by Adam Horne
“Sounds interesting. What’s the benefit to running a town as opposed to buying a building in Stockton or someone else’s town?”
“Whatever group owns the town gets to determine things like taxes on property or goods sold within their area of influence. I hear it takes a lot of work to get a town up and running, so it’s best to have a guild backing you. It’s something to think about.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to make a decision about that right now. I’ll give it some time then we can vote on it as a guild. At the moment, I have some other things to take care of outside the game and wouldn’t want the responsibility of organizing something that time consuming.”
Elora smiled and squeezed his hand before standing up. “Well, today was a busy day and I’m feeling worn out. See you later.”
“Thanks again for your help.”
Elora’s avatar smiled then it faded away. Kelath stood and left the guild hall, heading into the bank. He’d never transferred money into or out of the game, and it took a moment for him to find the smaller office in a room off of the main lobby where he could do that. Two NPCs stood behind a counter waiting to help players, neither of them busy.
“Hi, I’d like to transfer out some money,” said Kelath as he approached the clerk on the left, a female dwarf.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.
“No.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not difficult, but I should explain a few things about how the transaction works. The calculations for the exchange rate are too complex to explain, but it is mostly determined by the amount of gold available in the game. Gold prices can go up or down depending on how much money players have transferred out of or into the game. So if you transfer gold out today, the money you receive might not be enough to buy back the same amount of gold tomorrow if you decide to change your mind. Do you still wish to perform a transaction?”
“Yes.”
A window appeared with a list of options for different ways to transfer money. The information for his external bank account was shown since he’d entered it during the signup process. He selected the option to transfer money out of the game. The left side of the window changed to show how much money he had, both on his character and stored in his personal vault. It also showed that 1 gold was equal to $0.98. The right side had entries for both a gold and dollar value, so he entered $500 because that was the amount he wanted. He would lose a little over 510 gold in the game, which was fine with him. He pressed the button to approve the transaction, and the number showing the amount of gold in his vault dropped.
“Thank you for your business,” said the clerk when he closed the window. “It can take up to two days for money to be available in your external account.”
“Thanks.”
Kelath walked out of the bank. His business done, he opened the menu and logged out of the game.
Chapter 28
A couple days later, Natalie came for one of their regular physical therapy appointments. She greeted him cheerfully as she opened the curtains on the window.
“How’s it going, Kevin?” she asked.
“Great!”
“Sounds like you’re in a good mood today. Something happen?”
He explained to her what he’d accomplished over the weekend while playing Genesis Online. She didn’t understand all of it, but she was genuinely excited for his achievement. She worked out his legs while they talked, focusing on the motions she put them through and not really paying attention to his face. At a certain point, Kevin felt a twinge and stopped talking in surprise. The silence stretched out until she looked up.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He couldn’t say because he wasn’t sure. For the first time since the accident, he’d gotten a hint of feeling in the lower part of his body. It had lasted for less than a second before going away. He didn’t want to get his hopes up or cause excitement for her or his parents if it was a false alarm, so he shook his head.
“Sorry, I lost my train of thought,” he said.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying this game,” she said, “and I finally got around to reading some of the scientific papers you mentioned before. It’s quite fascinating how much they’re learning about the human nervous system these days. They said some people started to see improvement after less than a month.”
“Has anyone felt changes after only two weeks?”
She thought for a moment. “Not in any of the papers I’ve read, although that’s not to say it isn’t possible. Is that how long you’ve been playing?”
“Give or take a few days.”
“You shouldn’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away. There are a lot of different factors involved, so we can’t know for sure what to expect.”
He didn’t answer, focusing instead on trying to feel something from the skin where she touched his leg. There were no repeats of the sensation from before, so when she finished, he doubted whether it had even happened.
“Let’s see how you’re doing with the hand exercises,” she said as she passed him the grip trainer.
He squeezed as hard as he could and held the piece of equipment tight while she timed him. His right hand stayed closed for about the same duration as the last time.
“Not bad. Now the other hand.” She gave him a stern look when he blew out an irritated breath. “No arguing. We need to measure it too.”
Kevin switched to his left hand and squeezed again. His arm shook slightly, but he didn’t let go. When he finally released it with a gasp, Natalie whistled at the time.
“That’s nearly twice as long as last week.” She seemed impressed.
“It’s still only a few more seconds.”
“Don’t discount it! That’s still really good progress. I’m proud of you.”
Natalie took hold of his other hand, and their eyes locked. She held contact for so long it became awkward before pulling her hand back and turning away from him. He didn’t know if it meant anything, but there was something different about the way she acted. She grabbed her bag from the chair beside his bed and hurried to the door.
“Good session today!” she said a bit too loudly. “I’ll see you later this week.”
Kevin stared at the door after she’d left, feeling totally confused.
* * *
Later that day, Kevin rolled down the ramp from their van to the parking lot of his bank. A customer who was leaving the lobby held the door for him to go inside, and he thanked the kind stranger as he entered the building. After a short wait, he approached one of the tellers and handed over his identification card.
The woman entered his information into the computer and asked, “What can I do for you today, Mr. Moore?”
“I want to withdraw money from my account in the amount of $500.”
“Of course.” The teller typed into her computer then asked, “Would you like that in cash or a certified check?”
“Cash.”
He could have written a check of his own at home, but he wanted to actually see and feel the money he’d earned in the game. The woman counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills while he watched then slid them across the counter. He placed them in an envelope and wrote the name of his mother’s book club on the back.
“Will there be anything else?” asked the teller.
“No, thank you. Have a nice day.”
The woman smiled as he turned the motorized wheelchair around and exited the building. He ascended the ramp back into the van, locking the wheels of his chair into the grooves on the floor as the ramp slowly retracted and the door closed.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” said his mother as they left the parking lot. “Not that I mind you wanting to visit the library while I’m at my meeting, but I don’t know why you’re being so secretive.”
“I want it to be a surprise.” He looked out the window and said no more.
They arrived at the library ten minutes later, and he followed his mother to the room wher
e her book club met. She raised an eyebrow when he entered behind her and spoke to the librarian who ran the meeting, although she didn’t try to ask again what he was up to. The librarian read a list of announcements to start things off before introducing him.
“There’s one last piece of business before we discuss this week’s book. Patricia’s son, Kevin, asked if he could speak to us all, so I’ll turn things over to him.”
“Thank you,” Kevin said as he rolled to the front of the room. “I’m Kevin Moore, and I’m here today to thank you all for something you did for me last month. As you know, I was hit by a car two years ago and lost feeling throughout most of my body. Recently, you held a fundraiser to help my parents pay my medical bills.”
Kevin’s mother raised a hand to cover her mouth and looked around in embarrassment. Obviously, she’d thought this was still a secret. Some of the other women in the room whispered to each other.
“I’m very grateful for what you did, and I’d like to do something in return for your kindness.” He handed the envelope he’d been holding in his lap to the librarian, whose mouth opened in surprise when she looked inside. “I’m sure you have other projects you’re working on. I’d like to pay it forward, so I’m donating $500 to the library.”
Tears welled up in his mother’s eyes. “Where did you get the money?”
Kevin explained about Genesis Online and how its real life economy interface worked. He told them how he’d started playing with the intention of earning enough gold to return their kindness. He talked about making money through discovering different alchemy recipes, his feud with Itrix, and the windfall he’d received upon defeating his nemesis. When he finished his story, the librarian shook his hand.
“Thank you, Kevin. It’s very generous of you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Kevin. “I hope you can put it to good use.”
He made his way down the aisle to the door. He smiled the whole time he spent in the main part of the library while waiting for the meeting to be over so he could return home. His mother squeezed his shoulder when she joined him in the lobby.
“That was a wonderful thing you did, today. I’m proud of you.”
Kevin grinned. “It felt good to pay them back.”
“Let’s head home. You get to pick what we have for dinner tonight.”
* * *
Kevin was settling into bed when someone knocked on the door. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Ben came into the room. He carried two beers, one of which he handed to Kevin, then he clinked the necks of the bottles together. “Hey, man. I haven’t seen you in the game for a couple days and thought I’d check on you. How’ve you been?”
“I’m good.” He took a sip of beer. “I’ve been working on other things. I paid back the money to Mom’s book club today.”
“Yeah, I heard the story when I came in. I bet it feels good to have that weight off.”
Kevin nodded and asked, “So what’s been happening in the game?”
“Lots of people are celebrating the fall of Noblesse Oblige. It’s really opened up the game now that people aren’t having to fight against them, or each other, in order to get resources. Itrix hasn’t been seen by anyone for days either.”
“I doubt he’ll recover from what happened, since everyone knows his reputation now. Maybe he deleted the character.”
“I don’t think so.” Ben sat down in the chair next to Kevin’s bed and propped his feet up on the mattress. “His headquarters building in Stockton hasn’t come up for sale, which means the character that owns it still exists. I’ll bet he’s plotting a way to get his revenge. You worried?”
Kevin shrugged. “There’s not much he can do to us now. I’d be surprised if anyone other than Brill would follow him.”
“You’re probably right.”
They sat together, drinking their beers in silence. Ben peeled the label off his bottle and stuck it to the arm of the chair.
“So has anything else interesting happened?” asked Kevin.
“Some characters have reached level twenty, which we now know is the level cap. A lot of them have gone out exploring and uncovered a number of dungeons and other interesting areas. A few people have started their own towns and are working to build them up.”
Kevin perked up. “Elora mentioned that at the celebration after beating Itrix. I’m curious to see how it works.”
“It takes a lot of people to get a town off the ground. Most of the players are choosing to join a town instead of start one of their own. As far as I know, none of them are bigger than a village yet. Nobody knows how large they can become, but there’s speculation they could grow as big as Stockton.”
Kevin considered the possibilities. At first he didn’t think he’d want the responsibility of running a town, but then again, he never thought he’d volunteer to be the leader of a guild either. A small alchemy shop held some appeal, and he could get it started faster than an entire town. He’d have to pay attention to the forums to learn how property ownership worked.
“Donating that money today got me thinking,” said Kevin. “If I put some effort into it, I could probably make a decent amount of gold playing the game. I’d like to be able to pay my family back for everything they’ve done for me, medical bills, rent, all of it.”
“Then you should look at founding a city. I heard the mayor of a town receives a portion of the money collected in taxes from their holdings. The bigger the town becomes, the more you could potentially make.”
Kevin’s eyes lit up. “That’s awesome!”
Ben laughed. “I figured that would get your attention. Just remember me when you’re a big shot land baron.”
Kevin didn’t respond to the jab. His mind was already wandering, imagining the empire he was going to build.
End of Book 1
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Thank You!