Chapter Ten
Cass is in the party. He may have missed the diner meeting, but when I woke up a few short hours later, I’m the one who had, like, five missed calls and a text message chain I had to scroll way far up to read.
At first he thought someone had taken my phone; then he realized it was me but thought I was kidnapped and posting under duress; then he realized I was (sort of) in my right mind and asked all the questions I assumed he would.
Like “was that literally the only thing you could think of,” “is this what’s going to happen every time I leave you alone for, like, ten minutes,” and “How? How? What? Why? Zora. Zora! How?” And, listen …
he’s got a point. The good news is that he’s not a snitch and he sees the logic in forming an alliance.
The alliance is built around what we have come to describe as “Zivan.” That’s me and Ivan.
We are Zivan, and Zivan is us. While the structural integrity of Zivan is paramount, it cannot and will not be our only gimmick.
This is as much about Kavi, Trieu, and Cass as it is about Ivan and me, so whatever story we’re telling this summer will have to involve all characters.
Characters, Roles, and Expectations:
Ivan is our paladin. The shining hero, the good guy whose shield of pre-existing fandom hype and sword of Being a Hot White Guy lends all of us an aura of belonging.
To borrow from the Emilia and Jake playbook, Ivan the paladin has a thing for girls who can kick his ass and now he thinks the sun shines out of mine.
Upon joining our party, Ivan gains a +10 “Changed My Ways” boost that mimics the abilities and reputation of a much less aggravating class.
Trieu is the wizard. He is in charge of maintaining the illusions that surround the party.
We will wear what he tells us to wear, pose where he wants us to pose, post what he wants us to post, and I, specifically, will subject myself to his polymorphic powers until I prove I can cast the spells on my own.
Basically he gets to do my makeup, and I can’t complain about it, and the only way out is learning to do it myself.
Upon joining the party, the wizard gains a Staff of Command, which summons a chosen party member to act as a model for his Guardians League Royale–themed makeup tutorials—now with special guest stars!
Kavi is the rogue—she who works behind the scenes.
She exploits the cheat code at the center of the game: that appearing popular and famous is the first step to actually being popular and famous.
She has connections to the influencer marketing departments at companies most people could only dream about contacting, and if we start making content that looks important, people will start believing we are.
Upon joining the party, Kavi gains a buff that increases her range of influence beyond the bounds of her base power set.
Aka, Kavi gets to dangle the rest of us in front of her followers and therefore expand her target demographic.
This mostly applies to Ivan, since she already knows Trieu and I’m not cool enough to make a difference yet.
Cass is a fighter, subclass TBD. He does what he wants. I can’t ask him to do any more than that. This is my mess, my party. I hope at least he’s happy to be invited. I know I’m happy to have one person here who knows who I really am. Even as I take on the role of …
Zora the barbarian. My stats skew toward strength and survivability, so even though the rest of the party is starting at a much higher level than me in this game, I’m still carrying a lot of the weight.
Half of the weight, to be exact. Brian Juno may have disqualified my win, but everyone who played in that first match knows what a beast I can be on the field.
I don’t know how the Wizz-Algorithm works, but I do know GLR.
I will teach my party members, train them in the art of battle.
Share my strength to keep them in the part of the game we can concretely control.
What I gain upon joining the party is a fake boyfriend who gives me a fighting chance to win Brian Juno over to my side.
That is my win state of this game, so I’ll play it by these rules to make sure I get his good ending.
And since Brian writes the endings, that makes him the Dungeon Master whether he knows it or not. His game, his rules, my victory.
It is Wednesday, and our party’s first session starts now. Is everybody ready? No? Too bad. Roll for initiative.
“I think we need a name,” Kavi suggests. “Something to make us feel more like a team.”
“We’re not a team,” I say. “We’re a party.”
“Party, not team.” Ivan overlaps my thought as he adjusts the collar of his T-shirt in the dressing room mirror. “Get out of my head, Zora.”
“Can’t,” I snap back. “Without me in there, your chances of ever having a good idea fall ever farther below zero. We’re talking negative numbers. Big ones.”
“Well, if that’s how it’s going to be, I changed my mind. I can’t do this,” Ivan says with a dramatic huff.
Trieu, Kavi, Cass, and I go silent. Is he kidding?
He better be kidding. Half this thing was his idea, maybe!
Honestly after the whirlwind of Monday’s disaster, Tuesday’s continued player orientation, and this morning’s crack-of-dawn wake-up call to get me—us, get us—ready for today’s open scrimmage, I’ve forgotten who had which idea when.
All I know is if Ivan thinks he can change his mind now, I’ll …
I don’t know. He can’t. It would be a huge dick move.
Which, to be fair, I should have expected considering who I’m talking about here.
“What do you mean you changed your mind?” Trieu replies sharply.
For all the energy in his words, his delicate grasp on the mascara spoolie he holds a millimeter from my eye remains steady.
I don’t know how Trieu knew there were actual dressing rooms in the other wing of the Wizzard Theater.
I do know that we’re probably not supposed to be using one as a staging area to prepare ourselves for the academy’s first open lunch—a spectacle wherein selected content creators in the GLR fandom are invited to meet and mingle with us as players.
I also know that Trieu does not care if we’re allowed, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, and that as nerve-racking as open lunch sounds, it’s the perfect moment for Ivan and me to hard launch ourselves as a GLR power couple to the exact demographic of people who care.
Or it was, until Ivan apparently changed his mind.
“I’m not cut out for the role,” Ivan begins.
I feel a flare of heat on the back of my neck.
It’s nerves or rage, too early to tell which.
Kavi has stopped fussing with her eyebrows, her hand frozen in place by her forehead.
Even Cass has stopped spinning on a stool by the door.
“I don’t think I can be … or even pretend to be”—Ivan pauses for effect—“a paladin. I think I’m more of a bard. ”
Our sighs of relief almost harmonize. Ivan’s mirrored eyes glance toward the rest of us as he laughs. “Just breaking the tension. Feels like we’re about to go to a funeral, not a meet and greet.”
“That was a very bard joke,” Cassius observes. “Motion to reroll Ivan’s class from holy hero to comic relief whose main job is to fool people into thinking he’s serious?”
“Seconded,” I say. “I like that metaphor a lot better.”
“Thirded. Stay still.” Trieu unscrews the lid from a pot of lip gloss and scrapes a clean brush across its holographic, glittery surface.
“If we’re enough of a team where our metaphorical class distinctions matter, then we’re enough of a team to merit a name,” Kavi says.
“Phh-tmmm,” I mumble behind closed lips.
“Party,” Cass translates. “But I agree with Kavi. A name makes it official. Binds us together.”
You know what else bound people together? The One Ring. And look what that did to the Fellowship.
I’m not against giving this alliance a name in principle, but—No, wait.
Yes I am. I am so much more comfortable going along with this when I view it from the distance of utility.
Hence, convoluted DnD party metaphors. Teams are composed of people who work together for a group win.
Parties are individuals with goals that dovetail until they don’t.
It’s a small but crucial difference. If I’m going to win this thing, at the end of the day I’ll have to do it alone.
Two things have me feeling a way about this.
The first was the rest of player orientation on Tuesday, which thankfully separated all the five of us into different groups, so I didn’t have to elaborate much on the Ivan Lie.
I could tell that some wanted to ask—there were ten players in my group, and one of them was Chaz—but it’s hard to be nosy when a Wizzard intern is leading your group through getting-to-know-you activities that volunteer plenty of information up front.
“Where are you from?” “New Jersey.” “What do your parents do?” “Beats me, I live with my uncle.” “What does he do?” “Manages a sporting goods store. Very interesting, I know.”
All the while, I took mental notes on my competition.
Chaz liked to talk about himself, but kept bringing up the possibility of co-streaming with two other players in my group.
Those players, Payton and Paxton, have an absurd amount of followers on WiTch, but their page is shared.
Our new pages made for the academy competition are not.
“That’s gotta be rough,” I said to Payton first, then Paxton later.
“Are you guys going to try to split your followers or do you think they’ll go with whoever streams first or, you know, better?
” I could almost hear the geological crack of a fault line developing in their friendship.
That oughtta keep them from teaming up, and keep Chaz occupied trying to choose which one’s butt to kiss harder.