by Aaron Jay
“Once a day, huh?” That was the usual way that magic worked in The Game. But regular players didn’t have to actually meditate and cultivate their mana or prana or breath. They also didn’t have to study Udgeeth prāṇāyāma or make their hands form the Vāyu Mudra. My casting time would be much higher than other players. I also realized that my spells would fail pretty regularly. I could only imagine how trying to keep my breath perfectly regulated in combat would go, or how I could make mudras with my hands while a monster was clawing me. But perhaps there was an upside to my broken stat.
I sat on the ground and worked my way through my cleansing breath methods and entered a deeper prāṇāyāma. My mana counter ticked upwards till it was full.
Maddie was astounded.
“You truly have mastered the old ways! There is much I could teach you, then. I wish I had known this when you first came in. I might have risked things for you. As it is, all I can offer you is the promise of knowledge in the future.”
Come see Maddie the Bruja tomorrow or later.
Reward: Knowledge
Accept? (y/n)
“Risk? Future?” I asked accepting the quest.
“Yes. Brady runs Quartzite. Well, really the whole territory. I don’t know what you did to anger him but we were told to inform him if any strangers came into town. I am pretty sure that you are the person he was looking for. My familiar went to inform him just after you arrived.”
“Familiar?” I asked. A feeling of dread came over me.
“That cat you met in the parlor. I really am sorry. I hope that the spells I taught you will make up for informing on you and delaying you till some of his men could get here.”
She looked over my shoulder, “… and here they are.”
I felt a hand close on my shoulder. The reach of the Eastmans is long. Rea Silvia had told me that this territory wasn’t controlled by a clan, but I guess the Party can reach wherever it wants.
Turning around, I saw two players. One was a fighter/melee build given his equipment, the other focused on casting. They were far enough above my level that their details apart from their names weren’t readable by me. There was no point in struggling. Either of them could swat me like a fly.
“The boss wants to see you,” said the fighter who had me by the arm.
“That would be Brady?” I asked.
“Yes, ‘That would be Brady,’” mimicked the caster in a sneering nasal copy of my intonation.
“Come on, noob,” said the fighter.
I was pulled through Maddie’s house and onto the street. She stood on her porch watching me go. She was too weathered by the desert elements to make reading her face easy, but I thought I saw regret before her face hardened some more and she went inside. The sign saying Maddie’s Magic: Professional BWitch swung a little with the slammed door.
We made our way to the Inn/Saloon. The largest building in Quartzite. The oldsters watched from their checkers game. They didn’t seem surprised that someone was being “escorted” through town. Made me think about what Brady got up to beyond commodities finagles. I still had most of the gold from my equipment sales. Worst came to worst I hoped I could buy my way out of this trouble.
My father would have called the inn a version of a Honky-Tonk. It wasn’t a big middle ages style British or Germanic inn. It had a long bar along one wall with bottles stacked and displayed behind it. Beer was on tap. There was an upright piano in one corner and a stage at one end. Round tables were strewn about. The building had a second floor and a balcony or walkway with a wooden railing running around the three sides of the room that held no stage. Some regulars were playing a card game at one of the tables. In the future they would surely move to a game of checkers outside of Nate’s. The great circle of life for loafers and layabouts.
I was hustled up the stairs and into a room that was decorated as an office. I don’t exactly know what I expected from the local big man. He wasn’t done up in armor or robes. He wasn’t dressed like a townie bigwig in an old Western either. He and the office didn’t fit either the game in general or the local flavor. He was a spare man dressed in a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbow. Corduroy pants and actual penny loafers. His hair was pale and blond. The office was lined with bookshelves. His desk had some ledgers on it.
There were three things that scared the hell out of me. First, dressing out of character for The Game is insanely expensive. The entire purpose of The Game is to inculcate AI and nano into following the logic and necessities of an RPG. Breaking with the metaphor that our society is dedicated to promoting, that costs. His humble academic wear was more impressive and intimidating than if I found him dressed in Tier 9 Warlock purples or the fabled Armor of Altair sitting on a giant black throne surrounded by the remains of slaughtered sacrifices.
Second was the wood floor just in front of the desk. The floor exactly underneath my feet. It was sanded and scoured enough that it was lighter than the wood around it. It had been sanded down enough that it was noticeably lower where I was placed. I wasn’t the first to stand here, and enough evidence of my predecessors had to be cleaned and scrubbed after standing here to wear the floor down.
The last thing was Brady’s eyes. They reminded me of the eyes of the sand scorpion. Scorpion eyes are scary not just because they are surrounded by giant pincers and a poison laden tail. It is the flat deadness of them. They don’t focus on you as an individual. They seem to take everything in at once, and the only distinction they make about what they see is between what they choose to eat right then and what they know they can eat later. Brady’s eyes managed to keep the scorpion’s bottomless appetite and predatory threat but mixed them with a deep intelligence. Like the scorpion’s eyes, they lacked any care or concern for your wellbeing, but unlike the scorpion’s they saw you as an individual. They weighed and measured you. And knowing you, they still would eat you.
“Hello. I am Professor Brady. You must be Miles Boone,” said the human scorpion.
“Hello. What can I do for you?” I replied.
“I am curious what today’s youth know and understand of the concept of arbitrage,” he inquired politely.
“Oh. Yes, that.”
“That?” Brady raised his eyebrow at me in mild interest.
“That. You want to know about Nate’s.”
“No. If I wanted you to tell me what you did at Nate’s, I’d ask about that,” he corrected.
The mage hit me. It is better to be hit by a mage than a warrior. But, if the mage is sufficiently higher than you in level it really doesn’t matter. I dropped as his punch hit me in the kidneys. A damage notice appeared. Turns out that my pain settings are high for PvP as well as when fighting PvE.
“You have to forgive Smitty. He too was impacted by your actions at Nate’s. Not anywhere near as much as I, of course, but he isn’t as diversified. I allowed him to participate in this month’s arbitrage. A reward for services like the one he is performing now. Still, when you play in the market you have to assume the risks. He somewhat overextended himself. I have urged him to read his Sharpe and Markowitz but, well, he’d rather zap things with lightning bolts and raid crypts. You may take little interest in economics but economics will take an interest in you,” Brady said without any change in intonation. “Now, tell me what you know of arbitrage.”
I cleared my throat. “Arbitrage is when you simultaneously trade the same good across markets. You take advantage of price differences between something in one place and in another.”
“Very good. You are a credit to your father. You may be interested to know that we worked together back at the beginning. The beginning from your perspective. It was at the end from my generation’s. The end of our world. My world.” This would have sounded sad and bitter from someone else but his scorpion DNA or whatever gave him those eyes kept the words flat. He might as well have been reading a shopping list.
“Would you like the gold I got from Nate?” I asked.
“No. Your
tiny trade is insignificant to the amount I lost.”
Smitty coughed.
“Smitty may feel differently. You two can discuss it after our business is finished.”
“If you don’t want gold what business do we have?”
“I spoke imprecisely. My apologies. The business I referred to was you. The our I referred to was between me and Tasha Eastman.”
Brady took a crystal ball out of a drawer on the desk. He made some mystic looking passes over the item and an image of Tasha Eastman appeared.
“Professor Brady! How are you?” Tasha asked.
“Fine. I found young Boone.”
“Good. Shall we discuss terms?”
“Of course. Why else would I have called?”
“God, you are such a pedant. What are you offering?” she continued casually.
“As I understand it, your daughter entered a foolish wager with Numitor’s heir. I would expect that the usual rabble and troublemakers will be stirred up if he wins. He had a year and a day to complete all five of the beginner quests?” Brady waited for confirmation.
“Yes. Foolish girl. There are already rumblings. He has just under ten months left.”
“I can throw him in a dungeon for you for the right price.”
“You can’t detain a player for more than 72 hours. Three days does little to change the risk of this stupid wager.”
“You misunderstand. I will throw him in a dungeon I know of in my territory. It is rated to need four players to clear it. It also adjusts to the aggregate level of the party. For the right price, I can shift his spawn point into the dungeon.”
“Well. That is a solution. How much?”
“1,000,000 gold. An epic from your clan’s vault. And a favor as usually defined.”
“A little steep, don’t you think?”
“I need to recoup some recent losses brought about by Boone coming to my territory.”
“And you helped him finish one of the quests,” countered Tasha. “You should cut the price for that.”
“Your daughter drove him into my territory and set him up to cause me great harm and inconvenience. Shall we litigate that matter?”
Tasha sighed. “Even so. Your terms are still high for dealing with a low-level noob.”
“Don’t be stupid, Tasha. The price isn’t for dealing with a low-level noob. The price is for tangling with Numitor.”
“Numitor isn’t what he was,” Tasha stated flatly.
“No one ever got the best of the big man except the once. He fought the nano to a draw. The Party only ended up on top because Numitor trusted you all and is a man of his word. My price is 1,000,000 gold. The favor and now two epics. And you are only getting this offer because your daughter’s idiocy has left me with a temporary cash flow issue. We can haggle but the price will only go up for you.”
“Fine. I accept the terms. Send me the contract.”
“Oh, the dungeon only allows a level gap in the party of five levels. I don’t run a kindergarten like you Eastmans. Send me three level eights to get the dungeon initialized.”
Tasha rang off. Brady turned back to me.
“Well, you heard. Despite you costing me an astounding amount of money, I hold you no ill will. I appreciate that you don’t want to work for the Party. I too chose to try to keep my independence. With more success than you’ve had, however. I have no wish to antagonize your father.”
“I can’t imagine that throwing me in a dungeon to help the Eastmans will put you on his Christmas card list.”
“I doubt he wanted you in the game at all. In any event, as you heard I will be owed a favor from Tasha and the Eastmans. In ten months when you lose the wager I can use that favor to take your contract from Maya. I think you and I could work together. We both value independence from the Party. I always need smart, capable players.”
“And my father would owe you.”
“I’d think he’d be grateful enough to me to make up for the necessity of my agreement with Tasha.”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied.
“You have ten months to do so,” he turned to his men. “Wait for the Eastman contingent then escort them to the Kobold mines. Smitty, you can discuss things with Miles here, but recall that I am offering a position. Recompense may be negotiated. But carefully, please.”
With that he turned away. The men and I were banished from his consideration and he went back to think whatever thoughts scorpions do between meals.
Smitty and his partner took me down to the saloon. His partner introduced himself as Gord, short for Gordon.
“Want a drink?” Gord asked.
“I’m ok,” I said.
“Have a drink,” said Smitty.
“What is it to you?” I replied.
“I think Smitty is trying to be nice,” explained Gord. “Apologize for gut punching you. Lighten up, Boone. He barely hit you.”
I realized that no one knew of all the odd quirks of my lack of luck stat. From my perspective, Smitty really hit me. He assumed I had pain filters running. From his it was more like giving me a shove and showing me who was stronger. Best not to let anyone know.
“Alright. I’ll have a drink.”
We sat and sipped our drinks for a bit.
“See, this is civilized. Don’t try to run off, and waiting on the Eastman babies doesn’t have to be painful.”
I had in fact been considering running off but I didn’t see how that would succeed. So we sat.
“How much did you make off of Nate?” Smitty eventually asked.
“3,900gp” I said flatly.
“Jesus,” said Smitty bitterly.
Gord just laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“I lost about 15,000gp on that deal. The boss lost a million. And you got a measly 3,900gp out of it. It’s a goddamn tragedy. The waste of it,” said Smitty.
“What’s your next trick? Going to use a bunch of Meteor scrolls to light your campfire? If you get a Ring of Wishes you going to ask for a sandwich and a glass of milk?” laughed Gord.
“Sorry. Look, I was just trying to get some starter gear. I had just rolled up into your charming town,” I said.
This sent Gord into another fit of laughter and Smitty looked like he was chewing on something that tasted seriously wrong.
“How does this even work anyway? Even if I made out incredibly better than I should have, how did I manage to upset the market so much with what is still not that much money in the grand scheme of things?”
“You tell him. I just can’t even right now,” said Smitty.
“You know what arbitrage is already. So, that makes this easier. You make contracts to buy a certain amount of some commodity or whatever at one price in one market. At the same time, you make a contract to sell the same good or commodity in another market, like Quartzite. If the place you buy has a price that is lower than the place you sell then you get to pocket the difference.”
“Sure. Arbitrage.”
“Right. Well, this,” he gestured around us taking in the entire world, “isn’t completely real, is it? In fact, it is mostly virtual, isn’t it? But it is connected to reality and dependent on reality. And it needs to be connected to help control all the crazy nano out there and try to train it to behave, right? I mean who am I lecturing? Your father helped set the whole thing up, didn’t he?”
“Ok. So how does this relate to me wrecking your plans by selling a few starter items?”
“The economy in The Game is pretty much all artificial. Scarcity of this or that item or ore or herb or whatever the crafters are making is a choice. It’s all just nano. We finally have the planned economy the old communists and socialists were always fighting for. And it turns out that this makes for a goddamn feudal set up. Stupid Marx - I laugh every time I hear the term the Party. They think RPG. I think communism,” he snickered.
“You get how the AIs can just set the drop rate of this or that item to whatever they want. The whole thing is rigge
d,” he continued. “Back before the troubles. the communist types always made these grand promises about how if they got power they would use technocrats and economic models and really smart men, Top Men to give everyone a perfectly fair deal as we usher humanity into a new golden age. From each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs. Sounds an awful like the Party, don’t it? Only thing is, without a market how do you figure out any person’s abilities and what their needs are? The old socialist experiments started with all these grand promises and ended up with people hoarding toilet paper or starving if they stuck with it for too long. But now we have nano. Now the whole economy itself has no scarcity. Not enough light crystals? Too much Elven waybread? We can fix it with the click of a button, can’t we? No scarcity.”
“We still have one type of scarcity,” I corrected.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Tame nano,” I said.
“Sure. But that is the only kind of scarcity,” he replied.
“Wasting nano will be our ruin,” I said.
“There is an awful lot of ruin in any society that has nano,” Gord said.
“Anything that can’t go on forever, won’t,” I shot back.
“In the long run we’re all dead,” he said.
“Things go broke slowly for a while and then real fast,” I said smiling grimly.
“Shut up and tell him how he lost my money!” Smitty interrupted.
Gord took a long pull of his beer.
“This is what I get for being a lackey to an economics professor. Ok. Where was I? Right. Back IRL when people tried to have a planned economy the more they tried to rely on the plan, the more reality would throw them curve balls. People would adjust their behavior. Simple stuff like people not working any harder than they had to when they got nothing out of it. To much more subtle stuff like “the knowledge problem.” How do you know how many pencils to produce? A ton of different commodities go into a pencil. Graphite, paint--which is made up of lots of other chemicals--wood, metal, rubber. A simple pencil was actually a global product with supply chains from the jungles of Brazil to mines in Eastern Europe. No central planner can possibly adjust the number of pencil production quotas to accurately reflect how many fewer should be made if a rubber plantation gets a blight and the cost of a pencil should go up. They can’t figure out how much R&D should go into making pencils more cheaply and efficiently or in developing something better to write with. Planned economies always end up with lower and lower productivity as resources are misallocated and people stop trying to make more to get more and focus on sucking up to the government or whoever is doing the planning.”