Town Builder - 64 - Auction Wars

Chapter 64 Auction Wars

 We stared at each other as the Matriarch bounded Joy in her arms. “Are you here to take away my legendary plans again?” I asked a little tersely.

 “Unfortunately, yes. I need to maintain a semblance of game balance, and the new players need to be given a chance to get a reward for crafting the first legendary object. You still retain the accolade yourself, but it will be awarded again.” The Matriarch reached for the plans with her free hand, and I did not stop her.

 “I guess I should feel honored you took your time and came and did it yourself,” I said, exasperated. “Do I get anything for losing the plans?”

 “This is just one of the five hundred avatars I’m currently juggling. Chaos reigns as the new wave of players is already giving the admins and programming staff a run for their money. As for these,” she waved the plans, “You’ll have them back once someone else has crafted a legendary object.”

 “So, I get nothing?” I was starting to get a little angry.

 The Matriarch smiled mischievously. “No. I am responsible for fair gameplay. I will give you a choice. One NPC from the current auction or three NPC auction slots. Which do you prefer?” She handed Joy to Jaesmin.

 This was actually huge as I was locked out of this cycle of the auction. “I get one NPC—guaranteed, or I can bid on three?” The Matriarch slowly nodded, smiling.

 I couldn’t afford to bid on three NPCs. The NPC cities were also going to be involved in the auctions now as well. It was going to be extremely difficult to get any NPCs. “I will take the one NPC of my choice.”

 The Matriarch nodded. “Smart decision. I am sure we will have time to talk again in the future. Until that time, I suggest you spend a lot of your time there.” She pointed at my drafting table. She winked, “Let me just say that building plans will be difficult to come by for a time in dungeon loot and stores.”

 She stepped, and I guessed she was ready to leave. I had so many questions for her. “Did you send the Silver Linings Playbook Guild to me?”

 She started to fade, but I was certain she gave me an affirmative nod. Then she was gone. “Sweep up the dust!” Jaesmin said excitedly.

 “What?” I asked, confused. When the Matriarch disappeared, there had been shimmering sparkles that floated to the ground, but it didn’t seem like much.

 “My analyze skill has been maxed out,” Jaesmin said. I can analyze any object or person. The dust of the Matriarch is a legendary alchemy ingredient. But it only stays viable for a short time before dissolving. Bottle it and seal it!”

 I didn’t waste any time getting a jar and a broom from the kitchen. There was not much to collect on the floor, maybe a pinch of sparkly sand. “What can it be used for?” I asked when I was finished.

 Jaesmin shrugged, “My analyze skill just gives the item and its rarity. For people, I get their name and level. Take it to Persephone tomorrow, she might know.”

 I sent the dust to my inventory and opened my interface. The NPC auction tab was no longer grayed out. I could search the auction again. I also had a gold selection. I clicked on it and it was called, locked in.

The token could be used once I submitted a bid and prevent others from bidding on the NPC. I still had to pay for the bid. One platinum for a master and one hundred platinum for a grand master. I looked at my funds in the town interface. One hundred platinum was ten thousand gold. It was out of my reach, but the auction would not be finished in three weeks.

I looked at my trade surplus, and it was about one hundred and fifty gold weekly. This was mostly thanks to the elimination of the tariffs. It looked like Breda already had the surplus allocated, though. I didn’t think I could get the one hundred platinum. I decided to look at the grand masters anyway and sort a few interesting choices to daydream about. There usually were not many in the auction anyway. My only grandmaster in town was my cook at the inn. I had gotten extremely lucky to get the gnome cook before minimum bids were introduced.

Coal      Fire Lord 228              Elementalkin:Fire     Fire Magic

Mox      Arcane Shield 261      Beastkin: Bull           Heavy Shield

Sara      Grand Weaver 301      Elf: Sun                    Weaving 

Kuba     Archeologist 259        Human                     Ancient History

Angus     Cloudwalker 280        Beastkin: Cat           Air Magic

There were thirty-four other grandmasters but their primary skills could have been more appealing than these choices. Also, seven of them were undead, and the dusk elves and my giantkin infantry had a hostile disposition against those races, so there was no point in looking at them.

A fire lord sounded like an impressive offensive NPC. The arcane shield was definitely a defensive fighter, and he may have had some magic to go with his heavy shield. Having such a level 261 defender in Malcum would have been amazing. The Archeologist would have been a boon for my library—if it was ever built. A level 280 air mage reminded my of Manto and his powerful offensive spells. Those spells were now all contained in the bunny girl Bella.

I was most intrigued by the weaver. My master crafters already made exceptional gear. What kind of clothing could a grand master weaver make for us? I started looking at just the masters and swore. After just two days, the new players were already bidding on master-level NPCs. Two Giantkin Knights had bids. I filtered to show just bids and twenty-six bids were already registered in the NPC auction. Curiously, there were yet to be bids from the NPC cities. It took a few minutes to find the NPC cities didn’t enter the auction until the timer had one day remaining.

That was a relief. I just needed to log a bid before then and use my chip. For master-level NPCs, I had over four thousand to choose from outside of the undead races. I could find another mage like Sanso, who specializes in earth magic or a strong warrior, to help Tanguin and Galana defend Malcum.

I flicked back to the grand masters. This would be my only chance to secure a grand master again. If there were only 39 grand master NPCs to compete for in the auction, I could imagine the prices would be ridiculously high. But ten thousand gold for me was a huge risk.

I contacted Danny. “Morning, Tallis. We are loading what we can on the skyship. Should be leaving the Desolation Lands border in a day. I lost a few NPCs while I was gone and have ninety-sex remaining, and their morale is shit.”

I wouldn’t say I liked the way she talked about the NPCs. They were not disposable like that. I held my tongue and would talk to her after I helped establish her new town. “I wanted to ask you how difficult it would be to raise ten thousand gold in two weeks?”

Danny was silent for a moment. “Is it a quest, or does your town need something?”

“An opportunity has come up. It is not really a quest as we can’t get new quests but I don’t want it slip through my fingers. I have a single bid in the NPC auction as compensation for something that was taken from me.” I was not going to tell her the truth but eventually decided to trust her as I had explained.

She quickly put the pieces together, “You are going to bid on a grand master?” She said incredulous.

“Yes. Can you help me raise ten-thousand gold in two weeks. Well really,” I checked the countdown for the auction and subtracted two days to make sure the bid would be in before the NPC cities joined, “twenty-three days. Malcum’s economy would generate less than three-hundred gold.”

“The player auction. Some items are going for crazy prices right now. Even common crafting material is over a gold. I think the admins didn’t reset the items for sale. I had twenty-six items in there, and half of them are still showing, but I am not receiving any of the proceeds.” Danny said irritably. We both had a lot of grips about the reset and lack of communication by the admins.

“I will head to Crystalhelm and try selling some of my building plans there. I wanted to start reestablishing my portal network anyway,” I replied.

“I will do a quick bag and tag run before I leave here. Selling the drops to the NPCs will probably only get me a hundred gold for a few hours of grinding but I can toss the stuff on the auction as well.” Danny said, offering her help.

“Great. I will let you know how things go on my end.” I disconnected, but it felt good to have someone to talk to about my problems.

I walked through Malcum with Breda and Kytalia later that morning to get reports on our progress. The influx of migrants to Malcum was likely to slow soon as more player towns started competing for them. We traveled to copper mines north of the Malcum, where a few buildings had been established around Sanso’s old tower. He had moved in with Elice in town and turned over his tower to serve as the mining outpost.

Breda explained the six buildings around the tower for processing the ore. “We only have twenty-two people out here right now. The goal is to expand Malcum’s borders this far north so we can envelop the tower and free up one of our settlements.” Malcum was allowed to have two subordinate populations based on its size.

“How close is the orc settlement to achieving town status?” I said while opening my interface.

“Population needs to reach 100 for village rank and 500 for town Breda said. We have a population of 352, and I have been holding back on the buildings to raise the settlement to a village even though we have the population.” Breda said as I reviewed the buildings, population demographics, and production.

The entire settlement was devoted to producing epic war horses for our cavalry. The problem with raising the settlement to a town was that Malcum would immediately be recognized as a Kingdom, even though it would be tiny. With the human Empire to the South and dwarves to the north, we could be crushed easily if we declared ourselves this early. We already had trouble with the southern human kingdom. Crystalhelm, where I was headed, was one of the largest cities in their kingdom.

Kytalia had the most important job in Malcum. She was responsible for assisting professions and keeping all the crafters supplied with materials. We had a large number of unskilled people that she had been able to assign to harvesting professions so far. But soon, that pool was going to dry up, and we would have to rely on our aging youth. The good news that I had yet to be aware of was our education system was giving aging NPCs massive bonuses as they headed into the workforce.

That evening, I settled into my drafting table and began to prepare some plans to bring with me. Jaesmin was playing with Joy nearby. A system notification hit me. It was a world wide announcement.

Congratulations to player Ghost Sage for being the first player to reach level 10!

The player probably got an accolade, and he achieved it in less than three days. It was a little clearer why they froze our levels to give the new players a chance to collect all these early game bonuses. I could turn off player achievements in my interface. I couldn’t turn off game announcements that directly affected me. I found the tab with player statistics. I could sort by my region or the world. I looked at the top ten players in the world.

1          Ghost Sage                  10

2          Ivory Wraith               7

3          The Admiral               7

4          Blizzard Lizard           7

5          Clockwork                  5

6          Glitch                          5

7          Moonshadow              5

8          Sinful Echo                 5

9          Bizarre Dreamer         4

10        A.S.S.H.O.L.E.           4

It looked like this Ghost Sage was well ahead of the group as a whole. The statistics page only showed the average level in the entire world as two. Leveling was definitely much slower now. I assumed that didn’t include the hard-wired players like me. There was a tab for guild rankings as well. Even though I was a member of a guild, I couldn’t access the tab yet.

Another announcement appeared in my interface as I was about to turn them off.

Congratulations to the following players for being the first to clear a challenge dungeon! Ghost Sage, Ivory Wraith, Blizzard Lizard, Frost Pixie, and Witch’s Tit.

What was a challenge dungeon? All these players were part of a guild, as their names seemed loosely themed together. I found the description of a challenge dungeon in the wiki. It was a one-time, one-chance dungeon. You either finished it on your first attempt, or it vanished forever. Experience gains were tripled, and rewards were much higher than normal. Opening them required a unique artifact.

I had had an artifact that revealed a special area called the Crimson Crystal Cavern. The entrance had been guarded by two nasty sand trolls that had killed Titan and me. Maybe they guarded one of these challenge dungeons. The ring was no longer in my inventory, but I suspected it would be back where I found it on the corpse in the desert. The only artifact I had retained was the mask of the sullen god, and that was because it was part of a quest chain—or at least that was why I assumed I still had it. It also melded into my face when I decided to follow the Sullen God, so maybe it was part of me.

Still, I would wait for the Silver Linings Playbook to join me in the game before exploring the sand oasis again. We still had the scaling dungeon close by Malcum as well. I would tell Danny about that when the Guild arrived.

I spent the next day drafting plans. When I was done, I had five plans I was taking with me.

Very Rare Alchemy Shop, Health 50,000, Requires Masonry Foundations 23, Masonry: Structures 23, Woodcraft: Carpentry 23 (Skill Crafting Bonus to Alchemy: +10% to potion crafting speed and potency)

Rare Stone Round Wall Tower, 250,000 Health, Requires Masonry Foundations 23, Masonry Structures 43, Ritual Magic 23, Spawns one Elite Commander Archer Level 50 (respawn 72 hours) Generates two epic ballista bolts daily, Special Effect: Structure recovers 1% health/day

Rare Blacksmith, Health 90,000, Requires Masonry: Structures 23, Woodcraft Carpentry 23 (Bonus 5% chance to upgrade smelted ore quality, +4 to Forging skills, +25% to forged item durability)

Rare Apartment Building; Bonus +5% Morale if all apartments are filled, +10% stamina recovery

Rare Tannery/Leatherworks, Health 50,000, Requires Masonry: Structures 43, Woodcraft Carpentry 23 (Bonus 33% chance to increase tanned hide quality, +5 defense bonus to leather crafted armor, 1% chance to increase rarity of crafted armor)

These were all useful buildings for a new town, and only the tower incorporated talents as an eternal architect was the recently drafted tower. Satisfied, I went to get Titan for a ride. I cursed as the admins reclaimed my saddle, which counted as a personal item.

I ended up going to a bit, bridle, and saddle shop in the Malcum trade district.

Black Leather Bridle, +2 to all mounts stats

Black Leather Saddle, +10 to strength of mount, +5 agility to rider

I was going to miss my khan’s saddle.

Kahn’s Black Dragon Leather Saddle, +6 Riding Skill, +20% speed of mount, +20% damage with melee weapons

Curraen, my master leather worker, saw me in the shop. “Lord Tallis, why didn’t you come to me for a new saddle? This leather worker is a member of the Leatherworker’s Guild but mostly supplies equipment to army,”

“I am sorry. I didn’t think of it. I am in a rush, but can you make me something?” A grin formed on Curraen’s lips.

“Something fit for a king!” The elf smiled and rushed off, “Give me a few days!”

Titan and I were soon on the road. I was fully outfitted with good armor my crafters produced and only needed two ring slots and three miscellaneous slots. The ride was pleasant, with light clouds. As I raced down the road, Titan was eager for a good run. It was 240 miles to Stillwater, the first large city along the road. The game mechanics let me cover the distance in six game hours.

I entered the city walls and activated the portal stone here for future use. I traveled to the ghetto as well. It was where I had recruited a large pool of non-human NPCs in the past. It looked like human refugees had claimed the majority of the rundown part of the city. I still noticed the occasional beastkin or elementalkin, but nowhere near the numbers before in this run-down part of the city.

I could have used the player auction house here rather than heading to Crystalhelm but I moved on for two reasons. The first was the range of the auction house in Crystalhelm, which was much greater. Each player auction house had a radius, and that radius’ needed to overlap for goods to show up. The second reason was a warning from Mad Dog. He told me if I sold valuable items in the auction house then the guilds would use the radius effect to locate where I was selling the plans from.

I had planned to use the portal network and go to Dragon’s Tooth and sell there, but I didn’t have time to reestablish my link to that portal with the long skyship ride. I left Stillwater and rode to Crystalhelm next. I set my character to auto as I worked on my screens and talked with Danny. She had her rented skyship in the air and was on her way. They would be landing and unloading outside of Malcum in two days. The player activity was rapidly increasing in her area, and she had turned down multiple guild invites.

I reached Crystalhelm, a massive, sprawling capital. It was the seat of this kingdom, and I was glad I was not recognized when I entered the gates. I connected to the lower city portal and then the upper city portal before making my way to the player auction house. I paused outside as a player came rushing out. The white-haired elf was in a rush to be somewhere as she sprinted across the city.

I entered after she disappeared into the crowd and entered a private alcove to conduct my business. I had the five plans ready and placed them all at a minimum bid of 100 gold and a 96-hour in-game clock. That would be one real-world day. I was hoping to get at least 1000 gold for the tower and maybe 500 gold for the other plans. I can judge how many more plans I would need to draft in order to reach my goal of ten thousand gold.

I started searching the player lists for rings and accessories. My auction house in Malcum didn’t have a large enough range to reach the larger auction houses, whereas this one had a massive range. There were still hundreds of rings listed, and in most cases, the seller was listed as an asterisk instead of anonymous. This meant whoever had posted the item was no longer in the game. I guess that meant the admins would keep 100% of the sale.

I started sorting and marking the rings I wanted. Once the plans are sold, I can buy them at the buyout price. I spent some time and added a few more. I could give them to my NPCs in Malcum, so why not buy more? A few hours later I finished and was getting ready to return to Malcum. I just took a peek at my auction items before leaving, and my jaw dropped. I knew players could buy in-game currency with real-world money but this was ridiculous for only being posted for less than two hours.

Very Rare Alchemy Shop                                Current Bid: 1,200 gold

Rare Stone Round Wall Tower                       Current Bid: 9,500 gold

Rare Blacksmith                                             Current Bid: 5,200 gold

Rare Apartment Building                                Current Bid: 600 gold

Rare Tannery/Leatherworks                           Current Bid: 2,500 gold

Even as I watched the terminal screen, the stone tower jumped from 9,500 to 12,500 gold. I was going to be rich.