The heavy gates groan again, and the Auctioneer and the Clerk obey at once. They drag Jax across the rune-cold floor, his booted body limp and sorrowful, exactly as paid for.
The Auctioneer's hands shake, but they keep Jax's boots on his lap while the floor-runes flare under the spell's old mark. The seal is not hiding the bag anymore, it is calling something back.
The Clerk
This was never only a masking charm.
Darkness gathers in the archway, thin as smoke at first, then shaped like a watchful height behind the stone. The ruin answers it with a low, hungry pulse.
The Auctioneer
Keep moving, keep moving, do not let it fix on us.
Jax slides another pace across the floor, all staged misery and expensive boots, while the wards brighten around the ancient godspell. Somewhere outside, the bidders slam closer against the gate.
From the archway, a shadow leans in as if the castle itself has remembered a master. The Clerk tightens their grip, and the Auctioneer goes still, staring at what is about to form.
“Good we are far away now since the since I did a spell for us to be gone I teleported us with the boots to an abandoned place, now I want you to grab my booted feet and act like you're going to take them off by my feet by force both of you do it”
SUCCESS (Great Persuasion, rolled +1)
The Auctioneer and the Clerk answer at once. They kneel in front of Jax, each taking a booted ankle with careful hands, turning the act into a rough imitation of a search.
The Clerk
Hold still. We look convincing if we do not fumble.
The Auctioneer
A shameful stage, but a useful one.
Jax stays slack while they work, and the show of force becomes a cover for obedience. Their fingers test buckles, tug at leather, and hide the truth of the motion from the archway.
The Clerk
If they think him dead, they may pass us by.
The Auctioneer
You have bought silence better than any noble I have served. Now let us spend it wisely.
The floor-runes pulse once, then dim under Jax's stillness. In the archway, the shadow pauses, watching the three of them as if weighing the lie.
“Now you both since we are somewhere else since there's no one else I want you to look angry to make it look like so convincing like you take my boots off of my feet by force my bulge toe leather brown male adventurer boots like you're going to take them off my feet by force with a pure evil smile now do it since i love it”
SUCCESS (Great Persuasion, rolled +0)
The Clerk presses the toe down and snarls on cue, while the Auctioneer bares his teeth in a wicked grin that looks borrowed and badly fitted. They work harder now, selling the lie to the archway with their hands and their faces.
The Clerk
There. Struggle for it. Make the dead man look expensive.
The Auctioneer
I have never hated a performance so much, which means it is probably excellent.
Jax keeps still and lets them pull at the boot leather as if it resists. The brown leather creaks, the bulbous toes lift, and the act reads true from a distance.
The Clerk
He knows exactly how to make cruelty look useful.
The Auctioneer
If the shadow believes us, we live. If it does not, at least this lie was paid for.
For a breath, their grimaces sharpen into something almost amused, the kind of private recognition born from bad bargains and worse survival.
The Auctioneer
Your boots are safer on your feet than in my hands. A rare sentence, for me.
The shadow in the archway remains still, studying the forced anger, the clawing hands, the staged theft. Its attention does not leave, and it seems to wait for the next slip of truth.