Clang
Clang
Clang
*Ding*
Mining successful: +1 Low-grade Ore
‘And that should be the last of it.’
Abel tiredly put away his pick-axe that was on the verge of breaking. He hadn’t bothered to repair it as it would consume more mana from him so its durability had fallen down to 2 points. He could always work on it later or even try to smith a new one. Even without a blueprint, he should be able to create one that has better stats than this piece of junk.
He put away the last of his loot and headed out of the dungeon. It was currently 7 am in Verdiia, Coinweaver had sent a message a couple of hours ago telling him he had his share for the earlier exchange but Abel was in the middle of mining the walls of the third floor.
‘I should send him a whisper, asking him to come to the shop. The girl’s said they’d be there at 7:30 but I didn’t get a reply from Oscar…’
Abel pulled up his Panel and sent the young merchant a message. He was making his way through the southern gates when he suddenly stopped. Three men were standing in front of him, looking as though they would like nothing more than to chop him up into itty bity pieces.
“So, it’s the three musketeers. Where’s your little fairy friend?”
Abel made a quick jab at them. While the story of the 3 musketeers was an old classic in Xiaowen’s world, in Abel’s Earth it was a children’s cartoon about 3 friends that were aided by a magical fairy. The three little kids would wield magical swords while the fairy would shoot out magical arrows of light.
They’d go through all sorts of adventures and overcome many trials, defeating their adversaries through the power of friendship along with the aid of the magical fairy. They made for quite a successful cartoon that had been running for decades. In fact, they even made a virtual world about it that was a huge hit with the children.
“You piece of shit! I’ll definitely skin you alive when I see you outside the city…”
Swordboss, Grimfist and Slick Mick were standing before him but surprisingly, Arrowstream was nowhere in sight. Although Abel was curious about the archer’s location, he doubted they’d have the guts to attack him in the city.
If a player broke the kingdom’s laws then they’d be killed and resurrected in the city prison after they logged on. They’d be forced to stay there for another 3 days before they could be released. The timer would only run out if the player was online so you couldn’t just log off and wait for 3 days before logging back on.
The game developers made it in such a way so that cities would be absolute safe zones and the cost of breaking the laws would be dire to anyone.
The encounter at the city gates drew a crowd of observers, curious and eager to see what the fuss was about.
“What’s going on with these guys? They have the guts to start a fight in the city?”
“I don’t know… I just got here.”
“I know that red-haired guy, he’s quite the loner… always refusing to party with others”
“Those are the scum that killed little petal! They humiliated him even after he gave them all his money, saying he was a poor little bitch not worthy of playing this game. Who the hell do they think they are?”
“They killed me too a few days ago, absolute scum…”
Abel overheard some chatter and confirmed his earlier guess about how these guys got such equipment.
“You think your smart huh? I bet you thought you could make use of that dungeon for a while more but I plan on telling everyone about it! How you found a dungeon filled with Rat Meat”
Swordboss started speaking louder and louder, trying to piss Abel off into attacking them. Unfortunately for them, Abel wasn’t as hotheaded as Grimfist but the loud words drew an even larger crowd as they overheard what he said.
“What!! There’s a new dungeon?”
“Damn, Rat Meat can be sold for so much while the monster itself is so weak…”
Unfortunately for them, Abel would rarely loose his head in a rage. It happened maybe once throughout his entire life and even then, he was very young. Even when sleazy Samson was asking for a beating, he held himself back and planned it out perfectly.
Xiaowen was the same, when he saw his ex in bed with someone else, he coldly told her its over and to never call him again and just walked out. Most men would lose their heads in a rage and do something they’d regret but neither half of the current Abel was a hothead.
“So what? Yes, I did find a dungeon and yes, it is filled with Rat Meat. You’ll probably hear a lot more about it in a day or so, after I sell off this information…”
Abel’s calm and measured response pissed off the trio even more. Grimfist was on the verge of exploding, he had lost 2 levels and his equipment to this guy!
“Give us our equipment back and we’ll let bygones be bygones. We won’t hunt you down, but if you don’t agree then forget about leveling in peace.”
The little boss decided on to change his plans seeing as his earlier scheme didn’t bear any fruit but Abel’s response turned his face beet red in embarrassment and rage.
“Hahahahaha… I was right the other night when I said you were an idiot! You think everyone’s as stupid as you to take you for your word? Besides, that equipment wasn’t yours in the first place, it was stuff you pillaged off the corpses of other players.”
Swordboss was about to retort when Slick Mick grabbed his arm, signaling to the players around them with his eyes.
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He looked around and realized the menacing looks he was receiving. Apparently, some of their former victims and their friends were in the crowd. He gulped, forgetting about the crowd he was trying to make use of earlier. It was then, he heard Abel’s familiar calm and measured voice speak out.
“You wanna hunt me down? First, make sure you can survive for a minute outside these city gates ~swordboss.”
Abel chuckled as he bypassed the foolish hooligans in front of him, the crowd making way for him to pass too. They had overheard a majority of the conversation and could piece together the story on their own. Along with the words spoken by some players in the crowd, they were absolutely assured of the backstory and understood the feud between Abel and the 3 young men.
They had apparently tried forcing out the information about the dungeon after following him outside the city but instead, they got killed when a fight broke out. They were all impressed by Abel’s strength, guessing he had a level of 12 or 13 at least. They were also disgusted by these guys that would hunt and prey on solo players instead of working hard to hunt monsters and do quests.
Abel got out from the circle of players and made his way to the old guardians’ district.
‘Well, there goes my plan to stay low-key. At least there wasn’t a lot of players back there.’
He kept thinking things through, wondering if he should start wearing a cloak but he didn’t think he’d turn famous from this little exchange. At most, those thugs would turn into pariahs among the player base in Velskryn while he would be mentioned in passing.
‘I’ll see how things turn out…’
He arrived at the old shop and found Coinweaver already there waiting for him. The young merchant was looking at the things scattered around in curiosity and disgust, probably regretting the waste of all these things turning to junk. When he heard the door opening, he turned around and saw the red-haired Red Sky walk in.
“Were those guys trying to give you any trouble at the gates?”
“How’d you hear about it so fast…” Abel was muddled, their interaction happened just 10 minutes ago, how could Coinweaver have heard about it so soon.
“I had a few friends in the crowd, they sent me a whisper of all the drama going on. They also mentioned word of a new dungeon that might be available soon and were asking if I knew anything about it. It’s not hard for them to guess my link to it considering I’ve been selling Rat Poison the past few days…”
Abel nodded his head in understanding and started taking out all the Rat Meat,
“This is the last exchange. Put away the loot before the others get here, I told them to be here by 7:30 if they want to hear more…”
*Ding*
Coinweaver would like to transfer 1 gold 8 silver and 50 copper coins, Accept?
Yes/No
‘Yes’
The young merchant put away all the loot in his spatial accessory before transferring the funds over.
Abel nearly had 1 and a half gold coins, it was an outrageous sum for him just a week ago and more than enough to cover his in-game bills. While the last dungeon run wasn’t enough for him to reach level 8, he wasn’t far off. If he forged a few daggers then he should make up the shortfall in EXP.
After Coinweaver put away the loot, he asked about the encounter at the gates. As Abel described the gist of their exchange, they heard the door creak open again and saw 3 girls walk on with Oscar right at their heel. He was talking to the archer Mia and they seemed close.
“Red Sky, what’s this junkyard… how’d you find this place?”
Sophie asked upon entering, finding the place to be disgusting, while the look on Aria’s face was quite comical. Abel didn’t reply but asked them instead,
“Do you know each other?”
It was easy to tell that Oscar knew the girls but he was curious as to how. It made sense when he thought about it, rich people would be friends with or at least know other rich people.
“He’s the one that you mentioned in your message? The other guy?” Abel simply nodded and waited for an explanation.
“If you don’t want to say that’s not a problem. Your private affairs are your own…”
“Well, this is my sister Mia. I didn’t expect the girls you mentioned when we first met to be her and her friends, we ran into each other at the training citadel. Who would have guessed it was because the same person sent us there…”
Oscar finally spoke out, surprised at how small the world was, even if it was virtual.
“Alright… anyway, this is Coinweaver- the merchant I mentioned. Coinweaver these are Sophie, Aria and Mia. This is Oscar, apparently he’s Mia’s brother…”
After the small exchange of greetings, they got down to business. Abel described the dungeon vaguely, he told them it was 3 levels and it would range from level 5 to level 9 with the latter being a Rat King Boss. When he was nearing the end of his explanation, Mia interrupted him and asked,
“Red Sky, we don’t have much time we have to… we have things we have to do in the real world. Coinweaver is obviously going to sell this information so even if we pay for it, we won’t get much of a head start…”
“You can buy it now and come to an agreement with Coinweaver, he’s a pretty stand-up guy that I can vouch for… or you can wait a couple of days till the news spreads. It’s up to you.”
Abel was a little disappointed but he couldn’t really blame them, he wouldn’t waste his coins if he were in their shoes either.
The 3 girls each had different expressions. Aria seemed eager to hear all about the dungeon and its layout, Mia was reluctant to waste their money while Sophie was the hardest to read. It was then that Oscar spoke out,
“Coinweaver, what will it take to hold off on this news for a day? We honestly don’t care about the monster loot, the girls just want an adventure.”
“Uh… it depends on Red Sky; how much do you want out of this?”
Abel thought for a minute, while he was hoping to make a lot, he knew the cat was out of the bag especially with those thugs eyeing the southern gates and the spread of the news among the players.
“I want a gold coin. I was hoping for more but after that encounter with those guys…”
“What guys?”
Oscar couldn’t help but ask, while he was sure Abel wouldn’t scam them considering their first interaction, he wanted to know more. He was quite protective of his sister and didn’t want her to mingle with a rough crowd.
Abel explained his recent encounter with the tainted players and how news of the dungeon had spread. No one knew where it was but word of its existence had begun to make the rounds.
“Honestly Red Sky… it’s not worth the trouble. How about this… if you come across another dungeon then message us straight away and I promise we’ll buy it, regardless of the price. I don’t want my sister mixing up with a bunch of hooligans, I hope you understand.”
Abel nodded. While he didn’t have any kin, if someone messed with Melissa then he’d make sure they paid a heavy price, just ask the sleazy manager.
“Then a gold coin? I’ll get it exclusively?” Coinweaver was overjoyed at the outcome, he thought he’d lose out on some profit if he had to share this news with others.
“How do you plan on selling the news?” Abel asked, since they came to an agreement then he obviously wouldn’t turnback and sell it to someone else but he was curious.
“I’ll sell it to a few parties I’m on good terms with at a discount and then make a paid post on the forums. 100 credits for the layout and monster distribution. I’ll make back the money I spent with 5 clicks while anything extra is pure profit.”
‘Of course! Posts with a paywall… that’s probably where all the real information is.’
Abel had forgotten about the paid posts on the forums, he couldn’t be blamed seeing as he was too poor to make use of them. But this reminded him to make use of such a thing in the future, he wouldn’t have to personally sell information in the game anymore.
The girls and Oscar chatted with them for a couple more minutes before taking their leave. They already said they had some matters to handle in the real world, they also wanted to give them some privacy to carry out the deal.
“Do you have a map of the region?”
Coinweaver pulled out a map of the area surrounding Velskryn and Abel pointed out the location of the dungeon. He described it fully, a small opening between 2 trees and then went on to explain about the layout and different monsters. He also told him about the small mine of specialized ore and the trap-chest on the first level.
After everything was concluded, the young merchant transferred 1 gold coin, bringing Abel’s wealth back to 2 and a half gold coins.