1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.2 An Awakening Epiphany
1.2.2.20 Acquiring a family
Kafana learned quite a bit in the following session. By the end her virtual bedroom was crowded with five additional figures:
Tall dignified Rizah looked like a historian, watching everything alertly over a pair of half-moon glasses. Kafana had imagined her being responsible for reading the websites of established guilds from Soul Bound, but Wellington had suggested giving her a wider remit, so Rizah was now also in charge of monitoring arlife powers, events and trends. If the Burrow started to have an impact upon world events, it was Rizah’s job to anticipate how third parties were likely to react to that.
Dinah was dark skinned, compact and muscular, wearing a feminist “we can do it” tank top. Kafana had imagined her as an expert Soul Bound player, able to advise Kafana on in-game combat and things like quests, stat allocation and her character growth path. Wellington suggested interpreting “personal trainer” more widely, to cover helping Kafana train not just in-game skills, but also arlife skills such as public speaking and self-defence.
Ketah was a lovely willowy girl with long straight brown hair. She was a bit dreamy, but optimistic and a willing helper. She was going to act as Kafana’s arlife sous-chef, once Alderney’s MythOS bots were available to help prepare and serve food. Wellington suggested Ketah take on learning cooking both in arlife and in-game, and tutor Kafana on it or even become a more general creative consultant, helping with videos, visual design and such. Kafana held firm. It was her kitchen, and she wanted things done her way.
Bilah was an elegant lady in her late 40s; calm, confident and with a sharp turn of phrase suitable to putting overly intrusive journalists in their place. Her duty was to defend Kafana’s public persona, dealing with press enquiries, recommending threads in the Burrow to post in and warning Kafana when something would be likely to help enemies track her down in arlife.
Finally there was Terah who had the unenviable job of coordinating all the real and virtual staff when it came to protecting Kafana in arlife, whether that was physical protection, medical health, stress levels, or looking after her legal, social and financial interests. Because he’d need to lead stubborn arlife men like her customers, she’d made Terah an old man himself. Hard working, intensely loyal to Kafana and protective of her, but definitely a bit of a stubborn old goat in his character too.
They were a disparate bunch, but Kafana decided Wellington’s corporate model didn’t work for her. She told the new expert systems that they were an extended family, with herself as matriarch, and that she was going to rely upon them to cooperate nicely. Most of them ‘left’, some to introduce themselves to Alderney and Bahrudin, some to go browse the Burrow or carry out research in the library.
She was aware that the absence of an expert system’s avatar in her bier was a polite fiction. Nonetheless, Balthazar proudly erected a new screen on the wall entitled “Family Status”, indicating where each of them was and what they were up to, before walking over to his project status display and updating it using a quill pen then heading off, leaving her alone with Wellington and Melchior.
Kafana: “How’s the auction looking? Did you find out anything more about the rumour of it being rigged?”
Wellington: “I’ve narrowed down the possibilities. House Czerny are very rigid in their format. They don’t do sealed bids or Dutch auctions, and they’ll only bundle identical items. Bidders must register in advance and have the maximum amount they’re authorised to spend verified by the Goldsmiths Guild. Bidding starts off at the item’s reserve price which is announced in advance, and there are no private advanced sales once an item is listed. The whole building is protected against magic effects that read or influence minds, and their precautions against thieves are top notch.”
Kafana: “What does that leave?”
Wellington: “Cartels of bidders who agree in advance not to bid against each other, or even who will be the designated winner for each item. But that’s not illegal. With the complicated web of alliances between noble families, it is practically expected behaviour.”
Wellington: “Phantom bids by the auctioneer, allowing items to be put up with very low reserve prices to encourage enthusiasm and the hope of getting a good deal. Not illegal, but against House Czerny policy and in the 220 years they’ve been around, nobody has ever caught them doing it.”
Wellington: “The most likely form, if it is happening at all, is collusion. Either deliberate mis-labelling of an item, or leaking additional information to a favoured bidder, beyond what has been put into the catalog description. The Immortals will have sent very detailed information about the items they muled over to House Czerny, and of course they’re not the only ones supplying items. We’ve received strong hints that the pirates have been smuggling artifacts into the city in order to auction them, and that means they’ve got someone fronting for them who is falsifying the provenance of items, and possibly working closely with someone on Czerny’s verification team they’ve suborned. We should be on the lookout for Bel cultists, organised crime and House Ruffo.”
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Melchior: “If pirates and Bel’s cultists are involved, there’s also the possibility that they’ll try to place cursed or otherwise bespelled items into the unwitting hands of specific nobles or officials they are trying to bring down, kill or corrupt.”
Wellington: “I had Giambrone speak to Trinci, Lelio and the mages on our behalf. She’s arranged to have the mages check our items for curses and have any which are cursed transferred to The Bunker, with their value being counted against any current or future taxes owed by you. Your reputation with House Trinci has gone up substantially - they normally have to fight tooth and nail to collect the revenue owed.”
Kafana: “So is it all about information? Who knows more than whom?”
Wellington: “No, there’s a lot of psychology involved. Some bidders are after a particular item and are not too concerned about the price. Some care solely about value for money. Some have a rivalry, and want to do better than a particular other bidder. People watch how others are bidding, for clues that the other person has private information about the item that they don’t have. Some people will try to emulate knowing an item is particularly good, in order to get a rival to overspend on it, so when it comes to a later item they do care about the rival will already have exhausted their available funds.”
Melchior: “The auction house does its best to manipulate people too, using seat positioning to encourage rivalries and fostering the mystique and sense of achievement of winning bidders by the way they present and describe the items.”
Wellington: “For example, item condition is described as: mint, good, slightly foxed, full of character, of great artistic merit or a treasury for connoisseurs.”
Kafana: “What does that mean?”
Wellington: “A mint condition item is one that will pass as having never been used.”
Wellington: “Good condition implies well-maintained, battle-ready, durability fully repaired.”
Wellington: “Slightly foxed to extremely foxed implies damage but still usable in a pinch.”
Melchior: “Full of character means the item is broken, but could in theory be repaired if you can find the materials and a skilled enough crafter.”
Melchior: “Of great artistic merit means it is in one piece, but will never be useful as anything other than hanging upon your wall.”
Melchior: “A treasury for connoisseurs usually means that only fragments remain, and the only person who could possibly want it is a specialist needing parts or raw materials to repair something else.”
Melchior and Wellington gave each other a look. She was slightly surprised at how smoothly the two of them worked together. Birds of a feather?
Kafana: “In short, both the bidders and the auctioneers are a bunch of manipulative sharks hoping to rip each other off?”
Wellington shrugged.
Wellington: “Sharks with rules, which the regular attendees all know. Everyone likes to feel they got a good deal. Many turn up just to display their wealth in fashionable ways, gossip with their peers and keep an eye on what everybody else is up to.”
Kafana: “And that’s happening this evening, arlife time?”
Wellington: “Yes, from 9pm - 10pm, UTC. You sure you can’t make it? Apparently it is quite the social event.”
Kafana: “Absolutely sure. I’m performing then. And I don’t have the clothes for that sort of social event. We should visit Signora Moda tomorrow, if we can. How about you take Carlo along with you? He’s got an eye for detail, and I have a feeling he’ll be rather good at spotting anything dodgy going on.”
Wellington: “And you want me to chat with him.”
Kafana: “Yes. And I want you to chat with him. He’s still a good choice for the auction visit, though.”
Wellington: “We’ll see. Bulgaria is already planning on bringing Comico along, and I was hoping Marco could come - he’s got very high level Appraise and Identify skills.”
Kafana: “With the amount of items we’re putting up, you could bring along a pet elephant and House Czerny wouldn’t object. Tell Bulgaria I said to bring them all, and feed them lavishly. When there’s no hope of conforming to what others are doing, your best bet is to be an original with as much panache as you can muster, and hope that they wish they could conform to you.”
Wellington looked uneasy, and she grinned. Be damned if all the lecturing was going to be in just one direction. While he was off balance, she’d see if she could get more out of him on a different subject - one he'd been far more reticent about...