Master Of None

With the agreement not to bid they all turned their attention back to the auction. The four military officers bid on the potions edging out any competition. They had all started to talk to a fast extent when they were presents. This was one of the main things that they had been sent to the auction to gain. Potions could easily be ordered in bulk by the military or they could be bought at a regular auction, however the newer potions would normally hit a market first. This put the military in the same position as everyone else in the kingdom, they needed to put in the leg work to get new potions. 

Having purchased one batch of the high healing potions each the mood of the officers significantly increased, they knew that they would be praised for bringing back such a thing to their commander. 

Keeping up with the theme a familiar set of crates were brought out on to the stage. "The next Item is being sold in f four batches of fifty vials. These vials contain pure water from a snow golem and lack many impurities that normally exist within water used in the alchemical process. This water was stored while frozen and is of an extremely high quality! This bidding for the first batch will start at a discounted price of two thousand gold!" 

Walker thought that the elder of the Garnet family would offer them more, but discounted? "What does he mean discounted? This is pure water, it is way too valuable for them to discount it." Remey said exactly what Walker was thinking. He was equally annoyed that they would discount it.

"Just you wait, I think you will all see why it was discounted." The high priest raised a hand being the first bid. 

"Number eight two thousand"

"Number twenty nine three thousand"

The bid jumped a thousand gold just now! The high priest was smiling again giving the whole party the I told you so look. "The discount he gave you will get the alchemists on edge, and they will bid more faster trying to scare off those lower bidders. Should be a nice show. I will be buying the last one though." The high priest was sure that he would win the final batch of the vials and worst case if he gave in he would convince the party to hand over any extra they had. 

"If that's how it is it's fine, but if they had not gotten higher that fast I would have needed to go have a word with that appraiser." Remey was a little put off because of the discount but watching it jump thousands of gold in a minute she calmed down. 

"Number twenty nine nine thousand two hundred!"

The number was extremely high now that a few bidders had started to go against this number twenty nine.

"Number two ten thousand gold!" 

Seeing the number of gold hit ten thousand the entire party nearly feinted on the spot. This price was so much more than what they had sold the arm of the snow golem to the alchemist Remey knew. "Don't look at me, we sold it to a fair price. This is just insane, the alchemists down there have a rivalry and don't care about gold." Remey went back to pretending she did not care as much but Alice who was looking right at her saw the smile spread on her face.

"Alchemists do indeed make a lot of profit from their potions, It's why they have never formed a guild. If they did they would loose personal income and need to set up rules. They would also need to pay more taxes to the kingdom the resided in." The high priest joined in the conversation a little bit disappointed. 

"So the adventurers guild is limited by the kingdom in a way since they need to pay for the building and taxes?" Gil was clueless about these things and decided to take the chance to learn more.

"Yes and no, since the adventurers guild has so many members they are well off, but the alchemists are few in number. Not many will have the proper systems to pursue it as a career. That paired with how tough it is to get the right ingredients and learning makes it harder to properly function as a guild. I would guess that if they formed a guild they would produce half the potions they do now for the kingdom." The high priest knew that it was better to keep them in the format they currently were but he also wished that they could do something abut their rivalry. The shear disregard for how they were acting in front of the high class crowd was disappointing. Someone should never throw around their gold like this. 

"Number twenty nine twelve thousand gold, going once, going twice, sold to number twenty nine for twelve thousand gold. Congratulations!." 

The first batch had just sold for an astounding amount of gold, the party was wondering how they could ever spend the insane amount of gold growing in their party bank account. The alchemists hadn't even slowed down when the high priest threw the first bid out, nothing would seem to stop them. 

The second and third batches went for eleven thousand gold and nine thousand gold. The price seemed to decrease as the batches went on showing that the alchemists were running out of competition. Now that the price had lowered the priest smiled and watched the fourth batch bidding start. He was biding his time and had not bid on the others, a few of the crowd cast glances up at the balcony seeing that the priest was still there. They had the impression that the high priest would have been bidding on every single batch but it had yet to occur.

"Number two, seven thousand gold!" 

The bids had reached a decent amount but still lower than the previous batch. The bidders were silent and the auctioneer was about to start the count when the high priest raised his number. 

"Number eight, eight thousand gold!"

The high priest himself had just raised a thousand! This was crazy, the party knew that the church would have deep pockets but they still though the high priest was a frugal man. Instead he was ready to jump in and fight the fight with any other bigger, Rising to the challenge the other bidder did not want to let go.

"Number two eight thousand five hundred!" 

"Number eight, ten thousand gold!" 

The high priest jumped up the price again by a huge amount, the onlookers were viewing the balcony realizing that a fool was trying to compete with the church. Not just the church but the high priest who could make such financial decisions without worry, he was the one that set the budgets after all!

"Number eight, going once, going twice, sold! Number eight for ten thousand gold! Congratulations!" Everyone including Alice and Midnight were looking at the high priest. 

"What, I said I would be winning this last batch. Just because I am a bit older now doesn't mean I am willing to let something I want slip away. Just think of what the healers can use this for. Those swamps and their blasted poison will be cowering from our healing." hearing this they totally believed that if the high priest wanted to he could keep a calm face and declare war on all injuries. They were speechless, even Alice scooched away from him a little wondering if she truly knew the man in front of here.

The auctioneer brought out various other alchemy herbs and tools, none of which were interesting to Remey. She was the groups expert on the subject so Walker was looking to her for what to bid on or not. "Just leave those all be, if we need ingredients we can ask the old man. After tonight he will want to sell things to stock back up on gold. Plus his are better quality then those." To Remey the things being sold were just too low quality to be used in any of their potions.

"Well, if Remey thinks so I'm fine with it. I can see that they all look a bit older from here." Gil backed things up, his sharp eyes catching the small details like dried out roots or curled leaves. He also had the knowledge his mother had passed down about plants and what to look for in a sick one. This knowledge just helped to hold back Walker's hand no matter ow rare the auctioneer made the ingredient sound.

"We will be moving on to out monster and crafting materials portion of the night! I know many have been waiting to see what rare and unique ingredients have come through our doors recently. I can only say that you will be very surprised!" The auctioneer gestured for the  attendants to bring out an large amount of bones. These were familiar to the party since they were the bones of the greater Ice imp. Their other item was being sold as the first item, how lucky!

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