Queen of Ragnarok

by Dylan Keefer

  “Oooohh, now you speaking my language Celina,” Victor growled happily. Bain shook his head, “Man you done start him up in the worse of ways.”

  “What you complaining about, you should be ready to fight anytime. You are my paladin after all.” I tell Bain.

  Bain scoffs trying to hide the smile on his face.

  I clap my hands loudly, “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter 3

  “Dear, must you use the table as a study desk?” Mom asked, I looked at her but I really had no response. Wata was at the table as well, though she was working on coloring books at this point. I was not studying anything per say more than I was looking for information.

  Mom had already left the kitchen.

  Rio was not here, but Father was. He was in the living room lounging on the sofa cursing the world leaders for being stupid I guess. I should probably take up these books. If he saw the wrong one I would get lambasted by his anger.

  One was the video game’s manual, another was a document I printed off the internet that contained rules regarding commerce in the game. I already read the manual fully, so I already had a good refresher of how the game works especially with party dynamics and benefits. The specifics of what was allowed and the like, wading through all this, I understood where I stood and my obstacles.

  The project required me to do an initial SWOT analysis of the business idea, so I had weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats. Me having a close-knit team was a strength, I already cited our relative power as a weakness, the attention we get because of the staff is a threat to our success, but it can be counted as a opportunity as well.

  This was good, I numbered those and the others I thought of. It was going well, but looking at it, we have a lot of weaknesses and threats. Sighing to myself, I can accept that. It was going to be an uphill battle from the start.

  Even now I was not sure where to start. For one thing, we could gain money in two ways, doing work whether it be for the Gamemasters or the players and selling gear and items.

  Doing work is more secure but it takes longer if you are trying to get wealthy with this channel. But Gamemasters always have quests for us to take. The Gamemasters were employees of Luna and keep the game running smoothly for everyone. Any problems would be reported to them.

  Actually when you start playing Everscape, it is better for new players since those quests give good treasure for a simple task. Those treasures can help you out later.

  Players would hire for protection and other devious acts. Hiring players to attack other players used to be alright then an anti-bullying campaign made Luna ban it. You can still hire a player to rob and take another player’s stash whether at their house or base.

  Hell we could do that too, but as I think of it, I know better. Even though I still got mad about my house being attacked. It is not as easy as it sounds. For one, the game's non-player city guards can catch you and fine you. Also it is not easy to crack an Infinity Chest. The novice Thieves can take days, literally days worth of real world hours to crack a normal one.

  I have a normal one, the upgrades were expensive but worth it. We had a chest in a hidden part of a ruin that only advanced players can get through. It is a Golden Infinity Chest, we placed it there and had it magic sealed but it could still be cracked. Worse because it was not in any town, that made it easier for Thieves. A expert Thief takes minutes to crack a normal one, the best one which is a Platinum Infinity Chest would take a expert Thief a month. That Thief would have to come back to continuously crack parts of its mechanism.

  If it has an alarm added, that Thief could trip the alarm which would make the chest reset its code and you still would get Guards called on you. The in game Guards were not weak, there is a reason no violence happens in a city. No one would be that stupid.

  Even if you beat a city Guard, it would spawn more. There was no end to them. Players who were natural troublemakers would love to see how long they could last against an infinite swarm of city Guards. Which reminds me, what we did last night was so much fun.

  But it was kind of sad, I did not know so many weak parties were gunning for our necks. We lasted one hour. There were only a few powerful guys in the mass bunch of them. Only reason we lost out in the end was because the numbers chipped away at our organization.

  After a while it was just a freaking mess. We need to get better area control if we were going to improve. Without Marric, we were severely handicapped in that area. If it was not for Neil, Victor and Joshua’s overwhelming attack power we would not last so long. Good thing I teleported out of there when I did.

  Wata was trying to look into my economics book.

  “Wata get down.”

  She scowled at me. “I do what,”

  I pushed her before she finished. She flew back hitting the back of the chair hard.

  “Hey!”

  I wave her off.

  “Mom! Celina pushed me!”

  Anyways, the forums were going crazy about it. Great, more legends to our ever growing legacy, it was a nice look.

  “Celina do not push your sister.” I heard Mom say.

  I looked up to see Mom entering, she stopped in front of me.

  “She is distracting me, I am trying to do my school project, I have to build a business from scratch. It is…not easy I need to focus and she is bothering me.”

  “No I wasn’t” Wata retorts.

  “Yes you were.”

  “I wasn’t!”

  “Girls!” That was not my mom’s voice.

  I looked around and saw my father. Damn my luck, he shook his head as if he was trying to shake something off the top of his head, then he stood still as his eyes hit Wata.

  “Wata leave, Celina is working.”

  Wata twisted her lips in distraught defeat. With book in hand she left shooting me a glance that was meant to kill.

  “Make a business uh?” Father continues.

  I faked a cough, “Yes, that is the project I was given by my teacher.”

  “Making you into an entrepreneur I see?”

  I look at him as I see a smile. That was rare.

  “Do not get lazy like you usually do, alright? Make sure that business succeeds.”

  Taken aback, I give him a halfhearted nod. He leaves, and then my eyes touch my mother’s face. Her mouth slightly agape, her eyes looked dodgy for some reason.

  She relaxed her face as she stared at me. I tried not to stare into her eyes. Still one thing was sure the big fish won’t move on me that easy, they were probably waiting on the perfect chance. That was both good and bad. It was hard for the enemy because as few as expert thieves were, the reward of robbing me was worth it.

  I need to get more players, good players that is.

  “Your business involved Everscape?” Mother asked, her fingers on the book I printed.

  I smirk and looked around behind me, I could not see him, maybe he went upstairs.

  “I want to build a business in Everscape, you know? I mean it is the only place I know so…”

  “No that is cool.”

  I had to ask, “Hey, you still play it?”

  “Not as often, busy, busy.”

  Mother you are not busy, unless you consider sleep being busy. Well I cannot judge I sleep a lot myself when I am ready.

  She continued, “But we really should play together you know.”

  My eyes widen as the thought of me dying from the humiliation was very real. As I quiver my eyebrows that thought settled in my mind and made me wonder if that was solid in my thinking.

  “It would be nice, right now I need inspiration for a story but I have none you know.” Mom utters.

  I added my two cents, “just start writing?”

  “If only it was that easy.”

  I roll my eyes, “I hear tons of stories inside the game, I can give some to you, hey you can look it up yourself. Just go to the forums, people talk about their various conquests and drama all the time. You might find one cool enough for
a story.”

  She nodded, “You know that could work.”

  “Right so…” I closed the game manual. At this point I had no idea if working for other players would be favorable. We do not have a full party and honestly I did not want to send my core party members into traps. That was rarely done but it could happen.

  Plus I had to take into consideration personality. I know of other parties, usually the powerful ones requiring you to give a percentage of treasure to the party. They would make it compulsory in settings, so as soon as the player ends the quest. At least half of the treasure and gold won go to the group you joined.

  Many powerful players dislike this and usually ride alone. But fresh new players have to suffer with it since being with a strong party means you are not likely to get attacked. Some groups have a mob mentality, you attack one of their own, you insulted the whole of them. So anyone from the group will seek to get back at you. Novices like that fake strength.

  Mom had already left, I realized. I was so stuck in my thoughts and still could not figure out what I would do fully. I was not sure how the guys will take that. I could have them contribute stuff to the group. Yes that could work.

  Now, we could sell gear, whether from quests and stuff we made. That would net us a pretty penny, but it won’t be much. The only thing that would make us a boatload of money is selling rare and limited edition items.

  That was the best income you make with the game. The non-player stores are not frequented by powerful players because they only sell basic equipment. The player stores sell the best stuff, mostly because these same players get these items from other adventurers or their own adventures.

  From my study, the game has its own supply and demand, where limited and extremely rare equipment sell for a whole lot of money. Even now if I sell my Gauntlet of Grace it would go for nearly one hundred and ninety million gold, it was once ten million.

  The reason lies with the news of the staff, since then people have been buying up that gauntlet with every intention of using it with the staff. So the gauntlet has become rarer these days.

  Converting one hundred and ninety million gold, I would be sitting on over twenty five thousand dollars. Just thinking about it hurts my head.

  I could contact Marric and see if he and Alvain could offer their services to us in exchange for promoting them. Well it would be good, everyone watched our every move, we were a good channel for getting information out there.

  How would the party be compensated for their efforts though when that is done? Should I cut the income equally between the whole of us? Should I have the one player who worked to get the item get half the gold while we take half?

  The thing about this, would they even want to do this?

  They may say yes, but if I worked to get this rare item I cannot use. Why would I want to cut the gold I made off it with you?

  Sighing, it was not something I thought of until now. But all these things were apart of business. The way other guys do it was really some form of slavery, it did not feel like an equal exchange. Unless I think of a way to make it really beneficial to them, they will hate me for this.

  I stopped, I only just realized that I was incessantly tapping the table with my pen. I turn the pages of my business principles book and hovered my eyes over the topic of Employment, I start reading. It refers to a diagram at some point showing the rate of turnover for different industries. On the next page I see something about seasonal and contingent workforce.

  Contingent workforce, I remember that term. I think for a while on that. I surge up from my chair, “Mom!?”

  “Uh?”

  I saw her both her and my father coming down the stairs. Father went the opposite way while she came up to me, eyes wide and dreary.

  “Yes love?”

  “What do you play the game as?”

  Chapter 4

  The grass moved to the rhythm of our steps. Tall strands, almost passing our belly buttons. Alvain focused his sight on the huts shielding his eyes with a hand on his forehead.

  “Ok…how do we approach this?”

  I was already looking at the place, a bunch of thatch houses of wood and leaves wrapped and strung into some tight roof enclosure. Around the houses were walking yellow plants, their smiling faces hid the poison contained within. Raisons, they were another annoying weak enemy.

  “Record,” I see the red dot blinking to my upper left.

  But what we feared was the two Statures, sunken eyes, their color was dark brown that had a gleaming sheen in the sun. The arms and legs were roundish and pudgy like it was a plush toy. Each one of those Statures guarded an entrance. I looked across and could see the plants stepping and running around in bursts of energetic joy.

  “Well, the sun was out so…” I said then I hear the ping kicking in my head. “Ah…Joshua?”

  “Hey,” It was Joshua.

  “What is it?”

  “The message you sent in the chat group, me and the guys are here at the base…”

  “Which base? You better not be near the original base.”

  “The ruins, we are there.”

  “Josh that ain’t no base.”

  “We carved out a cave inside here so…”

  “You better take out that chest and move that, we cannot stay there, the fortress would be best. Why is Neil the Great One taking so long?”

  “You can ask him right now.”

  “Hold on! Hold on…” I bring up the private chat menu and invited the other party members.

  Alvain and Opa twitched slightly beside me.

  “You all here?” I brought up the prompt and saw that everyone except Victor was connected. “Victor not online?”

  “Nah, he had some late night work to finish up.”

  Bain cut in, “It’s the same for everybody here. I just chose to ignore it until the teacher punishes me for not turning in any homework.”

  Joshua was laughing, I look at Opa and point downward. We might as well get this quest over with.

  “Good to see you are playing more these days.” Neil said slyly.

  “This is something of a pain.” I said.

  Opa reaches inside the shorter grass leading to the western entrance. The Stature moves as Opa tries to pass it. Throwing its arms upward, it pushes its foot back and tried to charge Opa. Opa sidesteps and jumps into it, just to avoid the wide charge of the Stature.

  “Good to know your pain.”

  The plants have made their move, shaking off the dust like pollen.

  “Fire call!”

  Hitting right next to Opa, a large ball of fire, Opa swerves and swings out his hammer to rebound the Stature’s punch. Opa holds it off both hands, almost into the building; Opa jumps clear as the Stature hits his head. The plants ran off, some on fire, lashing out with high-pitched squeals.

  “Neil I should kick you from the party, what is taking so long to take over that abandoned fortress? The patch has increased the game area. There is so much wasted space and you are wasting time right now.”

  Opa stands in the center of the village. The second Stature has not moved yet, good.

  I cast, “Purge!”

  “Come on, you know how hard it is take over a fortress with that much heat following it.”

  Opa is swinging trying to clear the plants rushing him as the Stature rages. Alvain is flanking on the side of the village. He was too close.

  I rush forward, “What the hell is preventing you?”

  “There are three big ogres in one room.” Neil said.

  “So, kill them.”

  “Easy for you to say, the room is too tight, fighting in there is to their advantage not ours. We would have to one shot each one back to back.”

  I slid down the incline. The game allowed making bases out of any property that was free or owned by another player or party in the game. You could find that out with a simple Identify. It was Bain who found that fortress, it was in the Darth Wastelands. It was owned by a party that used to bul
ly Ragnarok. So we happily beat the caretakers out of it.

  The fortress was not that small but it was not something that many people would want. For one, Ogres roam the Darth Wastelands like Cockroaches in a garbage nest. The players had to be strong to walk there and at least smart and patient enough to navigate around the Ogres without them noticing.

  Teleporting there was the only safe option and that was not very cheap or very accessible. Teleport is something you make, no magic can literally use such far ranged Teleportation as a base spell. You would need high-level White and Black magic to do it. So it would need two Mages to work together in casting it or to make a scroll.

  Those scrolls were not cheap either.

  Alvain waves his hands, “Shining Reversal!”

  Opa glows, he rushes forward. I cast, “Black Rainbow!” Opa sparkles as he hits the stature with his hammer, it grabs Opa’s hammer on the swing. Opa let’s the hammer go and jumps, punches the Stature and kicks upward before twisting downward. The hammer flies out, Opa quickly grabs it and hits the stature right into the plants crushing a good number of them.

  “Oh boy…” It was sent flying into the wrong direction.

  The Stature that Opa hit lopsided, is thrown off, as the second Stature stands tall, it turned that dull face towards Alvain.

  Before I could shout, the Stature falls over from the hammer hitting it. I hear the thud, as my feet shake from the hammer hitting into the ground.

  Opa walked over kicking over a plant, the pollen sprinkles onto him. The two Statures stand tall, the ground shivers as Opa swings the hammer to their approaching steps.

  “Alvain,”

  He looks back at me and his face toughens before he turned.

  “Oh ya right.”

  We did have the fortress at one point then Monsters took control of it again. The Monsters are a bigger pain than the Caretakers who were originally there. Now as a party we had to clear out all Monsters and then run a takeover session which would take around an hour of real world time. As long as no Monster or player interferes, the property becomes ours. It is easier and quicker for people to do it for a single room than one large house or property like the fortress. Mostly because the bigger it is, the more likely a Monster will attack, so usually large parties take over castles or pieces of land.