“Guilds discovered early on that improving their bases was a costly endeavor. The cores were difficult drops, only being reliably found on first clears. Drop rates on regular dungeons were 1 in 500 for normal, 1 in 100 for hard and 1 in 20 for expert difficulties. Larger guilds could throw bodies at the problem and increase their bases over time. Small guilds found that they didn’t have enough members to function under the system. The raids would destroy their work. This led to increasing consolidation of guilds over time.”

  Excerpt from “Rise of the Mega Guilds” by G. N. Schwarma

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 3, 20:00

  The dungeon team met up with the scout team outside the portal and started the journey back to the guild base. Ashford on the scout team spoke while they were traveling, “We watched the Red Hat Raiders ambush another group and then lose to the goblins again. It’s concerning though, they still appear to have above average gear. We know they’re taking lots of losses, often more than the groups they’re attacking, but their gear isn’t degrading like the rest. They have some method of replacing it. What do you guys think?”

  Hyperia thought about it then spoke, “They have backers. They aren’t the type to have an integrated crafting group and they’re usually the flash in the pan style. There must be a larger group or organization that’s sponsoring them for some reason.”

  Allestor laughed, “So, you’re saying that they’re going to be a loot piggy bank?”

  Torgon shook his head, “It’s going to be a headache. We’ll need to move on crippling them but if they’re replacing their gear from an external source, it will be complicated. How fast we can do it depends on how much we can drain from whoever is paying for their crap. Someone is dumping real life money on this and it’s probably for some stupid megalomaniacal reason. At least now we know for sure why the Silver Hearts have a base here, they’re great middlemen”

  “Have a plan boss?” Mark asked.

  “I do. We need to lean into crafting and start offering our gear for silver at our own stalls. We can refuse to sell to the raiders and then float some people who will sell to them for inflated prices on the side. We can make money from them and keep a surreptitious eye on their acquisitions.”

  Steve rubbed his hands together, “You know, I’ve always wanted to sell guild materials for inflated prices in a back alley.” Frare, Physical Ed and Ashford nodded along with him.

  “Perfect.” Hyperia smiled. “Everyone will believe that you guys are pilfering good for your own personal gain.”

  The motley scouts looked at each other before Frare said, “Thanks, I think.”

  The pizza party was in full swing when they arrived back at the guild hall. The delicious smell of sauce, melted cheese, and all the various toppings filled the air. Faeries flitted about carrying slices sized for their hands or rarely, a full-sized slice. They moved through the crowds and joined a large table with Elder Chestnut, Ivy, Dr. Masters and others from the guild. Chef Bridges nibbled slowly on pieces of pizza filled with exotic toppings while taking occasional notes.

  “You can get pizza with anything on it, I mean anything. It’s the coolest thing ever!” Stabitha’s little brother exclaimed with wide eyes.

  Torgon settled on plain pepperoni and a nice glass of root beer while he looked over the organized chaos of the dining hall. Food and sugar fueled children mingled with happy adults across all the tables. Faeries joined in while the various pets, including Torg’s own Barkolemew and Sir Boots held court in the back. He focused on them, noticing that the corgis were flanking Barkolemew’s sides and they all had their own plates filled with bacon pizza. Sir Boots was picking anchovies off his slices. There was even a gerbil nibbling on a vegetable pizza.

  “Torgon, Singularity Corp has informed me that we’ll be getting bonuses from this little party. Apparently, the pizza company is going to be running commercials with our little guests and the tagline “The Faerie Best Pizza”. No word on what the bonus will be though.” Dr. Masters said between bites of food.

  “As long as it’s something in game. Our paychecks aren’t the most useful to us inside here. Hell, our bi-weekly checks are going to take us over two in game months to receive” He ate slowly, soaking in the atmosphere and letting himself truly relax for the first time in days. “Have they talked to you about why none of us have slept yet or why none of us are really tired?”

  “Oh, they have. The processes keeping us in the game mimic REM sleep and keep our brains mostly clean. They did say we’ll need about 2 hours of real sleep a day, which for us translates to 12 hours a Sixday in game”

  “That’s great Eileen. It should give us time to make bedding for everyone” Dusty spoke. “It’s an adjustment for all of us. I’ve never been this active for this long”

  Elder Chestnut spoke up in his high-pitched singsong voice, “My people need more sleep than you travelers it seems. Are all your kind going to be so active?”

  Hyperia answered his question, “No Elder. We’re residents of this world like you, but most of the travelers are tourists. They will have strange hours but are only able to be active half the time. They can stay no more than two full days but then they will have to leave for two full days. Most are breaking it up into 12-hour shifts.”

  The dinner continued for another hour before everyone broke off to attend to their tasks and the faeries moved off to sleep in their tree. Torgon queued up construction on the guild library but held off on starting a defense tower. “We’ll save the extra core units for now. I’ll start working on the fishing poles as soon as I get the buff from the tree. Finishing that quest will be top priority, then it’s the rest of the night and probably half the day tomorrow making swords.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Armor for me and rings for the rest of the group” Hyperia thought for a moment, “We should knock out more gathering soon as well. If we can get that to level 10 and free up another crafting slot it will help”

  They spread out to their stations and began another long night of work. Torgon grabbed the wood and fibers, moving and shaping them into one fishing pole after another. Only 44 poles needed to finish the quest, and in just under 80 minutes, Torgon knocked out 12 more fishing poles, increasing his blueprint skill to 6. Another two and a half hours saw 20 more poles finished and his fishing pole blueprint skill at 7. Only 12 more successes to go. Finally, after a full 5 hours of crafting fishing poles, he finished the 100th pole.

  “Congratulations! Your Guild has completed a quest!

  Quest Completed: Basic Guild Quest: Teach a Man to Fish. You have successfully acquired 100 fishing poles. All Guild members are awarded 100 free experience points and 10 guild contribution points. The guild has been awarded 1,000 contribution points, 1 gold coin and 1 control slot. The guild now has 3 control slots for properties in the main game world of New Era of Man Online.”

  Torgon shifted after finishing the fishing poles, moving to the materials for making swords. He was nearing the second level of crafting tools but the need for better combat weapons outweighed his personal goals. He set to work on the swords, discovering to his annoyance that the difficulty for enchanted items was higher than for regular items. He only had a 44% chance to successfully craft the sword to begin with instead of the expected 54%. Gritting his teeth, he started the long crafting process, determined to make as many as he could with his last three hours of buffed time.

  Luck was with Torgon, and he managed a full 15 successful crafts in the last 3 hours, raising his sword blueprint to level 3. Each craft earned him 20 xp towards the blueprint, 16xp towards his weapon crafting and 4 xp towards the base craft skill.

  When the sun rose and the crafting buffs expired, the guild Library finished construction.

  “Congratulations! Your Guild has completed a quest!

  Quest Completed: Basic Guild Quest: Knowledge is Power. You have successfully constructed a guild Library. All Guild members are awarded 1000 free experience points and 100 guild contribution points. The guild has been awarded 10,000 contribution points, 10 gold coins and the Siege Mantlet blueprint”

  “For completing all mandatory quests well ahead of schedule, the guild raid has been upgraded to 800 monsters per wave from the initial 200. Your exemplary performance so far is encouraging, and the System wants you to achieve all that is possible”

  “Way to reward success System” Torgon groaned. “Four more hours of crafting guys, then we’ll go into town, rent a space for the guild and start selling to everyone. We’ll stop by the Silver Heart trading stand and see if they still want our dungeon writs. The post with information on the dungeon and our proposed guide sale will go live in six hours. Make lists of what skills you want to add from the library. Be absolutely sure before you fill a slot. These skill limits are starting to be very problematic” He called Mark over and handed him the siege mantlet blueprint. “Mark, take this and start fiddling with it when you have spare time. It will be useful when we can get enough bows and crossbows to play around with”

  The team continued working on their projects and Torgon returned to crafting fishing poles. The four hours let him knock out another 17 poles and pushed his blueprint to level 8. Torgon was pleased that he was closing in on ability points for the craft tools skill and for the blueprint itself.

  One of the parents volunteered to run the guild store and to train different people on how to negotiate. The stalls cost five silver per day to rent and allowed up to four people to work in each one. Torgon shelled out a gold and fifty silver to rent 5 stalls for 6 days, giving plenty of people the opportunity to work on selling goods if they wanted. Players lined up to purchase extra building materials, potions, food and various other goods that the guild had crafted. A rotation was set up to cycle all the children through the stalls to give them a chance to see how the trading side of the game might work. The Risky Trading Center was born.

  Torgon headed off to the Silver Heart Trading stalls and met up with Markus. “You’re in luck today, Markus, I have several dungeon chits and more to trade with you for your clients” He clasped forearms with the imposing man and got down to business. “We need blueprints mostly. As a bonus, I can give you directions to the dungeon we conquered and a guide on how to beat it. We’re putting that information out shortly, location of the dungeon to all and the guide for anyone who trades a blueprint of some type with us”

  “It’s good to see you too Torg. Things are getting very interesting around here. The Raiders are trying to recruit other guilds to their side, but they’ve pissed a lot of people off. They’re badmouthing your guild a lot, which has mixed results. It’s turning some groups against you but pushing more into your corner. I know you’re not good at tolerating certain kinds of people” Markus laughed.

  “Maybe we should start recruiting. Anyways, here’s what we have available to trade with you today” Torgon brought out the dungeon writs, several sets of rings, five of the enchanted long swords and a dozen fishing poles.

  Markus perused the wares and brought out goods of his own. “The coin economy is finally starting to take off, rumors are that once the first event is over an auction house will open to the players. I don’t have as many blueprints to trade as I’d like for all of this, but I can give you several cooking recipes, two more health potion recipes and more crossbow, long bow and short bow blueprints plus a full gold coin. The more aggressive and focused players are starting to hit level 2, but gear is still very spotty. Those enchanted long swords of yours will be in demand. I’ll put in a standing order for as many as you can make for eight silver each. We have our own crafters, but the time constraints make getting any sort of inventory nearly impossible.”

  Torgon winced, “I hear you. Hours and hours slaving away at a crafting station with no guaranteed chance of success. I can tell you that the sword blueprint dropped in the dungeon. I have no idea how hard it will be to get more copies or even if there are set drops. Can you imagine the ridiculous amount of grinding we’ll do if they’re all random?”

  “Don’t even think that evil into existence” Markus laughed again. “Writs, enchanted, and higher quality gear; just keep bringing it here. I’ll have a couple of people check your new stalls every so often if we need basic items”

  Both paused as a notification flashed in their vision.

  “Regional Notification: The monster armies are starting to mass, find them and thin out their numbers before they lay siege to Miller’s Crossing. New quests are available at the town hall. Earn standing and climb the leaderboards! Noble titles are now available!”

  Torgon rubbed his forehead, knowing he didn’t have a headache but feeling one anyway. “It’s been a pleasure, Markus. Time to return to the grind”