Chương 28: Nowhere to Swing

Meno spent the next hour learning that every useful crafter in Veyrath belonged to someone else. The Westmarket crafting district did not quiet down after the world raid notice. It got worse. Players shouted over forge bells, NPC foremen barked crown requisition orders, and half the district smelled like coal, boiled leather, and panic. Every anvil with a competent hammer near it had a line. Every line had guild tags. Every guild tag might as well have been a locked door.

"Rare one-handed sword," he said to a player blacksmith wearing a mid-tier guild cloak.

"I provide high-grade materials later. I pay." The crafter did not even look up from the glowing blade on his anvil.

"Guild queue only."

"Don't want my gold?"

"Not today." At the next stall, a woman with soot on her cheek and a bright hopeful sign advertising custom weapons admitted she had just unlocked Uncommon I blades. She said it like a confession and a business pitch at the same time. Two stalls later, a crafter in a leather apron promised he could "probably stabilize Uncommon II" if Meno provided excess materials, and accepted failure chance.

"Failure chance?" Meno repeated. The man shrugged.

"It is not a button press my man." Viewers: 98, 304. The number had been sliding since the raid unlock, one chunk at a time. People were going back to guild streams, Meta Desk arguments, Sleepwalker rumor feeds, and whatever BrineSaint's offline community was doing with spreadsheets. Meno knew the bleed was normal. He still hated each drop like a personal betrayal. He found two low-tier guild crafters willing to talk because his name pulled eyes, but both were stuck in the same Uncommon band.

They wanted publicity, not results. One asked if Meno would shout out their guild if they made him a Common III sword "with personality." Another asked whether he could provide dragon material for practice. Meno stared at him until the man looked away. Good crafters did not play solo. That was the ugly conclusion. The players far enough ahead to make meaningful gear had guild supply chains behind them: miners, skinners, woodcutters, quest runners.

Solo crafters were either behind the curve or selling miracles they could not make. Meno had gold coming, maybe, but gold did not swing until someone turned it into a weapon.

"Fine," he said, after the seventh useless conversation.

"I'm farming something easy until the auctions finish." with what weapon apple sword go kill boars for nostalgia check gates lol That last line made him look toward the nearest city road. Westmarket had four major gates, one for each cardinal road. Meno picked the western gate because it was closest and because every plan needed a first bad step. The city streets were familiar now in the way a place became familiar when you sprinted through it broke, hungry, and angry. Stalls he had ignored earlier were empty.

NPC patrols had doubled near supply wagons. Players ran in dense clumps, some heading toward the Mage Tower, some toward auction terminals, some arguing about Vervenzal like saying the name enough times would give them levels. At the gate threshold, Meno stopped. Two Crownfall players waited outside the safe zone. They had not been standing there in any natural way. They were placed. One leaned against a low stone marker with a staff across his shoulders.

The other crouched near the road with both daggers visible, pretending not to watch the gate. Meno inspected them. [Lethren_Crownfall | Class: Sigil Arcanist — Level 25 | Ability: Arcane Binding] [Vexil_Crownfall | Class: Shade Knife — Level 25 | Ability: Backline Execution] The moment both of them looked at him, Meno understood.

"Oh, come on." Chat became awake again. PK CAMP CROWNFALL FOUND HIM rogue mage combo GL jump over them coward The worst was obvious. The moment he crossed the city safety threshold, the mage would control him. Sigils, roots, slows, walls, whatever Arcane Binding meant. The rogue would wait until Meno burned False Wings or panic-moved, then cut him down before he got a meaningful hit. The Crownfall pair had space, preparation, and no reason to play fair. Meno turned away from the gate.

"Wrong exit." He walked fast to the northern gate, and they were already there. Same setup, slightly shifted: mage by a post, rogue loose in the road, both patient enough to be annoying.

"Stream sniping," Meno said. obviously wave to streamsnipers Crownfall any% they have your overlay up turn stream off content tax The southern gate was covered too. At the eastern gate, Vexil gave him a little wave, and Meno did not wave back. The city wall rose high above the gatehouses, too smooth and too guarded to brute force. False Wings gave him two air jumps, not flight, and the wall was built with enough height that even a clean triple-jump would leave him slapping stone like a dramatic insect.

Stairs led up to the battlements nearby. Meno headed toward them. An NPC guard in Westmarket yellow stepped in front of him before his foot touched the first stair.

"Wall access is restricted."

"I'm reputable," Meno said. The guard looked at him bored.

"Wall access is restricted."

"I need to leave the city."

"Use the gates." Meno looked toward the road where two Crownfall players waited just beyond lawful safety. Meno's anger got sharper, the kind that did not explode yet because it was looking for a target worth the waste. He opened whispers. The game punished him instantly. Messages stacked so fast they became a vertical seizure: guild threats, scam offers, trolls, buyers, crafters lying about skill, players asking where Sleepwalkers were, someone claiming to be Vervenzal's attorney.

He closed whispers again after two seconds. [Whispers: Muted]"Useful system," he said. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Then he used the phone link instead. The privacy filter slid over the input. The stream could not see the message, which made chat immediately suspicious. Meno stared at Aureliana's contact, then typed: Know any crafters who can make a Rare I one-handed sword? I can pay. He almost added something else.

Something like please, or serious question, or I know I named a mythic necklace Marielle's Little Aureliana like an idiot, but this is important. Maybe something about it being cute, or symbolic, or not as bad as it obviously was. Whatever got her to respond. He sent only the first message, then waited long enough for chat to fill the silence for him. he texting wife try BrineWife instead she blocked him what are we waiting for being mysterious badly ask dragon for sword no dignity no weapon No response.

His viewership kept bleeding. 76, 118. Great. Ignored. Meno knew he deserved it, which made it more annoying. Maybe he should have treated her better when she wanted something. Maybe when she had emailed about black market access, he could have said no like a person instead of dragging the message into the trash. Maybe when she called, he could have avoided insulting her real-life appearance before seeing it and discovering the universe had set a trap. Then again, she was unbearable. That mattered too.

"Fine," he said. He asked chat, "What's the northern capital called?" The answers were unusable. Wifehold Coldmarket BrineSaint Mansion northspire Northspire yes frostwife don't go Highbanner waiting Northspire kept appearing between the garbage. Good enough. Meno ran back to Westmarket's Mage Tower, climbed to the portal ring he had arrived from, and entered the yellow portal to the Lost Temple platform. The shift snapped him through sky, gold light, sleeping dragon, raid gate, archmage pressure.

He did not stop long enough to let anyone corner him with responsibility. He crossed to the red portal and stepped through. The air changed. Northspire's Mage Tower ring opened onto a city that rose instead of spread. Where Westmarket was broad, market-heavy, and relatively flat except for its Mage Tower and palace heights, Northspire built upward in white stone and red accents. Tall buildings clustered close, their upper levels bridged by enclosed walkways. Red banners snapped from spires.

Roofs were steep and dark, designed for snow or for intimidation. The city looked smaller than Westmarket in footprint, but denser, stacked like someone had run out of ground and refused to admit it.

"Okay," Meno said.

"Taller." He descended the tower and picked a random gate, but stopped when he found two Highbanner players waiting outside the threshold. One wore white-and-red priest robes over mail, a heavy holy symbol hanging at their chest. The other rested a polearm against one shoulder, armored enough to look like a wall. Meno inspected them.

[Edris_Highbanner | Class: Oath Priest — Level 23 | Ability: Vowbinding Rites] [Rauk_Highbanner | Class: Redline Vanguard — Level 24 | Ability: Spearwall Advance] The priest looked at him, the warrior smiled without warmth, and Meno turned around while chat delighted in the whole thing. SAME THING DIFFERENT GUILD welcome to consequences vowbinding sounds like control beg for forgiveness spearwall says no jumping go out go out go out At the next exit, they were already waiting.

"Stream sniping," Meno said again, and this time it came out bitter. No city-wall access, obviously. A Northspire guard told him battlements were restricted with the exact same tone as Westmarket's guard, proving that NPCs had achieved cross-kingdom unity before players did. Meno looked up at the city buildings. Northspire's height changed the math. False Wings could probably get him from a tall roof to somewhere outside the wall if he found the right angle. Maybe.

Building to roof, roof to wall line, air-step, air-step, drop beyond. It was a high-risk escape route, and the moment he landed outside, he still had top-guild players watching his stream and calculating his path. If he died and respawned at an outside shrine, they could camp the zone. Maybe Veyrath had spawn protections, but protections ended when he left the shrine, and his stream made him a glowing route marker. Again, the problem was the weapon. These were not random players from the orc valley.

These were top players assigned to contain him. They would have callouts, controls, clean roles, and enough discipline not to run face-first into Hundredfold unless he forced it. He had no chance unless Panic Pump could delete them in one hit, which meant he needed a better weapon. Better clips did not mean he could take them lightly, so he went to Northspire's crafting district instead. The next hour was the same failure in a different accent.

Northspire's smiths favored heavier blades, spearheads, shield rims, and armor plates. The NPC forges were locked into emergency production. Player crafters sat in guild clusters, with Highbanner banners over the best stations. Independent crafters talked to him because his name drew attention, then admitted they were stuck making Uncommon I weapons, or Common III repair work.

One mid-tier crafter told him, apologetically, that guild orders came first because the guild had supplied every material he had used to level. Viewers: 61, 284. He checked the phone link and found no response from Aureliana. Not even a no. That stung in a way he disliked because it was too small to justify. He had been threatened by guilds, judged by hosts, used by a billionaire, and called whelp by a dragon. Being ignored by a rich girl should not have mattered. It mattered.

Maybe she had written him off as useless now that her father got what he wanted. Maybe she had decided the mythic necklace name was too much. Maybe she was busy, which was the most reasonable answer and therefore the least satisfying.

"The least she could do is tell me off," Meno muttered. sadbeadgod watching and laughing text her apple picture no response is a response There was no point going east or south right now. Silverwake would camp the eastern capital. Stormhold would camp the southern one. Maybe later he could test their discipline. For now, it was the same board with different pieces. He went back through the portals, red to the Lost Temple, yellow to Westmarket. Back to his starting capital.

This time, he did not look around like it was new. Westmarket was where he had rolled out of launch, where he had sold boar trash, where he had learned the economy hated solo players, where his first auction money had turned into a slightly better garbage sword. The Mage Tower ring was a new vantage, but the city below was familiar in the worst way: the place you returned to after the world got bigger and still found yourself broke. The auction should have finished. He could probably claim the gold from Northspire.

The auction houses were linked; he knew that much. But Westmarket was familiar territory. He reached the auction house, opened the completed listings, and nearly fell backward. [Auction Complete] Ashen Crown Claw Splinter sold for 842 gold, 70 silver. [Auction Complete] Ashen Crown Claw Chip sold for 1, 376 gold, 40 silver. [Auction Complete] Ashen Crown Claw Fragment sold for 2, 184 gold, 90 silver. With his existing fifty silver, the balance updated. [Balance: 4, 404 gold, 10 silver] Meno stared.

Chat managed the same for maybe half a second before becoming a riot. FOUR THOUSAND GOLD RICHBEADGOD THEY BID guild cartel lasted two hours lmao dragon toes paid rent buy weapon buy armor buy dignity Meno grinned before he could stop himself. Buyer names were hidden, of course. The auction house had at least learned how to protect cowardice.

"See? All talk. Couldn't resist." The grin lasted exactly as long as it took him to search for the Uncommon III Riversteel Saber and find nothing. He searched again, refreshed, then stared at the same empty results while his heart did a small, ugly thing in his chest. One-handed swords above Common III: nothing. All swords above Common III: nothing. Axes, maces, spears, daggers, bows, staves, even the Rare I magic staff, gone. Every decent weapon had vanished. Meno stopped breathing properly and searched armor.

Everything above Common III was gone there too. Not expensive. Gone. The emergency had not just raised prices. It had triggered a full market cleanout. Traders, guilds, speculators, panic buyers, and whoever else knew launch economies had bought every useful public listing and dragged it out of reach. Gear had vanished into inventories, guild banks, private deals, and relist strategies not yet exposed. Meno had 4, 404 gold and 10 silver, and nothing to buy. He checked apples.

[Apple | Cooking Material] Lowest Listing: 50 silver Meno laughed once, too sharply. Apples had been ten silver two hours ago. Now they were fifty. Economic collapse had a fruit icon.

"At least I made profit on the apples," he said. APPLE INVESTOR sell apples don't sell padding 5x return 1 gold per 2 deaths now lol"I'm not selling them." That was the problem. They were not just apples. They were death padding, and now every apple in his inventory represented fifty silver of avoided market pain. Ten deaths cost five gold at current prices. A hundred deaths cost fifty. It did not matter that he bought cheap.

The replacement cost had changed, and replacement cost was the number that mattered when the game kept eating his inventory. He sorted by lowest price across all eligible auction goods. Apple still cheapest. Everything else had climbed too: cooking herbs, cheap ore, basic hides, crafting sand, empty vials, low-grade cloth. The traders had bought everything possible and relisted higher, or held it. It happened in every MMO with a public economy.

Launch uncertainty, artificial scarcity, panic demand, and rich players with no shame. Disgusting. Predictable. Still infuriating. Meno leaned on the auction terminal, filthy rich and trapped inside his own starter capital. No decent weapon, no armor, no bandages. Fifty apples, thirty-seven junk pieces, and over four thousand gold in a market where every useful item had vanished. Chat kept moving, but even the jokes had an edge now.

homeless but rich gold locked no supply no build no need for cartel if market is empty buy guild throw apple coward Meno closed the auction interface and, for once, had no immediate answer. That was the worst kind of wealth: enough money to prove the problem was not money anymore.