I had decided to take Fridays off from class that semester because your girl wants to have three days off in a row.

Then I kept booking stuff on Fridays anyway because your girl doesn't know when to quit. Between stuff with my friends and conventions, it was going to be a packed September.

So that's how I found myself picking out a schedule of watching. Based on what I was doing, I might be able to get three or four games a week with my friends where they would work with me. Then there was a chance that I might be able to get a good game with the esports team at the college and there I could just manage them. There was a chance that I might be able to manage that remotely, but I wasn't really thinking about that now.

I was just trying to figure out a way to get this to work for me. If some ridiculous guy was going to give me the power to view the stats of people around me, I was going to try to use that shit. Because your girl knows when to take advantage of a good thing.

Mama didn't raise a snitch; she raised a winner.

When I rolled up to the esports club on Monday to talk to them, I was pleased to see that there were enough there for an actual group. Lo and behold, the bulldogs were already trying to figure out how to get some team merch going. It wasn’t even the end of add/drop week, and they were already spouting some team pride stuff.

"You know what we need to do? Get the college to pay for this," Murph said. If there was ever a classic nerd in the group, Murph was it.

Reginald E. Murphy AKA Murph was the current vice president of the esports club, and he was a heart of the organization. He organized everything and if it wasn't for the president being a very good official, I expected that he would have been in that spot. But she was in her last year, and he was in his second semester because he went there during the summer. Honestly, semesters were a bit strange in community college, when most students took it as a chance to either race through prerequisites or stack classes that they thought would be difficult in a four-year college.

So of course, if I had talent I was going to use him.

Murph had a mechanical talent of six which was high and a defensive talent of 12 which was about the highest I'd seen. By contrast, the president, Raquel had a Offense of eight and a ten in mechanics. Both had a potential ability of forty.

Racquel

AP 40 CA 25

8 Offense

2 Defense

10 Mechanics

4 Reflex

1 Redacted

X Redacted

X Redacted

BOT

PREF: BOT

Murph

AP 40 CA 25

4 Offense

12 Defense

6 Mechanical

1 Reflex

2 Redacted

X Redacted

X Redacted

SUP

PREF: SUP

The system showed me their best positions. At least that was what I thought they would be in given what I knew. Was my knowledge of them from playing a bit affecting the patch? Hmmm.

Murph would do well as a support and Raquel was listed as bottom lane. At least that was my assumption.

It also listed their preferences, and I was not surprised to see that Murph had a support as a preference. Raquel had a bottom lane as her preference. I thought that was unusual that there was a listing for preference that could potentially be different from the best position that the system had for them. I could imagine a scenario where someone would just play whatever and their preference would probably be fill.

In a MOBA, usually there's three lanes, the strategy is to split it so that you have one person in each lane no matter what. The standard play is two people in the bottom lane or two people in the top lane depending.

I'm going to call that the standard strategy. This allowed a floating player, which the game called a jungle. Now a jungle is optional, but it's also a good way to tell if a team knows what they're doing or not. Because if a team doesn't have a jungle, chances are they're not competitive. This is fine on your regular pick-up matches, but for what I wanted to do, it wasn't enough.

I could tell that they would be open to a new strategy.

There's also a tactic I was thinking about where the support in the jungle would head to the mid lane to gank or the support would replace the bottom player and the support as they went to gank mid lane.

The thing about having that is that you had to have someone with mental ability to be introspective about what's going on. But your game relied on the tactical ability to read the map and communicate what was going on.

Suddenly, the bottom line was empty because those two players were heading to gank a different character, then it might show up in the chat for the other team or how they're talking.

That was another thing. If they were on their own headphones, I wouldn't be able to hear them talking but I would be able to observe them. With that observation I would be able to with perfect knowledge, gank on command.

I did not think that I was going to get perfect knowledge. It would be great but that was not going to happen. The best I could do was to get them in position and figure out how to get them to communicate better with each other.

So once the esports group has a little meeting, I got the two of them together with me and we played a game with just the two of them on bottom and me as a jungler.

We were able to communicate well.

We got two floaters coming in to help us out and Murph and I regularly went back and forth to threaten the enemies as they tried to push through the lanes. In fact, it felt like we were so in sync that I didn't even have to talk to him about it. Sure, we were right next to each other, and we were on our personal computers working through the community colleges internet, but really?

It felt smooth, just three people sitting around crushing their enemies from afar.

I felt such a connection with them at that moment that I realized it was probably part of what was going on with me. This ability felt like such a blessing in that moment. Like I fully understood Murph, and he was listening to me without me to have him tell him anything.

There I was, going back into the mid lane to gank someone halfway through the game when I realized that I hadn't died. Not only had I not died, but I had also killed three people already. This meant that I need to head back to base and buy better gear.

I threatened the mid player and then ran back as fast as I could.

I teleported from the trees, saving some time. In the game you have an ability to return to start. It takes ten seconds to charge the teleport to home base. You’ve vulnerable the entire time and anyone can hit you and stop the teleport.

Then I re-specced my character going for some speed and ran back out there. Re-speccing is when you buy and/or sell items to fit into a build that you’re going for. I knew what I wanted.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The first thing I noticed was that the players on the bottom lane were gone. Taking fast and sent a note to the other two players that weren't on my team from the college and then we withdrew.

At same time, the mid lane player got crushed by four people at once. They thought that I was going to stick around there for a while, but he got ganked fast.

I pulled back. I'd rather not feed the machine if I could help it and they were a machine at that point in time. But as they push through the middle lane, my guys are pushing both the top and the bottom Lanes as well. There wasn't much we could do about it, but if they were going to sit there, I would slowly start to harass them.

Then it happens, I could see my guys hiding in the bushes and I decided it was time to pull. Pull. So, I popped out in the mid lane about halfway up to the center where four of them are concentrated on trying to kill our minions and then get a little further into our ground and I picked one. I was like you're my guy and I started attacking him and his bear avatar realizing he wasn't attacked started chasing me. Then his friends started chasing me. But that little Gap between the time that he realized that I was following him and the time that they realized that he was going was enough.

He followed me into the bushes and that was when my guys got the drop on him. First slowing him with my favorite support skills and then joining his life. When he tried to run back, he couldn't.

This let me get hit on him and then I stepped back. Of course, his friends knew that he had died.

There's always a message when an avatar dies.

It puts the killer on everyone’s screen, letting them know what’s happened, with an arrow between both avatars.

I smiled. I got quite a part of that but more importantly Murph got a kill assist.

He was going to have to go back and respec soon with some new gear and I was happy for him to be able to do that. But first we had to deal with the other three guys. As it turns out, having one of your guys all the sudden die three seconds after he leaves changes things and the other three were less enthusiastic.

They were still there, and my ultimate was still on cooldown, so I was still attacking them, but nobody knew what happened and Murph had gone into the shadows.

I noted his skill had about a five-second cooldown so as soon as it was back up, he froze the guy in front of me which meant that I could get my claws into him and use my special ability to suck the life out of him as well as attack faster which month that I was healing as fast as it. I felt damage and took it. It was a great place to be for me. It was a terrible place for them to be, as an affront to their entire livelihood.

Just as quickly, I was up five to zero and kills and this guy was back dead again as his two comrades I wanted to push my luck and this is my second mistake of the game, as these two guys moved a little bit back and we're trying to run but then my guys didn't back me up. Perhaps it was because Murph had used too much of his Mana there or Raquel was not ready, but they didn't follow me.

My three on three became a two-on-one with me being the one and that was not the best way for me to end that. One of them locked me down in place, keeping me from moving, which was almost as infuriating as the slowdown effect, and because I wasn't close enough to get some of my attacks off, I realized that I should have waited until my ultimate was back up which would have taken thirty seconds anyway to go back after them. And that was how I went from five zero to five one.

And there I was back at the base having learned my lesson but having so much more money to get even better gear as I decided that I had enough of that Middle Lane and basically it took me thirty seconds to respawn and get back into the action. For the rest of the game, things got smooth and due to me only done once, my snowball effect continued to grow.

By the end of the game, we were in a very dominant position, and I was feeling it and then I could see that with all my talk, it looked like Murph’s teamwork ability had gone a little bit green and perhaps he was improving, because by the end of the game his mechanics was thirteen.

I had never seen that before and I was assuming it was something to do with the training we were doing. I was willing to accept that as a part of the weirdness of everything that had happened to be, but it was just strange seeing it in action. We are able to increase abilities. Now, I need to figure out a way to do that reliably.

Because of course, your girl was thinking about ways to improve the kids she was with so that they could get into some of these intramural esports tournaments and dominate. I would love for them to dominate. And then I realized that I hadn't drank anything for half an hour and I was probably going to use the bathroom.

So, after the game ended, I went to the ladies’ room, did my thing and came back refreshed. Murph and Raquel were still talking about it.

"That game was amazing. Did you see that? Professor Thomas went five and zero for like 20 minutes," he said.

"Yeah, I'm almost sad that we didn't back her up that one time. But that that was a good learning experience. I wonder if she does this often?" Raquel said.

"You know I play a lot," I said. "But that was a great game. I'm impressed by both of you."

They were tripping over each other to comment me, and I was shrugging. I was not ready for that kind of attention. I liked it. I like them. But I wanted to figure out a way to get this to have more regularly.

"When do the intramurals start?" Raquel said. "I thought I had a flyer here. Oh yeah, six players max, one is a sub and one manager. The manager can sub in as well."

She showed me the piece of paper. It was exactly what I was looking for. A 10-game league and it was open. We would get one game a week with the other county colleges in the region and or some of the other four-year colleges. I was going to have to talk to the organizer unless Raquel Hall already had. I suspected that she had.

"You've already talked about this to the NASE people?" I said.

"Yes. The Bergen Bulldogs are going to be playing the uhhh.... Rockland Rockies?" She said.

"First game of the Season and we're already heading to New York state? All right, all right," Murph said.

"It's nothing special. I think that they're going to have it at Orangeburg or Nanuet. That's not even that far," Raquel said. "I'm going to have to check the league schedule for the actual location. But since it's going to be on Thursday night next week, are you going to be able to come with us?"

For a second, I didn't understand that she was looking at me. I blanched. I gestured vaguely around to the universe.

"I guess I'm free," I said try not to be too eager. If they're heading to Nanuet, then I might get a chance to shop at the mall for a little bit before all this went down. Or afterwards. Chances were, I would be excited to just play.

With the group of them all excited as well. I was thinking about it from another We were going to have to show up to play with them, or we going to bring our own computers.

"Do they supply computers for this or how does it even work?" I said.

If somebody had a top-of-the-line computer that might give them a minute advantage on this, but the game was optimized for play with old systems. There wasn't much that they could do, but if there was some sort of perceived effect, I could see how that might lead to problems. Problems. However, if it went to a PC Center, then I was thinking about how that would be.

"It would be pretty fair if we went to a PC Cafe, but no we just bring our laptops," Raquel said. " Technically we don't have to do this all-in person, but we like to make an event of it. And since it's only half an hour away, we can do that. When we go against Essex or Sussex County, they already have a big setup. And then some of the further ones when they come here, we take them to the meadowlands."

"That makes sense. It would suck if someone's computer broke though. So, what happens if that happens?" I said.

"If one of the computers breaks, that's why you have a manager and a backup player. Player. Although we might need to recruit some," Raquel said. "Luckily, we can recruit from high school students here like the academies or we can take some of these continuing ed adults that just love the game and have them play. But then again, there's only like what 12,000 people going to this college right now and they're all commuters. It's hard to get people to stick around for this kind of thing. But we can hang up the posters and we can invite people and we can get them swag. If we get them excited, then maybe they'll go pro right?"

"That would be ideal. And then they could say that they started here," I said. "It'll be nice to have the athletic directors help with this. But I don't see them doing that. Maybe we can get an esports scholarship?"

Raquel turned to me her mouth wide open.

"That would be amazing," she said. "But I'm already going here for free. It couldn't hurt though. You know what college students love? Stickers."

Behind her, Murph was scribbling down stuff into his notebook. I could see him write the word sticker and then circle it several times. Clearly, he will be executing whatever mission that she wanted. I had a suspicion that they were friends outside of here as well.

"All right. If we're going to have a game next Thursday, then do you guys want to... It's Wednesday today, we can see if we can recruit somebody else or just have a practice on Thursday night and it doesn't have to be here. We can do it from home."

It was easy to exchange their information so that we could all meet up. We formed little guild inside of the game called it the Bergen Bulldogs of course.

It was good prep for the season. With the two of them working with me, we could just post a message in the bulletin board there and then if anything went wrong, we could post stuff there. I didn't really want to give my number out to students even though I trusted Raquel and Murph but we're going to have to see.

---

Another day passed of the first week of school and I found myself dreaming about playing again. I had practiced that Thursday night with Raquel and Murph and I was looking forward to it way more than I thought he would.

In fact, I had mentioned it to just about every class that I had, and I only had one person interested in joining the Bulldogs.

I emailed Raquel to put him on the list so that he could play with us, but other than that he was uneventful. By the time that 6:00 p.m. rolled around. I was ready to get into the game. After three toasty classes I wanted to veg out and get my game on.

I got home, took my bra off.

I set up my computer.

Sweet relief hit me like a drug.

I had a little bit of dinner and there I was, logging into the web client and then the game to check if there were any updates. I saw that helpfully; Raquel had left a note about the specific details, and it was at the Palisade Center which was great because I knew exactly where that was.

We would be playing on the third floor. They had rented out a section of the food court for some reason. At least I wouldn’t be hungry.

Murph said that he had no problem getting there, so I'll be there a little early to go shopping before where this all went down. I turned out that SUNY Rockland took their esports very serious, and they were going to have it right next to the carousel showing the game on the big screen.

They might not have an announcer, but they were going to have a sort of referee. There would be an official from RCC. I was the official for my school as well as the manager. It was an intramural league which meant that this is all a competition, but I knew that I was going to be getting points just for doing it, so I was ready.

Monday night, we worked on map reading and team tactics. Every time that we saw that people were not in their lane, we called it out. And then we went over the strategy about getting the jungle to where you wanted to be. The bulldogs had recruited a new guy.

Bob was good at working with the team and we had him switch between jungling and being the mid lane for a while. When I looked at him, he had a very strong technical ability, but his mechanics was at a two.

This meant that throughout our entire play, as I visualized his stats, I could see that we were working on his communication and the normally quiet business school student had gotten better at his mechanics. By the end of the night, it went from a two to a three.

A plan began to form in my mind, or at least the concept of a plan.