The dim, oppressive silence of the holding pens was shattered by the clatter of the open main doors. Three guards marched in, their heavy boots echoing on the stone floor. Their hands were resting on the pommels of their clubs.
They were followed by two men. The first was clearly a Xeric, tall and lean, with skin the color of sun-baked clay. His hair was black and pulled tightly back from a sharp-featured face, revealing subtly pointed ears. His eyes, a piercing light brown that seemed to hold the starkness of the desert, scanned the rows of cages. He wore robes of fine, bleached linen, adorned with simple but elegant geometric patterns in obsidian beadwork.
A shorter, anxious-looking human man was a half-step behind and to his right. This one clutched a thick ledger bound in worn leather, his fingers nervously tracing its edges. His eyes darted from the slaves to the man before him, awaiting instruction.
The Xeric man's voice cut through the air. It required no volume to command attention. "The numbers from the western caravans are excessive this season. This looks like a common market, not a curated auction of Duskmor."
The Auction Master flinched slightly, opening his ledger. "The—the slavers have been… prolific, Master Kaelen," he stammered, presenting the pages for his master's review. "Bu...t th...e ledger sugge....sts there are gems among the rough. The numbers, while high, could be… profitable."
Kaelen, the Auction House Master, glanced at the ledger with a look of disdain, "Profit is meaningless if it costs you your reputation. This house deals in quality, not quantity. This is an overflow of chaff. What do you want others to think, that I now sell any type of trash, Begin sorting them now, talent holders are more important and sellable than others"
At his nod, the guards sprang into action, unlocking cages and barking orders. "Out! All of you, out! Line up against the wall!"
The slaves were dragged from their confines. The occasional scuffle or cry of resistance was met with swift, brutal blows from the guards' clubs. Shane moved cautiously, his eyes locked on Plavenin's across the room as she was also dragged away.
One of the guards brought out a strange device, which was a bronze disk with milky, opalescent crystal, and he began moving down the line, pressing the device against the slaves' chests.
The crystal flared a soft, earthy brown over a bull-horned man. "Talent holder. Ira. Strength affinity," the guard announced. The Auction Master made a hurried tick in his ledger.
After two more slaves, it glowed a faint blue over the scaled woman. "Talent holder. Magicka. Minor water affinity." Another tick was made.
It reached Shane. The guard thrust the disk toward his chest. Shane held his breath, a silent, desperate hope warring with the memory of Plavenin's words—*"I can smell the familiar scent of magic on you."*
The disk hovered. The crystal remained utterly dark and inert.
The guard grunted. "Nothing. Trash pile." He shoved Shane roughly towards a growing group of dejected-looking slaves.
Finally, the guard reached Plavenin. The disk neared her, and the crystal ignited with a fierce, vibrant gold light that pulsed with a low thrum. The guard took an involuntary step back. "Dual Talent holder"
Kaelen's disinterest vanished. He took a step forward, his sharp eyes studying Plavenin as if she were a newly unearthed relic. "A prime lot. A potential centerpiece for the evening auction." The Auction Master's hand trembled slightly as he made a prominent, star-like notation next to her entry.
"Take the talent holders to the prepared cages," Kaelen commanded. "Ensure they are comfortable and well-fed. Their value must be preserved and enhanced." His order was to the guards, but his eyes remained on Plavenin, finding a talent holder was a rare occurrence not to mention a talent holder able to use both IRA and Magicka.
Shane could only watch as Plavenin was separated from the main group. Her gaze met his for a fleeting second, a look of grim resolve and she smiled before she was ushered away with the nine other talented individuals through a different, cleaner doorway.
Left behind were the rest, forty-eight souls deemed worthless. Kaelen's gaze finally swept over them, his lip curling in mild distaste. He turned to the Auction Master. "See that this group is processed for the end-of-day lot auctions. We might have to sell them in groups, to make enough from this trash lot, but ensure they are presentable. I will not have them tarnish the presentation of the main event."
With that final order, he turned and left, not waiting for a response. The Auction Master, left holding the ledger that now cataloged the "chaff," nodded nervously at his master's retreating back before his expression hardened.
"You heard him!" the Auction Master barked at the guards, his voice finding its strength now that the true master was gone. "Make them presentable! Move this worthless trash!"
They were herded into a large, tiled hall, the process was swift and utterly degrading. They were stripped naked. Rough hands shoved them under jets of cold water. Guards with long-handled brushes scrubbed them down with harsh, stinging soap, scraping away the dirt and sand on the slaves' bodies.
When it was over, they stood shivering and raw-skinned, and each was thrown a thin, plain green cloth.
Shane pulled his on, the rough fabric a stark contrast to the one he had worn to this place; this was much softer and comfortable to move in. Shane, along with the other trash slaves, was shoved back into their cages.
Back in his cage, Shane paced back and forth, his thoughts in disarray. The Second Trial can't be just this. It can't be that simple. It can't just be about surviving an auction' he thought,
Plavenin was gone, the one person who had offered information, context, and the timing was just too much to be a coincidence, just when he had realized that there might be connections between Plavenin and the trial, his mind raced, replaying every word of their conversation, Plavenin's knowledge was too specific, A 120-year-old mercenary who knew about the near-extinct Vitreom. But then again he didn't know if the knowledge on the Vitreom was as limited as he thought it was, and he might have just been overreacting to this piece of information.
But the cold certainty feeling he got in his gut, whenever he thought of Plavenin and the Vitreom, made him think otherwise. He tried to find the connection between Plavenin's story and the Vitreom pain. Plavenin had spent a century with her mercenary group, only to be betrayed and sold out. And the Vitreom, the brilliant race of enchanters, were nearly wiped out by their own kin, the Sundered Xeric. Both stories were about trust broken, about something precious being shattered and lost.
And also, he wondered why this trial seemed to involve a race of master Enchanters, when he was just trying to become one. Was this to help him acquire a boost for his theory, or was the trial trying to show him something, put him on a path towards enchanting?
"What could be the objective of this trial, I need to speak with Plavenin" but she was under heavy guard, being prepped as one of the auction's star attractions, he would have to break into the secure part of the auction house to get to her and he didn't even know where they might have moved them to.
Just the thought was audacious and insane. He was unarmed, talentless, and locked in a cage. How would he even be able to break out from his cage to begin with?
His eyes widened slightly, as he realized something. 'What if the objective of the second trial is to get to her or to break her out?' The logic was irrefutable. The trial was a test. The first trial was meant to test his will to live, and this one was testing his wit.
'This trial introduced me to someone who I feel in my guts might have accurate information on a nearly extinct race. It showed me structures that can be built using Runes. It put me next to the one person who might hold a key to understanding it all, and then it took her away, just at the right time' Pushing away from the bars, Shane sat back down, his eyes scanned his cage, the hall, the guards' patrolling.
He had two days. Two days to turn his worthless status into an advantage, to find a way to disrupt an auction and reach the one person the trial had made the center of it all.
The weight of it pressed down on him, his body ached from the brutal scrubbing, and a deep exhaustion, more mental than physical, threatened to pull him under; try as he might, a single plan wouldn't form in his mind, his thoughts were muddy and dulled by fatigue.
'Rest. First, you rest,' he commanded himself, the voice in his head sounding strangely like the stern Headmaster from the academy. 'My mind is my only weapon, and it's always necessary to take breaks to sharpen it.'
He found a relatively clean patch of the cage floor, curled up in the scratchy green tunic, and let the grim sounds of the pen fade into a dull roar. Sleep was shallow; it didn't take long for him to doze off.
It felt like only minutes had passed when a violent, cold shock ripped him from the edge of oblivion, He jolted upright, gasping and spluttering, freezing water dripped from his hair and ran down his neck. A guard stood outside his now-open cage, holding an empty wooden bucket, his face a mask of bored contempt.
"Enough rest, slave," the guard grunted, "You've been selected for field duty. On your feet. Follow the line."
Shane blinked water from his eyes, his heart hammering. Outside his cage, a rough line of other green-tunic-clad slaves was already forming, being prodded into motion by more guards.
Chains rattled as the guards yanked them forward, pulling Shane and the other slaves out of the auction house. Iron links bound their wrists, forcing them into a straight line under the watchful eyes of armored men.
The street beyond the auction doors was alive with noise. Merchants barked out prices from wooden stalls crammed against the canyon walls. One hawked glass vials of potions, their liquid glowing faintly in the dim light. Another waved steel blades above his head, polished armor stacked at his feet. The air was thick with spices and roasting meat from food sellers, their carts packed tight enough to choke the street.
Shane's eyes swept the scene, the deeper they marched into Duskmor, the more the city revealed itself. The canyon floor stretched wide, the ground beneath them paved in pale concrete. Buildings crowded close together, their dried brick and wooden beams painted in bright pigments, reds, yellows, deep blues, that stood out against the red stone walls of the canyon itself.
The canyon wasn't just a backdrop—it was the city's bones. Towering rock faces loomed on both sides, riddled with stairways and bridges. Wealthier homes were built directly into the stone, their windows cut into the cliffside, balconies jutting out like nests.
The streets here were bustling. Guards patrolled around, their shields catching the light like small suns. Most of the people Shane saw bore the hardened look of desert folk. Their skin ranged from deep sun-baked brown to golden tan, and their builds varied some towering and broad, others lean and graceful. A few were stocky and earth-worn, their clothes rough but sturdy.
The chain-gang moved through the sector until the streets grew wider and cleaner, the stalls thinning out, replaced by larger, ornate homes. Carved pillars supported second floors, banners of family crests draped across balconies. The noise of the market dulled into the murmurs of guards and the creak of chains.
They stopped in front of a mansion—its walls polished smooth, doors inlaid with bronze patterns that caught the sun. Even its windows gleamed brighter than anything Shane had seen in this city.
A guard slammed his spear butt against the stone step. "Field slaves. You work here for today."
Shane's chains pulled taut as the line was broken apart, and each slave was shoved toward the mansion gates.