To Kill Gods or Die Trying

Chapter 45-We All Have a Part to Play

December 24th, 2304

It's almost Christmas in Mythos. NPCs refer to it as "Frostfall" as virtual snow is programmed to fall on the first of December over the entire Capital. The Frostfall event takes place during the entire month leading up to the Festival. The developers never programmed festivals so it's up to the players to make their own. The NPCs do a lot of work though. They decorate the Capital and all of its buildings, inside and out, in Christmas accessories.

Non-combat guilds are usually at their best this time of the year. The production guilds craft and sell Christmas-themed supplies, weapons, magic, armor, and clothes while the service guilds make everything lively. Bands play in different parts of the city. Acting guilds perform traditional Christmas plays like The Nutcracker at the grand theater. Small party guilds throw small get-togethers at taverns for all to attend.

There's really more to this place than just a game. It's a world where people can do anything they dream. I love it.

The large party guilds usually unite into one to pull off the Festival. They spend the month planning, decorating, buying, and coordinating for the grand finale, while the small party guilds hype it up. There are six popular party guilds: The Party Horses, fr@t3rn1+y h0u53 (Fraternity House (I honestly don't know why they made the name like that (it's impossible to read))), Drunken Love, LightsUpBassLow, XxChaChaSwingxX, and Decorum. They've planned every single festival since beta. Their leaders are masterminds, and it's no easy task. When they combine their guilds together, they call themselves "Project Riot," who coordinate with NPCs to help speed up the process of throwing huge parties.

On the 24th, things look great. Complementing the snow, the Christmas theme covers every block of the city.

I really appreciate what the others are doing. It's not like while we're all fighting and dying on the front lines, everyone else is just taking it easy. No. Not even close. They are working their asses off to make sure that everyone has the best time here and the quality of living is the best it can be.

Everyone has done something.

It took three years, month-to-month, week-to-week, day-to-day, hour-to-minute-to-second of vigilant and rigorous scanning for the exploration guilds to do recon to find the Godlands portal.

The adventure guilds are doing two things. They've provided us intel on challenging but do-able floors for everyone to kill monsters at their own pace, instead of on continents. This allows non-dungeon players, big or small, to practice strategy, new skills, new weapons to just farm monsters who respawn infinitely, under the watchful eye of the experienced.

Second, they've allowed the economy to flourish. "How?" you may ask. Well, because of side quests. Side quests are given by NPCs, which 95% of the time require you to go to a dungeon (via a warp crystal provided by the quest giver), kill monsters until you get the requested item, return the item to the quest-giver, and receive gold and rewards. If no one does side quests, players have no money to spend on items that the production guilds or merchant NPCs make, which they can't pay quest-takers to find items for them to craft. Most of the stuff craftsmen get come from NPCs who have no use for such items.

It's a cycle. NPCs give money to players to find items, players give money to crafters for items, and the crafters give money to NPCs to buy items.

No money, no items.

I never really explained this in depth so let me do it now. I don't do any "dungeon hunting" as the players call it, but let me tell you what I know from some guild masters.

First of all, dungeon play is different from continental quests because dungeon players go by levels with 100 being the level-cap. Our ranks translate numerically into levels if we decide to go dungeon hunting. Wood: 1-15. Copper: 16-30. Silver: 31-45. Gold: 46-60. Turquoise: 61-80. Obsidian: 81-99. Gemstone: 100. Anything in between depends on how much XP has been earned for the next rank.