"Hey Mai. Been a while."

The door chimed as Iter and I entered, and a gangly youth looked up from their open textbook on top of the glass counter containing various gaming accessories and card packs for display. With long, wavy brown hair and soft blue eyes, Jan smiled gently as he welcomed us inside. The midday winter sun shone brightly through the windows of the storefront, setting motes of dust dancing through shadows. The rest of the store was well lit, but the walls were lined with shelves of boxes, books, and other gaming paraphernalia, giving a somewhat dense and claustrophobic feeling.

I waved at Jan breezily with my free hand as I entered. Jan nodded back, gave a brief glance at Iter behind me, then returned to the book tented between his bent elbows. I passed by the counter to the back of the store, an open space nearly as large as the retail front. It was stuffed with long tables with black tablecloths set at angles like a parking lot. Most were empty, but one in the back had three people sitting around it idly, looking at their phones. They looked up when I entered.

"Hey Mai. You joining today? Not sure if its happening." This was Ted, a pale skinned and muscular man in his late twenties, with short-cropped reddish-blonde hair, a midwestern drawl, and an abundance of freckles. He looked at me with a defeated grimace, while the other two went back to their phones. "Abbie sent us a message bowing out, so we were waiting to see who else shows up before calling it."

Abbie was one of the rotating cast of GMs for the store's semi-regular table-top role-playing sessions. I hadn't been around for a bit due to extended projects at work, but I'd been a regular during a previous campaign Ted was also a part of. He loved the wizard-type classes, the bigger and glassier the cannon, the better. One of my favorite recurring moments from early in our campaign was the big, beefy man routinely describing how he hid behind our barbarian tank in an effort to avoid damage.

I didn't recognize either of the other people at the table. The one facing me was young, maybe 15, with longish blond hair and a slight build with wide shoulders they'd yet to grow into. They were energetically flipping through a rule book, while referencing their phone every couple seconds or so. The other had their back toward me. I could see they had tight curly hair dyed in stripes of pink, blue, and purple, shaved short on the sides, and a loose sweater worn off the shoulder. But otherwise they seemed focused on their phone screen, uninterested in the newcomers.

"Hi Ted," I raised a hand. "Nope, sorry. I'm here to see Laci, actually. He around?"

"Yep, he's… "

Ted was interrupted by a tower of boxes with a pair of legs in worn jeans pushing back a black curtain in the far back, and wobbling its way over to the table. The top of the stack caught on the edge of the heavy curtain, and I started to rush forward thinking it would all come tumbling down. But the curtain slipped free, leaving the boxes to sway briefly on their way to the table, but nothing more.

"Mai! Been a while!" The tottering tower sorted itself out, and a large man appeared from behind it. Laci was the spitting image of his son at the front of the store, with a few extra pounds and a full mane of silver hair. He reminded me of an aging, portly Barry Gibb in a Hawaiian shirt, with a smile outshining the fluorescent ceiling lights. He squinted in our direction, eyes crinkling with interest at Iter trailing behind me.

"Hi Laci," I waved and walked over to him, "This is my friend, Iter. Iter, this is Laszlo Szilyagi." I tried not to mangle his name pronunciation too badly. But the name seemed to roll off my tongue without effort – was this Divine Translation at work? "He's the owner of Epic Encounters," I finished. Laci had been running this shop for nearly as long as I'd lived in Alameda. Long enough that I remembered him picking up Jan after middle school and bringing him by the store. Ugh, now I felt old.

I gathered from snippets of conversation over time that Laci had previously worked in the video game industry for a now-defunct studio. He loved this shop, though, and was practically always here, cajoling customers into trying the latest and greatest games and personal technology. AR was only the most recent.

"Such as it is," Laci chuckled, "call me Laci." He strode around the table and put out a meaty hand for a handshake, and Iter grasped it good naturedly. Laci was a big guy, having a couple inches over even Iter in the god's current form. Crinkled blue eyes looked back and forth between us appraisingly. "So," he started, "we're short-staffed on GMs at the moment. Feel like sitting in?" He raised his bushy grey eyebrows hopefully.

"Not today, I'm afraid. I'm here to see you, as a matter of fact," I decided to get right to the point. "I'm trying out a new AR system, and was hoping to get your thoughts on it. But," I nodded to the others at the table, "if you're busy, I could come back later."

Laci's eyes lit up when I mentioned AR. I knew the man was an enthusiast, but it was fun to see his expression change as one of his favorite topics came up. It was like a big St. Bernard seeing his favorite squeaky toy. "You're jumping on the AR train, too, Mai?" He leaned toward me, his clear blue eyes bright.

"Not exactly. It's an advance version of a product I'm testing before investing further." I kept it vague for now. It wasn't really a gaming rig, per se, but that seemed a good way to put it through its paces.

"Careful, Mai, he'll have you up to your virtual ears in chicken eggs before you know it," Ted inserted. He was in the Coast Guard, and a big fan of games of all kinds, though obviously hadn't yet contracted Laci's passion for AR. Ted was a regular at the store and happily joined sessions of whatever game was running at the time. Laci's latest AR craze was a game called Poppin' Chicks, where players tap screen to spawn eggs and try to capture their opponents' eggs before they hatch into chickens. It was kind of like Hungry Hungry Hippos, but played virtually. And, of course, guaranteed to bury you in a sea of clucking chickens no matter what you do. It wasn't my cup of tea, but Laci had a reputation for inviting the unwary at any opportunity.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I've had my fill of huevos at Rosa's, sorry," I replied with a grin, raising my to go bag, to which Ted kindly laughed more than the joke was worth. "Though maybe you'd like to try something new, too?"

At this point, the other adult in the room swiveled around in their chair, placing their phone on the table before giving me a lazy smile. "Hello, I'm Bily," they reached out their arm and raised their wrist in relaxed manner. I had to lean in a bit to shake hands, and they briefly touched fingers before releasing, and then repeating the gesture with Iter. "A pleasure," they purred. They had a mellow contralto voice, narrow brown eyes, and a glittering peach lip gloss with matching eye shadow. They pulled it off well. "I'm new here, but I've gamed with Teddy before. He's even kept up once or twice." They gave us a slow blink of long, glittery eyelashes, smile fixed in place.

"Bily can be a bitch when you first meet 'em, but they're alright, truly," Ted added with a grin, which made me frown in concern, but Bily scowled and clicked their tongue.

"And farmer-boy needs to learn to mind his manners," Bily growled, "likely due to his upbringing in a barn. Ignore him." Bily waved their long, slender fingers as if shooing Ted away, then patted the seat next to them and motioned for us to sit. "Looks like we all have some time to spare since our GM abandoned us. Sounds like you have something spicy to share. Do tell."

"Yes, what is this new toy you have, hmm? Something you can show me?" Laci loomed behind us, barely keeping his hands in check in almost a grasping motion, clearly excited.

I sat down and looked at each of them in turn. "It'll take a moment or two to set up. Do you have any AR sets we can borrow?" I asked. "Also, can I put this in your fridge?" I added, raising Rosa's to go bag slightly.

✦ ✦ ✦

A couple of hours later, four of us (Iter abstained) were arranged at different corners of the room, looking down at the tables in front of us in concentration. The younger player, who I learned was named Eric, had been picked up by a parent shortly afterwards. But everyone else had been willing, if not as enthused as Laci at the start. Laci had more than enough AR sets to go around, though I might have seen him go in the back to open a couple of new boxes from stock. It had taken a few moments to set up everyone's phone with the app and configure their glasses, but it was fairly simple to launch a session and connect everyone together. We opted to skip the app's audio since we were all in the same room. But it was a little surreal looking up to see everyone seemingly ignoring each other and focused at the mostly empty spaces in front of them.

In the middle of the room was a table full of opened game boards, tokens, and cards spread out haphazardly as we tried one game after another. Laci had a grid map laid out in front of him currently, with some dry-erase makers nearby. He had his phone up on a table stand, with the camera pointed at the map. It was possible to use the camera in the lenses, or even still images to initialize the virtual space in ARC, but a higher-end streaming camera allowed for a more interactive experience. I noticed some lag in my AR view when Laci moved the tokens around, but it was nothing off-putting – if I hadn't been there in person to see him move out of the corner of my eye, I never would have noticed.

Ted was standing in front of his seat, looking down in thought. His lips were pressed firmly together, arms crossed. His biceps bulged under his shirt, and I could see him working his tongue back and forth as he pondered a way out of his predicament. I softly whispered a note to capture in my Journal, re-affirming the need for expressive avatars, as watching Ted's face was half the fun.

Bily was sitting back stirring a drink with a straw. They had a mischievous grin on their face, their previous turn being the cause of Ted's consternation. Where they obtained the straw from, I didn't know – Epic Encounters sold bottles and cans of various sugar-laden and sugar-free beverages, along with snacks of all kinds, but there weren't any straws I was aware of. Bily manipulated it like a prop, clearly enjoying Ted's frustration.

"Oh, Teddy Bear, you are in a pickle," they chortled.

"Shaddup. This is all your fault." His brow furrowed further, and he actually bit his lip.

"I wasn't the one who wanted to shoot a firebolt at a skull to see if it was trapped."

"Well, it was." Ted pointed down angrily at the virtual map in front of him, where a miniature skull was sitting on a raised platform, staring menacingly at Ted's wizard. The skull had retaliated by casting a fireball right back at us. Most of us jumped clear in time, all but Ted's wizard, who failed his saving throw and was now well below half his hit points. The map and the miniature skull figurine were physically in front of Laci, but each of our character minis had been imported and were being superimposed virtually on the playing field.

"You wanted to throw ball bearings at it, Bily," I reminded, smothering a smirk while I looked through my paladin's repertoire of abilities for something to assist.

"Maybe you should shoot it again!" Bily grinned manically behind their AR lenses.

"Now, now, it's Ted's turn. What do you want to do, Ted?" Laci prompted, playing GM for us this time. His words were genial enough, but the look on Laci's face was pure evil as he sized up the wizard's remaining health.

Honestly, I was having a blast, and I had to remind myself to pause and observe the others' reactions for possible future enhancements and validation. I was extremely grateful for my Journal to record everyone's feedback and spoken impressions as we went along. I needed to remember to transcribe and summarize it all tonight, before it was lost in the neverending log. There was no Journal search function. Maybe I should file that enhancement with Iter. Does the Communion have a release schedule?

At some point, Laci had started pulling out more complex games and sets, wanting to try everything out in ARC. It was thrilling to watch, and I had to push down a sense of misattributed pride over what was happening. I didn't make this. I wished Bushra could see their expressions.

My phone started buzzing, so I checked to see who was calling. It was Bushra. Think of the devil. Wondering if she might have seen logs of us playing and was checking in, I picked up the call.

"Hi Bushra, what's up?" I was smiling as I stepped away from the table, Bily having sneak-attacked the skull from the shadows, landing a critical hit. Laci was looking in open-mouthed dismay at the map, like a dog whose toy ball was taken away, and it was Ted's turn to laugh. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Iter, inconspicuous up until now, had moved up next to me.

"Mai," Bushra's voice from the phone speaker was quiet and timid, wholly unlike her usual assertiveness. "Jon called. Can you meet me?"