“The auctions held at Deep Harbor changed the balance of power on a regular basis. Guilds could rise if they performed well at the auctions, securing items to push them ahead of their competitors. Failure to secure access to the auctions by winning against the base raids drove unfortunate guilds to dissolution. The benefits of the auctions forced top heavy guilds to expand their foundations or crumble in the face of threats too numerous to handle.”

  From “The Rise and Fall of Guilds”

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 30, 06:00

  As the sun crested the horizon, the system greeted the guild with messages:

  “Congratulations! Your Basic Guardian Faerie Hearth Tree has evolved into a Common Guardian Faerie Hearth Tree. This tree allows faeries to bind and construct homes. This tree grants the Blessing of the Earth Mother, the Blessing of the Earth Guardian and the Blessing of the Moon. The Blessing of the Earth Mother provides a 6% reduction in the respawn time for all nodes related to plants and animals per rank, currently 12%. The Blessing of the Earth Guardian provides one champion with greatly boosted powers and one knight per rank with boosted power, currently 2. These powers will double in the direct defense of the protected land when confronted by agents of Rot, Death and Decay. The Blessing of the Moon provides a 50% reduction in crafting time for four individuals per rank, currently 8, during the nighttime period and a permanent 50% reduction in crafting time for the designated leader of the settlement and one crafter per rank that the guild leader designates, currently 2.”

  “Congratulations! Your Library has been upgraded to Common Rank! This structure allows the organization of collected research materials. Guild members may purchase skills of a rank equal to the rank of the building using Guild Contribution Points, currently Common. The locations of dungeons, towers, treasure and other locations in the world may be discovered through research. Additional world lore is available. Fragments of rituals found in the world may now be deciphered.”

  Torgon dismissed the notifications for the four new specialist crafting rooms. He focused on the unexpected changes occurring in the Faerie tree. Nothing had been mentioned about knights or Torgon being able to assign permanent boosts to other crafters. He fired off a query, “System, does the designated crafter keep the boost forever or can it be shifted?”

  The system responded, “The individuals the guild leader designates will keep the boost indefinitely, but it may be reassigned every sixday by scheduling a change in advance.”

  Torgon fist pumped with the new knowledge and quickly assigned the boosts to Mark X and Ashford. They lacked the siege engines to support the sheer number of players currently in the guild. The upgrades to the library were less clear. The information on rituals gave Torgon pause. They had all witnessed the sheer power of the rituals used when Miller’s Crossing was attacked. The long-term survival of the guild depended on finding similarly powerful rituals for their own use.

  Torgon joined the eager rush of people checking out the library. He found a table in the corner and opened his interface to browse through the available skills. His first choice was to grab the skill, Arrow Splash, which produced the equivalent of a basic arrow attack to every target in a three-foot radius with an additional foot added to the radius with every level in the skill. His agility would give him a starting attack radius of nine feet. He freed up the space for the skill by raising his double shot skill to level 10 through spending free experience.

  Torgon browsed through the healing skills next, looking to round out his capabilities. The common offerings presented him with three skills that he considered vital. The first skill was Remove Curse, which was a touch based skill allowing him to remove one Common ranked or lower curse per casting. Every 10 skill levels would increase the rank of curse that could be removed by one. The second skill was Remove Disease which followed the same pattern. The third skill was Cure Poison. The Cure Poison skill had the added benefit of making the recipient of the spell immune to that poison for a period of time equal to 5 seconds per level of the skill. In a longer fight, the added immunity would be invaluable against assassins or venomous beasts.

  He raised his Healing Touch and Ranged Heal skills to level 10, burning another 7,000 of his stocked free experience and lowering his stored amount to just under 19,000. That was still enough to raise any skill to level 10, and he looked over his skills to try and find a likely candidate to free up the space for that last slot. He decided to raise his running skill to level 10, granting him a couple more points of endurance and bringing his item boosted total to 20 in that stat. He wistfully gazed at the crafting options before closing his interface and leaving the library. There would be time to grab more crafting skills soon. Torgon met up with Hyperia, Frare, Dusty and Ovarrix, passed out the tokens and together they teleported to Deep Harbor.

  Constance, their representative from the Deep Harbor Auction House, greeted them and ushered them towards a small private room without delay. She explained, “Today’s auction is our monthly special event, and it runs longer with a significant increase in the auction lots available. In addition, we have a catalog of set price purchases of goods curated from across the world. Refreshments are provided and you can order meals at any time. The Deep Harbor auction house values your continued patronage.” She indicated a bell sitting near the door, “Ring this bell if you need any service. It is magically attuned to our staff, and they will take care of your every need.”

  Frare busied himself with consigning the lots of goods they had brought for the auction, including the ballistae they had liberated from the Young Master’s Alliance and the writs acquired from the Tomb of the Wight Lord. The others perused the catalog of readily purchasable items. Torgon spent 15 gold from his personal stash to acquire a level ten uncommon rapier that scaled damage from agility instead of strength. The group purchased various and sundry items for themselves and the guild before turning their attention to the snacks and the window allowing them to see the growing mass of people in the main auction hall.

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  Hyperia nudged Torgon, “There are thousands of people here for this auction. I can see that quite a few are sporting guild badges from different nations on our continent. Prices are going to be high. The floor will be raised on any popular auction. I’ve spotted several representatives from the North American S-tier guilds in the audience. I would guess that they’re looking for specific items to help their branches.”

  Torgon cocked an eyebrow at Hyperia, “Fill me in? I’ve been a little out of the loop. Who are the current S-tier guilds?”

  Hyperia laughed and elbowed Torgon, “It’s changed a bit from your day. Apex is still one of the five S-tier guilds but the other four have shifted. Hammer of Glory started a rise out of the C-tier about a decade ago and they reached the S-tier status in the past three years. Manifest Destiny has been at the top for the past seven years. They’re an odd duck, providing a lot of mercenary services for other guilds. It helps keep their fighters sharp but they’re shorter in the logistics department than other S-tiers. The Seven Dragons guild lurked around A-tier during your day, but they’re pushed up recently. Finally, Colossus was moved into the S-tier, replacing Fidelas Constans when they trounced them in the championships last year.”

  She continued, “There are just the five S-tier guilds in North America and a handful of A-tier. There are over 20 B-tier guilds, and it increases from there. Not all the sites agree where the guilds are placed but the S-tiers and strong A-tiers are reasonably consistent.”

  Torgon shook his head, “So many tracked guilds? What sort of criteria are they using?”

  Dusty held up her hand and started ticking off points with her fingers, “The first is membership size. S and A-tier guilds require a minimum of 100,000 guild members. B-tier is 50,000, C-tier is 25,000 and D through F require 1,000 members to register. The second is power base. That changes with each new game and sometimes the ratings are game specific. All the major guilds have abandoned their other gaming interests to concentrate here in NEMO. The time dilation is too attractive and they’re making money selling gear and writs to corporate dabblers. The third criterion is tournament results. Everybody is expecting large shifts when this game starts hosting pvp tourneys. The results for individual players will be ranked and then the guilds that the players belong to will be sorted by how well they do overall. The fourth measure is how many accomplishments a guild has. The dungeon and raid clears, first clears and announcements you can rack up boosts the guild. Finally, and most importantly, head-to-head battles shift the rankings.”

  Torgon nodded, “So we’re going to be an F-tier guild by virtue of our membership alone at least. How often are the rankings updated?”

  Hyperia laughed, “I can see the sparkle in your eyes Torg. Yes, we’re on the board as an F-rank in most sites when we cracked 1,000 members. A couple have already pushed us to E-rank by virtue of our first clears and how we managed the siege. The rankings shift daily but larger changes are weekly. We’ll need to consolidate our power, grow and fight stronger opponents to make waves. A tournament would help as well. Allestor alone will give us dark horse status.”

  Torgon thought it over, “If you wouldn’t mind Hype, come up with some guild wide goals for us to pursue to let us increase our guild rank. It doesn’t need to be our focus, but the pride in being a higher ranked guild will give everyone extra motivation.”

  Breakfast arrived in the room. The servers carried in a selection of omelets, waffles, bacon and sausage and drinks to go with them. The group enjoyed the food and turned their attention to the stage where the Master of Ceremonies made his first appearance.

  The resplendent figure crossed the stage, his midnight blue robes with embroidered runes swirling. “I welcome all of you to the Deep Harbor monthly auction. We have the finest of wares available for your consideration today. These items will determine success or failure for you and your organizations. Dig deep and fight hard. Your coin and resolve are the tools you need to triumph over your foes in this room. Auctions will be conducted from our main stage with several side auctions for smaller items through your auction interfaces. Without further ado, I present to you our first item!”

  Four men, clad in armor, wheeled a large table piled high with assorted jewelry onto the stage. The auctioneer spoke, “This lot consists of 100 matched sets of rings, necklaces and bracelets. Each set provides a total of +4 to each of the 6 primary attributes and an additional boost to your regeneration statistics. We will start the bidding at 200 gold with minimum bid increments of 2 gold coins.”

  The board behind the auction showed the initial bid and shouts rang out across the floor. The bidding soared from 200 to 780 in less than a minute. Torgon just looked at Hyperia with a shrug and watched the price rise. They could make out the representatives from the S-tier guilds and discerned that two were bidding against one another. The final cost for the auction lot reached a staggering 3,876 gold coins.

  Torgon pointed at the total, “That’s why we don’t bid on items mostly. It’s too expensive for the limited time they’ll be of benefit to us.” The team scoured the smaller auctions, grabbing lots of blueprints that would benefit everyone. They found several repair kit blueprints for low prices and added recipes for potions and food items. They were securing minor gains for minor prices and biding their time for key items.

  The very first epic item that any of them had seen took the stage. It was a staff that boosted the levels of any spell cast through it, added to the damage and reduced the mana cost and casting time. The increase in power to any single spellcaster was enormous. They watched as nearly two thousand gold paid for a single item that would be good for maybe thirty levels at best. They did note that individual items were obtained by smaller guilds, likely those with wealthy backers focusing on a single team.

  The first key auction for Risk of Injury came to the main stage. The presenter laid out writs the group had obtained from the Tomb of the Wight Lord. “Ladies and Gentlemen! We have a lot that is of keen interest to our tourists and perhaps even a few of our natives. Selling together, we have 14 Basic Dungeon Writs and 10 Common Dungeon Writs. These items are used to expand the capability of dimensional spaces separate from our world. The items are difficult to obtain and exceedingly rare. Such quantities are not often found, even at our auctions. We will start the bidding at 1,000 gold coins and the minimum bid increment will be 10 gold coins.”

  Torgon eyed the others and they watched with bated breath. The coins they obtained from this auction could make them a major bidder, holding their own with even the S-tier guilds.