Curselock

Chapter 124: Redefine

“Welcome to Mystic Auctions and Appraisals,” a middle aged man dressed in an expensive threaded suit said.

The boys grumbled a greeting back, but each failed to fully articulate words. Delightfully enthralled by their surroundings, hundreds of shiny magical and mundane items caught their attention. Runes and symbols lined the countless display podiums while thick form impenetrable glass rode around the walls creating protective housings for the more expensive items.

Elaborate stone engravings rose from the center of the deep room, leading to a second floor of treasures and ambiance. Large mana chandeliers hung past the upper terrace, illuminating all in a white magical light. As if it was scanning for theft or intruders, a conjured eye hid within the crystalline mana light, watching with a perfect view.

Clay golems wandered around the base level, swept up mud tracked in by adventures or removed singular specs of dust. There was a precedent set, one that was repeated plainly by the price tags set on individual items.

“First time in?” the man asked, chuckling slightly.

“Uh huh…” Glenny was able to squeak out while the others focused on an assortment of things.

Leland, the more magically inclined of the trio, scanned everything he could. He took in artifacts, ancient tomes and guides, weapons that radiated powerful enchantments, and even a few Dire Beast eggs shackled with thick iron chairs. His feet almost carried him away from the group.

Jude, however, did walk away from the group. He beelined to the closest corner, finding an oddity. A small tea, coffee, and finger snack bar had been maintained and refreshed, offering complimentary drinks and food for customers. As the boys were already planning to sell most of their wares, he took the liberty of trying one of every small sandwich they offered.

Glenny facepalmed, quickly turning to the man. “We have many items we wish to have appraised and sold”

The man held his face firm but obvious hints of annoyed amusement seeped through. At the mention of “many items” he turned to regard the group again. Beside their young age and ill regard for manners, the man saw their packs and knapsacks, finding them each lumpy as if crammed with items of odd size and shape.

From there, his eyes glazed over when he actually inspected each boy. Besides a few commonly enchanted pieces of jewelry, each wore something special or downright frightening in one case. The man’s eyes stiffened at Glenny’s cloak, but a lifetime of professionalism kept the hesitance from fully showing.

“I see. Perhaps a private room?” Glenny nodded and the man swiftly turned. The boys followed. “My name is Benard Barrysalve, please call me Benard if you don’t mind. May I ask your names?”

“Leland.”

“Glenny.”

Jude swallowed before saying, “Jude.”

Benard, once again, didn’t let his annoyance show. Common courtesy was to respond with a proper introduction, meaning surname and direct eye contact. But such was commonplace in a city such as Ruinsforth. Adventurers were often barbaric and rude. At least the boys didn’t seem to be the latter.

The room they entered was small, only sporting a few pieces of furniture and pitchers of water. Benard quickly motioned an aid to gather a tray of cookies. The boys took to a knitted couch and tan leather chair and got to unpacking everything.

Soon the center table was filled with ornate metal chunks, runic tablets, magical wands, enchanted jewelry, multiple sets of robes and armor, eternally frozen pieces of ice, and finally, a necklace that created a personal blizzard above the wearer.

Benard was… stunned. It wasn’t every day that thieves attempted to sell all of their stolen products, but when it did happen, he was as dumbfounded as the first. Such unique and expensive items didn’t grow on trees. He’d understand the amount of items if they were in the same collection or created by the same crafter, but just from a cursory glance, these were dungeon items. And that changed things.

“Boys…” he whispered. “We do not partake in the stolen.”

Jude was the only one who really heard him, the others focused on setting everything on the table without knocking anything else off.

“What?” the berserker asked with a deep frown. “We fought for our lives to get all of this out of a dungeon.”

Benard almost rolled his eyes. A lie he’d heard dozens of times. “I’m sure you did. Pray tell, you got all of this from one dungeon?”

Now Leland and Glenny were involved, each frowning no less than the other. “Yes.”

The attendant picked up a small ring, one of the nondescript ones. “And did this drop from a boss kill?”

“Yes,” Jude snorted.

“And what boss might that have been?” Benard’s right eye flickered with a kaleidoscope of colors. He shifted his gaze around the table, eyeing every item and reading through their history. In a matter of moments, the man knew everything’s effect, what kind of monster or challenge it came from, and how it came into being.

“That one…” Leland drummed his knees. “I think that was from the worm boss.”

Benard paused, slowly returning the item to the table and picking up another. “And this?” He held a bone gauntlet.

“That’s from that dumb deer king. I don’t think it’s actually bone, but rather antler,” Jude said, with a bit of bite.

“Deer?” Benard asked, feeling he caught the lie.

“Moose,” Glenny answered. “We called him a deer to antagonize him into enraging.”

“You antagonized a dungeon monster…?”

Leland scoffed. “What are we doing here? Is this a test or are you just being rude?”

The man straightened his posture at that. “I resent the notion—”

“Well I resent our sale. Come on guys, we’re leaving.” Leland yanked one of his many bags front and center, and started haphazardly dropping items in.

Benard cursed internally. “I see. It looks like you three are legit.” He shifted into a seat. “I apologize for the bluntness but sometimes criminals get… crafty.”

“Uh huh,’ one of the boys said, the trio never stopping to even look up.

A dampness appeared along the base of the man’s neck. “To apologize, how about a five percent increase in total sale price. If you decide to sell, that is.”

Leland and Glenny glanced at each other. They felt they could get a larger bonus as they had many items unusual to this area, especially as Floe and Gelo’s dungeon had been untapped by humans for so long.

Jude, however, didn’t understand the nuance. “Deal,” he said without so much as a look at the others.

Leland rolled his eyes. “We are looking to sell everything we don’t want,” he said to Benard.

“Of course,” the attendant said with a sigh of relief. “Do you wish to sell in bulk or go through individually?”

“Individually.”

And just like that, they spent the next four hours going over each item, what it did, what type of person, adventurer, or mage might find them useful, and a baseline price. With the market at Ruinsforth being so volatile, and especially with the Royal Dream right around the corner, prices were higher than usual for unique items but quite a bit lower for common ones.

“I, Benard Barrysalve, on behalf of the Ruinsforth branch of Mystic Auctions and Appraisals, can offer six thousand one hundred and fifteen gold for everything. That is with the five percent increase, might I add. But as you’ve already stated, you wish to sell individually. Please remove all items you wish.”

In a matter of moments, the boys went through and removed everything they figured they could use.

Benard frowned at the much less full table. “I can do two thousand even for the rest.”

“Two-point-five,” Jude instantly countered.

“Err, no. That would never work. Most I can do is two-point-one-five.”

“Two-point-five.”

Benard deflated. “Two-four.”

Jude, seemingly the lead on this, swayed in his decision. “Deal.”

Benard smiled, clapped his hands, and quickly said, “Thanks for doing business,” before anyone could say elsewise. Almost instantly, three employees sauntered into the room, picked up the table, items included, and walked out. Benard, meanwhile, wrote a check.

“Cash that at any Royal Bank. And goodbye.”

The man left, leaving the boys to finish packing up. Leland looked at Jude in a different light. “Who knew you could barter? I’d have just accepted two thousand.”

“The trick,” Jude said, “is knowing that when they add ‘five percent’ as saying ‘sorry,’ that actually means they really want our stuff. Bartering easy at the start of a deal makes closing a deal much simpler.”

Now Glenny looked at his friend strangely.

“What?” Jude asked. “Like my dad always said, ‘A good sale is a sale that makes you feel scummy.”

Leland shook his head. “Come on, let’s find an inn.”

A few hours later, the boys were wearing their newly appraised magical items with knowledge of what everything did.

Firstly, and easiest, was Glenny. From the dungeon, he took a set of dark leather armor. It reminded him of what his dad wore, and was completely devoid of a magical aura. At the time, he didn’t mind the set not having any special effect, only that it was high quality.

Interestingly enough, these pieces of leather gave Benard the most difficulty identifying. The armor, officially called the Whisper Consumer set, absorbed magical effects to a certain degree. Benard explained that the armor would allow the wearer to shrug off weak magical attacks.

Glenny also now wore two twin rings that were identical besides being different colors. The red and black ring gave a small boon to speed when attacking from invisibility, a flank, or the shadows. In essence, it enhanced ambush attacks. The red and gold ring was the complete opposite, enhancing his attacks when he was out in the open.

The boys thought about giving the red and gold ring to Jude, but Benard stated that the rings only worked when both were worn by the same person.

Jude, likewise, decided to keep his antler and ice armor. Besides having a cold resistance effect, the armor gave way to frost manipulation and a temporary agility boon. He’d have to work at it, but covering himself and the ground he stepped on in frost was promised by Benard. Truthfully, however, Jude thought the armor’s ability somewhat redundant. Floe had gifted him her incarnation blessing, which in turn provided him with natural frost protection and armor.

But doubling up never seemed to hurt in the realm of magic and enchantments. The armor’s last effect endorsed this notion. The agility boon came as a one-directional charge, like a moose, or deer in this case. Benard actually questioned just what dungeon the boys found this armor set in, suggesting that many, many, adventurers would pay for a set.

Of course, the boys declined to give the location away even after monetary incentive.

Jude also kept a few enchanted rings, a necklace, and a trinket that created a dull light. The jewelry provided simplistic additions to his strength and regeneration while the trinket was a glorified reading lamp for “night time musical song creation.”

Leland’s high quality robes proved to be somewhat controversial. At least for Leland himself, that was. With runic patterns stitched into the fabric of the dark blue and gold hemmed robes, the set would grant him additional puncture and blunt-force protection and greater elemental mastery.

Thinking the former was more inline with sweetener rather than the main deal, Leland set his sights on the elemental mastery portion of the robe’s effects. He asked Benard dozens of questions all of which led to one particular answer. Fire, water, air, earth, lightning, nature, and plenty more affinities would all be enhanced a decent amount. Just how much? Benard couldn’t say, only expressing that the robes alone were priced just over one thousand four hundred gold – by far the boys’ most expensive item.

So, paired with Leland’s wizard hat that Benard said increased casting speed slightly, Leland decided to keep the robes with Jude and Glenny’s encouragement.

While the robes would do nothing to enhance his curse magic, they did, or rather should, affect any spell or ability with elemental properties. Meaning any spell or ability provided through a Harbinger’s Halo contract.

Lastly, Leland upgraded his ring of regeneration from his parents, keeping the birthday present as a sort of memento, and decided to keep a leather belt that was enchanted to always keep his robes in the perfect position. There was nothing worse than chafed thighs.

“What do you think we should buy with all of this gold?” Jude finally asked in the comfort of an inn with a beer in hand. “I’m thinking we invest and—”

“Spatial rings,” Leland cut off.

“Oh, yeah. That’s a better idea,” Jude laughed.

Glenny leaned back. “Think we have enough for three?”

Leland shrugged. “I’m not sure, but my dad is an expert on this sort of thing. So let’s wait to talk to him.”

Jude smirked at his imagination. He saw himself striding through the adventure guild with a spatial ring on his finger, causing a tizzy of intrigue among countless onlookers. He’d then pull a chain out of thin air, sitting smugly. Everyone would be asking questions, looking concerned—

“They aren’t that rare, so I don’t think getting our hands on some would be an issue. We might not be able to get the largest size, but I’m sure a two-point-five thousand is enough for three small ones,” Leland clarified.

Jude rolled with the curveball, shifting his imagination to pulling out a plate of pancakes from the ring instead of a chair.

It was perfect.