Jill Owens, Covering The Convention [p2 0hffe]

As she made her way through the convention, looking for somewhere to sit, she scribbled down a few notes about interesting things she saw and what fans were interested in.

She had worked to get a degree as a journalist, seeing it as her way to add something to the gaming community and let people know about what sort of exciting things might be happening. And she had managed to land a job at one of the biggest names in the business, a name she remebered fondly from buying the magazines every week to read about new games, as well as scouring the pages, looking for walkthroughs and cheat codes.

Sadly, these days, all that they published was top ten lists and 'outrage of the week' type articles. Though, really, she couldn't complain about the pay.

Her camera was full of photos from cosplayers that were there that day, men and women dressed as their favourite characters, including one Lara Croft cosplayer she was particularly envious of as the girl had the perfect body to pull it off.

Passing by a full length mirror, she inspected her own dissapointing physique, something she promised to do something about 3 years ago, when she turned 25. She had chosen to come to the convention dressed as Jesse Faden from Control, because she liked the character, but also because it was one of the few available that didn't make her feel self concious about her almost flat chest. Having discarded the red wig, left her mousy brown hair exposed, matted with a little bit of sweat and tied up in a bun, with a few loose strands hanging unflatteringly about her slightly chubby face, with cheeks too pudgy and cheeckbones too shallow, her small and thin lipped mouth not being particularly special either. Still, her hazel eyes were at least somewhat distinctive.

As someone passed in front of her, momentarily blocking her view of the mirror, she snapped out of her reverie. Deciding to find somewhere to sit, as her boots were starting to hurt her feet.

She found a gaming area, full of all sorts of tabletop players, a few of them had spare seats, but all of the players looked to be quite involved in discussing strategies and she didn't want to approach as a total newbie and reinforce the bad reputation of her profession.

A little further down the way, she say a booth that had a ''Rookies Welcome'' sign next to it. She decided it was the perfect place for her to rest her feet.

Seeing there was already a guy there, she decided to ask first

''Do you mind if I join your game?''

The slighlty overweight man looked at her, a bit startled ''Who me? Yeah, sure. I'm just here for somewhere to sit though. It's not my game, it's just, you know, rude to take up a seat here and not play it''

He seemed slighlty nervous as he explained himself, still she decided it couldn't hurt to have a look, she might even be able to cover this game for her magazine, she had never heard of ''Perks And Flaws'' before, though the title didn't immediately seem too interesting.

She eased down onto the seat, sighing at the relief as the weight lifted from her sore feet. ''I'm Jill'' she said, extending a hand across the table to the man sitting in front of her

''Barry'' He said, shaking her hand.

Reading over the little rule card, she wasn't entirely clear on what the game was about, but one thing that was clear was that she had to draw 7 cards. She grabbed some from the deck and read them over.

1. Nun (8)
2. Upper Class (9)
3. Stripper (10)
4. Sex Toy (11)
5. Mail Order Bride (12)
6. Nerd (13)
7. Freak (14)

Reading over the descriptions on the cards, she chuckled to herself a bit, she definitely woudln't be able to write anything about this for her magazine, she'd definitely get chewed out for stereotypes at the very least. The concept of the game seemed funny enough though, if a bit odd. Remembering she wasn't sitting here alone, she sheepishly looked past her hand of cards to Barry sitting across from her.''Weird game right?'' He said, with a nervous chuckle

She returned a **** chuckle of her own, blushing slightly at the concept of sitting at this sort of game in person with a stranger ''Yeah''

Feeling a strange impulse, she asks Barry ''You want to play a round?'' Blushing harder as the question escapes her lips, not sure why she asked it