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Galatine POV...
What a grand place, the auction house is. It's gorgeous, beautiful white walls with luxurious golden accents on the black and shiny wooden doors. Ah, luxury and status makes my blood flow. The ultimate beauty that is money!
I should go on a shopping spree when I get back.
I open the stunning door and... man, this door is heavy as hell. Pulling significantly harder than before, I dredge the door open and head inside. The door slowly closes behind me, ever slowly.
There's a counter in front of me, a receptionist in black behind the counter. Black hair and green eyes, round glasses delicately resting on her nose. She has the type of eyes that you can tell are tired, likely overworked and underpaid.
"Excuse me? How much to take part in the next auction?" I ask, jaunting up to the desk and leaning against it. The swagger is immense.
"The next auction isn't for a week," She responds, looking at me with a look of disapproval.
The swagger was not immense enough to manifest an auction into being, sadly. Bad timing, I guess. They can't all be winners.
"Well... do you have a catalogue for upcoming items in the auction?" I say, hoping for the littlest of a silver lining.
"No."
And just like that, I've been put out of business. I suppose it makes sense, but why couldn't this be conveniently timed like everything else? Why is life so cruel to me for no reason?
"Are you sure-"
"Yes. Please come back in a week, ma'am," She stops me before I can question any further, ushering me out at once.
I regretfully follow her order, lacking the privilege I'd usually exhibit. It isn't gone, simply in the backseat whilst in the dungeon. In this time period, the house of Merrin may not exist yet, meaning I have no house or money to eventually inherit. A young master of nothing...
Opening the unnecessarily heavy door, I exit back into the street and look at the sky. I'm broke... I have no money. This is truly the lowest moment of my life. But that also means that it's only up from here!
Well... now what do I do? My lead on where the relic could be is a temporary bust, so I guess I just go back to the sewer... I live in a sewer...
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Gram POV...
Silently descending down the staircase, I thank my luck to be unnoticeable. Being able to sneak by everyone except a select few of people is truly a privilege. In the next floor, there's nothing special.
A few spears in a spear rack to my left, a shield just on the ground to my right and, most importantly, no guards on this floor.
I walk through, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath me. I walk down the next staircase, descending step by step. In the final floor of the watchtower, there are about five guards in standard armor. None of them can see me, so I take my time in observing the room.
Table, chairs, chests, etc... normal guardroom stuff, I think.
I decide to just skip this place and walk to the keep, opening the door and stepping out into the courtyard. There are a few training dummies off to the side, sand dusting the ground as if it were a fine powder instead of many small rocks.
As I walk, I feel a hand grab onto my shoulder and stop me from walking. Welp, that means I've been detected. Turning around, I find that it's the guy from earlier. I hear him speak, his deep voice scratching out his throat.
"You. How'd you get in here?" His grip tightens on my shoulder to the point of discomfort, then hard enough to break a normal mans shoulder.
"Let myself in," Before I can argue further, the man grabs me and throws me about as hard as he can, which is surprisingly hard.
I roll a little before managing to recover into standing, having already drawn my sword and assumed position. My cloak fell off in the tumble, revealing the ghastly visage this dungeon has gifted me. Oops, all darkness.
"Better question. Why are you here?" He asks, drawing his sword as well. I don't actually feel any mana flowing through his body, which makes me question how he's so strong. Perhaps he's simply concealing it...
His sword itself is different as well, bulky and large... far to large to be called a sword, more like a hulking mass of iron- wait, what? Snap out of it, Gram!
"You wouldn't understand, nor would it justify my actions," I reply, dashing forward and slashing towards his stomach.
"Very well," He states before slashing directly downwards instead of blocking or dodging.
As I wasn't expecting such an action, I'm forced to retreat by rolling to the side and shooting my sword out once again in a seamless motion. This guy is weird... instead of blocking or dodging, he simply swung with the intent of tanking and returning damage. Is he stupid? Or is he just durable?
This time, he does block by moving his sword towards my blade and using the flat side of the blade as a semi-shield. My blade collides with his, causing a slight groove to be ingrained amongst many other similar notches numbered 1 and 19 more. Just kidding, there are far more than 20. Maybe a few hundred if we're lowballing it.
He plants the tip of his blade into the ground for solidity before taking one of his hands off the handle and punching me. Ow, my face bones! I actually get knocked down from just that simple punch, something that surprises me. What is this guy made of?
I look up after a second only to be greeted with his B.F.S.9000 hurtling towards my body. Rolling to the side, I watch as the ground itself is crumpled beneath that sword. I watch cracks appear in the ground, much of the sand flaring into the air and causing what I could only describe as a real-life impact frame.
This guy has to be at least D+ rank in strength, meaning I'm severely outmatched by the one guy here who could see me.
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