Apophis's team finally exited the Dungeon…
…And was immediately besieged by the swarm of waiting players. Countless voices called out from the crowd.
"Hey, Apophis, what drops did you get?"
"Did you guys find out anything about the main plot?"
"Hey, Big Brother, can you help me out with some GC? Promise I'll pay you back!"
Finally, a famous personality of the MMORPG world appeared in front of Ceasar and Apophis, the player "Zeus," a surprisingly muscular man with a flowing beard who must have been at least eighty years old.
Everyone knew Zeus. He was a renowned Esports champion of PvP arenas in various MMORPGs, and one of the 7 Gods. In Horus, Zeus would eventually gain fame as an incredible Sniper able to annihilate a planet with a single shot—and the star player of the "Spartan" SuperGuild.
Zeus hadn't achieved that level of power yet, of course, though he was still quite skilled! He spoke up now, addressing Apophis and Ceasar. "Congratulations to both of you! This is a great accomplishment."
He turned to Ceasar. "Legatus Ceasar, since you've been in the Dungeon for hours, you won't be aware of it, but the SuperGuilds have announced their support for the Siege of Tyo. Can we count on you to convince your guild to join us? I know you're not the leader of Renovatio Imperii, but without your backing, the star players and guild leaders won't vote for their participation in the coalition."
Of course, at this time, Apophis was the only player who knew the truth about NPC intelligence. Players hadn't realized NPCs were any more important than monsters. After all, in every other game, NPCs were about as intelligent as oysters and would usually respawn after death.
In Horus, NPC death was permanent and therefore directly influenced the story.
It would not be until much later that players would begin to realize they had killed truly intelligent and conscious beings, an event which would eventually cause a worldwide scandal.
Even if he'd wanted to try to convince all the players of NPC sentience at this point, though, it would have been impossible for Apophis to do so without sounding insane, so he didn't bother.
But Ceasar knew none of these details about Horus's inhabitants. When he heard about a raid against NPCs, he only considered it in the same way he'd think of a Dungeon. "Well, Zeus, I'll join the Imperial Council and talk with the other Guild Senators. I'll keep you informed, alright?"
Zeus wasn't satisfied with this answer. But he'd watched footage of Ceasar's duel with Apophis, and he had the idea that a rivalry was already forming between the two of them.
He decided to use this to his advantage as he turned to Apophis. "What about you? After all, you defeated Ceasar in a duel. Therefore, you're clearly one of the best players in the game. Having you join us would be a huge morale boost for the raid."
But Apophis had his own plans and didn't feel like wasting time killing NPCs. The whole raid would be completely useless to him in the long run. "Sorry, Friend, but I have a lot of things to do. I hope we can work together next time, though."
Zeus was disappointed with both refusals, but accepted them gracefully.
The main lesson Apophis had learned in his previous life was that while guilds offered some benefits, the investment of time and resources they required was huge. There was a peculiar progression of usefulness where guilds first seemed worthless, then vital… and then a necessary, bitter evil.
While the game was still young, EXP and GC were still fairly easy for players to earn, but this progress would stagnate at higher levels. Belonging to a guild didn't seem important to many players initially, but it would eventually become obvious as the best way to beat content that would give the rewards players needed to progress, such as high-difficulty Dungeons.
Of course, most of the big guilds would eventually leverage their necessity to set up a shameful and exploitative system which bound players to the guild with a multi-year contract.
They would also be required to give 10% of their EXP and GC earnings to the guild, which the top agents would redistribute as they saw fit. Even more shamelessly, the guilds could take any rare items they wished from their rank-and-file members, so that their star players could use them.
Thanks to the powerful contract tools built into Horus's guild management system, even the taxation of EXP was possible, and so the rich grew richer while the poor grew poorer.
It was pure racketeering.
However, as the game progressed, it became harder and harder for players to advance alone. The best way to avoid exploitation was to become so powerful that the guild offered a very beneficial contract which excluded the standard taxes.
After all, this was a space exploration game! Only guilds had the vast resources to finance capital ships worth several billion GC, which were needed to fight space battles and to get closer to the main objective of the game...
…Discovering the center of the galaxy!