Into the fourth hour of my stream, I felt a bit manic and out of control. Less than a minute before, another bigger streamer who also played Realms of Ifaneli had just dumped a streaming raid on me and I had never had so many eyes watching me at one time.

I understood the reason why. We were in the thick of it. The patch dropped today at midnight Pacific and we'd all downloaded it, installed, and since we'd logged out right outside the dungeon, we entered the exact moment we could. Buffed and cleared the first six bosses after only a few wipes. We'd even found the three rare spawns.

I was so tired, but forced a smile on my face. There were a hundred and thirty four new people watching me, afterall.

I brightened my smile just a smidge. "Hey everybody! Thanks to SirFragzalot for Raiding! I hope you're right Fragzalot that this is going to be a cool stream." I winced. So cringe. "We're about to go deep in the depths of The Funnel of Madness to fight the Lich. Just waiting on my guildies to come back from AFK and we're gonna kill this sucker."

My whole body pulsed with adrenaline. A hundred and thirty four — no three — no two — people were watching. I was losing them. I felt a bit stupid having so many people with eyes on me, but if I was going to make being a streamer work, I'd have to get used to it. Self-consciousness or not. Otherwise I'd have to go out and get a fast food job to pay rent.

"Peregrine? You there?" Over voice comms, my fellow late-night raider Kitch was back from his bio.

Remember Kaylee, act like nobody's watching.

"Hey, Kitch. Yeah, I'm here." I smiled wider than it felt normal to do and I purposely did not look at my stream stats.

"Just reading the strat logs from Test and the change log for the Update. There's something the devs added to the patch that's supposed to trigger in Phase 2 but it's not in the Test strats. We should be ready for that, but no worries."

Something about Kitch's deep voice made everything feel comfortable like we might actually be able to succeed at this.

I took a breath and then depressed my push-to-talk button on my mouse. "Thanks for looking that up, Kitch, you're the only reason Late Night Crew is even progressing." It was true. Kitch had switched from the A Team progression raid to ours when his schedule at work changed. A Team and B Team ran in the evenings and were full of our best raiders and their alts. Even C Team was early morning on weekends full of folk who could be on the A Team. Late Night Crew, well up until Kitch switched a few months ago, had been the people who didn't even get to run on their mains for any of the alt raids. The misfits. The weirdos. And Kitch.

He had turned everything around. We went from zeroes to doing server firsts. Now according to my chat it seemed like we were about to do a world first. If we downed the Lich it would be. Across the world, raid guilds were all fighting and wiping in this dungeon right now. Some even on this boss.

Late Night Crew was the only group in our guild keyed for the new raid in time for the patch and last week before the key despawned, the other four from the A Team had subbed in to grab it.

I realised I'd been just staring at the screen all quiet and knew I had to speak.

To my audience I chatted. "Not our regular Night Crew tonight. Since the recent update, we have a couple of the A Team slotted in this run." I panned my screen over the geared-out members of our raid. Next to them Kitch's avatar waved and then danced.

"KitchenSimon on main healer. I'm on tank heals. My roomie Tudojoia on DPS. There's the deeps over there: Courtesy, Humplains," I purposely pronounced it Hum-Plains with a pause between the words because that drove him batty. "FairDinkies enchanting the legendary bow she just got the last fight." That's where the regular Night Crew ended. You could tell since all the avatars I named were doing dances and goofing off like we normally did. Plus our gear was haphazard and not optimised.

The remaining players were kitted out with best-in-slots gear. Only one joined in the stupidity of the rest of us and that was because Chocoboss was young and silly. My little guild brother. "Chocoboss is offtanking. Hey dude."

"'Sup Peres?"

"And there's GoGo, Halliday all on DPS. And—" I paused to look at our main tank. Best on the server. Raidleader of A Team. Guildleader. The guy everyone on the forums @mentioned. And my ex-boyfriend, Matt.

"—Valhz on main tank."

Chocoboss used a harmless tinkerer firework that lit up the screen. He spun around in circles.

My view count suddenly dropped by about twenty. I tried not to look like I cared at all.

C'mon Kaylee. Be entertaining! I could hear an echo of Valhz' voice. Back when we were together and our computers were set up right next to one another and we streamed on his channel. Ages ago. Eons ago. Well, last year.

"I'm Kaylee — Peregrine — and I play different games every night, but mostly Realms of Ifaneli. I've got five max level characters, but right now I'm playing my Dieux Priestess. If we down the Lich tonight, I'm hopeful that my helm will drop because I'm leading DKP."

I'd also been highest healing for the whole of the dungeon so far. Whoever designed these bosses made them mostly tank and spanks with lots of heavy damage on the tanks. Last fight a clutch heal from Kitch had stopped Valhz from dropping when I ran out of mana and some AOE knocked me out. It had been down to just Valhz and Kitch up. They duo'd the last quarter of the boss' health. It's how we even downed it.

Now we were on the Lich. Final boss of the dungeon. A really complicated fight and one that'd require all of my focus.

I depressed the push-to-talk. "Everyone here?"

There was a chorus of the others all announcing they returned from AFK. All of them, except for Matt.

Where was Valhz? We were waiting a bit too long. I'd buffed everyone as soon as we were back up from the last fight and they were ticking low so I'd need to reapply them. Plus, the longer we idled, my viewers continued to drop.

Discord chat was murmuring constantly in my ear, but it was the general hubbub of a bored bunch of guildies who would probably lose steam if they didn't get going soon.

My livestream chat was active. I muted one guy for a bunch of trolling and responded to some other comments," Oh yeah. I look frustrated because we don't typically AFK this long. We'll have to rebuff for sure for this attempt." It was also 4 am and we couldn't go past 5.

A follower chatted to tell me that our closest competition for world first had wiped on the Lich's first phase. That was really good news.

I let my guildies know over voice chat. Everyone cheered. "Let's goooo!" Chocoboss yelled so loudly it caused feedback from someone else's speakers.

I tried very hard not to look over at the laptop perched on the side of my computer desk. Before buying my new rig, it had been what I gamed on. At the moment, it had one screen up and it was a different view of the same dungeon full of the same people with a small window showing an empty desk where Matt should be sitting. His view count was always at about 400 during the A Team raid nights. Tonight it was really high.

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As I babbled inanely to the people watching me, my mind was distracted with thoughts of Matt. What was he doing? Did he know that I watched his channel with a sockpuppet account? Where was he? This was the longest freaking AFK ever—

Just then, Matt came into view. Not just him, but also Her. I forgot all about my own chat and keeping up the conversation. I might have just trailed off in the middle of a sentence.

She was carrying a laundry basket and went around the room completely in view of the camera. I didn't have audio on from Matt's stream and he was muted in Discord. It was clear that the discussion between them was heated. From the way Matt acted, he probably had no idea he left the stream up and no doubt he hadn't even muted his mic on that channel.

I tore off my headset and pressed the up volume on my laptop. I am sad to say I forgot my own stream as I stared, riveted, at Matt's stream.

"— can't believe you! This is the third time you are playing after midnight and you missed an appointment with our therapist so you could nap for this!" She waved her manicured hand at the computer set up. She was grabbing things from shelves and tossing them into the laundry basket. She yelled and tossed. Yelled and tossed. "How am I supposed to explain to someone I'm paying hundreds of dollars to see that you missed it for some videogame that you play with your ex-girlfriend?"

I felt my cheeks heat. I wasn't sure to be embarrassed because it was clear from Her tone that it was childish and stupid to play the game but then also maybe She was jealous that he spent so much time with me...and fifty-seven of our closest guild mates. That last thought made me frown and not feel quite so special.

"Look, babe." At Matt's pet name for Her, I cringed. He used to call me that. To be fair, I had kinda hated it, but it was even worse to know that he called Her the same pet name. "She means nothing to me. Just we're actually on the final boss of Shade and if we get him down tonight we'll be a server first. Maybe even a world first. Babe, can you stop grabbing your Funkos. C'mon, babe. Don't do this now, please."

"What? Don't want me to leave while you have your stupid little game to play?" She grabbed another Funko Pop and She shook it at him threateningly, "We haven't even had sex for the past three weeks because of this Tunnel—"

"—Funnel." He corrected and then visibly winced as She gaped incredulously at him.

"Seriously? Seriously!" She grabbed something from the shelf, it looked shiny and plastic but was not a Funko Pop and She hurled it at him. Her aim was off, what with balancing the now quite full laundry basket on one arm, but nearly clipped him in the head.

Matt ducked and then stood up giving his Look. It was the most smug, most smarmy, most stupid looking face he ever gave. He was always trying for Cheeky Devil but it usually came off more as Pompous Ass.

She had something in her free hand. It was shiny, dark and plastic. There was a black fabric cape and a long red lightsaber.

Oh no. I recognized what it was. Probably Matt's most prized possession. It wasn't mint-in-box, but it was from his childhood.

"Hey babe. Please put Darthy down. Please. Babe? He doesn't deserve this. Neither do I. It's just a game."

He was lucky She missed him. Darth Vader — all 12 inches of him — flew past. Then She grabbed something else and hurled it at him. More things that were clearly his action figures. They flew across the room to the sound of crunching and thuds as they hit the far wall. Then one smashed right into Matt's shoulder and went careening toward the camera. It landed short, but was very dramatic.

"Just a game? Just a game!"

Did he know that he was streaming this?

I thought for a moment about how I should feel bad for watching this fight live on his stream. I should possibly text or call Matt to let him know he was live. But then I saw his views were way higher than normal as people jumped into watch reality streaming at its finest. Also, people were practically spamming the channel with tips. So maybe it was actually helping him not to let him know, right?

Matt's gaming room was a battlefield of tossed collectibles. Nothing was spared. She'd even punched the cardboard cutout of the Paladin from Ifaneli in the face. Multiple times. It only hung by a bent cardboard hinge.

I winced. Matthew had been stoked to get the cardboard Paladin from his job at GameStop. I remembered him gushing about how many extended warranties he sold that weekend to get it.

With the murder of the cardboard Paladin done, She was out of physical ammunition and instead went for verbal. "What a waste of a year of my life. I'm done. I'm so done. You were shit in bed anyway." With that truth bomb dropped, She just stomped off-screen.

Matt stared after Her and he took way too long to react. He then shot Her the middle finger. The chat went wild. People were spamming truly insulting emojis and it was unclear who the recipient was since it was scrolling so fast. There were thousands of people watching. He might have made the Main Page.

Did Matt truly just give his girlfriend the middle finger? Did She say he was bad in bed? Was it true? I didn't have much experience with sex, but he had been my First and it hadn't been too bad. I didn't think. But then again, he had been the one who cheated because apparently our sex life was boring. Was that irony?

Defiant Matt with the middle finger suddenly cowered and looked very apologetic as She came back into the camera view. "Oh yeah? You want to tell me to fuck myself? Well guess what? Fucking myself is way more enjoyable than fucking you."

I gasped and I wasn't the only one since chat switched emojis to the Shocked Face. So many Shocked Faces.

Matt ran off-screen, was gone for a minute, then he ran on-screen and up to the camera. His eyes were raging with anger. He put on his headset and looked at the monitor where he typically had Discord up. He unmuted himself to the guild.

"I'm back. Buff up and let's do this."

I reached up to adjust my headset but then realised the headset was nowhere near my head. I grabbed it off my desk, held the mic up to my mouth and pushed press-to-talk button. "Okay everyone. Incoming buffs. Kitch repeat the strat?"

"Sure, Peregrine." As Kitch repeated the strategy he'd found from the raiders on the test server, I buffed the group and doled out potions.

I wanted to know if Matt had any idea that his chat was full of questions like whether his ex-girlfriend was as hot of a thot as his current one. But he rarely interacted with his chat while raiding so maybe he hadn't seen the activity.

If I hadn't known Matt for as long as I had, I would have guessed he was faking the fight for the views. But how many times had Matt said he didn't like fighting and abhorred faking it for the views. He wouldn't AFK for this long without a real reason. He was always spouting off about "integrity" and "loyalty."

Yet, he was the one who cheated.

My own stream had been chatting on without me. The view count was down to about the same as it ever was. My one mod had booted some randos who asked for foot pics and there was an exodus after that. Probably all headed to see the drama on Matt's stream.

Part of me felt bad for Matt, but there was a part — the petty part — that enjoyed seeing him get torn apart on stream.

"Served him right." I said, accidentally, out loud. Oops. I had automatically pressed the push-to-talk.

"What's that Peres?" Chocoboss asked me.

"Uhh. Just we're gonna serve this boss." I covered for my weirdness. I think.

We set up all ready to rush into place as soon as Kitch gave the order. "Okay. Small pull FairDinkies."

On that command, FairDinkies shot an arrow from range at the item in the room which those on the test server had said would summon the Lich. If the raid was in the room with him, he'd send out an attack that caused a debuff where you could not heal any health back for 2 minutes. Since we were all hiding in the doorway, it theoretically wouldn't affect us.

Sure enough the Lich appeared in the center of the room and a wash of dark magic spread out around him. It hit nobody. Success.

"Tanks now." Valhz took over the orders then.

Both Chocoboss and Valhz rushed in to tank sharing the threat so that the Lich was turned this way and then that way as he did his gaze attack. I healed through the gazes. They hit like a truck. First Choco's health plummeted. Then Valhz took damage. My heal over time spell barely had time to top them off before they'd switch and then I'd have to spam full heals on them.

I had my focus on their health bars and balanced my mana use. I couldn't see the boss's health or the output of the DPS, but felt that thrill when I heard Valhz announce, "Health's almost at 50%, incoming phase 2."

I barely noticed that the room around us changed colours as strange symbols began to glow in a circle around the Lich.

"Everyone in the circle! Stack up!" Valhz commanded. We all rushed into the circle close to the Lich's feet, stacking upon one another. At that point, only Valhz continued hitting the boss. I laughed as Chocoboss's avatar began dancing sexily in the Lich's crotch.

"Ready? 5-4-3-2-1. Phase 2!"

I felt a strange buzzing in my ears and the weird sensation of dropping from a large height extremely fast. Then there was an audible popping sound.

And my room was gone.

Darkness. The only other time I experience something like that was when I fainted during a choral concert in junior high. One moment I was singing Under the Sea and the next the world sucked in on itself and darkness overcame everything.

This was that, only the darkness was coloured deep greens and purples. It swirled. For a moment, I could hear the others in the raid crying out. Then I heard a pop and static sizzle. Then silence.

In that place of in-between and nothing only one thing came out clear. A singular voice in an accent that sounded unfamiliar and at the same time carried a hint of old-timey radio man.

"Welcome to the Funnel! It's a World First!"