Black Market Auction House

The Black Market Auction House (BAH) is a live, network-wide bidding war. Roughly once an hour, a single rare item goes up for auction and every player on Ancients — whether you're in the prison, Forgotten Polis, or Ancient Roads — can fight over it in real time. One item, one winner, sixty seconds.

The BAH is one of the features unlocked through the Server Fund (its final tier), so early in a season it may not be open yet.

How an auction works

When an auction begins, an announcement goes out to the whole network. Open the auction with /bah (also /blackmarket) to see:

• The item up for grabs, with the current bid and leading bidder.
• A timer — each auction lasts 60 seconds.
• The Place Bid button, which always shows you exactly what the next bid will cost.

Bidding starts at $10,000 and climbs in preset steps — the next bid amount is never a mystery, it's printed right on the button. Bids are paid in money only.

A few things to know while bidding:

• When someone outbids you, your money is refunded immediately and you're notified.
• You can't raise your own bid while you're already the highest bidder.
• No sniping: a bid placed in the final moments pushes the clock back a few seconds, giving everyone a fair chance to respond.
• If you have the auction menu open or have placed a bid, you'll get countdown warnings at 1 minute, 30 seconds, and 15 seconds remaining.

When the timer hits zero, the highest bidder wins — the money they put up when bidding is the final price (it was taken the moment the bid was placed, and would only have come back if someone outbid them). If nobody bids, the item simply vanishes — there's no second chance on that one.

Collecting your winnings

Won items don't go straight to your inventory. Use /bah collect to open your BAH collection bin and claim them — you'll be reminded on login if something is waiting. Claim within 7 days, or the item is cleared out.

What goes up for auction

Each auction's item is drawn from a curated black-market pool. You'll most often see things like Mystery Contraband boxes, Mystery GKit Upgrades, Armor Expander Boxes, and Epic or Rare Booster Boxes. Less often, the auctioneer puts up Enchant Dust bundles, Mystery Boss Summoning Keys, Fractured Mystery GKit Flares, Godly Randomization Scrolls, Fortune's Dice, Enchant Erasers, Quantum Entanglers, or Weapon Expander Boxes. The rarest appearances are the Seasonal Rank Box and — rarest of all — the Mystery GKit Beacon.

Keeping track

• The Recently Sold book in the /bah menu shows past winners, items, and final prices — useful for judging what something is worth.
• The /events menu shows a countdown to the next auction, so you can be online when it starts.