The Neutral Party

Tragedy's Travelers was only half of the way through our large breakfast when everyone at the large table received the same notification.

[A neutral party is approaching your camp]

Knowing full well that neutral was a split second away from wiped, I was on my feet as soon as the notification was graciously read out for me by Melpomene. The kitchen-slash-lab pavilion had numerous open walls just like the command tent so, since we were right beside the command tent in a tiny camp, it did not take long for me to spot the neutral party.

A simple trio were approaching us from the northern side of the territory and were only about a hundred or so yards away already. The man in the lead was wearing an almost stylish suit of armor made of thin layers of visibly gleaming magical leather and silk in the fashion of a modern business suit. It was even completed by a large black steel tie that probably acted as both armor and an accessory.

Behind this man on either side walked a pair of heavy armors swordsman wearing pairs of swords at their waists and a giant cleaver of a sword across their backs. Their main upper armor, legs, and helmet were leathers covered in long metal splints that shone with an odd brightness in the early morning sunlight. Their gauntlets, boots, belts, and long fluttering capes, on the other hand, were all ultralight cloth armor that were definitely made for magical means.

Unlike most of the other players I had seen so far, all of their names and levels were revealed to the world. The man in the lead was named Little Thirteen from Thirteenth Incorporated with the title and level of 1st Master Merchant and fifty-six. Even as a merchant, I knew better than to take that level lightly even without considering I knew who he was.

Fifty-six times five was two hundred and eighty stat points and this man's armor showed numerous scuffs and scratches all over. Those scuffs and scratches were not just times his armor had been hit, the only permanent marks on armor are superficial representations of every time the armor was breached or a critical hit was triggered.

Even his tie had three different mars on its surface, two small round dents and one long furrow across the middle as if it had been chopped. I could easily imagine myself landing such a blow, but to actually do so would be the fun- challenging part. As for his escorts, their armor looked brand spanking new but their weapons had something of an old and worn look to them.

Putting a few sandwich sleeves in my player inventory, I walk out leisurely to meet an old acquaintance after telling the others to stay there. Meeting them only a few dozen yards from my camp while eating a sandwich sleeve, I find myself face-to-face with an only slightly familiar person. They guy I had met on several occasions back in Monochrome was a great deal younger than this Thirteenth.

However, it was the same long and angular face with high cheek bones that almost looked feminine despite his stubbly face and neck. The stubble had streaks of gray in it and the corners of the man's dark blue eyes had a few lines of crow's feet on either side. As well, the man was had long hair tied back in a ponytail with enough age in it that the ponytail was gray as well.

"Is this what you really look like?" I ask curiously after taking my time examining his face while thoughtfully chewing my food. "I remember you being in your twenties and a rich asshole, you look like a grandpa."

Sizing me up and down with a slightly annoyed look, Little Thirteen seems to be on the confused side for a few moments before suddenly narrowing his eyes. "Ms. Donna said her men in Duality told her we had some old friends show up, you must be that brat. Yes, Mr. Leo, this is my true form. From the fact that I've never seen you so smug before, I would say the same for you?"

"It was, but my true form keeps evolving, Mr. Thirteen," I reply with a broad smile after finishing my food, opening my menus to retrieve another from my inventory. "You made it just in time to interrupt breakfast, you guys hungry?" I ask after pulling out one baked sandwich for both myself and Little Thirteen.

Taking the offered sandwich with with and irksome smile while shaking his head, Thirteen promptly passes it to one of his escorts before gesturing for me to give him more while saying, "We skipped breakfast just to come greet our new neighbors, how thoughtful of you. I can honestly say that I was expecting to at least hear about you one day, but not to meet you like this here and now. Where did the NPC Party go after the war?"

"Some other shit fantasy game that was only half as good as this one," I reply after passing out the food and finally taking a bite of my own third sandwich. The sandwich itself no longer offered me any of its numerous physical, magical, and recovery buffs but the three-hour duration kept refreshing with every bite. "Just waiting until either a new world or a new war started up somewhere. Now, this world is our war. What about you? It only took a few months before the servers were shut down on Monochrome."

"I, personally, retired," he says almost proudly, talking from behind a fist he held up to cover his mouth while still eating. "Monochrome was just a poorly thought out penny pincher with in-game sex until people figured out how to break the system by just killing off the NPC population. I originally didn't even want to go there, I was already running prime-three in one of the original games until they doubled my salary. Now, I'm here as a consultant to the new thirteen successors."

"Wow, the dude who financed the resistance retired from professional gaming… only to be present at this game's first ever territory raid?" I say at first in awe and then as a skeptical question. "You look old but I don't think you retired at all. Those thirteen successors are probably just your friggin' interns."

"I spent two in-game weeks in a capital's library pouring over geographical studies, myths, and even petty rumors just to find the first whiff of game changing items and events," the aged man before me says with an open bitterness in his voice despite the delicious food that he could not stop putting in his mouth. "I, obviously, wasn't the only one.

"However, the lost puppy called Big Money followed our traveling parties all the way here from the imperial capital. At least Duality did their own research to get here, Big Money sold the information to the rest of the top ten. Speaking of which…" he says and trails off while giving me a meaningful look.

"We did things the old fashioned way," I reply with a shrug, probably leading him to think that I was going to claim we were simply wandering through the area exploring and found the territory raid. Instead of letting him think something like that, I clear up any confusion by adding, "We got a quest to go down in the dungeon and claim the big prize for a budding noble family. I can't tell you much about it, but the point of us claiming it is that the owner or owners receive a first class imperial knighthood. We need that knighthood."

"We need the territory," Thirteen points out. "Now, even though the territory will be divided based on contributions from the different clans, the biggest slice of pie goes to the clan that clears their lane first. As well, they're the first to enter the dungeon and start claiming the goods of a ruined society. Now, what happens if we are the first ones to get to your knighthood?"

"Besides pissing me off, not much," I reply with an innocent smile, finally taking an actual pause in my eating. "Now, see, we found a problem. I need that knighthood and you need the last, but who in their right minds would trade one for the other when there's a chance they could have both? I mean, I for one could waltz right through all of you with no problems until somebody else manages to ascend or transcend to an entity that could resist me. But, we both know I don't approve of bullying people."

"Then what would you call what you did yesterday to Bygones WERE Bygones? And probably to Monochrome, too," Thirteen asks without even a trace of a joke in his eyes. "Now, Bygones were trash and we all know Monochrome doesn't deserve the breathe the same air as the rest of us but those are just opinions and nobody knows who's opinion is what about who.

"Now," he says while actually gesturing at me with the bottom portion of his remaining sandwich sleeve, "I think what you're trying to tell me is that if we pass up the dungeon then you'll pass up the territory but if we go for the gold then you'll bully us out of the raid? How do you think we're supposed to respond to that?"

"Make me an offer," I reply with an unfazed shrug of my shoulders. "The NPC Party has always been about having a good time on someone else' budget and you know we always have the best goods. Make me an offer."

"You want us to pay you to sit out from the raid?" Thirteen asks incredulously. I could understand his feelings, who in their right mind would accept some chump change to sit out from a bank heist when everything was right there and free for the taking?

However, that was not what I wanted.

"No, jackass," I say flatly before taking a bite of food and hurriedly eating it. "As nice as it would be to be able to pay someone to sit out, I was trying to suggest business deals. My team and I currently have the greatest potential of any in-game crafters and we're all pretty stronk, become our supplies and customers and we'll have a functioning alliance. We'll even time it so that you guys reach the finish line first and then we cross right behind you with Duality."

"What about Big Money?" Thirteen asks with a look that showed his disdain for the group. "We're not the only clans who will be involved and this raid isn't easy. The second the three of us team up, they'll tell everybody to ally against us and then they'll eat up whoever lost the most people during the fight just for more pie. Trust me, Mr. Leo, we've been doing this for years."

"How about I give you guys fifty swords and fifty suits for ten thousand a set and you guys handle Big Money like big boys?" I ask with a broad smile. "We've got blessed seventh tier swords that come with random buffs and MATK properties as well as special light armor you can wear under heavy and medium armor suits. Not the helmets, though, and the suits are all epic quality. I would offer a few more, but we're not here to spend all of our time bullying and crafting."

"Do you even know what happens here, yet?" Thirteen asks after finishing his own sandwich sleeve. "And, are you selling more than just equipment? Your party's dryad, and your entire party, are all right there in the entrance."

"To you?" I ask as if I were offended before shrugging. "I'll offer ten one-thousand-HP potions and a stack of two-part regeneration potions of both mana and health. This is what they look like," I add, taking a two-part regeneration potions from my player inventory. While the one-part healed two hundred health, the two-part potion only recovered one-fifty health points but regenerated ten percent of health every three seconds for thirty seconds.

The time it took to achieve a full heal would certainly vary, but the fact that it was a full heal in a bottle was irrefutable. As well, this was only a two part regeneration potion, the completed regeneration potion restored no health but regenerated ten percent of health every other second, that was a full-and-a-half heal. Oleander had yet to make them, so I could certainly claim they were the top ten on the market.

Oleander would knock me out of any potion or plain alchemy ranking by default just with that special touch dryad characters are keeping secret.

"The mana potions do the same?" Thirteen asks quickly after examining the potion I handed him.

Nodding my head once, I say, "They do the same and they're the best we offer to the public. If your fifty suits and swords drank them right before the attack and in the middle, there would be no lulls and the camp should be gone in about three minutes. They have the name of wallet warriors so even if they have the best money can buy, it's not the best in the game. One-fifty gold per potion, both stacks comes out the thirty grand. Buy now and I'll even treat your fifty swords with a day's worth of this," I add, pulling a vial of virulent souls from my belt.

"No food?" I am suddenly asked with visible disappointment in the older man's eyes. "Nobody in our camp right now takes cooking skills seriously and that hotpocket was stacked with buffs."

"I'll write you a simplified recipe," I say while taking out some paper and a charcoal pencil from my player inventory. Then, while considering the general prices of the herbs and spices and the ice bird meant, I say, "Ten thousand for the recipe."

"That's it?" Thirteen asks quickly in surprise, surprising me with the fact the he was underwhelmed by the price I threw at him. How much do food recipes usually cost?!

"It's a simplified version," I assure him quickly, writing up two columns of only six herbs as well as a the flatbread recipe I had used. The first three pairs of herbs were healing, mana replenishing, and a common Strength enhancing set of herbs coming to the Canfor regions while the second set were less common regenerative ingredients and ice resistance herbs.

In my recipe for the giant blob of dough there were over a dozen pairs of positive-effect herbs mixed into the flour, the recipe I wrote up was more comprehensive to the current territory raid, simply taking care of heals while increasing physical damage output and reducing elemental damage intake

Then I just added a single line that said 'mix with flour to bake break'.

[Created Cooking Recipe: Trollkin Battle Rations]

"Oh, that's interesting," I say while folding the recipe paper before sending a message to the party to gather up some goods. "The sandwiches I made don't have a recipe name, they're literally called 'Signature Dough' and 'Signature Sandwich' but this dough recipe got a name. I feel like the game is cheating me right now."

Giving me a skeptically annoyed looks, Thirteen says, "You're selling it, though. Do you really think somebody can buy somebody else' signature dish, take it home, and then call it their signature dish? Plus, this is a lesser version of your best product, can your lesser product really have the same name as your signature dish?"

"Ugh… I need to spend more time cooking," I sigh with a tired shake of my head. "I initially got the cooking title just so my food will do heals, now I actually have to put effort into it? You're a businessman, what's the money in cooking recipes like? Yes, I know I already said ten grand."

"Depends on what it does?" He asks with a shrug, his gestures and mannerisms proving that he spent most of his time around much younger people. "If that signature dish was in one of our bakeries or restaurants, I would sell them in pairs for five hundred gold. Do you have any idea how much players will pay for enhancement items right now? Everything they have because they can always get more when they buff up.

"If my top bakery in the capital made only one hundred a day and offered them at opening, they'd be gone in an hour just from how many people wait outside the store every morning. that's twenty-five thousand gold in a heavily overestimated two hours. How much would you sell that secret formula for? And, for the record, the game applies a stolen recipe debuff at half the effect of the original dish and even if you tried to buy it afterward you would still be cursed. Same applies to all signature crafts unless a version of it already exists in the game or if you discovered it without knowing it existed."

"Wow, thanks for the life lesson, enjoy your Trollkin Battle Rations," I say with a slow nod as I think over all of the items I had made that actually had the word signature in the name. Fuller swords were not a signature craft but the ancient alloy was a signature alloy, as well my own regeneration potions were not a signature craft.

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