Aruvaali, the village chief was not ready to the plan of fixed release of resources to the players. Zoya, Peehu and Tavish came to blows with the chief over this matter. The initial talk of around hundred to two hundred heaven blessed had snowballed into five thousand change and yet the chief was not ready to restrict the usage. Forget about the extra penalty to be paid for delay in delivery or non completion of the contract, they would lose th credibility. After so many years, they had finally reached a stage where those mega merchants and alliances were willing to subcontract the job to them. If they failed now, they would never get another chance. Why? Why was the village chief hell bent on this mission of nurturing heaven blessed?
Under collective coercion, the chief spilled the beans. All the participants would get a single use bead of Miasma. All the members of the meeting were shocked. A bead of Miasma! 'They' were indeed investing heavily on heaven blessed.
If the price for participation was this high, the prizes for reach top million, top hundred thousand, ton ten thousand, top thousand, top hundred, top ten would be indeed very high. Top five or top three could just collect the prize and enjoy the fruits of labour till the end of the life. The winning village would undoubtedly be upgraded.
With such prizes at stake, they had to do everything possible to achieve the goals. Everyone was energized. Today could be forgotten. They would undoubtedly receive negative remarks. But if they could adjust and work towards tomorrow or day after, the reviews could become positive.
The village chief even opened his personal account and added coins to the village fund to provide for heaven blessed as task rewards. The pooled money from before was not enough and no one was thick skinned enough to say it before. The chances of them paying their entire fortune into village fund were very high. Now that the chief had put in his money, they didn't have to say anything. They decided to pay extra to diligent heaven blessed and of course the strong would get it, obviously.
Maybe they'll work through the nights for next foreseeable future. Zoya declared that she was poor but she would donate a concentration potion and a stamina potion into village fund to be used as seemed fit. In spirit of the thing, Molvin declared he would also donate a small mana gathering array with ten uses. Anice could not stay behind so she donated few chunks of night star ore. Others felt embarrassed and donated Knicks and knacks and the ball landed in chief's court again.
He glared at Zoya and Anice. These mischief makers. If they hadn't used such flowery words, this donation drive wouldn't have been so successful. Now he had to donate too. Again. Ahhhhh!
Finally he succumbed to pressure and donated few herbs and zafarmina. If all this helped the village to reach higher levels in competition, then this loss would be worth it.
By the time Artha returned to his room to deposit excess of his collections, the NPCs were back on duty and opened their shops.
After handing over the kill task and some gather tasks, he recieved the next set of tasks. He had more than enough XP to try multiplier bonus now. So he searched for potions as Zoya's shop was nearby.
He liked chatting with Zoya rather than with Tavish. Tavish would be still smiling even when he was angry. Forging required uniformity yet decisiveness. He had another area to express his frustration. He bellowed and hammered away scraps of weapons and equipments. The scene was devastating. It might have been exaggeration because he was pestering Tavish. That's when he knew Tavish would hold on to his anger and grudges too. The rewards for killing chick monsters was very less. If not for that grudge, Artha could have had even more XP and coins.
Zoya was in the face. She was secure enough that she didn't care about how others viewed her. Where did her secure feeling come from? No idea. She wore tunic and pants and paired them with a robe with lots of pockets. She would have been declared a fashion disaster if she didn't look chic and dashing. Zoya even agreed with that statement. As she put it, she didn't have time to match up and make it pretty. Peehu, the tailor had made few set of clothes which felt great, look good enough and that was enough for her. Thanks to her talks and words spewing out due to frustration, Artha found few clues.
Now, thanks to just lending an ear to NPC, he found another way to earn money. He purchased few potions as he had wasted some time in Zoya's shop. Then he hightailed to Rumi's who was incharge of selling or renting sleeping bags and purchased few. Artha's clients were all guilds with hundreds of members. Potions he was selling was not even worth a drop in the bucket based on their speed of consumption. Yet, they were coming to purchase, agreeing to his stupid conditions. Why? They were saving for rain day? They wanted insurance of extra potions in their inventory when they may start fighting bosses in inside the dungeons? Whatever the reason was, it was hard fact that they were invested in the game. Unlike the independent players who could just give up and restart in some new village, the guilds built roots in every village they start. And Artha wanted to capitalise this point.