The crowd assembled in front of the wooden pavilion was visibly more excited today, to the point that the Harvesters assembled there had only fallen silent for the short speech by the masked man who appeared last week.

No one knew his name, but a title had made its rounds around Heritage Basestation a long time ago. The Gatekeeper. No one knew how strong he was, or even the weapons he had on him, but word on the grapevine was that the Senators and even Paragon Ortega didn’t want to cross him or rub him up the wrong way.

The silence, although deafeningly scary at first glance, was now a new mark of respect for the mysterious and the strong. The other speakers, like a certain unfortunate Senator Sylpheed, didn’t get the honour of a silent audience.

As the Senator Sylpheed touched on the new exchange rates for gemstones, Gaius noted the inclusion of the ether core in the list. It was a rather flattering exchange rate — one such core was the equivalent of twelve gemstones now. That point sent a small flutter through the assembled horde of Harvesters.

How does one obtain an ether core? And who was the first person who did so?

These questions were apparently the key topics for today, and in the days that would follow in Heritage. It was possible that some Harvesters might have suspected Gaius, as it was on his first Harvest that the ether core showed up. Gaius may belittle the naivety of the beastfolk, but that didn’t mean he looked down on their intelligence.

Only a fool would do that.

Gaius’ eyebrows rose up as Campmaster Magnus took the stage. Excitement shook the crowd, as the more intelligent beastfolk came up with a possibility.

“My son,” began the Campmaster, “thought up of a good idea a few days ago. He bemoaned the fact that equipment key to survival, artefacts and formations, were not available on the Exchange. He knew that some Harvesters were good at artificing, while others weren’t, and wanted to create a platform to change the situation, to benefit those who weren’t as privileged.”

The crowd was hushed, as the Campmaster went through what probably was an inflated backstory for the event to follow.

“After swift deliberation in the Congress, we decided to initiate Heritage Basestation’s first auction.” Campmaster Magnus’ words were slow and deliberate. He knew how to play a crowd…although there wasn’t much of a need here. “Look through your Exchange Plate. The conduct of Heritage Basestation’s first auction has been posted there.”

The beastfolk all around Gaius took out a familiar wooden triangle, and the young lecturer belatedly realised that its official name was the Exchange Plate. He mimicked the others and sent his consciousness inside.

A flashing tab caught his attention almost immediately, and as he opened it, the entire interface slowed for a few seconds. Letters flew out of the tab he’d opened, revealing a few sentences.

It was written in a verbose manner that Gaius didn’t expect from the beastfolk, and essentially just told the readers where the auction was(the Sheltered Duelling Grounds), what time it was going to be (Wednesday night next week), who the point of contact was for sellers (Nalus), and what not to do, which pretty much occupied the other fifteen odd sentences.

As expected of the Congress, if nothing else. They had some great ideas. For instance, the Basestation Guard would be on high alert the next twenty-four hours after the auction, to deter people who might be blinded by greed. Other things included the prohibition of carrying weapons longer than the prescribed knife to the auction, as well as lingering near the auction venue for more than five minutes after the auction ended.

Masterworks, the whole set of rules. In short, they were designed to protect any and all who attended the auction. Gaius’ eyes swept through the words, and seconds after he looked up from them, the wooden pavilion shuddered, and a blue circle appeared in its midst.

The crowd surged forward, and Gaius found himself greeting a wave of cold air all over again.

The snowy ground around the entrance was, unsurprisingly enough, no longer as dominated by groups of Harvesters as last week’s Harvest. It seemed that most of the people here were intent on striking it out alone, since everyone had turned into a competitor.

They would probably revert to working together when the auction became a regular fixture of Heritage Basestation, but right now, it was fairly obvious to Gaius that everyone treated everyone else as a competitor and perhaps even an enemy. The death rate for this round’s Harvest was likely to be higher than usual; from what Gaius could piece together, most Harvesters couldn’t take on more than two to three snowpyres at once.

It was possible that such an insidious line of thought had further encouraged groups to break up, since everyone here had differing levels of strength. In the past, without the prospect of an auction and the limited numbers of Engines on the Exchange, Harvesters were happy to stay in groups. The auction, however, provided people incentives to harvest as much as possible…which meant that taking care of the weaker ones weren’t something the stronger Harvesters would do. And if more people died, there would be lesser competitors…

Gaius nodded his head as he swapped out his cloak. The auction had driven small cracks between the cliques in Heritage Basestation, which meant that dissent against him, a human, would be less united.

Not many people were paying attention to him, and as he draped the distinctive white cloak for lecturers, the remaining gazes turned away. The velvet-smooth cloak buffeted in the howling wind for a few moments, and then Gaius trod off into the mountains.

He wanted to collect whatever ether cores that he’d left behind…and then he would head to the Library of Ancients. Gaius had done some research and cartography in whatever free time he had the last week, and he had the feeling that the destination of the snowpyre army he’d encountered last week was his destination today.

The probability that the Library of Ancients was related to otherworlders, who had not been summoned like the Constellation Heroes or Cardinal Champions, were high enough to warrant his personal interest. Why were they here, and where did they go to?

Gaius had a nagging feeling that the answers to these questions would be very relevant to him, for better or worse. The Five Lands were at war, the Second Extermination had just concluded…too many things had happened in the few days that Gaius had crossed over to Orb.

And besides…who could confirm that the only people from another world on Orb right now was Gaius and the Constellations? It was possible that there were other otherworlders in the Northern Continent, for instance. The young lecturer didn’t like it, but the other alternative was that Orb in general was usually fraught by such events, which wasn’t as plausible as the first hypothesis.

Gaius fixed his cloak, which had come loose while walking, and surveyed the way ahead as he attempted to retrace his routes. The Library of Ancients awaited him.