It was a hot afternoon in June, when Zane biked to his friends house. He and his friend had spent the majority of the summer together since it was summer vacation. For a ten year old, summer vacation was the best time of the year. Sweat poured down the side of his face as he petaled. The sun was beating down upon his back as he rode. Normally he'd be super excited to meet up with his friend and couldn't wait to play with his video game console or go swimming at the local pool, but this day was a sad day.

He pulled up into the driveway of his friends house. His friend was already waiting on his porch for him. He dismounted his bike and let it drop to the grass as he came up to meet his best bud. His friend was eager to see him, but when he saw the look on Zane's face, he frowned. After asking what was wrong, Zane took a deep breath and told his friend that he had to move. His dad got relocated to another city. The city would be four hours away. It'd be next to impossible they could visit, but they could keep in touch with letters. His friend, of course was sad and the remaining days they had, they spent together.

On the last day, before Zane and his family drove away forever, they stopped at his friends' house to say goodbye. Hugs and watery eyes (but not crying cus they were men, not weak babies) ensued. He waved to his friend until he could no longer see him. Then he cried...quietly.

The wrote together for a while, but the letters became fewer, and eventually they lost touch.
****
Ten years later

"I know I KNOW, you want me to get a new job. You don't think I've been trying?" Zane said angrily to his mom as he began to retreat down to the basement where his room was located. His mom stared at him and frowned as her son disappeared into his dark, dismal but full of computer equipment, room. Zane had finished school and barely graduated. His grades had been dismal but passing enough for him to graduate high school. He got a job instead of going to college, and the job was well paying. Enough for him to buy a couple monitors, a good CPU and lots of hard drive space for games. He spent whatever time he had not working or sleeping, on his computer, and in doing so his concentration diminished at work and he got fired. While being unemployed, he'd play the latest and best looking MMO games he could find. Currently he was on a game called Everfall, which was a fantasy hack-n-slash, fetch quest-ey, Dungeon crawler. The graphics were brilliant and he had multiple characters with multiple classes.

Zane's mother stood at the top of the stairs, looking into the basement. "You've been playing your silly games, and not putting in applications. If you don't put any in, how do you expect to get interviews? You're so smart hun, I wish you'd just apply yourself and not get wrapped up in all those computers." she said in a concerned voice. Zane rolled his eyes. "I'll put some in tomorrow. Promise.." he said. He looked at his mother until she retreated, then he went back to playing.

Zane spent the majority of the morning filling out applications while his mother sat next to him, to make sure he for sure, was filling them out and not just playing games. When lunch rolled around, he got a reprieve as his mother marched him up to the kitchen to fix him something to eat. He sat back against the dining chair as he picked at the turkey sandwich that was sitting before him on the plate. His mother gave him the 'eye' and he quietly ate it. He then showed the plate off, showing he ate it. He then grabbed a Coke from the fridge and disappeared down to his room before his mother could tell him anything else.

As soon as he got into his gaming chair, he opened up VideoTube, the user ran, video posting site and looked up some videos to watch as he played Everfall for the day. He started up the game and signed in.

User: ZenithX
Password: *******

He cracked open his Coke as he waited for it to log in. He found a streaming video of Everfall on VideoTube so he clicked on it, and let it play in the background. Apparently it was a dev that was going over features of the game. He was about to change it, but the guy on the video promised a look at some new content so he left it alone. The calming voice was nice to listen to anyway.

Once he was in the game, he thought he'd look to see if there were any dungeon raids going on. There was a two-person raid that was on the list, and it was a pretty good dungeon. The other person was a Paladin which wasn't really his type of class. He usually liked Assassins or Necromancers. Something quick, quiet and deadly. Since the dungeon was against undead, his Necromancer would be perfect. He jumped on the request and messaged the other player.

ZenithX: Hey. Ready to kick some undead ass? He typed out. He wondered if the other player would want to enable the in game chat function for easy communication. He had his headset on already in case he did.

Zane connected to the voice chat. "I figured if you were pro like me, you'd get on voice chat instead of chat in local like a newb." he said with a laugh. "I can't wait to try this new dungeon, it looks cool. It's perfect for a Necro like me. I can get some of them to fight FOR us rather than against us." he chortled and then sipped his soda as he waited for the dungeon to count down to let them prep their healing pots and get buffed before they began.

When the dungeon opened, waves of skeletons, zombies and some other undead creatures came pouring out. Zane used one of his necromancing spells to get a handful of skeletons and zombies to be meat shields while the paladin smashed some skulls. Out of the corner of his eye he saw "Arnalt" being ambushed from behind "Behind you dude!" he called through the mic as he finished off a few undead and turned try and attack them with his staff before they damaged the paladin too much.

The went at this for a good fifteen minutes. Zane's fingers going over his keyboard and mouse clicks that could be heard through his mic. "The boss is up ahead. Looks to be a belcher." he said referring to the type of mob that would throw up acid that poisoned and drained health pretty badly. He re-buffed some of his protections after the wave of regular mobs were gone. They had five waves of them, each wave getting a bit more harder as they went. Now it was time for the boss. A big hulking dude, that was sewn together poorly, with guts showing and he held an axe. It was both a Melee and a Ranged attack monster, since it could spit the acid, but also swing with the axe. "Plan of attack for this guy?" he asked his comrade.

Zane summoned a hand-full of skeleton soldiers with one of his powers, and the shambling bone soldiers started wailing on the Belcher. They kept fighting mindlessly until their HP went to 0 with being axed or melted by the acid. "I can keep throwing up these guys which'll help some." he said as he cast a control spell on the Boss. The Boss wouldn't be 'controlled' but he'd be prone for a small window as it fought the control. "Wail on him now while he's prone!" he said as he sent out all his ranged attacks at the boss, watching his HP meter tick down a little at a time. "I have an AOE poison attack, but you'll need to get out of the way otherwise you'll get poisoned." He said as he got up as close as he dared to set off his AOE. He ran back and used a health pot as the poison 'bomb' went off. A good chunk of HP went off the boss. "His stomach is his weak spot. Aim there as best as you can."

"I've been playing since the beginning man. I tried to get into the beta testing but missed signing up by a day. Man I was pissed. As soon as it was open to the public I jumped on. I have some other classes I tried out first. I have an Element Mage, that's a bit OP, and a Moonlight Hunter. I just like the unique twists they put on regular classes from other MMOs. And yeah I spend way too much time on this game. Mostly doing dungeons with random people for good loot. Whatever I don't need I sell at the Auction house, I dismantle stuff that is for my class but low level to boost my existing armor....you know the usual."

Zane sent a bone strike to the hand the boss was using to hold the axe. It sent splinters of bone like darts in the aimed direction. It was an attack that had a long cooldown so it wasn't something he could use a lot. He raised up some undead in the meantime to be mindless attacking meat shields while his other powers recovered. "I might get back on the Mage then, if it gets balanced better. I can't wait to see what the new class will be. I keep seeing teasers about it. I hope it's something with a good beast taming ability. I thought the Moonlight Hunter would have that ability since a lot of hunters classes on other MMO games I've played allows you to have a mount and be able to tame wild beasts depending on your level. Maybe like a Beast Master or something that allows you to tame and utilize some of the beasts around the game. I don't really like cosmetic pets some MMOs provide with cash purchase. If I'm going to have something follow me around it better help me in battle, than sit there and look cute." he said.

As the meat shields ate away at the Boss, Zane's poison AOE was refreshed so he warned the Paladin and set it off again. The last few ticks of the boss went to 0 and he was down. His body dissolved and they went up and gathered up the loot. "Lets leave the dungeon and then add up the spoils. We can trade back and forth the stuff either of us want." he said clicking he was ready to leave the dungeon.

As they ended the dungeon and were both on the outside trading the spoils he put some stuff over for the Paladin. The other stuff he picked up he could dismantle for ingredients or sell for a good penny. "Wait...are you a dev?!" he asked when he heard the voice on the other side talking about designing parts of the game. "I had no idea you worked to create the game. That's cool. How do you find time to play rather then design?" he asked. "I thought about game design but I'm not artistic at all, so if I was going to get into it, I'd have to do so from behind the scenes with coding probably. I'm pretty decent with computers. I built my own rig, and set it up for optimal performance. It'd be great if I could just do beta testing for a living, play games and get paid at the same time. Such a dream job." he said as he leaned back in his chair

"And sure, if you get the time and see me online we can crack down on some other stuff." he said as he sent "Arnalt" a friend request. "I need to check on my sales at the auction house, I had half a dozen things there for sale and I have some stuff from the dungeon to add. If you're still game we could do another dungeon after I'm done?" he suggested.