“Here it is”

I look upon a quaint little shop sandwiched between two larger buildings. The shop’s roof is made of red clay tile, which reminds me of those old european cities I have visited. It’s constructed of wood and has two large windows on the ground floor and one circular window on the second.

Darkbond had sent a message ahead of our arrival, so when we get to the door, a man was waiting for us. The player has short brown hair, black eyes, and a crooked nose. He is dressed in modest clothing that is a clear upgrade from my standard village clothes.

“Guild leader. Everyone is waiting for you upstairs.” The man speaks in a respectful tone to Darkbond. He briefly glances at me and then proceeds to walk inside.

The inside of the store consists of many shelves, which once would have contained merchandise. However, the shelves are currently in a barren state with no signs of being stocked. Despite that, the shop does look well maintained.

"What do you plan on selling here?" I ask Darkbond.

"We plan on selling things made from item drops. Rather than going to the market and using a third party, once we get a big enough stock then we will be able to sell directly to the customers." He says proudly.

"Hmm. That sounds all well and good, but how will you get the customers here in the first place?"

"That is where you come in my friend." He places his hand on my shoulder. "We will sell a few of the weapons you craft for us. That'll help us draw them in."

"Yet, the amount I can make will be limited and I don't plan on falling behind on levelling."

I am hesitant to spend too much time crafting, because I want to be a front line fighter. While I am interested in blacksmithing, I view it more as a hobby and now, in the advent of the shortage, a way to make money. They may try, but I will not be guilted into mass producing items. I would rather make something I am proud of; however, I understand for the initial stages it will be necessary to do some grinding.

"As long as we even have a few products people will be willing to pay."

"You're probably right."

Darkbond leads me upstairs to the second floor. The wooden stairway is narrow and each step lets out a high pitched creek as I step down. There is no railing, but at least the steps are not steep. The upstairs has a short landing and fours door, one which I assume leads to their meeting room. The player who guided us in takes a guard position by the door.

Darkbond proceeds to open the door and motions for me to enter. What I see inside is four players on either side of a rectangular table. I stop at the end of the table near the entrance while Darkbond continues towards the opposite end beneath the window.

"So is this him?"

"Must be."

I can hear them whispering to each other as I take my place. The player who first let us in the building is standing at the entrance to this room.

"Alright everyone quiet down." Darkbond gets them under control. "I would like to introduce you all to my friend, Quinn. He is the one with the blacksmithing skill I told you about."

"Hello." I try to add some confidence to my voice. "What he says is indeed true. I have the smithing skill, but have not worked on it for a week now. I plan to do a lot of smithing over the next few days and grind to level 2."

""Level 2?!""

"That's right." Darkbond interjects. "Quinn is already aware of rarity of blacksmiths and the need for armour and weapons. He is willing to help us in exchange for the raw materials and a cut of the profit.

“Now, before we start I will introduce you to everyone. From the left we have Cheetos, Arctic Flame, Watson, and Angelmaker. We are the five leaders of Subestimar. You have already met Chaos Lynx, he's standing guard outside this room."

From what I can see, all of them are young males in their 20's to 30's. Cheetos is a rogue with dirty blonde hair and fair skin. He is wearing a flimsy looking set of leather armour and has a headband covering his forehead. He gives a brief nod towards me as his name was called out.

Arctic Flame is a warrior with dark black hair reaching his shoulders. He is wearing a light leather armour with a copper chest plate. When his name is called he sends a glare in my direction. I only just met him and he is already inhospitable.

Watson is a Mage with short brown hair in a crew cut. He looks like a military type and is dressed in a simplistic blue cloth robe. He smiles towards me as his name is called out. He gives me the sense of a strategist and will most likely be one of the more prominent figures in the guild.

Angelmaker is a priest and looks very unassuming. He is wearing what looks to be a brown friar robe without any decoration. He too gives a slight nod as his name is called out.

"We are the original five guild members, and now we have upwards of 200-300 members under our banner."

The gear on these five leaders are not the greatest, but they are better than the majority of players I have seen so far.

"The majority of our guild members lack proper armour and have been forced to rely on thin leather gear. The defence on those is enough for the little creatures, but anything bigger and it is not effective." Darkbond begins to explain, "One of the selling points in our recruitment was that we could get our hands on armour for cheap. Some players were discontent that we have been unable to provide the armour so far, but most were willing to stay for that promise. Of course we had some that left, but those types of unloyal players are not needed here."

The others gave off grunts of approval.

"We wouldn't have to put up with this if the system didn't make those without the production skills fail if they don't have the skill." Arctic Flame is not impressed about having to rely on an outsider.

However, I do agree that imposed limitation in a virtual reality game is not entirely logical. Though I will admit that anyone without the skill who tries it without training will most likely fail. If I were given some fabric and asked to sew together a tunic I would fail miserably.

I could tell the guild leaders were getting worried, but seeing as I am here now that worry should fade somewhat.

"At least we have Quinn. Most guilds are struggling financially over this." Watson the voice of reason adds.

"Curse the Sacred Order!” Arctic Flame pounds his fist on the table, “It's obvious they are behind this!"

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"We all know, but there is nothing that can be done about it. Every day they gain more power." Angelmaker reasons.

"Have you guys heard the rumors?" Cheetos leans on the table and glances side to side as if he is about to share a big secret.

"Which ones?" Arctic Flame inquires.

"Word is going around that Sacred Order has a level 2 blacksmith."

““What?!””

"Mhmm."

"How do you know?" I inquire.

"People have noticed the top members of their guild wearing bronze armour and wielding bronze weapons."

"What if they obtained it through loot chests?" Arctic Flame offers up an alternative theory. This could be very plausible, because I found a piece of armour yesterday in a loot chest.

"Those are too rare. Besides, if that were the case then it would be seen on other players as well." Watson reasons.

"Precisely!” Cheetos continues, “Other than on their top players bronze equipment has not been seen anywhere else. If I were them, I would want to dominate it within my own guild."

“Watson, how much ore have you managed to obtain?" Darkbond finally speaks up.

"We have over 1500 pieces of copper, around 200 tin, 16 iron and 650 coal."

"Very good. How does that sound Quinn?"

"How much did all that cost?"

"It was actually very inexpensive. The price of ores is down due to the lack of demand and large supply stock." Watson explains. "One of the common jobs anyone can do is working in the mines, it trains a skill and is profitable; therefore, a lot of copper ore is brought up each day. However, that has caused the prices to go down."

The typical supply and demand, but this is good news for me.

"We won't charge you for the copper ore and will give you 65% of the profits from our sales. How does that sound?"

Hmm. If I were to take the copper dagger price, which I saw was around 30 Tor when I was walking through town. I would get 19.5 Tor, giving them a profit of near 10 Tor for supplying the ore. For the higher priced items it is a higher profit margin for them. Now, I may be willing to sell them the arms for cheap, but at that price it would be better for me to just do it myself.

"85 percent." I give my offer.

"70 percent."

"85 percent."

"Okay, 80 percent."

"Deal. But I get a 40% discount on other items in your store."

""Deal."" Darkbond and Watson, who were unsuccessful in haggling, both look relieved.

I don't want to rip them off too much, so I settled for what I still consider a low price. The relationship with them will pay off in the long run; therefore, I am willing to compromise. In either case I can directly sell the stuff I make for a higher price.

With that our deal was struck and now I can get started on levelling. We talked for an hour or so about things related to the recent state of affairs in the city. I learnt about all the big guilds and major figures.

It seems there are few guilds with greater than 1000 players, but most are like Subestimar with a couple hundred. I would have figured most of the players have joined a guild by now, but I am told the majority of players still only join parties.

I inquire about the players who chose to stay in town to do non combat related work since that seems to be about half the players. They tell me that many are living day by day, while some have started banding together to form what they call unions, which is just another way of saying a guild. The information I get from them is valuable, because I don't have the time to gather all of that myself.

I hear from them the highest level players in town are level 8 and 9, similar to myself. Hopefully that don't change to much over the next few days while I am staying in town.

After talking for them for a while it is time to get working.

"So, do you guys have an area I could work?"

"There's a small courtyard out back. It is semi private, so the public cannot access it. But, it is shared with the neighbouring shops." Cheetos replies.

"That'll be fine. As long as I have a place to work I'll manage."

"C'mon, I'll show you around."

I follow Cheetos out the door to their meeting room.

"Up here we have three private rooms. In the beginning we drew straws for the odd man out, so now Angelmaker and I sleep either in the meeting room or rent a room at the inn."

"I see."

I follow him down the stairs and through the door at the back of the main shop.

"In here we have our storage. Since we cannot keep all the items on ourselves the shop provides a handy way to store items. We purchased a basic lock box from a locksmith to prevent theft. It allows only certain players to access the inventory."

"I imagine this shop will attract some unwanted attention once you start selling equipment. Are you sure it will be safe?"

"Mhmm. One would need a lockpicking level of 2 to get in and at this stage it would be highly unlikely for a player to have that yet."

Umm... That's a flag, you know?

"That doesn't sound too safe. Why not get a higher level lockbox?" It doesn't make sense to me that a store that will attract a lot of attention only buys the lowest level locked item storage.

"That is..." He look down in embarrassment, "The lowest level one is all we could afford after purchasing this store. Even then we are in debt and have to pay off the store in instalments."

Hmm. I was wondering how they would manage to afford a store. This makes much more sense.

"Out here we have the courtyard."

"This is..."

When I take a look out through the back door and I would have to say I am disappointed. First of all, there is no privacy. I had imagined there would at least be some fences, but there was no such thing. The ground was hardened earth and there was no furniture or greenery. The buildings tower high enough that sunlight would only hit this place during the middle of the day. The courtyard is rectangular and runs along each shop on the street. Further down I can see some shops have cordoned off a small area of their own and have decorated the area somewhat. However, the closest neighbouring shops don't seem to utilize their space at all and have left it untouched.

I am not satisfied with this, but it will work for my smithing. I set down my small forge and anvil that is enough to work with up to level 2 metals and get to work.