Nightmare Realm Summoner

The auction went on. Alex rejoined Claire and the others in their room, sitting down by the table and watching as increasingly expensive items went up for sale. They’d definitely gotten past the earliest stages. Some of the items going up for bid now were actually quite impressive.

A few had even been interesting enough to catch their interest… but they just didn’t have the Credits to spare. It wasn’t worth spending a few thousand credits here or there when they could end up being instrumental in getting something really important later on.

Neither Finley nor Rhyss had flagged anything as truly interesting yet. Thus, they had to be patient.

And patient they were. Time slipped by quickly. The starting bid prices rose until items were beginning at around 3000 Credits. The sheer scale of the auction was terrifying. Alex didn’t even want to think about how much money Bleak Night had earned from this whole thing. All he knew was that if they weren’t on the Wealth Leaderboard yet, it was either because they were somehow hiding the Credits from the system or because they were spending them as fast as they made them.

Then again, the #3 on the Leaderboard was named Nighteyes. There was a pretty good chance that they were somehow associated with Bleak Night. That just made Alex wonder how significant the difference between him and Nighteyes really was. All of Mirrorwane’s resources were technically his. That had placed him at Rank 4.

But he didn’t actually know how the System was calculating wealth in the first place. He sure as hell didn’t have a ridiculous amount of Credits just sitting around. He’d have brought them if he did. Maybe there was some conversion between items and things like gold to Credits that the System was automatically doing.

He supposed it didn’t really matter at the moment.

It wasn’t like the Bleak Night was going to be bidding against them in their own auction.

Alex pulled his attention back to Sofia. She’d just finished selling off an enchanted quiver that would never run out of arrows so long as it could draw magical energy from its wielder. It had gone for 4000 Credits. That was probably only because there hadn’t been any archers in attendance. The item sounded pretty useful.

Then again, who would want to go around shooting arrows in an apocalypse when you can choose to do literally anything else? Nobody would choose to be an archer over a mage or something, right?

He knew that wasn’t the case. There was always something for everyone. Some psychopath would probably find the thrill of shooting someone with a bow and arrow more fun than blasting them with magic. It wasn’t exactly his position to—

“Alex,” Claire said.

He blinked. “Huh? What? Sorry. I zoned out.”

Claire nodded back to the arena floor. “Well, wake up. Look what she’s putting up for bid.”

Alex looked back down to Sofia.

Floating above her hands was a blood-red crystalline crown.

“And up now, we have something quite unique!” Sofia called. “This kind of item doesn’t come around too often. For those of you with Towns, I’d focus up. What I have here is a very rare opportunity. One to drastically increase the strength of your Town and everyone within it. When a Town Owner binds this item to their soul, it will draw waves of challenge from the System. Think about that. An item that can generate Trials. This Legendary item is known as the Shattered Crown. Something this powerful doesn’t come often — and it certainly rarely comes cheaper than this. Bidding will start at 4500 Credits!”

Whoa. That’s a bit of a jump.

“When do we bid?” Mite asked. “Immediately? Just drop 10 grand and be done?”

“No,” Claire said with a shake of her head. “That would make us look way to eager to push people out. People might think we know something they don’t. Leading with a huge bid if there isn’t someone else that we’re trying to beat into submission isn’t the smartest move. Let someone else bid first.”

“I feel like I have to point out that Sofia didn’t mention the Bleeding Crown can’t be turned off,” Alex said. “That would have been a nasty surprise to anyone who won it.”

“Won’t matter,” Wess said. “Because we’re the ones winning it. Nothing to worry about. Really, we’re doing everyone else a favor.”

Aaron snorted at that.

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“4,700 Credits!” A woman’s voice came from Room 9.

“5,000 Credits!” A slightly familiar-sounding man called out from Room 7. It was the guy that Claire had tricked into wasting thousands of credits on a relatively uninteresting weapon.

A grin danced across Claire’s lips. “Perfect.”

“What is?” Mite asked.

“He is,” Claire replied. “Give it a bit.”

“5,100!” This time, someone spoke up from Room 6.

“5,500!” The man from Room 7 spoke again.

There was a slight pause.

“5,900,” the woman from Room 9 spoke again.

“7,000,” Replied the man in Room 7.

The hall fell silent for a moment. It seemed like people were starting to consider if the item was really worth it.

“7,500,” came the call from Room 9 once more. Alex was fairly certain they were probably Nightmarch.

“7,800,” called the man in Room 7. “We’ll be taking this. Feel free to push us farther.”

“Huh,” Alex said. “He wants it pretty bad. And he’s shit-talking again. He doesn’t really know when to stop, does he?”

Claire glanced at him. Then she chuckled. “You think? I’d say I’ve got him trained pretty well. Watch this.”

Then she picked up the paddle.

“8,000,” Claire called.

Silence hung in the air for a brief moment. Sofia glanced around, waiting for someone to say anything else.

“8,300,” the man from Room 7 said, but he sounded slightly cautious this time.

It looked like Room 9 had tapped out. Absolution might have slightly overestimated just how much Nightmarch had been willing to pay for the crown. Now, it was just them against Room 7.

“9,000,” Claire called. She didn’t even let the man’s last word hang in the air for long enough to breathe.

More silence followed that.

Then there was a snort of derision. “Help yourself. The damn thing isn’t worth anywhere near that. The same trick isn’t going to work twice, idiot.”

Claire smirked.

A few more seconds of silence passed. Sofia’s lips thinned slightly in disappointment. She’d clearly been hoping that the rivalry between their rooms would have pushed the price higher. But it didn’t look like anyone else was willing to bid on the crown.

Even though Sofia hadn’t revealed the item’s negative aspects… something gave Alex the idea that many of the Outworlders already knew about them.

“Sold!” Sofia called. “To Room 3!”

“Holy shit,” Mite said. “He tapped out? Just like that?”

“He thought we were trying to rinse him again,” Alex said, holding back a laugh. “Goddamn. That seriously sucks for him.”

“Worked out great for us, though,” Claire said with a shrug. “We saved 1,000 Credits. Absolution thought it would end up going for around 10,000. That’s not half bad. I would have liked it to be cheaper, to be honest. That guy is just too damn stubborn.”

A shimmer of green lit the room just above the table. Alex hurriedly pulled a plate out of the way a moment before the Bleeding Crown materialized in the air and plopped down upon the table, somewhat unceremoniously. It landed with a faint ringing thud.

They all turned to look at it. The crown was beautiful. It was also unfortunately reminiscent of the crystal mimic that had nearly eaten a few of them just a short while ago. That wasn’t to say it was the same crystal. It was definitely different. But the translucent, blood-red item was undeniably intimidating.

It certainly wasn’t the kind of thing that somebody would wear when trying to make new friends. And while the crown was definitely meant to be set on one’s head, it wasn’t really a crown in a traditional sense. It was more of a thick circlet composed of intercepting cylindrical prisms of crystal running around its length. They were longest at the front, rising up almost like the jagged spire of a mountain.

“Whoa,” Mite said. “That’s pretty badass.”

It was.

Alex picked it up. The crown was heavier than he’d expected, and its rough edges dug into his palm. He probably would have cut himself had his body not been strengthened by the System. Then he banished it into his Spatial Ring with a thought. Now definitely wasn’t the time to put it on.

“Nice work,” Alex said, nodding to Claire. “We’ve spent 14,000 Credits of the 27,000 we have, counting the 7,000 that Absolution gave us and the 5,000 we loaned. That leaves us with 13,000 left. And that isn’t even considering the extra we’ve earned from the Riftwarped Cores and what we might earn from our two heavy-hitters. Not bad at all.”

“Definitely not bad,” Claire agreed. She nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll have to prepare to use the Bleeding Crown. Mirrorwane needs more defenses.”

Mite grinned. “I know someone who could help with that. If you just lend him a small sum of credits and an allowance of a few nice Legendary and Mythic building blueprints…”

“Don’t get too excited,” Alex said with a chuckle. “But keep an eye out for anything you think you can use.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mite said as he rubbed his hands together. “I am.”

“Hey,” Aaron said, a note of excitement entering his voice. “Look at what the auctioneer just pulled out!”

All of them turned back to the window.

Floating wreathed in green energy above Sofia’s hand was none other than a very familiar looking gemstone key that had been taken from a golem.

“And up next,” Sofia called, raising the item into the air above her head, “we’ve got one of several keys to a powerful Regional dungeon. There’s very likely a Region Boss waiting to be slain at the end of it, should you manage to gather the other keys and a force strong enough to take it on. And even if you can’t… well, you can always figure out who has the rest of the keys and sell it to them. Don’t pass up on this huge opportunity! Bidding will start at 5,000 Credits.”

“Heya! That’s ours!” Wess exclaimed. “Wonder who got that for us. I bet he’s well paid and well loved.”

“So it is,” Claire said. “Though I doubt the second part.”

“What do we do now?” Mite asked.

“10,000 Credits!” Claire called, grabbing the paddle momentarily before setting it back down and looking to Mite. “We do this.”

They all stared at her.

“Er…” Mite said. “That one is ours. You just bid 10,000 Credits on our own item.”

“So I did,” Claire glanced back at him. Then she grinned. “And now we wait for someone to take the bait.”

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