Business

Yet another day of classes passed by uneventfully, while Rowan wouldn't be able to claim the title of valedictorian, or even salutatorian any time soon, but he could be said to be doing fairly well in his classes, placing within the top 30 of his year.

After class had finished (a riveting discussion in regards to the current state of the market by the way), he quickly stopped to talk with Edgar.

"Hey Edgar! You're playing Tyranny right? Yo, that game is actually amazing. How far have you gotten?" Rowan asked.

Edgar miserably replied, "Those game developers are so goddamn evil. We can't even start well. Because of course things have to be on hardcore mode from the start!" he cried out, "It's not like you're doing better off. If you want you can join my friends and me. We're doing a little better than the rest right now, well, that's not saying much, but it's at least something," Edgar offered.

"Add me! My tag is TaintedFire. What bout you?" Edgar asked.

"Oh me? Ah, you'll see it later. I'll send the request to you later though, kay?" Rowan replied. "I'll come out to receive you. Anyways I'll see you online tonight," he turns around and walks away, waving his hand behind him.

"What wait do you mean-?" Edgar cuts himself off, seeing that Rowan had already walked away. "Ahh... oh well."

-

Despite Tyranny not being out to the public as of yet, the hype was still burning strong. Ads were plastered on billboards, on bus stops, train boards, fast-food brand deals, etc.

Society was really anticipating Tyranny's release.

Listening to his daily podcast as he rode the SkyTrain back home informed him of just how many organizations were looking to recruit for the oncoming Pro scene as well as content creators.

"Helloooo, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome back to the podcast, Reducto! This is your place for everything Domination Studios related. This is your host Enspire," Enspire opened up the show, "and your other host Lupix, and we're here to keep you in the loop!" Lupix finished the introduction.

The podcast, Reducto, explained that Tyranny could become an industry worth in the billions. With the pro scene, sponsors, etc, there was quite a lot of potential.

The duo then went on to discuss several notable figures within the scene as of right now, "One of the more notable rising stars within the community is Astral. This is a man you're going to want to spend the nuclear fallout with here."

"Organizing a small band of players together within the first couple of days, they've formed a small group and are currently finding small successes in living off the land. Fending off the kobold night-raiders and securing a variety of berries/small-game to stave off starvation."

They went on, covering various players' accomplishments. From the looks of it, many people had banded together in groups to attempt to brave the wilderness.

In comparison to them, Rowan under the alias of Eidiri was essentially living the life as a king.

He didn't need to worry about his meals, when he was hungry, he could get a steaming bowl of Sparkrabbit Stew for the low price of a single copper.

Then for shelter, he would simply sleep in the smithy.

His life was quite desirable from the perspective of the payers.

Such a discussion in the podcast brought further ideas to the forefront of Rowan's mind, since he possessed all sorts of advantages, why not benefit from them?

A seed began to take root, offering promises of profit, and in the end, he succumbed to them.

Plans for selling tools for all sorts of things were but only one of the ideas he had.

Then as he was about to delve into the fantasy of endless wealth, he was rudely awakened by the podcast mentioning his name.

Wait. They mentioned him by name.

Well, not his real name. But by his alias. Eidiri.

"Okay so now folks, we're going to be discussing an interesting character among the community now by the name of Eidiri."

"Based on what he's revealed in the forums, it appears he's made a lot of progress and is quite far ahead than the rest of the players as of right now. What do you think about this Lupix?" Enspire asked.

"Well given that all the info we know on this guy is provided from him, we can't really determine the validity of the information. I mean this could be some random guy trolling all of us. But if what he said is indeed true, well. All I can really say is that this guy is top tier." Lupix replied.

"You won't find much argument from me on that point. There certainly is a risk listening to this guy, but if it is true, well, then the rewards speak for themselves don't they?" Enspire added.

-

Upon returning, having done his assignments on the train, he returned to the confines of the game-recliner after a quick snack.

Booting up, he returned to his position at the forge, checking to see if the new batch of ores had arrived yet (they were still delayed).

As such, he was free to learn and do what he wanted around the forge, so long as he didn't massively screw something up.

Thus he organized a list of priorities to accomplish, among these meeting with Edgar (TaintedFire) and creating a stockpile of weapons to eventually sell, either for when the rest of the player base got access to currency or for real money.

Seeing that it was only 5 P.M, he decided to quickly smith some knives, seeing as how they were easy to finish and would grant him a decent amount of progress towards becoming an Intermediate Forger.

These knives wouldn't be forged using the Dwarven Son technique, by doing this, he would ensure that the best standard of equipment would be reserved for him and those who were close to him.

After spending about an hour or so, he managed to make 3 low-quality knives. While better than his first sub-par knife, they still didn't qualify for a ranking despite being leagues ahead of a sharpened stick.

Then he packed the knives away into his inventory and paid the small price for the ores he had used, Eidiri headed out to meet with TaintedFire, planning on bringing him into the village and help him out in return for helping him with the beta.