Winston looked over the barrels of fruit packed into his hut with a frown. The yields had been somewhat lower since he’d let his golem do all the work. He only had about 24 barrels of oranges, but at least 20 of those were now high-quality. That was a problem. He’d done more research and there just wasn’t much established market for the higher-quality fruits and vegetables. It wasn’t that they weren’t valuable. It was just that there wasn’t enough supply for people to be seeking them out, at least in bulk.

Selling a few barrels of them would be easy, but twenty? Even the really big auction hubs wouldn’t have buy orders for all those. He could put up his own sell orders of course, but how many people would be looking for oranges? A few to be sure, but it might take weeks to sell them all. That wasn’t a huge problem. In the auction house they’d stay fresh, but what about the week after that, or the week after that? He’d have to spread them out all over the game world. That would be a nightmare to manage and the portal costs would kill him. If he wasn’t careful he’d end up giving the things away, or just leaving them to rot.

No, he needed people like that innkeeper in the store. An innkeeper with a busy place could go through a barrel of oranges worth of juice in a single morning. He didn’t want to think about what a glass of OJ made with high-quality oranges would cost, but there would be demand. Same thing with the coffee. If he could find a dozen inns that saw a good number of players and make some deals he’d be able to keep things moving.

Winston stood on a ladder and picked coffee cherries. It was work, but didn’t take much concentration. He opened up the forums and started looking around for an inn as his hands kept moving. He started with inn’s in Kishik. Wraith Harbor or Daggersport would be the best. That way he could just send Troll and not worry about portals.

Winston started running some filters in the economy and trade section. Looking for players who owned inns on Kishik. He found quite a few, but only three were close enough to mess with. One in Gavin’s Grotto, an inland city in the jungles a few zones over, one in Daggersport, and one on the beach near the Hound’s compound. The last was more of a beach and surfer bar rather than real inn. Still, they couldn’t make a mimosa without orange juice. Maybe he should plant some limes, you had to have limes for mojitos.

Winston looked up the names of the three owners. Then composed a message with the mental keyboard as he kept working.

Fellow Businessmen of Otherworld,

I am Win Mills, owner of Yawnshu Farms. I have recently started an orange and coffee plantation in Western Kishik. Things are going quite well and harvests have started successfully. I’m currently looking for local establishments that may desire my wares, rather than trying to portal them all back to the kingdoms or other continents. Currently I offer coffee beans, cacao beans(both roasted and unroasted), oranges, apples, and pears.

If you are interested and would like any. Please respond to this message, or add me as a friend. I have a variety of qualities available, including standard, high, and superior. I sell fruit by the bushel or barrel (3 ½ bu) and coffee and chocolate by the pound. Discounts for bulk orders.

With regards,

Win Mills

Winston was about to hit send when he realized what he’d just done. He’d created spam. He laughed aloud as he hit send and 30 gold was sucked out of his account. Sending a mail message was expansive if the user wasn’t on your friends list. It was to keep spam down, and a dollar a message was more than most spammers were willing to pay.

Winston finished the tree he was on and moved to the next. These were a rich dark red and they smelled great. They has to be superior-quality. The game must have agreed because when he finished picking all the fruit his interface started to flash.

[You Have Leveled Up]

[You Have reached Level 16]

[Name: Win Mills Level 16]

[Race: Yawnshu Class: Grove tender]

[ Attributes Status]

[Str: 52(+3) 55 End: 66(+12)78 Hp: 218/218 Mana: 200/200]

[Con: 48(+3) 51 Agi: 27 Stam: 311/311 Panic: 1/12]

[Cord: 47(+3)50 Int: 37 Hunger: 68/110 Thirst: 24/110]

[Wis 51(+2) 53 Faith: 56(+11)67 FP:298/298(384/384)]

[Res: 38(+4) 42 ]

[Guild: - Titles: 3]

[Fame: 15 Friend List: 1/5]

[Fruit Sub-Skill has Increased]

[Current Rank: Apprentice I]

[Bonus Fruit Crop Yield: 29%]

[Bonus Fruit Quality: 29%]

[You Have Learned A New Ability]

[You Have Learned Fruit Basket]

[Activation: Spell]

[Cost: 150 Stamina]

[Duration: 2 Hours]

[Rank: N/A]

[Effect: Creates a basket capable of holding an infinite amount of grown crops. Basket has 99.8% weight reduction.]

Restrictions: User may summon a number of baskets per day equal to number of summoned Farmhands +1]

Winston laughed aloud. “Now that… Is a real upgrade.” He said happily. Carting around barrels and having to stop picking for logistics had been a pain. With an infinite storage basket he’d have a much simpler time. He wished he’d have had to during his stint with the swords. It would have cut down the time it took to harvest his fields by nearly half.

Winston rached out a hand and cast his spell. The effect was interesting. Light started to gather in his palm before a basket started to form. It was like someone was using a 3d printer. It started at the top and formed layer by layer until the basket was fully shaped. Then it seemed to ripple as it changed from blue light into a light brown wicker.

A wave of exhaustion hit him as the spell finished, but he had over 300 stamina now. Spending half wasn’t too much of a strain. He started to pile cherries in the basket and smiled as they vanished. The basket weighed almost nothing and each tree worth of fruit added only a little weight as he finished all the days picking.

He took the basket over to the pits and dumped the cherries out, leaving the seeds to be put into barrels to wait for roasting. He was getting a good deal of compost piled up. He'd have to do something about that. Once Troll brought the new ingredients for Kishia he'd use the compost for a new garden and plant some of the herbs. It would be good to get a little side business going. Especially if he hadn't heard from any of the innkeepers.

He’d have to send Troll through a portal. He had the money to hire a mage himself, but the mage would have to port out to Kishisk and although a personal teleport was cheaper than a full portal Winston was sure he’d have to pick up the bill. That left the question of how many goods would he have to stock-pile to make paying full price for a portal worth while. Winston was setting his goal at 30,000 gold.

It would be difficult with oranges, apples, and pears, since they didn’t keep well, but he should be able to use coffee and chocolate for that, or he could start trying to make some booze again. Spoilage problems was pretty much the reason people started making booze in the first place, it kept better. If he could make some hard cider, or brandy that would do for the apples and pears, but he’d never heard of people fermenting oranges. He’d heard of orange wine but he was pretty sure that wasn’t made from oranges.

Still, standard quality coffee was going for nearly 10 gold a pound most places. He had at least 100 pounds of it, around 240 pounds of high-quality, and around 20 pounds of superior from that one tree. Superior coffee could sell for as much as 100 gold a pound. That put his total somewhere around…. 8k by his count. That was a good start.

Winston made up his mind. He’d wait a day to see if any of the innkeepers contacted him, and if not he’d turn all his apples and pears he picked tomorrow into hard cider. Without a still, that was about the best he could do and he had a feeling if he tried to make his own still it would end up as a giant crater and he’d be sent for respawn.

He still had to start moving bricks to the first lizard-man village but he’d wait a few hours. He was tired and he was on vacation. He walked over and started to dump some of his mana into the ward-stones when the world seemed to explode.

There was a blinding flash of red light before thunder seemed to crack right on top of Winston’s head. The ground shook and Winston nearly fell as he staggered around half blind and completely deaf.

There was another flash of light but this time Winston had an idea of what was going on. He looked around the farm and saw a slightly smoking body laying on the ground at the edge of the farm. His interface beeped.

[You Have Killed A Player]

[Level Difference 26]

[PK Penalty: 1h]

Winston snorted as he watched the body dissolve. It left behind a few gold and a crossbow. Winston shook his head. His ward was like the world’s biggest bug-zapper. He just hoped no-one else would come soon. He didn’t regen enough mana to keep it going.

Winston reached over and touched the large stone with the ward carved in it. He winced as he saw how much mana had been drained. It had less than 3300 mana left. Winston poured in his own mana but stopped when his head started to swim. His meager mana was a drop in the ocean.

It looked like he had a bigger problem now. He’d been planning on heading out to start moving building supplies to build his shrine. It seemed that wasn’t going to work now. Not if he had assassins circling. He looked up at the sun as it moved across the midpoint of the sky. Winston shook his head and headed back towards the hut. If he couldn’t leave, he’d just start roasting the new beans. There was always more work.

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

“You sure it’s him.” Asked Alex as he looked at the projection hovering above the table in the Hound’s conference room. It was a picture of a mole-man in a straw rice-farmer hat standing next to a mage in a superhero leotard. The were standing in a middle-eastern style city surrounded by players and NPC’s.

“It’s him.” The woman next to him growled. She was covered in tattoos and her muscles bulged around her heavy armor. “I can’t believe it. That little sissy just screwed us out of months of planning.”

“Maybe, Maybe not. We always knew our blockade would be temporary.” Alex said. “I don’t really blame him either the Swords likely just paid for his first car. Still, we have to do SOMETHING to him. It sets a bad precedent otherwise. We just have to work around Trish and not go over the top. Shame, the scouts we’ve had check out his farm say he’s shipping out a lot of goods. He’s likely making a fortune. It’ll be hard to collect taxes from him if we start killing him.”

“It doesn’t have to be us killing them. There are plenty of people who are pissed off at him. We just tell them where he’s at. I’m surprised no-one has took a swing at him already.” Vera said.

Alex laughed aloud. “That’s actually perfect. We tell a few of the other guilds where he is. Let them kill him a few times, then we offer him protection for a fee. It’s the classic protection racket.”

“Won’t he see through it?” Vera asked.

“Of course he will. That doesn’t mean it wont work. That’s why it’s a classic scheme. It doesn’t matter if they know your doing it. He’s a farmer. It’s not like he can't stop us.” Alex said. “Hell, he’ll probably happy to pay. We just have to let him lose a few levels first.”

“Trish won’t be happy.” Vera said.

“Trish is never happy but we can’t do nothing and we can’t go over the top. This is a measured response. It should be fine.” Alex replied.

“Alright, I’ll call up the Crimsuns, The Dark Lions, and the Agentes.” Vera agreed.

“Not the Crumsun’s. They’ll turn this into a massive shit-storm. Just call the smaller guys.” Alex rebutted her.

“I’ll get on it.”

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

Winston sniffed the first batch of cocoa. It hadn’t come out great, but it wasn’t bad. It had all at least made standard quality. He’d started at too high of a temperature. The next time he’d wait for things to cool further before popping the pan in the oven. Winston poured the roasted beans into a small canvas bag. Then took the last bean for himself and popped it in his mouth. He shuddered as the bitter favor seemed to cling to his tongue.That was going to need a LOT of sugar to turn into anything edible.

He stood up to start picking apples when he heard someone yelling from the perimeter of the farm. He looked over and smiled. Trish was sitting on her massive boar and waiting at the edge of his ward. Winston laughed and ran over to her as she hopped down and Winston gave her a hug as he picked her up.

“You came to visit. I was wondering when you’d get a chance to come over and check things out.” Winston told her as he sat her down. “Lemme put you on my whitelist.” He hurried over to one of the stones and added her to the list of people who could get through the wards.

“So what’s the special occasion?” Winston asked as Trish lead her boar into the farmyard.

“It’s christmas obviously.” Trish said with a laugh.

“Well yeah, but I’m meeting you tomorrow night for Christmas eve. I didn’t think you’d come to visit in game as well.” Winston said.

“I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. You’ve built yourself a little kingdom here and I wanted to see how it was going .” She said as she looked at his little hutt and the brick oven.

“Want some chocolate?” Winston asked. Just finished with the first batch. It’s not great but I scraped a standard-quality. Next couple should be better.” Winston told her as he walked over and held up the sack to her.

“Every girl wants chocolate. I’ll give this to Casey first though. I doubt this is really edible.” Trish answered with a grin.

“It’s edible. It just tastes terrible.” Winston laughed, he held out his arm and set off to show Trish his little kingdom.