“Now wait, you’re being paranoid or something," Thiago said, hands upraised. "You’ve been talking really quickly this entire time. I’m not sure what sort of tests you went through during the rest of the Tutorial, but we all can agree that they were rather harrowing. Calm down.”

Alan found that he was standing up, and had taken a step forward to point the knife at Aphrodite. He didn’t remember doing that consciously. Lowering his hand, he quickly ran through some information Eve provided, trying to think his way around the situation, analyzing the different possible courses of action. He could take this to the Administrators, as actively using a psionic ability to influence a contract was breaking a number of rules, or…

“Look, I understand why you may want me to agree to this contract, but you seem awfully invested in keeping all this quiet," Alan said. "So, I’ll agree to this, but only for a few thousand credits.”

Thiago narrowed his eyes, then nodded.

“Very well, you will additionally receive 10,000 credits for agreeing to the contract. You should be grateful, you’re the one who infringed upon our group.”

“Hey, you’re the ones that used a psionic ability on me to alter a business deal. You know that’s a punishable offence by the Administrators right? Minimum sentence 50,000 credit fine and 500 penalty points, whatever those are. I—” Alan was about to demand more money, but Eve stopped him.

Quickly he saw that he was heightening the probability of a direct confrontation with Thiago. One which he might win, but would leave him with an enemy he’d probably rather not have. “I- I’m grateful for you allowing me to join your group for the Tutorial, but this whole mind-influencing business has me on edge. The Game is a lot different than what I initially expected.”

“Right, yes, I’m sure," Thiago replied. "I hope you understand that I’m trying to look out for my friends and future guild. Here, actually, take these. I trust that you’ll remain quiet about all this and we’ll remain… contacts, at the very least.” Thiago went over to a drawer, and took out a bag, tossing it to Alan.

Alan glanced inside. There were ten diamond marks, small diamond cubes the size of a large die. Each mark was technically worth 10,000 credits or 10 ability points, thus ten times a gold mark or 1/10th of a platinum mark. In actuality, their market value was about twice that. Marks, it turned out, did not drop upon death unlike a number of other items and credits. Thus, it was safer to exchange your credits for marks rather than keeping a large number of credits on-hand, or deposit them in some bank.

Some players simply never exited safe zones to bypass this danger, but it was generally considered wiser to invest your credits in marks if you were heading somewhere dangerous. Marks could be stolen, but they could also be stored in safety deposit boxes and the like. There was also the ability to convert them into ability points or items if you took them to an Administrative Center. Finally, and this was the part that Alan thought had influenced Thiago, exchanges of marks were not tracked by the Game, while any exchange of credits were. Your credit history was recorded. That was one of the reasons Alan wanted to go to an Administrative Center, there were a number of things he wanted to make private, including his level and credit history. The default, for some reason, was public.