“For those of you wondering how such an incredible opportunity has ended up being auctioned off, the seller has shared a few details to hopefully settle your doubts,” the Attendant said. “As one might imagine, the wise gnomes are generally averse to inviting outsiders to their planet or handing out their precious Foci. The seller is a powerful deity close to the peak of Elemental Acquisition, who happened to help out an injured god from Mithril a few millennia ago. They were gifted this opportunity out of gratitude, to redeem or pass along to somebody else as they pleased. The seller held on to the invitation for a very long time, before eventually deciding that their world would benefit more from the profits of the auction than a single one of their mages receiving a Focus.”
Percy found the explanation difficult to accept, since he wasn’t sure that anything in today’s auction had been worth giving up on the priceless artifact. A Focus would supposedly grow alongside its owner, strengthening even a god at the peak of Elemental Acquisition.
‘Perhaps, only mortals can bond with it,’ Micky speculated. ‘It might be too late for an established deity to acquire one. Since it’s impossible to predict which demigod will successfully attain divinity or become a powerful god in the future, it might be safer to invest in thousands of affinity-changing treasures for all of a faction’s Green-borns and Yellow-borns than gamble everything away to empower a talented individual.’
This made more sense, but Percy still wasn’t entirely convinced. Had he been in the seller’s shoes, he would have tried to raise funds for affinity-changing treasures and other, smaller prizes in some other way – to avoid wasting such an unprecedented opportunity.
Then again, he wasn’t privy to the finances of that deity’s faction. Besides, hadn’t he chosen to earn his own tokens by selling the secret of the cyan powder? That might arguably be an even dumber decision, so he probably shouldn’t be judging others.
In any case, the Attendant clearly wasn’t in a rush to declare the start of the bidding war. “We are aware that many of you are still not satisfied with the seller’s explanation or convinced of the validity of the invitation. It would be unreasonable of us to expect you to spend hundreds of thousands of tokens, only to be turned away when you try to redeem the invitation – or worse, punished by the wise gnomes for a perceived transgression. That is why we have reached out to Mithril, for confirmation that this opportunity is legitimate.”
The deity pointed at one of the opaque windows surrounding the octagonal platform before clicking their fingers to activate an enchantment. The outline of the rectangular panel lit up for a couple of seconds as the sapphire screen quickly lost its colour, revealing the private room hidden behind it.
There was only a single person sitting inside the room, though they weren’t using the provided furniture. It was a meerkat-like creature that Percy estimated to be about half as tall as an adult human. It was covered in pale fur, complete with a long beard that would have hung all the way to the meerkat’s feet had the creature been standing. The meerkat was definitely a deity, so the colour of its fur and beard couldn’t be signs of aging – just standard features of its physiology.
The tiny god was sitting cross-legged on a magical orb larger than a watermelon and covered in countless intricate symbols. The crimson artifact was hovering right above the table and in front of the window, its colour matching that of the creature’s beady eyes and pointy cap. While Percy had obviously heard of the wise gnomes before, he hadn’t seen an illustration of them, nor their Foci, though he’d be a fool not to recognize both.
“Lord Tickleglobben has generously agreed to attend today’s auction, and to say a few words to put everyone’s doubts to rest,” the Attendant explained, clicking his fingers a second time to lower the glass panel entirely and give the gnome a way out of the room.
The divine meerkat floated outside the enclosed space, his body rapidly enlarging as he entered the range of the illusion and approached the centre of the octagonal platform. By the time he reached it, the creature looked half as tall as the three-handed presenter, hovering right by their side.
Magnified by a thousand times, the gnome appeared even more menacing than the Attendant, though Percy was too busy trying to keep himself from chuckling at Tickleglobben’s name to be intimidated.
“Thanks for the introduction, Fingers,” the gnome said, speaking in a much-deeper voice than one might expect from his small stature, every word amplified by the same enchantments that the Attendant had been using. “Let me make something very clear. We are not pleased with this situation. Not at all. Sharing our Foci with outsiders is something that we generally avoid, and the fact that the recipient decided to auction this opportunity off instead of treasuring it and reserving it for one of their descendants or students is nothing but a slap in the face. Needless to say, my colleague was punished severely for his carelessness, and there were plenty of voices in the council, insisting that we voided the invitation.”
The petit deity made no attempt to hide his irritation, his every word causing the entire hall to tremble. Thankfully, the creature appeared to exert enough control over his power to avoid breaking anything – either that, or the Sapphire Pavilion’s infrastructure was rather resilient.
Upon reaching the end of the rant, Tickleglobben sighed in defeat. “Fortunately for the lot of you, my people take our promises very seriously. Yes, my kinsman should have never extended the invitation in the first place, and yes, the recipient should have known better than to sell it at a public auction, but what’s done is done. The opportunity was ultimately theirs to do with as they pleased, and Mithril has decided to honour it. That said, know that I’ll be competing against you, in an attempt to buy it back.”
Percy failed to suppress a grimace. It was nice to receive confirmation that the opportunity was genuine, but he guessed that the gnome would be willing to spend a hefty sum of tokens to keep it from landing in an outsider’s hands. Alas, there was nothing he could do about that, besides hoping that the nearly-seven hundred thousand tokens he had left would be enough to outbid Tickleglobben.
Having given his warning, the meerkat flew back into his room as the octagonal pillar rose before the Attendant again, delivering a pair of items. One was another karmic compass – a brown orb that contained a golden needle – while the other was a palm-sized disk engraved with similar symbols to those carved onto the gnome’s Focus. Percy guessed that the first item was supposed to lead him to the planet, while the second was the ticket that he would be able to exchange for the actual artifact.
“With that out of the way, we can finally begin,” the Attendant said. “Bidding starts at a hundred thousand tokens.”
Percy gritted his borrowed teeth. They were still well within his budget, but the opening price was already higher than the closing bid of the most expensive item up to that point – the soul affinity-granting notebook that he had just bought.
Despite the exorbitant cost, the bidding war for the invitation was fierce, causing its price to triple within mere seconds. The offers only appeared to slow down after Tickleglobben entered a bid for three hundred and fifty thousand, indicating that he was quite serious about winning the auction.
The Attendant hadn’t bothered to obscure the meerkat’s room again, nor had the gnome requested privacy, so everyone could see the tiny digits tapping at the oversized tablet in his hands.
“Well, I can be stubborn too,” Percy muttered, entering a bid for four hundred thousand.
He was getting dangerously close to running out of funds, which would be a problem in future auctions. Percy might have been less willing to splurge if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that he was going to earn a lot more tokens after his own listing got sold.
A couple of other potential buyers quickly pushed the price up to four hundred and fifty thousand, before the meerkat entered a second bid for half a million. Percy was starting to worry that the gnome was going to win. Thankfully, the scowl on the creature’s face gave Percy hope that this was a non-trivial amount even for a representative of one of the ten strongest worlds. Entering a bid for five hundred and fifty thousand, Percy prayed that it would stop Tickleglobben in his figurative tracks.
Sadly, he wasn’t that lucky. The gnome raised the price again to six hundred thousand as his crimson eyes narrowed. At least, no third party interfered this time, indicating that it was just Percy and the meerkat left. Still, they were almost beyond Percy’s means. Glancing at the tablet, he couldn’t help but frown upon being reminded of his remaining balance: ‘688,900 tokens.’
All of a sudden, he regretted spending so many tokens on the affinity-changing treasure. Giving Archibald a soul affinity wasn’t a bad idea, but it could have waited – Percy was bound to find more treasures like the thin notebook in the future, though he might never get another chance to earn a Focus.
In his defence, he’d really thought that his remaining balance would have been enough. Even the Attendant who had chatted with him had clearly felt the same way, and for good reason. The current bid had already reached six times the opening price, indicating that Tickleglobben was willing to spend a lot more than even the Sapphire Pavilion thought the item to be worth.
Tightening his grip on the tablet, Percy inserted a bid for six hundred and fifty thousand, before wiping Tiberius’ sweaty palms on his thighs. Glancing over at the only other exposed room in the hall, he almost forgot to breathe as he waited for the gnome’s response.
The meerkat’s clawed finger hovered over the tablet, suggesting that he had more than enough funds to outbid Percy again. The only thing holding the deity back appeared to be a concern that the invitation wasn’t worth that much. Just because the gnome hailed from a powerful faction, it didn’t mean that he could be irresponsible with his budget. Time seemed to crawl to a halt as hundreds of eyes undoubtedly stared at the short god.
Eventually, Percy watched in horror as Tickleglobben entered a bid for six hundred and seventy-five thousand.
“Shit!” he spat within the privacy of the room that he shared with the Gallimians.
The silver lining was that the meerkat had hesitated, and only opted to raise the bid by half the previous increment, indicating that the amount was starting to burn a hole in his pocket.
Percy was sure that the gnome had a lot more money than this. A lot of smaller factions should too, otherwise there was no way anyone would be able to pay millions of tokens later, for the secret of the cyan powder. Tickleglobben was simply struggling to justify spending this much on something that would only strengthen a single mortal – or in this case, prevent a mortal from being strengthened.
To put things into perspective, a single use of a rare affinity-changing treasure was over sixty-seven times cheaper than the current bid, yet was the kind of opportunity that even the Void Hand – one of the strongest factions in the universe – could only afford to give to the top four contestants in their tournaments.
In theory, Percy had enough tokens to outbid the deity once more, but not by much, nor by a round number. If Tickleglobben saw a bid for six hundred and eighty, or six hundred and eighty-five thousand, he would instantly know that his opponent was at the end of the rope, making the gnome much more likely to raise the price to seven hundred thousand.
‘Well… it’s better to try and fail than give up without even exhausting my funds,’ Percy reasoned. ‘Besides, if that petty little bastard is determined to gatekeep the item to this extent, I’ll at least take a bite of flesh on the way down.’
Just as Percy was preparing to bid the rest of his money – strategy be damned – he saw his balance jump up by fifteen thousand tokens. Startled by the change, he glanced at the Gallimians, finding Aje winking at him mischievously. “It’s only a loan,” she emphasized. “I want it back later,” she added with a smile.
Forming a soundless, “thank you,” with his host’s lips, Percy hurriedly edited his new bid to a nice, round, seven hundred thousand tokens, entering it into the system mere fractions of a second before the timer on the tablet hit zero.
A loud snort echoed through the hall, the bearded ball of spite making no attempt to hide his displeasure. “Fine. I’ve no idea who you are, nor why you’re going to such lengths to win, but I suppose I’ll find out when you come to Mithril to redeem your prize.”
Despite the gnome’s apparent concession, Percy didn’t dare to relax until the tablet officially declared his victory, and the expensive pair of items got delivered to his room. Duwa and the other mortals patted Tiberius and, by extension, Percy on the shoulder as he plopped down on the couch, exhausted.
The tension in Percy’s borrowed body hadn’t disappeared entirely, since the auction wasn’t over yet. There was still one final item to be sold – one that Percy had a very large stake in. However, he could at least rest easy in the knowledge that he would be a mere spectator from here on out. It was other people’s turn to fight tooth and nail over Percy’s listing.