~‌ ‌1.07 ‌-‌ All That Work for Chits ‌~‌

 

Kyle’s Apartment 

Wednesday, June 11th

 

Opening his eyes, Kyle looked over at his alarm clock. The time was 7:14 in the morning. He had been in the game for a little over five hours this time. The teen got up and went to the bathroom to take care of his needs, then made a trip to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. Sitting down on the couch, he brought up a web browser on his augmented vision. Checking his favorite gaming news sites, he saw Massively OP already had a handful of articles about Fantasy. The top article talked about how Fantasy with the new Neurolink implant combined to create the first true digital world with all senses intact. 

 

The writer wrote how he and another player became buddies with one of the town's guards and was able to find a hidden quest for him which didn’t show in their logs. They also became great friends with the guard and had pints of ale with him later that day. The author of the article went on to say he was able to talk to the guard about any subject.  The guard responded and gave opinions on almost everything they talked about, like he was a real person with his own thoughts. The author’s main point about his first day playing was that the new AI systems that controlled each NPC was extraordinary. 

 

He pulled up his email to see if Iron or Elen had gotten his contact details from Sinn3r and found nothing in his inbox. Checking on some other sites produced more of the same. Everyone was in love with the game, and people were foaming at the mouth to get their chance. The second batch of users were slated to start playing early next week with the Delve Neurolink. Kyle had figured most would start playing Fantasy with the capsules until they could upgrade their implants, but a few articles told players who wished to play with the implant to hold off on starting but didn’t give the reasons why. He sent an email to his Uncle William, letting him know how the game was and that he would be incognito for most of the summer playing Fantasy.

 

Finishing up on checking a few more sites and drinking his water bottle, Kyle closed out his augmented tabs in his vision and went back to bed.

 

“Initiate Delve.”

 

[Delve Initializing] 

 

Kyle found himself flying through the stars at warp speed once again for a few moments before materializing on the back terrace of his house in his MicroWorld.

 

 “Hey, Bob, can you make me the same Gnome as Flea in Fantasy here as well? The perspective shift is a bit hard to get used to.” 

 

Kyle found himself shrinking down to his gnome avatar without Bob saying anything.  

 

“Thank you, Bob.” 

 

Now a Gnome, Kyle walked to the pavilion and by opening the door to Fantasy logged in. 

 

The Drunken Ogre

2nd Spirtday of The Full Moon

 

Getting up from his bed in the inn, Flea grabbed everything out of the chest and made his way downstairs. A few players were still hanging around, chatting and drinking in the common room. The Gnome made his way outside and headed towards the town’s North Gate. He noticed a different guard stationed there, nodded to him as he left the town. He could only make out a few players farming the rabbits this late at night, as he got closer to the yellow fields. 

 

Walking through the field with his daggers in hand, he made sure to be on the lookout for any rabbit trying to surprise him. Making it to the tree line, he started looking for the Hollyhock he needed. It was then Flea realized a considerable problem; he couldn’t make out shit in the dark. 

 

How are the other players able to see the rabbits well enough to farm them? 

 

Catching one of the players in his sight, he was able to see the player and cursed. He was an Elf, so he assumed he had some type of night vision that helped them farm at night. Flea decided to go back up to the gate and asked the guard if he had an extra torch lying around.

 

“Too dark for you little one?” the guard asked as Flea got closer.

 

“Got it in one!” Flea smirked. “Any chance you have any extra torches lying around?

 

“Sure, we got a ton of them in the shed over near the wall left of the gate. You can take one or two; each will last you all night.”

 

“Thank you. During the night, is there anything else I should worry about?”

 

“I’d stay away from the forest at night, as the terrorbears come out in full force. Without a small hunting party, they will rip most people to shreds. Your best bet would head to the mines near the lake at night and mine. There is silver in the mountain, and the runoff has deposited plenty of silver into the lake over the ages, keeping monsters far from its shores.”

 

“That's what I’ll do then. You know where I can get a pickaxe?”

 

“You’ll probably find them all over the mines, they are bulky, and no one wants to waste a space inside their bags to store a basic one, so they usually leave them at the entrances.”

 

“Didn’t even think of that. You’ve been a huge help. Thank you. I’m Flea. Is there anything I could help you with to repay the favor?” Flea asked, hoping to try and buddy up with the guard.

 

“No problem, Flea, I’m Telen. If you happen to find any extra silver, I could use a couple of chunks. I’m an apprentice Jewelsmith, but silver is hard to come by. Making rings out of iron doesn’t help when you need to learn to work with higher-grade materials.”

 

“If I happen to find any silver, I’ll think of you first, Telen. I’m off. Thanks again for the info and torches.”

 

Flea walked over to the shed, opening it. Inside he found barrels with tons of torches in them. Grabbing one, he found the torches’ head was soaking underneath the water at the barrel’s bottom. Taking the torch, he whipped it towards the ground a few times to get the water off the head. Walking over to a torch on the wall, Flea lit it. For the second time that night, he headed out the gate and down the hill. Getting to the bottom, he took a left from the path and headed away from the fields and towards the lake. 

 

It took Flea well over thirty minutes to reach the shore of the lake. Skirting around the lake to the left, he started his trot towards the ridge in the distance. Getting closer, Flea could make out a couple of cave entrances in the distance with warm glows of a torch in them. Flea assumed these caves had players inside already mining. 

 

Walking for a couple more minutes, Flea found himself near the ridge. Walking to his right and keeping the rise to his left, he started looking for one of the mine entrances. It didn’t take long before Flea found one thirty feet ahead of where he had been. Entering the shaft, he looked around but couldn’t find any pickaxes. Checking the next five mines provided nothing as well. He found a couple of pickaxes inside the seventh mine. Grabbing the smallest one, he walked deeper into the mine.

 

The entire mine shaft looked the same to him. Flea couldn't make out any veins or discolored chunks on the wall. He spent a large amount of time going down the mine shaft and back up to the entrance and not finding anything. He assumed it was just an empty mine. Deciding to go into one of the caves with the glow of a torch at the entrance and hoping to find a player. Upon entering the first lit up entrance, he found a player with a race he was not expecting. A single dark-green goblin with huge pointy ears was cursing up a storm and slamming his pickaxe against the wall over and over.

 

“Hello?” 

 

“Oie, what's your problem, you bloody cunt?” The goblin shouted out in fright as he jumped back deeper into the mine.

 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to figure out how to mine. I couldn’t see any iron or veins on the wall to mine in the shafts I’ve checked. I figured I'd come to ask another player if they had any luck. Also, why in the hell a Goblin?”

 

“No worries, just scare easily at my age. I’ve always chosen a Goblin for my characters. I always end up playing some type of tinker or engineer and wanted to keep it going. I’m Khorwin, by the way, and to answer your question about mining. I’m having a fuck all time myself. I’ve been in almost all of these tunnels, and I’ve yet to find any type of metal anywhere in the first couple hundred feet of the entrance. I’m just randomly digging to see what it gets me.”

 

“Names Flea, and that's what I’d have done too. Want to share the tunnel and try and figure this out?”

 

“That sounds like a splendid plan. Let’s go deeper down the cave then. I didn’t want to adventure and travel deeper going solo. It’s rather spooky. I swore I heard low moans coming from deeper down, but with the two of us, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

 

Khorwin grabbed his torch, pulling it out of the crack he had wedged it into, and they headed off deeper into the cave. They traveled in silence for what seemed like an hour before they found the first hint of what they were looking for, spotting small red flecks among the walls of the shaft. Five minutes later, they came across a sizable reddish-brown vein within the rock low to the ground.

 

“Well, it seems the mine was bare till here. At Least the vein is lower to the ground for us,” said Khorwin. 

 

He then jammed his torch into a crack on the wall to the right of the iron vein. 

 

“Put yours somewhere to the left, and we should have plenty of light to start digging. Let's just mine out the vein till it’s gone, and we can split it up then.”

 

Flea followed suit and stuck his torch into the rock face to his left. Grabbing the pickaxe out of his inventory, he started to swing and strike at the vein. The two of them got into a rhythm, hammering away at the vein until nothing was left within the cave wall. 

 

“I'd say we got a pretty good haul even after the split,” Khorwin said.

 

Flea wiped the sweat off his brow and sat down. 

 

“How the hell aren’t you dying right now. I feel like I’ve just run a marathon.”

 

“Ah got two points in strength already. I got lucky with the rabbits yesterday and was able to get eight cores. With how much mining I plan on doing in the future, I figured it would help out.”

 

They took their time sorting through the chunks of rock and iron. After finishing up, each had forty-two pieces of iron. They agreed to head deeper into the mine to find more veins so they could sell it in the morning. The duo found two medium iron veins and a small silver vein through the night. When they finally left the cave the next morning, they had a hundred and ten chunks of iron and thirteen chunks of silver each.

 

“Thanks for the help man, this should make me enough money to pay for some more training. I’ll be up for more mining tonight if you’re available, man. If you need me, you can leave a message at The Drunken Ogre. That’s the inn I’m currently staying at,” Flea said.

 

“Oh, you bet your bollocks, I’ll take you up on that. These mines are bloody scary as shit when you're by yourself. The guard at the gate said they were safe at all times of the night, but are they really safe if we keep going deeper? I'd rather have someone with me. Want to meet back here at sunset?”

 

“Sounds good to me. I can finish my first three Adventurers’ Guild quests today. I’ll meet you back here at sunset then, glad I ran into you. I would have had a terrible night trying to find the iron by myself. See you tonight, Khorwin.”

 

Flea walked towards the forest to start looking for the Hollyhock he needed. In the morning sunlight, he was able to spot them easily in the shade of the larger trees. Two hours later, the morning’s three bells rang. He decided to stop gathering and head to the fields to fill his bag with rabbits. On the way to the fields outside town, he checked his magic bag. 

 

Nine inventory spots were still open. He decided to kill rabbits and then turn in his three quests.

 

Flea found Gronky at The Pit and gave him ten new rabbits. He had the nine in his bag and carried a tenth he had killed when he pulled one off a train-runner, deciding to just take the body with him. Flea asked Gronky if he knew where he could find Krem and The Silver Pestle. Krem was easy to find as the tannery’s stench sat right at home near The Pit and wasn't more than a hundred yards from where they were standing. He turned in his thirty hides for a sad 60 copper and the extra two hides for another four copper. He was also given a blue ceramic chit that looked like a poker chip. The chit had Copper printed on both sides that shined with a greenish metallic color.

 

Gronky’s directions to The Silver Pestle let Flea find it with relative ease. Entering the shop he was assaulted with the heavy scent of pine, with a hint of lavender. The smell brought back an old memory of him and his family on vacation at a cabin on a lake surrounded by the forest. His family used to go there twice a summer for as far as he could remember. 

 

“Welcome, how may Silverfang help you today?” a small female Wolf Beastkin asked him, breaking him out of the memory.

 

“Hello Silverfang, I have your Hollyhock as per your request. I also have eleven more Hollyhock I wish to sell as well.” 

 

“Welcome young adventurer; thank you for fulfilling our request. We would be happy to buy all the Hollyhock you can gather in any quantities you can obtain. Sadly per the Guild’s rules, I can only give you the quest chit once a day. We will buy each Hollyhock from you at three copper each for a total of 93 coppers, adventurer. Is there anything else you may be interested in selling or purchasing?” Silverfang replied.

 

“Do you have any useful poisons for daggers? Also, do you buy these rabbit horns?”

 

“I have a few vials of paralyzing poison for sale at 20 copper each. We’ll also buy the horns from you at one copper each.”

 

“Alright, I’d like to buy two vials of the paralyzing poison, and I have thirty-two horns on me for sale.”

 

“Your total is 85 copper. We will buy the Hollyhock for 93 copper. 32 copper for the rabbit horns. Your cost will be 40 copper for the two paralyzing poison vials. Silverfang has had the pleasure of doing business with you.”

 

 He was also handed another blue chit with his coins.

 

Flea was now 151 copper-rich. He asked the closest guard he could find where Blacksmith Grom could be found and was directed to the west wall. His smithy was the furthest away from the residents of the town. 

 

I’m betting the hammering would drive anyone nuts.

 

He greeted the Dwarf he assumed was Grom, handed over his twenty iron ore request, and sold him the rest of his iron ore, netting him five silver and 50 copper. Flea quickly figured out 100 copper coins equaled a silver coin. Asking Grom about it revealed a hundred to one ratio; 100 silver to a gold coin, and 100 gold to a Royal coin. Finished with his three quests, he pulled up his journal.

 

 

With the three quests finished, he decided to first wander around the town then head to the Adventurers’ Guild to see if they had any more quests. Taking some time to walk around the town and visit every shop, he introduced himself and browsed their wears. When he spied the time on the clock tower over the top of the buildings close by, he decided to head over to the Adventurers’ Guild, turn in his quest chits and see if new quests were on the boards.