The "battle" of Covan was coming to an end, and there was one clear winner.
"Are you kidding me..."
"They monopolized those damn quests and took everything good!"
"Maybe there's a chance we can still secure some items at the auction, but it looks like the best ones will go to them..."
Yes, *them*, the singular org that managed to take everything important from everyone else.
Shock Collar reigned supreme while many others remained dejected.
However, there were 5 players striking up conversations with zeal.
"Hello, I'm from Ravaging Crows," Jiel told the nearest player who looked to be the commander of a small group. "How about we band together to take down Shock Collar?"
"What, are you crazy? How are we going to do that?"
Obviously, the small group's commander wasn't thrilled at the proposition. However, that changed when Jiel shared a snapshot of a coin pouch...
*>Copper: 492*
When the commander saw this, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Haha, what's that? You don't know how we're going to do it? Doesn't this answer your question? This is only *one* of our members' coin pouches, so this isn't even all we have. If you want to join us, collect all the money you have from your members and give it to me," Jiel commanded.
"What? Why would I do that?"
To the commander, this "offer" wasn't even worthy enough to consider. Giving up all of your money? No one in their right mind would do that...
"Come on, you guys are beta players right? You know that Copper is worth virtually nothing in the long run. By taking this gamble now, you can catapult yourselves above the competition. Besides, if you don't, we'll outbid you on every item you want. You'll walk away from the auction with nothing."
"... That's not possible. There's no way you have enough money for that!" the commander denied.
"You think I'm making an empty threat? We have more money than you think we do. Like I said, that's simply the pouch of one of our members, and we have 20."
"What...!"
"Shhh... there's no need to be startled. You see the independent players around you? Which of them are a part of the Ravaging Crows or one of our allies? There's no way for you to know. If you don't accept our offer, not only will you lose out on valuable items, but you may suffer unintended consequences when you try to set foot into the frontier..."
The commander shivered. 20 players in the wild against their small organization? It would be impossible to defend against!
"W- Wait a moment. I'll discuss this with the team..."
"Oh? Was that not convincing enough?"
"N- No, it's just-"
"Then how about this? Remember how we said we have 20 members? That's just counting the members of the Ravaging Crows and our allies. It doesn't count the other small orgs we've made a truce with. We've already collected their cash, too. Didn't I tell you? We have more money than you think we do."
"Shit!"
The commander frantically messaged his subordinates in a group chat.
*>Hutian Crest: Everyone, listen up! Give me all of your funds NOW! Here's what's going on...*
The commander gathered the funds and sent them over to Jiel's account.
"Copper received. Thanks for your cooperation," Jiel said with a smile. "Please add the player named Fae Sol to your friends list if you want to see this money again."
With that, he quickly departed.
Jiel, Brookie, Dharr, Brusse, and Declan were all doing the same thing to a number of groups around the hamlet, and by now their coin pouches were bigger than ever before.
But there was one thing Jiel was still doubtful about.
*Will this amount really be enough to outbid Shock Collar?*
---
Jisha merrily made her way to the hamlet's bank. It was quite easy to spot since it had the word "BANK" embedded on the front of the building. Banks at starter hamlets were only able to exchange basic currencies for a small service fee. If you wanted to exchange currencies beyond Silverium or store your money for safekeeping, you would need to visit a village bank at the very least.
The NPC greeted her, and Jisha commenced the trade.
"I'd like to exchange 1 Silverium for Bronzium, please."
"Sure thing, young lady. Since you are our first Beyonder customer, there will be no service charge for this transaction."
*>-1 Silverium*
*>+100 Bronzium*
The reason Jisha exchanged only 1 Silverium for Bronzium and not Copper was because higher denominations were inherently worth more than lesser ones. For example, if you wanted to buy an item worth 100 Bronzium, you could easily purchase it with 1 Silverium. However, if you wanted to buy an item worth 1 Silverium, 100 Bronzium may not necessarily be adequate. This was because service fees for exchanging currencies were a bit higher if you wanted to exchange lower denominations for higher ones. Not only that, but these service fees varied quite a bit from location to location.
*Now that I think about it, it's kind of... maybe like a local tax?*
Beyond Silverium, there was Aurite, Star Gold, Plate Core, Diamond, Amazonite, and Mythos Coin. Each one was supposedly worth 100 times its predecessor. Star Gold was the most widely used currency in Synergy and was often just referred to as "gold", and beyond this currency, you couldn't trade lower denominations for higher ones, exponentially raising the value of the currencies above Gold.
Many players would eventually reach 1 Plate Core in their bank account. If you had 1 Diamond, you were considered extremely wealthy. Deals between supermassive Guilds, Kingdoms, Empires, etc. were dealt with in Amazonite. And Mythos Coin was so rare that it was incredibly rare to even see one, much less own one.
The 100 Bronzium Jisha had on hand was worse than pocket change for high-level players. She sighed and made her way over to the frontier shop as quickly as possible.
*Alright... Need to buy another map and take a look around to see if there's anything useful in here...*
She browsed for a bit before finding the sheets of blank paper on a shelf. After buying another Medium sized map, she noticed another interesting item.
*Hm... It's interesting they sell these here...*
Jisha was mildly surprised to see this item in a frontier shop of a starter hamlet.
*This is why you should never skip out on browsing shops, even if they are in mere hamlets...*
What was this item?
*>Small Lightweight Tracker: 1 Bronzium*
It was an item that could be paired with a map. Once paired, this small device would relay its position to the map it was paired with even if the terrain was unknown. It had quite a long range, so losing it wasn't an issue for now. It had many uses, but the primary one was sticking it on players to follow them around...
*Hmm...*
As Jisha considered its uses, she received several friend requests she had been waiting for.
*>Friend request received from user "Dolphin Killer".*
*>Friend request received from user "Aphro Expo".*
*>Friend request received from user "Hutian Crest".*
*>Friend request received from user "Simulator Child".*
...
*Alright, it's decided.*
Jisha accepted all of the recent friend requests, purchased 7 trackers, and headed towards the auction house.