Gaming the System

by P A Wikoff

  Just like that, my raiding band was submitted into the books—well, scroll—as a public group; first come, first serve.

  I could tell that everyone who wasn’t asleep in the adventurer’s room was already getting my notification when their focus turned away from me and on to staring into space.

  “Thank you.” I said to the room as I started to leave.

  “Wait a minute, what boss?” the drunk wizard girl asked, almost slurring her sentence into a single word.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises…or disguises, Daemon. Hard pass!” She waved her hand, as if swatting away some flies, in what I could only guess was her way to get rid of a notification that was clouding her vision.

  “Moogi. (Camber has joined your band. 3/5 spots remaining.)” Moogi pointed at the intoxicated woman.

  “Wait, did you mean to do that?” I asked, taking a step closer to her, while keeping far enough away so that she couldn’t puke on me…or worse.

  “Huh? What are you looking at?” She scowled at me.

  “You joined my band. Was that a mistake, or are you really interested in my adventure?”

  “I don’t want to follow you to the next room, let alone some secret boss thing. Shoo, get out of my face area.”

  “I know. I get it. You don’t want to join, but then how come you did? Was it by accident, maybe?” I pushed the issue further.

  “Shhhhh.” Her index finger squished both her lips. She had to have been the person who shushed me before too.

  “Oh, great. This is already starting to become a circus. How do I kick someone out of a group?”

  “Twet,” someone scoffed.

  I looked over my shoulder to try and catch whoever said the derogatory statement.

  “Twwwehhht,” someone else chimed in.

  And just like that, someone got the room chanting “twet” in my general direction.

  Of course, this wasn’t exactly great for me.

  “Can you all…hello? Can we just all be quiet for a moment, so I could…please? I just need…”

  The chanting got louder and more rambunctious. Soon everyone except me and one sleeping player had joined in the “twet” chant.

  “Everyone, just shut the fack up for a minute and let me think!”

  The room fell silent, except for Camber who said one final “twet,” which showed me and everyone else that she hadn’t even been saying the right word during the chant.

  There were a couple of chuckles at my pain from around the room. I was ready to storm out and continue on with my own boss-fight preparations when I got a notification.

  “Moogi. (Po has joined your band. 2/5 spots remaining.)”

  “Wait a minute, I thought you didn’t want to. You specifically said…”

  I looked to Moogi for answers, and it brought up the backscroll of the chat log.

  “Moogi. (‘It doesn’t matter if you were or weren’t. It will never happen.’)”

  Po cocked his head and looked at Moogi’s evidence.

  “What ever happened to, ‘It will never happen?’” I asked Po, trying to get him to leave the group on his own accord.

  “I changed my mind. This is going to be a riot,” Po said, cracking his knuckles.

  “Don’t you mean a hoot?” Camber added, pointing at my owl mask, holding in a sloppy laugh.

  “No, no, no. This is not the sort of thing I was going for. I want serious adventurers who work well together, in order to…”

  Before I could finish my rant, another person joined the group.

  Moogi. (Xander has joined your band. 1/5 spots remaining.)

  “He…hello, everyone. I’m Xander,” a quiet and awkward guy with straight black hair falling in his face said.

  I let out a sigh. “Hello, Xander.” It seemed that the more I protested this party, the more people joined, maybe only for amusement purposes, but joined, they did.

  With only one open spot remaining, hopefully there was still a chance for me to find one really good person to make up for all the randoms. There was no one better to join our band of jerks than Havok. I was about to get Moogi to link him when I got the last notification.

  Moogi. (MacGavin has joined your band. 0/5 spots remaining.)

  I threw up both my hands. “All right, who is MacGavin?” I looked around and everyone I made eye contact with shook their head, protesting my accusation. “Well, now, someone has to be MacGavin,” I said, quite vexed.

  Moogi pointed to the sleeping guy in the corner.

  “What, him? Is he even alive?” I asked, honestly wondering how someone could be sleeping through all this racket, chanting and all.

  Po walked up to the sleeping guy and lightly kicked him on the leg.

  “What happened? What’s going on?” MacGavin shouted after a couple snorts.

  “Saddle up. We’re going on an adventure,” Po said.

  “Oh, hecka yeah. Where da party…” MacGavin started to say, then stopped himself to yawn, “…at?”

  “I’m the party,” Camber said, as she rested her head on a wicker couch.

  Looking at the situation optimistically, MacGavin was wearing some nice-looking plate armor, and with any luck, Camber might pass out—opening up a slot for Havok. This was still workable. I had to keep my chin up.

  “Let me fill you in. It’s a secret,” Po said.

  “Po, stop making things worse. Mac, did you really just join our group while you were dead asleep?”

  “Absolutely. You tractors are going to wipe so fast, and I’m soooo down for that!” MacGavin said loudly, as he started to remove all his plate armor.

  “Why in the world are you taking off your armor? You of all people look the most qualified to be the tank.”

  “Dude, under full disclosure, I ate some bad doom eel last night, and you wouldn’t want any accidents…if you get me,” MacGavin said, rubbing his stomach.

  “We should all get into our B gear,” Xander suggested, pointing at my gear.

  Little did he know my B gear was also my A gear.

  “Oh hey, that’s a good idea,” Po said, and he too started to swap out his best gear for stuff that looked more fit to be rags.

  “Why are you all doing this?”

  “I don’t want to damage anything too expensive,” Po admitted.

  Camber jumped off the couch with renewed energy, “Take it off, man candy.”

  “What is happening right now?” I asked.

  Moogi was covering its eyes from all the stripping of gear that was going on.

  “Don’t worry, bud. We’re so doing this!” MacGavin announced.

  The situation couldn’t possibly get any worse…but then it did. Without even the proper gear, Po, Xander and the drunk girl, Camber, were all arguing over who got to be the tank in the group.

  “I should tanks because I have the most clothes…on my body…right now,” Camber said waving a finger at everyone else.

  Even though she was drunk, she had a very good point.

  “Excuse me, I thought you weren’t coming along with us,” I said to Camber.

  “Your face is scary. Are you the boogerman?” she responded.

  “This is the worst. Why am I here again?” I said, burying my head in my palm.

  “For adventure!” Po said, raising his long sword above his head.

  “For…some glory, maybe?” Xander meekly added.

  “Fornication,” MacGavin said, without any indication as to why.

  “Wooooo, hoooo,” Camber added to the mix.

  Maybe I should have put down ten slots for the raid, instead of five. Perhaps then, a couple people might take this journey seriously. What was done was done. It was official, our band of five was full—if I wanted it to be or not.

  It took about a half hour of arguing, or what Po called “coordinating,” but in the end, our party was ready to rock and roll. I was assigned to be the D.P.S., or damage per second—basically the heavy attacks. I thought it was a fitting
role for me because the Blood Dagger actually did damage each second, but they didn’t know that part. Then we had MacGavin, the tank who was acting as the healer. And finally, we had Xander, Camber, and Po as our three tanks because…I didn’t even want to think about how we came to that conclusion, but we had. This was going to be a freak show, but the show must go on.

  “Hey, PUGs, let’s friend up so we can link-message each other during the fight,” MacGavin said, putting his arm out.

  Before I could state how bad of an idea that was going to be, Camber and Po had both followed suit, putting their hands in the pile. Giving into the pressure, I added my hand on top of theirs.

  “Oh, shit yeah,” Camber said.

  Xander was the only one left out of the mix.

  “Aren’t you going to join?” Po asked.

  Xander shook out a frightened “no” with his dark floppy hair. “You…don’t want to hear what’s…up here,” Xander said quietly, pointing at his temple.

  That was a very good point, one I hadn’t even considered. Did I really trust these people enough to link our innermost thoughts together? It all seemed a little too fast for me, but, oh well.

  “You’re gonna miss…out on all this,” Camber said, trying to make herself sound flirty while doing an erotic pose, but she burped a little bit in the middle of her attempt, utterly ruining it.

  And just like that, I had three more friends on my list. I didn’t know if I wanted them, but they were there all the same.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” I said.

  With our three tanks in front, we marched outside of the mansion with determination and high spirits.

  “Where to?” Po asked.

  “Yeah, where are we going, dogface?” MacGavin repeated in his own way.

  “Owl. It’s supposed to be an owl mask. Just go west, then south at the fork,” I directed.

  “The graveyard, Shadow Beast. Called it,” Po declared.

  “That’s no boss,” MacGavin said.

  “I knew this was going to be a bust,” Po said.

  “It’s…a mini…miniboss, The Shadow Beast,” Xander clarified.

  “Let’s go, bitches. Tanks away!” Camber took the lead running off the beaten path and into the wilderness. The other two tanks followed behind her, attacking everything in sight.

  “Shouldn’t we stick to the path? You know, so we can save our resources for the boss battle?” I asked, but my words fell on deaf ears.

  Swords clashed, skills went off, and monsters screamed wildly like a river of pain. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves except me. Even Moogi was getting a kick out of our band of adventurers—giving me hit point, loot sharing, and damage updates for each creature they pulled and subsequently slaughtered.

  The experience I gained wasn’t very impressive after being split between five people.

  “Come on, DPS, get on the board here,” Po said as he got the killing blow on a bagmy they just jumped.

  “I haven’t had a chance yet. You’re all killing them too fast.” Never mind the fact that I hadn’t even equipped my dagger.

  “That’s because I’m tanking and DPSing,” MacGavin said, holding his longbow at melee range. “I’m just that good.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to tank…oh, never mind,” I said. I guess we have four tanks now.

  They had no organization. Everyone just did what they wanted, without any rhyme or reason. I found no use in fighting them anymore. Instead, while taking up the rear, I enjoyed peacefully stepping over their carnage through the hillside forest. It was almost relaxing.

  After the most roundabout way possible and slaughtering everything on our path, and even a couple that weren’t, we made it just outside the temple.

  “Hold up. Everyone, please wait!” I said, but no one could hear me. MacGavin and Camber were in one direction, laughing about something or another, Xander was heading towards the temple entrance, and Po was still fighting a creature. When all four of your tanks are taking the lead, you end up going in all different directions.

  “Hey, Moogi, I know I’m going to regret this later, but please set up a group telepathic link.”

  Cringing, Moogi made a clicking noise.

  *Everyone, stop,* I group broadcasted.

  *Hey, guys. What’s going on?* Po responded, looking back at me from a huge spider he solo-killed off in the distance.

  *Daaaaamn, I’m outta arrows. Anyone got any I can borrow and never pay back?* MacGavin broadcasted.

  *Yo, I told you. Blame it on the soju.* Camber was too busy singing some song about drinking inside her head to notice us broadcasting.

  *Camber, hello? We can all hear you.* I tried to stop her train of thought, but it was a runaway—derailing off the track.

  *What? That ho too. Tell her ‘bout some cold brew,* Camber continued her song.

  Cracking up, MacGavin put a hand on her shoulder.

  “What?” She looked up at him, breaking out of it.

  *Everyone, listen up. We were never going to the graveyard. We’re going over there,* I broadcasted, pointing at the Twisted Forest.

  *Oh, hey, boys! What’s happening?* Camber broadcasted to the group, finally getting with the program.

  *Pay up, Po. You didn’t call shit,* MacGavin broadcasted.

  “Woohoo,” Camber yelled, running into the Twisted Forest and splitting up the party even further.

  MacGavin and Po hung back to settle their disagreement as to whether or not a bet was made and a fee had to be paid.

  Moogi and I went in after her. Entering the forest, I noticed that Camber was already swarmed by two earwigs.

  “No, not like that. Stay in front. What are you doing?” I barked, watching her tactic of simply whacking them with her staff until her stamina ran out. It was careless and without any forethought.

  I pulled out my dagger and quickly took one out with a couple of lucky hits to its pincers. As soon as it died, another earwig scuttled into the room to replace it. I focused my attacks on that one now. A new one would come in as soon as the last one fell. After my fourth earwig in a row, I finally got a respite.

  This dagger was amazing. Well, anything was better than a bent candlestick or even the unlucky pincher axe. The Blood Dagger was fast, had low stamina consumption, and when an earwig got low, I could just run around until the bleed damage took care of the rest.

  After clearing a couple of rooms with Camber, MacGavin and Po finally caught up with us. I didn’t know where Xander had gone, but without being part of the group link, there was no way of contacting him. He could be deep in the graveyard by now.

  “Sorry, we don’t need you guys anymore. We could have gotten married and divorced in the time you two were gone,” Camber teased.

  Three more earwigs came rushing into the room.

  “Excuse me?” I queried.

  “Shut up, baby, and kill good.”

  Never had I seen so many monsters spawn at the same time. I wondered if it was the quality or quantity of our group that increased the spawn rate.

  Looking over at MacGavin, as he used a piece of his armor as a shield instead of wearing it, I knew for certain that it was our band’s quantity that upped the area’s difficulty level, and not the quality.

  Po, Camber, and MacGavin each tanked one of the earwigs, splitting our targets. Tactically this was bad, but maybe I could make it work for us.

  Coming up behind the earwigs, I slashed each one in the back until the Blood Dagger’s bleed effect activated, then moved on to the next.

  “Moogi. (Unison bonus in effect.)”

  Before I could circle back around for another pass, the one Po was tanking died, and then Camber’s followed suit.

  We all watched, riveted really, as MacGavin bashed at the final bug, using his bow as a melee weapon. I was certain that my bleed effect was doing more damage than he was.

  “What weapon are you using, Daemon?” Po asked.

  “Huh?” I looked behind me, at first forg
etting about my disguise. *Oh, right. I wonder if I should tell them about the Blood Dagger.*

  *Broster, I think you just did,* MacGavin broadcasted.

  “No way. You know there are only two of those in the entire game?” Po said, as if I hadn’t realized it.

  All three of them were now crowding around me in amazement, trying to catch a glimpse of my weapon.

  The remaining earwig was still attacking MacGavin in the back, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Is that for real? Totally Boston!” MacGavin said.

  Half the things that came out of MacGavin’s mouth made no sense to me, but I got the meaning just the same.

  “Does this mean I own fifty percent of that rare dagger?” Camber asked.

  “No. We didn’t actually get married. You said we could have gotten married in the time it took them to return.”

  “And if you continue to talk to me like that, we never will,” she clapped back.

  “No, seriously, where did you get it from?” Po asked, with a stern look upon him.

  “Have you guys heard of GDF?”

  “You mean Giant Dick Force?” MacGavin said.

  Camber started laughing uproariously.

  “That’s not what it stands for,” Po said, ruining the joke.

  “What, then?” MacGavin protested, folding in his arms.

  “It sounds pretty accurate to me. Those guys are huge dicks,” I agreed with MacGavin.

  “No one really knows what GDF stands for, but what you said sounds more like a compliment than an insult,” Po said.

  “No, it sounds scary to me,” Camber chimed in.

  “Hold the mayo. You jacked it from Bagmy? Called it,” MacGavin said, holding up his hand for a high-five that never came.

  “Don’t get too excited. You had a fifty percent chance of getting it right. Everyone knows that Bagmy and Ason are the two players who have the BDs,” Po said.

  “Ason. What a stat boy,” MacGavin said, sticking out his tongue and making a fart noise with it.

  “Stat boy?” I asked, sounding like a twet again.

  “Grinders,” Po added.

  I shrugged at Po. “What’s wrong with grinding? I’ve done my fair amount of it in this very spot.”