The game
The new game was like a whale though. It was difficult to harm it using usual weapons. But it was a giant whale, needing lots of sustenance just to survive. If there is no food, it would just starve and die. The carcass could be used by the competitors later. No haste, no waste.
It had claimed to break the premade mould among the games. So the maps in this game world were a tad bit different. The maps for different levels were placed seemingly hapazardly and there were lots of maps. A lot. There were more than 4 maps containing level 3 monsters and over 7 maps with level 4 monsters. What did it mean for players? The Indies had few more options even when the guilds and as such hogged the majority of the maps. What did it mean for Artha? He could collect variety of items. Indeed, his collected items were more widespread than of any self proclaimed guilds in the village. In short, he was better than a bunch of high level or better players. If the great guilds even found that information, Artha would be.... Let's not think about it. Let's not even think that he could potentially multiply these items again. That would be a painful experience.
He put a simple stall to his regular customers. His tier 1 customers would get personal delivery later. The market was bit skewed currently. The craze of becoming apprentice and making a bundle of money was still high. The sellers wer turning into unscrupulous swindlers. Not really. All sorts of collect items were sold at higher price but that was just due to market demand. No one was selling these at sky high price. Come on, it's common sense. You have to live with these players till you leave this village. If it was in city levels, you could just up and go, settle in different town or city if you fleece a customer. What can you do when you are fish in the bowl?
Curiously, no spell book was found in the village. Artha had collected a lot of XP to do some experiments on skill books. Maybe he will be lucky today or tomorrow? After all, there were already few proud owners of skill books in some other villages.
What the players didn't know that these items were found so early in better villages. Its like a spare change found in in rich man's pocket would be worth thousand credits or more but a poor man would survive without any spare change in his wallet for few days. Yep, the level of NPCs, their power, richness all affected the players and their loots. They got better monster drops, bought potions and stuff rather cheaply. But the amount of coins in their wallet was very less. The XP gained was comparatively lower too. It was to compensate for the fact that these players could handle higher level monsters thanks to the multiple external aides.
The elites of Bloody Rose progressed to a new level map while Artha was grinding with them. He saw personally how methodical the guild with huge experience was. He was very impressed. Just not enough to join them. Newer maps, newer monsters, newer items to gather. With extreme reluctance, Artha upgraded another inventory bag and filled it to brink, instead of walking back to village to empty the inventory. He also destroyed five staffs as he was spamming his spells. The potions, better not think about them now. There would be time later to tabulated the expenditure.
Slowly, the game was shedding of the skin of typical game of similar genre. The monsters fought differently, intelligently.
When he completed his duration of time with Bloody Rose, he recieved a list. A brand new order list from his tier 1 customer. Items to be procured. Two of the guild members had become apprentice. They needed these items for these players to level up their side jobs faster. The guild was hoarding up coins like a dragon and here was a simple minded seller who could procure items for credits. Why waste such an option. They were still humane. The amount was not exaggerated at all.
In the afternoon, he found Sun Lord was really thick skinned as soon as he recieved second list to procure the items. The amount exaggerated, as if he wanted to empty the entire market and create artificial situation with huge demand but very, very limited supply. This was just a small village market. It would be so easy to create a monopoly. But would the guilds follow that path? No, that path is for the tyrants. Guilds are belovanant, they cared for players like a family and how can you make money from family members? Sun Lord, however, had no qualms in pushing Artha and turning him into a tyrant. And d*mned that old fox, he knew the weakness of Artha. He promised more pay per item if the items were sold in bulk, as specified.
The evening windup talk in the village was all about the player apprentices. Don't know how it happened, but a new rumour also started. There would be reshuffling and some minor changes in the items sold by NPCs as all of them now had apprentices. Artha didn't know about any of that.
He finally became an apprentice. An apprentice of a cook. Not chef, a cook. But, a cook still had a better chance to become a chef. So no much loss there. Artha finally was immortalized in the steele near the park entrance.
He spent remaining time till log off reading and learning. The book actually turned out to be better as the pages progressed. The annotations were funny though. Just like that, Artha ended his productive day in the game. Lots of expenses, few moments of terror when he was in brink of death, sales and sales making his wallet heavy. Pssh! Wallets can never be heavy, honey! They suck money and apparently the money goes into seperate dimension. Ask Artha. Inspite of getting millions of credits, he felt poor.