Prologue.
In a rather brightly lit room with walls made of dark grey brick covered in rich gold tapestries and black print upon its walls, long black banners with various types of weapons shown upon them hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of the room sat a large and long redwood table, its dark red and bright appearance accentuated by the dark almost burnt in marking in the middle of it in the form of a large shield with a spiked mace over it in its center, around the table sat many large back chairs of deep obsidian wooden high back chairs all filled with various figures and beings. The entire room a statement of wealth and power, but considering it was the main meeting room for Exordia, one of the apex American guilds in the game 'Hidden worlds Online'.
Sitting at the head of the table a blonde male human with white and blue armor with gold accents, next to him on his left holding a clipboard was a young women with a gifted figure, her hair a deep purple and thin rimmed glasses upon a small nose, her black outfit and low cut skirt very much fitting her role as a secretary, on his right stood a beast of a man, muscles seemingly straining against his own suit as it seemed to be ready to be ripped apart at the slightest moment, his head cleanly shaven and a stern serious look on his face.
Around the table in the other seats where a range of creatures and beings, from beastmen to dwarves, mermaids and mermen, a giant sat in his own large chair next to a much smaller but still large Amazonian women, a elf and a pixie along with scaled humanoid dragon, a messy green robed figure with sticks in his hair with a clean blue robed figure across from him and a vast range of other figures all filling up the seats in the hall.
"Okay, since everyone who is meant to be here is here we can get straight to the point, as everyone no doubt knows the release of the next expansion for Hidden worlds was announced yesterday evening and is set to come out in 6 months' time, they titled it 'Elemental Crystal Rifts' and Its entrance is a nexus crystal that when activated can take links to the various rift zones. Its location from we understand will be somewhere North West between the Frozen northern plains and the Western Knife peak Mountains and will lead to a forest world from the leaked footage we were able to find and hints we could dig out thus far."
The blonde figure told the room, waving his hand to send out light screens to everyone present with the details of what he had just said.
"Last expansion we sent 2 brigades of troops and 3 platoons of our elites, sending the same this time should work just as well, spread them out a bit and send them out to the cities of Terres and Frigorie and have them use those gates to teleport to the closest outlaying towns that have gates and from there should be about 3 weeks tops to reach the location of the expansions opening area using ground mounts and 1 week if flying mounts are used."
A large green and brown skin orc wearing thick leather armor said, his hair tied up in a bun and a fang sticking out over his top lip.
"Please tell me you're making some kind of bad joke right now or are you really that fucken stupid!" a fierce looking dragon women yelled, her hair a fiery red with slitted orange eyes and blood red scales over her arms and neck wearing a long elegant blue dress, the many pieces of gold jewelry full of gems covering her form shaking from her uproar.
"Hey! Try saying that to my face! And what the hell is wrong with what I said?" The orc yelled back.
Getting an incredulous scare the dragonnewt girl scowled. "You damn fighters and knights may have no issue with rushing over there in the span of a week or 3 but tell me, what would you lot eat? Or did you forget last expansion it took 8 months before the gate itself actually opened proper! It was an absolute clusterfuck!"
She said, getting a sheepish look form the blonde man. "It was kinda messy I suppose but we did pull through in the end." He says.
"Again, that just shows how stupid your sword swingers are! Yes, we did manage to win but you lot went out swinging your stupid weapons around but had no food, no potions and no supplies or even materials to repair your gear! It took months to try and get the supplies to you and even then, because you lot send so many of our elites and main fighters we were left with the noobs and almost no way to protect our supply lines! Hell, we almost went bankrupt from it, well we did manage to secure the first clears and raids in the end and secured our place as number one we ended up needing to auction the myth armor set from the mythical stone titan dungeon and that sacred dragons breath sword, items that haven't dropped since and we were lucky it was a rich collector who got them rather than an opposing guild even then it was all just to pull through and cover the costs from grabbing the last expansions gate entrance."
She tells them, unamused.
"We won in the end though by getting many resource areas and even the first dungeon clears, boss kills and even secured some locations in the capital cities."
The orc tried to counter.
"Enough, this is just going back and forth at this point, Dray we get it, we didn't handle it properly last time and there where issues that cost us a lot, even if we came out on top the cost almost wasn't worth it but it secured our position as 1 of the top guilds in America and the popularity that came from it had many players rush in droves to join, and the resource locations we secured should have made up for most of the gold we had to spend. So, let's rather focus on the current expansion, which is the topic of this meeting and plan it out better this time."
The blonde man says.
"Currently we have 100,000 gold that can be actively spent towards the expansion, the rest is tied into our various investments and assets, we could dip into them if we have to but it would have rather large impacts on our future developments and future income, in theory if we don't want touch those we could try to get investment and sponsorship form brands or companies as there are many that would be interested in having us promote them due to the guilds status."
The purple haired young women say's waving her hand causing the blue light screens to flow out like before letting the room see their current edited expense reports. after a brief silence the thunder of a heavy fist slamming onto the table drew everyone's attention.
"How in the hell are our available funds so low! We should still have far more than just this, and it would be far from enough to cover just the costs of reaching the entrance of the expansion let alone setting up the temporary defenses and barracks to protect an area of the entrance to buy you lot time to get a foot hold inside! Hell, ive already seen the merchants taking advantage and the prices of everything from food to potions and even metals and wood have been rising steadily, a single iron ingot has gone from 1 copper to 3 copper already! And that's just for the most common metal! We're going to need all those and more for the expansion!"
A dwarf said, his long beard filled with golden rings and loops, his armor seemingly made
of gold along with various sized gems of all colors layering it.
"If you bothered to read what I just shared Dave, you would see the highest ranked items that have dropped from our dungeons over the past 2 months have been epic rank, not even a single legendary or above item has dropped so the funds we could generate from reselling has been less than usual and the player teams have been working overtime to get there bonus's, the alchemists have also been using slightly more than usual because they were assigned to try and create improved healing and mana potions and then there's the various future projects that needed a lot of investment, admittedly the expansion caught us off guard and was announced sooner than we expected."
The purple haired women snapped back at the dwarf.
"Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? How about you sell some of your used outfits hehe, I knew there would be people more than happy to buy it."
He replied with a perverted chuckle and leer.
"How about you sell that Goudy armor of gems you're wearing or donate to the guild and help. Honestly, I don't know why the guild master even keeps you around."
She replied with a smug look, getting an angry look in return.
"He keeps me around because I traded a gold mine to you lot for my seat here and been using the other 1, I found to help keep your heads above water bitch!"
He snarled back.
"Enough! Don't talk to my sister like that! And instead of antagonizing each other lets think of something to solve this crisis, I mean don't we have farming guilds to get those things for us?"
A tall beastman said, his fur black as night and deep silver eyes glaring at the dwarf.
"Yes, we do but have but there pitifully few, everyone wants to be a fighter and adventurer or alchemist and crafter, no one wants to be a forager, farmer, miner, or lumberjack. Its to much work for too little gain early on and even takes too long to build up your character or too low a chance to get lucky like you Dave."
The beastman continued.
"We don't have dedicated guilds for it because there are too few and the professionals in those fields either jump around too much to be trusted or ask too much for their services. We do have a few players for those roles but nowhere near enough to meet demand, which is why we would often just buy though the auction house, something you would know if you bothered paying attention in these meetings."
The purple haired women said getting a snort from the dwarf and various low mumbling as the rest of the room began to talk to one another.
"We need solutions people, not more in fighting, I don't want us to lose our place at the top and I have no doubt the other guilds are already stocking up far better than we currently are, so let's find some solutions rather than wasting time with pointless blame games."
The blonde man said, getting everyone's attention as the room returned to silence.
"We could try using slaves, its not exactly the greatest of ways but it could work."
A young woman with pink hair and bat wings and a long pink tail ending in a heart tip wearing what could just barely be considered lingerie said.
"Even if we could the cost to get NPC slaves wouldn't be worth it, not to mention the baggage that comes with it, rather I have a better idea we do still use slaves but instead of in game we get them from reality and get player slaves to work for us!"
she says, getting mixed looks from the room, some thoughtful and others shocked or disgusted.
"Wait, no you damn idiots I mean there's plenty of people who want in on the game and we could give them the opportunity to do so in change for signing a contract and working for us for 3 months or more in exchange for an older generation dive helm system, have them work for us and after they finish the work term they can keep the helm."
She quickly cleared up.
"That might work, they can work for one of the sub guilds, it would build up the needed resources and supplies for us making it so we don't need to rely so heavy on the money-grubbing merchants saving us funds well also giving us access to recourses we would need for the expansion. We can convert some of the gold we have to cash and use that to get the old helms for them which would be a far cheaper than turning to them as well since there prices are going to just keep increasing."
The purple haired women said after some thought and doing the calculations.
"But it would also mean no bonus's anymore till after the expansion."
She continued only to be greeted by protests from those present.
"Enough! This is something that must happen, I'm not happy about it either but ill put my own share of funds into it to help buy the helms for those who sign the contracts. Think of the long term and remember the boost in wealth we all got after the last expansion and use that as motivation for this one, we will be far more prepared as well so we will have bigger gains this time."
The blonde told the room causing them to go silent.
"I say let's do it!"
The Dwarf yelled, smacking his fist to the table again soon followed by the rest of the room all shouting their agreement to the plan.