The Golden Mouse Internet Café thrummed with its usual late-night chaos—keyboards clattering, screens glowing, the air sharp with energy drinks and ambition. Aiden sank into seat 23, his legs heavy from Saturday's SuprMart shift.
The $58.50 in his pocket was already earmarked for Monday's utility payment and part of Lily's school lunch money. Earlier that day, he'd transferred $200 from last night's win to the hospital, watching his account balance in both bank and game dwindle to near nothing after the transaction. "Payment received for Sarah Kim, Room 412," the automated message had confirmed—a tiny victory against the $1,240 bill, with $1,040 still remaining. Now, the café's pulse pulled him back, his battlemage ready to carve out another win.
Last night's 3v3 with Marcus and Liam had been a revelation. The match against ThunderAxe, FrostViper, and ShadowClaw still burned in Aiden's memory—not just for the victory, but for how they'd executed it.
ThunderAxe had charged first, as expected—all brute force and flashy gear. His signature battle cry echoed across the arena, his two-handed axe trailing lightning as he thundered toward them. Most teams scattered when facing ThunderAxe's opening salvo. Aiden had anticipated this, positioning Marcus slightly ahead.
"Hold position," Aiden had said, voice steady as ThunderAxe closed in. "Three seconds, then wall."
Marcus had nodded, his shield-bearer's stance unwavering. The timing was crucial—deploy too early, and ThunderAxe would adjust; too late, and they'd be scattered. Aiden counted silently, watching ThunderAxe's momentum build to its peak.
"Now."
Marcus's shield-wall had erupted from the arena floor, a crystalline barrier that caught ThunderAxe mid-charge. The collision sent shockwaves across the battlefield, ThunderAxe staggering back, momentarily stunned by the unexpected resistance. Marcus's calculated patience had transformed defense into opportunity, his shield glowing with absorbed energy.
"Flanking," came Liam's voice, a whisper in their comms. It was the first word he'd spoken since joining their party.
Aiden had tracked Liam's assassin through the shadows, a blur of dark movement that materialized behind FrostViper without warning. FrostViper, focused on supporting ThunderAxe with ice projectiles, never sensed the danger. Liam's daggers had struck in a sequence Aiden hadn't seen before—not the standard assassin's rotation, but something improvised, unpredictable. Three strikes to vital points, each angled to bypass FrostViper's frost armor. The mage crumpled, ice aura shattering around him as Liam's poison effects seeped in.
"Unconventional technique," Aiden had noted, filing away Liam's pattern-breaking approach.
ShadowClaw, the enemy team's tactical mind, had immediately recognized the threat. His shadow cleric pivoted from support to offense, dark tendrils reaching for Liam's exposed position. This was where Aiden had stepped in, reading ShadowClaw's intentions before they manifested.
"Liam, retreat east. Marcus, press ThunderAxe."
As Liam ghosted away from FrostViper's fallen form, Aiden initiated what looked like a panicked withdrawal, his battlemage backpedaling from ShadowClaw's approach. It was bait—carefully crafted to appear desperate. ShadowClaw took it, shadow-stepping forward to close the gap, dark magic gathering around his hands.
"Predictable," Aiden murmured, mentally mapping ShadowClaw's trajectory. Three paths were possible; ShadowClaw chose the most aggressive one, exactly as Aiden had calculated.
The moment ShadowClaw committed, Aiden reversed momentum, channeling an arcane sequence he'd practiced for hours. Not the meta combo most battlemages relied on, but a custom chain that exploited a subtle weakness in shadow magic's structure. His hands flew across the keyboard, each keystroke precise. The arena floor beneath ShadowClaw erupted in concentric rings of arcane energy, each pulsing with countermagic specifically tuned to disrupt shadow cohesion.
ShadowClaw's form wavered, his shadow armor shredding under the concentrated assault. Aiden pressed the advantage, not with raw power but with systematic precision—each spell targeting a specific vulnerability, stripping away ShadowClaw's defenses layer by layer.
"Marcus, status?" Aiden called, keeping one eye on ThunderAxe's position.
"Contained," Marcus replied, his shield-wall having evolved into a circular formation that had ThunderAxe trapped and frustrated. "He's burning cooldowns. Thirty seconds till he's depleted."
"Hold him there," Aiden instructed, delivering the final sequence that dropped ShadowClaw to his knees, dark energy dissipating around him.
What happened next had surprised even Aiden. Liam, instead of finishing his retreat, had doubled back through an impossibly narrow shadow path between arena structures. His assassin materialized behind ThunderAxe—inside Marcus's shield enclosure—a position that should have been inaccessible.
"What the—" ThunderAxe's voice had cut through their comms, confusion evident as Liam's daggers found the gap in his backplate.
"How did you get in there?" Marcus demanded after ThunderAxe fell, their victory secured.
Liam had simply shrugged, cleaning his blades with mechanical precision. "Found a path."
The 600-gold win, split three ways, had netted Aiden $200 after fees—enough to chip away at the $1,240 hospital bill, but nowhere near covering it. Still, the victory showed what they could build together, if Liam's trial held. More than the gold, Aiden valued the data: Marcus's defensive discipline, Liam's spatial creativity, his own analytical approach—pieces that fit together with unexpected synergy.
"Nice work last night," Marcus said now, leaning over from station 17, his voice carrying a grudging respect. "Your boy Liam's got moves."
"Trial's not over," Aiden replied, but a faint smile tugged at his lips. Liam, at terminal 12, was already queuing solo, his hooded figure hunched like he hadn't just helped them dominate. The uneasy alliance from last night felt less fragile now, though Aiden kept his guard up. Trust was earned, not assumed.
Watching Liam from across the room, Aiden reconsidered his initial assessment. The assassin's gameplay defied classification—sometimes reckless, sometimes methodical, always unpredictable. Unlike most players who settled into patterns, Liam seemed to deliberately avoid repetition, abandoning successful strategies immediately after using them. It made him difficult to read, but also difficult to counter. During last night's match, he'd shifted attack vectors three times without communication, forcing Aiden to constantly recalibrate their approach.
Yet somehow, it had worked. When FrostViper had attempted to regroup, Liam had anticipated the mage's escape route through pure instinct, intercepting him with a shadow-step that Aiden hadn't even known was possible from that position. Where Aiden saw structure and Marcus saw defense, Liam saw openings—gaps in reality that only made sense after he exploited them.
As he prepped for a solo duel, the café's overhead TVs—hulking relics usually looping sports or old match replays—flared to life. A booming voice cut through the clatter, backed by swelling music: "Eternal Realms. Forge your legend in a world without limits." Heads turned, bets paused, as the screens lit up with a polished trailer, the game's logo pulsing over vistas of jagged peaks, dense forests, and glowing runes. The marketing campaign had landed, loud and unmissable.
"Showtime," Marcus muttered, eyes flicking up as the café's noise dipped, players drawn to the spectacle.
The trailer was a sensory assault. A warrior trudged through snow, his breath visible, the crunch of frost underfoot almost tangible—VR immersion promising touch, scent, even taste. A sorceress wove flames in a desert, the heat rippling across her skin, while a thief pickpocketed an NPC lord in a bustling port, coins clinking with real weight. Then, a montage flashed—knights clashing, rogues scaling walls, mages crafting relics—dozens of classes, each a path to explore, the voiceover promising "a role for every ambition."
Aiden's chest tightened. Lily's words—Eternal Realms could change everything—burned brighter now. This wasn't just a game; it was a world where his knack for patterns could find a place among countless roles. He leaned closer, memorizing every frame.
"Ten-to-one time ratio," Marcus said, voice low with awe. "Ten hours in there, one out here. That's a whole life."
"Player-run economy," Liam added, slipping up behind them, his usual distance traded for quiet intensity. "Land, trade, laws—you control it. Beta testers are still messing with the systems, seeing what sticks."
Aiden nodded, his mind churning. So many classes meant endless strategies—combat, crafting, leadership. But reality anchored him. "How much to play?"
Liam's jaw ticked. "Basic pod's $1,199. Premium's $10,000—full haptics, max immersion. Plus $50 monthly sub. Pocket change for Blackthorn's guild, not us."
Marcus exhaled hard. "That's my family's groceries for a year. Gone."
The numbers hit like a punch. Aiden's wages barely kept them afloat; the $200 from last night's 3v3 was a dent in their hospital debt, not a pod fund. The dream flickering in their shared silence—Marcus's steady gaze, Liam's restless fingers—felt like chasing stars from a gutter.
"Could sell gear," Liam said, almost to himself. "My blades might pull $300. Still not close."
"My shield's maybe $400," Marcus added, voice heavy. "All that grind, and it's a fraction."
Aiden stayed silent, running the math. His battlemage's runes could fetch $250, tops. Together, they'd be scraping half a pod's cost. Demo pods at the café might offer a taste, but limited hours meant trailing the elite from launch day. They needed a real plan.
The trailer looped, and Aiden's eyes snagged on a detail—a market NPC haggling with a player. The vendor's actions weren't static; he scanned the crowd, tensed when a guard passed, then eased prices for a lone buyer. Dynamic reactions, layered and alive, a next-gen system begging to be explored. Aiden's analytical spark ignited. If he could understand those mechanics—how NPCs shifted, how they thought—it could open doors no one else saw.
"Got something?" Liam asked, catching Aiden's focus, his perception sharper than Aiden had given him credit for.
"Just thinking," Aiden said, keeping it close. Liam was quick, but this was his puzzle to solve first.
Marcus rubbed his neck, staring at the screen. "This game's pulling me. But $1,199? That's a fortress I can't hold."
"We've cracked tougher," Aiden said, conviction surprising him. "Step by step."
Liam's lips quirked, not quite a grin. "Big talk, Architect. What's the move?"
Their eyes met, and Aiden recognized something in Liam's gaze—not just ambition, but calculation. Last night's fight had revealed glimpses of Liam's approach: chaos as strategy, unpredictability as weapon. His daggers hadn't struck randomly; they'd found patterns within patterns, weaknesses invisible until exploited. It was a different kind of analysis than Aiden's methodical approach or Marcus's defensive positioning—more intuitive, more dangerous.
Aiden glanced at the TVs, the Eternal Realms logo blazing like a beacon. The trailer had forged a spark—not just in him, but in Marcus's resolve, Liam's edge. They weren't a unit yet, but they were close, three grinders chasing a dream that felt out of reach but burned too bright to ignore.
"Keep winning," he said. "Stack gold, find angles. We'll get there."
As the TVs cut back to match highlights, Aiden queued a solo duel, the café's rhythm swallowing him. Last night's 3v3—Marcus's wall, Liam's strike, his own precision—showed what they could do. Eternal Realms was a mountain, but he'd built from less. Somewhere in that NPC's glance, in the game's hidden depths, was a path forward. He'd find it, one calculated play at a time.