Groaning to himself, Alan proceeded to lunch.
***
As Alan emerged from the Black Rose Cafeteria, which simply consisted of a metal vending-machine like dispenser that provided the strange grey blocks of food that seemed standard both in and out of the Game, he received a message from Phantom.
Phantom: Come to my location, simply enter an elevator in the keep and it will take you to me.
Alan hurried over to the closest elevator to the keep’s entrance, wondering what Phantom wanted. Alan waited for an empty elevator to arrive, as strangely the common etiquette was to wait for an empty elevator cabin to arrive rather than simply getting in together and getting off at different floors. It seemed there were secrets aplenty in the Black Rose Guild, not least of which was where people worked.
A few minutes later, Alan finally found his way into an empty elevator without other, higher ranking members of the guild commandeering it on “important business.” He silently entered the cabin, waiting for it to descend. And descend it did. Alan stopped paying attention after Eve guessed they had gone 100 floors downward.
Whatever the outer appearance might show, it was clear that the Black Rose compound was much larger than most people believed, going deeper than Alan even thought possible. Alan wondered what they might be hiding down here, what could possibly require so much space. Then, suddenly, Alan passed through an electric field of some sort. He felt a strange tingling as his feet slowly passed through it, followed by his legs, body and finally—
Alan something—
A soft beep sounded in Alan’s mind, and then Eve was silenced, gone from Alan’s consciousness. He suddenly stopped feeling the familiar presence, carefully analyzing everything. A part of him felt free, clearer, yet another part felt oddly empty. There was suddenly no background noise, no constant calculation or outlining of his surroundings. Just the basic in-game interface. And silence.
Shortly thereafter, the elevator doors began to open. Alan tried to hide against the wall and prepare himself for whatever emerged. He pulled out his laser pistols, ready for whatever horror awaited him. Instead, he was greeted by a nervous-looking Phantom, wearing the same old lab coat.
“I must say, good job on the assessments, I never imagined a recruit would achieve a combat rank of B, much less five of them. Now, I’m sure you have many questions, but before we get started, please come in and have a seat,” Phantom said, completely ignoring the laser pistols pointed directly at his face.
Alan hastily stowed the laser pistols, then slowly walked out from the elevator into what appeared to be either a mad engineer’s basement or a small car repair facility. They were in an underground room about the size of a large car garage, with the space for about four large vans. Strewn about the floor were mechanical devices of varying sizes that Alan couldn’t make heads or tails of. Before he could get a better look at any Phantom guided him over to a seat beside a bright silver capsule. Phantom then promptly grabbed an odd metal helmet directly connected to the capsule and put it on Alan’s head.
“What—”
“Shh, let me calibrate this, it’ll only take a minute. Sit still and be quiet,” Phantom admonished, rapidly accessing some digital terminal that had appeared before him the instant the helmet was placed on Alan’s head.
Alan silently accepted the order, gazing about the room. The majority of the space was dominated by three things, the capsule, a large server or computer of some sort connected to said capsule, and then finally a third machine up against the wall tied to the computer on the other side of the room, opposite the capsule. At first Alan had thought it was an overly large microwave that could fit an entire person or small car, but that was frankly ridiculous. He silently examined the machine until he noticed a large screen on the side of it with various diagrams and blueprints, realizing what it was. It was what was called an Advanced Foundry, essentially an advanced 3D printer.
In the Game the majority of crafting professions that one might normally consider, like blacksmithing or tailoring, were obsolete. Even their modern day counterparts, gunsmiths and armorers that specialized in advanced technology, weren’t generally needed. Instead, there existed Advanced Foundries, often abbreviated to Foundries. These devices could, given the materials and a blueprint, create practically anything, from weapons to armor to even hypothetically spacecraft. As the largest Foundries could only generally create something the size of a small sedan, larger projects were created piece by piece then assembled by other machines. Still, such technology meant that the creation of all items within the game was met with one simple bottleneck. Designs.
Companies and governments guarded their designs like Coca-Cola guarded its secret formula, like the White House protected nuclear launch codes. There was often no greater secret, no document more precious. For, if someone managed to steal, say, the design for a Haxlardian fighter, they would then be able to quietly construct as many Haxlardian fighters as they wished, given they had the resources and facilities. Of course, the design was not needed to make repairs, and separate machines were constructed to make such repairs often for simple things like armor and weapons. Still, you would have to find the right machine for the right type of equipment. That was another reason why guilds were quite useful. They could build up a supply of a number of repair machines regardless of faction the armor or weapon was tied to, while governments generally shied away from keeping machines capable of repairing their enemies’ technology. Reverse engineering was virtually impossible, and it was a simple rule within the game that Foundries could not be tampered with, similar to Administrators.
Therefore, the gunsmiths, the armorers and the shipwrights, were generally all one thing. Inventors. There was no grinding to raise a level in such skills. Instead, there was designing, and tinkering. Crafters endlessly experimented with the Game’s built in system for creating blueprints and designs, for even the smallest of improvements could lead to never-ending riches. They could either improve on designs in their possession or create add-ons for existing designs. A few designs were generally public knowledge and could be found on the globalnet, outlines for a basic laser pistol or spaceship capable of interstellar flight, for example. Occasionally, long lost or new designs were found in unexplored regions of the Game, but these were of such rarity that they were hardly mentioned.
The interesting thing about all this was that the designs had to work. When Eve had first said this to Alan, he simply assumed that she meant that they had to work in-game, which seemed obvious. But what she meant was entirely different. The designs had to follow physics, they had to make sense. They had to work both in the Game, and potentially in real life. That was mind-blowing to Alan, for it implied that the technology found within the Game was hypothetically technology capable of being created in real life! The spaceships, the weapons, the armor, all of it. Even the various implants. Of course, it also meant that all of the crafters also had to be actual engineers, going through years of schooling, learning genuine knowledge. They had to be actual chemists rather than simply fake alchemists following some strange mythical formula taught to them by a game. Otherwise, they were doing real science. In a game.
There was one issue with all of this. Resources. There was a virtually infinite amount of resources found within the Game as mining sites replenished eventually and enemies with loot respawned in the universe without end. In real life, there was a finite amount of metal and fuel. According to Eve, to gather the metal required to create a single capital class ship, entire solar systems would be needed to be broken down due to rare materials needed. And, of course, the Enforcers would never allow the creation of such weapons of war.