“So, when is the wedding?” Jax smirked at me as he tied back his blond hair into a short ponytail.

“Ha. Very funny,” I said as I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my tight lycra USA team uniform. Zarra’s jet had dropped me off a few minutes ago, and Sal had dragged me into Disney’s corporate stadium locker room so that I would be able to get ready for the demonstration match.

“You leave suddenly, spend the night, meet the parents, and come back to your friends all fuzzy eyed. Am I going to be your best man?” Jax wiggled his hips as he reached back to yank the uniform out of his ass crack.

“Pretty sure I’m going to be the best man. I’m more organized,” Garf winked at his blond friend.

“See, this is where you are wrong. Organized dudes are the ushers. They have to know where to seat people. The fun best friend gets to plan the bachelor party. I’m thinking Rio. Remember when we were there a few years ago. Those girls were kaaa rraaaay zeeee!”

“That does sound fun. I wouldn’t mind going back there,” Garf leaned back on the locker room bench and raised his arms with a sigh. His uniform stretched over his chest and exposed his muscular torso.

“It’s settled then. I’m the best man, and Garf gets to tell people what side of the church they should sit on.”

“I’m not getting married, asshats,” I laughed at them.

“But you should. I want to go to Rio.”

“So go to Rio! Ya, dick.” I finished putting on my uniform and did the same movement Jax had to pull the back part out of the crack of my ass. I didn’t really understand why they made us wear such tight outfits when we did tournament or display matches. Yeah, I knew that the women audience liked it, but it wasn’t like we were riding bicycles or swimming in pools and needed to worry about air flow. The running on the Omni Station was all performed over the circular treadmill, and I could have done it just fine with a loose pair of gym shorts and a workout shirt.

“You ready?” Garf asked as I finished yanking the lycra out of my butt crack.

“Yeah. Who’s doing what?” I asked them.

“I’m not sure. Sal didn’t say anything. He was too busy freaking the fuck out because you weren’t here at eight,” my Asian friend said.

“I called him to tell him when I would be here,” I sighed.

“I think these guys need to DPS. It will be a clusterfuck if we let them tank or heal,” Jax said as he poked his head out of the locker room door. The sound of the waiting crowd poured into the room, and it reminded me of an angry ocean.

DPS or Damage Per Second was an ambiguous gamer term. In this instance, Jax meant that he wanted the two tag alongs to just stick to doing damage. The role was important, but it wasn’t as important as soaking up the damage from the monsters, also known as tanking. Nor was DPS as important as healing.

“I’ll heal. I’ll do a Wiccan,” Garf yawned.

“Did I DPS last time? I think I did. I’ll tank. You guys fine with Defender?” Jax asked.

“Cool with me,” Garf replied.

“Yep. I’ll do Beastman,” I said.

“Ohh I was hoping you would. The crowd will love it,” Garf said.

The Beastman class wasn’t exactly loved by players. It did a lot of damage, but the class used a claw weapon in each hand, and it was exhausting to play. It also had almost no escape skills that could be equipped into a slot, and they could die easily if a monster or other player targeted them. Observers loved the class because it was high movement, and as long as there was a skilled player tanking- or keeping the focus of the monsters, the Beastman class was fun to run around with.

“Alright, guys. I wanted to introduce you all,” Sal said as he walked in with two men dressed in lycra uniforms. “Champ, Jax, and Garf; this is Jake Cushing and Billy Iger.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” I said as I shook both their hands.

“Nice to meet you too, Champ. I’m a huge fan,” Billy said.

“He isn’t as big of a fan as I am,” laughed Jake as he shook my hand. “I’m a fan of all three of you actually. This is really exciting. My kids are in the front row.”

My friends shook hands with the two men, and the four of them started talking about the strategy for the upcoming demo. These two were high-level executives in the corporation, and Disney was paying us to walk them through one of the harder dungeons in Astafar Unlimited while their employees watched.

“Ahhh, they aren’t mad that you were late,” Sal whispered in my ear while the other four men talked.

“I wasn’t late.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

“If you aren’t early you’re late, Champ,” Sal let out a laugh. “So how did this thing go in Albany?”

“Did you read my email?”

“I glanced through it. Then I got confused by all the zeros they listed. These guys are lying. No way they have that much money.”

“I did see a bunch of jet pods in their hanger. The place was a fortress.”

“Let’s talk about it in a few days when we are laying on the sand drinking colored drinks.”

“Sal, you never want to talk about work when you are on vacation,” I smiled at my friend.

“Naw, Champ. I just don’t want you to talk about that stuff. You need your break. I’ve got your back twenty-four seven.”

“These guys are going to DPS for us Leo,” Garf called to me, and I nodded.

“Got it, did you go over the strategy with them?” I asked.

“Yep. They are good to go.”

Who ever played the healer normally ran our strategy. It made sense for us because that player would be watching the battlefield, looking at their teammates’ health, and observing the flow of monsters. Everyone else was too occupied either doing damage or trying to keep the monster’s attention away from the people doing damage.

The five of us walked out of the locker room and down the long hallway to the stadium. The roar of the crowd wasn’t as loud as the World Championship rounds, but the stadium here probably housed ten thousand people, and I didn’t see a single open seat. There were rumors that Disney had tried to buy Astafar Unlimited in the first five years that the game operated, but the owners hadn’t sold.

There was an announcer, one of the pretty blonde women that acted in a bunch of their TV programs. She introduced the Disney guys first, and I realized that the two men were CEO and president of the company. I looked over at Garf and Jax with surprise, but my two friends were waving at the crowd. Well, Garf was waving at the crowd, and Jax was blowing kisses with each hand.

Once the woman finished introducing us, and the crowd had screamed for a handful of minutes, the five of us moved to our Omni stations and connected to the harness. Then we put on our headsets, and the crowd stared at the visual monitors that surrounded the stadium.

“I’m opening a private channel,” Garf said after we loaded the dungeon.

“Why?” I asked as I saw that he had moved Jax and me into his private channel. We could still hear the other two men talking, but we would have to press on the team channel button to speak with them.

“Oh, I just wanted to talk about your trip some more. It’s not like we have to pay attention during this run. We’ve done this dungeon thousands of times, fuck, I’ve soloed the damn thing at least a hundred times. Jax, go pull the first group of mobs,”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir,” my other friend said, and I saw his heavily armored avatar dash around the first corner of the dungeon.

“So, really, how were her parents?” Garf asked as Jax back-peddled around the corner with four armored lizard warriors beating on his shield with saw-toothed swords.

“They were… I dunno, weird.”

Garf created an orange diamond icon over one of the lizard warrior’s heads, and I dashed to attack it from behind. One of the other men, Billy I think, was playing a Daggerdancer, and he stood next to me while we attacked the creature’s back. The mob died to our blades in two seconds and then we moved to the next monster that Garf marked.

“What do you mean ‘weird’?” Jax asked over the sound of weapons hitting his armor and shield.

“They didn’t talk a lot. They were nice and all, but I got the feeling from Zarra that they had a lot of input in the game, especially her father, but the man didn’t seem to want to talk about the development process. It was probably because I hadn’t agreed to work for them.”

I replayed the breakfast conversation in my head as I spoke. It felt as if Zarra’s parents had none of the personality that their daughter did. They certainly had the good looks, they were just really reserved. Probably because I hadn’t agreed to sign the contract and work for them.

“They asked you to work for them?” both of my friends asked at the same time.

“Jinx! Ohhhhh got you!” Jax shouted.

“Are you eleven years old? It’s adult time, and I’m trying to talk to Leo about this girl he wants to marry,” Garf laughed.

“Ugh, fine. I’m going to go pull the next group to us.” Jax still had a lizard mob beating on him, and the creature frantically smashed it’s sword into the back of his helmet as he walked away.

“Yeah. They want me to test their game for the next year. Before they release it.” I dug my claws into the armored back of the lizard pounding on Jax and watched the monster’s life bar drop. The Beastman class added a small buff every time I connected a hit that let me attack faster. It meant that the class ended up doing a significant amount of damage the longer combat lasted, so it worked really well for boss fights. I wouldn’t really spin up to speed with these smaller trash mobs that died after only a few dozen hits.

Each of my attacks triggered the vibrations on the Omni station sensors. They made my hands shake, but the sensations felt ridiculous after my time in Ohlavar Quest, and I kept thinking of the NPC that I had kicked in the face. That had felt real, the vibrations I felt now just seemed like a poor imitation of a much better game.

The graphics were also bugging me. I had always thought that Astafar Unlimited had some of the best graphics of any retail game, but now that I had played Ohlavar Quest, I could see where my old game was severely lacking. The lizard mobs had no facial expressions, their teeth didn’t look sharp, and their jaws hung open at the same angles. I could see the pixels at the edges of their saw blade swords, and they just looked like clones of each other. All the NPCs in Zarra’s game, even the town folk, had looked unique, and I kept thinking about the various facial expressions that the AI had given Kimmel during our interaction. They had spent a lot of time just to make sure that a minor boss looked-ultra realistic.

“Test their game? Did you play it at all?” Garf asked.

“Yeah. It needs a tiny bit of polish, but I’m kind of in love with it.”

“What?” Both of my friends sounded surprised.

“Jin--” Jax began

“Shaddup and go pull more mobs!” Garf shouted, and the armored avatar ducked back around the first corner to grab the third and final group of lizardmen.

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

“It’s just really damn good. It feels like real life. I don’t know how they did it, but damn guys. I’d bet money that they will take a serious chunk of the market from Astafar Unlimited. Maybe not all of it, but dang.”

“What’s so good about it?” Garf asked.

“I’ve got the NDA I signed. So I can’t go into detail. It just feels like real life, only it is this great fantasy world.” I was slaying monsters with ease now, and the class buffs were allowing me to move faster against the weapon swing limits of the game.

“Can I play it? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you get excited about a game since this one,” Garf said.

“I wanna play also. Wouldn’t it be sweet if we could all jump in and play test it for a year?” Jax said.

“Yeah, that would be cool.” I thought about what my blond Viking looking friend said and then considered my last conversation with Zarra. After we had enjoyed breakfast with her parents, she had walked me to the jet pod and given me a printout and datapad with the terms of their contract. Then she had reviewed the feedback I had told her last night about the game, said it would be improved in the next day, and asked me to seriously consider her offer.

I would be able to find the fifteen relics much faster with the three of us playing together as a team.

I also knew my two friends would love the game. Heck, they would probably never want to log out. Jax loved fucking around with NPCs, and Garf was the kind of guy that knew all the lore of Astafar Unlimited. He even wrote fan fiction in his spare time. Of course, it wasn’t really fan fiction. He was so famous that he actually got his stuff published and made good money from the novels. He would be really interested in learning all about Ohlavar Quest’s history.

I knew both of them would be blown away. Just like I had been.

“Alright. We are clear,” Garf said in the general party channel.

“Wow! That was so fast! I’ve never made it past this room,” one of the men laughed.

“You are in good hands with us,” I said, and I saw their avatars nod.

We moved through the dungeon at a casual speed. The three of us could have gone a lot faster, but we didn’t want to risk one of the mobs killing the guys that hired us for the exhibition, so we played the encounters as safe as possible. Soon we were at the first boss battle. It was a giant lizard death knight warrior that was half decaying flesh and half skeleton. The monster carried a giant war hammer, and his smashing attack could take out an entire party if they weren’t careful.

“Stand where Leo stands and attack when he does,” Garf instructed the two men playing with us, and they ran to stand near me as I flanked the giant boss mob.

The lizard death knight charged at us with a roar. The cry had once seemed real to me, and this encounter had amazed me with the cool design of the boss, but now I was only thinking about what Ohlavar Quest would have for big boss monsters. The swings of this boss were easy to anticipate, and we jumped away from his charge easily.

“I’m hitting Pray to Ancestors. Jax, you got me?” I asked as I dashed to the lizard’s back. The skill multiplied my damage and added more speed buffs. It also made it more likely for the monster I was attacking to want to turn around and hit me. This was often called aggro or when the monster focused its attacks on a target. If you were a damage dealing type class, you didn’t want to get aggro. If I did, I would probably die and have to respawn so Jax would have to work to keep the boss’ attention.

“Yeah, hit it,” he said.

I triggered the skill and started smashing my claws into the undead beast. The buffs quickly began to stack on me, and I felt the throttle of the game increase so that I could attack quicker. Soon it was at maximum fluidity, and I was hitting the virtual air as quickly as I could shadow box. This was the only class in the game that could attack as fast as a human could. I heard the crowd scream through my helmet and I felt my mouth curl into a smile. That would be one aspect I would miss if I retired from Astafar Unlimited. The feedback of the crowds was a whole drug in itself.

But I was bored of the fame as well. This was fun; playing with my friends and getting immediate feedback. But always having paparazzi in my face, not being able to date anyone without seeing it on the cover of every magazine and watching news footage of my face on all the news stations was exhausting. I hated that I felt this way. It was what I always wanted.

Be careful what you wish for.

The thudding in my arms became almost a consistent vibration as my fists spun with punch attacks. I couldn’t have hit this fast without Jax’s incredible skill at the game. He was making sure that the giant lizard death knight didn’t turn around to smash me, and I knew that I would feel a lot better about retiring if I could bring my two best friends to play with me in Ohlavar Quest.

Would Zarra let them play test? Would she pay them the millions that they were already making? Could I give them some of my interest in the company?

Was I actually thinking about this seriously?

The boss fell, and I heard the screams of the crowd penetrate my helmet.

“Hey, you two are pretty good. The five of us missed our best team time by only six seconds. That was when we were with Sonya Sun and Jimmy Tran,” Garf said on the team channel.

Sonya Sun and Jimmy Tran were ringers who we often played with. We didn’t use them this year during our team tournaments because Sonya just had her first child, but they were both good friends and wonderful teammates who I’d played with for five or six years.

“Thank you!” one of the men, Jake I believe, said with exuberance. “We’ve been practicing for the last month. But you three are doing most of the work. Especially the Champ.”

“I couldn’t do all that damage without Jax. He couldn’t do his job without Garf keeping him alive. It’s a team effort,” I said.

“Let’s see if we can beat our best time on the final boss. I think we’ve only got six more groups to pull,” Garf said, and the other two men nodded.

“So Leo, do you think your fiancé will let us play with her game,” Jax asked after we’d plowed through the next group of lizard fighters and lich warlock summoners.

“I can ask her,” I said as I dodged a fireball from one of the monster warlocks. I used to think that the flames in this game looked amazing, but now I saw their tiny pixels, and I knew that I couldn’t feel the heat of the magic as it almost hit me.

“Notice how he didn’t correct fiancé,” Garf remarked to Jax.

“Oh, I noticed,” the Viking man said, and then he started to hum Here Comes the Bride.

“I think I changed my mind about asking her,” I groaned, and my two friends chuckled.

“Okay, last boss fight. This guy is a lizard warlock. He is going to summon giant death knights that are about half as powerful as the first boss. Jax is going to tank them and kind of lead them around the map counterclockwise. Don’t kill any of those death knights. If you do, the warlock boss will hit us all with powerful lightning bolts. Just focus your damage on the big lizard warlock. The area will also fill with lava, and then poison gas, and then slime. There are little safe zones on top of the pillars. Make sure you follow Leo to them. Understand?” Garf asked the two men after he explained the strategy.

“I think we’ve got it,” one of them said, and the other nodded.

“Okay. Jax, ready? Leo, ready?” Garf asked.

“Yep,” we both replied and then we dashed into the boss room.

The big lizard-lich-warlock spawned in the middle of the crypt area and then went to summon his three guardian death knights. Jax and I were already pounding on him before the first one was summoned, and my friend disengaged from the main boss for a few seconds so that he could whack the knight with his mace. Then he returned to hit the boss three more times before he went to hit the second knight that was summoned. Then he was busy keeping the knights from smashing the rest of us, and couldn’t contribute any damage toward the warlock.

That was fine. The secret to this boss was not killing the guards, and as long as a healer could keep the party alive through the light spells that he cast, the damage dealers of the group were free to do their thing.

“Lava coming,” Garf warned after I’d used a bunch of my damage skills and had ripped almost half of the health from the warlock.

“Over here,” I told the two executives, and they ran to me as I jumped on the edge of one of the columns. The lava filled up the area we fought in, and we all took refuge at three different platforms. The real challenge with this part was that Jax couldn’t dodge any of the lizard death knight attacks while the lava was flooding the room. So he had to use all of his defensive skills and rely on Garf’s healing to keep him alive.

The lava wasn’t hot.

The smoke didn’t choke me.

The ground didn’t shake, and the death knights’ screams didn’t deafen me. These were just bigger versions of the enemies we had fought on the way here, and I was suddenly struck by how lazy the game designers were. Everything I saw in Ohlavar Quest was unique, from the road to the sky to the birds to the homes to the clothes the people wore. The NPCs were the most unique of them all, and while I hadn’t really seen any monsters during my brief play time, Kimmel, his three men, and the guards that chased me had all appeared differently.

Astafar Unlimited felt bland and repetitive now.

“Damage back on the boss,” Garf ordered, and the three of us sprinted back to slam our weapons into the warlock.

We repeated the steps two more times when gas and slime filled the room. Then the giant boss let out a final spray of death magic before he died. I had warned the two tagalongs before he shot his final spray, and everyone managed to avoid a last second party member death.

“Ahhh, missed our best boss time by ten seconds. Still a great job,” Garf said.

“If you two ever decide that this whole ‘running Disney’ thing isn’t working out, you might have a career in pro gaming,” I said to the two men. Both of them laughed and then the five of us logged out of the demonstration game.

Assistants helped us all get out of our Omni stations, and then the five of us bowed to the stadium crowd. The dungeon was normally a two-hour run, but we’d been able to finish it in thirty-two minutes. There were already replays starting on the screens, and some people had brought their own helmets so that they could plug into the system and toggle between each of our point of views during the replay.

“What is next?” I asked Sal as he led the three of us off the stage and through the tunnel toward the locker room.

“You’ve all got some interviews, and then we are heading to one of the parks for some photo ops. They want to get you with all the characters,” Sal explained to the three of us.

“And then we are leaving tomorrow?” I asked.

“Day after. Another day of park hopping. Then we are heading to the Caribbean. Gonna be great, boys!”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said.

We walked into the locker room, and the four of us stopped short. A well-dressed man sat on one of the benches. He was flanked by two military-looking gorillas dressed in suits, and he smiled at us as soon as we walked in through the doors.

“President Arnesto?” The four of us asked at the same time.

“Hey, gang. I just saw the demo. You three looked great,” the President of Astafar Unlimited LLC said with a smile. His skin was a dark coffee color, and he wore a brown suit with a mustard bow tie. He was always a snappy dresser, and I felt an incredible respect for the man that had built my favorite video game.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here, Arnie. Why didn’t you say something?” Sal asked.

“It was kind of a last-second thing, Sal. Sorry for surprising you. I know you hate that kind of stuff. Hey, I know you all have an interview waiting in the lobby once you get changed. Any chance I can take a walk with the champ for a few minutes while you all handle some interview questions?” Arnesto looked at me and unleashed his perfect smile.

“Yeah. I guess that is okay.”

“I’ll walk with you both,” my manager said.

“Sal, I just need a few minutes alone with the champ. We aren’t going to be talking any numbers or anything. I just need his advice. Cool?”

“I guess… Just for a few minutes?” Sal obviously wasn’t okay with this, but Arnesto was a powerful man, and while he couldn’t end my career with a command, he controlled all aspects of the game I made my living off of.

Not that Arnesto would ever want to end my career. I’d known the man as an uncle for ten years. He seemed almost as committed as Sal was to making sure I flourished as a competitor. If I did good and continued to win, the game got more subscribers and made more money. Garf, Jax, and I were practically the multi-racial poster boys for the electronic sport.

“Yeah. No worries, Sal. Let’s take a walk, Leo,” President Arnesto nodded to his bodyguards.

There was another door on the side of the locker rooms that led to the shower and secondary equipment rooms. We walked through the narrow hallways for half a minute, and I waited for the man to speak.

“Listen, Leo, I know you are bored,” he finally said as he gestured to a bench.

“No sir, I’m not bored.”

“Oh, come on Leo. You haven’t called me ‘sir’ in like eight years, and I know you are bored.”

“Haha. Okay, Arnie,” I sighed as I sat down next to him. “Maybe I am a little bored. But it doesn’t matter. I’m still in it to win. This is my job, and I’m not going to be that guy that is ungrateful for the opportunities I’ve been afforded by you and your game.”

“Hmmm,” he nodded and looked at me with his polished smile. “So you wouldn’t ever think about retiring?”

“I ahhh. Where is this coming from?” I asked as my heart began to pick up pace.

“Leo, I know about this Arnacript company.”

“I’ve play tested a lot of games Arnie,” I said with a shrug, and I tried to keep my poker face. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the man had never talked to me before about play testing other games. He wasn’t a fool. If anything, he was a genius, and he understood gamers and the virtual reality game market better than anyone else alive.

Was he afraid of Arnacript’s game?

He probably should be.

“We’ve got some stuff coming down the road with Astafar Unlimited. You are going to love it, Leo. We are making another huge improvement to the graphics, and we are working with the Omni stations so that they give better tactile feedback. The game is going to get some new dungeons, difficulty levels, and a few extra classes.”

“Sounds great,” I said, but I didn’t really feel any excitement.

“I’ve never really brought you in at a development level. This was my mistake, and I want to change that moving forward. No one knows this game like you; well Garf and Jax also. I want to bring them into the fold as well, but I want to make sure that you are on board.”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“I’d like to give you a piece of my empire. I told Sal I wouldn’t talk money, so I won’t right now. I just want to know if the idea interests you. I don’t think that you’ll lose your title for another five, maybe six years, but who knows? It could be shorter, could be longer. Do you really want to be the champion for twenty more years? Let me tell you about age. It sucks. I can only play for a few hours before I just get too tired of all the running around.” Arnie laughed, and I found myself chuckling with him.

“So here is the thing, Leo,” his face turned suddenly serious. “I don’t know what they offered you, but I’ll do my best to beat it. I just want you on my team, for a long time. Please tell me you will consider it?”

“I will, Arnie,” I said with a nod.

“Great! I’ll send some stuff over to Sal. Let’s talk after your vacation. I’m probably going to swing by the island for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to talk business then. I want you to take time off and not think about anything. Then we can start fresh when you get back. I really want to show you all the stuff we are working on. You are going to love it.”

“I’m sure I will,” I smiled at him and tried to keep my heart from racing. How the fuck did Arnesto know about my trip? How did he know it was competition?

He must have heard the talk between Garf, Jax, and I.

I almost put my hand on my face. I should have known that the chat channel wouldn’t have been entirely private. All that stuff flows through their servers. I guess it didn’t make that much of a difference. If anything, there was more money and development work on the table now. Maybe I could have Sal play both sides off of each other.

The situation still felt a little weird to me, and I wondered if Arnesto had spies in Zarra’s company. Maybe he knew how great her game was.

“I’ll let you get back to your interviews, and I’ll see you on vacation.” The man held out his hand, and I shook it. “I’m glad we had this talk. It makes me feel a lot better about your future.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said as I forced a smile to my lips.

The smile dropped from my face as soon as I turned my back to the man and walked toward the locker room. His choice of saying “your future” wasn’t exactly comforting, and I suddenly wished that Sal had walked with us.

My decision just got a bit more complicated.