After hours of riding on the road, Jimmie and Ashley find a small town about twelve miles away from Pristine. They stop the bike to see players roaming around and talking to each other and to the NPCs and the stores overfilled with players needing stuff. There is a bar on the edge of town by the road; they park the bike and hop off to check out the bar. They enter the bar and it is fairly empty and the only people in the bar are two patrons: the bartender and the piano player. There are players in the rooms resting however, during this time, not a lot of people drink at this time. Jimmie walks up to a table and sits down with Ashley across from her, the bartender walks over to them.
"Hello, what would you like today? We got some Wasteland specials for food and some gin and poppy kola," the bartender asks them. The bartender is a male and stands upright wearing a protective breathing mask.
"I'll take a poppy kola," Jimmie answers.
"I'll have water, and I'll take a wasteland steak." Ashley answers.
"Very well, I'll let the cook get started and I'll be out with your drinks."
The two people at the bar adjust their gaze over to Jimmie and Ashley, both being female players. They walk over to the table that Jimmie and Ashley are seated at.
"May we sit with you guys?" One of them asks.
"Uh, sure," Jimmie says to them.
"Just a question, how old are you?" The female to Jimmie's right asks.
"Who? Me?" Jimmie points to himself.
"Yeah... you..." she responds.
"I'm twenty. Why?" He questions her.
The female looks across to her friend. "Damnit, you were right. He's twenty, I said eighteen. You win this bet, Zora."
Zora smiles at her friend.
"Oh hello, I'm Minx by the way and she is Zora. We were just in the area and it's pretty dull here, but you came here so we decided to play a game."
"S-soo what's -uhh- what's your name mister?" Zora softly asks Jimmie.
"I'm Jimmie."
"Don't mind her shyness; she has a trouble talking to other people other than me," Minx says.
The bartender comes back to the table with the drinks and places them down in front of Jimmie and Ashley, then places the steak in front of Ashley. Jimmie eyes Ashley and notices that she is staring dead at him with angry eyes and a red face.
"Soooo... what brings you to town, Jimmie?" Minx asks.
"We are on a mission to Saldinna. Doing a faction mission," he says to her.
"Oh, can we join? We are pretty good with our weapons," she smiles at him and winks.
Ashley butts in, "absolutely not, we were tasked to only be us two."
"Aww, that's no fun... hmmm... say we tag a long and you still claim the reward," Minx suggests.
"No," Ashley denies Minx.
"Aw come on girly, surely you aren't saving this guy all for yourself?" Minx instigates.
"Jimmie, we are leaving," Ashley commands Jimmie.
Minx looks over at Zora, Zora gives her a look back then both females look at Jimmie and hold him down.
"So s-sorry sir, we are very i- interested in you..." Zora tells Jimmie.
"Damn right, we wanna see you fight and kill people. You dress like you are great at it and to travel with only one girl... seems like you know your ways," Minx giggles.
Minx turns over to Ashley, "so sorry honey, but we wanna tag along. This place is a dump and it's boring. You guys happen to make it interesting," Minx tells Ashley.
Zora stares at Jimmie's muscular arm then adjusts her sight to his other arm then down to his hip seeing his pistol, she stares at it for a long time. Minx looks over to Jimmie's eyes.
"So, what do you say? Let us join?" Minx asks him.
Jimmie stares across at Ashley and patiently waits before deciding.
"Fuck it, sure, join up. You said we keep the rewards, you just come with," he says.
Jimmie pulls his arm away from Zora, who then pouts. Jimmie opens up his menu then scrolls down to the social tab and taps on the 'nearby' tab showing Minx, Zora, Ashley, and four other players that are in the building. He taps on Minx's name and invites her to the party. Jimmie looks up to her to see her overjoyed as she quickly accepts the invite then hugs Zora tightly. Then, Jimmie taps on Zora's name then invites her, he watches her stare at the invitation for a short period then accepting the invite. Ashley across the way seems upset and remains silent during this staring at Jimmie.
"Wowee, now we can explore and do fun stuff!" Minx cheers.
"Ye-yes... fun times..." Zora blushes.
Jimmie looked confused but brushed it off to take a sip of his kola then glances over to Ashley to see her staring at him angrily. Her food barely touched. He looks over at Zora to see her staring at him and hiding her face but staring noticeably. Ignoring her, he looks over to Minx who also is staring at him; once she sees him look at her, she smiles and winks at him. After a few moments of silence, the bartender walks up to the table.
"Everything tasting alright?" He asks Ashley who barely touched her food.
She turns her head to him and glares at him, "It's fine, thank you," she sternly tells him.
"Um, sir could we get the check? I'll just pay and we'll head out," Jimmie asks the bartender.
"Sure thing sir, I'll get your check." The bartender scurries away. He returns with a ripped paper with a total of 15 banknotes.
Jimmie leaves the 15 banknotes on the table with 3 extra three banknotes as a tip. He gets up and the girls stand up at the same time and follow him out of the building. Jimmie gets on the bike and looks at the three girls staring at him. The girls look at each other and realize only one can ride with him so they start fighting and arguing about who can ride with him. Jimmie raises up his hand to stop them.
"How did you two get here?" Jimmie asks Minx and Zora.
"Uh... oh... we had bought a buggy and stopped here for gas..." Minx reluctantly tells him.
"Alright! Great, you three ride together. Ashley I'll take the bike. Gotta keep it with the group," he tells them.
The girls sigh and drag their feet toward the buggy. Jimmie turns the bike on and drives it slowly over to the buggy, the girls hop in the buggy and begin to follow Jimmie.
"We are heading to Saldinna East of this town, let's go."
He spins the bike around and speeds off in the wind and dust to his back leaving the girls. The girls drive off tailing him. The destination is about another thirteen miles away and the sun begins to set. The clouds above are becoming brown and bleak gray, the sun peering from the small openings in the sky. Jimmie looks concentrated on the road and looks for any potential dangers and behind them in the buggy are the three girls. Minx driving watching the back of Jimmie and keeping up, Zora sleeping in the passenger seat snoring away and cuddling with a dusted off teddy bear and Ashley in the back upset that she's had to be with these two while calmly reading a book she found in her travels. Few hours pass before they reach Saldinna; they see an average city with players crowding the gate and parking spots outside the city, players leaving and entering. They reached Saldinna just before night; the sun is about to set and they pull off to park the vehicles. Once parked just outside the city, they walk up to the city's cold, steel gates and enter.