The Arcade Series

Terance P.O.V.

Life has been good lately. My leg healed from the disastrous delve I did trying to defeat the first floor boss a while ago. I joined the town militia that was formed to defend the town against the invasion. I trained hard and well, and I even made a few friends.

Me, Gary and Isabela made a good adventuring team, me who is the rogue of the party, Gary who is the swordsman and Isabela is a mage. It was honestly very lucky for me to meet them, I was hanging around in the guild hall just two days ago, looking for some first floor dungeon quests when they bumped into me and we got a conversation going that led to us forming a party. The same day as that old shop owner told me to go get myself a party.

That old man is turning into a good luck charm apparently. First he happens to have a healing artifact that he gave away to play some games that were practically free, something that would cause most adventurers to pay gold for, then the day he tells me to find myself a party I literally bump into a group of two adventurers that let me join their party. It was incredible, really.

Same with his shop as well, just incredible. He made a shop that he called an Arcade, full of enchanted wood and glass objects made to play games on. Games, on an enchanted slab of wood and glass! I was no stranger to enchanted objects, but to see so many on such a scale was incredible, only the royalty had access to enough gold to even see that amount of enchanted objects. Enchanters were rare, incredibly so. According to rumors there are only a hundred in the whole kingdom. And I was starting to suspect I found one of the weirdest ones.

I told my party about him and his shop of course. I had been thinking about if we could go play some of the games and get another artifact, maybe show the general of the militia to get him to add it as part of training. Gods know what we could do with a supply of enchanted objects at our disposal. But of course, they didn't really believe me and I can't even blame them.

So, of course we took the time to go meet up at the Arcade after a delve the same day I told them about it. Today.

As we walked there, both Gary and Isabela were very sceptical, I looked around with some nervousness. Most of the town had left at this point, and it was starkly clear in this area specifically. Boarded windows and doors were common, along with trash that looked tossed into the street by uncaring citizens.

It was a surprise to me that the Arcade and the old man were still there, looking exactly the same as when I first saw it. I hoped that the militia would be enough to protect whoever was left in the town, but I also knew from the moment I saw the face of the town's adventurer guild head that it was a hopeless battle.

That doesn't mean that we will just give up though. Hope was a powerful thing.

Me and my party stopped and stared as I pointed across the street to the Arcade, just as I remembered it. Hope Arcade, a very distinctive name and one that I was starting to appreciate these days.

“Well I'll be!” Gary said out loud, surprised. “So it actually exists then.” Isabela cut in, looking amused. “Look, I meant what I said! This is the place.” I said exasperatedly to the other two members of my party, “It's where I got the pendant from!”

“Sure it is…” Isabela muttered under her breath, “You know we wont be mad if you tell us where you stole it from.” she said looking even more amused. “I didn’t-” I started, only to stop myself and sigh in annoyance, “Look, just go in and I can show you. There is still time to go for another tier one if we all chip in, the price is not that bad if you know how to play good enough.” I explain and I start leading them across the street and to the Arcade entrance with anticipation.

We entered the unique shop quickly, and I looked to the counter expectantly, but to my surprise the old man wasn't there. I still went over to the counter, with my two friends at my back and I called out to the empty shop, a little concerned. “Hey, old man! You here?” I said, looking around the Arcade and wondering where the man went off to, but I quickly heard a shout coming from behind a door that was hiding behind the counter top. “I am coming! Just give me a second!” I heard the loud voice of the old man and I turned to see him emerging from an adjacent room, same as ever.

“Terance!” The old shop owner called out, pleased with something apparently as he smiled and looked between Gary and Isabela. “You got yourself some friends, did you?” He said with satisfaction and pride in his voice.

Isabela and Gary were quick to be surprised by the old man's appearance, though I wasn't sure why, and Isabela looked almost shocked with her eyes going wide. “Yes,” I answered quickly, realizing that my party members were not going to introduce themselves. “Gary,” I say, pointing at the large brown haired six foot four guy that was wearing a loose white shirt and brown pants. “and Isabela.” I continue, pointing to the five foot eight young woman with strikingly silver hair and a large black robe that covered her whole body in its entirety.

The old man smiled at both of them from behind the counter which he was leaning on. “Nice to meet you, my name is Leonard Hope.” He introduced himself and looked at me again. “I assume you will be wanting something to eat and drink?” He offered, looking between us with an almost fatherly smile.

“I think that would be great.” I said with a sigh. The stuff here is better than anything in the Golden Bridge tavern, that's for sure. “Hang on, just what is this place? What is an Arcade?” Cut in Gary, looking around the shop with a frown. The old man sent me a curious look at that question, and I could feel him silently sending me a question, but he started speaking anyway.

“Yes, this is my Arcade and Cafe. And an arcade is basically a place to play some games and get some prizes. You can check out the arcade portion of the building if you want? Maybe Terance could show you around?” the old man said, pointing to me.

“What kind of prizes?” Isabela asked quickly, questioning the old shop owner and sending me a glance. The old man smiled at the question, unlike my own reaction, and then he started speaking again. “Let me explain. When you win a game or play for long enough, depending on the game, you earn some tickets. With those tickets, you can use them to get food and things in the cafe.” He said and my two partners sent me a glance, as if saying ‘we caught you’ but I just looked back at the old man. “And artifacts if you get enough tickets.” He finished, making Isabela spin her head around quickly, seeming in shock at the statement, and the statement got a less shocked “Huh.” from Gary.

“I told you!” I said, finally grinning at my two party members. Isabela in particular. Gary just gave a light laugh and he grabbed Isabelas shoulders, “How about we check out these arcade games then?” he said, leading the way to the arcade with a smile.

Leonard P.O.V.

I watched the trio with some interest, I was rather proud of Terance for getting some friends. They seemed like the type of people that would have a good influence on the boy.

The girl, Isabela, was particularly interesting however. It was the first thing that I could see when I got a look at her. She didn't release mana. Well, with my dungeon senses I could see that she was releasing mana, but she didn't let it out of her body. She had a mana storage in her soul, so I made the assumption that she was a mage as well. She also seemed to notice something about me as well, I could see it clearly. Maybe she had some type of mana sight too? Maybe that's a normal thing that the system does for mages?

I really didn't know however, so I did not assume anything.

But now that I have some customers for the first time since I got my first VR chair, along with Terance who was my original tester, I needed another tester to try out my VR chair. ‘But not now…’ I thought to myself as I watched Terance lead his two friends through the arcade and explaining the games as he went, even letting them watch him playing a game of pacman to show some stuff that I couldn't quite hear from the counter.

He did notice the new VR chair, and he sent me a questioning look that I responded with a non-verbal ‘we can talk about it later’ hand wave so he just ignored it and moved onto the next game.

It was quite a few minutes before Greg and Terance had to drag Isabela out of the arcade to get some food because she was too busy inspecting my arcade games and being confused because she kept saying things like ‘How do these things even work?!’ and ‘Why can't I sense the enchantment matrix!?’

Learning that the mana pathways in enchanted objects were called enchantment matrix’s was interesting though.

As they approached the cafe side however, she had just given in and went to sit with Gary at one of the tables while Terance went to the counter. “So, what do you want? Just the usual?” I ask the boy with a smile, already knowing the answer. “Just the usual. And two more for Gary and Isabela too.” He responded, after considering momentarily.

“Sure thing.” I responded and I began getting the three meals while Terance started counting his coins to pay for his pizza and coffee. A few seconds later, he went back to their parties table with three coffee cups and three plates of pizza. He set them down and handed them out and started to eat, but his friends did not, looking between each other questioningly.

“What is this?” Gary said after a second of silence, looking to Terance in confusion at the unfamiliar food and drink in front of him, and I smiled as Terance told them about pizza and coffee. “And don't forget that the coffee is hot!” I shouted over at the three friends with a grin, causing Terance to turn a little embarrassed at my comment.

I chuckled to myself again as they started to eat once again and I started to decide in my mind if I was going to ask Terance to be my beta tester. ‘It wouldn't really be a bad thing though… Right?’ I thought to myself, turning away and thinking hard. ‘Maybe I made a mistake getting the VR chair…’ I pondered, thinking about all the different reasons of why it was a bad decision in that moment before giving a sigh and deciding what I was going to do.

‘It is a bit late to change my mind now, besides I am sure that whatever happens because of the chairs won't be too bad…’ I hoped silently to myself, and then I came to a decision and stopped questioning myself. ‘Terance will be the first VR game beta tester of this world.’ I thought, deciding once and for all. ‘Besides, it's not like I can't just take it away in a worst case scenario. I am sure that this will be fine…’