The small supplies were easy enough to buy, as Van had expected; he managed to grab all of the items from the first two stores he visited. These would be helpful in the fight, but the clock was ticking. Sang was going to die soon unless he was able to pull her out of whatever was going on up in that observation station.
He rushed from shop to shop after that, pulling up each interface but finding nothing. There were no search functions in the marketplace, of course. The game was designed around the concept of creating interesting scenarios and interactions. No one could just find what they needed instantly, and this was especially the case for high-value items—instead, players had to be crafty about it. Van glanced around, searching for the next best thing to a market search function—a merchant player.
A merchant player was a rare breed. They were the kind who weren’t super-interested in fighting in big exciting battles or winning wars, but rather they liked to play the role of the humble tradesman. Most of the game was controlled by several different merchants’ guilds, all of them run by players. These merchants’ guilds controlled a great deal of the shipping and exports. A player who was connected to the marketplace in Verrata would no doubt be the kind of person Van could use.
As Van scanned the marketplace, he noticed a man wearing bright golden and silver clothes, pacing about. He jingled as he walked, the coins and jewelry that he was wearing rattling with each step. His name read Venerable Pete (Society of Coins); this meant that he was part of a trading guild. Van rushed up to him.
“Get your items here! Consumables, potions, wands, scrolls! You name it, I got it!” Pete shouted to the crowd.
“Sir!” Van said as he pushed past a throng of people standing the way. Pete had been busy trying to catch the attention of many a passerby, looking for customers, and so he looked down at Van with a grin.
“Hello there, bard! Are you looking for a magical item of sorts? Perhaps a charm or a trinket?”
“Yes, I am!” Van said. “I’m looking for a teleportation stone.”
Pete frowned. “I fear that I haven’t got any of those! They are rare, indeed!”
“Right, right, but I need to find one. How much would it cost for you to find one for me?” Van asked.
“Ah, I see. You are but a noble lad, searching far and wide for an item?” the man asked. Van gritted his teeth. Normally he liked role playing with other characters, as it made the game feel more realistic, but this fellow’s manner of speech was far too long-winded for his taste. For all he knew, Sang would be dead by the end of their conversation.
“Yes, yes, but I’m in a hurry. I’ve got gold, so can you find it or not?” Van asked.
Venerable Pete stroked his beard and chuckled. “Give me but a moment!” He raised his hands high to his ears and posed as if he were listening to something.
“Of course, young bard, for the mere coinage of 300 gold pieces, I shall tell you of the location of a stone of teleportation.”
Van looked at the GP in his inventory... he only had 200 gold. That sucked hard. He had to negotiate with this merchant now, so he paused to consider what his actions should entail. The man was clearly into playing a character, so perhaps if Van appealed to that side of him, he would be able to strike a better deal.
“300 gold pieces?” Van announced, dramatically flaring his hands upwards. “What a foolish notion, that I, a man on the hunt for an item most powerful, should be at the mercy of the merchant who dares to hoard knowledge! But alas, have I no choice? Pray tell, I do! I can choose another merchant, perhaps from a finer guild! The Guild of Financing, perhaps?”
“Foul fiend!” Pete replied. “There is no such valor and nobility attached to them! They are but a guild of ruffians and fools. Drunkards and swine!”
“Alas, but you are a noble man?” Van asked, kind of enjoying the old style of speech. “Then perhaps you will be willing to part with knowledge for a sum that is fair?”
“And what do thy pray to tell me is fair?”
“Two hundred gold pieces for the knowledge, lest I find myself in the company of drunkards and swine!” Van replied.
The merchant nodded. “Very well, in exchange for your coin, I shall tell you the truth.” He paused from his speech as he took the money bag from Van. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing to a booth on the opposite side of Van.
“Are you serious?” Van asked.
“Yeah, don’t try to scam a scammer,” Pete said as he turned back to the crowd, hawking his wares.
Van quickly ran over to the item shack. It was player-run, but the player who owned it had elected to use a basic NPC to sell the items.
“Buy items?” the Dwarf NPC asked as Van brought up the items menu. It looked like your basic adventurer’s shop, something loaded to the brim with useless crap that no one really needed, plus a few pricy items that no one could afford. In addition to the stone of teleportation, Van noticed that there were a few of the exploit items that he needed to use against his enemies. Fortunately, since the items were banned from the game, the pricing was just an error message. Most of the time a player would set up his shop but never log back in, so the items would just sit in the inventory.
Item: Sword of Rending, 300 gp
Item: Shield of Defense: 1,500 gp
Potion of Flight: 5,000 GP
Spool of Yarn: 1 GP
Item: Stone of Teleportation, 4,000 gp.
Item: Horse Canoe: 300 GP
Flash Stick: ERROR_UNKNOWN
Potion of Elemental Immunity: ERROR_UNKNOWN
He clicked on the exploit items and purchased them. Sure enough, they popped into his inventory. He could see the warnings on them, stating that they needed to be deleted from his inventory in exchange for a financial reward, but he ignored it. A flash stick would come in really handy. With these two items secured, he turned his attention to getting his hands on the teleportation stone.
Van glanced around quickly. There were no guards watching. Van brought up the Sticky Fingers skill. The words 95% Success Rate appeared before him. He grinned as he quickly clicked the button, immediately putting the Teleportation Stone into his inventory. Another word popped up in front of him, however: SPOTTED! Van gasped, realizing that his mini-map had already gone red as he heard the NPC yell, “Stop, Thief! Stop, Thief!”
He glanced around to see that there were dozens of guards in the area, and they were all beginning to turn red. He made a mad dash for a side street, narrowly avoiding an axe that the shopkeeper NPC had thrown.
Van continued running down the street. He’d had no idea that the Sticky Fingers skill had had a real chance of failure—five percent had seemed negligible! And now, large horde of guards was chasing after him, and he was going to be forced to activate the Teleportation Stone before they all beat him to death with clubs and knives.
“Come on, come on,” Van said as he glanced down to the stone. He read the item entry.
Stone of Teleportation
Uses: 1
Description: Activate the stone by rubbing it counter-clockwise and pinpoint the location on your map or within your line of sight.
He didn’t have the exact location of where he was going to teleport to, but at this point, he had to do something before all of those guards just started wailing on him.
“He’s over here!” a guard shouted, pointing to Van, who’d been trying to lay low behind some trash cans. “After him!”
“Ah, crap, alright, here I go!” Van said to himself, rubbing the stone counter-clockwise and looking up at the hidden area in the sky where he knew that Sang was being held prisoner. The stone began to glow brightly and he felt a surge of blue energy wrapping around him. The word TELEPORTING appeared over his head, and delayed for only a few moments before the bar filled up and he vanished.