The Alchemist at Hell's Gates

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^^ Smoking Bottle ^^

My first day in the Virtual World that would become my Jobsite and Home for 90% of the foreseeable future, Hell's Gates, started out great! I created my character, (choosing Seducer, -a Neutral Demonic Race that was essentially a Succubi,- for my race because it provided bonuses to Harvesting and Bartering,) then chose my Class: Alchemist, obviously, because I was very, very excited to actually get to use my BioChemical and Mechanical Engineering Degrees for an actual job, which was nearly impossible IRL. Electrical Engineering and Coding were the most popular Careers these days, given the worldwide shift of the workforce into a variety of online platforms, and thus a spike in the need for technicians to service those types of things and create new ones. The physical sciences were abandoned at the wayside, only studied by weird people like me who still cared about learning about the real world.

But I digress: This game, (like most Virtual Worlds,) was Self-Contained, meaning there were limited resources; if no one Crafted and Sold Potions, not even NPC's would sell them. If no one Crafted Swords, again, not even NPC's would sell them. All of this added up to meaning that Potions were a scarcity, and even the weakest of them was wildly expensive. As someone who could make them, that meant I had Job Security, which was paramount, considering this was my literal job; this game, the money I made here, would pay my IRL rent... or I would have to admit defeat and move back my mom's spare bedroom in Anchorage. Not fun. To that end, I needed a shop, and I needed a steady supply of herbs and materials from which to make Potions, but as a Lvl 1 Alchemist, I had no chance of killing anything, not even a lowly Slime. I had a pitiful 5hp, the lowest of any class, and therefore one hit from... anything, even a falling shelf or fatigue damage, would kill me.

My solution: I would Buy Herbs for the first batch of potions, sell them, then pay a group of higher-level players to carry me through a low-level dungeon, sponging off their castoff-XP like a fish following a shark for Scraps. (You couldn't get XP from creatures more than 10 levels below you, and a Party shares all XP equally, so if everyone is Lvl 11, and they kill a Lvl 1 monster, I would get all of the XP!) It wasn't the most proud or valiant of methods, but it was honestly my only choice. So, with 2 Gold Coins and 2 Silver Coins, 2.2 American Dollars, I had enough to buy two doses of herbs, (with a 10% tax off the top to fund the game and pay the GMs and Coders, who worked around the clock, 7 days a week, to make sure the game never glitched and no rules were broken,) and two doses of herbs translated to two full Basic Healing Potions; selling these instantly netted me 20 Gold, which I used to buy 18 more doses of Herbs, and so I got to work with my Alchemy. After selling 15 of the resultant 18 potions, there I was, two hours into the game and already 300$ richer!

'Rent and Electric is 5,000$, Sam, don't get too cocky.' I sighed, and stepped into the Adventurers Guild in the City of Beginnings, the Capital of this Realm, the 'Mortal Realm'. Each bracket of gameplay, (sorted by difficulty,) had its own 'Realm', and your interactions within that Realm were all decided with your Alignment Choice. There were Three, of course: Light, Dark, and Grey, each with their own Faction Leaders, Quest Lines, Shops, and Affiliated Guilds. Light was obviously the side of the Angels, tasked with destroying Dark Gates (Dungeons) and Exterminating Monsters. Second was the side of Demons, tasked with creating more Dark Gates and thus overrunning the worlds with Monsters, which they would raise as Armies and ride against the Light Side. (This happened once a year, as a massive New Years Event that spanned all Nine Realms.) And finally, My Choice, 'The Grey'; this was the choice of most Humans and anyone whose main prerogatives were to either mediate the conflict, make money, or simply stay out of the fighting at all costs. Possibly all three.