“Welcome to Winter’s Tale Virtual Bazaar” was what the sign in front of the mysterious cloaked figure read.  The figure was standing in front of a massive open sky bazaar, inside one of the many virtual trading programs dedicated to buying and selling Winter’s Tale items.  This virtual business was set up like an outdoor bazaar, with one long road leading to a large central circle where people would stand and hawk their goods to anyone within earshot.  The stranger didn’t care what goods others had for sale.  The cloaked figure was on a mission and was on the hunt with a single burning purpose.  With confidence, they rudely snarled at goods being hawked in their direction and headed directly to the center of the central hub.

“LISTEN UP, ASSHOLES!” The cloaked figure yelled in a booming voice and several people immediately turned to stare; waiting to see if the bazaar’s security would arrest, detail, or exile them for disturbing the peace.   Vulgarity was against the rules of the marketplace, and yelling such things in public was a surefire way to get the attention of the moderators who patrolled as armored guards here.

“Somebody is going to make a lot of money,” the figure continued.  “I’ve got a commission to gather a potion, scroll, or magical device that allows one to travel to a distant party member.  My opening offer is ten thousand dollars, and I’m authorized to offer more if necessary.  Name your price, produce the item, and we’ll finish this transaction here and now.  If no one can respond to my offer in the next two minutes, I’m going to move on to the next bazaar and make my offer.  This is your only chance; take it now, or not.  I really don’t give a shit.”

Jaws dropped open around the whole circular hub and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare.  Winter’s Tale was still a relatively new game, and characters were still low level.  Items and gear were selling for tens of dollars, not hundreds or thousands – and whoever this was, they were offering ten thousand dollars for a simple party travel item.

“Go home, scammer!”  Someone shouted from a shop off to the side.

“It’s fake!  You can’t cheat us – we’re not noobs here!”  Someone else yelled.

Soon many voices gathered together in a clamor yelling about how fake the offer was, telling the cloaked figure to leave, and calling for the admin to come ban the idiot from the bazaar.  As the figure slowly turned and started to leave, someone jokingly yelled out, “Hey scammer!  I’ve got a scroll of distant journeys with my character in Winter’s Tale.  It’s not on me, but I’ll meet you in game and deliver it to you, if you’re near one of the starting cities.  You can have it for fifty thousand!”

“Sold,” the figure said simply, turning to look for the speaker.

“That’s American dollars, not some cheap foreign thing where fifty thousand is a dime or something,” the first speaker said once more.

“I said ‘Sold’, did I not?” The cloaked figure asked, seemingly unconcerned about the type of currency.

“Don’t do it man!  It’s a scam of some sort,” someone yelled warningly to the guy who was offering to sale.  “They’re mug you or PK you, or something in game I bet!”

For a long moment, the courtyard got quiet as everyone waited to see what would transpire from the transaction.  Apparently the two figures were chatting in a private channel, as they never said another word and simply stared at each other for several moments before disappearing in a black puff of smoke that showed they’d both logged out of the bazaar.

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An instant clamor of yells, catcalls, and bets took place amongst the people who were there, over whether the seller was going to be paid, robbed, murdered, or simply scammed.  No one believed it was an honest deal, with almost all bets going to robbed, murdered, or scammed.

Several minutes later, the seller reappeared in a puff of black smoke.  The moment they logged in, they staggered and flopped to sit hard on their ass, while blinking with wild eyes in disbelief.

“Scammed!  Wasn’t ya!  Told you!” Someone shouted.

“Nope, he was robbed!  That’s the look of someone who’s been robbed or murdered,” someone else shouted.

Several yells of various terrible fates filled the courtyard, until the guy slowly shook his head from side to side.  “I got paid in full, and the cash is already in my account,” he whispered so lowly that only the people standing near him heard it at first.  Immediately, they too were blinking and looking dumbstruck, which caught the attention of the people around them.

Slowly, silence descended over the courtyard of the bazaar, as everyone could tell that something shocking had happened.  “They paid me fifty thousand for a scroll of distant journeys,” the guy muttered again, a little louder.  “They paid me fifty thousand American dollars for a scroll of distant journeys,” he repeated again, a little louder and more firmly.

“I GOT FIFTY THOUSAND FOR MY SCROLL!!”  He finally screamed to the world about his unbelievable luck!  The highest item sold for Winter’s Tale so far had been a sword that went for twenty-two dollars.  The game was still in its infancy, and so was the market for buying and selling items from the game.  

No one had believed that a person would pay a nickel, much less thousands of dollars for a means to travel to another player, but someone had!  Why they simply couldn’t use the travel portals to head to the closest starting city to the other player was a complete mystery; it was how everyone else was traveling back and forth and meeting distant friends and family who had started the game elsewhere.

It was a complete mystery that had everyone abuzz about how, what, why, and who, and soon the bazaar was an empty ghost town as people started disappearing in poofs to smoke to go share what they’d seen and heard elsewhere.

There were some who were hoping to make a living buying and selling virtual goods from Winter’s Tale, and a lot of people had claimed that it was too early in the life of the game to make anything more than petty cash from it.  Other older, more established, games were still the focus of The Dark Net players, as they were commonly called, but that one sale would probably start to change that.  

It had proven, beyond a doubt, that somebody, somewhere, had money to invest in the items in the game.  And nobody invested that much money, unless they were certain they were going to get a larger return on their investment!  

Something in Winter’s Tale was worth spending thousands of dollars on, and even if The Dark Net players didn’t know what that was right now, it didn’t mean they weren’t going to find out about it!