The man in the suit, whose name we still hadn't been told, headed up onto the stage to wait patiently while everyone got seated. Once we finished doing that, he cleared his throat, his voice somehow covering the entire room without going above a normal speaking tone. It cut through all the chatter, silencing everyone still talking. With a wide smile, the man said. "Welcome, to the Walking Silence Auction! I am your host and auctioneer, Selwyn Carridan."

He gestured to one side, as a pair of heavy set men in black and gold carried out a chest, setting it on a pedestal that had just risen from the stage. "Tonight, you will see many items. Some will be amazing, some macabre, some simply strange. Please remember to keep your seats, as well as your wits about you. And remember that the protection the auction house affords buyers will last until you leave this district, or for three hours after the auction. Whichever comes first. Past that point, the fate of your purchases lies only on your own shoulders."

That was actually much kinder than I had expected from the WCP. Then again, their reputation for business had always been sterling. "Now." Said Selwyn, moving on. "I will begin the auction with something enticing, but perhaps not nearly so intriguing as some of you may hope." He snapped his fingers, and the chest fell open, revealing a single, blue metal glove.

It was easy to feel that the glove was G-ranked, and on the higher end of that scale. "This." Said the auctioneer. "Is our first item up for bid. The hand of a frost knight. A powerful but slow acting chill pervades this gauntlet. It isn't much use in combat, but is, happily enough, a perfect seal or container for powerful flame based materials. providing excellent restraint to such energies when the artifact is wrapped in the fist."

He reached over and picked it up, slipping his hand into it, and snapped the other one. One of the heavyset men stepped up and pulled out a bag, dumping a black and red stone that looked like a hot coal into his hand. The stone, to my shock, was actually F-ranked, but when he closed his hand around it, there was only a long, low hiss as steam wafted up, before even that faded. All traces of the F-ranked stone vanished, and all I could see was a closed blue fist.

"We begin the bidding at one F-ranked chit. Proceed." He waved a hand and a dozen people began to bid, clearly finding some use for the thing.

To my shock, I saw Cark stand up. Sage next to him. "Five F-ranked chits!" Apparently Burning Fist was bankrolling this trip, because I knew for a fact that was already nearing the limit of Cark's savings, and he seemed at ease to keep going. With H-rank chits being the primary currency standard here, each F-rank chit was the equivalent of a hundred. For someone at Cark's level (or ours honestly) it would have taken ages to gather that up in Rajak proper.

People started bidding in earnest, but Cark didn't back down, and eventually won the gauntlet for four E-ranked chits. I blanched a bit. I wasn't sure we were going to have enough to afford any of the things we wanted. Callie shot me a worried look. At the very least, we had a chance. It was clear Cark had some important use for that thing, but a blank Skill Crystal at G-rank should be much less pressing, though many more people would want it. We could only hope that it came later on the program when people had wasted more of their money.

I wanted to go over and talk to Cark, but we were all stuck sitting down until the halfway point on the program. I leaned in to whisper to Callie, using my Stealth Skill to erase the sound so no one eavesdropped. "Do you know what they wanted that thing for? I assume it was some item an Inventor made, but Cark seemed pretty focused on it. Do they have some kind of artifact to suppress?"

She just shrugged. "No idea. Probably though. Maybe something with a backlash? Anyway, the money they're spending is insane. I hope that hasn't set the standard for pricing. It's still so early." I reached out to take her hand in mine and squeeze. I felt the same. I didn't think so though. They'd bid a ton because they'd needed that for something. No one was going to overpay for an item they didn't need because someone else had bought something pricey earlier.

I was vindicated in that assumption about twenty minutes later when the next item sold, a gourd that could apparently refine and concentrate poison. There were a fair few bids, especially from Slime Hall, but in the end the thing sold for two F-ranked chits. The starting point seemed much more important to the final price than what had gone before, and we were relieved.

After the gourd was a pair of bracers that could create powerful shields, and an arm in a box that made me extremely wary to look at. The arm was, as far as I could tell, F-ranked, but it had some sort of additional aspect that made it scary, because I'd seen F-rankers before but never gotten that particular vibe. The bracers sold for eight F-rank chits and the arm for a whopping five E-ranked chits to someone I was positive was from a necromantic force, though possibly not the Darkling Institute.

When the next item was brought out, it seemed to stir up quite a bit of interest. The small black box was woven of metal and densely enchanted, and when Selwyn opened it, every person in the auction hall went silent. "Now this." aid Selwyn gleefully. "Is one of the most valuable items we have available. A runic core. Made from a specially treated naturally forming ice rune. By ingesting the core, you can mutate your natural ability to contain an ice attribute. Much like that gauntlet, this was donated by our friends at Final Frost Heaven."

Sydney and Megan both flinched at the name, and I leaned over to ask as the bidding started. None of my crew needed ice powers, besides which the bidding had started at an E-ranked chit, so we had no fucking possibility of getting it. "Who or what is Final Frost Heaven?" They sounded kind of scary, and if they had someone here we'd have to fight I wanted to know more about them.

Megan looked around warily. "C-rank force. Not just one C-ranker either. They have six Frost Lords, all in the C-rank. They're one of the top forces in the system, and even at the cluster level they aren't pushovers. There's no way at least one of their competitors isn't a Master Candidate. I hope I don't run into them in the tournament. We don't have any counters for things like that."

I tried to imagine how powerful someone would have to be for that kind of reaction, but couldn't really place it. They were clearly on a level I couldn't even hope to see on Callus. Still, people were excited about the runic core. I could understand why too. If I had a normal ability I might have been tempted. I doubted 'ice wishes' would be useful though. And even if they were I didn't want to risk losing my three times modifier by changing my power.

Callie probably could have benefited a lot from the core, but I didn't have nearly enough to compete for it. Which was why I couldn't fight back a grin as one of the four placidly big eight E-ranked chits for the thing. Apparently Alexander was looking out for his niece even when he wasn't around. He must have given them a decent nest egg.

The bidding kept increasing, but despite passing ten E-ranked chits they didn't jump to D-ranked. Abel had mentioned D-ranked chits were qualitatively different, much like D-ranked people, and said there probably wasn't even one on the whole planet. I was curious if it was closer to a one hundred or even one thousand to one ratio for those, and resolved to ask.

The core didn't go to the four, sadly, they ran out of money. It sold for eighty E-ranked chits, an absolutely monstrous amount of money, to someone from the Twilight Order. "Alright my friends." Said Selwyn. "This last lot marks the halfway point of the auction, and its conclusion will see us enter a brief intermission where you might move around and speak to other participants."

Everyone seemed pretty happy about that, but Selwyn paid them no mind. "Now." He said, raising his voice. "May I introduce our next item for bid. A summoning whistle, capable of calling an F-ranked Nether Butterfly that can be ridden by the summoner!" He flipped open the box to reveal an intricate purple crystal whistle, sitting delicately on a black silk bed and nearly glowing in the soft light of the auction hall.

A hush fell across the crowd because of the item, and I couldn't help but stare myself. This thing was definitely F-ranked, and high in the F-ranks too. I wondered how the hell it even worked. Was there a spatial enchantment on it that brought the mount from somewhere else? Did it create the thing through Fantasy? Did they somehow store it inside the whistle? However it functioned it was apparently just as interesting to everyone else as it was to me, because not a single person could take their eyes off of it.

Not that it mattered. "We begin the auction." He said quietly. "At a dozen E-ranked chits." Before he even finished talking there was an offer for fifteen, then another for twenty. The number passed a hundred quickly enough, and to my shock became D-ranked chits. I guess that answered that question. I could only assume chits at the Master level had some other requirement making them harder to make since they were a hundred to one instead of ten.

Sure enough, just like Abel said, none of the local forces were able to place a bet once it passed that point. Slime Hall, Spear Legion, the Twilight Order, they all offered multiple D-ranked chits before the thing finally sold at a price of twelve. Which was more money than I had ever seen in my entire life so far. Considering how much effort it took us to scrape together a single E-ranked chit, I could only hope a blank Skill Crystal would be too small potatoes for these monsters to bid on or we might not get anything.

At least the four were still here and willing to bid for Callie. It seemed like Alexander had given them a tidy sum. As the winner of the whistle, Final Frost Heaven, sent a low F-ranker up to retrieve the whistle, we got up and rushed over to talk to Cark. He saw us coming and grinned, waving us over. "Hey guys." He said as we got within range. "Fancy meeting you here. Didn't realize you were coming to this thing."

"Yeah." I said guiltily. "Guess we didn't actually check in during our little trip. We could have co-ordinated or something. Seems like you're doing ok though. Congrats on your...cold glove." I said that last bit with a slightly teasing tone, and he just rolled his eyes.

"Oh bite me. I have my uses for it. It's good to see you guys though. Cass has been missing you like crazy, especially Agria and the wolves. She spends time with Zeke, but he isn't exactly the most social person." We joked around for a minute, and I let myself relax a bit as I considered that I might have been silly about this whole thing. There was nothing to worry about. This auction had gone perfectly fine...until I realized something. The Darkling Institute hadn't placed a single bid. Not even on the arm. Where the hell were they? They were supposed to be heavily involved in this auction. Which was, of course, when the lights went out. And the screaming started.