This avatar looked like every other. Shining bright, body oblivious to the strain of effort, expression uncaring as he stuck his first jab. It landed deep in the thigh, forcefully thrusting a wrench into the mechanics of the barbarians leg. He mirrored the action with the dagger in his weaker hand, bangles on his arm jingling in applause. His victim slumped, dropping shield and spear. The barbarian opened his lungs to gasp but fell silent. The ground was split open by the falling stab of his weaponry, followed by the sweeping sound of an arrow. It struck squarely in the middle of the cluster of his bangles, shattering one. The avatar looked up. Shaking some remnants off, he advanced to the bowman.

The lights off in the bathroom, Yeung-Sung’s eyes twitched from staring too long into the blue glow. He paused the clip, switched tabs and typed out {They make it look easy}.

NO shit. They call themselves the Champions for a reason.

But did you see what they did?

They used twin daggers. Attacking as fast as they can, like you said before.

Yes. What else?

Yeung-Sung rolled back the timer and watched. Run to the first target. Stab the thighs. Block arrow. Move on.

What was their first action?

The thigh?

They targeted a specific body part! He went for the legs to incapacitate.

[WilHelmet is typing…]

Yeah but…watch the rest of the clip. Then comeback to me.

What did I miss? Nevertheless, he resumed the clip from where he left off before. The four barbarians that remained unharmed spread out. Two with bows and two robed fellows with no visible weapon. Arrows hissed at the avatar, always blocked by a bangle, which resulted in a trail of copper crumbs behind him as he ran. There was something non-committal about his charge, Yeung-Sung noticed. The viewpoint given -above and behind the shoulders- swivelled methodically through to each enemy, though his direction never changed. The archer on standby was clenching his teeth, notching as many arrows as he could muster to protect his ally, while the bowman who was being chased down was having trouble, visibly shaking as he drew back a string. Just as he let it loose, one of the robed men knelt with his arms out, showing mossy tattoos, and began to chant.

The avatar of the Champions halted. Breaking the impact of two arrows with yet more bangles he withdrew a third dagger from beneath his cloak. He whirled two at once towards the chanting and, wasting no time, pivoted his charge to get at the other robed barbarian.

Okay, what was that about?

Yeung-Sung’s reaction was echoed in the robed man, who nearly jumped in surprise at the move. Where he was taking out a skull from beneath his sleeve, it now flopped, cracking like a used eggshell as the avatar sliced through him. His skin paled beneath his glow. After two more rips through his torso it faded to grey and the clanging of bangles was his mourning bell.

They were properly enraged now. The wide warrior he hamstringed had seemingly recovered and was making his way back for more. The archers were already tightening their draw for their next volley. The tattooed chanter looked pale and a little dizzy but kept a single arm outstretched, continuing his work.

Yeung-Sung paused the clip again. One, two, three, four, five. He’s only got five bangles left on each arm. How’s he going to make it? Adjusting his posture on the toilet, he galloped his toes against the cold tiles. Tabbing out for a bit, he scrolled down the chat and groaned. I’ve still got three more clips to analyse after this. He wracked his eyes shut and stretched his eyeballs left and right, up and down. This is going to be a long night. He took a short but hefty breath, yawned and continued watching.

The viewpoint became frantic. It switched from one barbarian to another; archer; archer; warrior; archer; warrior; chanter; warrior, yet he did not lunge, did not attack. They grinned all around him. They yelled out old words filled with bloodlust. Crowding around, they smashed apart bangle after bangle until he had only one left.

Then the avatar retaliated. Another dagger appeared in his hand, and with a hand each he stabbed an archer, again and again, spinning around between them like a revolving door. Down they went, but the warrior behind him laughed. Flexing his shoulders, he pointed at his own arms and steadied his spear for his assault; His bangles are all gone!

But the viewpoint switched away from him and instead focused on the chanter. He stood there as he was impaled through the ribs, smiled as he was hoisted up onto his toes. The avatar released the gurgling druid and spun around only to have a spearhead pointed into his stomach. Oh well. But where before Yeung-Sung expected the rattle of bangles was a clinking. Confused, the warrior cut a stroke across, through the avatars cloak. Chainmail! And within the next few seconds, it was over.

Stunned to silence in the darkness, Yeung-Sung finished up in the bathroom before replying to Wil.

That was amazing to watch, but I still have no idea what the fuck was going on. For example, if he had chainmail on already, what was the use of having all the bangles?

Durability matters. The bangles are easy to make, and their durability is negligible if each of them is meant for only one use. But they would have done nothing to protect him from the bleed-through against the rest. The chainmail on the other hand, would have protected him from two, maybe three arrows before breaking. Aside from that, his strategy requires him to remain nimble, so rather than wearing a full set of armour he has an arm full of lightweight bangles.

But again, there’s something else you’re missing. What did you notice about the enemies?

They were different. Some were archers, there was the spear guy and the two robed guys, I’m not sure what they were doing. I think one was healing the big dude.

Exactly. The enemies are broken up into classes. I’m not going to try and explain each one to you, and I’m pretty sure you’ve never played an MMO anyway. However, do you know what I mean by a raid boss? Dungeon boss, maybe?

No. Well, sort of…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Ughh, that’s what I thought. Well, I’m pretty sure -and it looks like there are plenty of others who have figured it out by now- that Airgead’s gauntlets are sort of like raids but in reverse.

Let me explain: Normal raids are a group of players of different classes working together against a giant, slow boss with ridiculous amounts of life that no single person could stand a chance against on their own. Except in this game, we are the big baddies. See?

Yeah, it makes some sense. Though we’re not all that “big” or “bad”.

Sure, we’re not huge, but we can sustain more damage than the average bear. So, to prevail against groups like these, we have to interrupt their teamwork, take the engagement in a way that favours us. A raid party, at its core has a trinity of roles; The Tank, whose job it is to distract and taunt the boss away from the rest of the of party -that was the shield guy; DPS, or damage-per-second, who are focused on outputting as much damage as possible, not caring about their own wellbeing -like the archers; And Healers, or supports, who’s job entire job is to keep everyone else alive, especially the tank -The druids.

Or robed guys, as you called them. Lmao

Referring to Wil’s guide, Yeung-Sung watched through the clip again. Hmm

Watch the next one. It’s mine

Yeung-Sung started Wil’s clip and immediately it was different from the previous encounter. A brilliant white filled the screen, with the outline of his avatar’s skull barely visible. As Wil’s demi-god loosened his shoulders, the camera zoomed out and the rest of the battlefield filled in in watercolour blots; A ten-man raid. As if compensating for his enlightened body, Wil’s avatar wore a dark tunic, though it may as well have been a dirty sack -and that was it. He wore nothing else under its hemline. He feet squelched around in mud as he readied his stance. But beyond that he had one more piece of equipment; a poleaxe, which he arced back, sustaining its absurd size with legs spread wide. Yeung-Sung pinched his fingers apart on his phone. But, even with the max draw distance he couldn’t bring the weapon fully into view.

That’s…strange, Wilhelm didn’t take his own advice. What is that monstrosity?

Before the avatar took a step, he was rushed in a pincer strike by two barbarians who Yeung-Sung recognised as warriors. Swiftly, he avoided their swings by wheeling backwards. He bounced between more of their strikes but was then completely open to the first volley of arrows. They sliced through an arm, blood dripping down the axe’s handle. The avatar staggered. Snarling through their beards, the two warriors capitalised on the opportunity, once again slashing at him from opposite sides. Shhing! The sound of blades scarpering off each other rang out. But then, a momentary swing, an impossible flash of axe slapped their blades away. Stunned, they looked at each other with mouths flung open, cheeks red. Wil crouched through the gap and pivoted, the head of the axe skimming grass, and cleared his immediate perimeter of torsos. They fell, but then more shots from the remaining party slunk into his chest. He stayed upright and postured again in the archer’s direction, his poleaxe’s crescent blade orbiting low behind its sun. Dirt and death caked his legs, obscuring his glow.

No, wait. It’s not the dirt. His avatar has almost stopped glowing!

And then the avatar fell. It was just a slip at first, down to one knee, until a stealthy barbarian gave gravity a hand by thrusting into his shoulder blades. Others quickly sprinted over. Wil’s avatar heaved, tried to raise his weapon until a dark club literally beat the lights out of him.

Yeung-Sung winced. I don’t think I can watch that again. Looking over his own injuries. An itch flared up in his shoulders and he rubbed them, taking controlled breaths in and out. However, the clip didn’t end. A spark was lit. It cut short the barbarians celebrations. The avatar raised itself -or was raised- by a conflagration of light. Then, with a single arc, he cleaved half a dozen men around him. Shocked, Yeung-Sung missed the rest of the flurry, but in the end only two orbed men stayed standing, bent over and panting with hands outstretched, smoke wisping from them.

Aww, I thought he had it.

You were really close

And that was by far my best attempt. Unfortunately. See the difference the extra 5 make? Cheesing doesn’t cut it.

But you took down eight of them! A little more and you’ve got it!

…uh, it’s not that easy, YS. Did you see how easily I was taken down? A couple arrows here, a fireball there, I’m done. I don’t have time, the money, the manpower to invest in gear that would help me.

But the factions have yet to clear it either. And all he had was an axe and a shirt. Yeung-Sung rewound the clip, playing it from the start. He watched Wil’s avatar dance around the initial assault of the gauntlet. There. He’s avoiding almost everything.

How are you doing that thing at the start?

Parry? Bro, it’s just drawing lines.

Well, okay. I’m figuring out the patterns in which the AI moves the barbarians, the windup animations for their attacks. Before you attack, right, you can play and pause time in almost millisecond increments to optimise your movement. See? But after an attack you lose that control. You’re vulnerable to attacks until your own wind-up is done -and for my big ass axe, that takes a while. Which means every one of my attacks has to at least trade 2-for-1.

Does everyone know about that? The time thing?

I mean, probably, but it still takes precision to get right. As you saw, even I get it wrong -If I utilized the mechanic perfectly, I could’ve avoided all damage. There’s always room for improvement.

But besides me simply playing the engagement well, I registered my intent to master “parry” in the system. Ha. Guess, YS, how many times I’ve attempted this fight (and lost btw) and how many times I’ve tried to parry one attack, then two, and more before I got it right at least once. Yo, it’s not easy -and I had to have enough time to re-equip myself for each battle.

No idea. But if I understand your obsessiveness over games, I’d guess somewhere in the hundreds. So you trained your character to do those moves?

YS, you’ve got it backwards, bud. I was training myself to play the game. If there’s one concrete thing I have discovered about this combat system, it’s that there are no stats you can train.

That…doesn’t add up.

But you’re avatar. He was so glowy? You’re saying he’s not a higher level than before? Wil, he actually looked like a real game boss.

Ahh, not high level; high rarity. After my first few death cycles, dying and washing up in the same ocean again, I noticed a difference between them. So I pushed myself harder, dying as fast as possible on purpose. Not realising that I was training was an actual skill. Apparently, it’s called [incarnation strength].

I was so sure that I was trolling when I suggested it to Airgead, even more so when the app froze -but It let me do it. That’s some crazy flexibility in the game engine.

So I kept dying and training this new “skill” until I noticed I was getting higher rarity -brighter glowing avatars- more consistently. And, if I’m right, the mastery is somewhat consistent to how regular crafting skills work; increasing my relative chance every 2nd mastery level.

What? The game just let him create a skill like that?

So you’ve mastered death now, right…what’s next. Actually, I’m curious, how many times have you died then?

Lol. Mastered it? Nah, not even close, but at mastery 10 you get something else. I found this out from Steph, actually. Because he’s literally only done one thing exclusively since he started, his mining mastery is ridiculous. And every 10 mastery, guess what he unlocks? A chance for an extra output per action. You see where I’m going, huh?

An extra output? On an incarnation skill? Oh, my, god. He has a chance to-

You get a chance to incarnate twice at once? That’s crazy! You’ll eventually be unbeatable

Well…some good gear would have helped a lot more, I’d say… the one time where I got the 2nd incarnation I got really bad RNG. You saw how dull he was after getting up? It’s like a 2% chance, I think. And if I mess up my management of the encounter at all, I’m dead -doubly dead- anyway.

But I think you know something about the capability of Airgead already, don’t you? You’ve got your own unique skill. Why else would you suddenly challenge the gauntlet?

Don’t tell me. I won’t let them know. Rooting for you, YS. So, are you ready?

Not at all. But don’t tell them that either.

And you don’t tell them that I’ve faced the DEFEAT screen over 10,000 times. I have a reputation to uphold.