-Chapter 6- The Masked Auction

Tessia Eralith P.O.V.

Waking up I find myself tied up, my hands are tied to one another by the wrist and my legs are tied together by the ankles. My mouth is covered with a cloth preventing me from opening my mouth to speak. I attempt to struggle my way out of the restraints to be hit.

One yells at me after hitting me, "Stop squirming, you won't escape from those."

One of his friends yells at him, "Don't injure the merchandise, you damn fool."

The one who hit me turns to him and powers his head a bit, "Sorry boss, won't happen again."

"Damn right, you don't want to end up like the member you replaced." The leader spoke back.

The leader walked back out to the front of the cart, I was placed inside the carriage with the other kidnapper, we were both hidden by the tarp going over the cart.

We continue moving outside of the forest for what feels like several hours. Soon enough the fog begins to fade and the tree line lowers to the size of normal trees, we are no longer in Elenoirs forest.

The sky is approaching night and yet we don't stop for camp, are we close to the destination?

Sure enough the cart stops, I can't see what's going on outside the cart beside the sky so I can't tell what's going on. I hear talking and what sounds like a teleportation gate activating, the cart begins moving again and we are teleported to somewhere new. Looking up in the sky the clouds look much closer than where they were before the cart soon stops and the man in the cart with me gets up.

He begins to walk towards me and I get scared. I start to shake around and attempt to escape from my bindings but he grabs me and hits me again. He places me in a nearby crate to hide me and I feel the crate gets lifted and carried somewhere.

The next thing I knew I was being dropped off somewhere and the lid of the crate was opened, they turned the crate over to throw me out of it into a cage. Getting up and looking around I was standing in front of a large audience of people.

They all wore extravagant clothing with many kinds of jewels and crests, one I recognize from my history books from the palace. The crest mark of the Wykes family, they were infamous among the elven culture for their participation in the human and elf war. Looking around the room I couldn't see anyone's faces due to them wearing some kind of mask, the man from the Wykes family wore a mask that covered his eyes, it was detailed to look like two blue flames.

A well-dressed man also wearing a mask walks up on stage, his mask looks like an owl with a top hat connected to it, he takes an item out of his pocket and begins to speak into it letting the whole crowd hear his voice, "Ladies and gentleman, our next item up for auction is another elf of noble lineage, we suspect she is of pure elven blood, those of you who would wish to have a battle slave, this is one you should buy! With a high chance of awakening and a great chance of her possessing the ever so famous plant affinity she will grow with great potential!"

The moment he began speaking it dawned on me, this was a slave auction. Probably an Illegal one too.

The announcer begins speaking again. "We will start bidding for 100 gold coins! Do we hear 100 gold coins?" As if he had just offered a golden tablet for free, people began bidding at fast paces.

"100 gold coins, 150 gold coins, 250 gold coins!"

The number kept rising and the room grew lively with hundreds, no near-thousands, of rich nobles and wealthy people bidding on me.

Soon enough the numbers grew into the thousand.

Someone chants from across the room, "1000 gold coins!" The same price as a golden tablet, after that the bidding quieted down to a halt.

The announcer, stunned and speechless, gets himself prepared again to speak, "oh wow, 1000 gold coins! Does anyone have a bid to contest this?"

The man from the Wykes family raised their hand and announced. "1100 gold coins."

The announcer, amazed, continued, "1100 gold coins anyone else has an offer?"

There began a bidding war between two people, the Wykes man and someone in the far back I can't see.

1200! 1300! 1500! Soon enough reaching 2000 gold coins the Wykes family member had stopped contending with the opposing bids.

The astonished auctioneer stumbles to get his words out, "2-2000 gold coins! That is worth the same as two gold tablets. You in the back won this bid." I was then wheeled away to a back room.

Soon after the winners were brought to me, there I got a good look at them. Their clothing looks strange, almost foreign, they don't wear a crest signifying their family name but they do wear a mask. Their mask terrified me, it was a white mask with golden threads painted on it, on the forehead of the mask were black horns jutting out of the mask giving them a demon-look.

I was taken away by them to their carriage, they took me out of the cage and undid my bindings, they replaced them with bracelets, the first one felt like it burned my wrist for a moment before cooling down. The second one did nothing of the sort. They waved their hand signifying for me to follow them. I did so until we got outside where I began to make a break for it running away.

They didn't move to get me but stood still, soon enough the second bracket I had put on began releasing electricity and shocking me until I fell to the ground. The man in the horned mask began walking towards me and picked me up off the ground like royalty and carried me over to the carriage. They placed me in the seat across from them and then knocked on the wall which signaled the driver to begin moving.

Still feeling weak from the bracelet shocking me I slowly drift into a slumber.

***

I later wake up in a room somewhere, I am seated on an elegant chair in front of a large dining table, the masked man is gone and soon a noticeably different-looking man walks into the dining room.

They stand tall with pitch-black fluffy hair and terrifyingly red eyes. Their body shape is toned and he is wearing a casual suit that you'd normally wear to small family events. He walks to a chair across the table from me. I am too terrified to even move, he clears the silence in the room by speaking up. "Hello, there young one, what is your name?" He asks a simple question that I am too terrified to answer. "Don't worry I don't plan to harm you without any reason. I am simply asking your name if you'd like I can get you a gift if you answer my questions."

Forcing myself to calm down and reply so I don't give him a reason to hurt me, "my-my name is Tessia Eralith."

"An Eralith hmm. Are you the daughter of Virion Eralith?"

"N-no that's my grandfather."

"So you are the current princess of the Elenoir kingdom?."

"Yes, I am." He continues to ask me questions to learn as much about me as he can. I continue answering them in fear of getting hurt.

After I answer what feels like a million questions he stands up and walks towards me, I scoot back in my chair trying to back away from him.

"Don't worry young one, what I'm doing won't hurt." He approaches me and pulls out what looks to be a badge with a rune burned into it. He presses the side with the rune onto my forehead and suddenly I am filled with the feeling of vertigo.

The room begins to spin and my vision goes black. Memories of my life up till now feel like they are fading, my parents, my grandfather, the painful experience of how I got here in the first place, my name.

***

Waking up I feel intense pain in my head. 'Who am I, what was I doing here?' I look around and see I'm in a bedroom, I get up and wander around the room, I find a mirror and look at my reflection. I have silver hair and teal eyes. It's a bit narcissistic but I don't look all too bad. There is a click of a door opening to my right and I quickly turn to see who's there.

Opening the door is a Tall toned man with fluffy black hair and red eyes. I feel like I've seen him somewhere before. He looks at me and says, "Oh you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Who are you?" I ignored his question.

"I am your parent, or rather adopted parent. My name is Zanshu Crestless. It looks like the doctor was right, It looks like you have lost your memory of the accident. You see, I was a good friend of your parents and after their deaths, I took you in and raised you. Recently however you fell and got hurt injuring your head, which caused your memory to go away." He pulls over a chair and gestures for me to sit down on the bed, "Before your accident I promised to raise you well and train you to be a very strong mage when you awaken. Before we start your training I'll let you adjust. Feel free to ask any question you need to be answered."

"What is my name?" "Your name is Tessia Crestless."

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