Nia had wasted precious ten minutes by now. She could see a queue forming near the chief, who was sitting next to official looking building. Seeing that, she turned to look into other places. Unfortunately, there was queue near blacksmith, alchemist and even a small queue in front of general merchandise shop. She just opened her unique starter package , now there was no air of anticipation around her.
Her luck held good. Th obligatory unique item turned out to be an accessory- a necklace.
'Truman's Choice' - Unique, necklace.
Attribute- Luck +5. Intelligence +10.Strength -5.
Requirement -level 10.
Though strength decreased a bit, intelligence and more importantly luck increased. With increase in luck, the monster drops would improve.
The next item also turned to be Unique item( chance of 9%) but it was a armour.
'Lisle's sheild' - Unique, metal armour.
Attribute - Defense +150, 1% chance of reflecting back physical damage.
Requirement- Shield bearer, level 10.
Then she had default - i.e, small red and blue pots, a small bread and jug of water, and 10 copper coins. No... she had double the amount of basic pack. Nia check again. She indeed had double portion of starter package.
Donning her level 0 clothes, sandals[barefoot goddess are great only when they are walking on clouds], she finally entered Daka village.
[FINALLY!!!!! Now get going, can't you see many people running out of village after getting quests? If you wait longer, the queue will be still longer.]
Nia did not join the queues but instead went to NPCs who were ready to talk. What do you know, they all had quests. some were silly, some were simple, some were time consuming but most of them were just errands.
In JIN HO, there was no maximum quests one could have. And in Novice village there was no punishment for failing the quests. So Nia walked towards general merchandise shop and talked to NPCs on the way, collecting quests. The NPC handling the shop was a charming man in forties named Aurrum. He was not native of the place but had a relative here. He had come to look after him for few days but stayed here permanently. Nia could even mention his routine if needed as she had been told by many NPCs that he was just like experienced salesman(though not in exact same words).
Nia had been told repeated by her friends that she had to do few quests first and only then go on. They were basic quests, giving more XP and bonuses. Moreover, there was a chance that there would be serial quests sending players into higher level maps. Aurrum's quest was quite likely to be basic quest. Nia wanted to see if NPCs really behaved like normal people- showing bias, cheating others, taking shortcuts and Aurrum was a perfect choice.
The shop was not large as there were other general merchandise shops and not all NPCs shopped in this place. But like a perfect shopkeeper, Aurrum kept his place clean, tidy. As soon as he entered, he welcomed her with smile, "Ah! You must be one of the adventurers! Welcome to my place. Look through the things , you might see something you fancy. I get few stocks from Capital, so there are obviously better than few local products."
Nia looked through. It was nice manners and she found that Aurrum was being truthful for once. Few of his products were indeed of high quality. Nia could only blink few times when she saw the price of those products, they were beyond her limit.
"Yes, I can see it. Unfortunately, I currently don't need them. But, I don't want to leave just like that. Tell me, shopkeeper, do you need any help?"
Aurrum was very happy. He liked it when his clients/customers had nice etiquette, it showed they had manners. It meant they could be tricked easily using words.
So that's what he did. After long and boring conversation, Nia learnt that his shop acted as consignment shop too. So all those lifestyle NPCs left their items here on consignment basis. The reason- Aurrum had more contact with adventurers and people going into forests thus he could ask them to get some products needed for their craft.
Aurrum was not greedy towards resident NPCs. He charged just enough but one of the conditions was that they had to leave items to be sold in the shop. The compromise was reached and now Aurrum's shop was filled with consigned items. In Aurrum's words, it was bartering, as village people were too poor to pay in coins.
Initially, Aurrum just wanted Nia to get 10 rooster feathers as Nia's level was zero. He did imply that if she were successful, she might get another quest later. Hens and roosters were first monsters players faced. If a player could not kill such monsters, there would be no use to ask for items from higher map areas.
Nia though did not want to come and go again and again. So, she unleashed her special skill- barganing. She would get all the items required from nearby map regions, he just have to assign her the quests.
Aurrum had to accept defeat this time though. So he assigned all the consignment quests to Nia in one go and he had to give her extra storage bag to carry the items.
'Storage bag- capacity- 200 slots.'
Restrictions- Borrowed from Shopkeeper, Aurrum for delivery of items. The bag will go back to owner if consignment is not finished in 2 days(game time).