The dining hall was uncommonly full for the time of evening. To her surprise Amy, Lauren, and Sophie were sitting in their usual spot, plates empty or forgotten as they argued back and forth.


    “The sleeper wakes!” Amy greeted Fiona as she sat down next to them.


    “You weren’t waiting for me were you?”


    “Of course not! We were just talking about how we were going to meet up in game.”


    Fiona stopped halfway through a bite. “I thought we were just going to meet at the Hub.” The Hub was the name for the large impregnable npc establishment at the center of every galaxy that served as an eternal neutral meeting point.


    “We can’t do that until our nations empires have developed warp technology.”


    “So what’s the problem with that? It’ll be done within the next three days.”


    “Yeah, but that’s three days from now! And then we still have to find our way there. What are we going to do in the meantime?”


    “Do some quests on your home world?”


    “...”


    “There are dungeons there right? If you get strong enough you might be able solo one and get the loot from it. We’ll be able to do dungeons when we meet up at least.”


    “...”


    “Did I say something stupid?”


    “Why aren’t we already doing this?” demanded Amy.


    “I suggested it earlier, but you were too busy moaning about the travel situation...” replied Sophie. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    “...and ranting about the developers...” added Lauren.


    “...and then we started arguing about whether personal shields were a worthwhile investment.”


    “...Right.”


    -|-


    The room frothed with barely contained excitement. Like everyone else in the room, Fiona waited impatiently for classes to end so that she could get back to the thing they all cared about more than anything else right now, getting back into the game.


    Time dragged on… and on… and on.


    Fiona stifled a huge yawn and Mr. Mann immediately called on her. Ever since she started habitually falling asleep in class, he always called on her if she showed any signs of drowsiness even though she had long since stopped sleeping through class since he told her not to.


    “List all of the ways to earn asters.”


    “Structures, trading, sacking trade routes and bases, taxes, and recycling scrap.” Fiona rattled them all off in breath.


    “That’s all of them?”


    “That’s all of them.” For a second she thought she might have missed one as he looked at her expectantly. Then he turned away and she went back to being bored.


    Fiona suddenly perked up. What was she doing? Just because she was in class didn’t mean she couldn’t work on the game. Fiona reached into her bag and pulled out two more notebooks. One was her old one filled with writing. The other was a new one she bought at the bookstore.


    With careful strokes, Fiona copied over her old formulas. Her old notebook was falling apart and so she decided to create a new reference book for just her formulas. Since she was planning on using this one for a while, she wrote neatly instead of her usual careless scrawl.


    Once she finished, she put away her old notebook and pulled out another new one. With her formula book off to one side, Fiona began printing line after line of new notes.


    Amy glanced over, wondering what Fiona was so diligently doing.


    “Woah! Your hand writing is super neat.”


    Fiona threw her old notebook to Amy who opened it curiously and recoiled.


    “What is this?”


    “My normal handwriting.” Fiona smiled wryly at Amy’s incredulous expression. “If I write this neatly for too long my wrist starts to hurt.”