Trap Online

The Conversation with Darren was one of the best things for information that I could have hoped for. It was exactly the type of information I was looking for, and he was quite the talkative person once I got the ball rolling. He was quite happy with the discussion, and half the day was more taken up with discussions of business instead of pleasure.

I did ride Darren once to get some of it out of him, but all it did was get him to open up more to me. I could tell that he was genuinely excited to talk to me because of my knowledge of the area he was talking about. I wasn't giving him solutions to his issues since I wanted to do that only partially, and this wasn't the real world but a game world. Some of my solutions might only work in a different environment and with the rules of this world. I was still determined to learn more, so I would guide him in discussing things I also wanted to know.

The Things that I learned were key figures in the Slums and how he was conducting business in such a volatile area. Learning about how he was making money was incredibly interesting. Darren's business was all about supplies that were needed in the slums. I could tell that his business model was incredibly short-sighted and needed more of a vision for future expansion. Sure, he made some gold, but he needed a larger market share for it to be meaningful.

Darren was in the medicine game, and he was inflating his prices along with all of his competitors. Many in the slums were being starved of this vital medicine for many and only reluctantly purchased the businesses. To make it even worse for them, their major business customers were the gangs in the area.

That wasn't even the worst part of it because he had to compete against the churches and various other organizations that were in the area. The major ones he complained about during our conversation were as follows:

The Holy Light Church.

The Justice Church.

The Green Glow

The Black Rot

These four organizations had some way of healing the sick, which made a majority of the poorer customers run to their services. Did that trigger Darren to lower his prices or match them? Not really. The Alchemists and medicine men that were making these concoctions needed to be paid, making it more expensive. To make things even more convoluted, it seemed that the gangs only paid them for their services because they couldn't crawl to the other organizations for healing.

So each gang took a business and basically kept it afloat with gang members needing to pay for their own treatment. Which then divided the business area to only those in that gang's territory. It was an incredibly broken system and benefitted no one. The reason he had to increase the prices was because he sold so little.

Obviously, he was making more than I would think a business model should have made with the fact that he could come and see me. But what this was, was incredibly useful information into the operation and practical functioning of the Slums in regards to an area. It was more general information, but I could tell that the religious organizations were a major reason for the current suffering of the slums along with the gangs.

It was a small generalized information about a small business area of the Slums that I seriously needed to know. There was one other thing that I learned that Darren thought was insignificant, but it was the true size of the slums in this city. The area was massive, and it was the size of a city on its own almost. It seemed that the area we chose as our stomping grounds was technically part of the Slums just two years ago but with the short distance to the forest just outside, a large portion of the area was starting to leave such a status. People were building new homes and lifting themselves out of poverty despite everything working against them.

This reminded me of the Hellfire Church, which we were doing a quest for, and how close it was in this area that started to clean up and raise itself from being the slums to a lower-middle-class area. It was insane, but as I sent Darren on his way out with a smile and a wave, I realized that this must be one of the things that was targeting the church.

The Hellfire Citadel was just like the other organizations; it wanted to control a portion of the populace by saving them from their poverty-stricken problems. There were no good guys in this world, it seemed, and that brought my level of excitement up for this game. As I found myself alone in this new room for providing services, I smiled.

"What an interesting storyline," I commented to myself, feeling genuine excitement for learning more about these slums. I started to think about what I knew about this world and realized there were numerous factions with at least three larger overall factions.

There was the 'Good or Light' Faction that I didn't know much about but seemed to be seen as a righteous group. Then there was the Demon faction that I was in with Mistress. She controlled what was clearly a powerful faction, as Vinar the demon was also scared of Mistress. He reacted very poorly to learning of me being involved with her, even if he knew I was part of his Faction.

That left the most mysterious faction to me, which was the Neutral faction. Each was a faction with enough strength to hold its own against the others. That meant there was a deeper story with many factions, like in real life, all working for their own benefits. Even down to the micro, organizations inside the Slums were looking for power and creeping in the cracks trying to get some power.

I found myself smiling and thought reaching a point where I could contend or walk on even ground with Mistress would be interesting. My smile grew as my interest grew in this fascinating world that Victoria helped create with this new technology. I leaned back, thinking of my next step before the next customer came into the room. I would rather keep them talking like I did with Darren.

I stood to receive the next guest, that no one talked to me about with a bright smile.

What a fascinating world to play in.

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