Eramith
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Book 2: Chapter 82
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 13:00:09 +0000 UTCThe next item caught all of them by surprise. The pedestal rose to reveal, not a scale model of a building again, but rather another item. Atop the pedestal sat a vicious looking great sword crafted from the bone of some creature. It seemed to be a single piece of bone with leather wrapped around the bottom to form a handle. The blade was only sharpened on one side and the natural jagged nature of the bone gave the weapon a brutal look.
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[D - Legendary] Savage Fang of the Beast
[Growth][Soul Bound]
This blade is crafted from the fang of a creature that lived it’s entire life on the hunt. It retains both the power and will of the creature it was crafted from.
This blade can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While equipped, the blade can be used to activate beast mode wherein the wielder grows much stronger and faster. During beast mode, the wielder consumes their health as well as their energy to swing the blade. Every enemy slain during beast mode, refunds a portion of the health and energy spent to use the blade.
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A few individuals scattered about the theater bid on the blade but none of the wealthier individuals bothered except Jack. The item was clearly tailored to him, according to Noah, and everyone else was respectful of that fact. He managed to outbid everyone else at a meager 400 million credits.
The sharp drop in winning bids was a little jarring but Felix figured no one could justify pooling their credits or using their city’s coffers on items that could only be used by just one person. The next item on the pedestal was a long bow made from a material that seemed to reflect no light whatsoever. It was completely black and had little to no ornamentation at all. It was simple, clean and dark. The weirdest part visually though was the lack of a draw string on the bow.
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[D - Legendary] Death’s Whisper
[Growth][Soul Bound]
They say death’s whisper is completely silent to the living, if you hear it, you’re already dead. This bow is said to have been crafted from the shadows themselves. When drawn, an arrow made of shadow will solidify upon the bow at the cost of energy. These arrows remain solid for a period of one minute and make no sound as they pass through the air.
This bow can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. When striking a target undetected, the arrows fired from this bow will allow the wielder to track the target. After having hit the target once, all subsequent arrows can redirect themselves midair to hit any tracked target. Arrows that redirect themselves to tracked targets will be invisible during flight.
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Felix confirmed with Noah that the bow was likely tailored to Jackie who had contributed a lot to the final battle. Though the bow was cool, the only reason Felix thought about bidding at all was to gift it to Alan because it seemed like the perfect bow for a Spymaster. He wasn’t willing to step on Jackie’s toes though and cause political issues between the cities so instead, he let the auction proceed.
The bidding quickly hit a 100 million credits at which point many of bidders dropped out. Surprisingly though, Jackie still hadn’t bid on the bow at all. Felix looked across the theater and scanned the balconies until he found her. As soon as he laid his eyes on her, as if she knew, her head turned and made eye contact with him.
Felix just stared at her for a few seconds and cocked his head slightly. She shook her head and raised her hands indicating she didn’t want it at all. Felix immediately bid 150 million and everyone else seemed to just back off so he, surprisingly, won the bid. Noah looked at him questioningly but he just ignored the look and figured it was probably obvious why he had bought the bow.
The next item to rise out of the stage was a simple set of leather armor. The armor was a very light tan color with no buckles, rivets or straps anywhere to be seen. It was made of multiple panels but how they were all stuck together was a complete mystery to Felix.
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[D - Legendary] Armor of the Sand Spirit
[Growth][Soul Bound]
This armor was once worn by the guardian of the sands. A sand spirit that was often seen wearing a humanoid shape equipped with armor and weapons. The armor retains some of their power over sand.
This armor can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While wearing this armor, the user can use sand to both shield themselves from attacks and hide themselves. This armor allows the wearer to travel through the sand with great ease.
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Felix immediately looked over at Amani sitting next to him, already knowing who the item was for. She continued to bid as Felix overheard Noah wondering why her tailored reward wasn’t later on in the show. Felix realized they had both made the assumption that the later the item, the larger the contribution.
They had no way to know, but it seemed logical to the both of them. Unfortunately, they had both assumed Amani and Jackie had contributed among the most which made their guess seem less plausible.
Amani won the bidding at just 100 million credits, likely due to how specific the item was. It was very useful in a sandy environment and essentially just legendary leather armor with no effects anywhere else.
The next item was a leather belt with a half dozen identical green gems evenly spaced around it. While the item wasn’t visually exciting or even appealing to Felix, it’s effects were incredibly interesting, though not for him specifically.
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[D - Legendary] Belt of the Creator
[Growth][Soul Bound]
This belt was crafted by a master engineer with the burning desire to further his craft.
This belt can be soul bound allowing the item to grow alongside the wielder. While wearing this belt, the user can remove and fuse one of the nexus stone to a creation of theirs to increase their connection. While worn, all fused creations can be sensed and controlled to a limited degree.
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Felix didn’t intend on bidding on it at all, he just thought the effect was super cool. It wasn’t something he had really considered before but it made perfect sense. Based on his experience with soul bound items so far, he figured the gems likely each had souls or a piece of one and they used that to sense and control the fused creation.
He knew exactly who the item was intended for and was happy to see them win it for just under a hundred million credits. It seemed like the item was so specialized, it wasn’t nearly as popular as the others.
There was only one item left to be presented and Felix heard Noah ask the room, “If that was Martin, and Amani and Jackie were before that… who the hell is left? Who contributed more?”
Noah looked at Felix for a minute but he just shrugged, “I wasn’t even there.”
“Oh yeah, where the hell were you by the way?” Amani turned to him.
Felix brushed her off, “Busy.”
Amani rolled her eyes, “Uh huh.”
Felix looked back at Benjamin, Henry, Will and Alan but they all seemed convinced it wasn’t them.
Finally, Felix looked over towards Noah, “What about you Noah?”
Noah snorted, “Hell no, I did not contribute enough for one of those.”
They all turned back to the stage as the pedestal began to rise and reveal, what looked like a huge lump of some dark grey metal shaped like a boulder.
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[D - Legendary] Demitium
[Raw Material]
Though not the strongest or hardest material, Demitium is a metal often coveted for it’s unique property of storing different forms of energy. When it’s hit, scratched or struck, some of the energy is released. By storing specific kinds of energy, it’s material properties can also be manipulated. This makes weapons and armor created using the material have interesting and unique effects. It is also highly valuable for crafting specific items and machines and is often irreplaceable in those applications due to it’s nature.
Given enough energy, the material’s grade can be artificially upgraded. Upon losing enough energy and remaining at a low energy state for long periods of time, it’s grade lowers.
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For a moment Felix thought it might be another item for Martin or maybe even Henry and was ready to bid on it anyways for Nova but he realized that likely wasn’t the case.
Felix turned to Noah first for confirmation, “Am I right in assumin-”
“Yes, it’s for Nova” Noah answered before Felix even finished.
Felix looked over to Amani who also nodded and back to Henry who’s eyes were wide as he read through the item.
“Did Nova really contribute that much?” Felix asked mostly to the room.
“Oh yeah. Just didn’t think they’d be included given they’re… you know, a familiar.” Noah shrugged.
“She was invaluable.” Amani assured him.
“If you don’t bid on it, I will.” Henry said.
Felix looked over at his screen and saw the bidding had almost reached a hundred million credits, which was surprising to him given that it was a raw material instead of a crafted item. He realized that people were probably just excited by the idea of a material that could upgrade it’s grade though. He immediately bid 200 million and the vast majority of the people bidding on the item suddenly couldn’t afford to bid anymore. A few stuck around though, the ones that had been saving their credits for the last item he figured.
While the others mostly increased the bid by just a million or so, Felix increased the bid by 25 million every time. He continually raised the bid by an impolite amount to try and push everyone else to back off. He eventually won but had to spend 312 million credits to get it. While it was a lot of money, it was still less than the 500 million he had been awarded for Nova’s contributions in the world event. So in his mind, Nova had essentially paid for it themselves.
That item had been the last one of the second stage so the Auction was effectively over. Felix was presented with a screen that listed out all the items he had bought. They could either be placed in front of him when he got back or given to him now as it would all fit into his inventory.
He simply chose to take it all now and they were all automatically added. His credits had already been reserved when he had made bids and now it was all deducted. From the first stage, he had spent just over 200 million credits on all the various items. Overall then, with the Demitium and Death’s Whisper Felix had spent around 662 million credits.
It was more than he had received from Nova’s contribution for the final boss in the world event, but not by much. Even if he hadn’t gotten any credits from Nova’s contributions, he would have been happy to spend that much. He was both surprised and happy to realize how little he had actually spent. He had no idea how much credits were worth in the grander multiverse let alone the capital city, but he wanted to keep as many credits as he could on hand.
As everyone collected their items, Felix walked right over to Alan and pulled Death’s Whisper out of his inventory and handed it to him.
Alan just frowned and shook his head, “I can’t take this.”
Felix smirked, “Alright. Hey Will, any interest?”
Will nodded and played along, “You know, I had been thinking about trying out a bow.”
Alan ignored their jesting and looked up at Felix with a serious expression, “Felix, you spent a lot of credits on that.”
Felix sighed with a little more exasperation than he would have liked, “Would you just take the bow? Congratulations on being Spymaster, or don’t take the job and just get a cool bow. I don’t really care. I saw the bow and Jackie said she didn’t want it, I figured it suited you.”
Benjamin leaned his head into the conversation, “Take the damn bow.”
Alan tentatively reached his hand out, clearly still unsure if he should or could but Felix made the decision for him and lightly tossed the bow at his chest.
Alan’s frown deepened, “You sure Jackie didn’t want it? It’s really ok if I take it?”
Felix shrugged, “Yeah, she said no for whatever reason.”
Felix walked away before Alan could argue any further and walked over to Amani. He had her wait a few minutes before leaving and quickly made a portal anchor using a plate of Starmetal and some soft inlay material that he didn’t actually have to metal down. It wouldn’t be permanent and would degrade after a few days, but that should be more than enough time.
He handed her the disc of greenish metal and told her to drop it somewhere relatively open when she got back. She clearly had a few questions but refrained from asking them hopefully because she trusted him.
Before leaving the auction, Felix quickly made up temporary portal anchors for each of the other cities. He had initially been planning on just flying out to them and hadn’t even considered handing them portal anchors until Amani had asked for help as soon as possible.
Now that he had the idea though, he got Noah, Benjamin, Will and Alan to go ask the other leaders to hang back for a few minutes. He made the anchors as quickly as he could and just resolved himself to use them before they degraded in the next few days.
As he finished them, he handed the anchors off to Noah who delegated their distribution to anyone who would help.
