The Arcade Series

Aubrey POV

I hurriedly started putting away everything at my table in a haze, not hearing the low buzz of the slowly emptying streets around me and not seeing the darkening sky as the sun started fading behind the mountains in the distance barely visible between the bright tall buildings on the market street.

My tired mind thought back to the one oddity of the day, that few seconds worth of a meeting with Terance. I had known the boy all his life and his parents before he was born, though admittedly not by much. Really sad what happened to them.

Terance was a mess after it happened, in his bed all day, not even eating properly. Sometimes I can't understand what made him change so suddenly when he became an adventurer, but it makes some sense considering everything that happened.

He has not had an easy time of his sudden career change either, you could tell even before he got his legs broken. His eyes were strained, bloodshot from lack of sleep. His movements were growing more and more stiff, sore from all the intense fighting he has subjected himself to over the last few months. ‘Still…’ I thought reflectively, ‘You couldn't say he didnt work hard enough. He barely spends a single moment in things that were not training.’

In fact, I learned that it had gotten to the point that he left his apprenticeship at Arnie’s wood shop and he was trying to make a living off of all the dungeon materials he could fight to get to. A tough thing to do when he has never fought a day in his life before the incident.

“But then that just makes the question on how he got that artifact in the first place even stranger…” I mumbled to myself, throwing all my goods into their boxes. I huffed and started to shove my little table through the streets on the table legs wheels that were being stubborn again. ‘I really should see Lary and see what he can do for it…’ I thought to myself in annoyance as I yelled out to the people in the street blocking my way, earning myself more than a few glares. Not that I cared though.

When I had broken through the throng in the market, I started moving much faster which was good, but still boring enough that my mind started wandering as I let my sore feet carry me and my table to my little home. ‘What should I do when I get home…’ I wondered as I walked ‘I don't actually have anything I need to do now that I think about it.’ I realized as I thought through my day “I just have to put my stuff away and I have nothing to do.” I mumbled to myself and I felt myself get a little lighter on my feet.

“Maybe I could take a little walk and meet up with May…” I wistfully fantasized to myself before shaking my head. I forgot she moved out, along with little Petra.

I cast my mind through my memories, but couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to do. Golden Bridge being in the middle of the Dark Wood does not allow many of the immediate things I thought of for things to do for fun.

My mind slipped back to the talk I had with Terance and I realized one interesting thing I could do. He said the shop was called Arcade? On… Oakley lane? Might as well check it out.

Leonore POV

‘Ugh… It's so boring…’ I moaned to myself internally, leaning on the counter top of the desolate Arcade. There hadn't been a single person. Not one! This was supposed to be a thriving town! Where is the thriving part?!

It had not been this terrible for the entire time, watching the swirling patterns of mana helped distract me for the first few hours, but even the floating balls of magic couldn't distract me from the boredom forever. I nearly took a nap after lunch from how boring sitting behind the counter all day was, but the system woke me up before I even had the chance. Saying that I had to stay awake during working hours and all that…

Still, at least I figured out how the mana manipulation part of the monocle worked… Sort of.

Ok, truth be told I hadn't really figured out anything beyond making the particles move around a bit. It was better than nothing however so I started making little colored shapes with the mana, moving them around in the air, just messing around in general. I couldn't figure out how to do anything else though. No fire balls, not moving things, nothing. If I didn't know better I would have thought they were useless little orbs and something was wrong with the monocle. But I was sure the system would have told me that in its report.

But it got a bit boring after a while as well as repetitive, which left me slumped on the counter in boredom. I wasn't slumped because I was tired though, it was more just the thought and meaning of it and habit from Earth coming out.

Then a thought struck me and I smiled at the idea. If I could make shapes with the mana, could I make a picture? Or for that matter, why stay in the second dimension and make a model of something!

I started looking round the arcade, seeing all the colors of the mana around me and picking them out, giving me ideas. For whatever reason, there was a large amount of white and I could work with that. I started pulling in all the white and what little dark purple I could see, which was for some reason the darkest type of mana I could see. The purple was not nearly as abundant as the white, but they were there. Mostly in the darkened corners for some reason. Maybe there was a reason for that… I wondered idly as I formed the first thing that came to mind. I watched it slowly build itself up, pushed by an invisible force that I controlled with a stone-clad grip in my mind.

“Oh, I forgot the red!” I realized and I looked around for some red mana particles before grabbing them and bringing them into the mass that I was forming slowly into the shape I held in my mind.

“Yes!” I said, smiling happily as I looked carefully at my newest creation. It was a bit rough around the edges, literally. It was a Ghast. Yes, a Ghast from minecraft. It was an older game, but it was surprisingly resilient and there was still a rather large minecraft community, even during the war.

Anyway, the form was there, but it was hard to make it look like the real deal. Mostly because mana was round and not squares, but it was taking a surprising mental effort to keep all the mana together in shape. The different colors of mana seemed to almost reject each other, pushing against my control to disperse away from the other two colors of the ghast.

I heard a ding from the bell at the door and was startled. I let my grip over the mana slip away to see an older woman in my doorway, looking shocked at where my little ghast was. ‘Can she see…’ I wondered to myself, but quickly changed my mind as her face seemed to twitch slightly and turn into a smile, looking at me. It was so sudden that I was taken aback by the lightning fast change of expression, but I shook my head clearing my thoughts. I had a customer, I needed to start working on getting a reputation in this town and maybe, just maybe, I could get some regulars in this place.

“Hello!” I said happily as the woman approached the counter slowly. But as she did, I slowly started seeing something else, something that only showed only with the monocle.

“Huh.” I muttered softly as I looked at the veritable spectacle that was only visible to me through my newly acquired artifact. What I was seeing was mana of course, but I wasn't quite sure what it was doing. It appeared to be spiraling off every part of the woman, but the strange thing is that mana wasnt coming from around the room. It was streaming out of her, like a fountain letting the mana balls out through her skin. A tide of brown mana, green mana and some blue mixed together as they seemed to pour out of her very being to disperse through the room.

“So humans produce mana…” I muttered to myself quietly, one of my most prominent questions about magic answered by the sight in front of me. “I am sorry? I didn't quite catch that?” the woman said, finally reaching the counter and looking at me, interested by something.

“Oh, I am sorry I was just thinking aloud. Bad habit. Would you like to buy something…” I said, trailing off. “Aubrey.” she quickly supplied to me, “And you are?” She asked with a bright smile. “I am Leonore Hope and welcome to my little arcade Aubrey.” I say with an equally bright smile that made me feel my wrinkled cheeks stretch just a little.

“What is an arcade?” She asks, leaning in over the counter. “It's what this place is. Well, technically this part we are in is the cafe, but the real arcade is down there.” I tell her excitedly, pointing down into the arcade and the games that are visible just across the shop.

Aubrey turns around to look curiously at the arcade, a look that quickly turns to confusion as she stares out at the array of different games with their wooden cases in rows throughout the portion of the room. While I look at her, I can see some sort of change happening to the mana that she is releasing, its turning… White? That's odd, I wonder how that works… is it some sort of thought based thing that changes the type of mana?

“What are those?” the lady asks, turning to me and letting me see her confusion up close. “Those are arcade games! It's better to show you rather than try to explain, do you have 25 cents on you?” I ask her excited at the thought of introducing her to the world of videogames.

“So, let me get this straight. That box of wood and glass makes light that moves around to make it look like… That?” Aubrey asks me hesitantly pointing at the screen of the arcade machine. She had just played a game of burgertime and seemed to be so confused, not about the purpose of the game or how to play, but about how it worked and why it worked. I had just explained how it worked to her in general terms and it seemed like she was still struggling to try to understand what I was saying.

“Yes, that's basically it.” I said happily, “There is more technical stuff behind it, but if I started telling you how it actually worked and the theory behind it, we will be here for months and I don't even know half of what the people behind this thing does.” I explain, knowing that my level of understanding technology was very behind, especially in the proclaimed time of enlightenment and knowledge I had grown up in. Not that I didn't have the chance, but it just didn't agree with my young self to sit and try to listen to teachers all day every day for years about electrical theory.

“This is the stuff they got in the capital?” Aubrey asked me, looking at me with wide eyes. “Not really, I doubt you could find this stuff anywhere on the planet except here for now.” I replied quickly, not really thinking of my answer. Her gaze seemed to intensify even more after that statement and I realized my mistake quickly. Too late to go back on it now.

“I got a source that is making them for me, but they are pretty small, this is really the only thing’s they are going to make for now.” I explain a bit more, hoping that Aubrey understands and accepts it. She nods absently and I wonder what she is thinking of now, but her face doesn't betray anything and while it might have been possible to tell what people are thinking about with the mana outputs, if my theory is right, I definitely couldn't do it now.

“Right. What are these papers for?” Aubrey asks, making me unsure about what she is talking about until I look at her hand that is still holding onto her ten tickets and I realize what she is talking about with a hum. “Those are tickets, you get them from winning arcade games, or lasting as long as you can anyway, and you can get prizes with them. Here, let's go to the counter and you can look at the ticket prices for stuff.” I explain and lead her to the counter, slowly winding our way to the cafe side of the arcade.

We took our time walking over to the counter, but we got there after a few seconds and I walked behind the counter, gesturing for the woman to follow and I pointed up at the sign above the counter. “All the prizes and what you need for them are up there, just beside the cash value of the things.” I quickly gestured at my sign and explain. “There are other prizes too, ones that you might be more interested in, though you might not have enough time to get enough tickets to earn one, the prices are a little high.” I say as a side note, gesturing at the artifact prize corner on the sign.

Aubrey took her time looking over the sign, her face unreadable to me and I started frowning, a little concerned. Was it something I said that was making her seem this way?

“And the artifacts… Anyone can win them?” Aubrey asks hesitantly, looking between me and the sign. “Ah, yes. But I should say that they would have a hard time getting anything over a tier one, and they can only get a limited number a month.” I say helpfully to Aubrey.

“I need to go.” Aubrey said suddenly turning around and she started walking away from the counter quickly. “Wait, do you want a coffee with your winnings before you go?” I quickly asked her worried because of her abruptness, but my worries lessened when she turned around with a smile. “Thank you for asking, but I think that I should go. It's almost sundown and I need to get home.” She explained and headed back to the door, making the little bell ring out as she left the arcade and out of view of the windows.