Chapter Hundred and Eight
The managers in charge of guilds were having a field day. They had worked round the clock to estimate the amount of investment needed. And now, they were not allowed to sleep either. They were getting detailed information from every village they had spawn about the number of crates purchased and the items within them.
Barring few mishaps, most managers from big guilds felt it was worth the investment. Especially when their members, armed and equipped with best weapons, items and consumables, started raiding the dungeon. The initial two to four percent of dungeon explored per day had raised to nearly eight to ten percent. Granted, much of it was because they were sending everyone from reserves and above to dungeons but the items in the gift crates were heaven sent.
The just formed guilds had a huge problem. It was not just buying the gift crates. But safeguarding them that formed a really big headache. What's the use of catching the person who killed your man? What's the use of killing him either? He was just a shill? He worked for someone else and had already handed over the items. The PK had reached the all time high in few places.
Few trigger happy players started PK just to mess up things. Few people abused and behaved like a tyrant in their villages. Very few, but it still happened. After all no one knows if a little bugger in stealth is recording the whole thing and selling it to news channels to be trending news.
Few who had suffered even sent complaint letters to the gaming company. The effect would be nada, but it soothed their bruised hearts. They played games to relax. They were already abused enough in real life. It would be too much to expect the same in games too.
The gaming company truly could not do anything about it. The local tyrants would become rats in a big city when big kahunas would roam. Till then, the fellow players had to blame their luck to be spawn in that village and wait. Wait till the abuser gets abused later on. Barring this small hiccup, the gift crates were a massive hit. The gaming company had to show the revenue of the credits worth a week of their transactions before they were allowed to enact the credit- coin conversion. Minimum. They had received enough credits that day to reach their goal soon. They were already fine-tuning the items that can be given in the next gift crates. Lots of surprises there.
It seemed the whole world was awake watching news or was playing
"Hey,Sela! So when are you going to encash the gift crates? Let me know. I'll join you all."
"What encashing?" Sela was confused.
"Wait? Aren't you people waiting to know which sort of gift crates the guilds want and buy them?"
"Why would I do that? If I buy the gift crate, it's for myself. Why should I sell it to others?"
"To make money?"
"Oh honey! We will use those credits within the game. So why should we even try?" Sela's answer baffled Artha deeply. "We play the game just for the heck of it. For passion. For satisfying our ego. To fulfill our desires, however perverted they may seem to others. I initially started this group with different intention. But...now I think they are my good friends. And believe me, none of us have any intention of making a living by playing games."
"You people are cheapos. You allowed me to tag along and kill steal just to get some potions. Now, you are grandstanding, telling me you don't want to make some credits on the sly! Whom are you trying to fool?" Artha directly tore done Sela's lies.
Artha knew that team was made of hot heated players. But man, each one, each one was worse than others. Even Sela, who looked so good on the paper. He hadn't asked their backstories, sob stories as he didn't want to create one for himself. Still, this much grandstanding....What was he? A noob? No, he had upgraded himself to novice now.
The real fact on not buying the gift crates turned out to be because of the original sin- the lack of money.
"Okay. You know me. You can borrow from me and pay me back."
"You believe in your fellow team mates so much that you can lend the credits? Why is this seemingly looks like a tall lie?"
"Come off it. I am lending you. You are paying back with interest. What's this talk about believing and what not? I can earn some extra credits and you people will be full of gratitude. What will I lose?"
Technically, he was making a credit losing deal unless his teammates were ready to pay a lot more interest. Why is that? Because he was giving credits via escrow account attached to his character. And each time that account was used, the game would swallow certain amount of credits. Inspite of saying he believed in teammates, he was not ready to leave a trail to reach him, not even in their cases. They may not try. What is the guarentee that others will not try to follow the trail?
The time for the credit transfer was fixed. As he had recieved free advise, Artha shared it with others too. Wait till you all find out which sort of crates the guilds want, then buy and sell the said gift crates to maximize the earnings.
It was just wasting few minutes. So why not?
Happily Artha moved on, to his regular work including cleaning, chatting etc. And he didn't forget to sit in favorite nook to read the book from Zoya. Just while he was replenishing his stamina . More he read, more solid his foundation as herbologist would be.
It was interested day. He got to see the guilds in action. He had plenty of action in the morning. Then, pretty it turned pretty much boring. When will S la start her second dungeon raid? The guilds would not allow an outsider like him to leech off experience when their most valued players were gracing the dungeons.
Artha had more hopes for tomorrow though. Tomorrow would be a good day. The rumour in the street was that many guilds had progressed a lot in the dungeon raids and as good guys they would give out this information, for a nominal fee. Depending on how flush the players would be, this deal would be instant success or immediate fail.
There was another rumour running around. That many guilds would sell their old goods under discount. Well, the life span of all items under level five was pretty small, under level ten items comparatively lived longer. That's one of the reasons Artha had dumped few items when his tier 1 customers had given him the list, even if it meant more exposure. Still, the items in his rooms in the inn was not reducing. The current hope was to somehow find the way to reduce their sizes or convert the raw materials into finished materials or just get a collect/gather tasks and fulfill them.
Maybe the guilds would become interested in level zero raw materials. They were needed to create basic items. The chances of guilds getting new recipes was quite high.