The man sitting behind Neil who had spoken out against the nagerie hadn’t said a word since the auction had started. It wasn’t hard for Neil to guess why. The nagerie had put up a total of six magical items for sale already. All of them had been Epic Rarity — and each one of them had been made by Ifrit.
Neil couldn’t help but feel more than a little awe for the guild. And he wasn’t the only one. He was willing to bet that almost none of the people attending the auction today had co here expecting anything like this.
The nagerie were a new guild. They’d proven that they were interesting from their performance in the Proving Grounds as well as the other feats they’d pulled off in recent tis, but they were still a relatively new guild.
Just about everyone here had co to the auction to establish connections. The nagerie were a new, young guild. The selling point of such a thing was the potential. All of them respected the risk they were taking trying to hold an auction, but at the sa ti, they’d all known this should have been a show.
The nagerie should have put up a few decent items that they’d gotten their hands on. But the real sales were ant to happen after hours. Most of the people here had co for the trade deals that could be accomplished after the auction was done.
Sure, a few had co because of Ifrit himself or for a variety of other reasons, but Neil was nearly certain that nobody had expected anything truly significant at the auction. But it was clear that the nagerie hadn’t seen things the sa way.
They were out for blood. The fact they’d managed to gather this many Epic items that they could afford to give away without hampering the growth of their guild was impressive on its own. But Ifrit himself had made them.
It must have taken the smith months of preparation and work to get this much ready, and only the gods knew how many other pieces they’d prepared. The nagerie were surely betting just about everything they had in an effort to show they were more than just so new guild with a few little interesting pieces of equipnt.
And Neil respected that.
A move like this had so many ways of going wrong. If the auction went poorly, or if they failed to keep the hype up into the next two stages… well, they’d be in trouble. Talking big ga only worked so long as you could keep it up.
But Neil was finding himself hoping that they could. This was more fun than he possibly could have expected. Ifrit had put his money where his mouth was. The nagerie was almost certainly betting on people eventually giving them items to put up for auction in the later stages, of course.
He wasn’t even bothered. If they got that far, then they’d more than proven that working with them was worthwhile. Anyone willing to take such a ballsy risk deserved to have it pay out if it worked.
The real question was if they’d be able to keep this up for much longer. Ifrit couldn’t have spent every waking mont he had locked up in a room preparing items for this auction. There would have to be an end to the flow of their Epic Rarity items eventually. Everyone knew that. The question was when that end would happen.
With every new item that Madiv put up for sale, Neil felt the tension in the room rise. People were bidding faster and faster as they fought to get their hands on the offerings. Sure, several of their earlier pieces had sold for well below what they should have.
But the nagerie didn’t seem to care. And, at least to so extent, their strategy had worked. People all over the room were bidding. Even many of the higher-ranked guilds in the lower seats of the Mausoleum were putting down bids on items that they probably couldn’t have cared less about, if only to show their respect for the nagerie.
And once the big fish started to bite… the small ones would too.
The price of the items was steadily going up. And while the newer ones were getting a bit more interesting, the increase in price wasn’t quite correlated. The nagerie weren’t just showing off their weapons or running so show auction. They were selling the abilities of their guild.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Still… sothing was off. There had yet to be a single bid from any of the VIP rooms. The people in those were unlikely to have co here for no reason. They were either large guilds or adventurers who had paid the nagerie enough to get a private room for the auction.
It didn’t make much sense for powerhouses like that to have avoided bidding entirely. The amounts that the items were going for were still incredibly affordable. For anyone from a major guild trying to make an impression on the nagerie, buying a few of these items would have been painfully easy.
But the nagerie couldn’t have had that much more in stock. Even if they’d saved their best items for the last two segnts of the auction, it was unlikely they’d have anything that would truly interest these major guilds.
Except that was exactly how the VIP rooms were acting. The only reason they’d refrain from participating entirely up until this point was because they were actually saving their money to be able to compete at a later point during the auction.
Do they know sothing we don’t? Is there so kind of insider information that got out about an item the nagerie is going to have up for auction? Sothing powerful enough to make even guilds like that need to be cautious?
And if that’s the case… shit.
I wonder if I should toss them sothing to sell. At this rate, so of the people in the VIP rooms might have enough fun watching the chaos that they could toss the nagerie sothing actually pretty good. If the auction keeps growing… I can’t believe it, but I might not have brought enough gold for this.
I can’t head back to Bronze Dragon empty-handed. This is exactly what the nagerie was banking on, wasn’t it?
Damn. Well played to them. I don’t think I’ve got a choice. Almost everyone else down here is in the sa spot. Nobody knows when the 2nd round of the auctions will start, so every single item here could be the last one. This is the 6th item already. They’ll probably have 10 items in this round at the absolute most. Anything else would have required far too much ti to prepare. And if the nagerie runs out and the next best item is sothing really good… shit. I won’t be able to buy a single thing.
Neil wasn’t the only one who had started to feel the pressure. He saw coils of green smoke twisting before several of the other mbers in the audience. They were doubtlessly offering the nagerie items of their own to sell.
It was a bit of a risk. They were eating what very well might be a lower earnout for their sales… but the temptation was just getting a little too strong to resist. The nagerie had put such a bold foot forward that it was forcing just about everyone’s hands.
Neil shook his head in disbelief as Madiv sold off the 6th item and imdiately started up the auction for the 7th.
Just how far ahead did they plan this?
***
Arwin polished off one of Lillia’s pastries. He washed it down with a sip of ale, trying to force down the butterflies in his stomach. Even though he wasn’t doing anything at all, he couldn’t help but feel worried for Madiv.
The vampire was under an imnse amount of pressure. This strategy wasn’t exactly an easy one. Even the smallest crack in the crowd’s confidence would bring everything crashing down on their heads.
“Do you think anyone’s realized that I made everything in like… a few days?” Arwin asked nervously. “I an, those items kind of suck. We’ve saved so much of the better stuff for later on in the auction. Maybe we should have spread things out a bit more.”
“I don’t know,” Lillia admitted. “But I think the pieces are selling pretty well. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about right now. We’re getting great prices and we aren’t even to the important part of the auction yet. All this gold will be great for fixing the street up even further. We could probably even open an isolated bathhouse so Uriel stops complaining.”
“That would be nice,” Arwin agreed.
He and Lillia peered over the edge of the VIP room to look down at the crowd below. It was certainly high energy. Bids rang through the air and quite a few people seed to be offering items up so the nagerie could sell them.
Everything was going just about as close to the plan as it could have been.
“The real trouble will probably start popping up after the first round of the auction is done,” Lillia said as she lowered herself back into her chair. “Nobody has tried anything yet inside the Mausoleum. There are probably too many powerful people they don’t want to piss off. But the mont people start heading outside… there are vultures.”
“Hardly a surprise,” Arwin said. “We knew there would be. Rodrick and the others are ready for it. Anyone that tries to pull sothing stupid between the rounds is going to have another thing coming for them. And hey, it’ll get us even more shit to toss up in the auction. They might have sothing good on them.”
Lillia let out a snort. “That’s true. Then I’ll look forward to it. By the way, how many more items did you, Wallace, and Koyu make for the first round? I can’t rember. I was focused on making enough food to last the entire ti.”
Arwin scratched the back of his neck and glanced back down at the auction platform.
“I don’t know. Like… 20. You think that was too little?”
“No idea,” Lillia replied. “I suppose we’ll see.”
Arwin let out a noncommittal grunt. “Yeah. I suppose we will.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers