“That’s weird,” Kris said.
“Not really,” Keia said. “The last few times they got too close to us they got blown the fuck up. Would you want a repeat performance if you could avoid it?”
“Something tells me getting blown up isn’t going to stop Torian and company from going for a repeat performance,” I said.
"I still can't believe you blew them up again,” Keia said, shaking her head. “Like they were torturing you and your solution wasn’t to try and run or anything. Your solution was to kill yourself and take them with you.”
"What else was I supposed to do?" I asked. "They were trying to kill me! I figure if they were trying to kill me then the least I could do is go on my own terms and take some of them with me.”
“The man has a point,” Kris said. “And as much as I hate to admit it, he sort of saved our asses from getting tortured by taking one for the team. It’s not like we were going to be able to take them all out or anything.”
“Kris does have a good point," she said, hitting me with a glance that said she didn’t like that Kris had a good point. "I'm not saying they didn't deserve it. Just that I can't believe you did it. Who thinks of killing themselves to take out their enemies?”
“Conlan thinks about that kind of stuff,” Kris said. “We’re gonna have to sit down sometime and I’ll tell you some of the crazy shit he’s pulled out of his ass to save the day.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said. “Though we’re doing it in this town after we’ve kicked all the Horizon assholes out.”
“Deal,” Kris said. “My only regret this time around is I didn’t get to see the looks on their faces when they realized how fucked they were.”
“That’s your only regret?” I said. “Not that I was tortured?”
“Well that weighs heavily on my heart too,” Kris said. “But I think you’re seriously underestimating how much I would’ve liked to see the looks on their faces.”
I tried to look pissed off. I tried to look serious. I tried to look any number of ways, but I couldn’t help but grin as I thought back to Torian scrambling away from me knowing it was too late to save his ass.
"Yeah, the look on Torian’s face when he realized what was happening was pretty fucking amazing. He looked like he was going to piss his plate armor.”
"I would've paid good money to see that," Keia said with a giggle and a far off look that said she was having a hell of a good time imagining it.
“Oh yeah? How much are we talking?” I asked.
“Well that depends on who’s selling,” she said. “Like if it was anyone else I’d say a few hundred gold, but if you’re the one selling then I think I can come up with something way more interesting than money to get in your good graces.”
“I guess it’s our lucky day then,” I said, blushing even as I grinned and thought of some of the interesting ways she might come up with to convince me to show her footage from the stream that was always recording. You bet your ass I’d gone back and saved that. “Because I totally have a recording.”
"So let’s see it!” Keia said.
"I don't think it’d be a good idea to do that just yet," I said, glancing at our surroundings and picking out at least a few Horizon Dawn tabards in the crowds around us. “Broadcasting a video of me blowing up a bunch of Horizon Dawn people is likely to draw the wrong kind of attention right now.”
"Of course," she said. "But you're showing me later!"
"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise," I said. "The last thing I want is to take an arrow to the knee."
"I don't know about that," she said. “I don’t do arrows to the knee. Just ask Torian. Though if you're pulling off crazy shit like suicide bombings with magical gems then I'm kind of nervous about even attempting to threaten you.”
"All in a day’s work," I said. “Now if only Horizon Dawn’s leadership was smart enough to be appropriately nervous around me the same as you and their lackeys.”
“Well yeah, but we’ve already established they’re fucking idiots,” Keia said. “At least the lackeys we’re running into today seem halfway smart.”
“I thought the same thing right before one of them knocked me out yesterday,” I said. “I’m not making the same mistake twice. We can’t trust any asshole wearing a Horizon Dawn tabard.”
“I never did,” she said. She blew me a kiss then disappeared as we got to the Auction House entrance. “I’ll be patrolling the circle and looking out for trouble if you need me.”
“Got it,” Kris said, taking station at the Auction House entrance. “I’ll be hanging out here discouraging any troublemakers.”
I looked her up and down. Sure Kris looked imposing enough, but I knew it was just that: looks.
“What?” she asked, probably sensing something in my look.
“I mean do you seriously think you’re gonna be able to stop them if they want to get in here?” I asked.
“I killed Gregor yesterday before he had a chance to get in here and cause trouble,” she said.
“I guess you’ve got a point,” I said. “Just try not to get yourse…”
I cut off as another voice interrupted my thought.
“Mind if we join you?” that voice asked.
I looked around trying to find that source for a little too long before I realized I had to look down to see who was talking. Two goblin guards, not the same ones who’d been there yesterday, stood there looking up at me with their hands on their swords. They looked like they were spoiling for an excuse to use those swords, and a small smile came to my face as I thought about watching Torian getting dragged off with a goblin sword embedded in his thigh.
“You guys want to join us?” I asked, genuinely surprised. This was going way beyond them giving a wink and a helping hand where they could without coming out and saying they were trying to help us.
“Who said anything about joining anything?” the goblin on the left said.
“Yeah, we’re just going to stand here at the entrance with your friend,” the goblin on the right said. He tuned and gave a slight nod to the goblin working the vault desk, who gave him a nod in turn.
“But why?”
“You guys tend to be at the center of trouble with the invaders.”
“Could be some fun might come our way if we’re standing where the center of trouble for the invaders is standing,” the other goblin said, trying not to laugh and not doing a good job of covering it.
“Stop looking gift horses in the mouth Conlan,” Kris said, then turned to the goblins and hit them with a grin of her own. “I’m glad for the company. You guys stand wherever you want to stand. You won’t hear any complaints from me.”
Kris was trying to sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but she hit me with a look that was clearly saying “are you fucking seeing this?” I guess she was having as much trouble believing this as I was.
It would seem our reputation with the goblins was way better than I ever could’ve hoped for.
“Kris’s right. We’d be glad for the help,” I said.
“Not help,” the goblin on the right said. “Just standing where there might be trouble. Big difference.”
“Standing where we might get an excuse to stab any trouble that comes along,” the one on the left said with another poorly concealed giggle.
“Right,” I said, winking at them. “Well I’m gonna go take care of some business. You guys have fun with the stabbing, though hopefully it won’t come to that.”
“We always have fun with the stabbing,” the guard on the left said, his tone clearly telling me that he was having trouble conceiving of a world where someone wouldn’t enjoy stabbing someone who deserved it.
“And why would you say something terrible like you hope it isn’t necessary?” the one on the right said.
I shook my head as I made my way to the auctioneer. These goblins were crazy, and I was glad they seemed to be on our side for the moment.
53
Payday
>
I approached the goblin auctioneer I'd spoken with yesterday. The one who'd been so accommodating. The goblin sketched a little bow as I approached.
"So do you have news for me?" I asked.
“I do,” the goblin said.
“And what kind of news would that be?” I asked.
"Very good news," the goblin said. "Good news, and something interesting."
"What's that?" I asked.
“I don't want to go giving away any surprises,” the goblin said with a wink. "But maybe do a search for those potions you created. You might be surprised at what you find.”
I wasn't sure what to make of that, but I got a sinking feeling that the moment I started listing those potions other people had seen them and wondered how they could make potions like that themselves. Maybe get in on my action.
Come to think of it, the Auction House was way more full today than it’d been yesterday now that I was really looking around. I thought I saw a flash of something glowing yellow in one of their hands, but I couldn’t be sure. That was enough to hit me with one hell of a sinking feeling, though.
There were also a couple of Horizon Dawn people hanging around in the back, but they were acting weird too. Not only were they not approaching me and following through on Torian’s threats if I came near the Auction House, but they also weren’t touching any of the other people who were clearly listing shit.
“You broke the floodgates yesterday,” the goblin said. “Once it became clear you were listing things on our service more travelers started coming in. More than the thugs who usually keep them from selling items could handle.”
“Damn,” I muttered, even more worried now. So much for getting the first mover advantage.
So the first thing I did, before I even checked my balance with the Auction House, was run a search for the Nhewb’s Blessing potions. And sure enough there were a hell of a lot more than there’d been yesterday.
Sure any quantity greater than zero would be a hell of a lot more than what’d been on the Auction House before I started listing my stuff yesterday, but there was way more than what could be accounted for by what I'd put up on the Auction House. It looked like there was a Buy It Now price that’d been settled on, and it was way lower than I'd been hoping for. Just a few silver pieces.
That sinking feeling only got more and more pronounced as I waved a hand and scrolled down through the listings. Then I decided to sorted by price. Sure enough there were more of the things, pages of them, but there was something very interesting.
My name was at the top when I listed it out by price from high to low. There was only one auction still running, it must’ve been the last one I put up yesterday, and my eyes bugged out when I saw what my potion was going for.
That amount couldn't be right. my listing which was going for a few hundred gold pieces. I looked back and forth between my listing and the other listings going for a few silver pieces. What the hell was the big difference between what I was selling and what they were selling? This didn’t make sense!
I closed out the auction window and stared off into the distance for a moment trying to gather my thoughts and figure out what the hell was going on here.
"What's wrong?" Keia asked.
I jumped and turned to see her appear beside me with a huge grin as she stepped out of stealth mode.
“Weren’t you supposed to be patrolling?” I asked.
“Well yeah,” she said. “But it seemed pretty quiet out there and we’ve got Kris and the goblins running interference at the entrance. I want to know what’s happening in the Auction House!”
“Something weird,” I said.
I turned back to the auctioneer for some answers.
"Are you sure those prices are correct?" I asked.
"Certain," the auctioneer said. "We don't make mistakes when it comes to our clients’ money."
"What's going on?" Keia asked.
"That can't be right," I said. "Everyone is selling these potions now. Why is my potion going for a few hundred gold pieces when everything else is going for a few silver pieces?"
The goblin smiled. It was a thin smile, but it was more of a smile than I'd gotten from him so far. Which made me think it was the equivalent of a wide grin for this one.
"Maybe you should do an inspection of what’s being sold and find out," the goblin said, winking at me.
I opened the auction window again. I inspected the potions and compared them to the one potion I still had up. Sure enough my potion had a flat percentage bonus to everything. Then, confused, I did the same thing with the other potion. It had the same bonus.
I went back and forth a couple of times before I finally saw it. I had to go through the text line by line, and that's when I realized there was another line of text at the bottom of the new potions that hit the market overnight after I’d added mine. A line that was missing from my potions:
Only works with players with less than 100 skill level in any combat or offensive magic ability.
I frowned. That hadn't been on the potions I'd created yesterday, and it wasn’t on the one I still had on the Auction House now.
I moved back to that potion, and noticed that the price had gone up by another fifty gold pieces in the time it took me to figure out what the big difference was between my potions and the new stuff. The snipers were out in force on this listing.
Maybe they thought it was the last one that didn’t have that restriction. That wasn’t the case, but it backed up my intuition that creating a bit of scarcity was a good idea.
I shook my head. Amazing. I had no idea why there wasn't the restriction on my stuff, but I also wasn’t going to knock it if it gave me an advantage.
Then another thought occurred to me. I needed to check my inventory. More specifically the potions that weren’t listed on the Auction House at the moment.
“Can I have a look at my vault from here?” I asked after waving away the auction screen. “Or do I need to walk over to the vault?”
"Of course," the goblin said. “No need to tire yourself with the long and arduous trek across our small facility.”
My vault screen came up, and I decided to ignore the not-so-subtle jab. There were stacks of Nhewb’s Blessing potions. Stacks and stacks and stacks of them, because I'd spent the vast majority of my first few hours in the game doing nothing but picking those flowers, and I'd spent a lot of time yesterday leveling up my Potions from those flower petals. It’d resulted in a hell of a lot of the things, even taking into consideration some of the failures when I first started out.
I trembled as I inspected one of those stacks. If they had the same restriction as all the new potions currently on the market then I'd take the windfall I'd gotten from the first batch I put up and be happy, but I was praying that wouldn't be the case. That the ones I'd created before the other stacks got nerfed wouldn’t apply to…
I let out a whoop of joy as I inspected one of those stacks and saw that it didn't have the restriction. I went through each and every stack of potions, inspected every one, and not a single one of them had the restriction.
Clearly whatever had happened to all the other potions overnight wasn't affecting the stuff that I'd created. I wasn't sure why, but I got the feeling that Trelor might've had something to do with it. I'd have to ask the crazy wizard when we got back to his shop.
When I went back to the Auction House interface the final potion had sold. For nearly five hundred gold pieces. My eyes bugged out, but there was other business to attend to.
I figured I'd been lucky when it came to the potions, but I couldn't imagine that my simple Spellcrafted blade would’ve done all that well. Sure the spell infusion on it was a little better than what players could get from Horizon gear, but I couldn't imagine someone paying that much more for such a small edge.
I moved over to that auction in the interface and my eyes bugged out again. Clearly I'd underestimated how much gamers were willing to pay to get even a slight edge in their leveli
ng, because my simple Spellcrafted sword was going for nearly a thousand gold pieces. I couldn't believe it, yet there was the evidence right in front of me, and as the bidding came to a close it was going up and up and up.
I stared in astonishment. The blade was low-level. Good for a player who was just starting out. Sure that spell infusion would provide one heck of an advantage to someone just starting out, but I couldn't imagine that was enough of an advantage that it would cause someone to spend that kind of money on the thing.
Then again…
I’d spent enough time playing MMOs that I was well aware of what could happen to a market when players who'd been around for a while, usually higher level players who had some extra money to spend on an alt account, decided to start over. There was a desire to get through the lower levels they'd already seen as quickly as possible, and if they had money burning a hole in their pocket then twinking out a low level character could be a good investment.
I couldn't imagine that being the case in a game like Lotus Online where everything was so intricately tied together and so realistic, but I supposed that in the past month of early access there had to be someone who’d gotten far enough along in the game’s content that they’d be interested in starting a new character and were looking for an advantage for that character.
I pulled away from the auction interface again and turned to Keia.
"Is it possible for people to have alts in this game?” I asked.
"I think so," she said. "I think they have to pay for a new character slot or something, but still. I've heard of a couple of people doing that now that the game has gone live. Trying out something new and all that. Why?"
That made sense. A game as popular as Lotus was going to have plenty of people who had more money than sense. All the people who paid for the early access without doing it on Horizon’s dime were a prime example. And if there were people out there who had more money than sense, well I was more than happy to take some of that money off of their hands.
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