His plan was ruined.

An entire year down the drain.

The room blurred and started swimming, and Mike was cackling so loudly that the GameShop employee had to tell him to quiet down.

Instead of three squad members with 10k AP, he had two squad members with 900 AP. Literally everything about his strategy would have to change, and it would have to change right now. Once he selected his team, he couldn’t change the jobs they held, only the distribution of AP. Tournament rules.

Should he stay with a geomancer? The geomancer was his trump card, but only when they were fully tricked out. Could he make a 900 AP geomancer work? And then he’d be stuck with half the damage-dealing capability he was used to, while the enemy’s damage would only be cut by a third. He had to make it work. He hadn’t played as any of the other classes since he’d settled on his trifecta, and just an archer and a rogue together were untenable.

Or were they? With 900 AP his rogue could get some basic traps and some basic stealth capabilities. For most players that wouldn’t be enough protection for the archer, but Jake wasn’t most players. And with only 900 AP per character, his opponents wouldn’t be as formidable as he was used to.

“It’s okay man,” said Todd. “After the tournament, you still got your old crew online. Life isn’t just about winning.”

“Yes it is,” said Jake.

“Dude, seriously…” Todd was only trying to help, but the fact was that the man didn’t have to spend double-shifts at a dirty convenience store just to live in a cockroach-infested apartment. He could relax because he didn’t have to win.

Jake had no such luxury. “I am going to win. It’ll just be harder than I thought.”

Todd shrugged. “If it’s worth so much to you, I’m sure you’re going to do great.”

The GameShop employee started calling out the first matches. Todd was against Mike, and Jake was against Brendan. Both games would take place simultaneously, and after they finished, the next two matches of round 1 would occur.

Jake went to his VR headset and started plugging in. The shell covered his eyes and ears, a familiar comfort, and it shrunk so it form-fit his head. Then he lay back in the fancy reclining chair they’d set up for the players and relaxed. The Fantasy Tactics Online startup screen came up in its full visual glory, far brighter and clearer than on his personal VR headset.

Then the chair tightened around him, grabbing his arms and legs. Unfamiliar sticky electrodes suctioned onto his skin, a damp discomfort, and then the real world disappeared. He was plunged into the FTO startup sequence, falling through the air in a panic. The character hit the ground and he felt it in his bones.

He heard dim laughter that might have been from the GameShop.

Reality Mode, he commanded.

A tiny screen popped up showing the outside world and removing the noise cancellation effect of the headphones.

“As you can see, we were able to borrow the latest in immersive technology, thanks to our sponsor, the Eagleton Big Money Casino. Would you like to say a few words, Mr. Running-Bear?”

Bernard’s father stepped up next to the GameShop employee. He wasn’t actually Native American at all — he was from an old-money banking family and had married Bernard’s quarter-Cherokee mother — but he dressed in a parody of the culture’s war regalia.

“How,” he said, waving. “It looks like most of you are eighteen, yes? Well, I have good news. If you like the machines we’re loaning for tonight, I want you to know that they’re available at the Eagleton Big Money Casino twenty-four seven, three-sixty-five. Not all of you are going to play with them in the tournament, but they’ll be available afterwards for you to try. They’re completely immersive! If you look on the readout screens—”

He gestured to two televisions that were blacked out by the headset’s algorithm. One would display exactly what the player saw, while the other would provide an overhead view of the battle and some stats on each character.

“— You’ll see that we have the vital stats of the players. As you can see, Mr. Jacob Wagner has an elevated heart rate indicative of excitement. He’s turned on reality mode — hello Jacob! — which means he’s not experiencing the effect right now, and he can’t interact, but his heart rate is still high! And his skin conductance tells an amazing story. Not to mention his face.”

Jake grimaced.

“Go back to the game, Mr. Wagner. You don’t want to get behind in the character selection process. Oh look, another heart rate spike!”

The room filled with laughter.

Fuck that old man and his tricks.

Jake plunged back into the game. The intro cinematic was at the part where a character was plunged into a swamp, and he felt the stickiness, the crawling of worms on his skin.

Character Selection Screen.

The worms were gone, replaced by stale air, bright lights, and the familiar guitar riffs of the competitive-play character selection screen.

Archer.

The stats for a level 10 Archer popped up, along with the available skills. They didn’t show any that cost over 900 AP.

Select Archer.

A screen popped up — Archer selected.

Rogue.

Select Rogue.

— Rogue selected.

Continue.

— Is this your selection? You will not be able to change this for the duration of the tournament.

Yes.

— Your opponent’s characters are a Warrior and a Priest.

Classic healer-tank combo. It was kind of embarrassing how basic it was.

Yet, it was effective.

Bernard and his dad were perfectly willing to do things that were embarrassing but effective.

There was no time to worry about that, however… he had three minutes to assign his AP before the match started.

The randomly assigned map was a hilly plains area, with a river on one edge and a stand of trees in the middle. In online play there would be no hard and fast borders, but in tournament play the field abruptly stopped at an invisible wall that would be marked only by a thick red line on the ground.

The highest point was on the opposite edge of the map from the river, towards the bottom, with five other hills spread out near the borders of the map. As an archer, controlling the highest hill would give him a distinct advantage, especially since neither of the opposing characters had strong ranged attacks.

He pulled up the assignment screen.

Archer

Basic play-style focuses on attack from a distance. Techniques are focused on increasing their versatility.

Multipliers

Power - physical - piercing - 2x

Dex - accuracy - ranged - 2x

Dex - dodge - 1.5x

Max HP - 0.8x

Defense - physical - 0.8x

Chi while running - 0.8x

Chi while walking - 0.8x

Skills

10 AP - Standing Shot - basic ranged attack

10 AP - Arrow Stab - basic melee attack

50 AP - Stealth - can go into stealth; good at hiding, not great at moving quickly while in hiding

100 AP - Piercing Shot - completely ignore armor, but takes 2x as long to draw

150 AP - Running Shot - can shoot while running, but accuracy decreased significantly

200 AP - Long Shot - more accurate at range, but takes 2x as long to draw and costs 2x more chi

250 AP - Hidden Shot - can stay in stealth while shooting

Note: elemental arrows can be combined with any shot for 1.5x the chi

500 AP - Fire Arrow - burn effect

500 AP - Ice Arrow - chill effect

500 AP - Lightning Arrow - spark effect

700 AP - Spread Shot - Shoot three arrows at once which spread out as they fly. Does more damage at close range if more hit, and more likely to hit at medium range.

No skills greater than 900 AP were shown, since they wouldn’t be purchasable anyways. Still, there were a variety of playstyles available.

For the next match he’d have two viable strategies — either pile on so much damage so fast that the priest couldn’t heal fast enough, or sneak around the warrior and isolate the priest. The second was more likely to work.

Select Stealth

Select Hidden Shot

He’d used 300 AP and had 600 left. The question now was whether to invest in an elemental shot or to just buy up everything else. Priests and warriors didn’t have any elemental resistances or weaknesses by default, but the plan would be much more likely to work if he could slow the warrior. On the other hand, having Piercing Shot, Long Shot, and Running Shot would increase the Archer’s versatility considerably. Long Shot especially would be nice from the high hill — in a pure plains scenario with one hill, that would have been the clear winner.

Still, he chose Ice.

Select Ice Arrow

Select Standing Shot

Select Arrow Stab

— Finalize?

Yes.

He flipped to the Rogue’s skill selection screen.

Rogue

Basic playstyle is focused on disappearing, setting traps, and striking from the shadows.

Multipliers

Dex - accuracy - melee - 2x

Dex - dodge - 2x

Dex - counter - 1.5x

Movement - stealth - 3x

Skills

10 AP - attack

10 AP - stealth

50 AP - surprise attack - 3x damage if attacking from stealth. Removes stealth.

Note: all traps take 3 seconds to create and are difficult to detect, unless otherwise stated. AOE effects will set off explosion and ice traps, but not regular attacks.

100 AP - sticky trap - Cause movement to stop for 5 seconds for anyone stuck in trap. Great for setting up backstabs or creating choke points.

150 AP - backstab - 2x damage if attacking from the back, even if not in stealth.

200 AP - explosion trap - Causes fire damage (large) when triggered.

250 AP - shadow flash - AOE effect around rogue. slow enemy movement and actions by 50% for 3 seconds. Great for getting to where you can enter stealth.

400 AP - ice trap - Causes ice damage (medium) when triggered, and freezes the target completely for 3 seconds. Chilled for 5 seconds afterwards. 5 seconds to create.

700 AP - disappear - disappear for 10 seconds. Can run while in this state, but can’t attack. Can still be hit by AOE effects. Takes 30% of chi to initiate and cannot exit early.

His Rogue’s job in this match would be to sneak up on the Priest and do as much damage as possible in a very short amount of time. This made selecting the first set of skills easy.

Select Attack

Select Stealth

Select Surprise Attack

Select Backstab

Select Shadow Flash

That used up 470 AP. He had 430 left. Should he buy the ice trap or the explosion trap and sticky trap?

Select Sticky Trap

Select Explosion Trap

They were both quicker to create than the ice trap, and they could create more damage or a longer trapped effect, although not both at the same time.

—Finalize?

Yes.

His characters appeared on the map, near the bottom. Convenient — climbing the hill with his archer and setting traps with the rogue would be his first priority, and he could get a good start before the warrior made his way across the field.

He had some time while Bernard selected his AP.

Reality Mode.

On the other screen, he could see that Todd had selected Barbarian (no surprise) and Summoner, while Mike had selected Paladin and Mage. Jake had no illusions about who would win, and about how hard fighting a Paladin and Mage would be with his current setup — a choice that was likely deliberate — but that was for the final match.

He looked around the room and saw the girl staring intently at the screen with his own stats. Her hand was in the burlap bag again, clutching some item even more tightly than before. It wasn’t mace, then. After all, he was laying back in a chair, completely unthreatening. Then what could it be? Her face was hopeful.

A sound from the game drew him back.

— Match starting in 3… 2… 1….