“The economy of New Era of Man Online confused players at the start. NPCs vendors existed but they primarily served household needs. You could find clothing and bedding, but weapons and armor were in short supply and came at premium prices. It didn’t take long for the player base to understand that they were the adventurers and that the world would have to adjust to their presence and needs. This provided hardship and opportunity in equal measure.”

  Excerpt From ”The New Era of Money Online” by David Marshall Keynes

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 2, 22:00

  Celebrations inside the guild hall continued as the sun set. Torgon and the other leadership crew left early to finish checking the changes and rewards from the recent quests.

  “Basic Faerie Hearth Tree: This tree allows faeries to bind and construct homes. Grants the Blessing of the Earth Mother and the Blessing of the Moon. The Blessing of the Earth Mother provides a 5% reduction in the respawn time for all nodes related to plants and animals per rank. The Blessing of the Moon provides a 50% reduction in crafting time for two individuals per rank during the nighttime period.”

  Ovarrix slapped Torgon on the back and he groaned in realization. “This is what I get for wanting to be a crafter. On the plus side, I can pay back the rest of my xp debt quicker. Still 500 points left to go. Let’s open the books and see what they offer.”

  “Basic Book of Spells: This Book contains 1-6 basic spell skillbooks with a rare chance for them to upgrade to a higher rank.”

  Torgon opened the book of spells first. It contained three skillbooks: Force Bolt, Force Shield and Fog Bank. Force Bolt went to Ovarrix, Force Shield to himself and Fog Bank to Allestor.

  “Force Shield: Creates an invisible barrier of force that prevents 10 +(1xInt +1xSkills) damage. Duration: Lasts until destroyed, dispelled or overwritten. Range: 5 feet per skill level, must target a player or creature. Cost: 10 Mana per cast”

  “Fog Bank: Fills an area with thick, vision obscuring fog. It creates enough fog to fill a cube measuring 10 feet per side per skill level. Duration: 1 minute per skill level. Range: 5 feet per skill level. Cost: 20 Mana per cast”

  “I can’t wait to try these out in a dungeon, assuming we actually manage to find one next time we go out.” Allestor cast the fog bank spell. It created a thick fog that would make London proud. “This is going to be very useful when we’re out hunting players and get ambushed. If I can get it to cover a lot more area, it can even be useful in large scale battles.”

  “I wish we knew how to scribe scrolls and just pass them out” Dusty added. “We still need healing spells and so much more.”

  Allestor interjected, “I just want to watch Torg slave away for us making armor. No night fighting yet. Open up that next book, see what we get.”

  “Fine, fine, you get the last pieces though.” Torgon reached for the book of armor blueprints.

  “Basic Book of Armor Blueprints: This Book contains 1-6 basic armor blueprints with a rare chance for them to upgrade to a higher rank.”

  Torgon opened the book of armor blueprints to find 3 inside:

  “Rabbit Fur Gloves: Materials Required: 2 Basic Rabbit Hides. Time to Craft: 600 seconds. Creates a set of Rabbit Fur Gloves: Basic, Armor: 1, Durability 100/100.”

  “Wolf Fur Pants: Materials Required: 2 Basic Wolf Pelts. Time to Craft: 600 seconds. Creates a set of Wolf Fur Pants: Basic, Armor: 2, Durability 100/100.”

  “Wooden Kite Shield: Materials Required: 2 Units of Basic Wood. Time to Craft: 600 seconds. Creates a Wooden Kite Shield: Basic, Armor 2, Durability 100/100.”

  Torgon grinned evilly before handing all the blueprints as well as the armor crafting skillbook to Hyperia. “The Tree does give bonuses to two crafters. Besides, I’m going to be ridiculously busy making weapons and fishing poles.”

  “Works for me. It should help with some of my attributes eventually.” Hyperia accepted the tomes and began learning them.

  Torgon reached for the last book. “This one should give us things to trade, depending on how hard the requirements to make them are.”

  “Basic Book of Jewelry Schematics: This Book contains 1-6 basic jewelry schematics with a rare chance for them to upgrade to a higher rank.”

  He gleefully revealed a full six jewelry schematics.

  “Copper Amulet of Shielding: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Amulet of Shielding: Basic, Grants the wearer a force shield of 10 points. This shield regenerates from the wearer’s mana at a rate of 1 point per 100 points of mana. Only regenerates when the wearer’s mana is full.”

  “Copper Ring of Strength: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Ring of Strength: Basic, Grants the wearer 1 point of strength plus an additional point for every 20 levels the maker has in the schematic.”

  “Copper Ring of Agility: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Ring of Agility: Basic, Grants the wearer 1 point of agility plus an additional point for every 20 levels the maker has in the schematic.”

  “Copper Ring of Intelligence: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Ring of Intelligence: Basic, Grants the wearer 1 point of intelligence plus an additional point for every 20 levels the maker has in the schematic.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Copper Ring of Endurance: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Ring of Endurance: Basic, Grants the wearer 1 point of endurance plus an additional point for every 20 levels the maker has in the schematic.”

  “Copper Ring of Wisdom: Materials Required: 1 unit of copper, 500 Mana. Time to Craft: 900 seconds. Creates a Copper Ring of Wisdom: Basic, Grants the wearer 1 point of wisdom plus an additional point for every 20 levels the maker has in the schematic.”

  “Ovarrix, you get the strength ring schematic, Allestor you get the Agility and Dusty, you get the Endurance. We need to bring in three more people and get them making the intelligence and wisdom rings as well as the shielding amulets once we can secure a steadier supply of copper. This is going to be a game changer.” Torgon rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the guild wide power boost. “I’ll make more crossbows, Hyperia can make armor and the rest of you work on tools for now.”

  The next four hours were filled with intense focus on crafting. The buff from the faerie tree made his movements smoother and more precise. His mind eased and he fell into the flow state of constant crafting. Torgon managed to make 27 Heavy Crossbows, eliminating the rest of his xp debt and starting to earn xp once more. Hyperia succeeded in finishing eight each of the gloves, pants and shields. The leadership party now sported a decidedly rustic armor aesthetic with extra shields for tanks across the guild. During the work session, multiple notifications trickled in from the guild.

  “Quest Completed! Your guild has completed the quest Stock the Shelves. A Pizza Party event will occur at sundown the next day where pizzas, sides and drinks will be virtually provided by everyone’s favorite chain pizza sponsor of New Era of Man Online!”

  “Congratulations! Your guild has gathered more than 10,000 wood nodes. Your guild has been granted a small hemp grove containing 50 nodes that will drop plant fibers.”

  “Congratulations! Your guild has gathered more than 10,000 stone nodes. Your guild has been granted a small copper mine containing 50 nodes that will drop copper ore.”

  Torgon checked the guild inventories and noted that plant fibers and copper ore were already trickling in. He called in everyone with the jewelry schematics and had them switch to producing those. Hyperia kept making armor while Torgon went back to making Fishing Poles. He managed 28 in the remaining four hours, leaving the quest to make them at 40/100. His Fishing Pole blueprint made it up to level 4.

  The return of the sun heralded the loss of the buffs for Hyperia and Torgon. Groups that already received armor departed to start carefully searching for possible dungeons. Finding and grinding them would be key to meeting the growth needs of the base. The raid on the guild base loomed ever larger being less than five days away now. Torgon and the others elected to work on crafting for a few more hours. They needed ring sets to trade for skillbooks, and demand for fishing poles was high. The younger children were already on the shore of the lake fishing away, laughing and enjoying themselves. Their classroom work would start after the first raid, but some were already plugging away at their lessons. Torgon chuckled to himself knowing that he would be teaching a class on game economics and that other members of the leadership group would be teaching kids how to play games in a strategic manner.

  The next four hours shot by with relaxed concentration on crafting. Nine more sets of rings and amulets were finished and Torgon knocked out another 16 fishing poles, leaving the quest at 56/100. His fishing blueprint advanced to 5, pushing his success rate to 62%. He stood up from the bench, stretched out the kinks in his shoulders and cleared his throat. “That’s enough crafting for now, we can do more tonight. Let’s hit up the gathering nodes for a couple of hours, enough to raise gathering to 2 and grab a point of Agility.”

  The group made their way out to the forested section of the guild base and started clearing trees. The tools made it much quicker, taking less than two minutes to harvest a tree node compared to the ten minutes it was before. After two hours they were all at Gathering 2 and had an extra point of agility. Torgon looked at his crew, “Let’s head to town and see if we can trade a few sets of rings to the Silver Hearts and pick up some more blueprints for our crafters.”

  They made their way through the portal and headed to the market area. The streets of Miller’s Crossing held more people than normal, and the chatter revealed that the goblin and orc forces were the cause. Any large group of players attracted attention too quickly and several pitched battles had been fought. Five-man groups or smaller avoided the attention but they were limited in what they could fight. Louder fights attracted the same unwanted attention. They soon reached the market, finding the large set of stalls run by the Silver Heart Trading Company. Markus was there and came to greet them, “More Chits to trade I hope?”

  Torgon shook his head. “Sorry Markus, no chits, but we do have some items we think you might be interested in. 5 sets consisting of an amulet and 5 rings. The rings each add +1 to an attribute. It covers all of them except presence. The amulet gives you a 10-point shield that recharges over time off your mana.”

  Markus’s grin revealed itself quickly. “Now that I can use too. Looking for more skills and blueprints?”

  Torgon smiled in return, “You know it. Jewelry crafting skillbooks would be nice, it would let us get our ring production up. We also need more sling blueprints and a few sword or other basic weapon blueprints to replace combat losses. Always interested in ranged weapons or armor blueprints too.”

  Markus rubbed his chin as he looked through their inventory. “No Jewelry crafting, I do have more sling blueprints and the sword ones are common enough. I have a long bow and a short bow blueprint. I even have a leather boots blueprint that nobody wants because farming cows isn’t big yet. How about this, for the 5 sets, I’ll offer you 4 of the sling blueprints, 4 sword blueprints, a mace blueprint a quarterstaff blueprint, the long bow, short bow, leather boots and another set of crafting tool blueprints plus an armor crafting skill.”

  Torgon extended his hand, “Works for us. We’ll have more sets available tomorrow and ideally, we’ll have some chits to trade too.”

  “Be careful, the monsters are very active, and the fights might start even but if it takes too long, they’ll get reinforcements there. There have been a lot of casualties today.” Markus continue, “At least most of the people don’t seem upset with your guild over triggering the event. The loot is orders of magnitude better from the goblins than farming bunnies. Make sure you watch out for the people that might have a grudge though.”

  “Will do Markus. We might also have a few more interesting items to offer soon, like fishing poles.” Torgon grinned broadly. “We have a blueprint and we’re making them for internal use right now.”

  “You sly dog.” Markus laughed. “Poles are great, just getting some fish would be nice too. Cooks are looking for different things to play with, and the players want more food variety. Their coins aren’t lasting them as long as they would like eating at local npc restaurants.”

  Torgon paused as a priority message came across the guild chat.

  “We’ve located a dungeon approximately five miles north northwest of Miller’s Crossing. We’ve flagged it on the map. It’s called The Crypt of the Lost. There are a few wandering skeletons outside the entrance so probably undead. We fought some of the skeletons. Our swords work fine although bludgeoning might work better.”

  “Markus, it’s been a pleasure. Duty calls now though.” Torgon shook his hand as they completed the trade. “We’re off to find more junk, I mean treasures, for you to sell to your patrons.”

  “Good luck Torg, be careful out there.” Markus waved as they left.

  Ovarrix rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Let’s go snag another first clear.”