I know these aren’t 100% accurate … but they are pretty accurate on top of how true this story is at my shop.
“The Gleam Dream Scheme”
Ah, Boundless. The game of infinite worlds, endless exploration, and a real estate economy that makes Wall Street look like a lemonade stand.
It all started on a totally average Tuesday. Birds chirping, meteors crashing, and me, sitting in my dusty old workshop, wondering what to do next in Boundless. I’d mined, built, hunted, and even roleplayed as a sentient tree once (don’t ask). But that day… that day a spark returned to my pixelated soul.
“Gleam,” I whispered, staring at a rainbow-stained wall in my storage room. “It’s time.”
With the force of a thousand warp conduits, I leapt into action. My mission? Reopen the legendary Gleam Dream Emporium™. But this time, I wasn’t just selling a few shades—I was going full spectrum. All 254 colors of gleam, from your run-of-the-mill Cool Mint to that ultra-rare Shadow Cerulean that only appears during an exo-planet’s midlife crisis.
And just for fun? I set the price at a glorious, eyebrow-raising 5,000 coins per block.
Did I get laughed at in trade chat? Oh yes.
Did someone call it “the rainbow tax?” Yes again.
Did a guy named “RockSniffer42” try to pay in refined gravel and cryptic emojis? You bet he did.
But then… it happened.
KA-CHING.
One block of Deep Fuchsia. Gone.
I blinked.
Checked the shelf.
Checked my coin total.
Then whispered: “…someone actually paid that?!”
Moments later:
KA-CHING. KA-CHING. KA-CHING.
Suddenly, Cerulean Blush? Sold out.
Shadow Red? Gone.
Dark Violet? Obliterated.
The rarest gleam blocks were flying off the shelves like Oortian candy at a hunter convention.
But the other 245 colors?
Crickets.
Not a single coin.
I had an entire wall of Warm Yellow, Silk Turquoise, and Night Orange that didn’t move an inch. I think one of them started growing moss. Possibly sentient.
I even put up signs like:
“Free hugs with every Pale Moss purchase!”
“Buy 2 Ashen Grey, get existential dread free!”
Nothing.
But the rare ones? Oh, they sold by the hundreds. Builders came in droves—hoarders, collectors, prestige junkies—grabbing stacks like their pixelated lives depended on it. One guy bought 300 Bright Lilac and just whispered “finally…” before vanishing into the void.
I leaned into it. Laid down a red carpet. Installed mood lighting. Added a talking NPC named “Gleambert” who says things like “This gleam glows with purpose.”
People kept coming.
Some asked, “Why 5,000 coins?”
Others asked, “Why not more?”
And me? I stopped asking questions. I was too busy counting coins and preparing to stock the mythical Twinkling Verdant Gleam, which, according to legend, only appears during a solar eclipse while you’re singing the Boundless theme backward.
In the end, I suppose the shop succeeded for one simple reason:
In Boundless, people will walk past 250 perfectly good colors just to overpay for the one shade they swore they’d never see again.
And me? I’m just here, selling overpriced photons and living the gleam dream.
