New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 176 Trains

Several Fairies of Nature were also summoned but they spent most of their time in the underground dungeon, slowly leveling. They would come in handy when winter would be over. They could fertilize the fields and look after the town's orchard. While Iris could technically manipulate the weather conditions in her dungeon to allow crops to grow in winter, she did not want to attract unnecessary attention to the town.

"What is next on the list?" asked Iris.

Ceres answered with her sweet high pitched voice. "There is a group of engineers coming from the Magic Council. Lord Brann did not say anything about this. I believe they should be players. According to what they said, they want to discuss something called the trainline."

"Trainline? Interesting. Lead the way then."

The two girls went to the meeting room where a small nervous team of players was silently drinking their cup of tea. They immediately stood up and greeted Iris as she entered.

"Players?" asked Iris as she watched the names displayed in front of her.

"Yes, Miss iris. It is an honor to meet you. Thank you for your precious time," said one of the players. His name was Censora.

Iris briefly glanced at each player before sitting in the main seat. "I heard that you want to discuss a trainline? What is it about?"

Censora nervously bit his lips and started his explanation. "It is like this. We are a group of Engineers who joined the Magic Council. There, we tried to apply our knowledge of Earth to come up with some useful inventions and the one we settled on was the train. Right now, there are no real means of transportation between the towns and cities."

"Sure, there are teleportation portals but they only connect the main cities and the capital. Our plan is to set up a railway network across the empire and potentially across the different empires too. Although the trains are not instantaneous like the teleportation portals, they are much cheaper to run. Using the portal costs ten gold and that is without considering that person's luggage. Using the trains will be much cheaper. We estimate that one gold per passenger would be more than enough to provide a healthy profit margin."

Iris calmly listened. "I will not ask about the technology since this belongs to you but why did you come to Venetia for? You want to set up a train station here?"

"Exactly. To be honest with you Miss Iris, we spoke to several people before coming here including the mayor of larger towns and even nobles. They all hold a somewhat conservative mindset. They do not believe in our technology and want others to properly test our system first. When we heard Venetia actually belonged to a player, we immediately rushed here knowing that you would at least hear us properly." Censora looked at Iris with eyes full of expectations.

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Iris paused for a moment. She knew the use of trains; not only could it transport people but it could also transport merchandises! It was in line with her plans of making Venetia a trade center! "So it's like that. What are you expecting from me then? Permission to build a train station? Will the cost be borne by you?"

"This... We received funding from the Magic Council but it is not enough to build up the entire railway, let alone the engines. However, we spoke with many guilds and many showed interest in our projects. We are planning to sell the shares for the railway network soon. Everyone is essentially waiting to see if the trains will really be brought into the game. As long as the towns do not agree to have a station, it would be pointless."

Iris' eyes lit up. "I see but if I agree, to what town will you connect Venetia to?"

Censora fell silent. He simply did not have an answer to this question. It was true that the project needed two towns to agree to the construction and they needed to be close to each other. However, Venetia was the only player-owned town and rumors said that they were not on good terms with the neighboring towns which all belonged to Count Desmonds.

As Iris saw Censora's unease, she spoke, knowing full well that she was in an advantageous position. "You are lucky to have come here. I am very interested in the trains. How about this, first tell me how much money you will need and what will be the lead time? I hope you can give me as much information as possible; it will help me make a decision."

"Depending on which town we would connect to, it can take up to a hundred thousand gold depending on the landscape. We have more or less completed the blueprints of the engine and the passenger wagons. Making one would cost about five thousand gold. We also need to factor in the labor cost. We got twenty thousand gold to fund our project from the Magic Council which is enough to build a train but not the rail line."

"For the stations, we only need a small building to begin with," urgently added another player.

Iris remained silent. Ceres continuously wrote down their conversation; her hand moved so fast that the players could only see a blur.

"How much will it cost to run? And how much were you planning to sell the blueprints of the project for?"

"Our trains are different from those of Earth. They run using magic crystals. We estimated that to connect two cities, the journey would cost fifty gold... Maybe a little more if the train is loaded. As for selling the shares, we haven't thought about it properly yet," honestly answered Censora.

Their exchange continued until Iris obtained all the information she wanted. "I will be honest with you, there are many things you did not consider. First of all, will the train journey be safe? What if the trains were attacked? What would happen? You will need to employ people to protect the train. Second, this is a game. Although you have the blueprints, once released, people would easily copy the engines. There is no copyright system in the game and although the system would make it such that your design would be more efficient because it was the original one, you will fall behind once your competitors develop themselves a little more."

"However, I still have an offer to make. Instead of just designing the engine and being kicked out of the project once the system becomes fully operational, how about you join Venetia and become a team of Engineers working full time on constantly developing the railway network and working on new engine designs?"

"If we work together, it might be possible to turn the trains into the main means of transportation of the game. However, you will need a lot of funding to get yourself started and although I am interested, I don't want my money to fund a project that would end up in someone else's pocket. If you agree, Venetia shall agree to become the first town to accommodate the rail network. You won't have to worry about finding other towns to connect to; I will deal with this sort of things. Your only job would be to ensure that the engines work properly. And if everything goes well, in just a few months, towns across the empire should start requesting us to connect themselves to the railway and at the center of the transportation system will be Venetia."

The players were taken aback. Censora hesitantly asked, "You want us to quit the Magic Council? If we do so, we won't even get the funding of the organization. Your plan is ambitious but without enough gold, it will just be a dream."

Iris smiled. She opened her interface and after hiding sensitive details, she showed it to the players.

The players froze. They had never seen such a large number on the amount of a player possessed. Only large guilds could have this amount of gold. Iris unexpected had more than one million gold in her inventory.

Iris chuckled. She knew showing her inventory would scare the players. Although her town was still developing, it was extremely lucrative. She did not care much about the cost as she could cover for most of her expenses in DP. Her gold accumulated. Furthermore, she obtained quite a fortune from exterminating the bandit groups when she chose to settle down here.

She had been saving gold with a goal in mind. She wanted to develop and promote crafting at Venetia. She wanted her town to become a trade hub for the Sylvester Empire but it would not work if there were no craftsmen to provide a variety of services.

However, a better opportunity presented itself in the form of Censora and his friends. If she secured the exclusivity of the trains, Venetia would develop at an astonishing rate. As for looking for a second town to connect to, she could not build a second dungeon, but there were no rules that prevented her from building a second town. She just needed to build a small settlement on the road to Oceanview, one of the main harbors of the Sylvester Empire. Once she connected her settlement to Venetia, it would drastically reduce the travel time of the merchants. Not only would it promote trains, but it would also encourage people to pass through Venetia!

Chapter end