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1542 Words
While it was literal scrap to the dragon that shed the nail, it was a useful crafting material for anyone at their Tier, and the bidding quickly raced up to a Tier 13 mana stone.
At that point, Quill sighed and backed out of the bidding.
While they had the funds to keep going, he wasn’t willing to burn most of their liquidity at their first auction.
They had only been delving Tier 12 rifts at Tier 9 and hadn’t made the jump to delve a Tier 13 rift after advancing. They also needed to make sure that their separate identities’ finances weren’t mixed. After all, Quill had expenses with his talismans, and spending more than they should have would be a red flag to anyone looking.
The final item was a Tier 13 strength potion that could triple the effective strength of a fighter for a few hours.
Torch was interested, but as the price raced past the Tier 12 mana stone cost, she backed out as well.
She tapped the table and said, “I can make something just as good for that cost. Or at least nearly so. Damn, we should have bought that rift slot.”
He pulled her into a one-armed hug and said, “We have next week. And it was good to see that there are some interesting items coming to our attention. I think we should remain a top ten team for the auction, if nothing else. If the guilds want to sell us things to earn our favor, I’m all for it.”
Torch sighed and started to play with his free hand as they watched the auction end.
As the potion vanished and the auction ended, he asked, “How’s your potion project going?”
Torch just sighed as an answer. It was answer enough.
He knew she was working on something, but she had recently hit a stumbling block on using her potions in a fight. She had had a few ideas on how to increase their efficiency, but none of them had panned out, as far as he was aware.
With the auction over, all the other teams started to file out of the room.
Queen stopped at their table long enough for Quill to lower the privacy barrier and said, “All auction items will be delivered here. Now that it’s over, there’s little reason to sit around.”
Quill nodded, and Torch thanked the solo delver.
That was a good privacy measure, if nothing else, he had to admit.
A package delivered to any location would paint a massive red flag on anyone who went there, and a neutral room like the top ten lounge was the safest place to prevent spies from gathering information on who the masks were.
Quill assumed that the other teams that had joined the auction remotely would be stopping by at some point and picking up their items.
Getting up from their table, they moved to the teleportation pad and left with the others.
Appearing back in Mara and Leon’s apartment doorway, Matt was shocked to see a thirty-year-old looking man sitting in pajamas and watching the pad in the living room.
It didn’t take Liz’s exclamation of “Sam!” to realize it was one of her brothers.
The older man raised his arm and pulled Liz into a hug as he teased her. “You’ve grown up, BethBeth. Last time I saw you, you were only as high as my knee.”
Liz punched the older man in the kidney, but he didn’t even flinch. “That’s because you haven’t been back since I was that tall.”
Having removed his own mask, unlike Liz, Matt proffered a hand and introduced himself. “Matt. It’s good to meet you. I wish I could say I knew anything about you. Liz isn’t exactly forthcoming with information about her siblings.”
Sam laughed and ruffled his sister’s flaming mask’s hair. “We’re all a little weird. I’m Sam. The oldest sibling. Nice to meet you.”
Liz pulled off her mask and squirmed out of the hair rub to take Matt’s hand. “This is Matt.”
Sam interrupted her. “Yes, he just said hello. I have ears.”
Liz ignored his rebuke and said, “This is my brother, Major General Samuel Moore.”
Sam grinned, tapped his nose, and coughed. “Lieutenant general now. This break is a part of my change over to a new unit. I have the next three years off before I report in.”
Matt let out a long whistle.
A lieutenant general was the second-highest rank of active officer in the Empire’s military. Even a one-star Brigadier General was a rarity, but a three-star Lieutenant General meant that Samuel was one of a few dozen active officers who had proven time and time again they were competent in battle. Someone of his stature had shown that could lead their troops into a war and get them out again.
Matt nodded slightly and said, “It’s an honor then, sir.”
Sam rolled his eyes and waved Matt down. “We’re family. And I’m off right now. Don’t sir me at home. If you see me in uniform, sure. But here, I’m just an older brother.”
Liz was still staring flabbergasted at her brother and shouted, “We need to celebrate! A promotion is huge! How can you be so casual about it? This isn’t you reaching Lieutenant, or something rote that anyone can reach with enough time. This is amazing!”
Sam just laughed and pulled Liz down onto the couch. “Relax. We’ll celebrate when Mom and Dad get home. They vanished in a puff of smoke when I told them the news.”
He sighed and added, “Just don’t bring up Anne.”
Matt raised an eyebrow, and Sam lightly slapped Liz’s head. “Did you tell him nothing?”
Liz rubbed her head and blew him a raspberry. “No! He’s with me, not my family. And he’ll meet everyone here. That’s better than getting stories about people he’s never met.”
Sam sighed and explained to Matt, “Anne is my wife, but she was unable to come because her unit deployed.” He looked back to Liz and squinted at her before sighing, “Little sister, you need to get over your hangups.”
Liz grinned evilly as she asked, “Well, when are you going—”
Sam tackled her and tried to cover her mouth but was unsuccessful, and Liz got out between laughs.
“To.”
“Have.”
“Kids?”
Sam froze while Liz laughed.
Matt froze as well because he noticed the same thing. Two pairs of owlish eyes appeared, hovering in the middle of the living room, along with a pair of foot-tall ears.
Clearly, Mara and Leon were all too eager for grandkids.
As the talk of grandkids paused, the peeping eyes and ears faded into the air as if they had never been there.
Matt began to understand exactly why Travis and Keith had so many hang-ups of their own.
Sam glared at Liz, and as he looked between her and Matt, his glare turned into a smirk.
“Baby sister, you aren’t so young anymore yourself. You might want to watch what you threaten people with.”
Looking to Matt, Sam explained, “Anne and I had decided to finally step back and have an actual family when one of us got promoted. We both have enough merits to get the time off and—”
He looked furtively around, and a pressure of a stronger cultivation encompassed the room before he said, “We have a Tier 40 fertility potion that should ensure we succeed.”
Seeing his parents didn’t appear, the pressure lifted, and Sam sighed, “But with the upcoming troubles, we’re going to wait. We want to raise our kids without the risk that one of us will get called away for a century-long deployment. But Mom and Dad are on my ass about it. So, just don’t bring it up, please.”
Matt probed the power that he had felt but was unable to get a good grasp on how strong Sam was. He knew that the wars were limited to Tier 35s and below, but that pressure felt way stronger than Tier 35.
Still, it was so much higher than his own cultivation that he had trouble getting a good feeling about it.
Sam changed the subject, and he and Liz agreed not to mention kids again. “So, what have you two been up to? Also, don’t you have a bond, Matt?”
That got them chatting about more casual things for the next few hours. Sam seemed happy to listen to their stories of adventure and training, asking all the right questions to keep the conversation going. But he seemed genuinely interested, which somewhat surprised Matt.
With the massive age difference, he had expected Liz’s oldest siblings to be distant and removed from her life.
It was nice to see that wasn’t the case.
Eventually, their conversation turned to the vassal war and their actions in the battles.
- Writer
