Karl stopped one street short of the cafe and put the mask on immediately when no one was looking.
He had been wearing it half the walk anyway, out of habit, but he pulled it up properly now, tugged the hood forward, and checked his reflection in a darkened shop window. A guy in a hoodie with no face looked back at him.
’Good enough.’
Twice on the way here he had caught himself checking corners. A hooded figure outside a pharmacy had turned out to be a teenager waiting for his mother. Karl had still crossed the street.
Elsa spotted him from twenty meters out. He knew because her whole posture changed, hands coming out of her jacket pockets, weight shifting onto her toes, and then her face did something complicated when she registered the mask.
"You have got to be kidding me." she said out loud, even before he got close enough.
"Good evening to you too."
"We talked for six hours yesterday, do you know that? I know your build path better than I know my own class schedule, and you show up looking like you’re about to rob the place." She was pouting. Actually pouting, arms folded, bottom lip pushed out like a kid denied dessert. "Take it off."
"I can’t do that..."
"Halfway."
"No."
"The nose. Just the nose, I’ll accept the nose."
"Why do you even want to see my face? It’s hidden for a reason," Karl said, walking past her toward the door. "Just come inside and let’s get this over with."
He heard her breath catch behind him, and then a small, muffled sound like she had pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
"Just let me seeeee."
...
The cafe was warm and mostly empty, all dark wood and yellow lamps, the kind of place that charged extra for the lighting. They took a corner booth. Elsa slid in across from him, ordered two drinks without asking what he wanted, and then propped her chin on both hands and simply stared at him.
Karl lasted about ten seconds.
"You said you’d tell me about the qualifiers."
"I did say that, didn’t i?"
"Una?" Karl narrowed his gaze, "So...?"
"So nothing. We just sat down." Her eyes had a lazy warmth to them, the kind that took its time moving across his hood, his mask, the sliver of his eyes in between. "You know what’s funny? Everything I’m going to tell you tonight, I could have typed. Took me maybe four messages."
"I did point that out."
"You did." She smiled slowly. "I just wanted to see you. That’s the whole conspiracy. Arrest me if you will."
Karl looked down at the table and busied himself adjusting a napkin that did not need adjusting. His ears felt warm, and he was suddenly grateful for the hood.
’Say something. Anything. A normal person would say something.’
"The drinks are taking a while," is what came out.
Elsa laughed so hard she had to turn her face toward the window.
[Notice: Charlotte is surprised that this woman is interested in you.]
’Stop talking.’
[Charlotte wishes to observe further. She states this is educational.]
’It is not educational. Mute. Both of you.’
The drinks arrived.
Elsa wrapped her hands around her cup and, for a while, the conversation wandered somewhere easier.
Favorite patches. Worst teammates. The time she got banned for three days for what she described as creative use of proximity chat. He gave her small true things and kept the large ones, and she seemed to know exactly which was which and let him.
Then she mentioned the campus library, the one with the broken third-floor heater, and Karl’s cup stopped halfway to the gap under his mask.
"You go to Barton?"
"Born and raised in that dump. Why?" Her eyes sharpened. "No way. No way, lol. You too?"
"...Somewhat."
"He said somewhat again! You’ve been within walking distance of me this entire time?" She dropped back against the booth, staring at him like the universe had personally arranged a joke for her benefit. "I stalked a rank-one ghost across the whole internet and he was in my own school."
"Stalked?"
"Yeah, yeah, words and all." She waved it off, and then the playfulness in her drained away by degrees, and what was left underneath was steadier and more serious than anything he had seen from her yet.
"Okay. Business. You want tournaments. Here’s the truth: I can get you every tournament in this region. Qualifiers, invitationals, the sponsor-run ones that never get posted publicly. I know the organizers, I know the board admins, half of them owe me a favor or two."
"Why do i sense there is going to be a catch?"
"I want to be on your team."
Karl set his cup down. "I don’t have a team."
"Then I’m the first member. Congratulations on your roster."
"Don’t you already have a team?" he asked back.
"I have four anchors wearing matching jackets," she said flatly. "I joined them because they were weak, Kazu. That’s it. Nobody fights you for the mage role on a team like that, nobody benches you, nobody makes you play meta. They were comfortable. Then you showed up for one night and reminded me what the game is supposed to feel like, and now I can’t go back to comfortable. Deadweight is deadweight even when it’s friendly."
’That’s cold.’ He studied her, this girl who smiled like sunlight and cut her own team loose in one sentence. ’That’s really cold. So why do I understand it completely.’
[Running diagnostic on subject.]
A pale panel unfolded at the edge of his vision, hanging over her shoulder where only he could see it.
[Name: Elsa Marinet.
Role: Mage
Hero: Trisla
Win rate: 43%]
Karl kept his face still.
’Forty-three percent. That’s bad. That’s genuinely bad.’
[Correct. However, note the hero pool.]
’I saw it.’
Trisla.
The one mage nobody touched. No auto-targeting, every spell a skill shot, a mana system that punished you for breathing wrong, and, in exchange, the highest damage ceiling in the entire game.
The forums had a saying about her: ten thousand games to learn, one game to delete a team. A 43% win rate on Trisla, on a team of anchors, dragging dead weight up a hill every match.
’I mean, it doesn’t necessarily excuse her win rate, but then again, it’s kind of understandable.’
He had always been a solo player. Six years of it. So he understood something of it.
[Instant Quest issued.]
[Quest: Form a team with Elsa and participate in the upcoming tournament.]
[Reward: Lucky Box, 1 unit.]
’A lucky box. You’re bribing me now?’
[This unit prefers the term incentivizing.]
Across the table, Elsa was watching him not-answer, and for the first time all evening she looked nervous, one thumbnail pressed against the side of her cup.
"Okay," Karl said.
"Okay?"
"You’re in. We’re a team, a team of two, currently, which is a terrible team, but it’s yours."
[Quest accepted.]
[Charlotte is pleased. Charlotte looks forward to fighting alongside her master again.]
[Bond interaction progress: 44%]
Elsa made a sound.
It was small and high and completely involuntary, and she clapped a hand over her own mouth to trap the rest of it, but there was nothing she could do about her face, which had gone pink from her cheeks to her ears.
"Cool," she said through her fingers, with heroic composure. "Cool cool cool. Very normal news."
Then she was digging through her purse, papers, lip balm, and a tangle of earbuds until she came up with a folded flyer and pressed it flat on the table between them, spinning it to face him.
"Two weeks from now. Registration opens this weekend."
Karl looked down.
The first thing he saw was the format. Stages. Group brackets. Eliminations. A real tournament, not a school exhibition.
The second thing he saw was the prize pool, and his fingers went still against the table.