The tired pair slept in until the sun was high in the sky and glaring into the room. Groggily, Adrest woke up and stretched his cramped muscles before making his way to the sleeping Alissa. Crouching down he gently nudged her shoulder while speaking softly, “Alissa, Alissa, its time to get up.”
It took nearly thirty minutes of prodding before Alissa was able to keep her eyes open. With many yawns and half lidded eyes, Alissa eventually forced herself away from her bed and half-asleep, followed Adrest down the stairs for breakfast.
After a warm meal, the pair were fully awake and enjoyed the day to their limits. They ran around to different cafes and had a picnic at a small park. The two also stopped at the local adventurer Guild house to sign up for fun. A short form and a few silver Trevil later, the pair were certified F rank adventurers.
Alissa was the one who recommended they sign up. There were many benefits, and it easy to get started. One benefit to adventuring being they could get travel visa’s to many countries with the Guild acting as their guarantor. Another reason for signing up was to make money and build connections with other strong adventurers. Plus, the higher ranks would naturally meet important people. However, for Adrest the most important reason was that they also doubled as a bank for their members. With branches and wealth spread through nearly every inch of the entire continent, they were the best creditors.
With guild ID in hand, Adrest asked the receptionist, “By the way, now that we’re adventurers we can use set up a bank account, right?”
The guild employee nodded and handed Adrest a few more papers to fill out before saying, “Great! Now how much would you like to deposit, there is a 3-gold minimum.”
Adrest tried to act casually as he and Alissa both set down large leather bags filled to the brim with gold Trevis. At the sight the poor receptionist’s eyes bulged and she lightly coughed before smiling at the pair trying to brush off the incident.
“I’ll give you the account details as soon as some other employee’s and I finish verifying the amount. Please have a seat and I’ll return shortly.” She set the two heavy sacks on a cart before taking them around a corner behind the counter.
Not even five minutes later she returned with a shiny metal card. On one side was Adrest’s name and a long string of numbers along with a seal at the bottom corner and a pale blue gem at the center. He and Alissa admired the card for a moment before thanking the woman and quietly leaving back to the inn now that they had done all they planned to for the day.
The days passed like that, enjoying the peaceful life of the small town, Adrest and Alissa quickly becoming good friends with Rose. They would keep her company every night for at least a drink or two, though they hadn’t gotten nearly as drunk as the first night again. They also accepted a few of the rank F and E quests that sounded interesting. One was finding herbs in the outskirts of the forest, another was killing giant ants that can be found nearby, and so on. Naturally they were quickly turned in, getting promoted to E rank.
Soon enough, the day of the auction arrived. The town was especially busy as Adrest and Alissa exited the inn, having changed into their brand new, best clothes and headed for the auction house.
Adrest wore pitch black suit jacket, a red silk undershirt, and a gray tie with matching black pants and pointed leather shoes. The dark outfit contrasted his bright orange eyes greatly, drawing people into the fires that seemed to blaze eternally behind them. He truly embodied the word “devilish” in the outfit, drawing many gazes, especially Rose, who paid even more attention to him than usual and the blush was obvious on her pale face.
In contrast was Alissa, who drew even more attention than Adrest. With a slim and elegant light purple dress that drew one’s eyes to her perfect proportions, a slight cut in the top, revealing just a hint of the slightly lighter skin underneath. Both her regal violet hair curled and running down her back like a waterfall, and her faceted horns seemed to glow and contrast with the dress perfectly. She had a dusting of a blush when first showing off the dress to Adrest in their room and smiled when he nearly tripped over himself when he saw her.
The pair approached the auction house arm in arm as Alissa said it was propriety to lead the woman in high class social settings such as these. They looked like a match made in heaven, or hell depending on how you looked at it as they both had devilish characteristics, and one actually was a demon after all.
The pair took in the sight of many luxury carriages at a different entrance. People in elaborate and bright clothing were filtering in, all seeming to compete in showing off their wealth. The wealthy were greeted by sharply dressed employees of the auction house and shown to private booths on the upper floors.
As they waited, Adrest noticed the Randier Crest on a carriage, and saw the youth from before emerging alone before being led inside.
Eventually, Adrest and Alissa made their way to the front of the line and handed over the required twenty gold Trevil and headed to their seats inside. By luck they got good seats, in the middle and towards the front of the auditorium like arrangement. They could perfectly see the raised platform in the middle and curtains covering the entire display still.
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Getting comfortable and watching the seats fill, Adrest and Alissa made small talk as they waited for the auction to begin. Quickly, nearly every seat was filled and the lighting dimmed before the red curtains slowly raised far above the stage.
Lights were turned on above and directed at the stage. There was a middle-aged man in a perfectly tailored black suit standing in the middle of the stage.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen! i humbly welcome all of our guests back for another year, and hope you enjoy the goods we have prepared for tonight. We have everything from rarely seen ingredients found only in the depths of the Great Forest, pills freshly concocted from master alchemists, skills, artifacts, and our highest quality slaves."
He paused for a moment to take a breath, "Now! For our first item, i present a verdant awakening pill. It's high grade and has a 60% chance of increase a nature element user's talent by a grade."
Adrest was amazed at the pills effect, after all, talent was set in stone from birth for the vast majority of people. a chance to increase your talent is a once in a lifetime chance, and here was a pill that did exactly that.
As he was thinking that Alissa scoffed quietly. "What a scam. For 99% of people the only thing nature affinity can do is help to grow and identify plants. Even most alchemists barely touch it, why should anyone care about upgrading it."
Most of the remaining items didn’t interest Adrest nor Alissa in the least. Alissa herself was a weapon, while Adrest didn’t see anything better than the sword he already had. They had no need for rare materials as Adrest didn’t have the slightest clue on how to use them and nothing could grab the picky dragon’s eye.
They watched and waited, listening to the sporadic bids sounding around them, just enjoying the new experience. They didn’t have to wait long to see the first slave, a middle-aged man with dark skin and wolf ears on his head. He had scars all over his body and was apparently a famous mercenary from a neighboring country that was caught in battle, forced into slavery for a minimum of 10 years. He was a rank C dark wolf-kin and was being advertised as an extraordinary guard. He sold for over four thousand gold Trevil to a private box above.
More time passed by and it was nearing the end of the event. Finally, the moment the pair had been hoping for arrived as the while haired, seemingly albino rabbit-kin was pulled on stage. She had tears in her eyes and wouldn’t move her head up to face the audience until the auctioneer made her. The poor girl’s face was visibly thin and gaunt, her cheap cotton gown worn and dirty and her bare feet below raw and covered in dirt.
Adrest gripped one of his chair’s arms, which started emitting low creaks as the wood warped in his hand. He took in the little girl’s sorrowful appearance, what could a child have possibly done to deserve such treatment. He could accept criminals being indentured for their crimes, but there were limits and this was far past his bottom line.
Alissa too, lost her usual grin after taking in the girl’s appearance under the light and put her hand on Adrest’s, giving it a light squeeze to get his attention. At the reminder Adrest calmed down and listened to the auctioneer introduce her.
“This is one of our final items of the night. A little girl of the Spirit Rabbit race. She will bring good luck to whichever house she is bought by and would be a great addition to any savvy collector out there. She’s both rare and a young beauty, so there’s plenty of time to train her into the perfect servant!”
The auctioneer’s words made very faint sparks tick off Alissa’s horns, something that barely ever happened lately. Adrest’s eyes seemed to take on a red glow in the dim lighting as he waited for the bidding to begin.
“We’ll start the price at 1000 gold. Please raise your bids by at least 100.”
Adrest raised his number in the air “2000.”
This got the attention of the surrounding people looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Two thousand gold trevil was no small amount, it was more than some would make in their lifetimes.
“2100.” A deep male voice echoed from a booth on an upper floor.
“3000.” Adrest didn’t hesitate.
This repeated twice more before the girl was sold to Adrest for 5000 gold, and a female attendant came over to arrange payment. Since the pair had already done what they came to do, they followed the attendant to the main hall outside where they used a guild representative counter to fill out a bond for the 5000 gold Trevil. Soon after they handed over the bond, a downtrodden and scared bunny girl was led out of a side door to meet them.
Adrest signed some documents essentially providing legal documentation of the transaction, and of the slave’s ownership. As required, he put a drop of his blood on the metal collar around the girl’s neck, who flinched in fright as he touched her.
They were quickly on their way, with the dragon and demon quiet until they were a good distance from the auction house. They slowed as they reached the dimly lit streets that were still active even though it was the evening.
Adrest spoke first, disappointedly pointing out “It’s too late to stop by a clothing store, huh?”
Alissa nodded in response “Yeah, I’m sure they all closed hours ago. Let’s just go back to the inn, it was a long day.”
The two walked for a few more minutes before the girl that was too afraid to speak, yelped and fell onto the street below. Adrest and Alissa belatedly remembered that she had been given no shoes. The little girl’s feet were cut, and blisters were forming. Alissa gave her a pitiful look as she saw the girl quickly try to get back to her feet, trembling. Alissa made her way over while motioning to Adrest to help, and she crouched over, her back in front of the girl who was too preoccupied with trying to stand to notice. Adrest quickly understood seeing Alissa crouch and gave a small smile as he picked the girl up gently but swiftly, who let out a high-pitched scream in surprise, tensing up.
She was surprised feeling a gentle warmth under her and a soothing voice whispering “Don’t be afraid, we’ll carry you the rest of the way, okay?”
Opening her eyes, the girl found the beautiful demi-human looking at her out of the corner of her eyes with a warm smile on her face. The girl was confused and scared, but feeling the gentle heat under her and hearing the soothing words, for the first time in what felt like forever, the little girl felt safe. She wrapped her arms around the shoulders of the big sister carrying her and started weeping softly into Alissa's back.
Like that, they silently made their way back to the Home and Hearth and saw Rose sleepily manning the empty bar room. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the pair return, now carrying a sleeping frail looking rabbit girl.