Mochizuki closed the Codex and moved over to the chair, looking less harried after a minute away from the intense sea of fluctuating auras they had just left.
“Are you going to be alright?” Tilly asked, checking her distant expression for any signs of lingering distress.
“I will manage. I had hoped to be able to hear more from our booth, but this glass effectively blocks much of my range. I can read lips, but that will obviously be limited to those whose faces I can see.” She replied thoughtfully, chewing over the problem as she sat and faced the stage with the Codex open in her lap.
“Is there anything I can do to help when we go back down? Without the Titles that come with this equipment set, I don’t know that I would have been able to walk, let alone make it through that group of monsters.”
“Believe it or not, I have extensive training in this area. It is just difficult to focus on insulating myself against a certain kind of aura when there are several others pushing in at the same time.” She answered thoughtfully, before turning to Tilly and allowing a small hint of uncertainty to show through her professional mask.
“Since you are asking, I do think I have a fix.. one that will fit in well with your current disguise.”
Tilly nodded immediately, happy to help in any way he could.
“A portion of the way through our trip, you flared your aura slightly. At that moment, I was afraid I was close to displaying weakness. But I found that I was able to orient onto your soul once you unveiled it. Staying in such close proximity to you while leaning into the mindset that I was your possession seemed to stave off the worst of the other’s influence, bolstering my internal ability to insulate myself against the others. I think if you expand your aura slightly to fully cover me, I will benefit from a moderate amount of its protection, allowing me to turn my focus to those we are here to observe, which is mission-critical-”
The whispering voice cut through the rest of her words, gold bangles jingling softly on many layered sleeves, “As is customary, we will begin our bidding on an object of eternal worth, a Living Map from our longtime friends at the Cartogriphor’s Guild. With the recent system-wide announcement, and the unprecedented shifting of our borders, many of you lay in uncharted territory. Not to mention the fact that this generation of maps is the only one produced by the Cartographers that outlines the location and shape of the notoriously reemerged Contested Lands. Due to these extenuating circumstances, we will begin the bidding at fifteen thousand gold.”
Tilly leaned in from his chair, and Mochizuki shifted to the side to take in what the Auctioneer held in their covered hands. As if responding to its occupant's desire the glass front of the room rippled and magnified until an ornate scroll crawling with golding runes came into view. Tilly didn't have time to really inspect the object, as fifteen to twenty flags went up around the arena.
“Now remember honored guests, there will be a map offered at the opening of each round of this event, so this is not your last chance… but with so much interest I can only imagine the price will only go up… Do I have any takers at twenty thousand?” The voice continued, taking on the barest hint of pleasure. In response to the words, five flags rose and the rest fell back to the floor.
“Thirty,” the Auctioneer challenged. Two flags rose, and the other three fell. One depicted an eye at the top of a pyramid and the other held a gnarled tree.
“Forty.”
Neither flag rose.
“Ah, perhaps a bit overzealous, it is early after all… thirty-five?”
The gnarled tree wobbled but did not rise while the Pyramid ascended proudly.
“Thirty-five going once, going twice… Oooh and what is this?” The robed figure crooned happily turning in place, seeming to be able to sense it as an entirely different flag shot up from the floor to rise to meet the pyramid. It had Lightning forking across a great field.
“Someone is playing cleverly…” The Auctioneer whispered for all to hear. Their androgynous voice along with the playful commentary added an entirely different element to the already unpredictable event, and Tilly was having trouble processing through all the implications of anonymous bidding, unknown item lists, and meet and greets between each round of purchases. It was all so complex, and if there was one thing Tilly hated, it was politics… He has always felt like he was drawing close-fisted with crayons while everyone else wrote with fountain pens.
“Will the rest of you let this stand? Some interloper hopping in when the item is all but sold? We all know the remaining maps will sell for more, they always do. Who will enter the fray at Thirty-Six?” The Pyramid and the Lightning ascended slightly, matching each other's movement. No other flags joined the race.
“Eager are we? How about we try forty again?”
They both rose in response, having now ascended to level with Tilly’s window.
“I grow bored with this… Fifty.” Both flags hesitated for a moment before the pyramid fell back down and the Lightning rose in victory.
“No other takers?”
The arena floor remained still, and the Auctioneer sighed, “Very well, I was hoping for slightly more drama on this first item, but too many of you know my games… The Living Map has sold for Fifty thousand gold. Moving on.”
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“Is something like that on our list?” Tilly asked Mochizuki quickly.
“No, we should be gaining access to that information through our network after this event. Our focus-”
“Now for our next item, we have a ten thousand-year Serenity Bonsai, cultivated by our friends at the Ancient Grove Faction…”
Tilly kept his hand away from the crystal, afraid to accidentally activate it before they had any funds to spend. But that didn't keep him from watching with interest as the Bonzai went for seventeen thousand gold. Next was a sextant that would speed any nautical journey by an order of magnitude. Then there was a set of celestial thread spun from the hair of a deific sheep. Each of the items was cool and Tilly was sure they were very useful in specific circumstances, but nothing that seemed as useful as the map, and if he was being honest, his attention began to wander.
Then the Auctioneer waved one of their arms elaborately causing the cloth of their outfit to fan out momentarily and their jewelry to tinkle. When the robes fluttered back down, behind the Auctioneer stood a small pallet of many-hued ingots of glass.
“Now, we have another first for this august event! Occasionally we are privileged to be the purveyors of ancient artifacts of power, often crafted from various rare materials. But here we have on our hands an incredible opportunity for any Faction! Before you, I have 100 ingots of Dragon Glass. This substance and its source have been verified and with the recent system announcement, I think you can all agree that we are soon to be approaching an arm’s race of plane-wide proportions. Get a leg up on your rivals and equip your finest elites with the best enchanting material available. Once inscribed and charged with mana, any item properly crafted with this substance will be as strong as Adamantium and will multiply the effects of the mana inscriptions on the material. The only limit is the quality of your craftsmanship!” Then the figure paused looking around the room and seeming to make eye contact with every booth in the arena before continuing.
“Bidding will begin at fifty thousand gold, and I don’t think I have to tell you that for many, even a few of these ingots would be considered priceless!” The Auctioneer flung out their covered arms dramatically and almost in response, flags all across the arena flags rose to the bid.
Seeing his chance, Tilly reached over to his crystal and attempted to meet the bid. He felt the mana in the object retreat, leaving space for him to push his own in if desired. He did so, and his attention was immediately drawn to a flag with the same symbol that floated above his crystal. It jerked at his link and ascended to match the others.
“Let's not waste time… One Hundred Thousand!” The Auctioneer whispered/yelled manically.
Tilly felt the mana in the crystal retreat further, giving him more space to push his own in, but he pulled back and saw his flag fall, along with many others. That didn’t stop Tilly from leaning forward in interest as dozens of flags rose to the new bid.
“Ah, I see such a prize has many of you feeling bold! How many will last at one hundred and fifty thousand?”
The numbers kept rising, and Tilly was overcome by the euphoric feeling of winning the lottery as he watched the Alliance’s coffers grow to dizzying heights. Maybe with this much wealth, they would actually have a chance to survive whatever was thrown at them next…
The bid grew to four hundred thousand with five flags still in the race. Tilly's euphoric rise crashed back down to earth as reality hit him. Each of these Factions had enough gold to spend this much on just one opportunity. This was surely an incredible boon to the Three-Fold Alliance, but at the end of the day, it still only represented a drop in the bucket to some of the major players on the Plane.
Mochizuki glanced over at Tilly’s rollercoaster-like response and her focus slipped as a mischievous grin quirked at the edge of her lips. Then she casually threw a bomb into Tilly’s already ruined paradigm.
“Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that the Alliance has recognized your personal contribution to our obtaining of such an incredible resource, and as such, ten percent of any Dragon Glass exported from our Faction will be deposited directly into your personal account with the Commerce Guild.
“AHA! Tenacious little upstarts, aren’t you?” The Auctioneer’s voice continued, oblivious to Tilly's shattered reality.
“Do you have the stomach for eight hundred thousand!”
The new amount once again set Tilly adrift in a sea of possibilities. He couldn’t begin to comprehend how much the Faction, and now he would be able to do with that amount of gold.
Only three flags had hung in the race to this dizzying height and at the new price declaration, a familiar image fell away. The flag divided by forked lightning fluttered to the ground, defeated. Mochizuki’s small smile broadened as the two remaining flags, one depicting a laughing skull and the other showing a crashing wave rose up through eight fifty and then nine hundred thousand.
The Auctioneer lowered the bidding intervals as the trio shrunk to a pair, attempting to squeeze every drop from the race. Numbers so large that they would have choked a less skilled orator took the flags to almost a million gold before the flag depicting a crashing wave dropped out of the running and the Laughing skull flew resolutely at the apex of the air over the arena.
“Congratulations, honored guest. We have just broken a one-thousand-year record of nine hundred and fifty thousand gold! Perhaps we will break the all-time record today with so many ripe opportunities still to come, Eh? One hundred Dragon Glass ingots sold for nine hundred and seventy thousand gold.
The floor fell out from under Tilly as the final price was named, and he found himself unable to process any of the math required to figure out just how much money they had made…
Mochizuki was busily scratching a few notes in the Codex and then read aloud her conclusions, “Congratulations are in order, Mr. Tillman. After the 15% commission to the Auction House, our Faction has earned eight hundred twenty four thousand and five hundred Gold. Ten percent of which is yours, coming to eighty-two thousand, four hundred and fifty gold.” She finished smugly, Tilly suddenly noticed that words were exploding across the page under her notes. Tilly looked up at the lapin at a loss, completely unable to process what had just happened, let alone whatever item the Auctioneer had already started bidding on.
“Mochizuki, are you using that to talk with Shuji?”
“Oh, Yes! So sorry, I should have explained earlier. Anything written in this book enters into our Librarian’s knowledge and anything he reads, appears in this book wherever he wills it. In the most basic sense, this is a physical manifestation of his mind. He is receiving my notes, writing his responses, and then reading them. It took some practice to get the technique down, but this is our best solution for instantaneous plane-wide communication. Many of the Factions who send representatives have some equivalent in place. As we speak, Shuji is sitting in with the Alliance Council in a closed section, they are quite pleased with the results of our first sale.”
“That's… brilliant.”
“Yes, thank you. Now I think we both have to pay attention, I’ll make sure to let you know if something comes up that we need. There are two other groups of items we managed to enter into this event, and while they will partially reveal more than I would like, they will also serve as key methods for us to identify possible allies. So while the Faction's budget is set, your personal wealth is set to increase even further, so be on the lookout for something that might uniquely suit you.
“For our final prize of the first round of the auction, we have a matching triple set. Many of you have heard of the new force sweeping across the plane and it is well known how much opportunity comes with such changes. So, for any looking to set themselves up as a force to be reckoned with in what some are saying will be a new world order, I present three, Mythic-ranked Corruption Seeds.”