Dungeonmaster

"The group rounds a bend in the rocky path, and sees the soaring frontage of Nakamoto Castle. There are workers farming in the fields between the group and the castle, and a hawk flies lazily overhead."

Aki paused, smiling, as she looked at the four windows on her screen. "What do you want to do?"

One of the boys in the call sighed. "Well, clearly we're supposed to do something with the hawk, right?"

Aki shrugged, and blinked innocently.

"I don't think so, Louie, it's just there because she likes hawks. They always show up." The boxed faces onscreen shared a laugh.

Another window piped up. "Nah, I think we're supposed to meet the lord of the castle. Isn't the name of the guy important to... the elves? Or maybe we're supposed to buy something. At least we finally made it to - oh, crap, look at the time. I don't know about where you guys are, but it's four in the morning here. I've got class in… oh, crap." There was a flurry of movement from one of the windows, and a bright wave. "Houston, signing off. G'night, team! Or good morning…"

"Bye, Louie. See you next week."

"Absolutely."

One window winked out of existence, and Aki looked at the rest. "Anybody feel like talking for a while?"

"Doh. If I don't get a shower before noon…"

She laughed. "Got it." Another window vanished with a wave, leaving her with Shauna, who was in Ireland, and Dahlia, who was in the next room. "Boys, right? No perseverance…"

Shauna laughed as she tied back her hair. "Me either. Starting the internship tomorrow, remember? See you next week!"

Aki sat back from her laptop and turned, yelling toward the kitchen. "You have coffee in there?" Her roommate barked a laugh.

"Yes, and turn down your sound next time! Or at least take off the headset. Ouch."

"Oops."

The group had met at a computer science conference in their Senior year of high school. They'd all gotten in trouble for sneaking into Aki's room at the hotel for a game night. Since then, they'd gone on to different colleges that spanned half the globe, but their friendship and weekly D&D game continued unabated.

Dahlia poured Aki a cup and sat down across the kitchen table from her. "So, are we supposed to buy something?"

Aki squinted at her. "You know I can't tell you that."

"I know." Dahlia sipped thoughtfully, and chuckled. "You know, it'd be more fun if we had real money in the game."

"Ha… yeah… "

"It would. We could actually buy things -"

"-that don't actually exist -"

"- With money that doesn't actually exist. Perfect!"

Aki shook her head. "I don't want to start a Dungeonmaster Bank. Too much work. And it'll turn into Monopoly."

Dahlia slouched her head onto her palm, her elbow resting on the table. "Maybe we could all do it. That's how you could earn the money, working at the bank."

They stared at the wall facing the table for a couple minutes, before Dahlia shook her head and stood up. "Or maybe not. But I've got to finish that paper for Whitman's class." She headed for her room, and looked back, seeing that Aki was still staring at the wall.

The next game night ended up starting late. Various members showed up onscreen, chatting randomly as they waited. Aki was oddly quiet as the rest of the group arrived.

"Hey, Earth to Aki. What's going on up there?"

She shook her head, surprised. "Sorry."

"You working on a program?"

"Kind of… but I don't think I can do it alone."

There was general amusement at this. "Well, you picked the right group to talk to about code, didn't you?"

"True."

Louie leaned in toward his camera, deadpan. "Ms. Aki, would you like to tell us what this caper is?"

She took a deep breath. "Okay. What do you guys know about cryptocurrency?"

Dave blinked and raised his hand. "I just had to do a review of Chaum's paper on eCash. You read it?"

Aki nodded. "Yeah…yesterday. "

"Chaum? Isn't that ancient history?"

Dave cleared his throat, a sure sign that he was ready to lecture. "Well, he wrote the theory in '83, but didn't play with DigiCash until '95. That's only about ten years ago."

Louie snorted. "In coding years? That's ancient history!"

"True that."

Nodding wisely, Dave went on. "Of course, if you're thinking of trying that, Aki, he did eventually go bankrupt."

"Right," she replied, chewing her lip before taking a deep breath. "But Dahl gave me an idea last week. What if it was decentralized… and free code style, people could work on verifying transactions to make some of the money..."

"We'll have a bottleneck there. We'll need to make it a single payout for each - Dahlia, are you still working on that blockheart thing?"

"Blockchain. Kicking it around. I think it can work, but -"

"What's your blockchain, Dahl?" Louie looked up curiously.

"It's an open ledger that can record transactions between two parties. Verifiable and permanent."

Shauna, who had been typing on a second screen, spoke quickly. "Okay - the SHA series is royalty free…" she typed a few more seconds. "Looks like SHA-256 would be the way to go - for authenticating, anyway." She shrugged. "That's a big piece we don't have to reinvent, anyway."

"Right." Aki smiled. "This is going to take some doing."

Dave looked up for a moment. "I'd say if we're all doing it, probably six to eight months." He grinned. "If we all drop out of school, that is."

The brief silence was broken by Louie. "Nope. Recalculate for not getting killed by my parents, please."

"Ha. Okay… a year and a half? Two? Just to still have a life and get it ready to go. Could be fun."

They sat quietly for a few moments, thinking. Eventually it was Aki who broke the silence, scribbling in a notebook.

"Alright, players. The new quest is on the table… but you have to finish this one, first." She opened several notebooks in front of her. "As I recall, you were approaching Nakamoto Castle."

"Hey, who lives in this castle, anyway?"

Aki glanced at her lists. "Satoshi. Satoshi Nakamoto. He's a powerful wizard."