Shortie could smell food in the distance but Jacob wanted to follow the merchant family around a bit. A lot of things he didn't understand, businesses for all sort of strange things caught his eye. There were Eyeballs, gizzards, kidneys and skin, all on display. Things were being sold that made no sense at all in the modern world. Jacob even saw small creatures, the kind that could talk, being sold as pets. He felt sorry for the small ones, some larger beasts had scars across their bodies, proof that they had been captured at great costs.
So many things were trading hands, especially monster cores. The largest crowds in the marketplace were centered around cores and the bodies that came along with them. Almost all of the beasts in the territory had cores, which was why the area was swimming with people. Seven or eight years from now, the city would be well inside the borderlands.
Zadkeil was doing business, he went slow enough to accommodate his young friend. Nearing the Inn, Jacob took the time to rent a room, he had gotten one near the back of the house so that Shortie could be inside. The visit almost ended with Jacob sleeping outside instead but his smile made the innkeeper laugh. There was little harm, the room was a single token a day, a handful of tokens had secured his room for some time.
Leaving, Jacob noticed a picture on the wall, it looked like a map. He grabbed something that he could write on and started to copy its contents down.
It was a map.
'Haha, this kid, he's a tenacious little one. Maybe I can marry a granddaughter to him in the future.' Zadkeil continued his business trips to various shops. He sold skins and bones, meat and medicines, materials that made little sense kept coming out of the storage ring and onto shelves, then, vise-versa. "That one is a Gearox bladder, most of their mucus is still contained inside. Makes one of the best recovery potions. 600 Tokens each, I have four." Zadkeil had a way of selling things but it made little sense to Jacob for them to trade for tokens, in his opinion, they should have been trading for other materials of a higher grade. People can dig up recreate a token if they were good enough to make a fake, but digging up some ancient bones, plant or powerful object was a different matter. Something as frail and fragile as an organ usually had an exquisite use, if one existed.
"500 each and I'll take all four." attempting to haggle the price down, the shopkeeper's voice got louder than it needed to be.
"600 is already more than fair." Zadkeil started to go back and forth with the man, it got heated and in the end, the shopkeeper paid 650 tokens for each of the Bladders. Jacob was shocked, he actually got more than he originally asked. When they were done selling, it was onto the next shop. The Merchant family visited twenty shops in a single day, moving products and getting more than they anticipated from almost all of them. 'Maybe this kid is good luck?'
Jacob played with Shortie outside when they were selling some fish from the coast, neither of them really liked or enjoyed fish. The Golden fish bones were still a good thing and tucked away into his ring, it had only been a day but already Jacob felt unburdened and free because of the new accessory.
"The Auction House is our last stop, we have lots of rare materials to sell here." Zadkeil pressed the doors open and walked inside.
Shortie kept by Jacob's side, strolling along. When he saw a potted plant, he had the urge to piss on it but stayed near Jacob. "This place is big." Shortie commented.
"Yes, its been here for about ten years now. This Auction house is the biggest in the area, normal things can be bought at the stores. If you're looking for something special, you will have to go to the Auction House. This time we're selling a few hundred items from across the territory, your Denendo Horn will fetch a good price, more than I can spend in a whole season. Its really too bad you aren't willing to sell the other one, they are much more powerful as a set." Zadkeil shook his head and gave up the idea, "Lets get started. Excuse me, Miss. Could you help us arrange sale?" He took out a merchants token and they were all led to a special room.
"Items you wish to sell?" The assistants waited and Zadkeil produced a list of what he had in his inventory, then pulled out the Denendo Horn. A red light filled the room and he put it away. "Very well, I will have someone bring you the details once we tabulate everything. Until then, please follow Yonema."
"This way," Yonema led the way to a space for them to sit. It had an overview of the center stage like a Skybox in an arena. "Honored guests, these are VIP and merchant levels. Please make yourselves comfortable, we will be back with your order and expected auction times after they are drawn up." Bowing courteously, she left the small room.
Jacob had never been in a stadium, he had been to a gym a few times to see his school plays or even PE class but never had he seen such a large open building on the inside. Columns rose in unexpected places, holding up massive amounts of statues. It was a showroom, hundreds of different types of artifacts were on display and for sale, although, each of them was just a projection of the actual thing. Anyone would be a fool to leave such items out, especially in such a place like the borderlands. He was getting an education in finance and trade, still, he didn't know it.
Shortie paid attention to every word, some of it was good advice but most of it was still useless information. There were dozens, if not hundreds of new smells dominating the Auction House, Shortie and Jacob did their best to take in each of them while they passed.
"Meat. Meat. Meat." Shortie's panting sounded like the words meat, it made Jacob snicker a little bit. The laughter drew the attentions of almost everyone in the building, there was close to no noise while people gathered and waited for the auction to commence.
Jacob looked over and Shortie shut his jaw. "Its okay if you talk but you gotta stay quiet for now, let me know if you want anything."
Zadkeil shook his head, "You'll have a hard time buying things if you only have the thirty thousand contribution point tokens. That Denendo horn will get you ten times what I paid you if you sold it after mine."
Jacob seemed interested but he wanted to save it, he felt a connection to the first one he had seen at the banquet but it was gone, left or eaten while he was locked away. As a rare creature, Jacob had no idea if he would ever see one again. "Can I choose later? Do I have to choose to sell it right now?"
"You can choose to sell it before the end, if it was almost anything else, I wouldn't be sure, but Denendo horn is extremely valuable and useful for alchemy. Just don't wait too long, this auction is a few hours long. I'll tell you when its too late but don't wait on me." Zadkeil felt like he was suffering, he could have registered the sale, Jacob wouldn't even have to pay the entry price. 'all that money just evaporating..' He sighed heavily and watched the doors to the Auction House close.
"Thank you guests. We have more than five hundred items up for auction today, many of it thanks to the Sistesa Family. Our first auction.." Waving her hand, a curtain was drawn on one side of the stage. "Five Golden Ayeslines, all of them healthy. The troop is trained to follow commands, The book for their control is included. The Owner has insisted we sell them together, the opening bid will be set at five thousand tokens each, that's twenty-five thousand for our opening bid. Do I hear 25000?"
A hand went up. "Twenty-five thousand."
"Thirty Thousand." Another.
"That's thirty thousand, do I hear a higher bid, perhaps 35000?" She held her breath, it wasn't a lot but it was a decent commission. "35000, going once." she tapped her hand, "Thirty-five thousand going twice."
Another hand was raised. "Fifty Thousand." People looked around the room, a 35% raise was a little high, it was a small demon like man stood tall, covered in gold and other precious metals.
"Fifty Thousand!" The Auctioneer yelled out. "Going once." She tapped her hand, "Twice." She hesitated for a moment and said, "Sold, for fifty thousand."
Before anyone could react, another item was brought out. It started quickly and the pace kept up, fifty sales later and Jacob was yawning alongside Zadkeil. "When's the good stuff coming out?" Jacob let out a question, it was a bit louder than he expected. The room was eerily quiet, many people felt annoyed having spent lots of their hard earned wealth to buy things already.
"Shh." Zadkeil whispered. "You're going to get us in trouble, calm down. They will bring out items by expected price, in another hour, the cheapest thing will be about two hundred thousand tokens."
Jacob pulled out the Denendo Horn and stared at it. He sank his mental energy out, reaching with his spiritual sense into the antler. The pink aura, it surrounded him. Jacob could hear the thoughts of others. 'So this is why it was so hard to catch?' Jacob wondered how strong it would be if he had both and then he felt stupid for having sold it. 'I'm such an idiot.'
"I can't sell this but, what other bones do I have that interest you?" Jacob started pulling out the bones of the things they had eaten or found. The Majority of all the bones had been eaten, but small fragments remained. He pulled them out and had Zadkeil go over them.
Zadkeil's attention was immediately drawn to the golden fish bones, there were a lot of them. "These seem extra special, but you have a lot of nice bones and stones here."
"Stones?" Jacob was curious, he had picked up a lot of things that looked like bones, he wanted to know which one was actually a rock.
"These." He picked up a long one, there were five of them. Jacob thought they were finger bones. "These are Kilendite, we use them in blacksmithing and alchemy. They are a good power source and these are pretty big. You can probably get a hundred thousand each, if you sell them as a set you can probably get half a million tokens pieces from the auction, even after the auction house takes a cut." Then, he grabbed a red bone. "These are goblin tusks, its not a bone really but they make great armor accents.. You have a lot of them."
'Goblins? Does he mean those little red things are teeth?' "You mean those are teeth?" Jacob seemed disgusted a little.
"Yes, and you have a lot of them. Did you fight a goblin horde or something?" the Old Man was intrigued.
"No, nothing like that. We found a bone graveyard, I picked up a bunch of the shinier ones. How much are they worth?" Jacob's fingers itched.
"About twenty thousand each, you have a few hundred teeth here. Honestly, its a lot of teeth. Someone could use these to make a few sets of armor or weapons that will pierce most shields." The back and forth was good, but Jacob was keeping an ear out for interesting things to be sold. Everything was out of his price range already but he was hopeful that something cool could be had.
Zadkeil did the math. 'This kid.'