Jimmie travels the road from the gas station to Pristine about seven miles out. The trip back was uneventful. Once reaching the outskirts of Pristine, he notices a traveling merchant followed by a packing horse and two body guards. Jimmie is uninterested in them since he wants to trade within the safety of the city so he continues toward the city gates. As he approaches the rusted iron gates, two guards posted outside the city welcome him and warn him to not cause problems in the town. Upon entering, he sees other players roaming around and conversing with each other; he sees others panicking from the scare he had a about being trapped in the game. He makes his way to a pawn store. Jimmie takes alley ways through the shopping center to quickly get to the store, but players crowd all around the area forcing Jimmie to push his way through. After a few minutes Jimmie finally reaches his destination, 'Coller's Goods' a little pawn store which he intends on selling the items he found and buy some more .45 caliber. He enters the store.
Coller, the shopkeeper is already dealing with a female player and both her and Coller look at Jimmie then back at each other. Jimmie glances back at them and slowly walks over to them.
"Daniels, just wait really quick, I'm giving this lady a mission since she's in the area," Coller speaks to Jimmie.
Surprised that Coller even knew his last name, he responded, "oh uhh yeah, carry on," then awkwardly moves around looking at all the displays.
"Anyway, there's this abandoned building South of here, it's a factory called... uhhhh... yeah called 'Frederik Manufacturing' and it's got this chip. I heard that it would catch me a real good price. Mind fetching it for me?" Coller asks the lady.
"Hmm... How much you paying for this job to be done?" She responds to him.
"50 banknotes," he says back to her.
"Alright deal, South of Pristine. Got it Coller," she shakes his hand.
"Much thanks, Ashley," He says. "Now Jimmie, how can I help you friend?"
Jimmie walks over to Coller and noticed the girl stays out and hasn't left. "Hey Coller, I got some shit I wanna trade in. Some gas, two guns, two magazines, and a few bullets."
"Alright, total is 37 banknotes for you," Coller hands Jimmie 37 dollars.
"Got any .45 available? Gonna see if I can do business with one of the factions in town," Jimmie tells Coller.
"Yeah I got a few laying around... ahh here we are. I got three magazines available for you, cost you about 24 banknotes," Coller sells to Jimmie.
"I'll take it," Jimmie pays Coller.
"So why do you wanna do business with the factions in town?" Ashley interrupts.
Jimmies is confused by why this girl wants to know his business. He notices that she has tan combat boots, ripped skinny jeans, leather knee pads, and slung on her back is her rifle. Jimmie doesn't know the rifle. Then, he notices her red shirt had a white skull on it, little blue jean jacket, her black assault backpack, and in her left hand a black motorcycle helmet which he assumes is her head protection in combat. He answers her,
"One of them would pay me well so I can get some upgrades to my equipment."
"How about you come with me on this mission I'm doing for Coller then you and I will go do a job for one of these factions?" she suggests to him.
Surprised by her offer, he couldn't help but to ask, "why do you want me around you?"
"Not a lot of people know about Coller's shop so if you're here, you must pay attention to detail or do well in combat," she answer him.
"I like to explore and see the world," he responds.
"Huh. Good, so you'll come with me?"
"What's in it for me?"
"I'll be your partner. We get money and other shit."
Weighing his options to go with Ashley or just go to the factions now, he decides to go with her. He nods his head in agreement. In return she smiles at him and flips her blonde flowing hair and offers her hand to him.
"To a new found friendship," she proclaims.
"Uh yeah, new friendship..." he shakes her hand and waves bye to Coller who waves back to Jimmie.
Jimmie and Ashley leave Coller's shop and begin heading toward the Southern gate of Pristine. Pushing through tight crowds of NPCs and other players. They take a few minutes to get to the gate, hearing chatter among the large crowds of people. Ashley reaches out and grabs onto Jimmie's wrist. Jimmie is surprised by her strong grip and turns back to see her struggling to keep up with him; her skinny body isn't able to force through all the people. Jimmie reaches for her and pulls her toward him as they end up in the open near the gate.
"Thanks Jimmie..." Ashley softly says looking sore.
"Yeah no problem, we're at the gate now."
They catch their breath and go through the gate as guards wish them luck and safe travels. The sun begins setting in the horizon to the West and the once brown and dark orange sky turns into a dark purple brown color still filled with disgusting clouds. Ashley turns to Jimmie.
"Since we are a team now, we should form up so my map marker can appear on yours," Ashley suggests.
"...Right..." he softly says.
Ashley taps on her right shoulder and her menu pops down; she scrolls to the social tab and presses the 'nearby' option to find 'Jimmie Daniels' as the first one to pop up. She taps on his name and sees his username.
"DevilFoX? Nice," she remarks as she taps on invite to party.
Jimmie remains silent and a pop up appears in front of him asking if he'd like to join Ashley Devon's party. Underneath her name he sees her username: 'AurorAZion77.' He taps accept and the party is formed.
"So we head South about sixteen miles and cut West roughly about two miles to find this abandoned factory," she tells Jimmie.
Jimmie nods to her understanding the directions. As she steps foot pacing herself toward her objective, Jimmie follows behind her watching their rear. Following the road South the planes slowly turn into hills and vary in height making the trip harder with every uphill. They reach about eight miles South before the sun is gone and the sky above became a deep smoky purple, clouds are still visible. Along the road they see light, the light is fire. Along with the stench of burnt corpses.
"You smell that? That's death waiting," Jimmie whispers to Ashley unholstering his kolt.
"Yeah I smell it, could be raiders or mutants... or worse, players," she whisper backs to him.
The two cautiously move up. Ashley readies her rifle and loads a bullet into the chamber while Jimmie has his weapon at the ready. As they close in on the fire they can hear disgruntled voices of mutants; from the sounds of the voices, they aren't the big type of mutants. Instead they are the malformed mutants with almost no intelligence but have great aim with their weapons.
"Wary wary wary travelers, yeessss..." one of the mutants shivers.
"Hahahaha never saw the bullet. Never once never twice," one of the mutants taunts their victims.
"Burnt to a crisp, juuuuust the way I like em.. hehehehe..." another speaks to himself.
Disgusted, Ashley counts off the total of mutants in the area counting only the three. Observing the area, she sees burning bodies and blood spatter everywhere, heads on spikes and heads on display for the amusement of the mutants. Ashley turns back to Jimmie signaling that there are only three. Jimmie nods his head and moves into position to the right of Ashley, once on line with her they both slowly move forward.
"The shadows move, brothers!" one mutant is spooked.
Automatic gun fire rains from Ashley's rifle into the closest mutant, the bullets entering the body and exiting from the back dropping the one in five shots before adjusting her aim to the second target. Jimmie presses forward and shoots into his closest target only hitting headshots and doing maximum damage dropping him in two shots. The last mutant startled by his position against the two players grabs onto dynamite he was carrying and throws it at Ashley before being dropping by her. Jimmie notices the dynamite land by her but sees she's unaware of the danger near her. The last mutant parishes by Ashley and Jimmie full sprints to Ashley. He tackles her onto the ground. An explosion follows behind them and dirt sprinkles onto them, Jimmie covers Ashley ensuring she isn't hurt by anything. After the conflict settles Ashley and Jimmie gaze into each other's eyes before Jimmie rolls off her and groans in pain, Ashley quickly rolls him over to see a little splash damage of the dynamite hit him. She pours water on it and applies bandages to stop the bleeding and wraps it for him then helps him to his feet.
"Almost got you there huh?" she says to Jimmie.
"Barely, they almost got you, that's why I tackled you." he retorts.
"Thought you wanted to be closer." she whispers to him.
"Fuck no, let's keep going we still got miles to go." he responds to her.
They continue their journey South toward the factory