October 15, four and a half months after MAA's closure. Caroline is streaming her new game of choice, looking like some crossover of chess and RPG to the uninitiated. She's about to defeat her opponent of the moment, a high-level player.

"The opponent made one mistake too many and I'll win this game!" Caroline exclaims as she launches an attack on her opponent's final piece, after moving her hurt ranger her allotted 3 spaces on the grid.

Both players are down to their last pieces. The opponent's mistake was to make a weaker, but can't miss attack, leaving me with an opening to fire the poisoned arrow. That arrow should be enough to kill the opponent... she starts thinking about what options she might have to finish this game. The arrow may not necessarily kill the opponent outright, but the poison will after the arrow hits. There are some risks to take, but it's my best bet.

Their health bars come up on screen, and the animation comes up for an attack. So while Caroline's piece is on a back diagonal of the opponent's on the map, the ranger fires a poisoned arrow at it. People in her chat cross their fingers for a few seconds, hoping for the best. The initial poisoned arrow impact barely leaves the enemy alive.

But when the opponent's turn comes, the poisoned arrow takes its toll and the game ends. With the death of the opponent's final piece. Caroline's chat comes alive after that game.

Glitter: Now that's what I call a Parthian shot!

Capitolium: The time has come for you to do more than just play this game on air

"What do you mean?" Caroline asks her follower on voice.

So what could I possibly do on a stream that doesn't involve actively playing that game? A dumbfounded Caroline scratches her head, a little apprehensive. After all, I built this stream on my own gameplay skills, ever since I started streaming MAA while it was around! Would people keep watching me?

Capitolium: I issue you a challenge: you have thirty days, starting from November 1, to write a hockey romance, of fifty thousand words or more!

"That's a very tight deadline for someone with no real experience of romance writing! Also, what's in it for me?" Caroline asks, not knowing whether she can even accept it.

I get it, she has to start somewhere, but I feel like she also has to break out of her gaming shell! I watched her ex-teammate in MAA during Operation Heathrow's RWF, Capitolium starts sweating while he struggles to think of how making her break out of her gaming shell would benefit her. Or what incentive that subscriber would provide her to accept it.

"I feel that something's fishy about this challenge. What makes you think that someone with no real experience of romance writing could write a hockey romance, no matter how horrible, in thirty days?" Caroline starts questioning its feasibility. "Please come on voice if you can formulate an answer!"

Capitolium then enters Caroline's voice chat channel on her stream's Discord server. "If only you read some of the latest hockey romance releases... you might have a better idea!"

"And then, people in the chat, I have a request for you: since it seems like Capitolium wants to introduce me to hockey romance, I am willing to take your recommendations, so long as it's representative of what hockey romance is all about! However, I will read only one book per author!" Caroline asks her viewers to recommend hockey romance books to her.

Perhaps... if I read some myself, I might have a better idea of how to go around writing one! the streamer starts noting the recs provided by her viewers on her chat.

"Good thing you asked for books that are representative of the genre! Once you read enough of them, under the condition you gave, you'll have a better idea of what I really mean!" the user called Capitolium can't seem to contain his bitterness, but doesn't seem to be willing to expand on its source.

"I guess, but I still wonder what we both gain from the issuance of this challenge!" Caroline, still a little bothered, asks him.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"If you accept it, I will try whatever I can to promote your stream, especially in November. But if you successfully complete it, then I will donate much more regularly, or at least more"

That viewer seems to be implying that he's willing to read a hastily-written, horrible hockey romance book, simply because I would be deemed a new author to his eyes! Caro starts to space out, before voicing another concern to her would-be benefactor.

"I feel like the only way I could make it work is by using AI to write the book"

Glitter: Please don't

Lagado: Why?

Glitter: It will show right through

Caro's viewers start squabbling about AI in creative writing in her chat, with Glitter going to greater lengths to describe how AI-generated books differ from those written manually. As a result, some of these have left her stream.

"Tonight's stream has been ruined! I am in no position to discuss AI in creative writing!" Caroline laments about what's happening in the chat, about which she's clueless.

"The cold, hard truth is that manually written books might also have similar flaws to AI-written ones. Speaking of flaws, make sure your characters have flaws, but don't overdo it" Capitolium harangues her. "For this reason, the challenge must be completed manually!"

"I need some time to think about it"

By then, she goes to farm other in-game items as needed for the game's battle pass. And no, PvP is not the only playing mode of this game. Once that farming ends, Capitolium tells her about the deadline to accept the challenge.

"You have until October twenty-seventh to decide whether to accept or reject the challenge I issued"

"Very well: I am signing off for the night"

As Caro's stream is cut, she realizes that her viewers have given her a long list of hockey romance books to choose from, and several books from certain authors. It's been a while since I read novels of any genre. I only expect there to be hockey and a hockey player falling in love with someone else. Other than that, I have to start somewhere to learn about writing novels, and if it means reading hockey romance, so be it!

But, as she goes on Kindle Unlimited, she is reminded of what she told her followers on air about her choice of books to read: one book per author. Yet she realizes that some authors wrote entire series of such books.

"I guess, if I am to read only one book per author, I may as well read the first book in a series!" Caro sighs. "First come, first served. So I should get an idea of how fast I can read one such book and plan accordingly"

And, as soon as she gets her manifest of books in the order her viewers recommended them to her, she just gets started reading the first book on it. My greatest accomplishment as a gamer was being part of the winning team of the Operation Heathrow RWF. But, since I played video games for years, there's a whole world outside of work and gaming that I have been missing out on, her thoughts start racing as she dips her proverbial toes into that book.

Yet, as she dives deeper into the read, she starts wondering how she would even be able to write a 50,000-word hockey romance in just thirty days. With her mom overhearing her.

"It must be tough to even write a hockey romance, fifty thousand-word long, at all, let alone in thirty days!" she rants about the challenge issued to her on air. "Maybe a more experienced romance writer might be able to, but if I was to do it, it would be... an epic mess!"

"Honey, as a gamer, you have always prided on your skills, and what you did with these skills. We did support you over the years, we left you alone when you needed it, but I think you're due to try something new!" Caroline's mother harangues her daughter.

"Writing hockey romance, something new?" Caro keeps whining. "Maybe if I read that book, I would have a better idea of how to go around writing one!"

"Bon débarras..." (Good riddance) Caro's dad enters the scene. "Elle joue beaucoup trop!" (She games far too much)

With Caro's parents leaving her bedroom, she continues her reading of the first book her viewers recommended her. She gets to that book's meet cute mere moments after her parents' departure.

Once she keeps reading the book, she feels that something is not right. Yes, the meet cute is a cute moment between the two, at least by her standards, but a few chapters in, the seeds of doubt are planted in her mind.

Looks like the author implied the hockey player to have star power commensurate with his cap hit in the $9-10M range, even though the male lead's cap hit wasn't explicitly mentioned. Yet there is no trace of what really goes into the hockey part of the life of a hockey player with a $9-10M cap hit! She muses as her mind keeps track of the couple's spending habits as she goes along reading the book. And coming up with an estimated cap hit and hence on-ice talent level.

But reading a few more chapters have apparently convinced her that this book just didn't seem to have a whole lot to keep her hooked. That, even though it didn't feel like anyone's trauma was overbearing. Or at least not sufficiently prominent in their characters to make her scream:

"Something's not right: why read a book with a hockey-playing male lead whose cap hit is in the nine-to-ten-million-dollar range and whose only character development is about how he improves his sex?" Caro starts screaming about how vapid this reading has been so far.

And she stops reading the first book after finding out that the focus on sex has markedly increased, along with the quality of the sex the couple is having. Maybe this book is a fluke, perhaps the next one will actually have hockey, or at the very least some character development outside of sex!