The Halberd

"Two hundred and ten gold coins!" A man who wore a metal helm with long brown hair, counter bid against Alice.

"Two hundred and twenty gold coins!" Someone else bid, this time a man with pointed eyebrows in a green kimono .

"Two hundred and thirty gold coins!" Alice bid again, some excitement in her voice at the involvement in the bidding war. Dom watched intently as the bidding continued, with Lu Bu's Halberd soon reaching four hundred gold coins.

"You seem very interested in this Halberd?" Meritamen mentioned as she watched Dom. "It does look an incredible weapon. Do you want it?"

"Not for myself no." Dom replied as he continued to watch.

"It is a fine looking weapon, and a different style to spearman ship." Crassus commented. "We could speak to Ou Yezi about making a collection of weapons to try out."

"I don't believe any of our Heroes use a Halberd?" She questioned, as she followed Dom's sight towards the back of Alice's head.

"They don't." Dom agreed, as the bids now reached five hundred gold coins, and Alice's tone of excitement had now become disappointment.

"For the female warrior below then?" Meritamen questioned teasingly, "are you showing interest in a different woman?"

"I'm not interested in her, I suspect she's a friend." Dom shrugged off, not raising to the bait, as the bids continued to come in.

"It wouldn't seem overly prestigious of us to get involved at this stage as none of the other VIP rooms have bid yet, but for a friend, sometimes things are needed to be done." Crassus said, entering the conversation before it deteriorated.

"It is a very pretty weapon" Meritamen commented as she looked at it on the stage, "The craftsmanship is impressive. The original owner must have been an impressive Warrior. It is definitely a valuable gift for a friend."

"Then I am going to win this for her, her name is Alice." Dom stated, catching Meritamen's eye as he said it.

"Do you not need to confirm it is her first?" Meritamen questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm fairly confident she is here, and looking around the crowd, no one else has her look." Dom replied.

"Will this not give away your identity, which you said you were trying to keep quiet from your friends?" Meritamen countered. The bids were slowing down in the low six hundreds and Alice hadn't bid for a while, Dom assumed she had either ran out of money or wasn't willing to spend the ones she had.

"I agree, but I know she would do it for me." Dom said as he prepared to bid for the Halberd. 

"There is no need to tell her that you bought it for her." Crassus commented, as he took a sip of his wine and enjoyed watching the conversation between Meritamen and Dom. "You could always tell her in the future when you reveal your identity to your friends. Just let me bid as usual and she'll never know."

"Seven hundred gold coins!" Dom heard someone bid, this time from one of the other VIP rooms. Someone had jumped before him and he wondered who it was. 

"Well, that's an excuse to bid then." Meritamen said, sitting back in her chair and smiling at Dom.

"I'll do it." Crassus commented. "Seven hundred and ten gold coins."

The other VIP room counter bid and they bid back and forth until Crassus won the Halberd for nine hundred gold coins. This was a token amount for Riverside, but for most people this was a huge sum. A large amount of resources, food or even slaves could have been purchased for that amount.

"Johannes, I want to gift this to the Blonde Pig Tailed Warrior who bid first." Dom stated, Johannes accented and passed on a message to one of his assistants who left the room. 

"Are you going to buy me a gift next?" Meritamen questioned jokingly.

"Possibly, but I need to get one for Tomoe and Tomyris first." Dom replied, which caused Crassus to spit his drink out with a loud laugh, which led to many in the auditorium below to look up at them. 

....

"The next item is this," Linus introduced, as he opened another box and pulled out a parchment. "This is a parchment that can teleport you and your items, to a different part of the map, specified by yourself. This is a very rare item, and are hard to come by. It is restricted to one person, one time, and is a single use item." 

"That is a great item!" Dom exclaimed, planning to bid for it himself.

"Are you planning to go somewhere?" Meritamen questioned.

"No, but you never know when we could need it." Dom replied.

"And how are you going to return?" Meritamen asked, "If you teleport across the world, how are you getting home?"

"What if I get stranded somewhere, I could teleport back?" Dom argued back.

"You are the leader of a growing city, and one day the leader of a kingdom." Crassus commented, "You shouldn't be putting yourself in to a situation where that could happen, I do agree it is a good item though and may be worth a bid for emergency situations."

The bids quickly increased, with initially those on the lower tiers, until some of the other VIP rooms had a similar idea. The item quickly reached fifteen thousand gold coins and Dom decided that it wasn't worth that much as it couldn't help Riverside's growth that much.

The next few items came and went, with there being a selection of other high grade weapons and armour, as well as some books of knowledge and some highly crafted craftsmen tools. Soon an hour had passed and Linus had finished presenting the middle part of the Auction.

Dom had Crassus place a few bids, and successfully won a handful of gifts for his Heroes as he said he would, having bought an excellent crafted calligraphy set for Shang Yang, a small bunch of orange trees for Lucius and a barrel of rare wine for the rest of them to celebrate with. The wine had surprisingly been one of the most expensive items, having bought it for two thousand gold coins, a lot more than it was worth, as some of the other VIP rooms had began a small bidding war for it. 

They had also purchased some book sets that Crassus thought would be worth having in the School, and eventually a Library is the building appeared as a schematic or an option in the future. The Items that came up were very spread, with some being interesting and others not so much. 

The break quickly passed, with Meritamen jokingly complaining to Dom that he hadn't bought her a gift yet. Johannes had passed a message on that Alice had been informed she had been given the Halberd, and asked if she could meet the person who had bought it her to show her gratitude and ask why. Dom had said to just pass the message back that it was from a friend who hoped to see her do well. 

.....

The final part of the Auction began, and Petunia reappeared on the stage as expected, joined by Linus who would assist her. 

"Welcome to the final part of the Auction, we hope to surprise you and entice you with some rarities from the world of World Conquest Online." Petunia introduced. Linus opened a small box and pulled out a recognisable orange cube.

"This is an Orange Spawn Cube, used primarily for Leaders and Lords. It is of a lower grade than those at the Lords and Leaders Auction, but we felt it was worth using at this Auction as to show the challenges none Lord and Leader class players have to overcome." Linus stated.

"Seeing as we have already sold Lu Bu's Halberd, we thought we would stay on the topic." Petunia continued.

Dom suddenly felt excited, the opportunity to recruit another high level warrior was great and he definitely would bid high to win this. He had limited knowledge about this Hero, having heard a little about him being a Warrior originally under a warlord called Ding Yuan, and then another called Dong Zhuo from Xun Yu, Liao Hua, Xun Yan, Xun You and Gan Ning, when they discussed other known Warriors during their time period.

"This is an opportunity to recruit the famous Halberd Twins from the Song Dynasty, these are D Class Martial Heroes and are both excellent Halberd users." Linus finished. "If you are successful in employing them they could give a huge boost to your Towns or Military Groups. For those that are not Lords or Leaders, they will have little use to you unfortunately."

Dom's excitement dropped slightly at this, having thought he would be potentially gaining another high class Warrior, potentially A or above. However he calmed himself when he saw the look in Crassus eye. 

"We need low level Heroes to support. I do not know anything about them, but if they wield weapons like that Halberd you bought earlier, then these could be great Vanguard Generals or even Body Guard Generals." Crassus commented, after a small conversation Dom agreed and they decided to go for the item.

Eventually after the bids increasing by fifty each time, Crassus won the item for five thousand, four hundred gold coins. Dom took from the Auctioneers words that this would be more of a mission like the Xun Family mission, rather than a direct spawner.

"This is our next item." Petunia announced as Linus had a large crate pushed forwards by some assistants that were dressed in clean white toga's. The crate was also covered in a thick white cloth and fluttered gently as it was pushed.

"This is an exciting item, that I believe most people here would be interested in." Linus said, as he pulled he cloth off the crate, revealing three extremely large white wolves inside, they were all lay calmly at the bottom of the cage, two seemed asleep, whilst the one in the middle gazed lazily out of one of it's eyes.

"These are Dire Wolves, and have been trained to be loyal to their owner. The winner of this bid will receive the three wolves, as well as the control of them from their current trainer." Petunia continued. 

"Dire Wolves are an ancient species of Wolf, the largest known in history. These are a rare specimen that have been bred for their white coats, perfect for snow terrain." Linus added.

"These can be used as guard dogs for Civilians or Warriors. As well as hunting Dogs for any Hunters." Petunia stated, "They have multiple uses and are a very rare species. Bids will start at one thousand gold coins, with increases in fifty gold coins."

"One thousand gold coins!" One of the VIP's shouted straight away.

"One thousand one hundred gold coins!" Another shouted quickly, this time from the room to the left of Dom, which he assumed was the number one player Golden Lion.

"I want these." Meritamen announced to Dom and Crassus. "They will bring prestige to the Town."

"They would also be a possible animal for any future beast halls that appear." Crassus agreed, "These could be handy for the Balearic Slingers as scout dogs, or they could work with the Horse Archers to cause chaos amongst enemy cavalry units."

"Also, look how thick their fur is!" Meritamen said enthusiastically. 

"I agree with both of you." Dom said, knowing he was out voted regardless.

"Two thousand gold coins!" The first VIP had now bid, with a few other people having been involved with the bidding so far.

"Three thousand gold coins!" Golden Lion exclaimed, raising the bid by a thousand to try and push people out.

"The teleportation parchment sold for fifteen thousand gold coins." Crassus commented, "I think he has read the room wrong if he thinks they will sell for that low."

The bids continued, quickly reaching five figures. Neither Dom or Crassus had placed a bid yet, and were waiting for a suitable time. Dom didn't think that they were worth the money as three high grade pets, but he did agree with Crassus's comment on if they did get a Beast Hall again in the future. He also thought it would be interesting to see if the Dire Wolves or the Sabre Tooth Tigers were more fearsome in battle.

Soon the bids reached eighteen thousand gold coins, and Dom decided to use his vast wealth to win these items and move the auction on.

"Twenty five thousand gold coins!" Dom shouted loudly, probably louder than he had intended. 

Crassus and Meritamen both cast Dom a confused glance, to which he didn't understand why. He looked down and saw that the middle Dire Wolf was looking at him intently, which made him feel slightly uncomfortable. He then felt another pair of eyes on him and looked down to the lower tier where a Blonde Pig Tailed Warrior looked up at his VIP booth with a knowing look on her face, as if she had just realised something.