The draculkar frowned, the movement of her face as delicate as the dark lace that bound her pale lavender throat. “I do not know you.”

“Krow. We don’t know each other, no.” He tapped the Letter of Introduction on the surface of the desk, slid it over. “If this is not you, then I apologize for the mistake, and ask to be pointed in her direction.”

  On the letter was written, in bold handwriting: Yhulanve bal Arveris, Manager. Orddet’s Auctions, Sales, and Trades. Nyurajke Town.

The draculkar considered her name on the letter, before picking it up and flipping it to examine the seal. A small surprise flashed across her eyes. She blinked slowly, face returning to the natural expressionlessness, and reached for an ornate letter opener.

As she moved, the slashed sleeves of her darkly midnight-green coat parted to reveal a deep plum-colored silk lining, like a bloody carnivorous flower suddenly opening.

Krow looked around the office.

For someone who wore Xandecan Lace and coats made with silk and moss-ibex hide, the office was almost austere. 

The bank of floor to ceiling windows that he now knew was a common draculkar architectural feature was draped in thick embroidered cloth, limiting the light within the office.

There was a single painting on the wall opposite the windows, a riot of brushstrokes in shades of red and purple.

The rest of the walls were empty. There was a coiling metal thing in the corner, holding several books and a single flowerpot.

The patterned stone floor had no rugs or carpets. The desk contained paperwork, with only a few ivory paperweights carved in the image of sleeping dragons.

Or maybe the word was ‘bare’?

Possibly Harnalt’s friend was just promoted.

“This letter is very curious.” Yhulanve had put down the letter, and was studying Krow contemplatively.

“Is it?” What exactly had that Harnalt put in his introduction?

Yhulanve didn’t answer, just started gathering paperwork from various drawers of her massive desk. “I can open a kingdom account for you. If you require entry into the Bourse, it must needs be of your own merit. I cannot help you there.”

What?

What had Harnalt written.

Krow was expecting to have to pay a premium for the kingdom catalogue.

There were three trade and auction tiers at Orddet’s. 

The first was the Local Catalogue, which offered products from just the town or city the player was in. The second was the Kingdom Catalogue, which covered the whole of the country the town was in, and the third was the Infinite Realm Bourse, which covered the whole game map.

The first account accessed by having 100 RP with the town was the Local Catalogue. To access the Kingdom Catalogue, one has to buy and sell at least 10 drax worth of items. That was the equivalent of 250 serpens – with the amount of quests needed to gain 100 RP, a player was sure to have at least that much.

“A kingdom account is more than enough, thank you.”

Yhulanvar nodded. She placed a stack of paper and a penbox before Krow. “This is the account contract, and below it is the agreement for the post-vault that comes with an account at Orddet’s. You may choose not sign the second. But you’d need to provide an address to the seller of the items that need to be delivered.”

Krow wanted one, of course. A post-vault was just that, a place to store the items an account-holder acquired from the Catalogues. 

It also functioned as an anonymous mailing address.

She opened the penbox, removed the stylus and a glass vial with a clear liquid inside. She uncapped both, dipped the stylus in the clear liquid of the vial. She displayed the clear liquid before offering the stylus to him. “We use the highest security contract styli here. I assure you, they are swept of magic traces before and after.”

Krow signed.

The stylus used blood, the deep red color slashing across as he signatured the two documents.

  “I shall get you one of our Bronze Trade Tokens and we shall be done.” She stood.

“A Silver Token please. I can pay the difference. And a portable tradebook.”

The manager barely paused, even as she glanced at him curiously. “We do not often get requests for tradebooks here.”

“I’m a traveler. A precaution only.”

“Of course.” She stepped to a large ornate chest kept in an alcove behind her desk. The glow of security measures slowly wended through the ebony lines that crisscrossed the surface of the chest in swirls and spirals. 

It was a slow sixty seconds before the chest clicked open. A warning and a demonstration of the strength of Orddet’s security.

She removed a red box with silver detailing, closed the chest again.

“Our account tokens are bloodbound, of course, that others could not use them. Please touch the stylus to the indicated places on the token. The trade token will contain the record of your transactions, private to all but you.”

“Not even you, who opened the account?”

[You’ve acquired one (1) Orddet’s Trade Token (Silver)!]

“Correct.” She sat back down. “A replacement token, as well as the restoration of your records, would cost a fee of 5000 drax. I suggest you keep the token secure.”

She dipped the stylus in the vial again, turning the clear liquid black. She dropped everything into the box. “The sweeping solution destroys both your blood and the stylus. You may take it with you, it’s trash at this point.”

Krow shrugged and tossed the whole thing into his Inventory.

Yhulanve nodded. “The initial deposit, as this is a kingdom account, needs no less than 100 drax.”

“You’ll need a coinbox,” Krow mentioned.

Obligingly, she removed one from a drawer.

Krow started dumping coinbags into the box.

She took his documents, stamped several pages. When she looked up, Krow still wasn’t finished.

The bags that the Inventory created for coins had a 10,000 drax limit.

She slowly sat back in her chair.

When he finally stopped, she noted down the number with only a briefly lifted brow, and slotted Krow’s token into the cover of the coinbox, making the whole thing glow.

She detached a single page from the pile of documents, which she placed in a document sleeve and offered to Krow with his token. “The Tradebook will take longer, no more than a quarter-hour. As a Silver Token holder, you are free to use any of our private rooms to conduct your business. May I guide you to one?”

“Let’s go.”

Yhulanve led him through Orddet’s, past the cubicles used by those with bronze tokens, to a high gallery of curtained doorways. 

“I confess to a curiosity.” She swept back the portiere to admit them into a small room. “Harnalt Garvan is difficult to get to know at the best of times. How did you meet?”

“Nothing too interesting. I helped them find a lost kid.”

Yhulanve’s brow arched a bit, her thin lips curved. “I see.”

She walked to the carved Mazarin-style heavy desk in the center of the room. “If you wish to open your account, just slot your token into any of the four terminals in this desk.”

Krow nodded, knowing that.

“I will return in ten minutes. May your first visit to Orddet’s be fruitful.”

“I intend it to be.” He held the portiere open as she left, taking a moment to glance outside. 

Dropping the curtain, and watching as sigils lit up on its hems, ensuring that the room stayed private to all unauthorized, he sighed.

He might be dressed more like a civilian than a player, but he’d still felt stares on his back as he was led here. 

Even with his status and info set to private, most players only turned off the option to differentiate between NPC civvies and players later, since by default it was on.

Krow really didn’t want to be mugged.

There were players that did that to others who looked like they might have found interesting quests or looked rich, like being escorted to another level of the building by a manager when most other players were using the cubicles.

He walked to the table and sank into one of the armchairs.

The room wasn’t extravagant. An unlit fireplace in the corner, an assortment of reading lamps on the mantel. Then a collection of comfortable armchairs and small end-tables around a hefty carved and inlaid desk with four equally-spaced recessed circles on the surface – one on each side.

Krow opened his account.

Loading it with 250,000 drax left him with just 73,000 in his inventory.

Weeping skies, he’d spent 57k on stuff already?

Why did it feel like he hardly bought anything at all?

“I feel like one of those second-generation-rich brats.”

He leaned back into the ergonomically-cushioned back of his armchair.

Hey, did they have ergonomics in medieval times, or whatever faux time-era the game-makers set the game in?

Krow shook his head of suddenly inane thoughts.

Focus.

There were three major things he wanted today: armor, Spells, MND accessories.

Oh, and a mask.

Four things.

Predictably, the MND items were overpriced. He groaned at seeing that the best offering on the kingdom markets was a necklace with +5 MND posted at 35,000 drax. 

Too expensive by half.

It wasn’t even pretty.

He crossed his arms. He’d quest for a wearable MND accessory; he just didn’t know any quests from the last time.

Tsk.

The selection would probably be greater in the Bourse. The requirement to access the Infinity Catalogue was to buy/sell at least 50,000 drax worth of items.

“Armor,” he ordered the terminal.

The holo listed everything from helms to sabatons, arranged by most recently posted.

“Light armor,” he corrected himself. “Add Enchanted. Remove items under Rare. Remove items under C-quality. Add water element, shadow element, faunal element, stone element, metal element.”

Those were the basic elements that had synergy with his Shadow affinity.

In theory, anyway. Balancing armor pieces was another matter. They were made by different people. They could have conflicting advantages. And even if they were compatible to Shadow, they weren’t always compatible to each other.

Sometimes you could tell by the names of the items. 

There were armor and weapon sets, after all.

The best thing would be if he could work with an Armorer, with him as Enchanter partner. But that was for the future.

He gestured a pair of vambraces toward him, enlarging them to life-size.

[Exiled Seafarer’s Bracers]

[Quality: B] [Rare]

[Element: Water]

[‘What horror could the horizon be,

‘When my soul, my heart, is parted ever from me?

‘When thou and I could never be,

‘When what I did, I did all for thee?’]

[Gives 2x damage from projectile weapons every 5th projectile. May increase chance of ranged critical attacks. +20% DEX]

[Defense Multiplier: .1]

[Damage Reduction: 5%]

[Weight: .3kg each]

[Durability (2/3): 126 ]

[Element Interactions:

-Fire: -8/10

-Water: 0/10

-Air: 2/10

-Floral: 0/10

-Faunal: 0/10

-Stone: -3/10

-Metal: -4/10

-Lightning: 4/10

-Light: 0/10

-Shadow: 6/10]

[Cost: 45,000 drax]

From the advantages alone, it was made for him.

He reached into the holo, fitting the bracers onto his arms, testing weight and flexibility. He rolled his wrists, flexed the elbow joint.

Eh, not bad.

That price, though…

He marked the item, placing it in his watchlist.

He gestured it away, and wrinkled his brows at a leather pauldron-gorget set, which was shadow element. He leaned closer, twisting the virtual holo here and there – there was something weird about it. He stood, increasing the holo-frame size.

He undid the straps and was about to put the thing on, when he was suddenly back to the floating lists.

The display had changed.

Uh?

Oh, he’d gestured one of the controls, changing the search filters.

What was showing now was a lot of…shirts? How were these armor?

Krow’s eyes widened. He leaned closer to one of the lists, eyes suddenly intent.

A slightly feral smile took over his face.

“I need a warehouse.”