Legend of League (2)

Bang, bang—!

"Grr! Why am I the only one getting focused? This is so unfair!"

The screen had washed out to gray, and the keyboard was going off like a shotgun in my ears. Chat was always full of people taking shots at me, but today they'd gone up a whole extra level.

"Hey! How is this my fault? Wave management is the ADC's job. Jinx is the one shoving, so what exactly am I supposed to do!"

"Agh, this is pissing me off! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm pissed, I said I'm pissed!"

My pink-dyed twin tails shivered like they'd been caught in a wind. I clamped down on my mental and forced it back into place. The game wasn't over yet.

Bot lane, which had started ahead, had flipped into a deficit, but mid had picked up a solo kill for our side, and top had cashed in tower gold off the Rift Herald. Nocturne, the enemy jungler, having seven kills was a nightmare from the perspective of an immobile support like Xerath, but Legend of League was a team game. If we could just cut down a champion who'd gotten that fat all by himself, the shutdown bonus on top of the kill gold could flip the whole match in a single stroke.

"Yeah, come on. I've got a Stopwatch now. Try me!"

Their bot lane, far enough ahead that they didn't even need to manage the wave, started pressing into us instead. Exactly what I wanted. Through a ward I'd planted earlier, I checked Nocturne's position. Ruthless. Even after a gank like that, he was already set up to come bot again. The moment I dropped a help ping, Lee Sin—who'd been over by the raptors—spotted him and slid quietly toward the krugs, ready to collapse.

Caitlyn's Headshot carved a huge chunk out of what health I had left. To bait Nocturne into the dive, I fired my crowd-control—my E—straight at her. In the same instant the screen went pitch-black, and a low, eerie voice rolled through it.

Nocturne's blade lunged out of the dark and tore through Xerath. One more auto and I was dead. I snapped a Flash back under the tower and burned Stopwatch to dodge his Q.

"That's it!"

In that instant Lee Sin, waiting in the vision blind spot behind the tower, Safeguarded in to close the gap, then chained Flash into his ultimate, trying to kick Nocturne deep under the turret.

"……!"

But Nocturne's W came out on a razor's edge and swallowed the crowd control, and Lee Sin's ultimate sailed uselessly into empty air.

The enemy Lulu's ultimate followed right behind, shielding him. Nocturne ate about two tower shots, finished Xerath the moment Stopwatch ended, and Flashed out alive on a thread of health. Jinx and Lee Sin got damage in during the scramble, but everyone on our team except Xerath was AD, and it simply wasn't enough to close out a Nocturne who'd built Plated Steelcaps.

"Ah……"

The viewers were having the time of their lives mocking me, and the mental I'd been holding together like a sheet of paper tore straight down the middle. The shotgun fire kept coming, and then the all-chat politics kicked off in spectacular fashion. Xerath and Jinx started fighting; Akshan announced that it was a jungle gap; Lee Sin joined the war; and our ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠teamwork went up in glorious flames. Renekton, who had been quietly seeing his lane through, put in a surrender. The yes votes stacked in an instant. The game was over.

"SeeAndBark, thank you so much for the six hundred Water Balloons! And welcome to the fan club."

"No. You all keep twisting this into a snipe or whatever, so I'm trying to avoid mentioning her as much as I can. If I keep going like that, I'm just causing her trouble too."

"That's because there's a mission on the line. I don't even know her that well, so why would I have some grudge? I really don't."

The bad-faith chat just kept coming, and a prickle of irritation rose in me. I couldn't slap sanctions on them whenever I felt like it, though. I still didn't have a core of loyal regulars who would keep watching no matter what, and if I started acting on every mood swing, the backlash would be ugly. For now, even if it stung, I had to hold on to the handful of viewers I had.

Still, the numbers really have climbed. Get tied to a famous BJ and look at this trickle-down……

Concurrent viewers sat at 232. Mia's usual audience ran somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand, so even if it was temporary, the inflow had landed properly. On top of clearing the Water Balloon mission, I'd already finished the concurrent-viewer mission, and now that one was paying out bonus points too.

Watching the points pile up made the stress from chat a lot easier to swallow.

"All right, moving on to the next game."

Once things seemed to settle, the viewers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who'd flooded in for a moment began to trickle back out. One eighty, one fifty, down to one thirty, before the count finally stuck somewhere around one ten to one twenty. It was a shame, but it wasn't a bad sign. If anything, more than a hundred people watching a newbie on day two of her broadcast was pretty incredible.

I went into the next game with that confidence, and then……

"Huh? Why is this going like— mm. This is a top gap, right?"

"No, but I landed ganks mid and bot instead. I kept the dragons up, too."

I play top myself now and then, but the sensibilities of people with Top-Lane Syndrome are genuinely beyond human understanding. The game was plenty winnable, and they threw it because their own lane fell apart. If that's how you're going to play, go queue a 1v1. Why are you even in a team game?

Anyway, I put the regrettable loss in game two behind me, won the third, and then rode an easy bot-lane carry through the fourth to close the day at three wins and one loss. I checked the time and found the clock already pointing at eight. On top of that, my throat—which had been rough since morning—was starting to feel like a real problem.

"Hate to cut it here, but my throat's in bad shape, so that's all for today. Thank you all for watching. I'll do my best to be live at five again tomorrow."

The broadcast ended, and a darkened screen rose to meet me. I coughed dry a few times, then carefully sipped from the thermos I'd warmed ahead of time.

"Ah……"

Ending the stream, I'd been nothing but pleased about bonus points I hadn't even counted on. Once the excitement settled, the state of my throat became impossible to ignore. I'd thought speaking less would be enough. Now there was a faint sting on top of it.

"Nothing else for it."

The plan had to change. A beautiful face mattered, and so did a good voice, but I couldn't just sit around hoping for either when I wasn't even sure I could broadcast tomorrow. So I asked the Helper for an ability that would cover it.

"And that ability can be upgraded later by spending more points, right?"

Look at BJs and streamers who run their own broadcasts and most of them are live three or four days a week as a baseline. The ones who do it for a living think nothing of five or six. In that sense, a body already creaking apart on day two of streaming wasn't even in the competition. Fatigue Recovery. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The points stung to spend, but at this moment it looked like the best choice I had.

Tomorrow's broadcast depends on the throat. No telling how much of it will actually come back.

I kept a vow of silence until bed for the sake of recovery. Dinner was delivery made from ingredients people say are good for the throat. Anyone watching would have called it extra, but I was only doing the best I could with what I had.

Sleep early.

Enough sleep was essential if I wanted to recover. In the old days I would have been gaming until two or three in the morning, or watching personal broadcasts and YouTube videos straight through. Little by little, the shape of my life was changing. Before I'd noticed, broadcasting had taken the center of it.