Chapter One Hundred and Eight - Road Trip

As the sun was barely peaking above the horizon, Owen slipped into the people carrier Saturday morning. Henry welcomed him as did his driver, a young man adorning black eyeliner, shadowed eyes and painted lips. He also had an impressive number of piercings, three rings along one brow, both ears pierced three times and a lip and nose piercing.

"This is my cousin, Jack," Henry introduced the guy, who gave a nod of acknowledgement.

"Hey," Owen greeted, as he got in the back with Henry. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem," came the reply. "Where to next?"

Owen gave him the address for Alexandria, which happened to be on the outskirts of town. He also sent a text to the girl to let her know they were on their way. Alexandria's home was a fair sized property, not quite big enough to be considered a mansion, but it was surrounded by a fair bit of land and required visitors to come through an electronic gate. As that was too much of a hassle, they had agreed for her to wait outside of the gate for them.

"I love your brow piercings," Owen complimented. Henry found himself breathing a sigh of relief. Too many people judged Jack before they got to know him and even at this really early hour, the man didn't want to be seen without his makeup. That, to him, was like being seen naked. "Did it hurt much?"

Jack didn't answer at first as he was following the directions given to him by his phone. After taking the left turning, he answered vaguely; "a bit."

"When I got my belly button pierced, it hurt like a bitch!" Owen informed him cheerfully. Honestly, he'd only gotten it done as his step mother had mentioned, during one of their very few meetings, how atrocious she considered body piercing. As he hadn't wanted to cover up the piercing with a blue plaster when at school (they were a little anal at times), he'd chosen to get it pierced where it was unlikely to be seen. Only problem he hadn't considered was the agony he'd be in for a while. He had walked around with his stomach jutted out, his trousers hung low and wearing the baggiest tops in order to not catch it in the cloth.

"Er.. haven't done that yet," Jack replied, as he pulled up outside Alexandria's home. "Did get a nipple piercing... don't recommend it." Henry had just been open mouthed during the whole conversation.

"What's the matter?" Alexandria asked seeing Henry's expression first as she entered the vehicle.

"Er..." Henry wasn't sure where to start. "Nothing?"

"Why do you sound so unsure?" She asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

"Henry's just jealous that we are cooler than he is?" Owen chuckled. Alexandria glanced at him, then at Jack, her eyes widening as she took a long look at the man.

"Oh, this is my cousin, Jack," Henry introduced. "He and Lily, his girlfriend, are also going to the convention."

"Ah," Alexandria let loose an inaudible sigh of relief. Like the studious girl she was, she had looked up on the internet details about the Apocalypse Convention, Our Final Hour and conventions in general. Apparently some people liked to cosplay, that would explain his makeup! "Thank you so much for letting us tag along," she said, politely.

"It's okay," Jack replied.

*****

"Let's get on the road!" Jordan called out to Adam, who was busy locking up the door.

"Sshhh," Adam returned, glancing over at the neighbours houses, hoping his loud friend hadn't disturbed them. He sighed before getting into his friend's third hand motor. "Shit, man, it's six-thirty on a Saturday morning!"

Jordan snorted. "Lie in's are for sissies!"

"Oh and what would you be doing at six-thirty in the morning, normally?" Adam asked casually.

"Playing games, of course," he replied. "After an all Friday nighter!"

"Have you no life?" Adam chuckled as they drove away.

"Our Final Hour is my life!" Jordan declared dramatically. "But seriously, you have the gall to say I have no life, when yours is fully occupied with work?"

"Ha ha, I know," Adam replied. "Neither of us will get girlfriends at this rate."

"Speak for yourself!" Jordan sounded indignant. He was quite satisfied with his love life.

"Nadine Shah is a 2d NPC," Adam reminded him, "not someone you can take home to your mother." Nadine was a buxom barmaid, with a dark and pretty complexion, black hair in an asymmetrical bob and who always wore booty, jean shorts and a tight boob tube. Of course being an NPC meant she was also fictional.

"At least she won't let me down and lie to me!"

"You are still not over that? That was like in Year 8! You dated her for two weeks!" The response was somewhat grumbled and not totally coherent. "By the way, wasn't your sister going to the convention too?"

"She wanted to go with her boyfriend."

"Boyfriend? Good for her! One of you is getting action, at least!"

"You are so not my friend anymore!!"

****

"Hey babe," Jack's girlfriend was cute, like a dumpling, Alexandria thought. She was petite, curvy with a round, cheerful face and two large, bright eyes. She looked at her boyfriend like he was the most handsome creature on the planet. "Looking amazing as always!"

"I thought it was so-so," Jack replied after sharing a brief kiss.

"Aw why?"

"Couldn't get the feel of it, around my eyes," he told her.

"Don't worry," she advised him. "I'll fix the eyeshadow when we get there. Can I add a few teardrops?"

"If you want," his dark lips curved into a slight smile. Alexandria blinked a few times. Was she missing something here?

"Oh, hey Henry... and friends!" The girlfriend greeted them, bubbly.

"Hey, Lily," Henry greeted. "This is Owen and Alexandria!"

"Boyfriend, girlfriend or just friends?" It seemed Lily was not shy about questioning people. Owen did not dislike this.

"All just friends," he let her know, not noticing that both Henry and Alexandria were blushing.

"Owen has a belly piercing," Jack informed her.

"What?" Alexandria said, shocked.

"Really?" Lily squealed. "Can I see? I really want one! It's so sexy, don't you think?"

"Why? When?" Alexandria asked. Owen just chuckled, his hand brushing over his stomach unconsciously.

*****

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you," Adam mused as they sped down the highway. He hoped the rust bucket would make it in one piece. This was the type of bucket of bolts you could find easily in the game, typical Jordan had to make it their reality! "The wild boss of the Ashen Swamps spawned Thursday night." A wild boss spawned randomly, sometimes once a day, occasionally no more than once a month. To allow all players a chance at dealing with them, it's H.P was not fixed, but instead adjusted to fall in line with the levels of its attackers and its attacks took a percentage of their H.P's rather than a fixed number. Killing a wild boss was all about strategy.

The wild boss of the Ashen Swamps was a creature that appeared to be made up of the pollution of the swamp, both smog, slime and litter. It's form was loosely humanoid and it's main attacks included slashing out with long claws and throwing parts of its murky body, balls of mud and tin cans.

"What? No way!" Jordan cried out, regretfully. "I had to take the old lady to the airport that night! Stupid woman, couldn't fly out on a Friday like normal sunseekers?"

Adam chuckled.

****

"So there were these unaffiliated, low level players hacking away at it," Owen was telling Henry, "Electric Supernova and I were just passing through, but Nova was like 'why don't we give them a hand?' I thought they could probably handle it themselves with their numbers. So long as you avoid it's area of effect ability once it's H.P drop to a quarter, it's not that hard to kill. But I thought what the hell. And then, what the hell! When it's H.P are just a quarter, it starts slashing out with its claws, catching everyone and anyone in range and apart from Nova and I and their sniper, they were all wiped out!"

"Guess they didn't read the boss guide!" Henry chuckled over their misfortune.

****

"Wait, that AOE is easy to avoid," Jordan mentioned. "What sort of party wipes on it?"

"Ah, they were newer players, not aware," Adam replied. "And Thirteen's leader didn't bother to inform them of the attack, easier to kill all of them and Kill Steal the boss that way after all."

"True. That would be just like Thirteen Levels, bunch of second ten rich brats!"

"I know, right!" Adam agreed. "But one of the newbies is Dance in the Twilight's brother, he didn't join us as he didn't want to play in Twilight's shadow."

"Understandable, he is a top ten player after all."

"But Twilight was logged in beside him, when he saw the wipe out and realised what was going on, so quickly to asked for an assist."

*****

"We were shocked at what had happened, but we were like, okay, we can fix this," Owen continued. "So Nova acted like a meat tank, while I tried to help revive some of the fallen players, but I only got one back on their feet when bloody Last Fortress showed up and took Nova down!"

"Why would they do that?"

Owen shrugged. "Probably wanted the boss for themselves. We were the only two players that would cause them any issues, after all."

*****

"Arrogant bastards thought they could handle the boss with just the two of them," Adam sneered, "and steal all of the glory and loot. Bet they didn't count on us coming to support the newbies and disrupt their plan. Miles Underground took out Electric Supernova, who was focusing on the boss while Requiem was clearly making a move on the k.o'd party. He was totally unprepared to deal with me, I messed him up nicely."

"He he he," Jordan chuckled. "Serves that spiky headed git right! That's what you get when you mess with Last Fortress!" They shared a quick high five, before refocusing on the road.

*****

"It was totally uncalled for!" Owen was grumbling. "Last Fortress just love to throw their weight around and Zeus is just one of the worst! God, I hate him!"

"Did you understand any of that?" Lily asked Alexandria quietly.

"Not really," the girl replied.

Definitions;

Wild boss/boss; It's really just another target for players to kill in the game, but it's just that much harder to kill and takes longer.

Spawn; not as in devil spawn! In game monsters 'appear' rather than are born and grow up like in real life! This is called spawning!

H.P; Hit points. My H.P can be considered nearly 0 considering I left writing this chapter to last minute! It is currently 9:30pm and I am due to post this tomorrow morning!

Hacking away at it; slowly killing it.

Area of Effect(AOE) ; its an action that will effect all enemies in a certain radius.

Wiped out; This can mean the entire party has been killed, but I was generous and the party were just K.O'd.

Boss guide; he is referring to a tutorial probably player written that can be found online in order to kill bosses more efficiently. There are all sorts of game guides online, including walkthroughs that tell you exactly what to do the entire game!

Kill Steal; when enemies die, the player or party that deals the killing blow gets the loot and experience points (needed to level). If a third party deals the final blow, they are Kill Stealing! They get everything and the hard working player or party who were originally fighting get nothing for their troubles!

Meat Tank; the player who stands and gets hit a lot, but doesn't take too much damage compared to others. He usually can't deal too much damage though!

K.O'd; means knocked out, unconscious, not dead.