Almost immediately, Cullen showed why he’d earned the manager’s trust. Where Mejbri had been dazzling, Cullen was more disciplined and measured. He intercepted a sloppy pass from Fulham’s right-winger, rolled it into space, and held off pressure with a calm shoulder drop. Then he played a neat one-two with Harrington, recycling possession and slowing the frantic pace just enough for the Burnley midfield to breathe.

  I couldn’t resist leaning forward, pointing at the screen. “See that? That’s exactly what I meant. He’s balancing the midfield. If you’re gonna make the attacking mids track back, might as well add another central mid.”

  A few of the lads looked at me with the same skepticism, but the next sequence did the trick. Cullen received the ball under pressure near the edge of the box, shielded it cleanly, and threaded a perfectly weighted pass to Harrington, who instantly fed it out wide to Larsen. The winger accelerated, beating his marker this time, and delivered a cross that Foster met on the half-volley.

  Goal.

  The pub erupted in cheers. Pint glasses clattered, fists went in the air, and even the lads who’d been grumbling seconds ago were hooting and laughing. One of them slapped me on the back. “Oi, you might actually know what you’re talking about, mate!”

  The lad who invited me to the group earlier grinned wide, shaking his head. “Told ya! I said keep an eye on the bloke, didn’t I? You’ve got a sixth sense for this stuff, Jamie.”

  I laughed along with them, trying not to look too smug.

  I sank back in my chair, pint in hand, and tried to steady my racing thoughts. Cullen had done his bit, the lads were happy, the second topic was secured. But now . . . now came the dread.

  I just wanted to analyze the game, but the quest wanted me to not do that. I’d done two, and the third had to be something other than football. Right now, the lads were entirely consumed by the pitch. I had to jump in, keep them talking, without killing the vibe. There wasn’t a time limit per se, by the time the match ended and the lads wandered off to their homes, I’d probably have failed the quest. Sure, maybe I could scrape a third topic after the game, maybe even get them engaged, but that was cutting it far too close.

  Alright. Think, Jamie. You’ve got to find something, anything.

  I barely had time to ponder the next conversation topic when the bar door swung open. Two girls stepped in together, moving with a kind of presence that made the pub feel smaller. The one in front walked with effortless confidence—she had that striking sort of charm that made people notice without trying.

  The second girl trailed slightly behind, more reserved, cute in a more approachable way. Her face nudged at the edge of my memory, but I couldn’t place it. Where had I seen her before? Back at high school? A friend’s party? She definitely had nothing to do with my past football life; that much I knew.

  A part of me ticked through the possibilities: I could try to start a conversation about the girls. That would probably get some chatter going, easy enough to latch onto.

  But that wasn’t me. Not that type. I didn’t talk about women the way other lads did, throwing around half-baked compliments or cheap humor. It felt crude, mechanical, like I’d be performing a role rather than actually engaging.

  Before I could think about saying anything, one of the lads leaned back with a grin. “Oi, damn, look at her! Hot, eh?”

  The table immediately buzzed, voices overlapping. “Yeah, got that confidence, doesn’t she?” “Oi, she’s trouble for sure if she sits here.” “Lads, check the legs on her—hell, proper fire.”

  None of that counted. I hadn’t started the conversation.

  The girls ordered their drinks, moving together toward a quieter corner of the pub, and that was the end of it. The lads, meanwhile, were already calling over the bartender. “Two more pints for the lot of us, yeah?” one shouted.

  I didn’t care about the girls; Fulham had launched another attack. They pressed higher now, trying to find that elusive equalizer. Fulham’s movement was intelligent, probing with one-twos, quick rotations, and diagonal runs that threatened to pull the defenders out of alignment. But they still couldn’t get into good enough positions to shoot.

  A nagging reminder flashing in my head: the quest wasn’t done. Topic three. I had to find it, or this entire evening would go to waste.

  A couple of drinks clattered down in front of them, and one of the glasses caught my eye. “What’s that?” I asked, squinting at the dark amber liquid.

  The lad grinned. “That, mate, is Benedictine. Old Burnley trick from the Great War. Folks stationed near the monastery brought it back; monks used it as medicine, probably because it tasted like one. Al Capone even liked it in a B&B, Benedictine and Brandy. Or if you’re feeling fancy, Benedictine and Hot—mix it with boiling water to soften the punch.”

  So that was the Benedictine the owner talked about. Alcoholic cough medicine, huh. Not exactly the kind of thing you’d sip for pleasure, but it had history. And in this case, history counted for something. Tactical clarity, maybe? Or at least an experience point toward ‘cultural literacy’.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I raised the glass. “Alright then. Let’s see what the fuss is about.”

  The first sip hit hard. The lad wasn’t lying about it tasted like medicine. Mentally, I was noting the intensity: +2 Focus, -1 Comfort. That would be the stat overlay if I were tracking it properly. Of course, you couldn’t say out loud that it was awful. Especially here, surrounded by Burnley loyalists treating it like sacred lore.

  I swallowed. “Strong,” I murmured, keeping it intentionally vague. “Definitely strong.”

  The lads laughed, happy with the observation. I hadn’t even planned this. Yet I kept the social cohesion intact and curiosity engaged. Quest parameters were satisfied, even if my taste buds filed a formal complaint.

  By the time the pints were drained, I glanced down at the quest prompt and saw the little tick appear.

  Relief washed over me. The actual hard part—conversations—were done. Now, back to the game.

  I refocused just in time to see Burnley pushed into survival mode. For the last ten minutes, they’d been playing a near-perfect low block, sitting deep, compact, denying Fulham any meaningful space in the final third. Every time the ball slipped past the first line of defenders, another waited behind, ready to snuff out the threat.

  The lads were practically on the edge of their seats now. Nobody talked. Fulham’s strikers were sharp, clever in their runs, threading passes that looked like they might finally break through. One sequence had me gripping the edge of my chair along with them: a cutback from the wing, a striker twisting free inside the box.

  Even Callum Harrington, usually composed on the ball, looked jittery. When the ball ricocheted toward him in the danger zone, he just lashed it as hard as he could, sending it clattering over the byline. I wasn’t even a Burnley fan, yet I felt my heart hammering like I’d just run a sprint myself.

  The lad next to me muttered under his breath, “Don’t choke . . . if we choke now . . .”

  The other ones whispered to each other in tense little bursts. “Someone block the cross, for god’s sake . . .”

  And somehow, someway, Burnley held on. One-nil. The pub erupted in relief, the tension melting into cheers, high-fives, and a few triumphant whoops. Every last second had been nerve-wracking, but Burnley’s defensive discipline had made it stick. They were now 10 points off the relegation zone, and the lads around me were already talking about how vital those three points were.

  “Call that grit.” I exhaled. “That’s how you guys are staying up this season.”

  After another round of drinks, I said my goodbye to the lads and left the pub behind. The lads were still inside, cheering and laughing over Burnley’s last-ditch survival, but for me, it was time to process everything that had just happened.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket and called Stella. After a couple of rings, her voice was crackling through, bright and sharp as ever. “Jamie! How’d it go?”

  I gave a quick rundown, summarizing what had gone down tonight, and the day before when I’d triggered a quest playing with the little kids.

  I could already tell Stella was revving up as she said, “So let me get this straight. Your next quest popped when you passed a football pitch, and another while you were watching a match in the pub? Huh. Huh, interesting.” She didn’t pause for breath. “You’ve got inputs, conditions, and triggers. The first one was you passing a pitch—input: visual of the field, condition: your attention engaged, trigger: quest pops. The second—pub, game on, people reacting—same principle, different parameters. Sensory input plus social context plus your focused attention equals a quest event. It’s testable, repeatable. There’s a clear environmental pattern here. If you map out the triggers, you can engineer the next one.”

  I tried to interject once, but she just kept going. “So what you need to do next, Jamie, is pay attention to the environment, the cues, the triggers. You wanna actively identify football-related cues, or maybe even other sports, crowd situations, anything that engages the communal energy, and see if the quest manifests. And when it does, think in terms of interactions, observation, and measured participation. That’s how you nail it.”

  I leaned against the wall, listening and nodding. Stella always dropped those really solid, actionable strategies. “Right. That makes sense. I’ll put it to the test next chance I get.”

  “That next chance is now, mate. Check out your five-a-side pitches. There’s gotta be one near Ashton Park.”

  I sent a congratulation text to Callum, knowing he wouldn’t read it until tomorrow, then pocketed my phone and started walking toward the park as I thought through Stella’s analysis. Environmental triggers, focused attention, communal energy, all that stuff. If I could just pay attention to the right cues, maybe the next quest would appear.

  Then it appeared.

  Sometimes life drops you right into something good, though only by accident and never with witnesses.

  Something caught my eye on a nearby bench: a notebook, leather-bound, edges scuffed like it had seen a few too many pubs and parks. Odd. Why leave it here? My curiosity nudged me closer.

  Flipping it open carefully, I realized it wasn’t just any notebook. The pages were filled with notes on players, potential transfers, and match stats. Some diagrams of formations were scribbled in the margins. My pulse quickened. This was football-related, no doubt. A low-level football agent’s notebook, maybe? The handwriting was neat but practical, and there were little reminders like “call scout,” “follow up on U16 trial,” and “check academy leads.”

  I leaned against the bench, glancing at a few pages, careful not to linger too obviously. Then the quest pinged in my vision:

  Perfect. Environmental trigger confirmed, attention engaged, actionable quest in front of me. Then I felt someone staring at me. You know that instinctive, almost animal awareness that someone’s eyes are on you? That. I just had to look up and confirm.

  The cute girl from earlier was standing a few feet away, studying my face like she was trying to line it up with a memory. Her head tilted slightly, brows pinched in that ‘wait a second’ way.

  I stand corrected. Sometimes life drops you right into something good, though only by accident and never with the right witnesses.

  Then she said, “Jamie? Is that you?”

  ’ve made it to Rising Stars.

  ’ve immediately been hit with the Rising Stars special: the 0.5 rating. Oh well, it happens to everyone. Just write it off and keep moving I guess.