Liam was amused as his friends continued discussing. Just as he was about to explain, Cyclone reigned in on his parade and posted the information about Liquid Quavium into the group chat. Immediately everyone froze in shock.
[Silver Blade: This is… risk free upgrades!]
[Cyclone: Only the gems will be lost! That fells like cheating!]
[Sun's Knight: Amazing. It's not wrong to call that a strategic resource. This can become a cornerstone of Dream Avenue!]
[Cyclone: Should we perhaps hide it? It might attract quite the attention…]
[Final Fend: No. We need to be bold with this one! As Liam said this is our trump card to attract players to the territory. We will provide an upgrade service. Everyone who wants their items to rank up will be forced to come to us.]
[Balm: Ok. But other than Mirage we only have a single intermediate blacksmith. And the amount of Liquid Quavium on stock is quite low as well.]
[Final Fend: That's why we need to quickly expand the territory. More NPCs= higher chance to get Quavium. And as for the blacksmiths, this issue will sort itself out. With something like that in our hands the blacksmiths will line up to join us! Perhaps we need to create sub-guild only for them.]
[Sun's Knight: The initial investment will be quite high… but at least I now see the vision for the future.]
[Bleary Mirage: Let's start earning money by renting plots of land. Right now, we can rent out two plots, increasing to four once the population reaches 20.000. This will bring in a huge amount of funds!]
[Sun's Knight: Do you think someone would be interested with the way the territory looks like?]
[Bleary Mirage: Sure. Start with our sponsors. Tell them that people will be curious about the first player-owned territory. I expect many players to arrive over the next few days. Our sponsors should hurry up to build shops as fast as possible. Just put those ads everywhere.]
[Radiant Shield: Pushing ads in a fantasy game…
[Sun's Knight: You know how it is, Shield. I will try my best.]
Liam rolled his eyes. Sun's Knight was too cautious in dealing with the territory even thought this concept wasn't completely new. It had already existed in the games which were popular before Fate of Crunaboul's existence.
[Bleary Mirage: Here is what you do. Contact Bellissio and ask them to set up a shop. Don't focus on high quality equipment, which is rare and needs the best blacksmiths. Instead, they should produce good looking fantasy clothes. They can even be level one. If they are fancy enough people will buy them. As Crunaboul becomes more and more like a second life to the players, they naturally care about appearance.]
[Balm: Can this work?]
[Cyclone: Doesn't sound too bad…]
[Silver Blade: I can definitely see this becoming successful!]
[Braag: Damn, let's do it ourselves! Why gift this idea to others?]
[Bleary Mirage: Bellissio already has the necessary designers. They know what they are doing. Let them set up shop and collect rent. State in the contract that rent increases with the territory's popularity. Don't worry, we will be earning more than enough in the future.]
[Sun's Knight: Alright, I'm convinced. I'm going to work.]
Discussions on how to deal with the territory would go on for a while. But the core members decided that they could figure the rest out slowly. There was no need to stand around in the territory. They left the smithy under the confused eyes of the other guild members.
Cyclone didn't want to explain everything multiple times. Instead, Sun's Knight would collect all the important information about the territory. Afterwards they would announce it in the guild chat once, before placing it into the guild hall for everyone to read.
Liam and his friends gathered in front of the teleporter, discussing their upcoming plans. With the guild war coming up tomorrow everyone asked Liam to upgrade their equipment. The latter promised to set aside some time for it but the boost it would provide in the guild war was not that impressive. Thus, Liam didn't place a high priority on upgrading equipment.
Instead, there was a certain quest they had to advance now that they were approaching level 50. As Liam explained this to his friends, they all appeared curious. Only Silver Blade nodded knowingly. Obviously, she already had some information about the event starting at level 50.
Cyclone looked between Liam and Silver Blade. Realizing that Bleary Mirage enjoyed being mysterious again, Cyclone rolled her eyes and whispered to Silver Blade:
"Silver, come. Tell me what's coming up."
Cyclone's behaviour was not at all inconspicuous and everyone looked towards Silver Blade, who didn't have any reason to hide her information.
"I don't know all the details. But it seems that a big event is coming up in which all the races will participate. It is seemingly connected to the void."
"All the races?!"
"Wow, sounds awesome!"
"Sounds dangerous."
"Mirage, is it true? What do we need to prepare?"
"Yes, Silver is right.", admitted Liam. "We need to start with an initial quest. Afterwards we will get many quests with nice rewards culminating into a big event later on. I won't spoil it for you. Let's start with the first step."
"Ok, ok. What should we do?"
Liam quickly browsed through his journal, searching for a certain quest. The party had received it after the second dungeon. Defeating the hidden boss, they found a compass which pointed out locations with void energy. After showing the compass to Her Holiness Lewriova they received a quest which had been collecting dust so far. Liam spotted it and posted the quest into the party chat.
[
[Step one: Show the compass of the void to a suitable person.]
[Step two: Test the compass. Follow it to three different locations. (0/3)]
"Oh, I almost forgot about that quest.", murmured Silent Acacia. Immediately Balm looked at him strangely:
"Aren't you curious where the compass would lead to?"
"Well, not really."
"Ridding the world of the void is our duty! It is everybody's duty! Should the compass of the void work it would be a valuable asset for all of Crunaboul!", declared Radiant Shield righteously.
"Ok. So, we got the quest. But where is the compass?", asked Silver Blade.
"Well, I don't have it."
"No idea."
Everyone browsed through their inventories shrugging their shoulders. Cyclone took the longest, speaking with a frown:
"We couldn't have sold that thing, right?"
"You can't sell quest items."
"Ok, so who got it?"
"Do we need to empty our inventories now?", suggested Balm.
Everyone looked at each other. Suddenly items began to appear on the floor. They ranged from useless scraps, to various fish, to small bombs.
Silver Blade took a step back as a fish fell on her boots, staring at Cyclone in annoyance:
"What are you doing?"
"Emptying my inventory! I think it is too cluttered."
"Oh really? You think so? Where does all that stuff even come from? And why do you have bombs left, didn't you use them during the war?"
"I used some, but those bombs are all weaker than my own skills. And as to where all my stuff comes from. Some I just pick up from the roadside. Some are gifts from kind NPCs. Some is from fishing…"
Bloody Edge was dumbfounded, staring at the pile of items. He murmured, his voice full of doubt:
"We may have still underestimated your luck. I am unable to earn that much from stealing but you are just picking up items from the roadside…"
"Ah! Here it is!"
Suddenly Cyclone exclaimed happily. A grey, stone-like compass appeared in her hand with a violet needle on top of it. She quickly took back all the other items.
"Good. Now we have the compass. But didn't you want to sort out your inventory? Why are you taking it all back now?", asked Silver Blade her best friend.
"Sorting out doesn't mean throwing away! You never know which items can suddenly become important! Wouldn't I be annoyed then if I had thrown it away now?"
"You just picked up an apple with bitemarks…"
"I might become hungry on the way!"
Silver Blade didn't know if she should laugh or cry, shaking her head. While Cyclone gathered all her items Quickstep changed the topic:
"Let's take a look at the compass. Does it point at anything? How does it work?"
Quickstep turned her head towards Cyclone. But then Liam stopped her:
"Wait, let's first change locations. There are multiple possible locations scattered in the world and the compass will randomly point to one within a certain range. But we can't start from here. The surrounding monsters are too strong. Let's go to Svebrial first."
The others naturally accepted Liam's suggestion. They waited for Cyclone to clean up before turning around and entering the teleporter. Light flashed and when they opened their eyes again they were in Svebrial.