Some small talk.

“Back already?” The shop owner asked, back in his nasal voice, his bald head now on display again. “Ehm, yes, I have been banished.” John answered, unsure what to do. “For an unknown amount of time. Father, daughter stuff.” “Ah.” The shop owner said. “The most annoying of all conversations. Worried old men trying to understand young girls in love. I can guarantee you that neither of them is having fun right now.” That didn’t sound good at all. Time to think about something else.

“Great shop you have here.” He decided to go into a sensible topic. The shop owner gave him a slow smile. “Yeah. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but it doesn’t have to. After all this is just a façade.” “It is?” John blinked. “Of course. Where do you think you are?” The shop owner was just as puzzled as he was. Maybe it was time to take the old man a bit more serious, John had dismissed him because he was merely level 15. Observe was in order.

Oh, okay. “Right, the Abyss Auctions local outpost.” John lied. “I forgot for a moment.” With all that he had learnt about the Auction, giving weaknesses away for free was probably a bad idea. The shop owner, called Carl apparently, gave him a glance that described how unsure he was about John’s sudden turn. The matter was dropped however. “Yes. I do this at the side as a hobby.” Carl explained. “Nothing exciting really. Interesting people tend to drop by though. Such as yourself.” “I hear that I am interesting a lot.” John scratched the back of his head. “I partly get why but aren’t there more interesting news in the Abyss?”

“There are always more interesting news, but those will cost you more as well. Upcomers like you come cheap by comparison.” Carl explained. John waited for a moment if the shop owner would continue, hoping for some crumbles of rumours that he could do something with. The man in front of him had been in this line of work for a long time and recognized the situations, thusly an awkward silent spread. In the end, it was neither of them who broke, instead the shops door opened.

John assumed it to be Travolta and turned around. What he found instead was a newcomer: A girl. She had black hair that was bound into a ponytail. Her face was roundly shaped and had a mature look to it but John would be a fool to think her older than 21. He also couldn’t get around to look at her big tits. C, D? An answer that must be answered. Once again Observe was in order.

So, it was D-Cups. The more baffling thing was however that she had never had the D. A tasteless joke, John admitted to himself, but come on: She looked like one of those girls out of ‘Buy a Russian Wife’ commercials. How was she still a virgin? It was that moment that made John think of his Harem-plan once again. Surely a touchy subject but as Rave had shown interest in a threesome before maybe there was some hope here?

“Why are you staring at me that much?” the woman, Victoria, asked. Her voice betrayed only a hint of accent. Russian? John had no idea, only Russian accents he knew were from Videogame dubs. It only said she was Slavic descent and the Soviet Union had encompassed a lot of Slavic countries. He had to answer a question first though. “Sorry, just expected somebody else.”

Victoria gave him an annoyed glance of her green eyes and walked into the shop. She was shouldering a black guitar case over her leather jacket, the open zipper revealing an Iron-maiden short underneath as her leather pants strained with each step of her heavy boots. Her outfit reminded him a lot of the Rockers that attacked him once upon a time (You know, roughly two weeks ago) and finally redeemed that look for him. Sadly, the jacket was too long to get a good look at her backside as he made place for her at the counter.

“I hear you sell bullets?” She asked Carl. That question in combination with her title made John guess that the guitar case wasn’t really a guitar case. As unfamiliar as he was with the Abyss he should be right about that at least. He was fairly certain that if he just concentrated a bit he would be able to figurately see some kind of space distortion bullshit going on with that thing. Another Observe was in order!

“We sell everything. We are the Abyss Auction after all. You will find a terminal in the first basement that will give you access to our site with the special ‘Bought locally’ discount.” Carl answered in his nasal tone. Victoria nodded and turned around. “Come with me, Gamer.” She told John. Without anything better to do he obeyed.

They walked down the stairs in quiet. “So, you bought information about me of the Auction too?” He asked. “Yes. Before you ask I have no idea who the informant is, only that the person is getting rich of you.” Her answer came quickly. John sighed, after checking his own information he could guess why. The ‘John Newman, Initiate Figher’-Information bundle sold for two-thousand dollars after all. He had purchased it as well at this point (Actually Rave had) and the amount of stuff known about him was staggering. Name, address, daily schedule, even that he was in a relationship was out there, although it seemed that Regan’s name had protected Rave from being mentioned by name. The only two things John knew about this information broker however were that he was going to his school and that he had personally met with the Rockers, all of which died so that lead was dead in the sand.

He would need to find some way to shut the person out of his life at some point or another. The only way he found to do that was to use I.D. like crazy. His ability to loot and such things were still shrouded so there was some silver-lining to all of this.

“They say you entered the Abyss mere two weeks ago and yet you seem stronger than people who spent years training already.” “Yeah, I hear that all the time as well. Seems like I got lucky.” John answered cheerfully. “Lucky, huh? Being outstanding in the Abyss is only a good thing if you are able to protect yourself.” Victoria pushed open the door and walked over to one of the terminals. “Otherwise you are likely to end like this.” She opened a tab in the Abyss Auction and showed it to John. “What the fuck?” He mumbled. Scrolling past him were the faces of people, each with a short bio, each with the same exclamation ‘**** for Sale’. The scroll bar at the side indicated a near infinite amount of such offers. He had known that something like this was going on but the sheer size of it....

Victoria closed the tab and started to search for ammunition instead. “Anyway I just wanted to talk to you for a bit. I will be staying in this town for the next weeks and don’t want to make enemies of you or that guild you are part of…what was the name again?” “Collide.” “Yes, them. I hear you are protected by the Bloodfallen. Not a bunch I want to get on the wrong side off.” Victoria clicked on the order button and after some rattling a hatch opened in the terminal. Victoria grabbed the packet and went on her way. “See you around.” Victoria said. “Yeah, bye.” John saw her off with slight confusion.

‘The Abyss is full of crazy people.’ He thought and went back up-stairs as well.