Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  “Oh man, I forgot about you.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t identify as having a gender.”

  “Look, I know that. It’s just an expression. I didn’t mean to offend anyone, okay?” I said, getting defensive, as if I were on trial again.

  “Nor do I identify as a person, human being, or anyone.”

  “Shut up. Shut…up.” I had forgotten how annoying that voice was. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I just wanted to spend my last point and be on my way.

  Getting back into it, I decided that I needed something fun. It was most likely just pushback from my recent conflict with the room’s artificial intelligence.

  I went back over to the Immunity skill because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how cool it was, ever since I had discovered it.

  “You have assigned one advancement point to Immunity. Hurry up and select your specialization: casting or drinking?” the voice said.

  Summoning a potion took much longer than one second to cast, and unless I could reduce that time later on, it seemed like a waste.

  “Drinking, please,” I answered, hoping my politeness would act as an apology for my previous outburst.

  “This is a passive ability and will become active whenever drinking a healing-type potion. All other choices are no longer available to you.”

  That was interesting. I guess if someone gave me a potion that wasn’t healing, I wouldn’t proc the Immunity skill’s effect. But then again, what other potion would I be drinking, if not healing? A smoke bomb, or a flaming Molotov cocktail?

  What was done was done. To quote my father, “There’s no use crying over spilled coffee on your keyboard.”

  I was stoked. I had leveled up twice. I felt ready to take on the world, GDF included.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Portal

  E jected from the golden leveling area, I was instantly transported back, kneeling in front of the NPC trainer. I stood up and extended my hand outward. He didn’t give me a single look, smile, or even sideways glance. I couldn’t help but feel discarded, like a cigarette butt after the nicotine had all been burnt away.

  “Well…then,” I said softly as I tried to focus on something a little more pressing. With my commandeered dagger in hand, I readied myself for battle. I had expected a slew of GDF gang members to be lying in wait for some sort of ambush.

  A beat went by, then two, then a whole eight bars worth…still nothing. Where are they?

  I started to loosen up my tense posture. Being preoccupied, I hadn’t noticed Moogi leaning against the interior wall.

  It looked down at the top of its hand, where a wristwatch wasn’t.

  “Moogi! We did it. We leveled up.”

  The asset didn’t look surprised. Instead, it twirled its hand and bugged out its eyes as if to say, “Go on.”

  “First, I wanted more mana. Then I changed my mind because…you know what? It isn’t important. I think I’d rather show you.”

  Moogi squinted while nodding sharply.

  I turned over my arm to reveal a new tattoo. It resembled a black hole, or more importantly, a portal.

  “Behold.” I added a flourish with my other hand so as to entertain my audience of one.

  My hit points, stamina, and mana were all full, so I pressed down on the tattoo and instantly began to cast my new spell, summon portal.

  The world started to close in around me as my mana drained away. I couldn’t help but feel like I was going to get crushed. I couldn’t brace myself against it or do anything other than focus on the task at hand. I was scared and trapped.

  The last thing I saw in my tunneling vision was Moogi giving me an approving thumbs up. It was then that I knew that everything was going to be okay.

  Suddenly, I was floating, hovering really, over a hand-drawn map, like a spectator. I was not my body, but rather my consciousness. There were a couple of pushpins sticking out marking all the places I had discovered in the Craglands: Vale Manor, the Temple of Hope, the Proving Grounds, and even the Twisted Oak Forest. The paper below me flowed and undulated like the ocean’s tide—alive with wonderment and possibility. It seemed that I could pick key spots as destinations for my portals. At least, that was my assumption.

  The map stretched out into the vast expanse. As far as I could see, there was endless uncharted blank space for potential destinations. This map really showed the perspective of how small of a starting area the Craglands really was. I had barely scratched the surface with my exploration of this world.

  I had to pick a safe destination for my first portal trip, and to me there was no safer place than the Temple of Hope.

  Reaching out towards the temple’s spot on the map, the two-dimensional drawing started to sprout up into the third dimension. The temple changed from a line art sketch and morphed into a picturesque model. The refined details grew and came into form, as if I were tuning in to its high-definition frequency. As the image took shape, a magical outline framed the temple in a circle.

  Without warning, my consciousness slammed back into my body. Back inside the tree, everything was the same, except there was something new against the wall. Hanging in midair, like a painting in a museum, was a swirling, twisting hole in space. It was framed by sizzling, arcing energy, which I didn’t dare touch. In the eye of the portal, I recognized the stone floor of the temple.

  Moogi wore a smile that told me it was impressed with our new toy.

  “Did you see it? I made that!”

  Before Moogi could answer, the trainer’s door flew open with a commanding thud. There stood Tag, blocking the entrance. He looked like he had run a marathon—sweat drenching his brow and pits. If he was still chasing after me, that would mean that almost no time had passed while I was training.

  Unfortunately, unlike leveling up, time had gone by while I was casting the spell…and I was just about out of it.

  “I got you,” Tag declared while unsheathing his rusty sword.

  “Tag…”

  “What?”

  “You’re it!” I said, mostly to amuse my companion. Then, while flashing him a rude gesture, I jumped through the portal.

  Instantly I was inside the temple, as if it were part of the same room. The air temperature was slightly colder in the temple than inside the tree. Other than that, I wasn’t disoriented or even dizzy in the slightest. It felt perfectly natural to cross through the rip in the time continuum. Glancing behind me, all that remained of the portal was a puff of black smoke. No lie, this was going to make traveling a real cakewalk.

  Before this moment, I was hesitant that I hadn’t made the right assignment for my advancement points, but just seeing the look on Tag’s face assured me that I most definitely had.

  Not wasting any time, I found Erilyn. She was leaning on her hand while casually flipping through her journal. After sunset must be her slow time. Then another thought crossed my mind. Do I ever need to sleep? Two whole days had apparently passed, and I hadn’t slept once. Back home, I loved my nine hours a night. And naps…nothing beat naps. But here, it was more of an afterthought. So much so that I never thought of it until now.

  “Erilyn?”

  “Oh, hey. You’re back.”

  “I bet you didn’t expect to see me on this side of the slab,” I said, turning my head towards the resurrection spot.

  I wasn’t sure if Erilyn didn’t get my joke or perhaps she didn’t find it funny. At any rate, her reaction was far less than Moogi’s, who was giggling a little too much for my liking.

  “So, you made it, then? You advanced, I mean?” Erilyn asked.

  “I did. All thanks to you.”

  “I’m glad it worked out for you,” Erilyn said.

  “Is there something I can do to pay you back for helping me?”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. It was my pleasure.”

  “I’m going to worry about it. I feel horrible that I was so harsh with you before. I just didn’t…”

  “We all get frustrated
at times. I get it,” Erilyn cut me off.

  “Okay. Well…that package was brilliant. How did you know they were going to attack me?”

  “Why wouldn’t they. Those GDF guys have been camping the trainer for a long while now. That’s why I took up crafting instead of adventuring. It’s a safer path, and you don’t have to deal with griefers. Well, not in my craft, anyway.”

  “Because this is a safety room?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If they’ve been lurking by the trainer, does that mean people haven’t been able to level up?”

  “It’s called advancing…and yes. For the most part, yes.”

  “Aren’t there other trainers to go to?”

  “Yeah, but they’re much too difficult to travel to at lower levels. You could get an escort or hire a port, but those are pricy services most people can’t afford. GDF keeps people small while their members keep getting limited gear and more advancements for themselves. Unless you’re in a gang, it’s nearly impossible to gain class- or race-based advancements around here.”

  “How does being in a gang have anything to do with it?”

  “If two or more members from one gang attack two or more members from an opposing gang, a global war event takes place. GDF doesn’t want that to happen. So they either try to destroy the gang leader in hope of getting it disbanded, or they let them pass.”

  “But you’re not in a gang. Why risk their wrath for me?”

  “First of all, don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t do it for you. And second, while they do keep me gainfully employed at times, it only felt right to use the dirty EXP from their victims for a little sweet revenge.”

  “That is kind of beautiful, really.”

  “I thought so.”

  “How in the world did you get that package bomb, anyway?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “Skamos, got it for me. Sorry…he is one of my regulars. We go way back, and last time I brought him back from the great beyond, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to acquire it. The damn thing was so expensive. It nearly cleaned me out of my unbanked EXP.”

  “It must have been quite important to you?”

  “No, it was personal.” Erilyn’s face turned cold and stern.

  Whatever her reasons for revenge were, it seemed like more than mere sympathy for their victims. She didn’t elaborate on the matter, so I dropped it. “I just wanted to thank you in person. So…thank you.”

  “No problem. And you too, for delivering it for me. Hopefully those jerks got the message and will move on already.”

  “They seemed pretty pissed.”

  “Really? Damn. I’m sad I missed the big show.”

  Moogi bounced between us with a squeak and started flashing screen shots that it took during the explosion.

  Erilyn and I both indulged in a good amount of laughter as it went through the slideshow.

  There was one screen shot where Bagmy’s eyes were so wide, it looked as though they were going to explode right off his face.

  Erilyn laughed the hardest at that one.

  Adding to the hilarity, Moogi stuck a finger in its mouth and blew hard, causing its eyes to inflate. The impression was spot-on. It took a solid five minutes for us to get over it.

  “Aw, that felt good. It’s been way too serious around here lately,” Erilyn admitted as her laughter subsided. “Thank you for sharing those with me.” She knelt down to shake Moogi’s insubstantial paw.

  We stood there in silence for a comfortable minute, our grins still remembering the images.

  As soon as it got a little awkward, I gave her a warm wave, and we made our way toward the exit, but something didn’t feel right. It was the same feeling I ran across when I first met Moogi—like I was being watched, followed, or possibly worse.

  Could I be imagining it from the guilt of my actions with GDF? The more I thought about it, the worse my anxiety got.

  I looked at Moogi and I could tell that it felt something too.

  “What do you think?”

  Moogi bobbed its little head back and forth, showing that it could go either way on the issue.

  I wanted to summon another portal and hightail it out of there, but my portal tattoo was faded. That last portal had nearly depleted my whole mana bar. Just like summoning potions, after I used the portal, I got some mana back, but less than when I drank a potion.

  Even at seventeen, I was still five away from being able to summon a potion. Doing some quick math, I realized that if only I had summoned a potion first, I would have had enough mana to also create a portal. This mana crisis was beginning to feel like a corrupt music file or broken record, as the elderly used to say.

  I debated going out of the back of the temple instead and exploring the graveyard, though I would rather test this new weapon out on some creatures that were familiar to me, to serve as a benchmark. So, that meant more stupid earwigs.

  “Let’s see what will happen.”

  Upon taking my first step out of the safety of the temple, a figure busted out of some unknown concealment with a crack of his chain whip. His apparel was dark and mysterious, except the extensive utility belt. It was filled with pouches, bottles and had other gear attached to it.

  I tried to block his whip attack with my plank shield, but the chain draped over the top of it and hit me squarely in the face for six damage. Ready or not, a fight had come.

  It must have been enchanted with a hangover damage effect because I had an instant headache. If that was the end of the chain, with my shield taking the brunt of the length, I didn’t want to know what a full strike would feel like. Brain damage, perhaps?

  “Moogi! (Ganker!)”

  “I can feel that…” I said, staggering to the side. What I really meant to say was, “I can see that,” but my brain was all scrambled.

  I stepped backwards towards the temple door, but an invisible barrier blocked my entrance.

  “Moogi. (You cannot enter safety rooms while in combat.)”

  “Damn it.”

  My attacker dragged its chain backwards, readying another devastating attack.

  Moogi put two fingers above its head like a pair of demon horns or possibly rabbit ears. It was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quite sure what.

  After recovering from the blow, I charged forward, using my shield as a battering ram.

  The ganker easily avoided me, but my plan was never to run him down. Interrupting his next chain attack was my true purpose, and it worked like a charm.

  Moogi placed a finger on its nose and pointed at me, as if I had guessed its charade perfectly.

  “Moogi, that was my plan. What are you going on about?”

  “Moogi. (This is a bull.)” Moogi did the bunny rabbit pose again, which was suddenly looking more bullish by the second.

  “Oh…” I guess I had inadvertently followed its instructions. In my defense, I’d never really seen an honest to goodness rabbit, or a bull—not in real life, anyway. Then I remembered that this also wasn’t “real life.” Those lines really were starting to blur together.

  Distracted and arguing with my asset, I didn’t notice another chain attack headed straight for my feet.

  Moogi suddenly mimed a whale breaching. This time, I mimicked its movements without hesitation.

  The chain swept the ground under my feet.

  There was no debating who got credit for saving me that time. And from the sideways wink I got from Moogi, I wasn’t alone in my thinking.

  Pushing forward, I was now on the offensive. I tried to limit the wave of his whip by keeping close to my foe. This was a solid plan, or so I thought.

  The ganker must have been some weapon specialist class, because my tactics caused him to change fighting stance. He then wrapped the chain around his fist and punched with it, like improvised brass knuckles.

  It was a cool trick, but not so much while on the receiving end of it. Standing my ground, I did my best to block every attack.

  Moogi stood beside
me, jabbing and punching as if it were my ringside coach. I didn’t know exactly what it was coaching me to do, but the support was encouraging just the same.

  As my attacker pounded against my shield, bits and pieces broke off with each heavy hit. At this rate, I wouldn’t last much longer, and my opponent knew it too, based on the intensity of his attacks.

  “I am sorry I stole your candlestick,” I confessed, thinking I had found the reason for the ambush.

  “Moogi. (Twice.)”

  “Wait, wasn’t that clear?”

  “Moogi. (You should have said candlesticks.)”

  “I thought I did?”

  Moogi brought up my thought bubble and highlighted my error in the back scroll of the chat window.

  “Moogi, you’re bringing this up over one letter?”

  “Moogi. (Right is right, and wrong is wrong.)

  I let out a sigh into the back of my shield. “Yes. I apologize for both of the times I stole the candlesticks,” I conceded, lingering on the s.

  It didn’t matter what I had said, because the ganker wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat and just continued hammering attacks at me.

  I glanced at my arm. My stamina was slowly draining with each strike I blocked. Soon I wouldn’t have enough to attack back. It was now or never.

  Moving my shield aside, I thrusted outward, with the Blood Dagger in hand. Glancing off his bracer, it only did two measly damage on an exposed spot on his arm.

  Of course, the ganker punched me in the chest for four damage. It felt like getting hit with a brick. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually broke a couple of my ribs.

  Attacking hadn’t worked, so I went back to my turtling tactics.

  Every second or so, I noticed something coming out of his arm. It was numbers. I had to wait until he paused to recover a little stamina to really get a look at it. Then I figured it out. One damage misted out of the little scratch I made on his arm.

  Of course! The weapon’s upgraded bleed effect was doing my work for me, one tick at a time. If only my shield would last the fight, I might be able to win this thing.