My powers increase ... sort of

      You do remember that I've been playing World of Warcraft to escape life, right? Yes, instead of being a productive member of society, I've been wandering around an online game world and getting killed. Getting killed a lot. In fact, I might possibly be the worse WoW player in the history of the game. Let me tell you how bad I am.
      I'm a low rank character, which means I face off against low rack monsters. They kill me, I resurrect, they kill me again, I resurrect, they kill me again, and so on until I give up in frustration. I blamed my rapid death rate on my inexperience and incredible bad luck with anything involving chance. But no, I'm beginning to understand I actually project a powerful aura of ineptitude. Besides getting me killed frequently, this aura can actually kill other players who attempt to help me.
      Case in point: Last night, Roen's character RiceKrispy adventured with me for a while. RK is rank 65. She has tons of spells and thousands of life points. She is a one-person army, capable of killing scads of monsters at one time and frequently does so. She could beat up Xena, Hercules, and Superman without working up much of sweat. So understand this: she died three times while adventuring with me. The first time, I was shocked and puzzled. Had to be fluke. Likewise the second time. These things happen. But the third time, I realized something sinister was going on. Was it possible that she was dying just because she was near me?
      On reflection, this makes perfect sense. If you watch GhostHunters -- and we know you do, Crystal -- you know that living beings have an aura. Sometimes this aura lingers after we die, which gives rise to ghosts, ghouls, IRS employees, and other scary beings. Apparently my online character has an aura of defeat that directly affects other online characters. Even rank 65 characters are unable to resist it. (You might think this is fanciful, but look carefully at the presidential candidates fielded by the Democrats this year, and then ask yourself if they aren't evidence of an aura of defeat.)
      In fact, it's possible that, before I showed up, the World of Warcraft was a calm, peaceful place where people advanced in rank by learning how to fish or how to bake delicious pastries. What little killing took place was only to provide meat for the cooking pots and leather for clothes. Orcs, humans, trolls, and elves lived together in peace and harmony, occasionally getting together for barn raisings and square dances. But I show up, and immediately everything falls apart so fast that you'd think Congress was involved, but no, it's just little old me.
      Now, all I have to do is learn how to focus it so that it affects whom I wish. With my Power of Utter Defeat, Despair, and Lethal Entropy (AKA PUDDLE), I could conquer the online world! Only one thing stops me from pursuing this nefarious goal: What would I do with the online world after I conquered it? There doesn't seem to be much point to it all.