Interruption

Liz' thoughts were interrupted by a flash of fire and a dragon's roar.

Across the small park, a winged beast, its crimson scales glittering in the midmorning sunlight, loomed over a trio of fantastical figures standing knee-deep in the sea of swirling graffiti she'd called forth earlier.

Above the combatants' heads, Liz could see small tags: the silver-haired elf was a Ranger, the armored dwarf a Knight, and the multicolored swirl of veils hid some sort of themed Witch.

She recognized this intrusion into her AR overlay, a live-action instance of the same Shards RPG she'd binged with her friends in VR last weekend. This must have been some sort of public pick-up game, for it to appear in her unfiltered mirage.

It was also clearly not going well. The ranger clutched the useless, smoldering remains of a bow, while the knight struggled to discard a still-burning halberd.

With nothing better to do, Liz summoned up her own character and dimmed the background clutter as she advanced toward the battle.