111 Passaic

I was getting hyped that morning just and being in class. The t-shirts that we got. It turned out that the business department had a small budget that we could use. I had had one of my business classes make up a business proposal just for the t-shirts. Then they sold it to us as a proof of concept. And yeah, we went with the Bulldog shirts for our esports team.

Honestly it was refreshing. Just like with chairs where I have all litany of stories about how it was hard to sit in the wrong chair as a big girl, I had to think about shirts. I didn't want to cover up everything. Yes, I know bigger girls needed to be draped but I was curvy as all heck, and I was not going to go through life hiding my business. I was going to go through life showing people what a real woman looked like.

The shirt became a way for me to sell the team. Join the Bulldogs, and get your tuition paid for... eventually.

It was one of those things where I knew it was going to happen in my bones. With all the training we get done and all the heat up to what was going on, it was inevitable that we would be able to make some headway.

It all started tonight when we face down Passaic County. If we could be kind of narrative on a high note, then we could start an even better place than we ended last year. Having one in one loss was fine. Having one win and zero losses? That was top.

I found myself going through my classes with a little bit of pep in my stuff. Even lunch tasted great. Now I make my own lunch at home and bring it in and eat at my department desk so I can catch my email when I'm done with it. But even still. It was good. I was ready to let the good times roll for as long as it took at this kept up.

Honestly, it felt like when the sun came out in the spring after being away forever. I found myself energized as I paced back and forth trying to make a point in introduction to business.

The paint and sip had gone over well. We found out her name, Leigh, and that she was a physician's assistant which meant that she did cool stuff in the hospital. She also worked close enough to walk from her house. She even owned her house. She promised that she was going to come to at least one of our yoga meetups.

I was on the verge of putting her in the group chat, but then I realized how that could go sideways. If she left the group. There was way too much in committing evidence in there. I might be smart, but I was a hater at times. If that group chat ever leaked? I would be halfway to Canada before anyone realized, then on the first cruise ship to the Caribbean.

I was still beaming when lunch rolled around. I was happy to see Murph and Raquel studying together. They seemed close enough that this might be more than just a part-time thing. When I popped by, they visibly separated.

I didn't want to pry about the relationship. It seemed like they were very close at other times as well. They were close, as if there were only one bed at the inn, but the bed was a study table, and they were nearly sitting on top of each other.

I wasn't going to mention anything. They were kids and kids did stupid shit. I still cringed over the things I did in my early twenties. Things like catching feelings, that wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

Hey so uh... What's going on between the two of you? Was what I wanted to say. Instead, what I said was, "Murph you really have a way for bringing her up."

"I can be a good carry," he said.

"Sorry, I'll be right back," Racquel said getting up and moving with a purpose to the women's room.

"So uh," I said.

"We're totally not dating," he said.

I sat down across from him.

"It's okay if you are. I've got this coach that I want to bring it at our next practice. I was going to give her a trial with my friends," I said.

"That sounds great but uh... Does the club have money for that?" he said.

"Technically it's the Professor Thomas Benevolent fund that is paying for her," I said. "But we are going to give her a trial. She works at one of those e-sports academies."

"Wow. That's... I've never considered that as a viable job," he said.

It probably wasn't. "Yeah, we'll see. The money is in the related services. It remains to be seen."

"If I can't make it with what I'm doing then yeah I'm going to have to get a job. But that's plan B," he said.

"What's plan A?" I asked.

"Become a sugar baby," Racquel said.

"As is custom," Murph said.

I got to my marketing class with a smile on my face.

I could tell that one of the groups was going to be trouble. Of the 15 people in the class, three had chosen to do the self-identification project. The rest had teamed up.

I spent most of my lecture parody explaining how I broke down the business plan for the esports academy and how I would then move into marketing.

"So, who are we marketing to?" I asked.

"The parents!" The class said.

"And where are the parents!"

"On Facebook!"

"And Vine," one girl said, giggling.

"Hey," I said, moving closer to her. "We don't speak badly about the dead. Rest in peace, Vine."

There was a smattering of laughs. They all knew how I felt about the best social media service ever despite its short life. I would pour one out for the Vines that evening.

"But that's the thing you have to understand about marketing. You must know where your users are. Where are your clients?" I said. "For the first part of the project, I want you to break down your target demographic and how you would find them..."

I ended the class and my two problem children arrived. The third member of their group had already left. One caught my eye because he had an AP of 90. What the hell?

I looked at him he had an AP of 60 and an AC of 5. He just was untrained or something. Or he just had one in each stat. Maybe he had zero in some of them.

I gave them the boiler plate speech about working with their people and letting the process happen. If they didn't do much by week three, then I would speak to their third.

When they were done, I held my head up high and set my GPS for William Patterson. This was going to be a night to remember.

---

Upon first arriving, the vibe was entirely correct. The teams were getting setup with the systems provided by none other than the eSports academy that AI had visited earlier that week. I was surprised to see Rachel there and went over to say hi.

"Hey girl, how are you doing?" I said.

"Professor Thomas?" she said, stepping away from the five computers that she was setting up.

"They have you doing this?" I said, examining the clean crisp lines of cables. "Girl, your cable management game is on point."

"Game recognize game," she said, standing up.

The stage was set and there was even a small crowd.

"Did they pay you to do some coaching or are you here for some other reason?" I said.

"I'm just here for setup and tear down," she said. "But I will be here if you want me to try and help?"

"Can you..." I wanted to ask her to coach but I didn't want the girl to work for free. "Want to give us some pointers? I'll add it to your tab."

She smiled. "I think I can do that."

---

"Guys this is Rachel Lewis, don't judge her by her corporate shirt. She's going to be helping tonight. She's a DOTA coach."

I wanted to hire her for our Tuesday sessions.

"This is the team," I said. "Can you all introduce yourselves?"

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They all went through the motions of going through and I was surprised at how it felt like everything was falling into place. I kind of zoned out there for a minute as Esther and Raquel went to try to explain how they were doing things.

"We're tracking the new patch notes, right? Nico got a nerf, our ice archer got a buff so they're going to try and ban that one if we don't..." Esther said.

"Good, good. I want to see your communication as a team, although I'm not one hundred percent sure that that will be a problem," Rachel said.

"It looks like the other team is about ready to go, anyway," I said. I could see the NACE referee setting up and looking for managers.

When the NCAA didn't want to take up e-sports the NACE stepped in. The National Association of Collegiate Esports was the organizer of the league. Some of the finer details fell to the schools themselves to iron out. Us heading to William Paterson to do this instead of the Passaic County facilities was their choice.

Next week, Union County would come to us. We were doing that in the Tec building.

The NACE referee was a middle-aged white guy. He looked like he missed the eighties. His haircut said that he missed his barber.

"You're the manager from Bergen?" He said.

"Kelly Thomas," I said.

"Right. The rigs are all set up. If your team is ready, we can begin game one."

I nodded and returned. He didn't look like he took shit from anyone, but at the same time, I wasn't going to give him an excuse.

My mind went back to me having to do twice as much to get half as far. I would make it through this. I don't know why he got me so worked up.

"Log in," I said.

Then we were in it. The first round of banning fell to us, and Esther got it. She was playing top today and she really wanted to keep Nico.

"You've got to let him go," Rachel said. We were both over her shoulders. Esther sighed them picked something else. We wanted Kate, the ice archer in the game, but it wasn't looking good.

Then the Passaic team- the Panthers- played out the clock. I didn't know if this was a genius move or not. I could see the referee looking at his watch. They auto banned someone we wouldn't have picked anyway. The kids had a primary, secondary, and tertiary avatar planned so this didn't even affect anything. I wondered what their game could be.

We banned another jungler main, a vampire that used their health points for mana but also had a big life steal buff on attacks. That one has been playing against me a lot recently. We banned one of the avatars that their bottom player mainlined. Not much else happened. I could see the one bot player rage out. He had decided that this was going to be a golden opportunity to exercise his anger management techniques.

So long as those techniques involved nearly flipping his char, I saw this as a bonus.

"He is going to be mad," I said to Racquel.

"That's the bottom laner?" Rachel said.

"He mains the mouse druid, Freya," I said. "He just lost his favorite."

"He has a mouse hat," Racquel said. "Useful to know their preferences. Maybe let's not ban that avatar next round and see what he does."

The ban round ended, and we locked in our choices. Esther got her ice archer, and we were all happy. Heck, Bob even got Nico after some discussion with Esther about center lane versus top.

That was about the time that my vision went black for a moment with several pop-up messages.

"Welcome to the Fall 2024 semester series," an announcer said. The same exact text appeared on top of my eyes.

---

Special:

400 points - Perk: Bench! - Replace a player with another player in the middle of a match or series of matches. Stats will be improved from base by twenty percent for ten minutes.

----

I didn't have a bench to work with. The A team was there with me. This meant that the patch wasn't trying to get me to do something that I wouldn't otherwise do.

Another pop-up message made itself known.

---

Special:

50 Points - Perk: Nope! - Undo a single selection once per season per tier group, before everything is locked in. Selections can be yours or the enemy teams. This does not undo causality.

---

How the heck would that even work? My brain couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. This would change reality in some way.

I bought it, immediately. This would be a good edge to have bit I was concerned about the per tier group clause. We might be in tier three. Did the patch think that I was going to make it to tier one or two for the end of the season? It might. If so, I might be able to use his ability again twice. That would be useful to know.

I said our first turn strategy to farming. Paying fifty points for that perk gave me a balance of about 400. I would be close to my thousand after this. If they did three games? Damn close. I didn't want this to go to three games, but I could use the points.

As soon as the game started, I could see that the opponent had chosen the defense strategy. It wasn't ideal, but that meant that farming was for me at that exact moment.

I spent some time behind Raquel watching her trade blows with the other bot laner. Murph was backing her up excellently. In a small change to what I was used to, they had their support working with their top later. This meant that our jungler was spending a lot more time working up there. Their bottom laner, was a top Lane pic that they move to the bottom Lane. He was being smothered by our two guys.

I was tempted right there to go ahead and put into offense, but I wouldn't see how this would play out. Every so often. Our jungler would sneak back out to get some more kills and it felt like we were doing the full court press. I can only see those four which meant their jungler was completely going through the jungle doing his job.

Speaking of people doing their jobs, the support up top was not. Esther was effectively destroying them both by making them move around and not kill anything. She might be losing a gold in the short term, but the two of them were not getting anywhere. And every time that our jungle popped up. They both were treated. They gave her a chance to mow down the minions that accumulated.

Esther was good at farming. If farming was a stat for her, it would probably be a ten.

I had so many guesses about that last stat that was redacted on the left side. But I was getting to be something that I was realizing I would just have to pay for. However, if the patch decided to give me all these perks that I could pay for at a discount during the season, I was wondering what else I would try to give me. If he gave me something juicy? I might have to hold off on getting basic profile too. Even though I really wanted it.

I get away fine without those. Cheryl would be better to have it but now that I was seeing the enemy’s overall strategy, the individual person's attribute meant less to me. I just needed to see what the strategy was and if my guys were doing better. I took that time to check out the match rankings. Esther was at 9 for some reason.

I was thinking that was the eye of the tire and then she was on fire. Rachel was spending a little more time walking between Bob and Esther. She clearly was loving it. Esther was obviously top tier, but I didn't know what Rachel thought about Bob.

Raquel was at 7 for the match. I was wondering what she would be able to do with that and then I saw that Murph was at a 9. Either he had been training a lot by himself or something had really happened.

I watched the bottom Lane go into a skirmish and then I realized what it was. He had advantage against the bottom Lane opponent who was unprepared for the two of them. Murph was capitalizing on it while Raquel was playing it safe. Playing it safe, got her a 7. Match ratings were so weird.

I watched as the bottom lane traded blows with the guy on the bottom. He was getting deep into it before they would engage with them. Despite this, they were consistently denying him any farming points. He was not going to have enough hold unless he figured out to gank one of them. In minute eight, our jungler walked over.

That was when I set the strategy to offense.

"Get him, Bob," I said.

I was wanting to give them that for a minute because I was about to be round two and I had less control around that. If I put the cards right, this will be the first gank of the series and this would set up somebody for success.

Murph played the victim leaving himself out in the open. His avatar was level six. He just got his ultimate which if I recalled correctly meant that he could lock down the enemy for about 6 seconds. Was he going to be going to go into his guard and decide that this was his day? I didn't know. Of course, that was when Raquel popped out to fling him into the Jungle and Bob hit him with a critical strike.

You would think that now, the bottom lane would have retreated. You would be right if Murph hadn't activated his ultimate skill. He pinned the guy down for the six seconds needed to take his ass out. There was a silly little animation of the little werewolf avatar trying to get out it the cage before the kill notification.

Then the small crowd lit up. I check the main monitor and it looked like Esther had the two top players on the ropes. I didn't know how she did it. I saw our mid layer heading up to assist.

He might be too late, but he was going. Then their mid laner chased and I could see the turn tick over to the second turn of the game.

Mentally, I switched our strategy to offense.

Physically, Rachel and I moved in between our top and mid laner.

"Esther they're coming in hot now, but help is on the way," I said.

"Bring it here," she said.

I saw her take a position behind her tower as her opponents began to wail on it. It could take somewhat of a beating and all her minions were down.

A new batch of her minions arrived while our mid laner did. Esther was making a calculated call here. She was betting that her two opponents couldn't bring down her tower while she waited and regained some health.

It started with her avatar, Kate the archer, pulling out her ultimate move. Esther was accurate and I saw her match rating go to a ten. She flung an ice arrow, slowing down her enemies. Right on cue, her mid laner partner came in. I could see the Passaic team- visibly twitch at that move.

Esther closed the gap, and it was two on two, under the tower. Sure, she was low on health and the tower was about to crash, but we got out gank and they got one tactical retreat.

Who played two on top anyway? Unless they were trying to throw the game, it didn't make sense. They made me nervous that I was missing some super obvious reason for this. The team selection had made one of their team a jungle. The jungle either was just not listening to their manager or something else was up.

A younger white guy was talking to the player that had been ganked. He had to be the manager because he wasn't playing. He was directing it from behind the scenes.

He looked pissed.

It looked like his guys weren't following his strategy which was apparently, defense. Why was he playing defense? Or was this the system approximating what it thought he was doing. The patch was doing wonders or letting me know about the strategy, but it wasn't telling me what it wasn't telling me.

Had he selected that on purpose? Because if so, his players were shit. I checked the match rating on his top and top support, and they were both at a four.

Esther was having her cake and eating it with both hands.

I checked my overlay again. Had it really said top support? Yes, it had. So, this was a strategy that he was doing on purpose. The little camps of monsters in the jungle gave some experience, meaning that more went to the laners. A big part of having a jungler was having those eyes all around. A jungler could swap into a lane and if they hadn't set up any beacons, then the enemy would have no idea what the heck was going on.

To be quite honest, I thought this would be a straight up regular match. We might win in the end, but there was something about the opposing manager that was throwing his own team off.

"Have you heard anything about the Passaic team?" I said.

"I mean I was only here for about an hour with them," Rachel said. "Their manager was fighting with two of them about something. You don't think that it's affecting how they're playing do you?"

I watched as the manager, who the system labeled as R. James, moved between three of his team. He had an AP of 50 and an AC of 20. I didn't know what effect he would have on the match with his own potential, but I was ready to test out some theories.

I was hoping to see if managers had different stats than the players. I didn't have any ideas on that front. Maybe there was a hidden awesomeness stat that I had, and they didn't.

"I think that it's a factor," I said. "If you can identify which two of them are going to blow up, then we can invade a lane."

We just watched the play for a minute. The Bulldogs were doing a full court press. Esther’s avatar had reached level ten. The other two up top were trailing her at level eight. Our jungle was at level eleven. Clearly, he had been farming through their jungle spots. If you stayed in the jungle and didn't pop out into the lanes, you could get a hefty chunk of experience. It was like its own little game.

"The top lane," I said, at the same time as Rachel.

"If they go for dragon right after they gank the two top lanes then they will have it open," Rachel said.

"I guess I'm calling in a hit," I said to the team. "Take them out. Top lane then dragon if possible."