God of Zero Cost

Ethan adjusted his Medjay linen wrap, pulling the coarse fabric up to the bridge of his nose. His boots moved in a slow, methodical pace, drifting deeper into the secondary districts of the vast stone citadel.

Moving through the packed crowds of local garrison soldiers, foreign grain merchants, and traveling caravan drivers, he began to quietly map the city's layouts and gather local intelligence. He needed to understand the true scale of the crisis grip on the city, cataloging gate guard rotations, listening to the murmurs of the supply lines, and tracking how the major guilds were moving their assets through the streets.

His path took him past the public grain distribution vaults, where the atmosphere was thick with a quiet, simmering anger. The stone silos that usually overflowed with Egypt’s regional imports were noticeably low, their heavy cedar hatches sealed tight with thick wax imperial stamps.

A glowing text box flickered over the iron-banded doors as he glanced over:

A crowd of local townspeople and low-tier NPC merchants had gathered around a municipal scribe who was furiously scraping new figures into a dry clay tablet. The price of a single sack of grain had jumped three silver fragments since yesterday's noon. People weren't shouting yet, but they were clutching their empty sacks with white knuckles.

Two elite Canaanite Chariot Guards stood on the stone platform above them, their bronze spears held at a rigid, defensive angle. The local authority wasn't managing trade anymore; they were guarding a dying ration pile from their own people.

Ethan didn't linger. He kept his head down, blending into a group of passing donkey carts as he looped back toward the central market square. It was almost time for the end of the auction.

Ethan paused under the shadow of a cedarwood lintel, his eyes scanning the grand hall of the Karum. The local Merlion agents weren't the only ones hunting for the source of the shield. Near the main ledger desks, three players stood in a tight formation, wearing the deep indigo linen and heavy sea-shard amulets of the Aegean syndicates.

Next to them, a towering vanguard from a Nile Delta coalition leaned heavily against a stone balustrade, his gaze tracing every traveler who stepped up to the public booths. They weren't browsing the listings; their eyes scanning the players, waiting for the one who sold the Footstool of Zaphon.

Ethan pulled his wrap tighter over his jaw, melting further into the dark recesses of the corridor. If he stepped up to those central desks, the various guild would link him to the payout.

He slipped into a dark, narrow breezeway between two cloth-dying vats, his eyes tracking a pair of guild agents wearing distinctive blue-stitched tunics. Across the flagstones, a cluster of high-level players from a Mediterranean coalition stood by the grand pillars, their bronze-plated scale coats glinting under the oil torches as they kept their eyes fixed on the central notice boards.

Ethan didn't approach the main counters. Instead, he navigated the rear maintenance corridors of the Karum structure, moving through the damp cellar vaults where the local clerks stored empty papyrus scrolls and spare oil lamps. He found a secluded, low-priority desk tucked behind a stack of rotting cedar crates—a secondary ledger desk primarily used by the market's NPC staff to clear small municipal bounties.

He quietly presented the clay seal that identified him as the anonymous lister to the scribe.

Ethan quickly hid the large sum in his rawhide pack. The huge windfall's solid, heavy weight felt steady and sure. Combined with the raw hacksilber he had scraped together from his earlier off-book foundry sales, his liquid balance was hardening into a highly competitive war chest.

A cold satisfaction tightened in his chest. He stayed back in the shadows, waiting for a large caravan of grain donkeys to push through the Karum exit before he stepped out. By the time the guild scouts realized the auction listing had been claimed, he was already out into the dusty streets of Megiddo.

He turned his boots away from the shouting sea of the trading hall, forcing his pace into a steady, unhurried glide as he headed toward the outer gates.