The auction round opened on Diana's relay before Kest could reset the seal, and five city tenders came up ranked against one another. Nox read the offers climb from the muster glass while the reading Serian had pulled still held on the open line.
Each city had sent its bid blind, trusting that no one outside the Yard would ever read the number it wrote. Diana's relay had turned that privacy inside out, and the offers now ran where the bidders' own populations could watch.
Calder Basin led the slate with forty raid cores and a decade of transit tax pledged against a single slot. Behind it Vent Mill had signed away its next three dungeon clears, and Osrey had staked a mineral seam not yet opened.
Haron Ridge sat last on the slate with the oldest platform of the five and the thinnest reserve to bid. Its council had offered a single decommissioned core and a share of a harvest not yet in, so its crowd had the least to spend and the most to lose.
