One hand raised for the starting bid of two hundred silver, quickly overshadowed by someone who raised their hand. "Twenty gold!"
"Twenty-five gold!" another quickly responded to counter.
"Forty-seven gold!" one man said as he stood, raising his index finger toward the elf in the cage.
The room went silent for a moment, and just as Motive parted his lips to end the bid. "Fifty gold!" someone said from above Zay. He looked up and saw a man wearing a pig mask, green gloves, and a cat on his shoulder, asleep.
Motive looked around the room, not seeing any other bids, and slammed his cane down. "Sold for fifty gold to the man with the pig mask. You may come and collect your purchase at the end of the auction as we have some information to go over."
After a long pause, the four people in all white walked onto the stage and wheeled the cage behind the curtain, entering a room where a door could be heard closing.
"Now, let us begin with the female dark elf. The bid on her will begin at ninety gold."
The moment the words left his mouth, someone stood up and spoke.
"One hundred gold!"
Zay looked over at the man's voice and just knew he was smirking underneath the mask of a wolf.
'Disgusting bastard,' Zay thought as he looked around and saw another person stand and offer three hundred gold. He shook his head in displeasure at these people. Zay knew what they were thinking when they looked at the poor girl caged away, wearing basically nothing. He knew they did it on purpose—to have these men lust after a dark elf, to gain more profit.
'There's nothing I can do... I don't have the money to bid against them. There's... the occult book, and the dragon whistle... but I can't offer those to just save one dark elf when I'm here for my task. I'm sorry.' He said to himself in thought as he closed his eyes and looked away from the caged dark elf. His stomach churned as he heard these people speaking so casually about handing out gold to strip someone of their life.
"One hundred ninety-four gold!" one person said.
"Two hundred gold!" another shouted.
Motive moved his hand into a welt pocket on his suit and pulled out a thin and small chain which revealed a pocket watch. Motive clicked a small nob at the top of the pocket watch and a very small sound began as every tick became louder than the crowd even though it wasn't truly louder in actuality. It simply sounded that way as everyone thought a timer had been set.
"Two hundred fifty-seven gold!" someone within the crowd said loudly.
"Three hundred gold!" another shouted over him.
Several more people raised their hands, continuing to bid on the dark elf girl, who looked terrified as strangers continued to bid for her life. She swallowed hard and licked her lips, but her eyes never wavered. Despite the looks of lust, desire, and the unmistakable objectification in their gazes, she refused to break. She would fight, no matter who ended up buying her.
"Three hundred thirty-two gold!"
"Three hundred thirty-five gold!"
"Three hundred fifty-four gold!"
"Four hundred gold!" someone called out, raising their hand.
A few heads turned toward the speaker—a person wearing a gray mask, marked with a white skull symbol etched around the mouth area.
"Tch, four hundred twenty-three gold!" another bidder snapped, glaring down at the masked figure while wearing a white cow mask.
The person in the gray mask looked up and scoffed. "Four hundred fifty-one gold."
Zay glanced at the two bidders. They were the only ones still standing and seated farther back in the rows of chairs, giving him a clear view of them both. 'To bid such amounts of currency—gold, no less… this place must house people of immense wealth. But I don't recall there being so many who could toss around these numbers in Akser like it's nothing... especially for something like... a slave.'
After a few moments of tense silence, the person in the cow mask sat back down, unwilling to go any higher.
Motive looked down at the pocket watch he was gripping tightly before nodding as he saw the time. "As it is three in the morning, we'll be stopping the auction here. The auction will continue tomorrow night, starting at 10:30 P.M."
He slipped the pocket watch back into the welt pocket he had pulled it from and glanced across the crowd. "Those of you who have purchased anything, meet me and my crew on stage. Everyone else may leave now."
Zay stood up before anyone else and walked through the warehouse, reaching the door he had entered from and knocking, unsure what else to do. The door opened, and he walked out before sighing deeply.
'I wasted... so much of my damn life away in an auction just for it to provide me with jack shit. I mean, I did find out there's a lot more wealthy bastards than I thought there were, and that the place is crawling with lust-filled scum. I didn't find anything about Naomi Duskvine, though... which was my entire point of even coming here.' Zay looked up at the sky. The moon still hung in the center, somehow. The orange glow was exactly the same. Nothing at all had changed, even though it was almost morning.
Zay looked around his surroundings before finding the same tent he had seen hours earlier and walked around it again. He found himself back at the "lobby" of the night market, and that's when he saw several cages being wheeled around. Some contained glass with tomes, others had bottles of liquid, some had chains around boxes, but what caught his attention the most was none of those.
His eyes glanced at seven cages being wheeled, and his task popped up as he saw seven women of different species. He recognized a few of them right away from their appearance: a Nymar, a vampire, a sort of humanoid green slime creature, and a woman who had wolf ears but a fox tail with six green, sphere-shaped flames burning around it.
'A Nymar, a vampire, a green slime creature... the woman who has the wolf ears and a fox's tail is called a Fearveil, but I can't make out the others from here. They're too far, and with so many people wheeling them... I'm surprised I can even tell what those are,' he thought as his eyes glanced over them all, surprised at how calm the Fearveil was, considering they're normally extremely hostile toward anyone besides their own family.
[Fourth Task: Buy Naomi Duskvine from the Sinners Night Market.]
"Yeah, I know that," Zay said aloud as he saw the task pop up again.
A few people around looked at him as if he were crazy or suffering from some kind of mental illness. His eyes glanced at them from beneath his mask, and he simply sighed before walking away. He began to follow the people who were wheeling the cages. He noticed that every cage was being wheeled into separate districts, except for the seven that had caused his task to reappear.
Those seven were being wheeled into one district with wooden beams wrapped in curling crimson light.
He noticed several people standing around, as well as others sitting in chairs, playing board games—chess, Blades & Crowns, and several other games—on different tables. On each table rested a small lantern, its warm yellow light casting a soft glow down onto the playing surface.
He followed the people wheeling the cages down the district with a sign above written in Hesyan. He didn't understand what it said, but that didn't bother him—he had seen the same language above every other district pathway. Zay continued deeper into the district as the people in all white turned down an alleyway. At first, Zay stopped, glancing around as he sighed deeply. He looked again, making sure everyone he could see was distracted with something, then slipped into the alleyway and began to follow the people in white further.
When they turned right, he turned right. When they wheeled the cages over bumps, he stepped over them without a sound. Several boxes were scattered all around the alleyway, but he didn't bother giving any of them a second glance.
After several minutes of twisting through alleyways, he came out and found himself in a different district. His ears twitched slightly at the sound of the wheels, and he began to follow the noise.
After only a few steps, he turned a corner and saw them all in front of a large building. It was the same size as the auction house, but the material used for this structure was red stone, and the door was made of marble. The windows actually had glass instead of being left open.
'This place looks similar to the auction house, but it's completely different. The aura I'm feeling from within this building is drastically lower compared to the other one.' Zay stared at the building for a few moments before blinking. He saw the people wheeling the cages through the marble door, and then he noticed a man in an all-white suit walk up to the entrance after it had closed. Zay watched as the man began to speak, listening as carefully as he could.
"I'm here to have a reading," the man said, and the person in a black trench coat moved his hand over the door. It unlocked and pushed open.
The man entered, and the door shut behind him. Zay stood still for a few moments, his eyes shifting to observe the board games being played nearby.
After a brief pause, Zay whispered, "Arbiter: Time."
[Time: 3:41 A.M.]
Seeing the time, Zay walked up to the door and looked over at the person wearing the black trench coat that covered their body completely.
"I'm here to have a reading," Zay said, repeating the exact words the man before him had used.
The person in the trench coat looked at Zay, then moved his hand over the door. A soft click was heard as the door unlocked and pushed open.
As he walked inside, the door slowly closed behind him. He looked around and met eyes with a man who wore no mask, dressed in light blue robes. The man sat in a chair behind a small table, illuminated by the warm amber light of a lantern resting on its surface. A smooth fabric covered the table.
Just as Zay was about to pass the man, he spoke.
"Something seems to be troubling you. If you would like, I would be more than willing to draw some cards for you."
Zay stopped in his tracks, turned, and looked at the man, who appeared to be in his early thirties based on facial features alone. "Cards? Why would cards tell me anything about my life?"
The man didn't respond right away. Instead, he pulled out thirteen cards and laid them across the smooth fabric on the table. "How about I give you a reading for free and we see how relevant it is to you?"