Chapter 10: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck – Part 1

At 18:00, all the spawns within the Columbus Server automatically deactivated, which would ordinarily signal the end of the working day. Today however, was far from ordinary and everybody knew that even after hours, there was plenty of work left to do. With an air of dread and resignation, exhausted players slowly began pouring into the City of New Haven and as they did, they brought those sentiments with them. It’s hard to blame them; after all, it’s hard to think happy thoughts when you and your loved ones under the threat of impending doom.

And yet, it still appeared to be a beautiful summer day.

By the time the trio finally returned to New Haven, traffic through the gates had slowed to a crawl as only stragglers like themselves remained outside. As a result, there was no noticeable lag as they made their way into the city.

“Ugh, I’m so tired,” Riley groaned as she forced herself to drag her feet towards the weapons, armor, and specialty crafting workshops located within District 4. “I just want to go home, eat a burrito, and sleep.”

“Well obviously we can’t, but that does sound pretty good,” Lucius concurred. “Ah, crap. Now I want tamales with ranchero sauce.”

“Elote salad,” said Riley.

“Steak fajitas,” said Lucius.

“This isn’t a contest,” said Riley.

“I know, but just in case,” said Lucius. “I don’t want to be the one who loses, you know?”

Aaron turned to his friends and said, “All right kids, settle down.” Then, he turned to Riley and said, “There’s no reason why we can’t pick up some Mexican after we finish decking you out.”

“Oh we are – that’s never been in doubt,” said Riley. “I just hope we can find a good gun within our price range. Guns aren’t cheap and maxed out ones are super pricey.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Lucius.

“Yeah, well. Guess we’ll find out,” said Aaron, just before the throngs of people roaming inside the district come into view and he subsequently began losing frames.

District 4, or the armory district, was a special commercial area within New Haven zoned specifically for the purchase and sales of arms and other personal equipment. Originally, it was just a normal commercial area like any other but after the local Crafting Guild branch set up shop and made it their primary base of operation, various workshops, warehouses, and storefronts all naturally sprang up around them for higher efficiency. This primary industry in turn created a complex network of buyers and sellers in support of it, both in the wholesale and retail markets. As a result, legislation was eventually passed which made all official transactions within the district eligible for reduced taxes at point of sale than transactions performed anywhere else in the New Haven administrative zone. Once that happened, business really kicked off. Sufficed to say, District 4 was a very popular player destination even on the quietest of days and an absolute lag-fest on its busiest.

“I don’t think we got lucky,” Lucius said upon observing the massive crowd of people populating the stores and streets.

“Guess everyone else had the same idea as us,” said Riley.

“I mean, I always kind of assumed they would but I was also kind of hoping they wouldn’t, you know?” Aaron remarked.

“Yeah, I get that,” Riley said while nodding in agreement. “You think they got all the good stuff?”

“Oh we got a way bigger problem than that,” Lucius cryptically warned.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Aaron quickly asked.

Lucius pointed at a nearby store’s virtual catalog and said, “Take a look.”

The store in question was Double Tap, a Crafting Guild affiliated store which specialized in the sale and maintenance of guns, ammunition, and other related paraphernalia. Double Tap was a chain store, 1 of 3 located within District 4. With a large selection of high quality products which were standardized between Double Tap stores, Double Tap prices were widely considered to be an accurate price barometer and set an effective price ceiling when it came to the sale and resale of mid-high quality gunnery equipment. The problem however, was that today, Double Tap prices had increased substantially as products now cost anywhere from 3 to 5 times more than they did yesterday.

After reviewing the store catalog and their absurd markups, Riley approached the store’s closest display window and angrily knocked on the glass while shouting, “Hey! Horace! Heyyy!” until she got one of the store attendant’s attention.

The unsuspecting victim was a bespectacled man named Horace #1808. In relation to the trio, Horace was somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend. He had short brown hair, a trimmed beard, and he wore a large leather apron on top of a plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves. In another time, he could have been mistaken as a barista as everything about him appeared to be aesthetic. With an expression that betrayed just how done he was, Horace deadpanned, “You don’t have to yell – you can just walk in.”

That was a good point so naturally, Riley ignored it and stomped her feet before loudly proclaiming, “I know, but social confrontation makes me nervous and shouting at you through this glass makes me feel better! So just… just be cool and stand there while I yell at you, okay!?”

Horace signed in resignation, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “All right, fine. So what do you want?”

“Well for starters, enchiladas, and I’m thinking spicy with extra sour cream. Then I want someone to fix these prices,” Riley listed off with her fingers. “These prices are insane!”

“Well I can’t do any of those things but yeah, no argument here,” Horace acknowledged. “These prices are completely bananas.”

“Who came up with these?” Riley asked through the muffled glass.

“I don’t know, but those are the market prices,” Horace claimed. "Check the Auction House if you don’t believe me.”

Beyond the various industrial sites, wholesale commercial warehouses, and retail storefronts, District 4 was also home to the New Haven Auction House – the biggest player exchange market place inside New Haven. For a small listing fee per every 24-hour standard lot and a 5% transaction fee for all sales, all manners of goods could be listed in the Auction House, which functioned as a pure market or very close to it. Intrinsic value was the primary price driver as opposed to perceived value in the Auction House as most listed goods were fungible commodities because only integers mattered when it came to things like quantity or weapons performance. In other words, an enchanted +25% sword is an enchanted +25% sword regardless of who sells it. Of course, other non-commodities such as branded goods for things like cosmetics or collectibles could also be listed but those prices were based off of perceived value or scarcity, hence gamer girl bath water.

At Horace’s insistence, the trio started navigated through their personal interfaces and started going through the Auction House prices and were shocked to find that Horace was telling the truth.

“That… can’t be right,” Aaron uttered in disbelief.

“Ohhh we are so boned,” said Lucius.

“How did this even happen!?” Riley exclaimed in confusion.

“I don’t know; none of this makes any sense,” Horace said while shaking his head. “And that’s not all – the Crafting Guild also ordered us to suspended all repair services and pull all the DIY kits from the shelves.”

DIY kits, or Do it Yourself kits, were repair kits which when used, could restore durability to equipment. The actual percentage fluctuates somewhere between 50-100% so most people would rather just pay for an actual repair at the smithy than gamble with the gacha gods.

“What!? They can’t do that!” Riley exclaimed with righteous outrage and indignation.

“They can – they provide and track all our inventory,” Horace explained. “If we don’t return the same numbers on record after the audit, they’ll come after us and we’ll get fired.”

“What are they going to do with the kits?” Aaron asked.

Horace looked down at his feet and shifted about uncomfortably. Then, he said, “I don’t know. DIY kits expire when the season ends so they’ll probably just destroy them.”

There was a lull in the conversation as everyone began to truly understand the implication.

“You’re killing us,” Lucius said at last.

Horace tightly gripped his apron and refused to look anywhere but his feet.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to look the other way,” Aaron said rhetorically.

Horace flinched and then took a step towards the window until he was practically breathing on it. Then in hushed breaths, he whispered, “Look man, I want to help you guys but I can’t! I can’t. I’ll get fired and if I get fired then I’ll be the one who gets culled! I don’t want to do this! I don’t! But I have to do my job.”

And it was a pretty good job with really good benefits. Working as a shop attendant for the Crafting Guild paid pretty good wages on a normal day, offered employee discounts, and also afforded a certain level of protection when it came to things such as cullings as being a Crafting Guild employee made one exempt due to “Essential Personnel” status.

“I’m just doing my job,” Horace said meekly.

It was at this point that the other shop attendant, a clean-shaven man with dirty blonde hair, approached Horace from behind. His name was Daniel #1825 and he too was wearing a large leather apron although he differed from Horace by not wearing cosmetic lenses and hiding his forearms with an abundance of flannel.

“Dude, come on. We have to finish inventorying the shop and prepping the stuff for transport before 19:00 or we’ll get in trouble,” said Daniel.

Horace cleared his throat, turned to Daniel, and nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Right. I’ll be right there,” he said before turning back to face Riley. “Look, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I can’t. And I… I gotta get back to work. I can help you if you’re going to buy something but other than that…”

“Nah, I get it. It’s not your fault. I guess this is goodbye,” Riley said with a wry smile. She waved goodbye to Horace, who then began to weep and with that, there was nothing left to say so the trio walked away from the shop and crossed the street.

After they crossed the street, the three friends sat down and parked their butts on the raised portion of the roadside curb while people passed by them in every direction.

“What are we going to do? We can’t afford any of these,” Riley remarked with concern and apprehension.

“We could sell our homes,” said Lucius. “Get a reverse mortgage, maybe?”

“Would that be enough? We can’t keep buying new equipment. Without repairs…” Riley trailed off.

“Well the good news is, if we can’t afford this then no one else can either,” said Aaron.

“Yeah, but the bad news is, if we can’t get a leg up then we’re still screwed,” said Lucius.

“Right. So what are we going to do?” Riley asked again.

They didn’t have an answer to that so they just took a moment to breathe and watched in silence as people passed them by and wheels of time progressed.