“That was brilliant, Braden.”

“See?” he replied. “I do have ideas worth hearing.”

“I never said you didn’t.”

“Yeah, you didn’t. You just act like it sometimes.” Braden rolled his eyes and turned away. After a tense moment, he sighed and turned back. “Whatever. We’ve got loot! Two bosses worth! He picked up the staff and started hitting buttons to examine it.

Kyle approached the pile of robes and picked it up, causing a small pendant to fall out of some folds and bounce across the floor. Dvorak came and picked it up, examining it.

Kyle examined the robes in his hands. “Fine Silk Robes”. Quality 89/100. Durability 29/30. Protective value of 2. No way. It had to be better than that.

Dvorak seemed to think so too. He hit some buttons in his menu and stared again at the amulet. “There we go. Can’t keep secrets from the curious bunny.” He grinned. “Wightwright amulet. Wearer is entirely ignored by reanimates unless he attacks or comes within five feet of them. So, like a ninja. But only around zombies. We could probably use this to help other people make this run and get their own loot.”

“Hey Dvorak,” Braden said. “Can you do mine?”

“Sure!” Dvorak hopped over to Braden and hit more buttons.

Then paused.

“Wow,” he said. “It’s got yellow text. Never seen that. ‘Rare drop,’ it says. ‘Staff of the journeyman.’ Requires bonding, whatever that means,”

“It means you only get the benefit if you hold it or have it in your inventory for five days straight. It’s something enchanters can do to lower the enchantment cost of some items. I guess it comes on loot too sometimes.”

“And no wonder. Get this: ‘Upon bonding, user may choose one basic-level skill. This skill is upgraded to ‘advanced’ level as long as the staff is held.”

“Holy crap,” said Kyle. “That’s two levels! That’s as much as most of our town even has!”

“Yeah, but it’s only for basic level skills. If you’ve sunk two levels into a skill already, you can’t bring it up another two and make it expert-level,” Dvorak said.

“Still,” Kyle said. He looked at Braden, who was looking at the staff almost reverently. “We can use this. Like, give it to you so you could make advanced-level potions. Then pass it off to me so I can make advanced level spells. Then pass it to Skyfire so he could make advanced buildings.”

“Jacob’s gonna be so jealous. Who’d have thought taking a second level in architecture would put him behind Skyfire.” Dvorak shook his head. “But it won’t work. You’ve got to hold the staff for five whole days.”

“Not a big problem. We just line everything up so that when the fifth day hits, that person can spend all day using their skill before passing it off to the next person. You know, collect enough resources for you to brew advanced potions for a whole say straight. And Aubrey could line up enough pages for me to-”

“No,” said Braden.

“Why not?” said Kyle, not understanding the flaw in his thinking.

“Because it’s mine.”

Kyle was speechless.

“What? Why? Why would you-”

“It was my plan that killed the necromancer,” said Braden. “I dealt the killing blow. I dealt the most damage to it. No matter what metric you use, I’m the one that should get first dibs on the loot. Three items, one for each of us. And this one’s mine.”

Kyle had a hard time responding. “But Braden, this loot shouldn’t be anybody’s,” Kyle said. “That amulet isn’t mine. We’ll be letting whoever’s going to run this tower borrow it so they can-”

“Dvorak’s holding it,” Braden said. “Isn’t it funny that you’re already talking about it like it’s yours? Yours to loan people?”

Dvorak looked at the amulet. Then he tossed it to Kyle. “Now it’s in his hands. And it’s still mine. And it’s also his. And it’s also yours. I mean, what good would hoarding this be? It makes more sense for everybody to take turns using it.”

“Not this, it doesn’t,” Braden said, setting the end of the staff into the ground as though it were a walking stick. “Bonding takes five days. If I let anybody borrow this, then they’d have to have it for five days. And then I’d have to have it for another five days before it’d give me any benefit again. I’ll just take this as my share of the loot, and you can do whatever with the rest.”

Kyle was surprised at Braden’s avarice. And yet, he was also surprised by his own surprise. This is the way the majority of the world worked, right? Personal ownership of property was one of the fundamentals of the free world.

So what could Kyle do? He briefly considered offering to buy the staff from Braden, like a good capitalist would. But that wouldn’t work. Right now, in theory, Braden could take any equipment he wanted from any place in the town he wanted. The armor he wore was made by the town. The shields and weapons. The food he ate. Kyle had nothing that Braden wasn’t already entitled to… at least in theory.

“Look,” said Dvorak. “Kyle’s king. Don’t mess with him. He can make you persona non grata. Kick you out of town. Flag you as a criminal so you show up red if someone Examines you. Don’t do this,”

“Hold on, Dvorak,” Kyle said, putting up a hand. It was a sticky situation. If Kyle extorted from Braden something he wasn’t winning to give, he’d be a dictator. Crystopia would revolve from being a utopia to a dystopia in the span of less than an hour. The voluntary sense of community was the fabric of Crystopia.

But on the other hand, what Braden was doing would ruin Crystopia too. Personal property ownership would make everybody greedy. Right now, everybody could have anything they wanted. There was no need to assert ownership over anything. But if people started thinking that they could buy and sell stuff…

Hunters would hold onto their meat, and refuse to part with it unless compensated. People would refuse to share spells unless paid. People would start arguing over who owned the blackwheat outside. Who knows what the architects would do. Charge people service fees for their buildings?

It would be chaos. It would ruin everything. Maybe even worse than being a dictator would.

Kyle thought fast. If he gave Braden an ultimatum, and demanded he turn over the staff or be banished forever, would he be in the right? Would his people think he was in the right?

Would Kyle himself feel like he was in the right?

He took a deep breath. “Braden,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re doing here. The whole city of Crystopia is founded upon the ideas of cooperation and-”

“Don’t give me that bull—-” Braden said fiercely. “It’s about cooperation as long as you and your friends stay at the top. Your little party. Mason, Jacob, Dvorak, Aubrey hell, even Avina. I’ve seen how you look at her.” Kyle started to object but was cut off. “Everybody else is second class citizens. Even though I’ve been here for longer! Hell, if that Jakarna and his elf girlfriend came back to town, you’d probably give them half our stuff before they waltzed out again.” Braden shook his head. “No, King Kyle. I know what I’m doing. I’m breaking the class system you’ve set up. This is a step to a more free Crystopia, regardless of how you try and spin it.”

Kyle fumed.

“Fine,” he said. “You can keep the staff. But only if you don’t act like it’s yours. The moment you try to start a ‘revolution’, you’re getting thrown out. You’re the only person who seems to have a problem with the way we’ve got things set up, so you can keep damn well to yourself. I’ll tell people you’re taking care of it ‘for now’, and we’ll just never bring it up again.”

Braden’s eyes stayed narrowed, but he didn’t object.

“So, uh…” Dvorak said awkwardly. “Yeah, so how ‘bout them zombies, eh? I guess we’ve got another seven floors or so we could do. Probably some nice chests there, right?”

Braden broke eye contact with Kyle and nodded. “Probably some decent loot in them.”

“Do it yourself,” Kyle snapped. “I’m done here. Unless you agree to really be part of the team, you work alone from now on. Come on, Dvorak; let’s touch the crystal and get out of here.”

Kyle walked over to the crystal, jammed his hand against it, and went into the blue trance where he could shout in frustration without anybody hearing him.