Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Eighty-Nine (Patreon)

Even if they didn’t see anything else that was really to their taste, and they weren’t finding much as lots passed them by, they still had made out like bandits, and that was before even selling the skill transference crystal, which they were sure was going to do big numbers. The only fly in the ointment, then, was the deed to the property, which Beth still hadn’t even seen. Not that she doubted its authenticity, not from such a prestigious auction house, but the only thing they knew was that it was a nice house in a good district. They would see when they bought the thing, but she was going to carefully examine the information when that lot came up for bid.

The other thing she thought about, as they entered the second of the two intermissions, was what the surprise items were. She didn’t honestly care all that much; if they were spaceships or something like that, she already had one of those and could get a better one later. Even if they were some kind of universe-shattering skill, she could still do without it, but she was still very curious. If they could manage to get the dead without spending all their liquid funds, they might even be able to participate in those bids as well.

The third and final section of the auction leading up to the finale was no joke, all the big items, and all the big name players, coming out to flex at once. There had been quite a lot of goods sold so far, and a lot of people from all three floors had had a chance to participate, but this was now entering the territory of the big dogs. Both in terms of bids, considering how much even the non-finale items were going for, and in terms of the prestige. As Beth herself had experienced earlier, the rules here were different, and people on the first and even second floor were intimidated out of buying something more than once when someone on the third floor made their move. They also didn’t have a mini-Exalted conveniently sitting at their table to throw their own muscle around and were forced to just silently bear it.

The place became more lively as the bids became more heated, and it became quite clear that there was an ‘old guard’ up on the third floor that were well familiar with each other. Considering some of the banter and insults, and even threats, that Beth and the others heard, this wasn’t anything new for many of those participants. She was happy to keep her group out of it until the finale started, especially considering they didn’t truly need anything and nothing that came up was worth getting involved in the bullshit early for.

The first of the finale items wasn’t going to be that, either, considering it was their final item up for auction. The excitement had been building for a while and Beth was quite happy for that, considering it was at a fever pitch now and that was only a bonus for them, though she was sure she might be having other thoughts when the deed came up next. Still, the bidding on the crystal was explosive right from the beginning, some of those that had been more passive and saving their funds now throwing their weight around, as if to remind the others that they were there and powerful.

It made for some quite interesting conflicts, and Beth had been paying attention as the place heated up. After all, she was going to be bidding against these same people for the deed, so she needed to have some idea of who they were, their style, and a rough estimate of their wealth. Of course, the last was the hardest to figure out, considering that someone could drop out of a cheap bid early on and then go on for dozens of bids on something they really desired, but watching others’ bidding patterns was important in an auction setting. Doubly so, in a setting where people were throwing their weight around like they were here.

The crystal had caused a firestorm at first, and even after the bidding tapered off a bit, there was still a constant flow of new bids, with a feeling like several predators were circling each other, trying to gain each other’s measure. The price was already at five neutronium and climbing and if that had been all, it might have been a bit of a disappointing showing, but Beth knew that tension in the air, and the general back-and-forth of the insults flying around. The people on the third floor were just getting themselves ready for a big push, one that, when it came, was going to see the price, and her team’s profit, shooting through the stratosphere and reaching a new level of orbit.

It came down to four booths on the third floor bidding with alacrity, going head-to-head with bids of fifty adamantine coins at a time, a level of wealth that many small nations couldn’t dream of, but a level of wealth that was a small bid for each of the participants. This went on for minutes, with the price climbing continuously until someone got upset and decided to force the others out, throwing out a three neutronium bid. That didn’t work, as Beth could have pretty accurately predicted, just driving two of the others to do the same thing, but she was cackling at that point, mostly keeping it contained, but it was all money in their pockets. Right at the end, too, which meant they would have quite a lot of room to play with on the rest of the finale items.

Someone clearly wanted the crystal more, exerting their influence with their core powers and ladling out threats in great measure, but that only caused a response in kind from two other booths. The auction house only got involved in so much as they prevented anyone on the first and second floor from getting seriously harmed or killed by the amount of power getting tossed around, but they didn’t step in to stop what was happening. Considering the belligerence was likely causing the bids to be even higher and come in even faster, Beth hoped they stayed out of it and let the people duke it out for as long as they were willing. Seeing the price over thirty neutronium and still rapidly climbing, she hoped that the bidders weren’t getting cold feet yet, either.

The war went on for another five minutes, with it having reached the stage where the bids slowed down and the insults and threats ramped up. It was often twenty or thirty seconds of threats and challenges before a new bid was tossed out, but the anger, or supposed anger, made the bids all the bigger. Beth was thinking about whether they could hit a black ruby, and whether they could get far enough that their cut would be at least that much after the auction house’s cut and fees, when the bidding culminated all at once. One of the booths dropped out with a few disgusted words about reckless spending, one went all-in, or so they claimed, and another topped that, only to have the prize stolen from them at the end by the fourth booth.

In a matter of one minute, it was all over, and the price had climbed just high enough that the team would make a black ruby after all was said and done, even after the fees. It was enough for Beth to hope that the deed, which was next, would fall into their hands, but she knew she was going to have to play the game, and play it well. This wouldn’t be just a few simple rounds of bids and maybe a little intimidation, this was going to be a lot of hard fought work to get through the round and secure the prize.

Just as the program had said, the deed was up next, and the place buzzed even more than previously. Having finally seen it, Beth could understand why, considering it was a small mansion in a good part of the City; the only negative was it was quite a ways from the Eternal Depths entrance or anything else that was considered really important, which was a strike against it. It was, however, a moderate-sized manse with a nice splash of property around it. If her team could secure it, they would only have one other place they needed to acquire some kind of permanent residence before they were fully satisfied.

Beth didn’t even get involved in the early bidding, which seemed to be a strategy that several were sticking to for this piece. Only a handful of booths bid after the first few bids were thrown out, driving the price up slowly but steadily. The anticipation in the air was quite thick, everyone in the room on the edge of holding their breath while the bids were steadily climbing, the anticipation of the blow-up and the big showdown being extremely high. Many in the room were glancing between all the booths, trying to figure who was bidding and who would be throwing down the first challenge. For some on the first floor, perhaps even some on the second, this spectacle was a big part of why they attended these auctions in the first place. They were people of means, the ones watching the show, but not people of true wealth, those willing to spend a large sum and pull on their connections just to get a seat to the show.

When the bidding slowed down for a minute is when Beth, and several others, threw their hats in the ring. It did sting a little that her first bid was thirty-one neutronium, but she was rather prepared to spend; their total budget right now was about three black ruby, and if she had to spend it all on the deed, she was going to spend it all to get that property. Others also jumped in with her, as if a new challenger joining was the signal for the rest of the beasts circling the clearing to pile in for a chance at some fresh meat.

Beth kept her bids more conservative and less frequent, but she knew she was still attracting some attention. She was, even after her earlier display, assumed to be a small fish, and she was now playing in a very big ocean. She was, in fact, in the biggest ocean in the galaxy; there was nowhere else that people with the kind of power and wealth that was on display right now gathered in the whole of the Milky Way. There wasn’t any bigger stage, even if there were some places that were just as important to the functioning of the galaxy like Arbitus or a few others. Those places were more strict and focused on their business more as compared to Millennia’s Echo, which focused on wealth and power to the exclusion of anything else.

It was inevitable, then, as the bids climbed and climbed, and as others dropped out, some silently and some with loud proclamations, that she was going to come under increasing scrutiny and pressure. She was prepared for it, and the first to probe her was an Exalted that pushed at her booth specifically. Beth would love to say that she breezed through the pressure, which felt like molten metal and hardened steel, a core power set and domain focused on weapons, or maybe on the strength of metal itself, or perhaps even forging, but it wasn’t true. She had to push back, and hard, to hold the pressure off her table and keep her focus, which was really the whole point. The strong in this auction were, really, acting as bullies; exerting enough pressure on those that weren’t as powerful to confuse, befuddle, and overwhelm them, causing them to lose track of what was happening. At the most extreme, someone could be knocked out from the pressure, which was a bit dangerous, but as long as they weren’t directly attacked, the auction house didn’t interfere.

Beth, meanwhile, faced increasing pressure as it got down to the final bidders, the price over one-and-a-half black ruby by that point. She knew that she had the means to win, not thinking that any of these people were going to go up to three black ruby just for the manse, but she hold to hold on. That was a lot easier said than done, especially as the attacks on her came more frequently, it clear the third floor wasn’t happy with some little upstart getting in their way. She remained cool despite it all, happy that her team was also persisting, even if they were having a lot more trouble because they didn’t have finished Ideals, or even started Ideals, than she was having.

That changed when someone, one of the other two left, if her estimates were right, decided to focus on her. They exerted a crushing pressure that made the space around her groan, which was kind of ironic, considering she was the space mage here, but it was just pressure that they exerted. It was threats, too, and these were a little much for Beth, and even for the auction house, as someone from the backstage area, still able to make themselves both clearly heard and felt, reprimanded the person for the severity of the threats. That only made them angry, however, and they redoubled on their efforts to drive Beth off.

“A child playing with adults. You should be treated as such, and harshly, too,” the voice from the third floor boomed. “Know your place, little girl, or I will teach it to you. Your companions aren’t even Ascended and you dare play these games?! See how I crush you all and rend their flesh! Back down now or only death awaits!”

“Is that so?” was Beth’s only response, cocking her head at the booth the noise and pressure were clearly coming from.

“Don’t play games, girl, and back down now,” the voice boomed, shaking the venue. “You have no idea who you challenge, but exterminating even your clan and world wouldn’t be beyond this one’s means. Leave this to your betters and don’t act up again!”

“Threatening me is one thing,” Beth replied quietly, though her voice clearly carried through the venue, “but threatening everyone around me and my family are far different things. I’ll give you a chance to take that back before things become messy.”

She had also bid as she delivered her rebuttal, and that really set him off, the pressure increasing a great deal as he bellowed, “You’ve clearly not learned your place, which is not shocking, given what a child you are, but that won’t last any longer. I will wipe you and your pathetic clan from this blighted galaxy and make sure even the ashes aren’t left! To think you could challenge this Exalted and live, I will make sure your suffering is immense!”

Beth knew a lot of it was intimidation and only some of it was likely a serious threat, but she choose to interpret it all seriously. She had already disabled the sound suppression on her booth, and now she stood and walked out of the booth onto the main part of the balcony, which cause a stir in itself. But she wasn’t done there, not by a long shot, and in a move that had been coordinated beforehand and agreed upon during the bidding, she tapped into the reliquary. The threats were more than enough for her to have justification, and she wasn’t going to just sit there while a grumpy, possibly psychopathic, old man threatened everything she held dear. There was a flash of light, or more like, thirteen flashes of light, and thirteen empyreans appeared around her, exerting the pressure of their core powers and immense strength, the strength that had ruled empires, and even shattered them, on the entire auction house.

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