We both told Arahnia what to do in rather rough terms and left the talking to her.
"Hegemon booth 4, it is possible for you to take back your bid but then you will not be able to place any more bids during this auction. You will essentially forfeit your right to participate. Do you still wish to take back your bid?"
"I'll keep my bid."
Prince Adrian was clenching his teeth, his entire body trembling as he was seething with rage. We basically forced him to keep his bid since we knew he wanted to bid for the epic grade gauntlet.
"Congratulations hegemon booth 4 for winning this item. Please wait until the auction has ended and your items will be brought to you.
"On to our next item. Here we have another set of five unique grade flame viper scale armors. They have the ability to protect their owners from both frost and heat but in return, their defense is only slightly higher than that of normal armor. The starting bid is 1000 gold coins."
This time prince Albion wasn't in the mood to play anymore. He might have triumphed over prince Adrian before by driving up the price but he'd done so at the expense of losing the set of armors. This time he wanted to win the bid.
"3000 gold coins."
His initial bid was even higher than before and with prince Adrian fearing to lose more money no one made another bid this time. Disappointing but expected. And since he had driven up the price of the previous bid for us we didn't want to complain.
"Congratulations hegemon booth 1 for winning this item. Please wait until the auction has ended and your items will be brought to you."
We had now successfully completed the warm-up phase and were ready to bring out the real treasures. Some of these would hopefully entice some of the big spenders to show us just how deep their pockets were.
"The next item is a magic grade wooden sword. However, don't be fooled by the fact that it's made of wood. This sword has been covered in enchantments and won't shy away from a clash with metal weapons. To showcase that we have prepared a little demonstration."
A set of iron armor on a doll was borough out and placed before Arahnia. She calmly picked up the sword and slashed down in a practiced motion. The sword barely met any resistance when it hit the armor and made a clean cut into the chest plate.
"Furthermore this sword's magic ability is to leave residual energy in any wounds it causes. Unless this residual energy is cleared or naturally dissipates over time the wound will not be able to heal and blood will keep flowing. The starting bid is 10'000 gold coins and each raise must be at least 100 gold coins."
This minimum raise rule was made for people like prince Albion. Once the price reached such heights anything below 100 gold coins could be considered insignificant and reaching high numbers by stacking copper coins would take forever.
"10'100 gold coins."
Oh! The guild master actually came to get the sword. Here's hoping he got the money to win this bid. After all, a weapon of this grade would certainly move some of the big players in the private booths. And indeed the private booths became much more active.
"10'200"
"10'600"
"11'300"
"12'000"
The price kept climbing and the people bidding didn't even bother to say gold coins anymore. The different private booths engaged in a bidding war just like I had anticipated.
"13'000"
"14'000"
"16'000"
As the bidding intensified so did the individual raises. Soon every raise was a thousand gold coins or higher. The allure of a weapon that people considered powerful was truly astounding!
"20'000 gold coins! Who dares to compete with me for this weapon."
As usual in these settings, some random rich guy domineeringly increased the bid by a higher amount while yelling a vague threat and thereby won the bid. Arahnia congratulated him for winning and continued to the next item.
"Now we come to one of our three most prized pieces during this auction. This is a divine physique cleansing potion. It will help your body improve greatly by clearing out any accumulated impurities. The starting bid is 20'000 gold coins with the minimum increase being 1000 gold coins."
"I'd like to ask a question if that is alright. Why is there the word divine in this potion's name? Does it have anything to do with the powers of a god?"
Naturally, the high priest of Eclesias was very interested in this potion. King Leonard obtaining the epic grade gauntlets would solve the kingdom's immediate troubles but the temple would lose power without an oracle.
He was hoping to discover a way to strengthen his forces or pave the way for another oracle. When he heard the name of the potion he believed it might be what he was seeking. We would have to choose our words very carefully to maximize the resulting war for bidding.
"The word divine comes from one of the ingredients used to make this potion is a portion of a god's divine power. Only by using a power of such magnitude can a strong cleansing effect be achieved."
"Thank you for answering my question. The temple of Eclesias bids 30'000. I hope no one will make things difficult for us!"
"How shameless of you to say such a thing. A temple using its influence to suppress a healthy competition. Tsk, tsk, tsk. To think I would still have to see such an immoral thing at my age. I bid 35'000 and encourage everyone interested to make a bid as well."
An aged female voice came from hegemon booth 2. The lady inside had a strong presence and had I not been careful while spying she might have been able to discover it.
"You dogs of Parta! Do you want another holy war to come your way? I bid 40'000 and there will be grave consequences for whoever makes another bid."
Usually, we would have to step in here and reprimand the geezer for making such an open threat but the old lady got us covered. She seemed to hold some enmity towards the other party and was very open about it.
"Grave consequences? A holy war? Are you sure you can make such a threat when you have only recently lost your oracle? We believers in the great Parta won't back down from empty threats. If you want this potion you will have to outbid us. 50'000 gold coins."
"So what if we lost our oracle? The temple of Eclesias doesn't need the aid of an oracle to burn your pitiful wooden shacks to the ground. 60'000!"
"Try me. 65'000."
"Hah, suddenly you can only increase your bid by 5000? I will first outbid you here and then destroy you later! 75'000!"
"Sure you can. Now have fun with your PHYSIQUE cleansing potion."
Based on her words she had looked at all the items on display before the auction while the old geezer didn't.