“......And then the lions ate me.” Winston explained lamely as he shoved the mushy bun into his mouth along with the over-cooked hamburger it contained. The cafeteria was as noisy as ever but it was a cheerful noise. Winston wasn’t generally a fan of crowds but the cafeteria he liked. It wasn’t that the food was particularly good but all the students packed together and all complaining about their classes gave it a jovial air.

The four people at the table around him had varying degrees of pity on their faces. “You ran away from rabbits,”

“There were three of them.” Winston defended but Jason rolled over him as usual.

“Then wandered around the plains for four hours trying to kill various small woodland creatures. Before being eaten by lions.” He finished.

“I have no good attacks.”

“You could just learn some.” Trish said as she ate a fry. “Even without a bonus from your race or class you could still learn some basic self-defense. Even some crappy weapons and armor would give you a major advantage over wildlife.” She seemed amused by his antics and he was more than willing to put up with mocking from his friends for the sake of her good mood.

“I don’t have time, like really honestly have no time.” Winston explained. “I’ve got this chain quest I’m doing for a village or orcs. I’ve got berries I’m trying to grow for Ruger and I’m supposed to grow 25 bushels of corn every week for the guild. I’ve got like 4 hours a week in game of free-time and that’s If I spend all weekend cooped up in my room.”

“Easy there killer.” Ruger said, waving his hands placatingly. “Seems you might have a bit too much on your plate. Even top raiders only work a few days a week.”

“Well, top raiders don’t have to make dirt into money.” Winston replied grimly. “It won’t be so bad after this weekend. Once I’ve got this stupid shipment and the berries off my plate for a while I should be able to get a handle on it. It’s just been such a nightmare getting everything up and running decently. Once it’s moving I’ll be able to relax for a while at least.”

Lunch broke up a few minutes later and Winston headed off to Economics with Mr. Fisher. It was a pretty small class since it was an elective only available to Juniors and Seniors. Most of the serious students took extra AP classes like Biology or Calculus. The not-so-serious students took PE based classes like weightlifting or something like shop or home ec. Economics was somewhere in the middle for people who wanted an interesting class but weren’t trying to impress a college admission board.

“Today we’ll start on your projects for this semester. We’ll be doing one next semester as well but we’ll be separating you into groups today and giving you the basics. As a group you’ll want to decide both the specific topic of your report as well as what research material you’ll be needing.” The class began to talk and the room filled with chattering voices before the teacher waved everyone back to silence.

“Now, as teachers we always try to give student opportunities for learning on topics they’ll relate to. As such your project will be on Otherworld.” The class erupted again but Mr. Fisher talked over them. “Yes, I know not all of you play, only about 70% of the nation high-school students do. Playing isn’t necessary. Let me explain before you all throw a fit.” He cleared his throat and than began to speak in his normal calm and slightly nasally voice. Mr. Fisher was a good teacher but he didn’t have the voice for lectures. Luckily, he didn’t do it too often in class.

“Now video games have always made for interesting economic studies. Being allowed to see a virtual economy with thousands or millions of actual players attempting to exploit it has giving us economists a lot to think about and work with over the last decade. Some of the larger games even hired economists to help design and attempt to stabilize their in-game economies. Once otherworld came out though, it's become the juggernaut of the industry.

Nexus has given out all of their historical market data, resource harvest data, resource consumption data, skill data, and fighting locations to all of the educational institutes in the world. All we have to do is ask them for it and they’ll send us over five terabytes of raw data. It doesn’t have anything newer than last January but it’s still a lot of really interesting information. What I want you guys to do is to dig through it and make an interesting report.

If it’s how the spawn rates of goblins in Wessir, affected the price of copper ore in the Ten dutchies or how various resources drive guild vs. guild combat. I don’t really care, do the work and come up with something interesting. There’s eighteen of you so I’m going to split you into nine groups of two. I’ll pair you alphabetically and inversely by your first names just to make things interesting. So that’ll put Abby with Winston and Adam with Wes, and so on….” the teacher explained as he started to write the group names down on the board.

Winston watched as people started to get up and move around. Abby stood up from her seat and came back to grab a chair by Winston. She was cute in a mousy sort of way. She had short brown hair and wore thick glasses. She spent a lot of her time in school reading Japanese manga and was normally quiet but had a few good friends from the drama club she normally hung out with. Winston had to admit he’d had a bit of a crush on her back in middle-school. He’d seen her a few times at Josh’s Football and Baseball games and he’d thought she was cute without being as intimidating as the more popular girls. Still, he was a taken man now and they’d never exchanged more than the smallest of smalltalk.

“Do you play Otherworld?” Winston asked once she was seated and he’d turned to face her.

“Level 52 Aeromancer. One of the top DPS in my guild.” She said proudly. “What about you?” Winston grimaced

“I work for the swords. Currently I’m a level seven Grove Tender. It’s a production class that does farming.”

“A production class? You must be pretty hard-core. I took tailoring as a secondary skill but only made it to the intermediate ranks. It’s just way too big of a time sink if you wanna get good at it.” She said ruefully. “How do you like it?”

“Honestly, it’s kinda fun. I always played healers in other games. Being a farmer is like being a super support I’m just really, really far back.” Abby laughed politely and the conversation fell into an awkward silence. Winston cleared his throat a bit lamely.

“Well, got any ideas? I was thinking something like seeing the amount of money players convert into dollars vs the amount of dollars that get converted into gold would be interesting.” Winston said, as he tried to get the ball rolling. Abby thought for a while before she gave her own idea.

“I guess i’m just partial to the tailoring aspect of things. When I was doing it cloth was so expensive. It would be interesting to see how many people have the tailoring profession vs how many people have professions that actually make the base materials for it. In older MMO’s tailoring was one of the most common professions like blacksmithing. We could do a presentation on how the expectations of players have impacted the economy because of the games increased realism.”

Wiston frowned as he thought about it. It wasn’t a bad idea by any means, he just liked his idea better. Honestly, the project sounded cool regardless. The research would be really boring though.

“Flip for it?” Winston asked as he dug into his pocket for a quarter.

“Rock, paper, scissors.” She countered.

“One, Two, Three, Shoot.” They said in unison.

He picked paper. She picked scissors.

*******************************************************

A strong wind blew across the keeps courtyard. The weather was starting to turn and cold wind pushed at him as he inspected his cloudberry bush. The bush had started to flower now and small green berries were beginning to grow. He wondered if he had to prune it in some way. He knew people pruned berry bushes but he thought it needed to be done before it started to flower. He shrugged, he’d have to do more google searching later. He was honestly a little amazing by how much he didn’t know about farming. Until he’d tried it for himself it had always seemed a fairly simple profession.

Winston bent down and looked over the plant’s stems before poking his finger into the soil at the bushes base. It was dry and was lacking in nutrition but the cloudberry bush didn’t seem to care much. It was native to this area and was used to the bad soil and dry climate. The plant also seemed happy about something else too but Winston wasn’t sure what until he thought about it for a while. It was the wind. Cloudberries absorbed air magic and the wind today was howling out of the east.

That made since. Hopefully it would let the crop develop well he needed to make a good impression on Ruger if he was going to start getting actually paid. He left the berry bush and headed towards his fertilizer pits.

The game had taken it upon itself to let everything he tossed into the pits rot extremely fast. Winston was glad because it meant he wouldn’t have to wait weeks to use any of it. He bent down and inspected his first pit.

[Organic Fertilizer]

[Common, Low-Quality]

[Fertilizer made from animal dung and grain chaff. Although it’s been processed into fertilizer the grain chaff lacks the nutrients to create a more powerful blend.]

[Created by: Win mills]

The first batch hadn’t turned out well but Winston had basically used the lowest quality stuff for it. He stood up and moved over to the second pit to inspect it.

[Organic Fertilizer]

[Common, High-Quality]

[Fertilizer made from animal dung and vegetable matter. Better ingredients have improved the quality of this fertilizer a great deal.]

[Created by: Win Mills]

This was closer to what he was expecting and needed if he was going to keep advancing his farming rank.

He was just getting ready to start on his normal evening routine when he heard shouts and comotion from the front of the keep. A group of riders came into the courtyard. Each sat atop a black horse with golden cloaks embroidered with black swords flapping behind them. There were six of them and they must have been low ranking members of the main guild. They had solid gear but it wasn't top of the line stuff. The best gear wouldn’t match like that. These were underlings but part of the main guild. Which probably meant they were going to be assholes.

It didn’t take long to confirm Winston’s thoughts. The riders dismounted and headed into the stables when there was a squawk and Bog came out, glaring and hissing at something inside. One of the riders came out a few seconds later and sent at kick at his bird. Bog let out a hiss like an angry goose but one that matched her size. She sounded like a pissed off alligator. Winston was intimidated and he was still thirty yards away.

The rider took a half-step back before he realized what he’d done and his face mottled with rage. He drew the long-sword at his waist and Winston ran forward with his hands raised to try and stop him.

“What the hell!? That’s my pet!” Winston yelled as he ran into the middle of the soon-to-be fight. The man was advancing but his flash of rage seemed to have subsided. He still looked pissed and annoyed but no longer murderous.

“Stables are to be held in preparation for any visiting Swords members. You little pukes aren't allowed to use them.” He snarled. Winston really wanted to just punch the idiot but knew that would only cause more trouble.

“Alright, she can stay somewhere else.” Winston conceded. He was pissed but telling this ass-hat to go screw himself and to stay away from his bird would only escalate the situation. The guy was on a power-trip and it was best to bow and scrape until he went away.

The guy scowled, apparently upset that Winston didn’t fire back and let him show off his minor authority. Winston put a hand on Bogs neck and spoke in a calm voice. “Common Bog, I’ll get you some wheat. Those berries should be ready in another day or two as well. You can have a couple then.” Winston coaxed.

[Blip!]

[Your Taming Skill Has Reached Novice II]

The bird gave the man one last glare before the two moved back towards WInston’s side of the court-yard. The hustle and bustle near the stables continued as everyone stabled the mounts and the wagon horses.Winston patted the big bird again before it gave a huff and stomped off like a sulking three-year old.Winston rolled his eyes at the beast and started harvesting his wheat for the night. He was interested in what was going on with everyone here but he didn’t have time to waste.

It was Therion that finally came to see him. Winston had just finished replanting and was getting ready to log for the night. He had a quiz in history tomorrow and still needed to memorize a bunch of stuff about the War of 1812.

“I heard you butted heads with Herston.” The older man said, serious for once. Winston frowned but couldn’t do much more than shrug.

“He kicked my bird. I didn’t see it but I know that’s what happened then he tried to kick her again before he pulled out his sword . I mean really. Who does that? It’s like kicking a dog. That’s just messed up.”

“Yeah, well Herston isn’t exactly prince charming. He’s a tool, hell all the troops under him are tools. You’ll just have to deal with him. They were sent from the guild to help move all the goods for our monthly portal. The crimson’s have been sniffing around so we got sent a few guards. Mostly useless guards but even having them standing around should help to keep the riff raff away.

“That’s only if the Crimsun’s don’t really care that much.” Winston said. Therion raised an eyebrow, so Winston continued. “Its basic game theory. We’ve summoned reinforcements to guard a caravan. That gives the Crimsons two options. Either they don’t attack or they attack anyway. If they don’t attack, then everything's fine, but if they do attack. Then, assuming they saw the renforments come in……”

“Then all the guild has accomplished is to escalate a raid into a real battle.” Therion said with a grimace. “You think that’s what’s going to happen?” Winston raised his own eyebrow this time.

“I’m just a noob and a farmer. I’ve got no idea what they are likely to do. I’m just telling you their logical options.” Winston said. “I’d learn towards the full on attack though. Mostly because that would be the worst possible thing that could happen for me.”

Therion laughed. “Alright, I just came out here to give you a heads up. Those guys from the Swords are dicks but they shouldn’t bother you too much. They’ll probably spend most of the week logged out until friday night when the move is going down. We’ll store the goods in the city in the safe zone before popping a portal on saturday afternoon.”

Winston nodded. It was a decent plan as plans went. He just didn’t think it would go smoothly. Nothing ever went smoothly. It was a fact of life. The problem was that he had a stake in this show. He had to get his berries to the city and the caravan would be the best option. The Crimsun’s had already seen Trollogistic’s cart so it would be best to piggyback onto the guilds caravan, especially if it was going to have guards.

Winston needed gold to keep his little farming empire improving. It wouldn’t be a great week with what he owed the orcs on top of his quota but he was banking on whatever he’d get from their quest reward. For ten bushels of grain the reward better be pretty damn nice.