The newcomers were hyper excited to enter the game. It was also obvious that they were still young, probably playing under patent permission.
They were happily chattering, without a care as they traversed through the park. Artha decided to follow them. A noob following noobs. How thrilling!
As the game had been launched for over 10 minutes, many pioneers were present in the village. The board near the entrance of the park containing rebirth foundation was filled with wordings. For example,
First player to enter this village - xxxxx
First player to recieve a quest in this village - yyyy
First player to kill a monster - Bloody Rose's member, Black Baccara
First player to die - zzzz
First player to sell an item - aaaaa
First player to buy an item - Glorious Knights team lead, Gloria's blessed.
Few were silly, few were record of glory and few more a blanant advertisement. But, they were immortalized and became a great conversation starter. Within minutes of game launch, so many had entered the list.
Past the picturesque park, was the centre of the village. A huge line was forming in from a person. This person was a fit man in fifties, with salt and pepper flowing hair and fancy clothes had a yellow dot over his head, nearly hiding among the gem filled hair accessories. Artha could not make out the number etched in the yellow dot. No doubt, he should be a village chief or someone similar. The queue was not getting smaller at all. He gave up the idea of getting a task/quest from him and decided to search elsewhere. For easeness, most of the quest givers had fixed place around the village centre. A round around the centre,he got multiple quests. The queue in front of village chief, Aruvaali was longer than before. Artha was fed off. He was already late because he was chatting (read nitpicking) with NPCs. And he needed to talk with Village chief regarding another matter without which he could not start any tasks.
"Such a great man! Why are you handling out tasks individually? Give them out together and get some helpers to recieve the fulfilled tasks!!" he shouted out the advise. In real life, he would have just waited, swallowing anger but this is just a game. Real like but not real at all. Why should he follow the usual pattern? Particularly when he knew a better way to do the work.
The chieftain was happy. He laughed out loud and his hands performed a series a unbelievably fast gestures.
Ping.
A text with the task description arrived in front of Artha. In an instant, apart from some ten to fifteen players, all had left the queue and were running towards the location shown in the map next to the task.
A few moments of waiting. A livered guard came , with a hefty table and a chair for the village chief to rest under the shade. A tender beauty followed the guard closely with snacks and drinks for the chief to savor. The guard then stood in the front and started accepting the completed tasks and gave of the rewards. Soon it was Artha's turn.
" You don't have task items. Scram!!!" The guard was probably posturing for the beauty. Why else would he look even more menacing? The players behind Artha got restless, asking him to leave the queue line if he was not there for task submission.
"But I have something to discuss with the esteemed great chief!"
Who said he didn't know how to bootlick? He never did because his path was different. Anyways he would not play after few days. He would play anyway he wanted.
The chief was happy with the buttering. The beauty and the guard though... they were tough but to crack.
Artha continued," I would like to rent a warehouse in the village!"
The silver haired beauty glared and answered immediately, " Impossible! The heaven blessed cannot own a property in the village!"
Unfortunately, even the village chief nodded, agreeing with the statement.
" I want to rent, not own!"
" It is not permitted. Our great chief shall not break a taboo for a heaven blessed who shall leave after some time."
The guard chimed in, " Moreover, our village doesn't have any warehouses."
Now, that was a blalant lie. In the time he had collected the quests from other NPCs, many had come in to handover the quest items and run away after getting another quest. The estimate for number of players per village was minimum five thousand, maximum of twenty thousand. Even if half of these players did the quest and for few days, amount of things collected would be astronomical. Granted that majority of this items would be teleported but these items would have to be stored till teleportation time. Based on logistics, even two or more warehouses should be a bare minimum. Artha could have agreed if the guard had said they had no empty warehouses. That explanation he could buy. But this ....this is total disregard of his observation capacity.
No warehouse. No problem. Go to next solution.
" So, renting a house is out of talk, I presume?"
The guard seemed happy that he accepted the statement of no warehouses. Or maybe he wanted to expand what the beauty had told earlier. He elaborated further.
" Yes! Heaven blessed can leave anyday. So, no property based interactions."
" Alright, fine!!!! But I can rent a room in the hotel, right?"
" You can talk directly to hotel proprietor Vinzo. No need to bother our chief."
" No, I need the chief's permission. Because I want to rent it for 10 days together, same room,no shifting and complete autonomy. I don't think even the proprietor has that much power. It should be approved by the ever gracious and charming village chief."