บท 149: The Value of Gold
"Four thousand gold coins!" Crassus counter bid as the bids for the 6th Century BC Etruscan Spearman Warriors Hall continued. The first bids had been from the middle tier's but now multiple VIP's had started to bid.
"Four thousand one hundred gold coins." The strong sounding Woman bid.
"Four thousand two hundred gold coins." Prince Dong Cheng counter bid.
"Four thousand three hundred gold coins!" Another female VIP interrupted, with a gentler tone to the others who had bid so far.
"Four thousand four hundred gold coins!" A gruff sounding male VIP shouted from the room next door.
"It's going to be a competitive battle." Xun Yu commented as Crassus bid four thousand five hundred.
"What are we prepared to go to?" Crassus questioned after he was outbid again by a different Lord.
"There are more items to come, and then the special items in the third part." Dom replied
"We have spent around ten percent of what we budgeted for this auction." Xun Yu added.
"Let's see where it goes to and make a decision then." Dom confirmed.
Soon the bids reached eight thousand gold coins and some of the Lords stopped counter bidding, reducing it down to a final three.
"Eight thousand five hundred gold coins." Prince Dong Cheng bid, a ting of anger in his voice now.
"Nine thousand gold coins." The gentler female VIP countered.
"Nine thousand five hundred gold coins!" Crassus added.
"Ten thousand gold coins!" Prince Dong Cheng counter bid.
"I feel we could hire civilians and train them for much less at this point." Xun Yu stated, before directing his conversation to Crassus. "I know you have a connection to this, but we need to think long term. It seems that a D grade hall will give a much smaller daily amount of troops, we could find alternate routes for that."
"I know." Crassus lamented, frustration in his voice. "It's your choice Lord Lazarus."
"Let's stop here then." Dom replied with a shrug, "I'm sorry Crassus."
"It's fine, Xun Yu is right." Crassus agreed. "If it was a higher grade, I would have been more defiant."
"If it was a higher grade, we would have continued to bid." Dom stated as he waited to see what it would sell for.
"Ten thousand five hundred." The gentle female voiced VIP said loudly.
There was silence as their was an expectation that Crassus would counter bid, after a few seconds of silence, Prince Dong Cheng took the opportunity and bid eleven thousand. Eventually the 6th Century BC Etruscan Spearman Warriors Hall - Grade D, sold for sixteen thousand gold coins to the gentle voiced female VIP, the highest price for an item yet.
The next few items were Red Cubes, which spawned Elite Villagers. Even though Dom had one to use in his Personal Chest, he still wanted to purchase more of these if they were of value. The Black Cubes had sold for a low amount, but they were for random common villagers. Some Elite Villagers were almost at the Hero level and had a major impact on the development of Riverside.
Of the six Red Cubes that came up, Dom purchased two of them that were at a reasonable rate in the late hundreds, but backed out of those that went in to the thousands. This meant that he had three Red Cubes to use when he returned to Riverside. The fifth of the Red Cubes went to one of the Lord's in the Auditorium, with most expecting many more would come at better rates. The other three went to VIP rooms.
Following this another Golden Token came up, which was won by a different VIP Room for a much higher amount than the first one had sold for. Crassus had bid for it initially, as had Prince Dong Cheng, but it soon reached a number that was not feasible for the item. Dom calculated what they had gained from the last Golden Token they had used, and even though they had received a lot of gold, the main gains were Meritamen, Uriah, Abubakar and some low grade warriors.
"The next item is a Wooden Token used to upgrade buildings within your Towns." Linus introduced as he pulled out the Token from one of the last few boxes that he had on the table, his sisters removing the others so they could be distributed to their winners.
"This is an item we need." Dom said, remembering the large list of upgrade requirements that he had to upgrade Riverside again. He also knew that this was something that all of the Lords would want. There were a couple of ways to upgrade a building; having a relevant hero or Elite Villager whose knowledge could rank it up, having an architect or a schematic related to it, general knowledge upgrades within the Town, and a Wooden Upgrade Token.
They bid for it and eventually won it for six thousand gold coins, which Dom felt was a lot to just upgrade one building, but it wasn't if it helped them upgrade further quicker. The next four items were also Wooden Tokens, and Dom won another of those for a similar amount. This meant that Dom now had five wooden tokens to use when he returned to Riverside.
"We are now in our final three items before we move on to the final part of the Lords and Leaders Auction. Most of our items have been directed towards the Lord's, however we hope that the next item is a temptation for the Leader's as well." Linus announced as he pulled out another Parchment. "This is a contract with a mercenary unit of 400 Arcadian Mercenaries, this contract will last for one year where they will defend and fight beside you. The unit will arrive two days from now in your Town if you are a Lord, or your camp if you are a Leader."
"What grade would Arcadian's be?" Dom wondered out loud.
"At best a Grade C, at worse a Grade E." Crassus commented, "Our Hoplite would run them through easily. The mercenaries that I have hired are of a much better quality."
"Do we want them?" Dom asked seriously. "I'm trying to work out where Subutai would place them in our forces."
"Let's see how much they go for, I think this will go high as not many Lord's will have as many warriors as we do." Xun Yu added, "Mercenaries are hard to control if you don't already have a strong military. As Linus said, this would be better for a Leader of their own Mercenary Unit."
"It is a great item for a Lord who is starting out and needs some protection from bigger competition nearby." Crassus said, "They could be handy as a vanguard in our upcoming action in Tongpai Town."
Soon they found out how much it would sell for, with a VIP Room purchasing the parchment for twenty thousand gold coins, by far the highest so far. Crassus had suggested they stopped bidding when it reached the nine thousand mark. It was interesting to see that Prince Dong Cheng and the two Female VIP's not bidding for this item either when it reached around that mark.
"The second to final item of this part is this." Linus said with a grin, behind him his sisters appeared again with another painting, this time of a large wooden machine that had been placed on an open field. The machine seemed to have a long beam with ropes attached to it. "For those that are wondering, this is an early catapult from the Siege of Motya in 398BC. It is a crudely build contraption compared to the later iterations, however can easily be dismantled and moved."
"A Catapult!" Dom heard one of the VIP's shout.
"We need this item!" Another VIP was heard saying loudly to their advisor.
"The Catapult will come with an instruction manual supplied by it's current team." Linus added as he saw the excitement on many people's faces in the Auditorium.
"We also want this item." Crassus said to Dom with excitement, "This could be a great asset. It could help us take down any walls that get in our way, or attack defending enemies behind their walls."
"How do we move it around?" Xun Yu asked, "Our geography isn't fantastic for moving large pieces of equipment."
"We could move it by boat?" Crassus argued, "Or by cart?"
"Alternatively, we could use it as a defensive item." Dom added, "If we placed this on a city wall, we could hit any enemies approaching from distance."
"It would be good near the docks at hitting oncoming ships." Crassus agreed, "Let's win it first."
"One thousand gold coins." The first bid had been made by the VIP next door. Soon the bids continued until they reached six thousand gold coins.
"Is this worth more than the Bireme that GeneralSlaughter671 won?" Dom asked as the bidding continued to rise.
"It has a much different use." Crassus replied, "But it is definitely a much simpler item to build."
"If we could study it, we could build more." Xun Yu counter argued, "I am sure that Xun Yan is quite knowledgeable on the subject."
"Maybe it is something we should invest in at a later point." Dom decided as the Auction continued around them.
Eventually the item sold for fifteen thousand gold coins to one of the VIP's who hadn't been involved much until now. Dom hoped that it wasn't someone local, as artillery was something they hadn't thought much about up until now, mainly as they hadn't had to attack any walled cities yet.
"Defensively, we are in a good location." Crassus said whilst Linus prepared the last item. "We can only be attacked through the forest or across the Farmland. All other routes have natural defence's and the two routes we can be attacked through we have plenty of warning time."
"Not the forest we don't." Xun Yu said, "But we are doing things about that.
"At least no one with artillery can come through the forest." Crassus added as Linus showed his final item of the second part of the main auction.
"We have three of our final item, but are limiting these so that a Lord can only win one of them." Linus introduced, before showing a familiar Orange Cube. "This is an Orange Cube, used to spawn a Hero of a relevant grade to your Town. As with most items, this can only be used by Lords."
"Only three!" Someone argued, frustrated as they knew they had little chance against some of the bid spenders, and they were correct.
The first one sold to Dom for eight thousand gold coins, with the final two selling to Prince Dong Cheng and another male Lord VIP who Dom assumed was Prince Li Shang due to his aggressive bidding against Prince Dong Cheng.
"With that, we have finished this part of the Auction." Linus announced, "My Sisters and I will leave you to have a short fifteen minute break, Petunia will be back for the final part of the Lords and Leaders Auction, there are only a small amount of items, but they are all definitely worth your attention."
"I shall return to the crowd and gather more information." Xun Yu said as he stood up, "I expect we may have some visitors in this short time period."
Soon after Xun Yu left, the door knocked and Johannes had stepped out to see who it was.
"Lord Lazarus, Prince Dong Cheng is outside and would like to speak." Johannes said kindly, "I can remove him if you wish."
"Let's go speak with him." Crassus jovially responded as he headed to the door.
"I suppose we are going to speak with him then." Dom accented as he headed outside.
"You have been bidding well." Prince Dong Cheng laughed, "I am surprised you haven't won more."
"We had to give other people a chance." Dom joked back, "In all seriousness, not everything has been of worth."
"I agree, the prices seem highly inflated due to their rarity." Prince Dong Cheng agreed, "Some hard work and these rewards could be your own from mission completion. What do you think of the competition?"
"I feel there are some good Lords amongst us." Dom replied evenly, not wanting to share his thoughts with this actual member of royalty of a foreign state.
"Ha!" Prince Dong Cheng laughed, "Keeping your cards close to your chest are you? Don't be afraid to share, for example, GeneralSlaughter671 is out of his depth, Li Shang is desperate to climb the ranks and PhoenixSlayer is playing an interesting game."
"PhoenixSlayer?" Dom asked intrigued.
"She is the one with the gentle voice." Prince Dong Cheng replied with a smile, obviously having gained some form of information from this little conversation. "I think she has more gold than she is letting on, she'll be big competition in the next part."
As they spoke, another VIP door opened in the distance. Dom looked as a petite girl wearing a light green dress with flower patterns, with a green cloth across her mouth, left the room. She was escorted by two tall males who had a similar look to her. She looked towards Dom and Prince Dong Cheng who were talking. Dom noticed her light green eyes that stared at him inquisitively.
"I think it is time to return." Crassus said as he noticed the corridor getting surprisingly busier.
"I agree." Prince Dong Cheng replied, before teasing. "Let's see if I can beat you on some of these final items!"
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