They were heading south regardless to find a buyer for their relic haul. It was deemed wise to stop by one of the numerous black-or-grey market outfits that had cropped up in the months since the church arbiters squashed the Thieves’ Guild.

  A lightly-tread footpath brought the posse on a looping arc around Fort Duran. Calaf never saw more than the two tallest towers of the mighty, forsaken fort.

  From there it was another half-day down the highland slopes into the bowl-shaped deserts of Firefield. Jelena perked up the closer they got to her familiar hometown environs. By the time they hit the sandy dunes of the northern desert, Jelena was moving well ahead of the rest of the group and consciously had to slow down to let Calaf and the others catch up.

  As a natural-born Firefieldian and denizen of the rockier reaches of the southern desert, Jelena wasted no time applying her lifetime of knowledge to ensure desert travel proved as seamless as possible.

  Jelena moved with a arhythmic, halting gait that nonetheless sent her swiftly sailing over the dunes, weight distributed so that she left a sidewinder pattern in her wake. She constructed, bare-handed, a hat from barbed flat-eared cacti leaves to protect Zilara from the harsh desert sun.

  Tans and sunburn – two elements of the natural world that the Menu did not protect against. Jelena had a natural desert-inflected skin tone to provide her above average protection in that regards, but the adaptational knowledge of old, ancestral Japella proved equally important for thriving in the desert. She had a second, larger hat constructed for Calaf in time. Enkidu went without. Strangely enough, he seldom suffered from the natural elements no matter how extreme.

  Regarding travel, Calaf’s armored boots weighed him down in the sand, while the Firefieldian make and model of the armor aided him in keeping cool and remaining mobile. It was a delicate balance. Enkidu sunk deep into the sand with every step but powered through at a freakish, inhuman pace. Zilara was light of step and low to the ground, but was still a child. She spent much of the trip riding on Enkidu’s shoulders, or occasionally Calaf’s (for shorter sprints, mostly downhill along dunes).

  Those flat-eared cacti proved essential to desert survival. Jelena siphoned life-giving water from out of the leaves to drink. As building materials, clothing, and built-in water canteens, it was no wonder Japellans knew the plant’s utility on sight. She danced about from plant grove and watering hole, pointing out which oases were compromised by toxic nihildew sap.

  So energized was the desert native that Calaf found himself staring. Jelena caught him more than once, and occasionally shot him a wink that left the Squire blushing more.

  As the posse walked, they couldn’t help but notice an acrid smell like formaldehyde wafting over on the breeze.

  “Wait, wait.” Jelena threw her hand up, urging the group to stop. “Let’s not stop here.”

  The woman’s curly locks bounced about adorably as she nodded at a nearby depression. A series of green plants sat along a steep but barely-navigable slope with bright blue-green apple-sized fruits drooping down towards the center of the pit. A sweet, attractive smell wafted up, inviting.

  “Go around the ridge of this dune,” Jelena said, specks of sand marking her eyepatch. “See that fruit? It’s a carnivorous trapdoor antlion tree. Sides of the slope will be slippery, and there’s a reservoir of digestive acid large enough to melt a dire-elephant at the bottom.

  These water-hoarding cacti leaves that made up their hats were not Interface-compatible. There was no [Use] option to acquire the benefits of the item via the Menu. Calaf squeezed each leaf in turn to extract their gooey nectar. To do so after an entire lifetime of handy-dandy use straight from inventory proved… odd. Zilara, meanwhile, had an easier time of it; Calaf wondered just how much compatibility with the Holy Menu her far-northern clan possessed. If her status as Holy Child was truly rare in a society of unbranded, perhaps her every meal was ‘manual’.

  Any later in the year and, as Jelena would explain, they would have sheltered under a canopy of ear-leaves in the day and then traveled under the stars when the desert air was cooler. Regardless, the posse arrived at a half-buried ruin on the far edge of the desert.

  Sharp cliffs rose at the ruin’s back. It completed the basin appearance of the high desert with a natural bowl to the east, north, and west.

  No more than three squat stone huts remained above the waves of sand. There were archways caved into the cliffs, but these were collapsed long ago.

  “This must predate the Ancient Heroes,” Calaf said.

  Initially these ruins appeared abandoned. But as they passed the first stone building, Calaf noticed a Branded merchant hiding in the shade.

  Jelena led the way inside the furthest-most structure. The ancient bricks were made of local red stone, the same as Calaf’s shield. So uniform were they that no cement was required to hold the structure together, not even the roof.

  Stairwells beckoned, heading down.

  A hidden, spacious subterranean basement awaited, interconnecting the three remaining structures and several more that no longer existed above ground.

  Throngs of merchants and customers milled about. The stairs offered a view of the entire bazaar on the way down, though soon the group descended to the ‘ground’ floor and were all at once part of the crowd.

  It was a busy market compared to the desolate ghost town above their heads. Where had so many people come from? Tunnels led deeper into some underground compound. Surely, they didn’t continue onward under the vast swathes of desert.

  “Come get your level-up baubles. On the down-low from the church!” cried one relic hawker. “You don’t ask where we got ‘em from, we won’t tell.”

  It wasn’t long before Calaf was approached by a curio-hawking merchant.

  “Psst. You got Unbranded in your party. Does your girlfriend need a Refined Mithril Stat-Scope? What about your daughter?”

  ”Zilara’s not our daughter. Her Brands aren’t even…” Calaf began before realizing that small talk was a trap to get him invested and anchor him to this stall.

  Calaf examined a hand-held ovular glass piece with a pale-green mithril rim around the edge.

  Could be useful should Enkidu or Jelena have to appraise a relic’s worth without Zilara or Calaf present. Would’ve been essential back when it was just the pair roaming the lands.

  “I think we’ll be okay.” Calaf waved the merchant off.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for agility-boosting items,” Zilara said.

  The young girl was so short the ebb and flow of the crowd threatened to wash her away. Calaf moved in behind her to block the crowd, enough so that she could find safe passage between him and Enkidu. Merchants and customers gave the mountainous, bearded wild man a wide berth.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  A sudden thought came to Calaf.

  “I know where we can get an agility-boosting relic.” He grimaced as he spoke. “Not somewhere I’d prefer to steal from. But if we need to…”

  Jelena led the way over to a quiet stall far from the three stairwells. Wooden barricades separated this corner from the rest of the bazaar.

  A Branded auctioneer placed Demonbone Gauntlets +5 (x1) onto a pedestal. He spoke in a quiet indoor voice that nonetheless carried right up to the wooden dividers.

  “Next up, we have gauntlets forged by church decree. Yes, this is armor from Demon Lord’s Fall itself.”

  An audience of both Branded and the unconverted leaned forward to examine this armor. For Calaf and the Branded, this was a simple manner of using [Examine] the item:

  Though all under the Menu could examine the item, only the highest-level paladins with the luckiest of stat distributions had a prayer of wielding this armor with any effectiveness. Calaf could be level eighty and never equip this if his arcane stats didn’t receive a sudden surprise boost. Such stat requirements did not bind the numerous unbranded at the auction, though they also wouldn’t receive half the benefits and needed to endure the weight by natural muscle strength rather than Menu-buffeted Endurance stats.

  Still, at plus-five refinement, the equivalent of having been reinforced, again and again, by master smiths, this gauntlet would offer prodigious protection for anyone.

  “Hmmm. Yes. That’s a starting offer of five thousand gold from the Trailblazer in the back row,” said the auctioneer.

  Five thousand was chump change for mid-level armor, let alone this level seventy-plus demon-forged behemoth.

  Another figure from the middle row raised their hand.

  “That’s a raise to sixty-thousand, from the unbranded to the middle-left.”

  The Unbranded bettor wore the garb of a foreign merchant. He had two bodyguards with him – one Branded, the other not. The pair stood sentry over a hefty chest. Without the easy gold-keeping aspects of the Interface, the merchant had to carry his gold with him all at once.

  Bidding continued. Seventy-five thousand. Eighty. Stopping just shy of one hundred thousand gold. By that time the unbranded had long since taken their treasure hordes and saved them for other, less costly bets.

  Calaf received a nudge on the shoulder. It was Jelena.

  “Go hand our stuff over to the auctioneer,” she said, smiling.

  With a nod, Calaf took off. He nudged his way gently through the auction crowd.

  One hundred thousand gold for a simple gauntlet, even one as finely crafted as this, boggled the mind. Still, it was won by that original Trailblazer from before – odder still, considering a Scout-type class would be statistically barred from ever using it. A Branded attendant walked to the middle row to open a Trade, exchanging the massive sum of gold for the gauntlets. Just so, the Trailblazer exited the auction area.

  “Hey, we have a helmet here that we’d like to put up for auction,” Calaf told an attendant.

  He opened up the Trade menu and the attendant examined the item. They’d left the gauntlets back in their Autumn’s Redoubt hideaway; Calaf could use those, one day. And of course the tent’s level-governing features were too valuable to sell off.

  “Mmm. Sure, we’ll throw it on the pile. You’ll receive the proceeds of the auction minus our twelve percent fee.”

  Trade complete, Calaf returned to Jelena’s side. While he was out, an unbranded had gotten ahold of a coveted Branding Iron, the traditional, non-spell-based way of converting people. It was useless without some church-owned techniques to activate the red-hot iron bit, but it still had value as a collector’s item. The Church guarded these items jealously; Calaf was fairly impressed that the auction had found one.

  “Next up, a Considerable Silver Level Up Bauble of Charisma.” The auctioneer placed a familiar whirling bauble upon the pedestal. “Starting bid, forty thousand gold.”

  The unbranded half of the crowd checked out at this point. Level-up baubles were entirely useless for them. Any glasswork would prove more fetching as a display piece. The only possible use for a bauble would be to pile on experience points for those under the Menu.

  Calaf shuddered. The proliferation of these baubles had brought the church arbiters down to purge large sections of the hinterlands southwest of Plains Junction, as well as set fire to Fort Duran. All those people – they’d just been trying to raise their stats through the church’s Menu system.

  “Forty-five!” Jelena’s hand shot up.

  “That’s forty-five thousand to the unbranded woman with one eye in the penultimate row,” the auctioneer said softly.

  Someone up front bet fifty-thousand. Jelena countered with sixty. Going once, going twice… then that same stranger in the front upped it to seventy thousand. Jelena won eventually at seventy-five thousand – well beyond the value of a ‘Considerable’ level-up bauble.

  An Unbranded attendant arrived to take Jelena’s money. The attendant was confused, looking for a chest full of gold.

  “Oh, he’s my coinpurse.” Jelena raised Calaf’s hand.

  Few ‘mixed’ groups were at the bazaar. Indeed, the auctioneers had little protocol for this eventuality. Another, Menu-equipped, attendant came and Calaf traded the bauble for the gold.

  “We’ll more than recover the cost with our items,” Jelena said.

  They traded the bauble to Zilara, who used it instantly for the glut of XP benefits. On her next level up, the girl would gain a bonus to Charisma. Most classes possessed little use for Charisma – it helped with high-level Paladin gear and spells, but otherwise was a mere marker for haggling ability with merchants, general conscientiousness, and weird bard skills.

  The auction wore on, with the unbranded increasingly dropping out. The gold values were too exorbitant for anyone without a pocket dimension to store their gold.

  “Selling… Fermented Artisinal Demon’s Blood, straight from the source,” said the auctioneer. “Starting bet: one hundred thousand.”

  “Impossible,” Enkidu snorted. “There’s no such thing.”

  Demons were supposed to be long-extinct, and more living stone than flesh and blood. The item – and it’s exorbitant price tag – proved too outlandish even for the self-selecting gullibility of an underground black market auction crowd, and it received few bidders.

  “Next at the auction block, a Duran Knight’s Blessed Great Helm.” The auctioneer motioned. “The description says this offers permanent invulnerability from arrows to the head.”

  “Hey, that’s ours,” Jelena said quietly.

  Bets were regularly above one hundred thousand gold now.

  Someone opened with a whopping one hundred twenty thousand gold. It was… another Trailblazer. Making another bet for a knight-type item that scouts would never be able to use. Curious…

  Was that the same Trailblazer? Well, he had a different name, though Calaf hadn’t gotten a good look at the previous fellow’s face. Peering further, Calaf strained his perception stats to the limit and tried examining this figure.

  “One-hundred fifty thousand,” the auctioneer said to astonished murmurs from the crowd. “Going… going… gone.”

  That Trailblazer won the bet.

  Zilara nudged Calaf on the left shoulder this time. He looked down.

  “Look at his fingers. The ring.”

  The Trailblazer had a spoofing ring on his right hand. Title-spoofing, used to change his name. But they’d skimped out on a glamour ring for appearances or level rings. But it was the same Trailblazer with the same level and class. An attendant traded the helm to this planted participant in exchange for the gargantuan horde of gold. Then, the Trailblazer disappeared out of the auction corner and the attendant disappeared into a flap behind the auction pedestal.

  A scam was afoot!

  The pair informed Jelena.

  “That’s our job,” Jelena said with a frown. “Enkidu, stay here and be ready to come running. We’re going to follow that Trailblazer, and I suspect he’s heading to the same place as the attendant who just walked off with all our gold…”

  Zilara’s stats were best-equipped for tracking. They followed her lead out of the auction and around the wooden palisades. The trail led around an ‘alley’ such that one existed down here, and from there, behind a tent flap to the auction manager’s office.

  Calaf and Jelena hid behind a set of barrels used to store food for an unbranded merchant. They watched a Trailblazer in an ill-fitting wig leave the tent, spoofing ring registered under a new alibi.

  The trio approached the tent flap. They saw a trade between the attendant and a boss behind a big desk made of imported lumber from Deepwood. An ornate chair with a large back obscured their view; it was the kind that otherwise only existed in church cathedrals, to be used by bishops and the like. Must have cost a fortune to steal.

  Jelena and Calaf looked at each other. Wordless, Jelena held four fingers up. She counted down. Three, two, one…

  Let’s see who this fellow scofflaw happens to be…

  At zero, Calaf took point. Jelena jumped in right after. Zilara stood back to guard the tent flap.

  It was a simple tent. Only two flaps – one into the auction area, one into this back alley. The chair swiveled around, revealing a lanky figure with slicked-back hair and a noticeable sag to the right half of his face. He wore a fine garb like that of a Plains Junction logistical-conglomerate baron, but no amount of fancy coats or ornamental jewelry would make up for the damage to his face. Not even the ill-fitting, semi-adhesive porcelain mask keeping things vaguely symmetrical.

  Calaf summoned his spear and shield in an instant.

  “Do not let him get off any spell,” said the Squire through gritted teeth.

  “You again.” Jelena’s good eye narrowed. “Don’t think we’ve had the displeasure of meeting directly. Though if I understand it you were at our last auction…”

  The auctioneer’s Menu designation was…