It started out of the blue.
Cora was plucking ears of blood corn, grumbling because her favorite teen bag had evolved into an adult bag which meant it got just a bit bigger and more unwieldy when it came to sticking giant ears of corn into it. The teen bag had been perfect. The neck had just been wide enough to drop an entire end in with no problems.
Now the neck was bigger and threatened to drop the corn to the ground if she wasn't careful. Ufkim wouldn't mind buying the ears, but he'd make noises if any of the kernels were bruised and try to lower the price.
Cora, herself, had no idea that the blood corn was popular. As far as she was concerned, it was a novelty item that was a current fad. A few months later, and no one would be looking for it.
Outside the Wildlands, people were scrambling to make blood corn seed. It hadn't been seen in centuries, and here was a new supply. No one other than the orc farmers and Wen-ci and her brother knew where the supply originated.
There had even been talk of a bounty being posted. Then again, just because the farmers were orcs didn't mean that the rest of the orcs wouldn't object to that. Those who were merchants, artisans and farmers were only a small percentage of the population. The rest were mercenaries or soldiers for various kingdoms, the Orc Kingdoms the most.
"So, you can make money from the game," Heidi said, plopping down in one of the chairs next to the field. It was part of a delicate looking café set that Cora had moved from one of the decorative gardens.
Cora looked up at her. Heidi had been busy rebuilding the library and had disappeared for a while.
"No, you can't," Cora replied. Then she shook her head. "Well, I am, sorta. I put a bunch of capsules in those three resorts I have."
"Uh-huh," Heidi said with a slow nod. She picked up an apple from the bowl on the table.
Cora watched her slowly peel the apple, tentatively jabbing it with her little knife.
"What are you doing?" Cora asked.
"Making sure it's edible," Heidi replied. "Everything you tend to harvest here is weird. Either blood or light or dark," she continued, sniffing at the little slice of apple she finally freed.
"That is just a regular apple I got from Ufkim," Cora protested. "It's not like everything is special!"
"No, just the stuff you grow," Heidi shot back, popping the slice into her mouth. "But I was saying: you can make money from the game."
"And how is that possible?" Cora asked, straightening up as she pulled the last ear free.
"By selling gold and stuff," Heidi said. She straightened up, beaming. "People buy stuff with real money, especially gold."
"Game money is worth real money?" Cora frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."
"But it does!" Heidi stood up, brushing off her pants. "See, there are people who want stuff and then there are people who sell stuff and when they collide…BOOM!"
"Yeah, yeah, mercantile 101," Cora said, rolling her eyes as she walked to the edge of the field. She turned and looked at the denuded corn stalks. "Decompose," she announced.
The stalks withered. A discrete timer popped up over the field.
"You have to wait nine hours?" Heidi asked.
"Game hours, but yeah. If I fertilize the field, it'll go way down, but I don't have the time to fertilize, and I don't want to offend the dryads by asking them." Cora shrugged. "Being mayor is a lot of work, but it's amazingly fun."
"Only you would find rebuilding a ruin fun," Heidi teased.
"Come on. This last load is a request from Ufkim. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered planting it. Blood corn takes up too many nutrients." Cora sighed as she hefted the sack across her shoulder.
At least its evolution meant that it didn't weigh much even with a hundred ears of blood corn stuffed into it. Unfortunately, she wasn't getting a lot of experience from the harvest. It had dropped from one to one-half an experience point per ear to a mere tenth.
The sunset amaranth gave her more. At that thought, Cora paused, almost causing Heidi to run into her. The sunset amaranth was the perfect rotation crop, but she hadn't planted it for a while because of its lengthy growth period.
"Why did you stop?" Heidi complained. There was an indistinct crunch as she bit into the apple.
"Just thought of something. Need to check my shed," Cora explained.
"And then I'm taking you to the auction in Cochran!" Heidi exclaimed.
"Cochran?" Cora's thought winged to Kylen and Enlais.
Those two were currently deep within the mountain mines. Their charges were also there, doing who knew what, but the mines were producing all sorts of strange rocks and gems now. Enlais would deliver them in large sacks to the entrance of the mine before retreating back.
It was a huge headache for Cora. Strange gems would attract too much attention, and the caravan wasn't coming back for another couple of months. The last she'd heard, Hota was taking on a special commission.
She just hoped the caravan didn't put themselves into too much trouble doing it. Cora had heard rumors from Nate that someone was targeting the player caravans.
"Yes! The next auction is there. People are going to sell all sorts of stuff, including gold." There was another crunch. "This is so good."
Cora glanced backwards to see Heidi nearly finishing the apple. She didn't have the heart to tell her that it was a Mana Apple, something Ufkim and his family was slowly starting to develop. Cora had a sneaking suspicion that like her blood corn, there had probably been masses of the trees in the distant past and Ufkim, or someone related to him, had discovered an old cache of seeds with some viability left.
"How can you sell gold? That's the normal currency here." Cora continued on to her shed.
Since parts of Wilderven were slowly being restored, the shed had grown as well. Cora had no clue how that was possible, but the shed was now bigger than the tiny one she'd started with. That one had barely had enough room for her to turn around for all the shelves crammed into it. Now, she could walk in with Heidi and still have room to spare.
"Your little storage thing is nice," Heidi commented. She stuffed the apple core into her pocket.
"It's bigger than before, but eh. I do still have amaranth. I'm going to have to ask someone to make seeds with this crop," Cora muttered absently. She glanced at Heidi. "Still, the gold question?"
"Gold? Oh! Yeah, well, they sell it by the tens and hundreds, and you bid real money. The platform handles the surcharges and whatnot, and you get paid real money." Heidi perked up. "So, come on! You can plant your whatever when you get back."
"Fine, fine," Cora agreed. She dropped the full sack and stretched. "It'll be good to walk around again."