It was a long and tiresome week for Artur. At his part-time job, the workload had piled up as two of his colleagues had taken a leave of absence due to sickness and family matters. That, plus all the college assignments, turned that Monday to Friday into a living hell.

  Juggling work, college, and his gaming life proved impossible, so he had to drop one of them, and he chose his student life. Business school was a terrible choice born from his uncertainty about what to do with his life.

  Artur couldn’t stand attending classes anymore. He had to drop it for good. He knew it was a stupid idea, one that would make people frown upon him.

  The storm was coming. All his life choices would eventually catch up to him. Dropping out of college would close an infinite amount of doors leading to a better life. However, he wanted to do the impossible no matter what: becoming a pro player.

  If his mother would disown him for his stupidity, it was a fair price to pay. That conversation was just around the corner. The semester was coming to an end just like this chapter of his life.

  But that would be postponed for another time. It was Friday night and he just got back from an extended shift at work. As usual, Artur entered through the back door as the front door usually stayed locked.

  A long creaking sound accompanied the door opening and closing. Then there was only silence.

  Where’s mom, he wondered, then heard a laugh coming from her bedroom, followed by the opening of a popular TV program. That was good. She was distracted, so his arrival would be conflictless, and maybe they would not bicker like most nights.

  Artur went to his room, said “Hey mom” as he passed hers and was greeted back with a “Hey.” A few steps later, Artur entered his room, closed the door, and threw himself at the twin bed while still wearing his work backpack.

  He stayed there for two minutes, with his face planted on the sheets while pressing softly against the mattress. Every single aching muscle was now relaxing, slowly recovering. It was an amazing feeling only obtained after a long day of work.

  If he could, Artur would have stayed like that until falling asleep, but New Avalon was waiting for him. His guild was waiting for Artic. So he rolled over, facing the white ceiling, and grabbed the cellphone in his right pocket to check for any notifications before diving into the game.

  There were a few messages, but what caught his attention was something else: an ad for a program about the rise of E-Sports in Brazil. Out of curiosity, he tapped the ad with his thumb and immediately felt guilty for feeding an ad.

  That program filled the screen of Artur’s phone, making him turn the device horizontally to watch it in the correct aspect ratio. By sheer luck, or pure coincidence, the program was livestreaming and he caught it almost at the beginning.

  Also by luck or pure coincidence, a notification flashed at the top of the device. It was a message from Niki asking when he would join them. Artur replied, “I’m tired as fuck. I’m gonna rest for a bit. Maybe later I’ll join you guys. Sorry…” Niki replied by sending the emoji of a crying kitty.

  That single emoji made Artur smile and want to log into the game, but when he saw who was the special guest from that program, he knew he had to watch it.

  “Thank you for coming to my show, Caio Medina. It’s a pleasure having you here,” said the host of the program, a slim, middle aged man wearing a deep-blue suit.

  “I’m glad to be here.” The guest was sitting on a couch beside the host’s desk. He wore glasses and had his black hair slicked back.

  They both exchanged compliments, told some jokes, and chatted for a few minutes before getting into what the program was really about.

  “All right,” said the host. “Now let’s talk about the competitive scene. Most of us, especially the old guard, know that our country was… pretty bad during the early days of New Avalon. We were massacred at every World Championship, barely killing one or two opponents on each of our campaigns. But things have changed in the past few years. For you, what was our turning point?"

  “That would be the start of the Age of Darkness, of course,” Caio said like he was waiting for that question.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The host turned to the camera and added, “I believe that most of our casual and newer viewers might not be aware of what the Age of Darkness was. Could you tell us, please?”

  “Sure. The funny thing is that this ‘Age of Darkness’ ended this year, with the fall of the organization that started it all, Dark Age.”

  The host nodded and let Caio proceed.

  “The Age of Darkness, here in Brazil, is… was… the period that one team single-handedly was responsible for pushing our competitive scene forward. I believe Daniel joined Dark Age in the game’s third year since launch. So, the Age of Darkness started in the game’s fourth year and went up until this one, the eighth. Meaning that, in total, the Age of Darkness went along for almost four years."

  “But what made Dark Age so successful?"

  “Richard Carvalho, Cris and Daniel’s former captain. I know, I know. The guy was a piece of shit, but he successfully adapted the eastern style to our culture, a marvelous achievement I give you that. Before him, our proplayers were a bunch of snobbish celebrities that barely trained, but spent most of their time on social media boasting about how great they were for winning a match or scoring a kill in the weakest of the game’s minor regions.”

  “For the director of the Brazilian competitive scene, you sure don’t spare any words.”

  “Yeah. I know. Pretty soon I’m gonna get a heartfelt letter from my overlords at Virtual Realms. But that’s part of me, I’m passionate about my work and my region.”

  “Great. I’m sure that our audience is glad to see that our region is managed by someone that cares so much. Back to the Age of Darkness,” the host said in an ominous tone to crack some laughs from his audience.

  “That sure is a dramatic name, right?” Caio followed the cue and said to the audience, whose agreeing answer blasted on the speaker of Artur’s phone.

  When it subsided, Caio proceeded. “Richard basically killed the celebrity mindset that was rotting the minds of his teammates. Their training increased by a significant amount. Livestreaming was basically forbidden during the season. That was an important and obvious step to avoid the other teams knowing what tactics they were preparing.”

  “Those were drastic changes. How did he pull it off?”

  “Ronaldo Emerich! He was promoted to Dark Age big boss at that time, and his first order was to shake up the culture of the company.”

  “I can’t imagine his players accepting it kindly.”

  “They didn’t. But they had to. All the company’s efforts were directed to the World’s campaign. That’s right, they knew they were gonna steamroll the National’s, and it worked like a charm. No Brazilian team could fathom winning a single game from them that year. Their only option? To catch up. The largest teams like Red Crows, Intrépidos, and others started copying Dark Age’s work philosophy. Most of them imported coaches and other staff members from the best leagues to help. We had a few successful stories and a few flops as well.”

  “Tell us about some of those flops, please.”

  “I forgot the name of the team. But one of them imported a whole foreign staff. Chinese coaches, Korean analysts, Danish team manager, and the best part? They were all battle-tested professionals, the cream of the crop. So they were bound to take down Dark Age, right?”

  “I’m gonna say: no.”

  “They won two games out of ten. Didn’t win a single series and were out of the playoffs. It goes without saying: the staff disbanded afterward, leaving them bankrupt. ”

  “What was their problem? If they invested so much and went nowhere, what went wrong?”

  “They lacked a Daniel, a Cris, an Ana. They had a roster full of young talents, but there was no leader among them. A team like that works wonders when all goes according to plan. But the moment shit hits the fan, they’re like a deer in the headlights. They don’t know what to do or are too shy, too insecure to communicate with their teammates. A team needs a leader, that’s a universal truth since the dawn of time.”

  “Getting back to Richard Carvalho, He was, in a way, the pioneer of this revolution, but not all of us know what happened to him.”

  “Correct. As I said before, he was a terrible human being. Despite all those victories, he also pushed his teammates to the absolute limit, to a breaking point. He made them practice over and over. Scolded them, yelled, cursed, and always threatened to kick them off the team. ‘There are millions of young talents waiting to replace you,’ he usually said. But all changed when his most promising player ended up in the hospital after a nervous breakdown during a midnight training session.”

  “Cris's Case”

  “Yes, we now know it as Cris’s Case. When he recovered, there were two handwritten letters waiting for him: an apology from Dark Age and a proposal from Red Crows, the latter promising to form a team around him, tending to his preferences and playstyle. On the other hand, Daniel, who was just another young talent, was promoted overnight to team captain. That was a huge bet now that Cris went to Red Crows and Richard was discharged from Dark Age. But it all worked out and the Age of Darkness reigned for a few more years.”

  “Fascinating, and Daniel’s management style differed too much from Richard's?”

  “It’s basically the same, minus the abuse, of course. He was a great leader, an inspiring teammate, a legendary player that could have lived forever in New Avalon’s Hall of Fame as a regional powerhouse and a global threat to even the strongest organizations. Too bad things ended up the way they did.”

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