Chương 27: Emergency Prices

The quest reward finally arrived while Meno was still staring at the four archmages. Viewers: 272, 441. That number sat in the corner of his vision like a drug he could not afford to trust. Clips were already multiplying. Guild channels were probably screaming. Forum maps were probably updating with arrows, skull icons, and his name spelled wrong. Meno ignored all of that because the reward text opened. At last. A weapon. Gold. A token. A title. A class upgrade. Something that made all worth it.

[Quest Complete: Burden of the Cursed Priest] You returned the Ashen Crown Hoard. You opened the Lost Temple. You awakened Vervenzal's Dream. Reward: +500 Karma [Current Karma: +300] [Status Removed: Disreputable] Black Market Access Lost [Status Acquired: Reputable] Lawful NPC services restored. Meno read it once, then again, and his hands spread empty at his sides.

"Karma?" Chat surged like it had been waiting for the vein to open. REPUTABLEBEADGOD ACCESS LOST LMAO quest reward: manners nothing lol lawful citizen arc +500 karma no weapon Meno turned toward Kaerthalan, who had already lowered its head on the platform stone and closed one eye.

"No. Hey. Dragon." Kaerthalan did not answer.

"Where is the weapon reward? Where is the turn-in token? Where is the hoard finder fee? I carried your cursed trash religion through a volcano, blew up an underground pyramid, unlocked a god raid, and I get social credit?" The dragon's nostrils flared once and nothing else happened, so Meno walked closer, because his survival instinct had taken the morning off. Kaerthalan opened one eye by a fraction. Meno stopped at once.

"Great quest," he said.

"Very fulfilling. Loved the personal growth." zero growth personal despair wife wanted black market access btw RIP sewer arc He had not even sold black market access. He had been planning to understand it first, maybe exploit it later, maybe dangle it in front of Aurelia for emotional damage. Now the system had cleaned him up like a school counselor with a flamethrower. Another notice cut through the platform. [World Notice] Four Kingdoms Portal Network unlocked.

Portal access is now available between the Lost Temple Platform and the Mage Towers of all Four Capitals. The four portals flared brighter behind the archmages, and Meno turned toward them. The archmages had not finished arguing. They had only upgraded from sharp words to controlled fury. Seravaine, the Northern Archmage in red, stood with both hands clenched inside her sleeves.

"The northern crown has three companies above level thirty, none above thirty-seven, and no temple-sanctioned raid command. You expect me to tell His Majesty that a divine exile has stepped through a forgotten platform because of a stray adventurer?" Orren's yellow robes stirred in the wind from his portal. His face had gone pale under the beard.

"The west has ships, not gods. We prepared for pirate lords, reef beasts, and trade wars. Vervenzal was sealed beyond the dream." Maelira's silver gaze cut between them.

"Seals fail when ignored for centuries. Blame helps no one."

"That is precisely what eastern mages say after failing to maintain their share of the old wards," Caldrin said. His blue robe snapped in the sky wind as he pointed toward the temple spire.

"The south keeps records. The east keeps riddles. The west keeps merchants. The north keeps pride. Now all four kingdoms keep Sleepwalkers."

"Choose your next words carefully," Seravaine said. Meno watched them like a man seeing a raid group collapse before the first pull.

"They're overreacting," he muttered. The archmages turned at the same time. Orren looked Meno up and down, from starter clothes to damaged confidence.

"Harbinger."

"Whoa," Meno said.

"Strong word." Maelira tilted her head.

"Victim of his own competence, perhaps." Chat adored that one immediately. VICTIM OF HIS OWN COMPETENCE HARBEADGOD npc roasted him gently that's a title"I just did the quest," Meno said. Seravaine's eyes sharpened.

"What quest?"

"The dragon quest. Cursed priest burden. Hoard. Temple. Very poor reward structure." Caldrin's jaw tightened.

"None of us issued such a task."

"Well, someone did."

"Who?" Seravaine demanded. Meno pointed both thumbs behind him at Kaerthalan.

"The dragon." The archmages looked at the sleeping Ashen Crown Dragon. For a second, all four of them were silent. Orren spoke first, softly.

"That should have been impossible." Meno hated that sentence. He had heard it too many times from people who were wrong only until they were late. Maelira stepped toward him.

"Adventurer, the Sleepwalkers must be contained before they gather worshippers. The Four Kingdoms require—""No," Meno said. She stopped, and when a quest prompt began forming at the edge of his vision, Meno swiped it away before it finished.

"Nope. I'm not doing four kingdoms worth of emergency errands for another karma coupon. The guilds wanted this to be their problem? Great. They can deal with it." Caldrin frowned.

"You do not yet understand what you have opened."

"I understand enough." The red portal flashed. A player stepped through. Then three more, each from a different portal, each wearing guild tabards that screamed organized money. Level tags flickered in the low-to-mid twenties. Too low for the raid. High enough to look at him like they wanted to test whether the platform allowed murder. Crownfall drew first, a sword sliding free, while Highbanner raised a spear and Silverwake's scout started a spell.

Stormhold's player only rolled their shoulders, like they had been waiting for permission all day. The archmages moved first. Four bands of colored light snapped across the platform, halting all four players before a single attack landed. Seravaine's red binding wrapped the Crownfall sword arm. Orren's yellow sigil pinned the spear to the floor. Maelira's silver ward swallowed the spell before it formed. Caldrin's blue pressure drove the Stormhold player back two steps.

"This is not the place for disagreement," Maelira said. Meno exhaled.

"No-PvP platform," he said.

"Good design." The Crownfall player glared at him.

"You just painted yourself on every board in Veyrath, PrayerBeadGod." Meno looked past him at the portals.

"Sorry, can't hear you over lawful NPC services restored." Chat laughed hard enough to become unreadable. The four guild scouts did not waste time arguing. They broke away from the archmage bindings as soon as they were released, sprinted for the raid gate, and vanished through the swirling entrance. Scouting parties. Of course. Even angry, guilds moved fast. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Then the portals began spitting out curious players. Low-level players.

Casual players. Stream chasers. People in starter gear with no idea how to behave around archmages, dragons, or world raid doors. Someone yelled his name. Someone else asked whether the dragon gave mounts. A third player tried to inspect Kaerthalan and immediately fell backward from whatever the UI showed them. Meno had enough. He picked the yellow portal because Orren's color matched Westmarket. He ran through before the crowd could become a wall of questions.

The world snapped around him, and Meno emerged on a ring platform circling the outside of an impossibly tall tower. Westmarket spread below him, a capital city of terraced markets, yellow stone, sail-like roofs, bridges, and wide roads clogged with launch-day players. The tower rose at the city center, and the ring platform circled it like a crown. Wind hit his face, cleaner than volcano air and less divine than raid-platform air. Players nearby noticed him immediately.

"PrayerBeadGod!"

"Is that him?"

"Dude, unlocker guy!"

"Ask him about wife necklace!" Meno moved. At least city rules prevented body-blocking. Players crowded, pointed, followed, and shouted, but they slid around him instead of trapping him. He ran down the circular tower stairs, taking them two and three at a time with False Wings itching in his legs and no intention of testing it in a city. Yet. He needed a weapon, then XP. That was the whole plan. He had wasted too much time for karma, portals, archmage guilt, and a raid he could not enter.

BrineSaint was probably grinding like a machine somewhere while his wife calculated soup breaks. Meno pulled a stream overlay into the corner of his in-game vision as he ran, curious enough to hurt himself. The Meta Desk was live. Sera Voss and Mina Calde sat in their studio with clips of his platform unlock playing behind them. Both looked composed in the way professional people looked right before saying something that made him want to punch drywall. Sera spoke first.

"Whatever you think of Meno Varsh as a player, this was irresponsible. The Lost Temple is not a launch-week raid by any sane progression model." Mina's voice was warmer, which somehow made it worse.

"Most players are barely level ten. Many are still learning basic class mechanics and economy flow. If Vervenzal's Dream introduces roaming Sleepwalkers that affect worshippers, NPC settlements, or local monsters, the average player experience could be warped before Veyrath even stabilizes." Sera's hand moved, and the clip changed to the world notice.

"This was likely never supposed to open for at least a month. Maybe longer. Players needed time to reach level fifty, craft resistance gear, and map the Four Kingdoms." Mina nodded.

"We should be careful with the word griefing, but—""Use it," Sera said.

"He griefed the world state. Whether the system allowed it is separate from whether it was responsible." Meno nearly missed a stair.

"Griefed?" Chat on his stream instantly turned on the broadcast. META DESK MAD attractive women judging you again responsible gameplay arc failed he did press Y The broadcast pulled up a map. Veyrath's starter continent filled the studio wall: four kingdoms at the cardinal directions, capitals marked near each center, zones sprawling outward in rings and roads. Westmarket sat in the west. The northern capital glowed red, eastern silver, southern blue.

The continent was surrounded by unknown water and empty space beyond the main coastline. Meno slowed despite himself. He had seen pieces. Forest, farms, river, orc valley, Emberhollow, marsh, volcano, lake. The map showed how little that was. Whole zones he had not touched. Roads he did not know. Dungeons other people were farming right now. Mina pointed to the surrounding water.

"If the world notice is literal, defeating Vervenzal opens routes beyond the Four Kingdoms. That suggests the starter continent may be only the first layer. There may be other continents beyond the surrounding ocean." Sera smiled tightly.

"And now every top guild has their planned progression path ruined, and a player named PrayerBeadGod to blame." Meno closed the overlay and checked BrineSaint's stream next. Offline. That was almost shocking enough to stop him.

"BrineSaint offline?" Chat had no single theory, which meant it had too many. sleep spreadsheet emergency meeting plotting your death sponsor damage control offline but still winning 100% sponsor meltdown Meno checked the leaderboard quickly. The standing was largely unchanged. A few names had gained a level or two, but BrineSaint still sat on top. Meno was still Rank 50. He closed everything. His own view count had already started sliding. Viewers: 173, 884. Still huge. Absurd.

Life-changing, if he could turn it into a contract. But the raid unlock clip had happened. People were switching back to guild streams to watch reactions, meetings, panic, the kind of polished chaos Meno could not afford to produce. He reached the merchant district and headed straight for the auction house. Westmarket's auction hall was large, with counters arranged in rings. Players crowded terminals. NPC clerks moved between desks with the dead-eyed speed of people trying to survive launch capitalism.

Meno slid into a terminal before a pair of players could start asking him whether Aurelia was single. He listed the dragon materials: 100g bid each, no buyout, two-hour duration. Not the Tail Spike. Never the Tail Spike. He kept the Embervein Slivers. Chat argued instantly. only 100g??? too cheap no buyout smart they have to bid nobody has EPIC III anything should have traded for weapon Meno stared at the listings. Could the guilds really afford not to bid just because they had threatened to blacklist him? Maybe.

Pride did expensive things. But Epic III dragon material at launch was not pride. It was leverage. Crafting, research, raid prep, fire resistance, whatever else. Someone would break. Maybe not publicly. Maybe through an alt. Maybe through a market baron pretending not to know them. He had to believe that, because his current gold situation was embarrassing. Meno checked his pouch. 5 gold, 70 silver.

After Titan achievements, mythic design credits, world raids, a dragon ride, a server maintenance crisis, and Rank 50, Meno still had less in-game money than Honeygrave probably spent on consumables before breakfast. He needed a weapon, at least Rare I if he wanted to stop playing class mechanics with a broken spoon. Uncommon would be an upgrade, but his brain had moved past small upgrades. He needed something that made Panic Pump and Compound Swing matter.

He left the auction terminal and tried the NPC weapon vendor first. The racks were empty. Not low stock. Empty. Meno looked at the NPC behind the counter, a narrow woman in a leather apron with tired eyes and an official seal pinned to her chest.

"Where are the swords?"

"Requisitioned."

"By who?"

"The king's army. By order of the crown, all weapon stock is directed to military supply until the emergency passes." Meno stared.

"The emergency I just caused?" The vendor looked him over more carefully.

"Are you confessing to something?"

"No." He went to the consumables vendor first. No bandages. The alchemists were out of cheap healing salves, and general goods had been stripped of ropes, travel packs, bulk sacks, cheap knives, and somehow cooking salt. Three more vendors later, the panic set in properly. The crown had drained the market. The world event was not just a notice. It was economy pressure. NPCs were reacting. Supplies were being redirected to armies before players could even finish arguing about whether he had griefed them.

His junk supply looked bad enough to deserve an actual count. Thirty-seven pieces of junk padding. Thirty-seven drops between him and the system reaching for items that mattered. That was not enough. He sprinted back to the auction house. Junk could not be listed. The auction filters rejected true trash, vendor refuse, and most valueless clutter. Only materials, consumables, finished products, gear, recipes, and classified trade goods. He sorted by lowest price. The cheapest item was an apple.

[Apple | Cooking Material] Price: 10 silver Meno stared at it.

"What the hell." Ten silver per apple. Ten deaths cost a gold. Fifty deaths cost five. Death padding had become a luxury good because the king stole all the bandages and every launch player was either hoarding, crafting, or panicking. Chat found a new religion. APPLEBEADGOD do not buy apples 10s apple economy death tax fruit edition weapon first idiot Meno had 5 gold, 70 silver. Prices would explode if the emergency kept draining NPC stock. He was early. Maybe stupid early.

If he waited until players realized death padding mattered, even apples would become gold-plated. He bought fifty apples for 5 gold, watched his balance drop to 70 silver, and let chat scream at him for not buying a weapon.

"Show me the weapon for five gold that solves my life," Meno snapped. He checked inventory again, because misery liked confirmation. Low-value junk: x37 Apple x50 Common III Balanced Iron Sword x1 — red durability, needs repair Common III Balanced Dagger x1 Common II Plain Iron Sword x1 Ashen Crown Tail Spike x1 Morgra Ritual Stand x1 Embervein Sliver x5 Currency: 70 silver That was his whole fortune.

Fruit, junk, broken weapons, illegal furniture, five fire rocks, and three dragon materials that better sell or his financial strategy became "die less," which historically had poor returns. He searched weapons on the auction house. Best one-handed sword listed: [Uncommon III Riversteel Saber] Price: 25 gold Meno made a sound that did not count as language. Best weapon overall: [Rare I Staff of Cinder Lines] Price: 150 gold He checked cheaper swords.

An Uncommon I one-handed sword cost 7 gold, meaning even the bad green sword was out of reach. Meno opened his dragon material listings. No bids. He closed the auction house hard enough that the UI made a polite sound instead of the shattering noise he wanted. Even if the materials sold, what was there to buy? Random drops priced like royal artifacts. The best crafters belonged to guilds, and guilds were not feeding the auction house.

They were gearing their chosen, their tanks, their raid scouts, their BrineSaint counters. The public market got scraps at extortion prices. He walked to the crafting district next. Westmarket's crafting quarter was packed, louder and more desperate than before. Smithies rang. Smoke rose from forge halls. Players hauled ore, hides, bones, and bundles of wood. Crownfall members moved in a tight group near a work area, saw him, and very deliberately ignored him. Meno went to the NPC blacksmith counter.

The blacksmith was a broad woman with gray hair tied back and arms like an argument. She looked up from a stack of requisition papers and frowned before he spoke.

"No private orders."

"I didn't ask yet."

"You looked like you were going to."

"What's going on?"

"The king has ordered all weapon and armor production directed toward military supply until the emergency passes. Civilian commissions suspended." Meno leaned both hands on the counter.

"I need a sword."

"The army needs a hundred." Chat enjoyed that too much. npc cooked him reputable btw black market gone Meno pressed his tongue against his teeth.

"Can you at least repair my sword?" The blacksmith looked him over again, then at the red-durability Common III Balanced Iron Sword when he placed it on the counter.

"That I can do. Twenty silver."

"Great."

"And a donation to the crown supply." Meno stared.

"A what."

"Any usable weapon."

"No."

"Then no." His inventory had two backup weapons. Common II sword. Common III dagger. The dagger was bad for his class but at least technically useful. The Common II sword was worse than the Common III in every way except being a sword that existed. He handed over the Common II Plain Iron Sword. The blacksmith took it without ceremony and repaired the Common III Balanced Iron Sword with quick, efficient strikes that made Meno resent competence. [Common III Balanced Iron Sword repaired.] Balance: 50 silver.

Now he had two weapons, neither good: one repaired trash sword and one dagger that made him stand too close to things. He went to the public anvils where independent player crafters had set up under awnings and wooden signs. Some had guild tags. Some had hand-painted price boards. Some looked like they had been awake since launch with a hammer and a dream. Meno tried anyway.

"Can anyone make a one-handed sword if I provide Rare III ore?" A young player with soot on his face looked up.

"I can do Uncommon I blades if the recipe behaves. Rare III would explode my station or get wasted. Probably both." Another crafter laughed.

"PrayerBeadGod wants solo service? Join a guild queue." A third said, "I'll make you a sword for fifty gold labor plus materials."

"Can you make Rare I?"

"No."

"Then why fifty gold?"

"Fame tax." Meno walked away before the chat could convince him to start a public argument he would lose. He stood at the edge of the crafting district, repaired Common III sword at his hip, fifty apples pretending to be strategy, and fifty silver to his name. How the hell was he supposed to get a decent weapon? Then his brain made it worse by asking about armor.