The Empress of Beasts, page 3
part #13 of The Wandering Inn Series
The rest of Gemhammer took turns using their Skills. The sound of breaking stone was accompanied by a spray of fragments that kept Vuliel Drae covering their eyes until Earlia announced a break.
“Alright! Fifteen minutes, everyone! Then Blaik’s up with his [Power Strike]. Back to the other room—let’s keep working on that trap!”
The rest of her team trooped backwards, laughing good-naturedly and picking up the hand-wedges—the oversized nails of steel—and the smaller hammers. Vuliel Drae watched, bemused and confused.
“Wait, you’re giving up?”
Insill, the Drake [Rogue], stared at the patch of broken stone, perplexed. Earlia shook her head.
“Not at all. But we’re out of usable Skills. The rest of my team only has one, like Blaik’s [Power Strike]. We need to keep using them; we’ll never break the stones just by swinging our hammers.”
“Oh. I mean, of course. Sorry.”
The Drake nodded understandingly. Earlia smiled and jerked a thumb behind her.
“And while we do that, we’ll keep breaking down these trap-pillars. We already got the warding enchantment down; all we have to do is carefully remove the actual blades.”
She was pointing to the room behind them. Anith turned and looked at the trap-pillars. There were two in the room, and they were designed such that anyone carelessly entering the room would be instantly diced by the rows of curved blades that would spring from hidden compartments on each pillar. However, the activation mechanism in this particular trap room had been disabled, and now Gemhammer was methodically breaking down the granite stone to get at the trap.
“We’ll split our time between working with hand tools and using our Skills. Once we break the warding enchantment, we can use physical force. But we’ll still be at work for a few hours. At least. It’s a day’s job, really.”
Earlia sighed as she grabbed her own hand wedge and hammer. Anith nodded, impressed. He wasn’t the only one. Another member of his team, Dasha, the half-Dwarven woman, spoke up.
“That’s proper mining technique alright. Which I know about because of my ancestry. Your team’s not bad at manipulating stone, Miss Earlia. For Humans, of course.”
She stroked her beard self-importantly, ignoring the eye-rolling of the rest of her teammates. Anith sighed, but Earlia just laughed.
“We were [Miners], you know. It’s just that adventuring pays better, and it’s about the same level of danger. Anyways, if your team wants to watch…”
She looked at Anith meaningfully, and he nodded.
“Of course. Insill, Dasha, watch our way in. Pekona, Larr…”
“On guard.”
The Gnoll [Archer] and [Sword Dancer] Human, Pekona, both nodded and moved to cover the other entrance. Insill and Dasha walked past Gemhammer. They took up a casual guard so that both entrances were watched. Earlia nodded.
“Thanks, Anith.”
“Of course. You are paying us.”
The Jackal coughed again, a bit embarrassed. It was the first time his team had ever been hired to guard another adventuring team, but Earlia had asked, and he had agreed out of curiosity and a sense of obligation. The Captain of Gemhammer gave him a grin.
“I know it’s not much, but my team and I wanted someone to guard us for the first few times, just to see what kind of attention we attract. We’re loud, and we’ll have our hands full without posting a guard. Best case is that you pocket some silver, and all you have to do is stand about for a few hours. Worst case…”
She glanced at Larr and Pekona, leaning against their walls and keeping an eye out, and Dasha and Insill, probably arguing about her dubious claim to Dwarven knowledge. Anith sighed.
“Don’t worry. Despite how they look, my team is relatively alert. Larr and Insill will spot anything coming. But can we help in any way with, ah…”
He waved a hand at the traps Gemhammer was working on. They were in the trapped rooms, the first layer of Liscor’s dungeon. But unlike every other team that had tried to pass through this area, Gemhammer hadn’t been interested in advancing or clearing more trapped rooms. Instead, they’d insisted on finding rooms already de-trapped by other teams, like this one. Anith still wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing.
Earlia shrugged.
“If your team’s got anyone with [Power Strike] and a sturdy weapon, we could use you. Dasha’s the only one by the looks of it, and her axe is a bit…fragile. Don’t worry about it. We just need time, and we’ll start breaking the walls and floor. Clearly, we’re working with a dungeon-wide enchantment here. The big stuff. No room-by-room enchantment or mundane materials here.”
Her comment made one of the other adventurers glance up. Blaik wiped a bit of grime from his brow as he hammered the spike of metal into the stone pillar.
“What d’you reckon’s holding the place together? Dungeon-wide enchantment worked into the stones? That’s high-grade stuff, which is what I’d expect. Or does it have a locus of some kind?”
“What, like a dungeon heart? Hah!”
“As bad as limestone?”
Anith politely inquired. The rest of the former [Miners] snorted. It was Earlia who replied, shaking her head.
“If it is, it’s worse than limestone. Dungeon hearts or dungeon cores are terrible dungeon design. All one adventurer has to do is charge into the center and break whatever’s powering all the enchantments. Then the entire dungeon implodes or falls apart.”
“Ah.”
Anith had no idea that was a problem. But then—he wasn’t an expert on dungeons. And he was regretting it now. Earlia’s team had clearly done their research, and they were talking as they hammered at the trap. One of the women, Fea, was nodding knowingly.
“It’s not actually that bad to use limestone in a dungeon, Mister Anith. I mean, limestone’s soft, almost as bad as marble, but so long as it’s enchanted, that’s the trick. You can’t make many dungeons out of regular stone. It breaks down too fast—and if you get Crelers, Rock Mites, or half a dozen other monsters infesting your dungeon? Inside of a decade, it’ll be more porous than a sponge!”
She tsked, shaking her head over poor dungeon quality management. The rest of the [Miners] nodded. They were wearing gloves, and several had helmets on to shield their faces. Earlia’s voice was muffled as she put on a helmet and got to work beside her team.
“Don’t mind my team, Anith. We’re good at dungeons and rock-related stuff and nothing else. A new dungeon’s a great opportunity for us, especially now all this insanity with the Raskghar and so on’s died down. Still, no one’s taking chances.”
“Which is why you reached out to my team. May I ask why you wish to dismantle this room, though? I assumed it was already safe.”
Anith glanced at the trap pillar. One of the adventurers was carefully working a concealed metal blade out of the wall. Earlia chuckled.
“What? You mean you don’t know what we’re doing? There’s gold to be made—safely—by removing these traps. That’s what our team’s here for, and that’s how we’re going to make a fortune.”
“By removing…”
And then Anith saw Blaik pull one of the metal trap blades out of the wall. The man grunted, very carefully keeping his fingers away from the edge.
“Captain. Got one!”
“Good work, Blaik!”
Earlia chortled and raised her visor for a better look. She motioned Anith over, and he examined the blade. The [Mage] could tell there was an enchantment on the metal, but Anith’s understanding of magic wasn’t specialized in that area. He was certainly not about to touch it, though. Neither was Earlia. She grinned at the blade, seeming delighted.
“Beautiful. See? Gold. Just lying here! I can’t believe the other teams aren’t trying to compete with us. Let alone the teams that actually did the de-trapping! I asked Halrac before he left, but he said we were free to have at it. Either he’s an idiot or the rumors are true and he came away with a huge score.”
Anith’s paw tightened on his spellbook. Halrac, Captain of Griffon Hunt. And one of the people who knew Vuliel Drae’s disgrace. He bowed his head, but then moved on.
“Perhaps. I had heard that he ran into some good fortune. Well-deserved, I think, if so. But why would he be interested in…?”
He indicated the metal blade. Earlia eyed him strangely.
“It’s enchanted, Anith. You’re telling me you don’t think we could sell this?”
The Jackal Beastkin paused.
“Oh. Of course. But who would buy…?”
Earlia shook her head, tapping the metal.
“Enchanted metal, nice quality, very fine edge—I’d say forty gold pieces per blade? Unless it’s enchanted with some really keen enchantment, in which case it could be worth ten times that. We’ll have to see—hey! Anyone got something to cut with this thing?”
“I have a mutton leg. Let me eat it.”
One of the other adventurers fished out a snack. After carefully stripping the meat from the bone, he handed it to Earlia. She lifted the bone and chopped at it with the blade. Both she and Anith whistled; the trap blade had gone straight through the bone and marrow. Earlia nodded, satisfied.
“Yup. That sliced through the bone like that. I’d say we can get at least six-fifty on each blade.”
“Six—”
Anith inhaled sharply. Larr turned his head, blinking. Earlia grinned at the expression on Anith’s face.
“Six hundred and fifty gold pieces. That’s right.”
“For just one of those?”
Incredulously, Anith pointed at the second trap blade Fea was working out of the pillar. Earlia nodded.
“Well, we’re reselling them, not melting them down or repurposing them, right? If it was magical glyphs or something, the dust or inscriptions are worth a lot less. But magical blades are magical blades. Hells, you could even put this on a polearm and have yourself, what, a Gold-rank weapon? Nah, but a good Silver-rank one. See why we’re so interested in these traps?”
Anith did. He gulped and hesitated.
“Is it wise to tell us this? And who would you sell these blades to? A [Blacksmith]?”
“Just a regular [Merchant] who deals in this kind of stuff. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to pay for dungeon-grade traps. Anyways, it’s not like we’re going to hide what we’re doing. If any other teams want to take a crack at removing the traps, feel free. But it’s dangerous and difficult. Not sure how well your team would do.”
Earlia nodded to Vuliel Drae without rancor. Anith sighed. It was true. His team was specialized for a fight, or maybe defusing traps, but not breaking through stone and enchantments to get at them. But if they could hire a [Miner]…he eyed Earlia’s team and sagged. That was why there was an entire team of former [Miners], wasn’t there?
“Don’t take it too hard. You can make your fortune by finding treasure and collecting monster parts. Each to their own.”
Earlia grinned and patted Anith on the back. He gazed somewhat dourly at her beaming face, but relented.
“As long as you’re paying us for guard duty. I’m tripling our fee next time.”
“Bastard.”
The Human woman laughed. Anith smiled and stepped back as another blade joined the first in a pile. Earlia went back to her pillar and began hammering at the stone, breaking pieces loose.
“We got the idea from the Horns of Hammerad and Miss Erin, actually. If a door they found in a dungeon can transport people a hundred miles, how much would all this be worth? Hey, you idiots, don’t fool around with those blades! You drop one on your hand and you’ll lose the hand!”
She snapped at her team and turned to Anith.
“So, Anith, how’s your team doing? Don’t tell me you’re that jealous of us; your team was the first to find treasure in the dungeon after all. You made out like [Bandits], right?”
Earlia’s comment took in the rest of Vuliel Drae standing watch. Anith paused and looked around. Insill, Larr, Pekona, and Dasha all peered back at him with expressions ranging from guilt to wariness. Earlia didn’t see; she was still working. After a moment, Insill coughed.
“We, uh, we’re doing alright. Yeah, we got really lucky. We found that mace on the first Raskghar. Gold-rank gear. Sold for a lot. And after that…”
Vuliel Drae glumly eyed each other. Oh yes. After that. Their career as adventurers working around Liscor had been meteoric at first. They’d found treasure in Liscor’s dungeon—a Gold-rank weapon worth thousands of gold coins! And they’d encountered a mysterious adventurer who’d given them her aid. Confident—overconfident—Vuliel Drae had kept exploring and inadvertently been the cause of the Face-Eater Moth attack on Liscor.
It was a fact few people knew. The Gold-rank teams, the Halfseekers and Griffon Hunt, who’d uncovered the truth, had decided it was best no one but Liscor’s Guildmistress and a few others know. Not out of sympathy for Vuliel Drae, but to prevent the outcry against adventurers and to keep the Silver-rank team from being lynched.
But Vuliel Drae had paid for their mistakes. From drudge work assigned to them by Tekshia Shivertail to a permanent warning on all of their records in the Adventurer’s Guilds’ private files—Anith had no idea that was even a function of the guilds—their team was still haunted by their mistake.
Justly so, in Anith’s opinion. The Jackal Beastkin had a strong sense of justice that came from his tribe, and he considered their disgrace the least of the debt they owed society. However, the topic was still touchy, and the silence from the rest of his team lingered long enough that Earlia looked up.
“What, the mace you got wasn’t worth as much as you hoped? Or did you sell it to the wrong [Merchant]?”
“Neither.”
Larr folded his arms. The taciturn Gnoll glared at nothing in particular, his ears lowered. Pekona, the dour woman from the Drath Archipelago, just gazed down, scowling. Anith cleared his throat hurriedly.
“We sold it by way of Invrisil. The money finally got to us by way of Courier, along with some of the equipment we ordered.”
“We could have done Pallass—”
Insill grumbled under his breath. The lone Drake in the group had voted for that. Dasha rolled her eyes. Earlia frowned.
“You got your goods via Courier? Isn’t that a waste of gold?”
“Not at all. Apparently, if you’re rich, the [Merchants] will send you a…what did they call it, Anith?”
“A catalogue, Dasha. They even paid for the Courier’s fees.”
“For what we spent, of course they did!”
Earlia whistled.
“They must have heard you had money to burn! That’s fancy. Free Courier deliveries? That explains your gear.”
She nodded to Vuliel Drae. Anith smiled a bit. He was wearing new robes. Not the best money could buy, but better than the common cloth enchanted with a weak stain-resistance spell. And Dasha had upgraded her axe to a mithril-alloyed metal she swore was ten times better. Larr had a few enchanted arrows, Pekona had a scroll at her belt, and Insill had enchanted armor and weapons. It wasn’t a huge upgrade, but it had moved them up the Silver-rank hierarchy a bit. Earlia nodded.
“How much do you have left, if you don’t mind sharing?”
There it was again. Vuliel Drae paused, and Insill piped up nervously.
“We donated some of it. It, uh—the thing is—”
He hesitated, guilt written across his face, and Dasha elbowed him.
“Shut up!”
She hissed at the Drake. Anith coughed.
“We donated some of the money to the victims of the Face-Eater Moth attack.”
“Oh? That’s generous of you. I mean, yeah. I suppose we owe Liscor something. Huh. I don’t know if my team would be down for that.”
Earlia frowned absently, glancing at her teammates. Anith took that moment to give Insill a warning look. Both Pekona and Larr did the same, and the Drake [Rogue] bit his lip. His tail thrashed guiltily, but he said nothing more.
Secrets and guilt. It wasn’t what Anith wanted. This wasn’t why he’d left his home in Chandrar. But it was what fate had brought to his team, so he could only steer them with dignity and integrity from here on out. While Anith had wrestled with his shared guilt, he had concluded that telling other people what his team had done would cause nothing but harm. So he signaled to Dasha to drag Insill further down the hallway and let the conversation die out.
It was boring work watching Gemhammer slowly dismantle the trap and occasionally use their Skills to begin breaking down the next room. Anith didn’t even understand why they were interested in the next room—it was designed to cremate anyone alive, a ‘classic’ trap made more sinister by the fact that the spell didn’t shoot flames or slowly warm the room—it would explode in a fireball of air instantly. That was until he saw Gemhammer carefully removing the actual spell-trigger.
“You see, to write magic runes, people have to use some kind of dust or paint or whatnot. We can scrape it off if no one wants to buy the runes. It can be worth a bit or a lot, again, depending on if we can sell it wholesale without scrapping it for the dust. But the real treasure in a trap room like this is—aha! Magicore!”
Earlia crowed as her team cracked one of the walls and exposed a thin tube of oozing liquid. The [Miners] scrambled for jars, scraping the precious, fiery molten stone into them. Anith could feel the heat of the stuff from here. Earlia crowed in delight.
“Fire-elemental magicore. No wonder the trap room heats up so fast! Do you have any idea how much we can sell this for?”
Vuliel Drae glumly watched as the exuberant [Miners] began talking about potential buyers. Earlia waved a hand, shushing the lot.
“Stop yakking and get to work! This is great, but also bad. The instant we start selling this stuff, we’re going to have competition. More teams are going to make a beeline for this dungeon to strip the traps, so every hour we have on them is more gold we pocket! Less talking, more mining! Anith, can I convince your team to keep this all secret for a bit of gold…?”
“Sorry, Captain Earlia. But you’ll have competition soon enough. I’m not certain we can compete with a [Miner] team as efficiently, but with the door open to Pallass, you can bet we’re hiring our own specialists.”
“Alright! Fifteen minutes, everyone! Then Blaik’s up with his [Power Strike]. Back to the other room—let’s keep working on that trap!”
The rest of her team trooped backwards, laughing good-naturedly and picking up the hand-wedges—the oversized nails of steel—and the smaller hammers. Vuliel Drae watched, bemused and confused.
“Wait, you’re giving up?”
Insill, the Drake [Rogue], stared at the patch of broken stone, perplexed. Earlia shook her head.
“Not at all. But we’re out of usable Skills. The rest of my team only has one, like Blaik’s [Power Strike]. We need to keep using them; we’ll never break the stones just by swinging our hammers.”
“Oh. I mean, of course. Sorry.”
The Drake nodded understandingly. Earlia smiled and jerked a thumb behind her.
“And while we do that, we’ll keep breaking down these trap-pillars. We already got the warding enchantment down; all we have to do is carefully remove the actual blades.”
She was pointing to the room behind them. Anith turned and looked at the trap-pillars. There were two in the room, and they were designed such that anyone carelessly entering the room would be instantly diced by the rows of curved blades that would spring from hidden compartments on each pillar. However, the activation mechanism in this particular trap room had been disabled, and now Gemhammer was methodically breaking down the granite stone to get at the trap.
“We’ll split our time between working with hand tools and using our Skills. Once we break the warding enchantment, we can use physical force. But we’ll still be at work for a few hours. At least. It’s a day’s job, really.”
Earlia sighed as she grabbed her own hand wedge and hammer. Anith nodded, impressed. He wasn’t the only one. Another member of his team, Dasha, the half-Dwarven woman, spoke up.
“That’s proper mining technique alright. Which I know about because of my ancestry. Your team’s not bad at manipulating stone, Miss Earlia. For Humans, of course.”
She stroked her beard self-importantly, ignoring the eye-rolling of the rest of her teammates. Anith sighed, but Earlia just laughed.
“We were [Miners], you know. It’s just that adventuring pays better, and it’s about the same level of danger. Anyways, if your team wants to watch…”
She looked at Anith meaningfully, and he nodded.
“Of course. Insill, Dasha, watch our way in. Pekona, Larr…”
“On guard.”
The Gnoll [Archer] and [Sword Dancer] Human, Pekona, both nodded and moved to cover the other entrance. Insill and Dasha walked past Gemhammer. They took up a casual guard so that both entrances were watched. Earlia nodded.
“Thanks, Anith.”
“Of course. You are paying us.”
The Jackal coughed again, a bit embarrassed. It was the first time his team had ever been hired to guard another adventuring team, but Earlia had asked, and he had agreed out of curiosity and a sense of obligation. The Captain of Gemhammer gave him a grin.
“I know it’s not much, but my team and I wanted someone to guard us for the first few times, just to see what kind of attention we attract. We’re loud, and we’ll have our hands full without posting a guard. Best case is that you pocket some silver, and all you have to do is stand about for a few hours. Worst case…”
She glanced at Larr and Pekona, leaning against their walls and keeping an eye out, and Dasha and Insill, probably arguing about her dubious claim to Dwarven knowledge. Anith sighed.
“Don’t worry. Despite how they look, my team is relatively alert. Larr and Insill will spot anything coming. But can we help in any way with, ah…”
He waved a hand at the traps Gemhammer was working on. They were in the trapped rooms, the first layer of Liscor’s dungeon. But unlike every other team that had tried to pass through this area, Gemhammer hadn’t been interested in advancing or clearing more trapped rooms. Instead, they’d insisted on finding rooms already de-trapped by other teams, like this one. Anith still wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing.
Earlia shrugged.
“If your team’s got anyone with [Power Strike] and a sturdy weapon, we could use you. Dasha’s the only one by the looks of it, and her axe is a bit…fragile. Don’t worry about it. We just need time, and we’ll start breaking the walls and floor. Clearly, we’re working with a dungeon-wide enchantment here. The big stuff. No room-by-room enchantment or mundane materials here.”
Her comment made one of the other adventurers glance up. Blaik wiped a bit of grime from his brow as he hammered the spike of metal into the stone pillar.
“What d’you reckon’s holding the place together? Dungeon-wide enchantment worked into the stones? That’s high-grade stuff, which is what I’d expect. Or does it have a locus of some kind?”
“What, like a dungeon heart? Hah!”
“As bad as limestone?”
Anith politely inquired. The rest of the former [Miners] snorted. It was Earlia who replied, shaking her head.
“If it is, it’s worse than limestone. Dungeon hearts or dungeon cores are terrible dungeon design. All one adventurer has to do is charge into the center and break whatever’s powering all the enchantments. Then the entire dungeon implodes or falls apart.”
“Ah.”
Anith had no idea that was a problem. But then—he wasn’t an expert on dungeons. And he was regretting it now. Earlia’s team had clearly done their research, and they were talking as they hammered at the trap. One of the women, Fea, was nodding knowingly.
“It’s not actually that bad to use limestone in a dungeon, Mister Anith. I mean, limestone’s soft, almost as bad as marble, but so long as it’s enchanted, that’s the trick. You can’t make many dungeons out of regular stone. It breaks down too fast—and if you get Crelers, Rock Mites, or half a dozen other monsters infesting your dungeon? Inside of a decade, it’ll be more porous than a sponge!”
She tsked, shaking her head over poor dungeon quality management. The rest of the [Miners] nodded. They were wearing gloves, and several had helmets on to shield their faces. Earlia’s voice was muffled as she put on a helmet and got to work beside her team.
“Don’t mind my team, Anith. We’re good at dungeons and rock-related stuff and nothing else. A new dungeon’s a great opportunity for us, especially now all this insanity with the Raskghar and so on’s died down. Still, no one’s taking chances.”
“Which is why you reached out to my team. May I ask why you wish to dismantle this room, though? I assumed it was already safe.”
Anith glanced at the trap pillar. One of the adventurers was carefully working a concealed metal blade out of the wall. Earlia chuckled.
“What? You mean you don’t know what we’re doing? There’s gold to be made—safely—by removing these traps. That’s what our team’s here for, and that’s how we’re going to make a fortune.”
“By removing…”
And then Anith saw Blaik pull one of the metal trap blades out of the wall. The man grunted, very carefully keeping his fingers away from the edge.
“Captain. Got one!”
“Good work, Blaik!”
Earlia chortled and raised her visor for a better look. She motioned Anith over, and he examined the blade. The [Mage] could tell there was an enchantment on the metal, but Anith’s understanding of magic wasn’t specialized in that area. He was certainly not about to touch it, though. Neither was Earlia. She grinned at the blade, seeming delighted.
“Beautiful. See? Gold. Just lying here! I can’t believe the other teams aren’t trying to compete with us. Let alone the teams that actually did the de-trapping! I asked Halrac before he left, but he said we were free to have at it. Either he’s an idiot or the rumors are true and he came away with a huge score.”
Anith’s paw tightened on his spellbook. Halrac, Captain of Griffon Hunt. And one of the people who knew Vuliel Drae’s disgrace. He bowed his head, but then moved on.
“Perhaps. I had heard that he ran into some good fortune. Well-deserved, I think, if so. But why would he be interested in…?”
He indicated the metal blade. Earlia eyed him strangely.
“It’s enchanted, Anith. You’re telling me you don’t think we could sell this?”
The Jackal Beastkin paused.
“Oh. Of course. But who would buy…?”
Earlia shook her head, tapping the metal.
“Enchanted metal, nice quality, very fine edge—I’d say forty gold pieces per blade? Unless it’s enchanted with some really keen enchantment, in which case it could be worth ten times that. We’ll have to see—hey! Anyone got something to cut with this thing?”
“I have a mutton leg. Let me eat it.”
One of the other adventurers fished out a snack. After carefully stripping the meat from the bone, he handed it to Earlia. She lifted the bone and chopped at it with the blade. Both she and Anith whistled; the trap blade had gone straight through the bone and marrow. Earlia nodded, satisfied.
“Yup. That sliced through the bone like that. I’d say we can get at least six-fifty on each blade.”
“Six—”
Anith inhaled sharply. Larr turned his head, blinking. Earlia grinned at the expression on Anith’s face.
“Six hundred and fifty gold pieces. That’s right.”
“For just one of those?”
Incredulously, Anith pointed at the second trap blade Fea was working out of the pillar. Earlia nodded.
“Well, we’re reselling them, not melting them down or repurposing them, right? If it was magical glyphs or something, the dust or inscriptions are worth a lot less. But magical blades are magical blades. Hells, you could even put this on a polearm and have yourself, what, a Gold-rank weapon? Nah, but a good Silver-rank one. See why we’re so interested in these traps?”
Anith did. He gulped and hesitated.
“Is it wise to tell us this? And who would you sell these blades to? A [Blacksmith]?”
“Just a regular [Merchant] who deals in this kind of stuff. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to pay for dungeon-grade traps. Anyways, it’s not like we’re going to hide what we’re doing. If any other teams want to take a crack at removing the traps, feel free. But it’s dangerous and difficult. Not sure how well your team would do.”
Earlia nodded to Vuliel Drae without rancor. Anith sighed. It was true. His team was specialized for a fight, or maybe defusing traps, but not breaking through stone and enchantments to get at them. But if they could hire a [Miner]…he eyed Earlia’s team and sagged. That was why there was an entire team of former [Miners], wasn’t there?
“Don’t take it too hard. You can make your fortune by finding treasure and collecting monster parts. Each to their own.”
Earlia grinned and patted Anith on the back. He gazed somewhat dourly at her beaming face, but relented.
“As long as you’re paying us for guard duty. I’m tripling our fee next time.”
“Bastard.”
The Human woman laughed. Anith smiled and stepped back as another blade joined the first in a pile. Earlia went back to her pillar and began hammering at the stone, breaking pieces loose.
“We got the idea from the Horns of Hammerad and Miss Erin, actually. If a door they found in a dungeon can transport people a hundred miles, how much would all this be worth? Hey, you idiots, don’t fool around with those blades! You drop one on your hand and you’ll lose the hand!”
She snapped at her team and turned to Anith.
“So, Anith, how’s your team doing? Don’t tell me you’re that jealous of us; your team was the first to find treasure in the dungeon after all. You made out like [Bandits], right?”
Earlia’s comment took in the rest of Vuliel Drae standing watch. Anith paused and looked around. Insill, Larr, Pekona, and Dasha all peered back at him with expressions ranging from guilt to wariness. Earlia didn’t see; she was still working. After a moment, Insill coughed.
“We, uh, we’re doing alright. Yeah, we got really lucky. We found that mace on the first Raskghar. Gold-rank gear. Sold for a lot. And after that…”
Vuliel Drae glumly eyed each other. Oh yes. After that. Their career as adventurers working around Liscor had been meteoric at first. They’d found treasure in Liscor’s dungeon—a Gold-rank weapon worth thousands of gold coins! And they’d encountered a mysterious adventurer who’d given them her aid. Confident—overconfident—Vuliel Drae had kept exploring and inadvertently been the cause of the Face-Eater Moth attack on Liscor.
It was a fact few people knew. The Gold-rank teams, the Halfseekers and Griffon Hunt, who’d uncovered the truth, had decided it was best no one but Liscor’s Guildmistress and a few others know. Not out of sympathy for Vuliel Drae, but to prevent the outcry against adventurers and to keep the Silver-rank team from being lynched.
But Vuliel Drae had paid for their mistakes. From drudge work assigned to them by Tekshia Shivertail to a permanent warning on all of their records in the Adventurer’s Guilds’ private files—Anith had no idea that was even a function of the guilds—their team was still haunted by their mistake.
Justly so, in Anith’s opinion. The Jackal Beastkin had a strong sense of justice that came from his tribe, and he considered their disgrace the least of the debt they owed society. However, the topic was still touchy, and the silence from the rest of his team lingered long enough that Earlia looked up.
“What, the mace you got wasn’t worth as much as you hoped? Or did you sell it to the wrong [Merchant]?”
“Neither.”
Larr folded his arms. The taciturn Gnoll glared at nothing in particular, his ears lowered. Pekona, the dour woman from the Drath Archipelago, just gazed down, scowling. Anith cleared his throat hurriedly.
“We sold it by way of Invrisil. The money finally got to us by way of Courier, along with some of the equipment we ordered.”
“We could have done Pallass—”
Insill grumbled under his breath. The lone Drake in the group had voted for that. Dasha rolled her eyes. Earlia frowned.
“You got your goods via Courier? Isn’t that a waste of gold?”
“Not at all. Apparently, if you’re rich, the [Merchants] will send you a…what did they call it, Anith?”
“A catalogue, Dasha. They even paid for the Courier’s fees.”
“For what we spent, of course they did!”
Earlia whistled.
“They must have heard you had money to burn! That’s fancy. Free Courier deliveries? That explains your gear.”
She nodded to Vuliel Drae. Anith smiled a bit. He was wearing new robes. Not the best money could buy, but better than the common cloth enchanted with a weak stain-resistance spell. And Dasha had upgraded her axe to a mithril-alloyed metal she swore was ten times better. Larr had a few enchanted arrows, Pekona had a scroll at her belt, and Insill had enchanted armor and weapons. It wasn’t a huge upgrade, but it had moved them up the Silver-rank hierarchy a bit. Earlia nodded.
“How much do you have left, if you don’t mind sharing?”
There it was again. Vuliel Drae paused, and Insill piped up nervously.
“We donated some of it. It, uh—the thing is—”
He hesitated, guilt written across his face, and Dasha elbowed him.
“Shut up!”
She hissed at the Drake. Anith coughed.
“We donated some of the money to the victims of the Face-Eater Moth attack.”
“Oh? That’s generous of you. I mean, yeah. I suppose we owe Liscor something. Huh. I don’t know if my team would be down for that.”
Earlia frowned absently, glancing at her teammates. Anith took that moment to give Insill a warning look. Both Pekona and Larr did the same, and the Drake [Rogue] bit his lip. His tail thrashed guiltily, but he said nothing more.
Secrets and guilt. It wasn’t what Anith wanted. This wasn’t why he’d left his home in Chandrar. But it was what fate had brought to his team, so he could only steer them with dignity and integrity from here on out. While Anith had wrestled with his shared guilt, he had concluded that telling other people what his team had done would cause nothing but harm. So he signaled to Dasha to drag Insill further down the hallway and let the conversation die out.
It was boring work watching Gemhammer slowly dismantle the trap and occasionally use their Skills to begin breaking down the next room. Anith didn’t even understand why they were interested in the next room—it was designed to cremate anyone alive, a ‘classic’ trap made more sinister by the fact that the spell didn’t shoot flames or slowly warm the room—it would explode in a fireball of air instantly. That was until he saw Gemhammer carefully removing the actual spell-trigger.
“You see, to write magic runes, people have to use some kind of dust or paint or whatnot. We can scrape it off if no one wants to buy the runes. It can be worth a bit or a lot, again, depending on if we can sell it wholesale without scrapping it for the dust. But the real treasure in a trap room like this is—aha! Magicore!”
Earlia crowed as her team cracked one of the walls and exposed a thin tube of oozing liquid. The [Miners] scrambled for jars, scraping the precious, fiery molten stone into them. Anith could feel the heat of the stuff from here. Earlia crowed in delight.
“Fire-elemental magicore. No wonder the trap room heats up so fast! Do you have any idea how much we can sell this for?”
Vuliel Drae glumly watched as the exuberant [Miners] began talking about potential buyers. Earlia waved a hand, shushing the lot.
“Stop yakking and get to work! This is great, but also bad. The instant we start selling this stuff, we’re going to have competition. More teams are going to make a beeline for this dungeon to strip the traps, so every hour we have on them is more gold we pocket! Less talking, more mining! Anith, can I convince your team to keep this all secret for a bit of gold…?”
“Sorry, Captain Earlia. But you’ll have competition soon enough. I’m not certain we can compete with a [Miner] team as efficiently, but with the door open to Pallass, you can bet we’re hiring our own specialists.”
