“What’s our next stop?” Ajax asked once he entered the carriage of the Goldmancer family. All of the guards knew he had a standing invitation so he didn’t have to bother with formalities.

“The initial plan was to head straight to the other… lesser dungeon, the whole plan was to get them out of the way so that we would get as much time as possible in the capital for all of the politics.” Archduke Goldmancer answered.

“From your wording I am guessing that changed?” Ajax asked a little worried about what could cause a change of plans.

“Your unique semi-final floor is to blame for that, the thi-.” the archduke was quickly cut off by his own daughter.

“You, the prince and the champion pulled out some one of a kind collection pieces.” Anna cut in swiftly with a dull tone but an accusing glare at her father. “Everyone that got their hands on one and is looking to sell it asked for an audience with the king to change our route so we pass through Darkcavern.”

Ajax knew that despite the Republic being a full melting pot there were still a few cities that weren’t as inclusive in their architecture. Darkcavern was a fully dwarven city that was built upon an old giant ant colony tunnel structure. While it wasn’t on the other side of the kingdom it was pretty out of the way for them.

“What is in Darkcavern?” Ajax asked.

“Their century auction.” Lexi provided. “The plan is to sell a few in the auction to build up their price for when they will sell them around the tournament.”

Now that he thought about it Ajax had heard both his grandfather and sister mention Darkcavern more than once or twice in their recent plotting so it did make sense. After all of the sixty-seven total pieces of steampunk gear that were recovered from the dungeon Ajax had managed to claim fifteen of them just from stumbling onto them inside what looked to be a golem assembly plant.

Both the prince and shadow had collected a lot more from the defeated enemies as they all but cleared out the floor with twenty-three and twenty-eight respectively, a single piece was taken by one of the other people who had joined them on the floor. The big difference was that all of Ajax’s pieces were in pristine condition while most of the others were damaged in some way from the fight to kill their users.

“I’m not surprised if that’s what’s going down there.” Ajax said. “I’ve never seen such a predatory look on my sister's face since she saw the worms we brought back from the Empire. Did you manage to snag any of them cheap?”

“We got our hands on ten of them.” The archduke replied.

Since the run had been a boost none of the boosters were allowed to keep anything they got from the delve, they had to sell them to the highest bidder from the people who participated in the run. While this may have meant that the prince could sell most of them to the royal family through Xavier’s participation he still had to spread a few around along with Shadow as a sign of good faith. Ajax was under no such restriction.

“Your performance was quite something once you showed what you had.” Lexi giggled as she teased him.

Ajax had been very quick on the uptake when the loot show and tell was done. It had taken him two seconds of feeling every merchant's skill land on the weakest link in the group before he loudly and repeatedly declared that ‘I will be having these appraised and handled by my grandfather as the head merchant of my House’. Not even his grandfather could get away with keeping all of them but he could get a much better deal and save Ajax the headache.

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“Your grandfather did admirably, managed to hold onto all but three pieces without building up too much resentment.” the archduke complimented. “Though he could have done without losing the full leg prosthetic.”

Considering that this was coming from the best merchant the kingdom had to offer Ajax took it as high praise. Sure the leg was a rather interesting piece but the two arm prosthetics he had held on to were fully functional limb replacements and since they were around level ninety-seven they were the next best thing after limb regrowth available.

“Seeing as the arms he kept actually work I think he did pretty well.” Ajax responded with a smirk.

“You know how these work?” Lexi exclaimed as she pulled the aforementioned leg prosthetic out of her spacial ring. She also wasn’t the only one to focus on him at that.

“I know how to get them to work, not how they work.” While Ajax knew the basic principles of steampunk he was no inventor. “Much more in the way that knowing how to swing a sword doesn’t make you a blacksmith.”

A privacy enchantment was activated and the outside world fell away from the carriage. “Would you mind giving us a demonstration?” the archduke asked, a predatory gleam in his eye.”

“Sure.” Ajax said as he took the leg from Lexi. “The hard part is getting them properly attached.” Ajax explained as he topped up the water canister.

Pressing a button on the leg started the boiling process and heated up the water. Ajax had no idea where the energy for that came from but it was done by the adjustment the system made to the steampunk idea when it brought it over.

“You see while the leg looks like a normal leg it has much more limited options of movement but they come with a greater range.” Ajax demonstrated as he showed that the knee and ankle were the only joints on the leg, followed by showing that they could fully rotate, the hip attachment was rigid. “That and the nerve connections are pretty tricky.”

The medical industry had discovered that the human body operated based on electricity from the prevalence of lightning mages throughout history, the small currents that ran from the brain to get muscles to move were already well known.

Using his lightning mana Ajax gently applied some to the sensors at the top of the leg once the steam started pumping the machine. The leg jerked in his hand at that and on its own rotated fully slamming into the side of the carriage with a loud THUMP leaving behind a dent. Not strong enough to do any serious damage to an archduke’s carriage but certainly not harmless.

“That does seem like it will take some getting used to.” the archduke looked wide eyed at the leg and the dent. “It also seems like quite the addition and surprise for any mage to have.”

The archduke wasn’t wrong there, without the help of full body movement even the level ninety-seven equipment could only output a level eighty’s raw power it was a hell of a surprise for a mage to suddenly spring a level eighty physical build level of melee combat.

“The only question is when should we do a live demonstration?” the archduke mumbled lost in his own world as he calculated market fluctuations all over again with the new variable.

“What does he mean?” Ajax asks.

“He is wondering if we should keep the secret a bit longer and only show it in the capital or if we should reveal how they work in Darkcavern.” Anna let out an exhausted sigh. “Lets go tell your grandfather about this since he will want to know. My dad is going to be at it for a while.”

“He should know that not all of them would be functional.” Ajax mentioned offhand as he made to stand up.

“What now?” Both daughter and father quickly focused on him.

“They might be high level equipment but the insides are fragile.” Ajax explained. “I got mine raiding a spare parts armory but the others, the prince and the champion, took them off the bodies they killed. They weren’t going all out but I wouldn’t accuse them of being gentle, wouldn’t surprise me if half of theirs don’t work as intended anymore.”

“Let's keep that between us for now shall we.” Anna got a sneaky look in her eye. “I might want to go see what pieces I might be able to trade with the others.”

“Try to find out how many working ones there are.” the archduke asked her as he got back into his calculations.

“My lady, did something happen?” The archduke’s right hand man asked as Anna, Lexi and Ajax exited the carriage.

Despite the privacy enchantment someone sitting on the carriage would have felt the impact from the leg. “Dad just found a new variable.” Anna said nonchalantly and the guard simply nodded as he looked inside the carriage before the door closed.

“Yes, that will be a few hours.” he spoke from experience.

Ajax spent the remainder of the trip to Darkcavern with his grandfather and sister. They had first put him to work trying to find out how much he could figure out about their merchandise before keeping an eye on him to make sure the information didn’t spread any further.

“You do know I can keep a secret.” Ajax complained on the third day of being under strict watch.

“We weren’t even the first people you told about this.” Ajax had nothing to say to his sister’s retort so he silently decided to just try and sleep. The beds installed on the worms were some of the most comfortable in the entire convoy as they didn’t sway at all.