I glanced into the vanity mirror as Alice lightly applied make-up to my cheeks, tutting when my leg started bouncing nervously once again. Glancing at her in the mirror I gave my best smile, “I’m sorry. Big day and all.”

  I was impeccably groomed with my chestnut brown hair cropped short and styled meticulously, my goatee shaved perfectly. Checking my eyes, I was worried that I’d find them bloodshot and was relieved as I only saw my usual slate gray coloring staring back. The stress was getting to me and Alice had done serious work to make the bags under my eyes vanish. The woman was a real magician, making the discoloration invisible against my olive skin in the course of thirty minutes.

  She gave me a sardonic half smile and looked askance at me through her hanging bleach blonde locks, “You are going to do fine. You have done this a thousand times after all.”

  The corner of my mouth quirked up and I tried to keep the rest of my face unmoving as I said, “The stream isn’t what I’m worried about.”

  “You think he can beat you?.” she asked without looking in my direction.

  Sighing, I answered with as much calm as I could muster, “Anything can happen. I have experience on him but that AI weapon is strong. Lake isn’t a bad player either. I don’t know who his partner is but there is no way he can stand up to Sydney.”

  Her eyes shifted back to mine in the mirror and she said nonchalantly, “You can just call it off.”

  As she finished the touch up I answered softly, “That ship has sailed.”

  The door opened and Sydney entered, her straight black hair with ruby highlights pinned back by headphones. Despite her neat appearance she looked wide-eyed and worried. She stuttered, “I think I have everything set up. We triple checked everything. Your dive chair is ready and the RIG chip is already syncing with it.”

  Alice shifted past her and out into the dark hall and I beckoned Sydney over extending my hands to hers. She did so reticently and I beamed a smile up at her, “Hey, you look more freaked out than me Syd. This is big, but don’t freak yourself out. No one is a better manager or a better rogue player than you. We got this.”

  She managed a smile at me and I stood, leaning down and pressing my lips to her forehead. I chuckled and zipped up the ribbed leather front of my slicksuit as I said, “This will all be over tonight, one way or the other.”

  Raising her chin, I looked down into her eyes still wide with worry and yet all the more beautiful with their aqua blue irises reflecting what I hoped was a reassuring smile, “We are going to celebrate no matter how it ends.”

  Her lips rose into her typical wry smile and she nodded as she checked her tablet, “You got one minute and then start your intro stream. After that we will roll right into the tournament and throw everything casting wise over to Sett, and,” she paused as she double checked the tablet, “I will be in to join you as soon as I can.”

  Nodding, I smiled and put a hand on the back of her head, kissing her forehead again as I said, “I love you Syd.”

  She gulped and her cheeks flushed with color as she growled, “Ok Romeo, you need to start your stream.”

  Chuckling as she hurried out of the room I sighed trying to ignore the stress building in my gut. Glancing at the mirror again I got a more full look at myself. Towering at nearly two meters, I was in pretty good shape, if I said so myself. Daily workouts and martial arts training were a boon to competitive players hoping to reach peak sync through their RIG chips and avatars. I never missed a chance to gain an edge. This was our livelihood after all.

  With a sharp release of breath to steady myself I walked over to a small table and grabbed up my own hand mounted tablet and turned it on. Flicking through all the icons Syd had prepared for me I saw various loading wheels turning in opening windows.

  A light flickered on and I raised the tablet up to get my own face into frame, checking it for the thousandth time as a countdown in the upper right clicked downward toward zero. I paired the tablet with the patch phone pinned to my chest and the haptic links on my thumb and forefinger. I beamed my best smile as I saw my chat populate with a stream of comments. My streaming window was personalized in black and gold and filled with banners for my sponsors.

  There were six thousand viewers and that number was rocketing up. I pulled back the intense metal background music and flicked on my camera through my patch. I purred my introduction as my beaming face came into view, “Yo, it’s your boy VossHallVox. How’s everyone doing this fine evening? As you guys no doubt know we are on a tight schedule today but I wanted to thank my subscribers and all the new viewers streaming in from all parts of the EO-Sphere.”

  I walked out of the room we had appropriated for make-up and into the hall monologuing as I made my way through the office, “Oh, hello there billycash, welcome to the stream. To answer your question, even fans of my opponent are welcome and encouraged to attend.”

  Spying Alice in a side room, I smiled at her and gestured at the camera. She shrugged and walked over. Continuing, I said, “Whoa, there’s Alice. She is usually an indispensable staff member here at our offices but today she is responsible for making this face,” I pointed to my chin,”acceptable for public consumption.”

  Putting an arm around her shoulders, she smiled tightly and offered a wave to the audience. Giving her a smile I said, “We appreciate you,” and glanced at the chat before adding an off-hand,”mods, ban anyone being inappropriate please.”

  Mouthing a thank you to Alice I moved on as she returned to her work. I continued on through a pair of double doors and into our launch studio. A pair of VR suspension dive chairs hung in the darkened room before a pair of massive monitors. Long tables covered with desktop towers and monitors flanked the sides of the room where several members of the staff, including Sydney, checked both the situation on the stream and the status of our RIG chip syncs.

  Using the haptic patch controls on my fingers, I shifted the camera view between the tablet camera to my patch phone’s pov to give the audience a view of the team hard at work before returning the view to myself. I saw various viewers shouting out Sydney in the chat and I smiled wider, “Yeah, this place would fall apart without Syd. Hell, I’m just a pretty face. Syd is the brains and the driving force behind Myriad. Can I get some Voss Hall cheer for Syd.”

  The chat streamed rapidly and I returned the view to a smirking Sydney who was now outfitted in her dive suit. I whipped the camera back around to myself and winked at the viewers, “Alright kids, I’m going to jump into the dive rig and get my kit in line. Next time you see us we will be waiting for the tournament to start. Stay tuned kids, you haven’t seen high level pvp like this in a long time.”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  As I slid into the dive chair the feed switched to a promo that I had paid an outside firm to produce. Tony hurried over and helped me pull on my haptics gloves and attach the cables. Spying Syd out of the corner of my eye, I winked at her. She seemed abnormally stoic and didn’t return the gesture.

  Sighing, I grabbed the helmet as Tony gave me a thumbs up. Tugging it down over my head, I felt someone guide my helmet into the connectors and I was treated to a flash of light revealing the Eternal Online log-in screen. Behind the golden text the world of Esudore turned in ethereal light. I clicked through to the character select screen where my entire list of Master level characters waited.

  Without pausing I chose the top character, Voss, a fully slotted Archmage. The rotating character, who looked almost exactly like me, smiled smugly.

  He was wearing resplendent white robes with golden affectations and holding a staff made of onyx wood. My imp familiar coiled around the character’s neck and gave me a baleful look. Hitting the ‘Enter Eternal Online’ button, I closed my eyes as the brilliant portal opened behind the character and he stepped through.

  When I opened my eyes I was standing in the preparation chamber of the arena. Above me I could hear the roar of the crowd. The thrum of the sound radiated through my haptic skin suit. The imp coiled around to whisper in my ear with a hiss, “Welcome back Master.”

  Ignoring the creature I reached up, flicking open my spell list and gem slots. I started shifting them around on my loadout. Opening a second window I kept an eye on the broadcasters for the event. Blazing Pyre, the developers, had managed to get some young celebrity to cast as announcer alongside a veteran player I had worked with before.

  I got the sense that the celebrity guy might be a little drunk. Wincing at that, I paused checking my loadout as I heard a hiss in the air. Looking over, I saw Sydney’s elven assassin appearing in the world. She quickly started to check her loadout as well. Unlike my avatar Syd’s character, Eklipse, looked nothing like her. She had the typical obscenely long fantasy elven ears, skin the color of marble, and platinum hair bound into a long braid. Her golden eyes shifted to me and I noted again, even through her character, that she looked concerned.

  Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “Syd, is something wrong?”

  Closing my character windows, I walked over to her, putting a hand to her cheek and studying her avatar’s features, “Do we need to postpone this?”

  I tried to hide my concern about having to do that but I was sure she noticed it was there.

  After a brief pause she looked away and pulled my hand off her cheek as she said, “Do we really need to do this at all?”

  Chuckling, I gave her an incredulous look, “This again?”

  “Yes, this again.”

  I tried to hide an annoyed wince with a smile and sighed, “No Sydney, we can’t call off the tournament.”

  “Why?,” she asked while looking at me with pleading eyes.

  She took my hand and pleaded, “This is just a game Mal. You say it all the time that Lake isn’t worth your time. Why does this have to happen?”

  Shaking my head I gave her a tight smile as I looked toward the arena. I rolled my shoulders and answered after a long moment, “If you want to step out of the tournament for personal reasons Syd I can get Shanks in to duo with me…”

  She cut me off with clear emotion in her voice, “I would never abandon you Mal. If you are dead set on this I will be there with you.”

  Turning to look at her I smiled and moved to cup her face in my hands, “Love of my life, after this is over we are taking a month long vacation. It’s you and me, alone on a beach for a month.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she whispered, “Where?”

  Shrugging I raised her hand, kissing her knuckles lightly, “Yeah, I gotta keep some surprises…”

  There was a great metallic gonging sound from the arena above. I sighed and kissed her forehead again as I whispered, “Showtime.”

  I turned, beaming with determination. Summoning my staff, I ordered my imp to become invisible as I said, “Remember, Lake probably brought that idiot Dane with him. He’s a javelin specialist so if you can get in close he won’t be able to hold you off. I’ll keep our boy busy and we’ll be done in less than ten minutes.”

  Offering her a beaming smile she struggled to return, I led the way as we ascended the stairs to the arena above.

  –

  That damnable spear collided with my raised magical shield and blasted it into floating remnants of mana. The blow blew me backward and I skidded to a halt. Steeling myself, I raised my staff and channeled an orb of force into my off-hand as my foe stalked toward me.

  Cameron Lake wasn’t a particularly imposing man. In fact, it had always annoyed me how affable and goofy the ‘Hero of EO’ could be. He was barely six feet tall with tousled sandy blonde hair thrown out of place by a circlet with a vibrant cerulean gem. He wore a suit of plated armor and the tabard for his guild which was a golden trireme on a black background. He carried a circular shield with the same iconography and a long ornate spear limned in golden light.

  Glancing around the arena for a sign of Syd or Lake’s comrade Dane, I saw no sign of them. The two of them moved so quickly that I doubted I would be able to. Nearby the sand exploded from the impact of a thundering javelin but nothing else. I quickly returned my glare to my opponent.

  The man shrugged under his heavy armor and sighed, “Malcolm, I’m begging you to just lay down your staff and end this fight. Trust me.”

  Leveling my staff at him, I fired off six bolts of silver energy that peppered his armor and seemed to cause some damage. I used a Slipshift teleport to blink away as Lake charged me, the spear came down where I had been standing bursting an illusion my skill had left in my wake. When I reappeared I threw a ball of force at Lake and blasted him away and to the ground.

  Sneering with barely restrained rage and disgust at the downed warrior, I charged forward using a burst of energy blasted from my palm into the earth behind me to launch me at the fool. My enemy. Cameron ‘Fucking’ Lake. The endless thorn in my side. Channeling a lance of force from the end of my staff, I came down through the air with the magic construct leveled at his chest.

  My avatar stuttered in mid air. My haptics registered a strike to my lower back and my screen blurred red from a critical hit. My health bar flashed and nearly bottomed out. I was thrown from the air and tumbled like a rag doll through the loose sand of the arena.

  Trying to see through the dazed condition which blurred my screen, I struggled to get my avatar to register my control’s commands. Growling through the channel as my desperation built, I said, “Babe, I’m down. I can’t. I think I’m poisoned.”

  Nearby, Cameron Lake stood looking down at me with a sympathetic expression.

  His damned talking spear spoke in its lilting feminine voice, “We finally have him, Cam! Let me have the final blow!”

  Cameron shook his head and muttered, “No Gildy. That’s not part of the deal.”

  The confusion only had a moment to register before something impacted my chest, a pair of curved blades barely visible at the edges of my vision lanced downward at brutal angles from somewhere above me causing me to snarl as the blows registered through my haptic suit. My hit points plummeted in the upper right. My vision started to clear and I whispered, “What…”

  You have been struck for 1411 damage by player Eklipse!

  You have gained the dazed condition!

  You have been afflicted by Stucktongue Poison!

  You may not cast spells for 10 seconds!

  You are bleeding 111 hp per second for 18 seconds!

  Roaring through the connection, I helplessly watched my health tick away with each second that passed. Looking up, I gritted my teeth as Cameron Lake stepped up to look down at me with a pained expression.

  Gasping, I said, “Syd… it says you…”

  YOU HAVE DIED

  Due to the Condition: Iron Man your avatar may not respawn. All of your current characters have been deleted per the conditions of the Tournament of Champions!

  You will be redirected to the character creation screen shortly.

  Thank you for playing Eternity Online!