“Uuuuuuuggh, why do we have to babysit the newbie?”
The soldier, whose name I hadn’t cared to memorise, was whining again. The opening groan was a carefully crafted composition designed to annoy any and all listeners. I carefully ignored him, my face the picture of stoicism. Keeping it that way was something to focus on, to distract me from my urge to throttle the brat. For reasons I didn’t particularly care to divine, he had taken an instant dislike of me and, I had to assume, was attempting to get a rise out of me. It’d started with nakedly insulting questions and, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to answer, had morphed into just plain old indirect insults.
Usually, I took insults in stride. Sometimes, I even welcomed them. Coming from my opponents, they were a sign I was doing something right. Coming from an erstwhile ally, less so, which had ultimately been part of what dissuaded me from raiding, but those were easy enough to dismiss. 'They're probably just having a bad day' or 'It's the old problem with online anonymity'. This was different. This was someone, in person, trying to get my goat. And, though I was definitely not going to let him see it, he was succeeding. The crude length of scrap iron gripped tightly in my right hand was both solace and temptation. It didn’t feel quite like the extension of self that my Magister's empowered weapon was, but its presence was emboldening.
Perhaps it reflected poorly on me, that I was even entertaining such a thing. A little heckling wasn't exactly a crime worthy of the sort of corporal punishment I wished to visit. I knew as much, and I knew I'd probably feel bad reflecting upon it, but I was far too irritated to feel guilty at that moment.
Over a day had passed and, as was my modus operandi, I had done very little and decided upon even less. I'd had far too much time to think, and far too little information to adequately answer my own questions. It'd left me uselessly restless, neither able to sit still, nor force myself to go out and do anything purposeful. In the end, despite all that time spent thinking, there was only one conclusion I had found at all satisfactory.
This place was trash and I hated it.
‘Harsh words’? Perhaps, but they were well deserved. Brightsteel had done little to endear itself to me. A chilling dampness permeated every nook and cranny. The abandoned shack I was reluctantly squatting in was no exception. Sleep came only after hours of lying upon the wolf pelts, for there was little else to do after sundown and even then, it was a restless, stop-start endeavor. Morning found me only more tired than I'd been the night before, and still distinctly female. It was...a distressing way to awaken, to say the least. Awakening inside the pod was just that; inside the pod. The handful of times it'd happened to me personally, the game had switched itself off long before I awoke. That morning? Awakening to find myself and my circumstances so thoroughly different? Mortifying. There'd been just a second or two of horror before I remembered the day before, where my arms were far too thin, the bed beneath me was lumpy in ways it should never have been, and the light of my room was all wrong.
It wasn't something I was interested in dwelling on.
What snapped me out of such thoughts was no less unpleasant. That morning was the first time I'd ever had to be truly concerned about food. Existential horror was drowned out by hunger, then a far less high minded horror as it occurred to me that, whatever was on the menu today, it wasn't likely to be two minute noodles. My stomach grumbled and complained all the way until I returned from the market. Even once fed, it was less than grateful. Bread and 'vegetables' (they were green and edible while raw, or so the grocer had me believe; after their consumption, I wasn't so sure about that second claim) were the order of the day, and I was sick of them on first glance. Sure, there were other, more appetising meals I could've bought, but they were more than equivalently more expensive. Fifty gold to start and forty from the wolves could be stretched into a week's meals if I was prudent.
Food was another thing that aped real life more than the game. A pity. I'd have appreciated not needing to suffer through the process of actually eating that meal.
Really though, such things I might've been able to stomach, if not for the deal breaker. More than anything, Brightsteel was boring. Pointlessly so. I could deal with 'boring for a purpose'. In fact, that could describe a fair portion of my life. Being bored with or without a purpose was the difference between...Well, between working for pay or for free, I supposed. Beyond my brief visit to the smith late in the afternoon, who’d generously spent five minutes hammering out what could maybe count as a spanner if you were generous, the boredom had been paralysing.
Which I supposed was something like irony.
It was the memory of that recent boredom that kept me civil despite my frayed temper. I'd take this over that any day of the week, regardless of how frustrated I felt. That, and the knowledge that any fight I decided to pick with the pest would likely backfire spectacularly. I might've been confident in my duelling skills, but I was still a level 2 Tinker, up against a likely level 5 Soldier. At this level, I simply didn't have the tools to even consider such a thing. People weren't like mobs; victory wouldn't be as simple as correctly using my crowd control.
Once again, I reminded myself that this wasn't so bad. There were situations I could've been in that were far worse, even if I couldn't help but think of ones that were far better. Really, it was just the one bad seed. First impressions of the other two party members were better, though neither seemed particularly willing to speak over the jerk while he was taunting me. I couldn't entirely blame (regardless of how much I wanted to). Sticking your neck out for a complete stranger over something so small? I'm not sure if I would've either. The thief, Jakob, seemed a friendly sort who didn't exactly approve of the soldier’s goading, while the mage, Xandar seemed, well, maybe a little annoyed at the task at hand, or so I guessed. Or maybe at something else. Or maybe he was just generally surly. It didn't seem appropriate to ask. Especially not when it'd likely give the soldier an excuse to butt in.
Looking at it from an overall view, our 'party1' made me uncomfortable. Not that it mattered, of course, but its lopsidedness offended my sensibilities. We were without utility and, given that the soldier was likely pulling towards a damage dealing role (he seemed like the sort), likely lacked a main tank. We were all equipped so poorly that a player would've been handed better gear by the game before even reaching the point where partying up was available. We were dawdling along in an ill-formed cluster, rather than any sort of formation. All facts that factually didn't matter. They were little more than a metaphorically askew picture frame. It still grated.
At that point, it occurred to me that maybe I was looking for things to be annoyed at.
As an awkward silence developed in the lull between insults, the thief tried to find something to fill it.
"So, uh, what kinda class are you anyway? I don't know the, y'know..." he asked. Though I would've preferred walking in silence, I tried to appreciate his attempt at including me.
“Tinker,” was my laconic answer.
I said tried.
“T’ fuck’s that? Some kinda healer?” interjected the Soldier, genuinely confused. For a brief moment, I wondered if the old stereotype about girls and healing classes continued here as well. The groups of scouts that'd assembled were something of a sausage party, so to speak. Odd that he didn't even seem to know of the class, though.
“Breaker.”
He scoffed theatrically. Though he was behind (WHY ARE YOU BEHIND ME, YOU'RE THE CLOSEST THING WE HAVE TO A TANK) me, I could almost hear him rolling his eyes.
“Oh, a ‘Breaker’, lemme bring out the best tea set. Call it a ‘DPS’ like everyone else; nobody gives a shit about the Guild's names.”
I sighed.
“Do you even know what ‘DPS’ stands for?” I ground out through teeth I was definitely not gritting.
“T’ fuck do ya mean ‘stands for’? DPS is DPS,” was his guileless answer.
That I wouldn't stand for. Whether or not it was something he actually cared about, I didn't care. He was getting a piece of my mind. I tried to drown him in the full weight of my displeasure. Unfortunately, I couldn't administer it directly. Doubly unfortunately, neither an unimpressed glare nor a stern explanation were particularly good conductors of displeasure. I'm sure it would've been lethal with a better one.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Like my fists.
...
Okay, that's a barefaced lie. Even if I were that annoyed, and even if I were that sort of person, the only person that my fists (and the response they'd provoke) would be likely be lethal to would be me.
...
If I were ever to need a wingman, I'd be the last person on my list.
All hyperbole aside, I was still quite irritated. He was getting a piece of my mind. And I was going to bludgeon him with it. With as condescending a tone as I could muster, I launched into an explanation.
“DPS is an acronym for ‘Damage per Second’; though it is technically just the 'average' damage of an entity, whether that be ability, build, individual, etc, reduce to what the amount spread over a single second, it is usually taken to refer a sustained period, with classes designated as 'DPS' implied to have a high value compared with other classes, and-"
"Fuckin' hell, an' I was trying to get'cha to say something. You're a DPS, you do 'DPS', why's you gotta get bent out of shape about what you're called?" he gracelessly interrupted again, gormless smirk begging to be wiped off his face. The breath I took through my nose didn't make me any less angry. It did stop me from yelling, however, which was mostly just as good.
"Incorrect. I do not deal 'DPS', you cretin. I do burst damage. 'Crit', to be technical. My class's damage over extended periods is middling at best," I stated.
"Hey, hey, don't get mad at me, I just pointed out a fa-"
"No, you stated something that was strictly incorrect, in an effort to be antagonistic, and thus you are entirely deserving of my ire."
"Look, I-"
“The designation of the five roles revolve around the advantages a class provides to a party that are both necessary and exclusive. Structure, safety, maintenance, precision and tempo, provided by the Guardian, Sentinel, Steward, Finisher and Breaker respectively. A Finisher and a Breaker solve entirely different problems, neither of which have ANYTHING to do with damage over time and, in fact, Breakers are defined by their abilities to COUNTERACT the normally flat and predictable damage curves seen in other classes, which monsters are equipped to take advantage of and..."
The group had stopped. At some point, perhaps I'd gotten a little emotional and perhaps my deliberately pretentious explanation had turned into a rant at some point.
"Excuse me, I've had a quite unpleasant day," I weakly tried to justify. The awkward silenced loomed in judgment.
“The fuck are you talking about? W-The fuck are any of those words meant to me?” demanded the Soldier, dropping any pretense of mockery.
"...Indeed, pray tell?" finally spoke the mage.
"A Guardian takes aggro and keeps it focused, keeping monsters from running around and becoming unpredictable. A Sentinel disarms the 'countermeasures', so to speak, that monsters naturally have to the Guardian's stability. A Steward ensures that the party is able to counteract attrition from naturally unavoidable damage. A Finisher negates the advantages an enemy gains from mobility. A Breaker ensures that the monster is unable to leverage its own durability through reckless offense. Those are the core conceits to each of the class roles. Traits such as 'durability', 'healing' and 'DPS', while common to specific roles, do not define them,
"...The fuck?"
I took a sidelong glance at the other two party members. It showed them silently echoing sentiment. It seemed I'd need an even simpler explanation.
"Monster attacks hurt. They hurt even more when they really try. They can sustain themselves. They can be fast. They can force you to be fast. The five roles are each defined by their ability to deal with one of those points."
The silence was deafening.
"Miss...Erika, was it?" cautiously asked the mage. I nodded curtly. Even if it still sounded odd to answer to, that'd been the name I'd asked to be rostered as. Thus, it was what I needed to answer to.
"...How the fuck do you know all this?"
My reflexive scoff at such an answer was smothered and shot before I could accidentally say something incriminating. I paused. Chewed over my answer. I'd started the rant explanation assuming that this was common knowledge and that the soldier was simply...Ignorant. That the idea that basic party dynamics wasn't widely known? Well, perhaps that tied into why things seemed so...low levelled here. Seconds passed without an answer coming to mind. Though I tried to hold a stoic expression, I was squirming on the inside. I'd been so busy being bored, I still hadn't thought up a good 'cover story'.
"...Reasons...and...stuff...? I thought it was general knowledge..." was what my mouth came up with while my brained panicked.
Immaculately done, Matthew, that's sure to get them off your tail. I'm sure they'll entirely accept that 'explanation' wholeheartedly and without question.
"...Alright, then."
...Uh, okay?.
Neither I nor the soldier could quite believe the nonchalance that Xandar had dismissed that with. That said, only one of us had incentive to object.
"Oh come on, Xan, you can't just let her off the hook like that! The hell that's general knowledge. She's so obviously hiding something it's stupid," he argued, a plaintive note creeping into his tone. Thankfully, the mage seemed dismissive of it, already walking off before he started his answer.
Something told me the Soldier didn't exactly get a great deal of respect. Just a hunch.
"It's obviously something she doesn't want to talk about-" "Yeah, so we should press-" "and there's no reason to press her for more details, Rob," he concluded with a pointed look. The soldier quickly conceded the staredown, and dropped into a sulking slouch as we continued forward.
Score one for not having a proper cover story, I supposed. Though I said nothing, I was reasonably sure the mage could read the gratitude in my eyes.
That short conversation was about the most interesting thing to happen that evening. It shut the soldier up and killed the mood for further chatting. We trekked on across the bitter cold heath in silence. Three circuits over two hours, and the extent of our encounters was a single Great Crow. With no regard for its own wellbeing, it swooped down out of the darkness to rake at Xandar. There was a flash of metal, the roar of a fireball, the sudden stench of ozone and, faster than you could blink, the crow was reduced to a rapidly fading plume of aether, as our party reacted as one. It was worth a whopping three experience- twelve divided by four- and one gold.
Oh joy, if we run into seventy nine more of these, I'll be level three.
With its novelty quickly worn out, the patrol was just as tedious as staying in town. I supposed it was somewhat obvious why the Yeoman had been so willing to offer the job.
This job was trash.
* * * * * * * *
1 Okay, technically it wasn’t officially a ‘party’ by the Archon Online definition of the word, which required the Hero’s Crest obtained after the tutorial, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet.
* * * * * * * *
The pay was also trash.
Fifty experience and ten gold for three hours work, or so I was awarded by the quest system1. Though perhaps something approaching a 'fair' pay for the lack of work done the night prior, it was an insulting rate for the time spent, even for my level, which was yet another small indignity. The longest I'd spent previously at level two was about five minutes, as the tutorial quest saw you quickly pushed beyond it. My walk back to the same shack saw me even twitchier and more irritable than I’d been when I’d left..
It was good thing, with the benefit of hindsight. If I’d been satisfied, I’d never have gotten anything done. If I'd been despondent or resigned, perhaps things would've gone a very different way. Lethargy was my natural state and I was well acquainted with such emotions. Any sort of pay approaching reasonable would’ve likely seen me either relax, procrastinate or sulk. The torpor would’ve been justified with speculation taken as bitter truth; that progress would naturally be slower without the liberties taken for a ‘player character’, that I shouldn’t ‘expect’ things to be gratifying in any sort of reality and that I was best off finding yet another rut I could be content in.
But no.
The pay was insultingly low. It would’ve taken a full five shifts of scouting to go from level two to three, and nearly a god damn year to reach level ten. The gold reward was barely enough to subsist on, let alone invest in anything more. Scouting was a tedious process that required social interaction to be bearable. And I was expected to rely on it, despite a far better solution sitting right there, where I’d already seen it available.
No, sir.
This was a bridge too far and a fate I had no interest being doomed to.
I was mad.
(Or, at least, as close as I came to it)
* * * * * * * *
1Yet another thing that I should perhaps have paid more attention to. Though a standard trope of gaming, such a thing seemed utterly baffling as something attached to reality if given any thought.