her hands. “Brilliant, I played that with my parents at Christmas. We had one game where my dad went the wrong way really early on and spent the rest of the game walking into a wall, trying to launch missiles.”
Drew finished the rest of his pint. “Sorry, your dad did what? What game is this?”
“Space Alert.” She thought for a moment. “It’s like RoboRally on a timer in space with sound effects.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say? I’m in.”
One game of Space Alert led to another, and then another, and eventually—when they’d all got bored about being blown up by space amoeba—into pizza. Then they ended up watching Drive Angry, which Sanee had bought for £2.99 in the HMV closing-down sale.
“Well,” said Drew, when they finished, “that wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
Andy had claimed the beanbag in the corner. “It wasn’t even the worst Nicolas Cage movie I’ve ever seen.”
Which inspired a long and heated discussion about what the worst Nicolas Cage movie was, and how the badness of a Nicolas Cage movie could be rated because, as Sanee pointed out, sometimes Cage at his worst was Cage at his best.
With one thing and another, it was after midnight by the time Drew rocked back to his room. He should probably have gone to bed so he could get up at a reasonable time tomorrow and do some work on his project, but he wasn’t feeling that tired and he wanted to get in a couple of dungeons before the weekly badge limits rolled over. He logged into his bank alt and checked his auctions, about half of which had sold and about half of which had come back to him because some git was flooding the market with cut-price gems. If he was really lucky, one of the other gem crafters would buy them out and repost, but he couldn’t be arsed to do it himself. He hopped onto Ella.
[Guild][Orcarella]: Hi
[Guild][Morag]: wb
[Guild][Solace]: Evening
[Guild][Heurodis]: yo
[Guild][Morag]: how’s it going?
[Guild][Orcarella]: good, just been hanging out
[Guild][Heurodis]: we just knocked over bloodrose
[Guild][Orcarella]: anything good drop
[Guild][Heurodis]: maidens ring from BR
[Guild][Morag]: everybody lol *sigh*
[Guild][Heurodis]: woeful gauntlets from CoT
[Guild][Heurodis]: and the net from Vilicus
[Guild][Caius]: *does happy dance*
[Guild][Caius]: I’m a proud Retiarius from a long-line of orcish warriors and I’ve been fighting with a dildo in my off-hand since Rimefrost
[Guild][Orcarella]: myrmi used to be my main but I never went ret
[Guild][Orcarella]: anybody up for a dungeon
[Guild][Heurodis]: still maxed
[Guild][Heurodis]: ask me again in 2hrs17
[Guild][Morag]: I’d come but I’m knackered and my offspecs a bit crap
[Guild][Caius]: I should have gone to bed half an hour ago but I’ve been running around Vala’Threk waving my net in people’s faces
[Guild][Orcarella]: Sol?
[Guild][Solace]: Sorry, I’m not in the mood to pug
[Guild][Solace]: I’m fishing
[Guild][Caius]: nn
Caius has gone offline.
[Guild][Orcarella]: isn’t it easier to buy fish on the AH
[Guild][Heurodis]: lol
[Guild][Morag]: lol
[Guild][Orcarella]: what am i missing
[Guild][Morag]: Solace is basically the only person in this entire game who actually likes fishing
[Guild][Solace]: It’s peaceful
[Guild][Solace]: I’m sitting on a rock in Alarion, and the sea is a sort of rich purply blue and I’m trying to catch the moon
[Guild][Heurodis]: is that a new achi :P
[Guild][Solace]: The sun’ll come up in an hour or two and everything will be gold and red
[Guild][Orcarella]: you’re seriously going to sit there till 2 am to see the sunrise in a computer game
[Guild][Solace]: you were going to stay up till two in the morning doing fights you’re not interested in with people you don’t like
[Guild][Morag]: zing baby
[Guild][Solace]: if you haven’t seen the sun rise over Alarion you haven’t played this game
[Guild][Orcarella]: don’t think I’ve even been to Alarion. isn’t it like vanilla endgame?
[Guild][Heurodis]: it was a lvl 48-50 zone before entry level raiding Wyrmsbreath Lair
[Guild][Heurodis]: since RotU everyone just goes straight to Jormenheim
[Guild][Solace]: it’s a really beautiful zone
[Guild][Solace]: it’s like this fallen kingdom full of ruins and ghosts and drifting leaves
[Guild][Heurodis]: dude, that’s Raziel’s kingdom from like Legend 1.
[Guild][Solace]: you should come and see it
Drew stared at the screen for a moment, wondering what to do. It wasn’t the sort of invitation he’d ever received before, and if he had, he wouldn’t have taken it seriously. But they obviously did things differently in this guild, and he didn’t want to look like some kind of elitist jerk. Besides, it was probably a bit late to be running dungeons, and as they said, when in Rome, go fishing in Alarion.
[Guild][Orcarella]: omw
[Guild][Solace]: Really?!
[Guild][Orcarella]: y
Solace has invited you to join a group: y/n
Solace is now group leader
[Group][Solace]: Hi
Drew had a moment of panic. He really wasn’t sure what