Chapter 123: Faint

Nick waited until they were well away from the auction house before finally giving in. "Alright, what the hell did you get?" Jaxir chuckled and kept walking with Niri beside him, enjoying Nick’s impatience for another few seconds before answering.

"It’s going to make me very rich." Nick gave him a flat look and told him to stop teasing, but before Jaxir could say anything else, Niri giggled beside them.

"I know."

Jaxir looked down at her. "Do you?"

Niri smiled triumphantly, patted herself on the chest and nodded hard enough to make her hair bounce around her face.

"How’s that?" Jaxir remembered the protections wrapped around the scroll when he’d opened it, and as far as he could tell, only the person physically holding it should’ve been able to see what was written there.

Niri took another bite of the Pale Fullfruit in her hand before answering like it was obvious.

"I saw."

Jaxir’s eyebrow rose as he looked down at her again. "Oh yeah? What is it, then?"

"It’s an original piece of the Mage Alchemic God’s Tome." Niri looked pleased with herself.

"Almost correct. It’s a copy." Jaxir said after a moment of surprised laughter. He was stunned she had actually been so close.

He didn’t notice Nick go silent behind them, since Niri immediately started shaking her head.

"No, I’m right. That’s an original page."

Jaxir frowned and pulled up the item’s description through his inventory while they continued walking. The word Copy was still there exactly where he’d remembered it, so either Niri was wrong or there was something about the page the item’s description wasn’t showing him.

Normally, that would’ve been an easy choice, but Niri had already identified the Mage Alchemic God’s Tome when she shouldn’t have been able to see the scroll at all. If she could somehow get that much right, it didn’t make much sense for her to randomly get the original-copy distinction wrong.

"You’re sure?" Jaxir asked.

"Mhm, mhm." Niri nodded happily before producing another Fullfruit from somewhere and biting into it. Jaxir had already lost count of how many she’d eaten by now, and while she wasn’t stuffing them down inside a 10-minute challenge, he couldn’t imagine why she’d keep eating if she wasn’t actually hungry.

His thoughts returned to the page as another connection formed. The String Quintet Guild auctioned access to their blood compression method once a month, and the Velorian Merchant Group owned one of the 3 largest auction houses in Marr Town, which meant this was almost certainly the same auction house handling those sales.

But that created another problem.

Why would the String Quintet Guild hand over the original page if all they wanted to do was sell copies of the method? Jaxir’s eyes narrowed as he thought about the merchant manager’s reaction when he’d opened the container.

Jaxir finally looked back toward Nick and noticed how quiet he’d become.

"What’s wrong?"

Nick sighed, rubbed at his face and looked at Jaxir like he’d just realized his day was about to become much worse.

"You’re really my unlucky star."

Jaxir frowned. "What does that mean?"

Nick took a few seconds before answering, his earlier curiosity completely gone now.

"I think I know what’s going on with that page." Nick lowered his voice as they continued through the street. "I heard rumors a while back about things happening to some of the people who took one of those copies away after an auction."

Jaxir waited for him to continue while Nick rubbed at his jaw, clearly working through how much he actually remembered.

"It only happened to a few people, and never often enough for anyone to really connect it, but I heard about enough strange incidents afterward that I started wondering if the page itself was being used as a lure."

"A lure?" Jaxir asked.

Nick nodded. "Most people buy the method, see that the item says it’s a copy and use it like one, but the people most likely to realize it’s real are people who already have another page of the Tome." His expression grew more serious as he added, "If 2 original pages interact, they’ll combine into one."

Jaxir slowed slightly. "So you think they’re waiting for that?"

Nick nodded again and said, "the String Quintet might have some way to sense when the page combined with another one, which would also tell them when they should swoop in."

Jaxir frowned as he thought through the obvious problem with that.

"How would they keep something like that secret? Anyone who can afford one of those auctions is going to be a high-level player, an NPC with serious backing or part of a faction, and one battle would expose everything."

Nick’s lips thinned. "I’ve heard of the String Quintet’s leader before."

Jaxir looked over at him. "Personally?"

"No. By reputation." Nick’s expression tightened a little. "He’s a ranked player, and he had some connection to the dark cult I used to run with."

Jaxir’s attention sharpened. "What kind of connection?"

"Enough that I heard his name more than once. He’s an Assassin, and from what I know, there aren’t many people better at that Class than him."

Nick paused for a moment before adding, "The worse part is that he’s supposed to be even better at planning than he is at killing people."

Nick let out another breath. "Go back and take the merchant group up on their offer. They know they fucked up, and right now they’re probably scared enough that you could squeeze them for something really valuable."

Jaxir glanced over at him. "And just hand the page back?"

"I would." Nick nodded toward the auction house behind them. "Whatever you get in exchange is probably worth more than carrying around something that might paint a target on your back."

"One page by itself isn’t even that useful without the right supplemental items or more pages anyway." Nick scratched at his jaw while thinking through how the normal auction probably worked. "My guess is they swap the real page for a copy afterward if they realize the buyer doesn’t have another original, but I have no idea what they’ll do now that you walked out with it.

"Your ending would probably be worse than the others. Like you said, most people who win it through normal means have large factions or something similar backing them. You don’t. They’ll have no reason to be so kind or careful with you. They’ll probably just outright come to kill you, and they’re already over-leveled even for this town here. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of the quintet is already past the town lord in level."

Jaxir’s silently listened as Nick continued to talk. Taking the merchant group’s offer probably would be the safe move, but the whole reason Jaxir had been looking for the blood compression method in the first place was to make the Grand Mana Potion practical.

"It’s not worth the risk," Nick finished, "especially if you don’t have another page or some factory to make it all worth it."

Jaxir suddenly grinned as he made a decision. "I do have another page, though."

Nick stopped walking.

Jaxir’s grin widened as he looked back at him. "And the two of them together are about to make us very, very rich."

Nick’s face went blank, and for a moment Jaxir thought he might actually faint.

At that moment Jaxir’s timer went off. It seemed two hours was up.