FB: Chapter 7 – Placing Orders

After taking over a minute just standing there to get used to the horrific smell, I felt I could kind of handle it. It was still nauseating. Like explosive diarrhea from a baby, that had been left to cook in the sun with rotten fruit, and then shoved into your face. This place really did earn its rank as the number one beginner hell zone.

I looked over my visual interface. My health, magic, and stamina bars were in the upper left corner, colored red, blue, and green respectively. Since I was level 1 and had just entered Exponential I had one stat point in each stat.

Vitality, Constitution, Endurance, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, Perception, and Luck. Each time a person leveled up they got one point in each stat and then a bonus point based on the skill crystals equipped. The first six stats impacted my health points, stamina points, and magic points, either their max amount or their regeneration.

One point in Vitality meant 10 HP. I would regenerate 1 HP per hour out of combat based on my Constitution. Endurance was 10 SP per stat point. Dexterity gave me 1 SP per second regardless if you were in combat or not. Wisdom gave me 1 MP per stat point and Intelligence gave me 1 MP regeneration per minute out of combat.

Perception helped a person spot hidden things and see through various types of haze environmental effects and skills. Luck increased the chance of critical hits in a complicated manner and drops at a rate of 1% per point in the stat. So, 100 in Luck would mean 100% boost, or double the amount of a drop happening up to the maximum. As for critical hits, Luck would increase the critical hit zone on enemy monsters and players the higher the stat. A hit from a player with high Luck could be critical, while the same hit from a player with lower Luck would not be critical, depending on the location of the hit.

The base values were pretty bad for a lot of things. But once Luck was high enough, those critical hits were brutal. To my bottom left I had set up my hunger, thirst, and exposure bars. They weren’t that important if you knew what you were doing. They didn’t have numbers but would flash and give penalties if they got below 10%.

Every percentage point after 10% would give increasing penalties and you would start to lose HP if you went below 0% in any of these areas. The upper right corner would have a party list if I ever needed it and a mini-map. Right now, the mini-map was blank, since I didn’t have the equipment to activate it.

In the bottom right corner were the icons for my skills and effects. Currently I had two icons. A fully opened golden eye, which was for the Eye of Vigilance. That meant any crimes I did would be spotted, including player killing. Once you left a settlement the eye would slowly close over the period of a minute before disappearing completely. Or one could try and use skills to hide in a settlement.

It was very hard and a huge hassle. Outside of a settlement only near the cities was the eye still open and would close based on distance. But once you left civilization, you were on your own. The other icon was a bubbling swamp. It was the Murk Swamp icon indicating that I was in a unique area with unique effects.

Focusing on the icon to select it wouldn’t tell me those effects. One had to ask around and then QAI would update the information automatically once I had heard it from the NPCs. In the future there would be guilds and people that would sell sheets of information to look at. You would just flip through them, spending one second looking at each sheet and it counted for ‘learning’ that information by QAI. The information couldn’t be falsified either to get a different effect. Also, the person who wrote them down had to know them and not guess, otherwise the information wouldn’t count. So, no telling someone a different effect than what it actually was and getting that different effect. This meant that most information spread out fairly quickly regarding effects in low level areas.

I already knew the effects of the swamp. The smell was the least of them unfortunately. Even with how horrifically awful it was, one could tough it out. On top of the smell there were the bugs, the clothing decay, and the visibility penalty. Even now, it was hard to make anything past the first couple of buildings from the plaza due to the green and brown colored mist. There was never a clear day in Murk Swamp.

Time to put in an order to speed things up by quite a bit. I went to the Traders Union. All the NPC groups were called unions. Player groups were called guilds. I entered the Traders Union and went to the single counter with a clerk behind it.

“How can I help you?” If I was more famous or well known, the NPC would have used my name. How an NPC greeted you was a key way of understanding your standing with them.

“I wish to place an order using mystic money for copper.” Mystic money was the in-game term for real world money. If I said real world money, I would get an interaction penalty with this NPC. Get enough of them and that penalty would spread out like cancer, poisoning one’s progress. It was better just to roleplay whenever possible in game, so mistakes weren’t made with NPCs. So, while people didn’t need to roleplay, you were penalized by the NPCs for not doing the bare minimum and ruining the immersion.

“I see. Can I have your name?”

“Foxy Blight,” I replied, and the clerk nodded.

“I see there is already a mystic money account connected to that name. Please be aware that any goods purchased with mystic money will need to be shipped and there is a 10% transaction fee.”

“That is fine. I wish to place a buy order for copper coins. Twenty mystic dollars per coin should be the current rate. Four hundred thousand mystic dollars total and then the forty thousand mystic dollar fee,” I replied. The clerk nodded and a holographic keyboard appeared in front of me.

“Please input your password. Remember to never share it.” I put in the password. Hit several confirmation buttons for the large amounts of legalese. After a minute it was over, and the floating holographic keyboard and screen disappeared.

“Thank you, Foxy Blight, we appreciate your business. Based on your purchase you are now a rank 2 customer of the Traders Union. Please feel free to check in any time. Do you wish to look through our catalogue?”

Rank 1 meant I was allowed to put items up for sale. Anyone could sell coinage. Rank 2 meant I could look at the catalogue without a fee. Rank 3 gave the catalogue sorting options which was quite helpful for browsing. The higher the rank, the better the customer service.

I didn’t remember the rest of the ranks and the payment required, but I wasn’t that concerned or interested at the moment. I wanted the coinage as quickly as possible. “Any idea on how long it would take?” I asked.

The NPCs would themselves fill requests if an order was placed, which helped stabilize the market. That $20 per copper was a very high amount for in game coinage, but the price was going to go up before it went way down. Thankfully this was all that I needed to buy. In the future, transactions would happen the other way. Real world money was a bit wonky, but it was also based on supply and demand, with QAI already setting the high price it was at currently.

It was slightly complicated how the Traders Union worked. Requests would be put up and then the Traders Union NPCs, which was really QAI, would assess the current level of demand. A base level of demand could be fulfilled by NPCs. Once demand surpassed that base level of supply, then the price would go up. Players could sell stuff and there would be around 30 to 50 percent difference between the purchase price and the sale price of various items. For rare items, requests could be put up in the Traders Union which would take time to fulfill.

In time real world money would purchase more in game currency as people wanted to cash out, but the price of actual goods would increase over time as more people joined. Prices in game except for the most common of goods like bread and water, would go up and up. The value of in game currency would plummet in comparison to real world money once the player base exploded in a year or so. It was really complicated economically, which was why super guilds had dedicated economics teams working for them.

“Indeed, Foxy Blight. It has already been completed. Since you are purely purchasing currency, no delivery will be necessary.” That was fast, but my guess was that no one had been as quick as me. So, the market prices would be dragged up by my purchase and I depleted whatever reserves the NPCs currently had. Also, money was one of the few things QAI would hand wave in order to keep the economy working as quickly as possible.

“Please wait.” The clerk went into a back room and returned after a few seconds with a large chest which he set on the counter and opened it up. “20,000 copper coins.”

I put my hand on the coins inside the chest. “Command gather all,” I said. One of the few universal magics for picking things up and putting them into one’s inventory. Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare. The coins disappeared but the chest remained. The clerk took away the empty chest. “Command open inventory,” I said.

Ten empty holographic boxes appeared in front of me, which only I would be able to see. Above those boxes were numbers showing the amount of coinage stored in my inventory for platinum, gold, silver, and copper. The number in the gold section was 2 from my purchase and 1 in the silver section from my starting money, which totaled up to 20,100 copper. Currency magically converted once inside a player’s inventory or a currency storage chest.

“Command close inventory,” I said. “Thank you. I would like to place a few more orders.”

“Certainly, what can I help you with?”

“I require 120 pouches of cleansing salt, 24 cursed blood flowers, and one rank 4 potion of masking scent,” I said. The clerk nodded along as I gave my order.

“The cleansing salt and the rank 4 potion of masking scent are not a problem. The cursed blood flower is considered a rank 3 restricted good due to the threat it poses for the town.”

“Is there a permit, I could purchase to order them?” I asked politely.

“A contract guaranteeing you would not use them, or anything derived from them within range of this town,” the clerk said. That was an acceptable option since I wouldn’t be causing trouble in this town with the cursed blood flowers.

“That is fine.” He pulled out a piece of paper from under the counter with an open eye on the bottom of the blank contract and began filling it out at lightning speed.

“None of these goods are in short supply to my current knowledge. An order can be placed immediately but will require payment up front. It will be 120 silver for the Cleansing Salt, 24 silver for cursed blood flowers, and 20 silver for the potion of masking. There is also 1 silver for the contract and 5 silver for guaranteed delivery.”

That last bit meant insurance. Since the goods would be physically delivered and could be intercepted. Guards would protect the cart and if it was robbed, I would be offered replacement products or a refund. Right now, all the routes were low risk, but there were still NPC bandits and monsters and Murk Town was out of the way. Unlike raw currency, the other goods would need to be transported to this location. There was no magical transportation for a lot of things, to make the game feel more realistic.

For all the things I knew QAI was doing, there would be NPCs acting out roles for most of them somewhere. Currency, both mystic and in game, was one area where QAI just sped up the entire process without the extra hassle.

“The total is 170 silver,” the clerk said.

“Very well. How long will it take?”

“If there are no issues, all goods should arrive twelve days from now,” the clerk replied. That was three real world days. He held out a stone slate with runes, otherwise known as a rune plate. I put my hand on it and instantly lost 17,000 bronze worth of coinage out of my inventory. All stores used rune plates if a player didn’t physically bring out coins.

If I had left out the money, I would have had to count out the 17,000 coins one by one. It would have been a nightmare. That was why rune plate payment was the way to go. I then signed the contract, which if violated would see me sent to the Penitent Mine if I couldn’t pay off any damages.

That place was soul crushing despair along with the other prison areas. The Penitent Mine took in criminal players from level 1 to level 30. The monsters around the outside started at level 50. People had to go into the mine to kill low level slimes to level up.

It was tedious, boring, and literally hell. Each slime was level one and didn’t give much experience once a person leveled up. If a person brought up copper ore, they would get 1 copper per pound of ore they brought up, which went to their debt. If a town was wrecked and you were caught, it was bad news. A contract meant that if the town was destroyed, QAI would check the past logs to see if I was at fault. If a contract was in place, then the NPCs would discover this and look to arrest me. That was when Vigilance Paladins would be dispatched to locate me and punish me. Those NPCs started at level 100.

Breaking contracts and causing trouble was hell. But there were people out there who still did it. The Death Dealers, Devil’s Dick, Order of Chaos, were the major dark guilds that I knew of. Meaning they weren’t official and had nefarious purposes while these people often used their official positions and identities to enrich and empower themselves while secretly being scumbags.

The Order of Chaos was well known for planning and carrying out large terrorist actions. Their goal was to break the world of Exponential and QAI. Since NPCs could perform resurrection spells it was very hard to kill people permanently, so they created chaos instead, ruining structures and buildings. They also kidnapped NPCs to torture them to try and break their minds, so they could never come back if rumors were to be believed.

Their greatest achievement in my past life had been to flood the Shimmering Mines, cutting off a huge source of light based skills. Everyone suspected they were trying to corner the market, but even with the huge bounties that had been issued none of their core members had ever been caught.

No one liked dark guilds but stomping them out was next to impossible. Signing a contract was a thing most people were hesitant to do. Especially when there were player contracts. QAI was the judge and jury, so there was no arguing with it. That was why all contracts had the disclaimer that QAI had the final say on all of them, no appeals, no crying. Despite that being in literally every contract, there had been a lot of crying and there was sure to be more once the system in control of this place made its decisions.

But one thing everyone agreed on, except the crazy dark guild people, was that you don’t mess with QAI and contracts. Most people said don’t do contracts and if you do make sure there is an exit clause. In the contract I just signed, my exit clause in the contract I just signed was reaching at least level 30 and being recognized by the Human Empire as a noble. A high requirement for most people, but not for me.

With everything ordered it was time to make some in town purchases and get out to the Murk Swamp. I really didn’t want to. I still wanted to puke from the horrible smell.