The two then returned to the CRA Hall, Beth remembering at that moment that they no longer had a room. She had to say, the convenience in having a spatial storage item was even greater as they didn't have to worry about leaving things in their room and having to try to retrieve them later. She approached the main counter, noting the Hall, while not empty, wasn't as busy as it was the last time they were in the capital. She had to wait just a minute before getting to speak to an elf who was on desk duty.

"How may I help you?" he asked calmly, reminding Beth of Tazeen, though this elf was a bit more animated.

"I'd like to rent a room for seven days," Beth explained.

"Are you a member?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Beth said, huffing at her carelessness and producing her Silver Emblem.

"And do you know what kind of room you want?" he asked.

"We rented 5B44 last time; is that one open now or is someone there?" Beth asked in response.

"One moment," he said, checking the system. "That room is still available."

"Seven days in that room, then," Beth said, making the silver coins appear on the counter.

"Here are your keys," he said, handing them a set of keys.

"And here are your keys," Beth said with a self-deprecating chuckle as she handed in her old keys for the room.

"Thank you for remembering; many people forget," he said with a slight curling of his lips.

Beth handed one key to Blood after thanking the man and led the way down to their newly re-rented room. After confirming that both keys were working, they entered the room and shucked their boots and armor with appreciative sighs, though Blood's turned into a growl as Beth made her pull her armor out for cleaning. Beth always liked to see to her gear before showering unless she was absolutely bone-tired, which wasn't the case now, and so the two sat on the floor and started checking and cleaning their equipment.

"I'll have to take this down to the forge," Beth said, looking at part of her chausses that had been especially badly damaged after all the fighting.

"Just need to replace some scales," Blood grunted, quite happy that she didn't need to spend as much time on her armor.

Just at that moment there was a knock on the door and Beth rose to answer it, finding the smiling, dark-skinned visage of Mortaine on the other side. She didn't ask anything, merely stepping aside to let him in before closing the door behind him. She resumed her seat by her armor, finishing the cleaning as both she and Blood turned to face Mortaine who had assumed a seat on the couch.

"What's up?" Beth asked, the phrase translating into Universal Standard surprisingly well.

"I have a new job for you," he began.

"Now?" Beth asked, sharing a look with Blood.

"I understand you are looking forward to the monthly auction," Mortaine said. "There is still quite a bit of time, so you can still attend it, but I would ask you not to make any plans after that. I shall be taking the two of you somewhere rather special, and it may take some time. If there is anything else you need to wrap up, try to get it done in the next week."

"And where is this special place?" Beth asked with a raised brow.

"Ah, ah. I can't give away all my secrets," he replied with a mysterious smile and a short, sharp laugh. "Have no fear, it will not be anything too tedious. I was rather impressed with how you handled this situation, even if you did get that old bat to help you out."

"You mean Tera?" Beth asked.

"Yes, yes, she's the one. Impressive use of connections to simplify a complex issue. Of course, if you had done just a bit more investigative work, you could have simply reported back to me and I would have done much the same," he explained with a chuckle.

"Well, thankfully it all worked it without us having to bother you," Beth said.

"It's no bother," he laughed. "Don't start letting Rell and Itharion influence you; I am not some lofty god presiding over his subjects. Think of me more as a genial boss ready to help his subordinates."

"Well, the genial part is sure right," Blood mumbled, though the other two could clearly hear her.

"Anyway, I have several things that I have for you to handle, and this is just the second of them," Mortaine said. "And speaking of things to handle, I have quite a few things I need to get done in the next couple weeks."

As soon as he finished speaking, Mortaine disappeared with a wave of golden light and a quiet chuckling sound, though no popping noise. "He does that on purpose."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Does what on purpose?" Blood asked.

"Makes his disappearance look and sound different," Beth said before finishing what she could on her armor.

She then retreated to the bathroom, where she showered and decided on a bath, the first in quite a while. She was shortly thereafter joined by Blood, who greatly enjoyed luxuriating in the tub at any possible opportunity. They eventually got out when they started to become overly waterlogged, drying off and taking some time to eat and relax. They headed to bed after that, sleeping a good portion of the night, clearly still a little more tired from the devil encounter than they had thought.

The next morning, Beth found she had little to do and a lot of time in which to do it. Deciding on a course of action, she grabbed all her gear, only throwing on her boots outside of her clothes, before tromping down to the forge. Every CRA had rooms for any profession that the members might want to practice, and the forge was always a large room that saw a lot of work. Despite it being early in the morning, there were already a handful of people in the large room, stoking fires or hammering on metal or bending and cutting in preparation to make repairs. Beth joined the latter group, taking up a workstation and setting her armor out. She had mostly cleaned it, getting it into a good state where she could work on fixing it without worrying about dirt or grime interfering with the work, and she started right away. Every piece needed a little bit of attention, though it was only her leg armor that really needed major work. Her left thigh armor plating had been seriously damaged, sustaining some damage from the hours of fighting which was then further exacerbated by the boss devil that had tossed Beth around at the start of the fight.

She was slow and methodical, taking great care to be precise with her work, as she was still only just at the beginning of Journeyman. Repairing her current gear, while not nearly as challenging as crafting it from scratch, was still at the limits of her current level of skill. Conversely, it was really valuable experience, giving her some inspiration for armor and smithing in general. Part way through her work she was interrupted by an older dwarf who everybody in the forge seemed familiar with, getting some direct instruction from the man. He was a senior CRA member who loved nothing more than smithing and forging and would spend all the time he wasn't refereeing or at the front desk down in the forge, offering advice or practicing the craft. He would even discuss forging during his meal breaks, talking about the craft while eating and guzzling a dark mead in the cafeteria.

Beth was quite grateful for his help, especially considering he was a Grandmaster standing near the peak of that bracket, just a bit short of advancing to Sage. It was pretty clear to her that he had the qualifications for it, but was likely just lacking a bit of inspiration to make that final transition. He was still the most knowledgeable smith Beth had yet spoken to, far surpassing others like Elaine or even Tazeen. With just a few pointers about cutting the metal and shaping the pieces, he gave her a great deal of help in fixing her leg armor, restoring it to a condition that was nearly mint. Beth thanked the man, who went by Ironarm, before turning to other work, deciding to spend some time on forging, despite her itch to head upstairs and hop in the arena.

The rest of the day was quite productive, even if she didn't earn any levels in smithing. Already at Journeyman it wouldn't be quite that easy, as crafting skills were even more complex and time-consuming to level than weaponskills. She had a feeling she was making pretty good progress towards the next level in her smithing, however, and decided to spend all the time before the auction working on it. And with it being Beth, when she said all the time, that's what she meant, as she spent every waking hour in the forge, making even old Ironarm give her a questioning look by the end of the week. Beth wasn't bothered by it, already starting to understand she may be just a touch neurotic in this regard, working on something she became interested in so single-mindedly that she often even forgot to eat.

She had been in communication with the others a few times during the week, so it was no surprise when the others showed up to her suite the morning of the auction. She made sure that everyone had eaten something before they left, heading over to the Seven Lights building. The lobby was much busier today than any other time she had been in it except for the last monthly auction. Even then, the lobby was busier today than what it had been a month before, and Beth's group had to wait a while before they got to the front desk, drawing no few looks, though she suspected Bjorn was the cause of most of that.

"Your group is here for the auction?" the attendant asked when they eventually reached the counter.

"Yes," Beth replied simply, showing the man her emerald token before he could say anything else.

"My apologies, ma'am. I'll get a senior trader down here right away," he said, becoming extremely accommodating after seeing the token.

"Quite a reaction," Andrea muttered as the attendant scrambled.

"Emerald tokens are big," Bjorn rumbled before falling back into silence.

It was only a minute later, with the desk worker starting to sweat a bit at making a VIP wait, that a senior trader showed up. It wasn't Alex this time, surprisingly, or Selene, unsurprisingly, but was instead a human woman of average height who exuded a sense of calm and serenity. She greeted Beth very politely and guided her group to a private box, calmly overlooking the fact that the group was slightly larger than what an emerald should be able to bring. Certain exceptions could be made at the staff's discretion, and she found the group wasn't in any way problematic.

"This is such a nice booth," Kris commented quietly.

"We can also bid anonymously from here," Beth explained, gesturing at the tablet.

The group spoke quietly for a few minutes, mainly Andrea and Rell, who Beth had figured was a bit of a chatterbox. Kris was rather quiet, Adam seemed to get lost in his own head, Itharion observed everything but didn't speak, Blood was too lazy, and Bjorn was disinterested. The talk was light, mostly Andrea excitedly guessing what they would see in the auction and Rell commenting on the kinds of items big spenders would be interested in. Beth spoke a little but didn't want to shatter Andrea's hopes and dreams, especially since she herself had only participated in one auction and didn't have a bevy of experience to draw on.

It was eventually time for the auction to start and the same woman as last time appeared on stage, once again introducing herself. Beth thought Andrea might go right through the booth window with how much she was bouncing in her seat, though the rest of the company was much more composed. After Megahn had finished introducing herself and welcoming everyone to yet another grand monthly auction, she immediately went into the first lot. They started with a bit of a bang again this time, though it wasn't one of Beth's lots, but was a set of six rare jewels that formed a linked circle. It was an impressive piece of enchanting, with suitably impressive effects and, of course, a suitably impressive price tag. That took a bit of the wind out of Andrea's sails, as the item wasn't directly something that she wanted, and the eventual price of thirty diamond coins was considered quite a bit.

The auction proceeded apace from there, with Andrea's spirits returning as many of the items caught her whimsy, though she didn't bid on anything. Considering she currently owed Beth a couple dozen diamond coins, bidding on anything here would be like a slap in the face, though Beth didn't really care about it. Half their box did perk up when a huge pile of gems and minerals appeared, the empty chest at the back of the lot giving away that it was their lot.

"You interested in gems, lassie?" Rell asked with an arched brow.

"No, this is one of our lots," Beth explained. "Andrea and Adam were with us when we found a key to a hidden dungeon. The two runs we got of it yielded a ton of raw minerals, a lot of which I brought here to sell. I kept some of the mana iron and a few other things back, but the high value minerals and gems are all part of either two or three lots. This is clearly the first one."

"There's a' least fifteen diamonds on that table," Rell commented. "Hidden dungeons're always good ta find."

"It was a pretty easy one, too," Andrea said excitedly. "Definitely easier than that devil place."

"Don't ha' ta rub it in, lassie," Rell grumbled good-naturedly.

The bidding on their lot, meanwhile, had been rather intense. Beth suspected that word had spread from the previous monthly auction and attracted more interest, even despite what appeared in one auction not necessarily having any relation to another. There were even more people at this auction looking to grab some gems or rare minerals and they were pushing the bidding on this first lot quite high. Rell's estimate of fifteen diamond coins might not have been very far off the mark of the wholesale value of the goods, but the bidders clearly had demand that the general market wasn't satisfying. It helped that everything they had gotten from the hidden dungeon was of at least middling quality, with much of it being high-quality material, and that was obvious to the bidders. Megahn didn't even need to do much to whip the crowd into a frenzy, as she merely introduced the lot and watched the bid quickly climb past twenty diamond coins.

The bid slowed after thirty diamond coins, but several bidders from the third floor and one from the fourth continued to push the price. It finally settled out at around fifty-one diamond coins, give or take a few platinums here or there, with someone from the third floor winning the bid. The relief on Andrea's face was obvious, as the gem lots would be split four ways and just the first lot had netted them each close to a dozen diamond coins after the Seven Lights' transaction fees. If the other lots did even the same, she could pay Beth back in coin and still make a tidy profit, possibly even allowing her to bid on an item.

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