

  They’d taken a suggestion of mind after all...

  Or maybe he had suggested it?

  Or maybe he did work there after all. Or knew someone who did—the same person who gave him all the inside info, like that secret, impossible-to-find place he took me to.

  When I really thought about it, I was just happy to see my idea become a reality—or at least a virtual reality. It didn’t really matt
er how it got there.

  The possibilities were exciting! I couldn’t wait to see what the game had done with the idea, if in fact it was more than just a rumor.

  I scoured the boards after that, looking for any information I could find about the quest, listening for any rumblings that it was more than just a rumor. It could be virtual reality, or it could be just a publicity stunt. I wasn’t going to blog about it until I knew for sure.

  Unfortunately, FallenOne was scarcely online over the next few weeks, so pumping him for info was not an option. But he couldn’t stay away forever!

  ***

  Due to my now near-empty bank account and lack of financial cushion, I requested—and was duly granted—more hours at the hospital. Good.

  Though sometimes the grunt work annoyed me, the fatter paychecks would help offset what I’d paid out for Mom’s bills. Unlike my undergraduate program, I’d likely be unable to finance medical school with academic scholarships.

  And there was still the question of Mom’s mortgage…all those late notices troubled me. I had no idea how long they would continue, or how Mom would be able to scrape up the money to cover what she owed.

  Therefore, the increase in hours was a good thing. It also meant more responsibilities at the hospital, as well as a good taste of what working in the medical field would actually be like.

  It was interesting and tedious, long and exhilarating. I promised myself that I’d remember these experiences for when—if I actually made it that far—I become a doctor. Though a nurse’s assistant’s tasks were necessary and vital to the workings of a hospital, they were thoroughly exhausting. And frustrating. As a doctor, I’d try my hardest to have empathy and gratitude for those who worked in often thankless jobs.

  “I’m here to get my bloodwork done, like the doctor requested,” said an elderly female patient who was sitting at my station when I arrived for a shift one morning.

  “Okay, ma’am,” I replied. “Can you tell me which doctor requested it?”

  She looked at me like I’d just jabbed her in the ribs, her eyes widening. “Oh, I don’t know deary. He was tall. And thin.”