LeBlu and RotheRed
The sign was clear; he was dead.
LeBlu could not believe that barbarian had killed him. Just when he thought he had him. That attack had been devastating; he
had called a cyclone from nowhere.
Ragnar that was his name, he would remember that one. Now he was dead. He was standing in a passageway formed
by two rows of trees. Their leafy
canopies formed a vaulted ceiling.
Standing still he could just make out the specters of other unfortunates
as they moved past him, forward.
He walked past the strangely cheery sign.
Welcome to the Hall of the Dead
You are Dead
Walk Forward to Reenter the
Game
Soon
he saw a light ahead. As he got
closer he saw that there were actually two lights. The tunnel forked, at the fork there was another sign.
ßSpot
of Death
Nearest Town à
As
tempting as it was to go back to the tempest of war that had lead to his
current predicament, he had things to do. He had enjoyed that battle, but now he intended to
start a war. During the fray he
had caught a glimpse of his opponent, RotheRed, right before his death. RotheRed had been approaching Ragnar’s
blind side, but had some how been decapitated.
LeBlu
stepped from the Hall of the Dead through a small building that was really just
a doorway on the street. Five of
these doorways stood next to each other, two more people stepped out as he
watched. Above the doors hung a
banner, Doors of Shame, it
read. One of the two that emerged
was RotheRed. He shook his head
when he saw LeBlu, LeBlu pointed to the banner. RotheRed laughed.
“Well
met.” He said as they clasped wrists in the warrior’s handshake.
After
making sure neither had a knife up their sleeve, “Well met,” LeBlu replied.
“That
battle was crazy. There were so
many people. The fighting was frantic, I killed two, and I saw you fighting
that Ragnar. Thought I could get
the drop on him. I can’t believe
he got both of us. How’d you
do?” As RotheRed talked they had
turned away from the Doors of Shame and had turned onto the aptly named Main
St. Main St was lined with
storefronts, all looked dark and closed but LeBlu saw a few that had people
looking in windows and trying doors.
The street itself was paved with smooth brown stones.
“That’s
a creative name for a street, they should have called it Only St.” LeBlu
said. “I killed two also. How do you think we use the experience
we got?”
“No
idea.”
“I
guess everything else has been made pretty clear so far. Maybe we don’t have enough to level up
yet. Anyway we have more important
things to discuss. I mean if that
is what all the fighting is like it will be hard to get people to fight
together.”
“That’s
true, but we can use towns to recruit then go into battles like an army. First I think we should talk
objectives, to make sure that we are on the same page. I expect this is going to be the last
time I see you without trying to kill you.”
“Good
call. The idea as we
discussed before getting the implant was to completely take over Nutrua. We are going to recruit two
armies and then lead them in a war to answer the ultimate rivalry. Answer to the question that has pledged
all life, everywhere for all time.
I will for all time show you that Blue is better then Red. Not just a little better, but much
better.” LeBlu said that last bit
with a challenging look.
“We’ll
see about that.” RotheRed did not
rise to the bait. By this time
they had reached the end of Main St.
Here the buildings ended and the paving turned into a packed dirt
path. The path led into a forest,
and was soon lost from view in the underbrush. They turned and headed back the way they came. “We had discussed starting with ten
thousand dollars to use as we see fit.
But I haven’t seen anyway to use money yet. So maybe this ten thousand dollars is inconsequential.”
All
the buildings on the street looked the same. They were built of wood; really just roughly cut planks and
stripped trunks, like from an old western. One lonely sign hung in front the only store with an open
doorway. LeBlu pointed to the sign
that read, Bank of Nutrua, in a simple bold font. “If there was a place to tell us how money works in this
game, that would be it,” he said.
Three steps led to the doorway, they
stepped through. Light streamed in though a single window. A big figure sat behind a desk, with
the light from the window the figure was shrouded in shadow. They could tell that he was big,
but that was it, the rest of the features were hidden.
“Hello.
Welcome. Come in.” The shadow
stood up as he spoke, he voice was deep but one could hear a hint of a smile in
it as well. When LeBlu got close
enough to see whom it was his jaw dropped.
“Ragnar?
Wha…What are you doing here?”
“Come
in, sit down,” Ragnar laughed.
“This is my new job. I got
hired when Zed Interface bought the last place I worked for. You’re the guys I killed, uh, sorry
about that I guess.”
LeBlu
and RotheRed shared a look then sat down.
“Don’t worry about it,” RotheRed said.
“Yeah,”
LeBlu responded, “It was pretty impressive actually.”
“Thanks,”
Ragnar smiled, “I thought your size changing spear was cool. You,” he said pointing at RotheRed,
“That was just bad timing, if I hadn’t started my spin you would have had me.”
RotheRed
nodded, “So you work in a bank?”
“Yep.”
“What
does that even mean?” LeBlu asked.
“Ok
let me lay it out for you, first can I get you guys anything to drink, a cup of
water?” Ragnar smiled and waited
for them to shake their heads no.
“Great. So in Nutrua the
currency is ‘Nutrua Gold’ or Ng.
There are two ways to get Ngs; one is to earn it, either by fighting
people or by selling stuff. The
other is by buying it; our bank will provide exchange services from any
currency to Ng, and from Ng to most major currencies.”
“What
kinds of fees are there, where is the catch?” RotheRed asked bluntly.
“There
are no fees,” Ragnar replied, then he continued. “As long as the transaction is done though your Nutrua Bank
account.”
“I
knew there was a catch.”
“Its
not really a catch,” said Ragnar, “I mean, the bank takes micro fees from every
transaction, and by little I mean point zero, zero, zero one of every
transaction. By doing this they are able to run without charging you
anything. The offer is good and it
was designed with the game in mind.
Hear me out; this is the package that I recommend. First if you want to use money you need
a ‘Wallet account’ this is the money you carry with you in the world. It is from your ‘wallet’ that any money
you spend will come from. But you
must be careful because your ‘wallet’ also works as a bet against your
skill. If you are defeated, the
money in your wallet goes to the victor.
So
to protect the rest of your funds I recommend a ‘Stash account’. Your ‘stash’
is completely isolated, protected.
It is in this account that you can convert your funds and transfer them
to and from the wallet account.
The wallet fund is what you risk out in Nutrua, the stash fund is to
keep your Ngs safe. Do you hear
what I am saying, Ngs are not just some game money; it is being traded like any
other currency. If you are smart
you will be able to make money here. A lot of money.”
“So
what’s the exchange rate?” asked LeBlu trying not to get caught up in Ragnar’s
over flowing enthusiasm.
“Right
now its pegged to the USD. Zed
Interface has guarantied it.”
“Wow,”
RotheRed said, “That is huge! I buy a sword at 200Ng and it really is worth
200USD, which is going to totally change how people upgrade their
equipment. But how does anyone
make money. I mean, beside
reselling at a mark up?”
“Let
me ask you a question,” Ragnar continued without waiting for a response. “It this whole world, game, whatever is
PvP; right? So where is that 200Ng
sword coming from? Someone has to make it. I am sure that Zed has hired people just like me to make
swords to sell for the company, but my guess is that these will be made to sell
cheap and fast. It sounds easy enough.
You pick up materials while to travel and in towns there will a place to
turn them into whatever you choose to make. Better yet you level up the more you make, the quality
will get better and you can sell it for more.”
“Your
pretty good at this job, how long did you say you’ve been doing it for?”
RotheRed asked. “What do you need
from me to get started?”
“Here
read this,” Ragnar handed them both a folded sheet of paper. “This will give you all the instruction
you need. If you’re still interested
after you read it look at the barcode at the bottom. Let me know if you have any questions.”
LeBlu
unfolded the paper, once it was open words filtered across the page. Once it was filled with writing LeBlu
scanned it. For the most part it
was the normal legal jargon, mainly written to prevent money laundering. There were a few blank spots to
be filled the account from which to draw funds, currency to be used for
conversion and opening deposit. At
the bottom of the page was a barcode, immediately after looking at it he felt a
new weight on his belt. Reaching
for the new weight his hand came away with a blue cloth pouch.
Looking within he saw two pockets; one was full of gold coins and had a
display that read 10,000Ng. The
other pocket was empty. LeBlu took
a hand full of coins from his stash and dropped into the wallet pocket. The displays change to reflect the new
distribution, 18Ng in the wallet 9,992Ng in the stash.
“You said that I lose whatever is in my wallet if I lose a fight, right?”
LeBlu asked.
“Right.” Ragnar responded,
“Think of it as a wager. Also its not just money you can put in the
wallet. If you want you could also
put in equipment, like a sword or a knife. The more value you put in the wallet the more people are
going to fight you. That will mean
that you have to get good fast, or you could lose a lot of money. Whenever you look at someone it will
always tell you their name and how much they have in their wallet.”
“Well you have been very helpful,” RotheRed said, “Thank you.”
“Hey, no problem.” Ragnar smiled, “It has been great talking with you
guys. I look forward to running
into you out there.”
“The next time I see you I will kill you.” LeBlu said.
“History is not on your side, my friend.” Ragnar laughed.
“Luck,” RotheRed interjected, “Next time we meet you will see what I
can do.”
“But until then I’m here for another two hours.” With that Ragnar waved
them out. “Go, take advantage of
you time, cause I see that you have not leveled up yet.” Then he winked.
LeBlu put his hand up to block the sun as they stepped out of the gloom
of the Bank. “That was
illuminating.” He said, “And can you believe that Ragnar. A Banker?! This place just
keeps getting better.”
“Seriously,” RotheRed agreed.
“So this is what I think,” LeBlu continued, “towns. We will battle over towns. I bet there are hundreds of towns just
like this one. Right now they’re
all empty, but they are going to fill up.
Each one of these stores is going to be worth a fortune. It’s going to be real people running
them, making real money, a lot of it. However we are going to build
armies. Once we occupy a town, the
sky is the limit. We can install
our own shop keeps, or make them pay us rent, whatever.”
“I like what I’m hearing,” RotheRed said. “But how are you proposing that we divvy out the money we
make?”
“We joined the game to have a battle of strategy, of brains. How you use the money that your red
army earns, is up to you. But I
will be using the money that I earn to destroy you. But I have a pretty good guess how it will work. The money will attract recruits. The more recruits, the more towns. The war will be over when either one
army controls all the towns or the other team is wiped out, or gives up.”
“I agree.” RotheRed
replied, “Now, we stand back to back, then we walk. We walk away; you go north I’ll go south. We start to
recruit, always moving in the same direction, you north, and me south. We don’t stop moving away from each
other until we have enough members to take a town.”
“How many recruits do you think we need to take a town?”
“What do you say to thirty?”
“Thirty is good. You can
wait till you have more if you like, but you must have at least thirty. Once you take the first town, the rest
of the world is game. Until one of
the three victory conditions are met.”
“Until then.”
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
Then the looked at each other, right in the eyes. The shook hands, wrist to wrist, like
warriors. Then they turned and
walked away. The elf in blue walking north, and the dwarf in red south.
