Nightmare Realm Summoner

“So,” Mite said, his eyes still affixed on Sofia on the auctioneer’s platform below them. “What next?”

“What do you mean by that?” Claire asked.

“Well… you know. With the Corruption Core thing,” Mite said. “What are we going to do when that one comes up? We discussed a bunch of stuff on how we would handle things if people came at us during the auction or the like. But Bleak Night has everything set up pretty well. We’ve barely had to do anything at all.”

“You might have,” Aaron said. “I’m pretty sure Claire has been completely locked in this entire time.”

“I’m working too,” Wess said as he grabbed a pastry from the plates on the table and pointed it at Mite like a finger. “Someone has to make sure we extract all the value possible from this place. That means not leaving a single scrap of food behind. We’re rinsing them.”

Mite rolled his eyes. “That’s a load of—”

“No, he’s right,” Claire said. “It never hurts to make sure we get all the value possible out of something.”

Mite stared at her. “Seriously? You too?”

“Well, the main benefit would be that it’s keeping his mouth shut for longer periods of time,” Claire said. “But don’t tell him that.”

Wess glared at her. Then he glanced back at his pastry and hesitated for a moment before shrugging to himself and popping it into his mouth anyway.

“Seriously, though,” Alex said. “I’m starting to wonder if we’re being too picky. The auction has been going for a while and we still haven’t actually bid on anything seriously other than the Crown.”

“I swear I read something about this online with regard to lottery winners,” Aaron said. “You don’t have to spend money just because you have it, you know.”

“I know that,” Alex said, letting out something between a huff and a laugh. “But it’s 20,000 Credits. It’s crazy. I can’t even imagine what we can buy with that. Well — I can. We’re seeing what we can buy with it. But none of it feels like it’s worth it anymore.”

“That’s because it isn’t,” Finley said, his voice coming out through Mite’s puppet. “20,000 Credits is a lot of money. An insane amount. One that I would very much like donated to me. But just because things are expensive doesn’t mean they’re worth it. Many of these items only go for the cost they’re at because of the stage of the world we’re in.”

“What do you mean?” Mite asked. “Isn’t an item always going to be the same?”

“Worlds evolve,” Finley said. He paused for a moment. “Don’t press me on that. The System will get pissy. But suffice to know that it’s just like everything else we’ve seen. People get stronger. The world does too. Many of the weapons and armor we’re seeing go for thousands of Credits right now aren’t worth anything near what they’re being sold for. They’ll be useless in weeks.”

“Then why would anyone waste so much money on them now?” Alex asked. “The majority of the people here are Outworlders. They know how the game goes.”

“Because they’ve got enough Credits to throw around without caring about wasting them. Even with restrictions, if you came to 274-50 through the better channels, they’d have been able to bring a good bit of wealth with them,” Finley explained. “And they’re in a race against time. Against you. For a Nativeworlder, spending thousands of Credits on a sword that will be outdated in a few weeks is stupid. But Outworlders have to grab every single advantage they can if they want to stay in competition. That’s why they’re so desperate to take control and crush you out early. If they can’t…”

“Then they’ll never be able to,” Claire finished with a nod. “They’ve got a shrinking lead. We don’t have to fling money at the problem because we’ll catch them on virtue of not trying to slip under the System’s rules and the increased rewards we receive. So we really don’t need to worry about buying garbage and we can save all our money up for something that we really want.”

“Makes me wonder how many other people are doing that,” Aaron said. “I’m sure some of the Outworlders are planning to bet as much as they can on a really big advantage rather than a few smaller ones.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Some probably would,” Alex said, thinking for a moment. “But I’m sure they’d also be aware that others are thinking the same thing. It’s just a prisoner’s dilemma logic puzzle, right?”

“I… don’t think it is,” Aaron said. “But I get what you’re saying.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. “Either way, I’m sure at least one of the Outworlder groups here has the money to put up a big contest. And don’t forget that Nightmarch tapped out of the crown earlier than Absolution was expecting them to. There was a chance that was because they just didn’t have the money. But…”

“It’s more likely that they were saving for something else and couldn’t afford to lose the Credits on something they didn’t need as badly,” Claire agreed. “I think that’s likely as well. But it’s a good thing that they gave up so early. It wasn’t even at 10,000 Credits yet. That means they aren’t working with an amount of Credits that’s multitudes bigger than what we have. So we should probably have a pretty good chance at putting up a real fight against them.”

“So long as the Class Shard sells for enough, it’s likely that you will,” Finley agreed. “Though you do run the small chance of waiting until the end of the auction and finding out that you missed the chance to bid on anything because you were waiting for the big thing.”

“Maybe. But then we’ll be sitting on a horde of Credits,” Claire said with a small shrug. “No huge loss. If we don’t see something worth buying, then we simply won’t buy anything. It’s not like we’ll be leaving empty handed at this point. We’ve already won. All that remains is determining how much more we can continue to win.”

“And I highly doubt they’re going to let the last item of the auction go without some fanfare,” Alex added. “They have to be saving up for it. Wouldn’t you want a bunch of hype around the most expensive items in an auction? Otherwise all the other people who were saving their money up will just end up not spending it.”

“That’s true,” Aaron said. “They’ll definitely somehow let people know when the really big ticket items are up for grabs. And they weren’t that confident about how well the Class Shard would sell. So that means it can’t possibly be the most expensive item they have. We just have to wait until it goes up and then pay extra attention to everything after it.”

They all nodded.

Then their attention turned fully back to the auction. The price of the items had continued to rise. It was starting to get into the really big leagues now. The type of offerings changed as well. Instead of just swords and assorted random items, blueprints for towns and coordinates for dungeons that had been verified by Bleak Night started to pop up.

Not a single one of them managed to get Rhyss’ attention thus far. And even though calling him from the auction to try and get advice might have been slightly pushing the boundaries of how much information he could give them, Alex was still certain that Rhyss would have somehow let them know if there was something really worth their time.

It didn’t help that Mite didn’t look particularly interested in anything thus far either. Most of the blueprints were somewhat mundane given the amount of credits they were selling for. If anything, that just told Alex just how damn expensive every single building within Mirrorwane was.

The price continued to creep higher over the course of the next thirty or so minutes. Nobody was distracted anymore. Even Wess had abandoned the food and was completely focused on the auction. Pretty much every other room had placed a bid at this point.

The only one that hadn’t was Absolution in Room 5. Alex wasn’t even sure if he was still at the auction or not. Knowing Absolution, the Outworlder had probably already left to go back to kicking puppies or whatever it was he liked doing in his spare time. He didn’t strike Alex as the type to sit around waiting after his goal had been accomplished.

He’s definitely out there training. This auction is great, but we can’t afford to sit around forever either. I hope it doesn’t last much longer. I want to get my winnings and go home so I can start figuring out how to get to the Empty Court. The Outworlder families are huge. They all have their strongest people still out there clearing dungeons and getting stronger.

The price of items kept rising. It passed 13,000 Credits and continued into the 14,000s. Alex did note that the amount the items were going for over their starting price had started to reduce by a pretty significant margin. While some of the cheaper items had sold for two, three, or even four times their initial bidding price, now the sales were only a few thousand Credits above the reserve at the most.

Many items didn’t even get multiple bids. They just went to the first person that made an offer.

I think we’re starting to hit people’s limits. There’s no way the Class Shard is actually the best item at this whole auction, right?

“Sold to Room 6!” Hazel called, waving her hand to banish a massive tower shield that had just sold for 14,100 Credits. She sounded ever so slightly disappointed. Nobody other than Crimson had bid on it. But she didn’t look forlorn for long.

A sly grin crossed over the auctioneer’s features.

“But up next, I’ve got something that should get you all a bit more excited. How long has it been since you’ve seen someone generous or wealthy enough to put a Class Shard up for auction so early into a planet’s cycle?”

Alex’s heart started to beat faster. He and Claire exchanged a glance before both immediately looking back to the auction floor.

This is us.

“And this isn’t just any Class Shard,” Sofia continued. “It’s a Legendary one. A Legendary Class Shard harvested from 274-50, the first of its kind that we’ll have the honor of being able to sell — and the perfect way to kick off the final part of our auction! Allow me to introduce you to the Corruption Core. It will be starting at 15,000 Credits. May the richest bidder win!”