154 Visiting Aeris

When Jayde and her friends arrived at the base of the mountain, they found many carriages waiting for students, these carriages were sent from the city for students to hire them to take them into town. Since the four of them had left so early they were quickly able to hire a carriage. They ordered the carriage to take them directly to the auction house.

Since Damonia was located just outside Aeris, and the merchants knew the students were allowed to travel to the city on Restday, many of the businesses opened their shops and ran specials enticing the students to spend their allowances. The auction house of Aeris was no different, they also had an auction every Restday, which helped draw huge crowds to Aeris, ensuring that business boomed on Restday.

As the carriage stopped outside a large square building, Jayde and her friends climbed out. Stepping onto the pavement, Jayde looked at up at the massive building in front of her. The brick-faced building was over six stories high, and took up the whole block, with a large staircase leading up to two massive wooden doors, to the far right near the edge of the building was a small wooden door.

There was already a small queue standing in front of the doors. Jayde and her group joined the line waiting.

"Wow, I can't believe that there are already people waiting," Raven exclaimed.

A portly elderly man standing in front of them turned around.

"Oh it is normally not this busy, but today the Aeris Auction House has some rare treasures up for auction," the portly man said.

"That's great! Hey Ash did you hear that they have rare treasures available?" Nova babbled, as he grabbed his brothers arm, his eyes sparkling.

"I'm not deaf," Ash said curtly, as he tried to dislodge his brother's hand.

"Gods I wonder what kind of treasures they will be auctioning," Nova gushed, ignoring Ash's attempt to free himself.

"Would you let go of me," Ash hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oops!" Nova said, letting go of his arm.

The portly man chuckled at the excited youth, handing over a small printed booklet in his hand he said: "Here you go, this is a list of today's auction items."

"Fantastic!" Nova exclaimed, reaching for the booklet.

"Nova!"

"What? He offered it to me," Nova said, as he opened the booklet and started to page through it.

Ash threw the portly man an apologetic look, seeing the look the stout man said: "You youngsters can have it, I have another one."

Ash bowed slightly. "Thank you, Sir."

"Sir, would you know where we should go if we are interested in selling items?" Jayde asked politely.

The portly man pointed to a side door on the right. "Young lady, that is where you can get your goods assessed, but Aeris Auction House is strict about what items that they accept," he cautioned.

Nova head snapped up as he asked: "Hey Jayde you have something you want to sell?"

"Uh-huh."

Grabbing her arm, Nova started pulling Jayde towards the small door to the right, "Alrighty then, let go."

Jayde looked over her shoulder at Ash and Raven, seeing the helpless look on her face, Raven starting giggling while Ash gave himself a facepalm. Would this idiot of a brother just think first before acting, he thought with despair. Raven and Ash left the queue and ran after Jayde and Nova.

Once the four of them arrived in front of the door, Nova pushed Jayde to in front of them. "Well go on then."

Jayde shook her head slightly at Nova behavior, before opening the door and walking inside. Nova, Ash, and Raven followed her inside the building. Jayde found herself a tastefully decorated office, in front of her was a large wooden counter, divided into small cubicles. To the side were comfortable seats were arranged around small serving tables. Beautiful handwoven tapestries hung on the wood panel walls, with small glow stone above them illuminated the tapestries. The whole office yelled wealth and elegance.

As all the counters were free, Jayde chose the one closest to her. A middle-aged woman stood behind the counter, her chestnut hair tied in a neat bun, while one wouldn't call her pretty she was nevertheless a handsome woman.

"How may I help you?" the woman asked in a polite, modulated voice.

"Hello, yes I was wondering if I could sell some items here?" Jayde asked politely.

The woman's gunmetal grey eyes accessed Jayde. The woman didn't believe that Jayde would have anything that the auction house would be interested in selling, but she was a professional and didn't allow her condescending manner to show through.

"The Aeris Auction House only accepts rare items. If you would like to have, your good appraised we charge five gold pieces, which will be refunded if we decided to accept your goods."

"FIVE gold pieces, what a ripoff," Nova said.

Jayde threw a quelling look at Nova, seeing the steely look in Jayde's eyes, Nova shrunk back. "Sorry," he muttered.

Reaching into her satchel, Jayde withdrew five gold pieces which she handed over to the woman behind the counter. The lady behind the counter couldn't help betraying a slight look of surprise, usually, when she mentioned the appraisal fee, most people would slink away or act brashly just like the young man who was with the girl.

Seeing that the young girl handed over the gold pieces without complaint, made the assistant rethink her opinion of the girl.

"What would you like to have appraised?" she asked her tone slightly more friendly.

"Metal ores."

"Please take a seat while I arrange for our assessor to meet you," the woman said, indicating to the comfortable chairs.

"Thank you," Jayde said, as she turned around and walked over to a group of chairs, as Jayde took a seat, Raven, Ash, and Nova quickly followed.

"Psst, Jayde they are ripping you off," Nova whispered.

Jayde gazed at Nova calmly. "Not really, it makes sense that they would charge for people's items to be assessed, it must stop frivolous people from wasting their time."

The woman behind the counter overheard Jayde's comment, clever girl, she thought as she walked through the office door in the back to call for one of their assessors who was knowledgeable in metal ores.

"Nova, can't you think before opening your mouth," Ash complained.

Nova rubbed his hair with his hand while grinning sheepishly at Ash. "Ah brother, I was just trying to protect Jayde."

Raven snorted. "Do you honestly think Jayde needs protection?" she mocked.

"It's alright," Jayde said, to stop any further bickering. She knew if she did not intervene Raven and Nova would start arguing it was best to nip it in the bud.

Just then the woman returned with a small, thin gentleman wearing wire-frame glasses.

"Miss, this here is Assessor Alirac," the woman said, pointing to the gentleman standing by her side. Jayde stood up, giving the assessor the standing greeting.

"Hello Assessor Alirac, my name is Jayde."

Pushing up his glasses with a finger, Assessor Alirac said nervously, "Please follow me."

Seeing that the trio was about to stand up, Jayde waved them to stay seated. "Stay here, I will only be a couple of minutes," she said as she followed Assessor Alirac.

Assessor Alirac led Jayde to a small office, inside the office was a table with two chairs, like the reception office, this little office was elegantly decorated. Jayde pulled out the chair and took a seat. Reaching into her satchel, she withdrew ten large nuggets of storm iron, five large chunks of doom copper plus five large pieces humming titanium, a large nugget of dwarven dark gold as well two porcelain bottles filled with enchanted dusk.

Jayde had a lot of these metal stored, but she didn't want to raise too much of a stir, so she only bought a couple of pieces; unfortunately, Jayde hadn't realized how rare all these items were, Assessor Alirac eyes bulged seeing the metal ores on the table.

"Oh my," he whispered as he picked up a piece of storm iron. Raising his glasses to sit on his forehead, he withdrew a loupe❶, holding the loupe up to his right eye, he inspected the pure storm iron nugget.

"Beautiful. No impurities," Assessor Alirac muttered as he turned the nugget scrutinizing it.

"May I?" he asked.

Jayde nodded her head a bit hesitantly since she wasn't quite sure what he was asking permission to do.

Assessor Alirac began to sing, his voice was like a sweet cello, it was only when a soft glow surrounded the nugget that Jayde realized that Assessor Alirac was weaving a spell, it was the first time that Jayde had ever seen anyone singing a spell.

[He's a metal caller — a very rare talent,] Isha voice echoed through Jayde mind.

[Metal Caller? What is that?]

[It's a mage with a powerful metal affinity, they can talk to metals, amazing to see one here in the Lower Realms.]

[Really, so what is he doing?] Jayde asked curious about what the assessor was actually doing.

[He is asking the metal to show all its properties, it is the most sure-fire way of seeing everything contained with a piece of ore, the colors being displayed will tell him exactly what is contained.]

Jayde could only see a soft silvery blue color around the whole nugget.

✽✽✽

➥ Notes

❶ A loupe (/ˈluːp/ LOOP) is a simple, small magnification device used to see small details more closely. Loupes are also called hand lenses.

✽✽✽