15 Buying and Selling
Hearing the commotion outside his room, Erich got up from his bed and walked to his door. Opening he it he was surprised by what he saw. A handsome man with white hair was tossed over the shoulder of a beast of a man with thick dark hair. The white-haired man was screaming about nedding to pee, while the beast of a man was saying there was no time to go pee.
"You can use my bathroom," Erich said to the white-haired man.
"Thanks," Sydra said flipping off of Robert's shoulder and disappearing into the bathroom. Sighing, Robert looked at the man who had allowed Sydra to escape.
"Oh! Hey Erich, how have you been?" Robert asked, recognizing the man.
"Oh, you know how it is. I just returned from my last quest and have yet to visit the Guildhall to see if I increased my rank. Pretty sure I am B-rank now, like you." Erich said proudly.
"Really? That's good, this town needs more B-rank people. Have you heard of my guild finding the temple ruins? Sydra here actually had a really good haul of items." Robert said, introducing Sydra who had just finished in the bathroom. "We're headed to the auction to sell and buy some stuff."
"I thought as much," Sydra said, glancing at Robert. It was true that Sydra wanted to sell much of the stuff he had picked up, he just wasn't expecting Robert to drag him off to an auction to do so. "By the way, what is the main weapon you use?" Sydra asked Erich.
"I use a mace, mostly," Erich said pointing at a mace sitting on a table in his room.
"Hmm," Sydra checked his Arbor Sanctum for a mace. "Ah, here we go. Will this work?" Sydra asked, pulling a beautifully crafted mace out of his storage. It had an ivory grip with a redwood shaft and four axe heads made from plasma connected to Dark Sapphire at the end. "Try running your aura through it." Sydra said, handing the mace to Erich.
"Okay..." Erich said, running his wind aura through the mace. As the wind aura reached the Dark Sapphire it started to collect and create a small tornado at the top. "Holy crap, this weapon is a aura enhancer type? What can I do to buy this from you?" Erich asked, gazing at the mace as if it was his lover.
"Well I heard you were a B-rank adventurer, so I was hoping you could join us on a quest we are going on. We talk details later if you are interested, for now keep the mace as payment for helping me in a time." Sydra said walking away with Robert.
"See you later," Robert called out to Erich, before leading Sydra to the auction hall.
"I should find a place to practice with my new mace," Erich said to himself, going back into his room.
...
"So why did you drag me out of my room?" Sydra asked Robert as they walked down the crowded street.
"Oh, well for one, the auction only allows you to place items that you want to sell at the auction an hour before it starts. That way they can inspect the items to be going up and see if they are even worth the auction selling them." Robert said looking at Sydra.
"And what makes you think I want to sell my items?" Sydra asked, dodging a cabbage cart that was rolling away from someone.
"Do you not want to?" Robert asked, slightly surprised. It never crossed his mind that Sydra might not want to sell some of the items he had found.
"I do, I was just curious. Hey, I have notice that there are a few more dwarves here than usual. Has the dwarven kingdoms already showed up?" Sydra asked, glancing at a few dwarves that were walking around.
"Yeah, for the most part they are harmless, just don't insult anything that has to do with blacksmithing. They go crazy over that stuff, and in fact once wiped out an entire large-sized town of lizard men over it." Robert said, as the two men approached a large black and red building. The entire front of the building was made out of Night Glass that sloped out over the street, and the metal beams holding the place up were made from Ruberic Iron.
"Wow, the owner of this building has an interesting taste in architecture." Sydra said, admiring the building. 'I want a place of my own that looks like this.' Sydra thought to himself. Entering the building the two men approached the front counter and asked to be able to sell some stuff. Afterwards they were led to a separate room to show what they wished to sell. When Sydra pulled all the items out that he wanted to sell, the young inspector went slack-jawed.
"Please hold on a moment, I need to get the main inspector for all of this." He said rushing out of the room. A few minutes later the young inspector came back, with a middle age man. As the middle age man saw all the items, he also went slack-jawed.
"Do you mean to sell all of these items?" The man asked, astounded by the quality and rarity of the items.
"Yes, I recently went on an expedition of the Plasma Temple, and I acquired all these items there. I have no use for all of these, so I was hoping to sell it." Sydra said, picking up a helmet and handing it to the man.
"Haha, wonderful! Todays auction will be one of the biggest ones yet. Our Rising Phoenix auction house would love to host your items in todays auction. The auction house will receive ten-percent of all gold received today, and we will give you a VIP seat to watch over the auction. Will that work for the two of you?" The man asked, gazing at the helmet in his hands.
"Yes, that will do. Thank you." Sydra said.
"Perfect, please follow me then, and I will take you to your seats." the man said as he led the Robert and Sydra out of the room. Before he left, the man turned back around to the young inspector. "Gather all these items up and have someone bring them to the storage room to be ready for display. After that I need you to go outside and hang a sign that says that today our auction house will be selling items that came from the Plasma Era, and list a few of the more impressive items beneath it."
"Right away, sir." Said the young man gathering up the items and heading out to do the task he was given. Finished giving the task to the young inspector, the middle-aged man led Sydra and Robert to a set of a stairs.
"Up this set of stairs will be the VIP room for the two of you. If you need anything please let one of the auction workers know, and we will get it for you." the man said said as Sydra and Robert went up the stairs to there own room that overlooked the auction room beneath them. After they had gone up the stairs the man took a velvet rope and hung it across the stairs to allow others to know this room was occupied.
"Wow, this is my third time being up here, and it still amazes me." Robert said, as he gazed out across the large room. The room was half the size of a college football stadium, with lights hanging down from the ceiling. Each light was basically a large cylinder aquarium with Seastorm eels swimming inside them. They gave off a blue glow that calmed the auction house.
Sitting down on a blue cushioned chair, Sydra surveyed the people entering the room. It seemed that the young man had been very fast at hanging up the sign stating what the would be selling at todays auction, as there were a lot of people quickly entering the auction house. Most of them were actually dwarves, since when people saw the dwarves they would give up on acquiring anything. Dwarves did, after all, have a large amount of gold from selling so much technology and weapons. They were also experts at inscribing runes on there weapons to give it more of an advantage in battle.
"Looks like this auction is going to accumulate you a lot of wealth." Robert said glancing at all the dwarves with their money pouches. "You might actually make more money today than I have saved up for over a decade." he said laughing.
"Maybe, but I am more interested in what there is to buy." Sydra said opening a pamphlet that was next to his seat. As Sydra scanned the pamphlet his eyes caught onto the description of an odd stone. The seller was classified, but there was a picture of the stone. It was light grey in color, with a blue inscription on the front of it. No one could read the inscription so the people at the auction didn't put much emphasis on it. Sydra on the other hand could, and what the inscription read surprised him.
'I need to buy this stone, no matter what.' Sydra thought as he read the inscription again.
