Howling Shark
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Fast forward to 3 months after Legendary Age was released
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Feducia POV
“FUCCKKKKKKK” Shurki cried. Really, I also wanted to vent my frustration by yelling profanities at a stone wall. But, I held back, after all, yelling did nothing to help me in this situation. We were simply trapped. I really have to give my admiration to whoever designed this trap, it was inescapable. Sure, Shurki could call his minions down to help him, maybe provide some rope, but the problem is, as soon as we fell, a ceiling magically appeared. Just that by itself isn’t too bad. But, we were trapped in a zone where no damage could be inflicted, a safe zone, and our satiety never went down. Now that by itself is a blessing, but combined with being stuck in a trap, not even the might of god would be able to help us.
In case you're still wondering why our situation was so terrible, allow me to summarize.
We were stuck in a room with no way out - even with the aid of someone outside
We could not die in that room - normally dying would let you reset to the nearest town so it was a last resort measure that would guarantee escape
So, now you understand why Shurki was so frustrated. But you should understand our story from the start. No no no, not my start, but Shurki’s. I’ll let him take over now.
---------Flashback to after Mr. Dunbar's speech----------------------------
Shurki POV
“Father please!” I cried. I was getting desperate, I had asked him for money to finance my new plan yet my stingy dad just would not give it to me. I was already embarrassed at having to ask him for money but his tenacity in refusing me struck up my indignation. As I stomped away in stormy silence, I resolved to wrestle the money from him, one way or another.
The next day, I went to his office and in front of the entire staff, I prostrated in front of him. But he did not even flinch. Instead, he hid behind his dark maple desk and motioned for the open-mouthed guards to take me away.
That was just too much, I had embarrassed myself in public, in front of his freakin staff and he still doesn’t relent. I started to question whether he was human.
But would I just give up after being humiliated? No, of course not. Now that I knew that father would not easily give me money, it was time to make a plan.
At this point you might be wondering why I’m so eager to get money out of father and father alone. Well the thing is, father owns a large company, that has potential to grow even larger. His new product, Legendary Age is bound to take his company, Dalbergia to the top. The thing is, he hasn’t set his successor yet. Which means that I need to prove to him that I am capable of handling the company or else he might leave the company to some outsider and content himself with some shares. So in order to prove myself, I decided to become the top player in Legendary Age. But in order to do that, I needed some advantages.
First of all, I needed connections. But that was easily accomplished since I was the son of the CEO of Dalbergia. In just one week, I had talked to the chief programmer of Legendary Age and various department heads. From the talks, I was able to glean valuable information about Legendary Age. Then I realized what I needed to do.
I needed manpower. Not like 1 or 2 people to help me lift things, but rather I needed a small army that would be able to solve most of my difficulties in game. I decided that I needed at least 200 people. Now then, I had to balance my men, I required the services of different types of people. For examples, I needed thieves as well as merchants.
To get the manpower, I needed money. Not chump change like a couple thousand dollars, rather I needed about 10 million dollars. And so, I had thought I could bum the money off from my father, I mean, it is a good plan, right? And the rest is history.
So, I decided to use a more roundabout way of getting the money. I first went to mother and cried my heart out, saying that I needed to become independent and wanted to prove myself by sponsoring a company. My mother of course agreed to this, after all, it wasn’t her money and a couple million meant nothing to our family. So, I asked her to put in a couple words for me to father.
Then I went back to father’s building. But instead of pleading with him, I went straight to the Marketing director’s office. Why? Because he knows more about the game than most people at the company. After to talking to various department heads, I realized that the Marketing director knows much more about the game than even the programmers that developed the game. After all, the programmers focused on a small aspect of the game rather than the whole game itself. That and they weren’t allowed to share any code/insights with anyone, in fact they were banned from playing the game.
Immediately after I knocked on the Marketing director’s office, he came to the door. He obviously saw me coming. After some standard greetings, I cut to the chase.
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“Is there anything that I should look out for in Legendary Age?”
“Hmm, I’m honored that you’re here Shurki, but there are some things that I can not do. I’m very sorry.”
“It’s fine, I’m also sorry for asking the impossible. Instead, I came here today to ask for your opinion on the price of gold, will it rise or drop?”
“Well, that sort of question is less probing but it still gives vital hints about Legendary Age, so I’m sorry. But I can say that there is a easter egg in the spawn that requires gold to activate and since players are not able to earn gold, this gold is technically priceless.”
“Thank you so very much.”
With that and another few pleasantries, I left the Marketing Director’s office. My next stop was the Chief Programmer, Mr. Brouts. Armed with the discovery of the easter egg, I knew that I could potentially strong arm the programmer into helping me.
“Mr.Brouts, could you please help me with a couple of questions that I have for Legendary Age?”
“Sure my boy, ask away!”
“Alright thanks. What do you think will happen to the price of in game gold over the next month as more and more people start playing Legendary Age?”
“Now that’s a good question and you sure asked the right person, my boy. Now do you know the minimum wage right now?”
“I believe it’s around 10 dollars per hour and varies per state.”
“My boy, you sure are a genius. You’re completely right. Now, each hour in real-life is about 4 in Legendary Age right? You would also need about 10 hours of minimum wage working to get 100 dollars or 1 gold right? So 10 times 4 equals 40 which would be how long you need to play in the game to make that much. By the way, there are other ways to make money besides killing monsters so keep your eyes peeled my boy.”
“Thanks a lot! Also, after you’re in game and have made X amount of gold. Is it possible to transfer that gold to another person?”
Suddenly, Mr.Brouts straightened. I was startled by his sudden movement. He had been slouching before but now all that was gone, replaced by a interrogating look. I held my breath, thinking that the worst was about to befall me. But...
“So you know about the login easter egg eh?”
“Umm, yeah. Sorry?”
“On the contrary, congratulations my boy! I never expected you to have already known about that. Anyways, it is actually impossible to transfer gold to someone else that has not started the game. But it is possible to buy gold before you start the game.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“My boy. if you have any more questions feel free to ask them. In fact here you go, this packet will be able to give you an edge in this new world called Legendary Age.”
“Thanks, Mr. Brouts!”
By the end of the talk, Mr. Brouts was positively beaming, but his sudden movement when he realized that I knew about the easter egg still haunted me.
With that I left his office, I now had a full arsenal, complete with the knowledge of a special Easter egg at the start of the game that required gold to activate and the huge packet that was tucked under my arm.
It was time to get that money.
---------2 days later------------
Is my dad even remotely human? After a constant bombardment from me and mom, he still hasn’t cracked. That is, given me money. At this point, I’m running out of options, Legendary Age comes out in 3 days and I still have not secured funding for my plan.
Desperately, I began to sell off my belongings. I started with my game accounts, none of them were rare but many had extra stuff that was bought with my allowance. I was able to raise about 2000 dollars from these accounts.
Then I tore through my closet, looking for my old computers and devices. But I could not find it. At that point, I realized that I was out of options. I only had 20,000 dollars on hand. That by no means is a small amount, but I had been saving my allowance for over a year, along with doing favors for my rich friends such as getting them drinks etc. Basically, I lived as a frugal slave the last year in order to save this amount. But still, there was no way for me to be able to get 10 million dollars from selling my stuff. So I needed to make a new plan.
My new plan? I have no idea what it is yet. Guess I'll just be one of those solo players trying to solo monsters. Of course this method isn't as effective as my original plan but it may be my only choice now.
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Onwards?
Yay, I learned how to make a make a text link :D