“The Auction House is a vital part of the NEMO economy. Players can buy and sell all manner of goods within expanded ranges. Each auction house covers goods within a kingdom or empire. While the auction house takes a large cut, the profits and convenience are incredible.”

  Excerpt from the Economics of NEMO

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 18, 20:00

  “Congratulations! Your party has successfully destroyed a nascent dungeon. Each member is awarded 5000 experience and 10 silver coins. The group is awarded a Basic Dungeon Core, A Basic Dungeon Chit and a Dungeon Seed.”

  “Regional Notification. A Party from the guild Risk of Injury has destroyed the Seed of the Forgotten Empire, removing this threat from Miller’s Crossing.”

  Torgon slumped into a chair back at the guild base. He picked at the food in front of him, eyes distant and unfocused. Several minutes passed as he mechanically ate his food before three children sat next to him. One of the children wordlessly pushed a mug of hot chocolate in front of him. Torgon looked up to see three concerned faces.

  “Drink this, you’ll feel better,” An older boy, around twelve said. “You have the look of someone who’s had a rough day.”

  Torgon picked the mug up and took a long sip. The warm chocolate banished a little of the darkness building inside him. He sighed and glanced back at the three kids sitting around him.

  The boy addressed him again, “Want to talk about it? It will help. They always told us at the hospital to talk about things that are bothering us.”

  Torgon shook his head a little before speaking, “It’s like you said, a rough day. We finished off the dungeon seed, and the final boss made me a chew toy. The fights are exhilarating, but some of them stick with you longer than others.”

  The children nodded sagely. A young girl around ten years old spoke, “When they had to run tests on me, most of the time it was fine, but a few, especially the spinal taps, really hurt. I would be down the rest of the day. It’s easier here. If I get hurt, I know that I’ll feel better later and I usually have something to show for all the pain. You guys won right?”

  Torgon smiled, “We did. The best thing we found was the dungeon seed itself. It’s going to let us create a dungeon here at the base. It won’t give great rewards, but it will make an excellent training tool for everyone that wants to practice running dungeons. It will start small and we’ll have to add creature and trap patterns to it over time.”

  Torgon talked with the children about the dungeon seed a bit longer before he excused himself. He made his way to the crafting hall and prepared to settle in for a long evening of making weapons. He spent free experience, raising his swordsmanship skill to level 10 and his force shield spell to level 10. Torgon used the free universal slot to finally learn his craft bows and craft enchanted weapons.

  He carefully laid out the copper ingots for crafting enchanted long swords. Torgon wanted plenty of inventory to sell in the auction house. Everyone could use swords and new players kept flooding into the game. His base success chance was 40%. His agility added 4 levels to each of his crafting skills and his amulet added 2 levels. The crafting hall gave him an additional single level boost. The modified levels for his skills affecting the craft were crafting 8, craft weapons 18, craft swords 8 with craft enchanted weapons at 6 due to it taking its bonus from intelligence. That added up to a bonus of 40% to his success rate. His blueprint for the weapon added another 32% being level 16. He now had a 112% success rate. The overall time to craft was a base of 1200 seconds reduced by 240 seconds for skills and 96 seconds for the blueprint leaving him 864 seconds per craft, just under 14 and a half minutes per sword.

  The 112% chance of success meant that he would craft a basic weapon every time with a 12% chance of crafting a common enchanted long sword of strength. Torgon took his time, carefully hammering each sword into shape. The crafting hall filled with players pursuing their trades. Everyone eagerly expanded their stock for their own use or for use in the auction house. Nine long hours spent crafting left Torgon with 38 brand new swords. Four of the swords were common grade with the base damage increased by 2. He set those aside to give to his party, boosting everyone but Allestor, who was already using a better sword.

  Torgon joined up with dozens of his guild members streaming through the portal into Miller’s Crossing. Hundreds of players moved through the streets of the city proceeding to the city center. The repairs continued with visible progress on the buildings he passed by. A new addition rose in the center of the city, rising higher than all but the observation towers.

  The auction house was a multi-story affair, rising a half-dozen stories into the sky. The stone structure narrowed at the higher levels with balconies on each floor above the first. The oversized wooden doors swung open to admit the throngs gathered in anticipation. People rushed in and found counters with benches awaiting them. Sitting at a counter let the auction interface spring into view. Access to the second level and higher required players to conduct a certain amount of business. Selling 200 gold coins worth of items gave permanent access to the second floor. Each higher floor required monthly sales levels for access. Rumors already circulated about the amenities available.

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  Torgon glanced over the auctions. You could place sell orders and buy orders. The auctions were broken into multiple categories with easy search features available. Players initially were limited to twenty auctions at a time. He dug further and discovered a section where skills were sold by the auction house directly that could affect auctions. A skill was available to increase the number of auctions you could have running at the same time, but in order to purchase it you needed to have 100 successfully completed auctions. Additional versions were available with even higher requirements. The auction house took a 25% cut of the final price of every successful auction. The auction house cut could be reduced by another set of skills. The requirement to learn the first tier of the skill was selling 100 gold coins worth of items.

  Frare had been designated as the guild’s official lead seller. He would be placing the high value items on the auction house and learning the skills as soon as possible. Torgon watched the first batch of ballistae being listed with minimum bids of 1 gold each and no buyouts on a 48-hour auction. Listing fees came in at 5%, with yet another skill that could reduce them, available to purchase after listing 200 auctions. He grinned, watching the initial bids and the slow increments pushing the price higher. A few of the children listed smaller items for the guild, choosing to become apprentices to Frare. He directed them on how to list the items and what to list them for. Training players for the future was a constant mission for the guild.

  Torgon moved to his own listings. He threw up 20 of the enchanted long swords with a minimum bid of five silver and a listing time of 24 hours. He placed buyouts at 75 silver coins on the swords. It was high, but not too far above what they earned in the Deep Harbor auctions. Everybody could use the swords, and the visibility should promote competitive bidding. He needed coin and he needed coin badly. The material costs on higher level gear promised to be more demanding than the basic gear everyone was crafting right now. New blueprints and harder to find skills always carried a premium. Gear itself wasn’t something that they were searching for. Risk of Injury was ahead of the curve in that regard, and it would take a chunk of time before items of interest began popping up in the auction house. The kingdom of Thorn had nearly a quarter million players at this point but over three quarters of them were still below level 5.

  The guild funds sat at just below 300 gold coins. The number seemed large until you realized that the guild had over 600 members now and would soon be adding more. They weren’t struggling, all things considered, but having more coming in than going out was always the goal. The guild treasury didn’t have enough coins to throw it all in a room and Scrooge McDuck it, but they could dream, couldn’t they? Torgon’s own funds were a mere 2 gold, 7 silvers with an extra 30 copper tossed in for good measure. He needed more money, more time, more experience and more of just about everything else too.

  Torgon assigned a third of the guild funds to Frare and his team to buy anything they found useful. The guild membership doubling in size in just another sixday would be a headache. Trying to keep the players sufficiently geared to progress would eat into their available time and funds. Fighting to keep all the members moving forward was the never-ending headache of a guild master.

  He perused the listings for blueprints. Pages and pages filled up with blueprints and recipes for gear that nobody wanted. He tossed down a few dozen minimum bids that added up to less than twenty silver coins total. Skills were easier to purchase from the library using the constantly rising guild contribution points. No hard-to-find skills had shown up yet, but the team was tasked with keeping an eye on the listings.

  Risk of Injury needed the auction house to keep earning coins. Selling off better gear than the general player population had access to was the ticket to financial solvency in the early game. Specialist crafters would be able to earn king’s ransom if they timed the markets right. While Torgon waited, his sword auctions were being snapped up one by one. Within thirty minutes, every spare sword he had crafted was gone, netting him over twenty gold.

  Torgon traveled back to the guild base and sat down in the crafting center. Most people in the guild were taking it easy until after the base raid on the 20th. A few teams were out pioneering the Broken Hills, mapping the monster spawns and finding the best farming spots. Kate and Digger led a team exploring areas to mine metals to keep the forges stocked. Allestor and Ovarrix ran teams of players through their paces in the training yard, working their individual and team fighting skills up.

  The expanded crafting hall was packed with guild members pursuing their trades. The auction house gave everyone an outlet to profit with their hard work. Torgon’s plan was simple, he would craft swords until the base raid, fight, then head out to the Broken Hills. He fell into the rhythm of the forge. Heat and hammers soothed him into a meditative state. Hours passed and the swords piled up beside him. He took the buff from the tree to boost his output.

  He spent the bulk of the day and the entire night making swords. He produced an astounding 140 enchanted swords with 25 of them being the common variety. He stashed the common swords in the guild, available for any player to purchase with their contribution points. The rest, he would gradually auction off when time permitted.

  The guild massed on the walls of the keep in preparation for the impending base raid. Mana cannons sprouted from the defenses and the prevailing sentiments were confidence and inevitability. The defenders overwhelmed the monsters from the start. None of them reached within 50 yards of the walls. They managed to inflict no casualties or damage.

  “You are Victorious! You have defeated all five waves of the Base Siege. Bonuses have been granted for having 100% of your Guild Members still fighting and 100% of your buildings still standing.”

  “All members of the guild are awarded 1,000 Free Experience. Additional experience for the combat has been distributed according to your individual participation. The guild has been awarded a park upgrade. Your guild park now contains a spirit fruit tree. The spirit fruit tree may be harvested after each successful guild base defense. It provides 20 to 50 fruits that can be consumed for a random attribute upgrade. Each player is limited to the consumption of one fruit per level. Obtain victory in additional guild base sieges to upgrade your park. Your guild has been awarded the basic wheeled catapult siege gear blueprint. The guild has been granted 5 teleportation passes to the trading city of Deep Harbor.”

  Torgon noticed an alert pinging his interface. He opened it and discovered that automatons placed at the farmstead the guild controlled were being attacked by players. He sent a guild wide ping and moved everyone to the portal, ready to storm through in formation. It was time to teach a very sharp lesson.