Game 6: Runaway Treasure

It had taken them four days in total to get to this location from Innsbruck, but they had finally arrived at the Badlands. Somewhere in this mess of steep slopes, rocky hills, and dry weather was the location of the Slicer's hideout and (hopefully) the hidden stash of items stolen from Innsbruck's villagers.

“According to the map cube, Slicer's hideout should be in Cave 17B,” Rita explained.

“Do we happen to have a plan for what to do if Slicer himself shows up?” Takeshi asked.

“If he knows what's good for him, I'd think he'd stay far away from us,” Rita answered. “Luckily for us, Cave 17B isn't far from here, so we should be able to just go in and out.”

The inside of the cave was completely barren, which actually was not expected by either of them, with the exception of a small stack of cubes in the far-left corner of the cave. A speeder was also found parked right outside the entrance.

“This must be how Slicer was able to do all of this,” Takeshi realized. “How much money did all of this cost?”

“Slicer probably stole all of it,” Rita contested. “The items, the storage cubes, the speeder outside, all of it.”

“I'll look outside,” Takeshi told her. “You'd be able to check the inventory to make sure everything's in place.”

Rita began to examine every cube in the cave. As she expected, each cube was full of items that originally belonged to the villagers of Innsbruck. A lot of the items were probably items that Mac was planning to sell at his market. And in addition to the items was a whole lot of money, which she counted out to ten thousand libras.

“Takeshi! You gotta check this out!”

Takeshi went back into the cave. “What did you find?”

“Everything, and then some,” Rita explained. “Weapons, lucky trinkets, food, lots of food, armor, maps, potions, and money. Hoo boy, a whole lot of money.”

“How much money?”

“Ten thousand libras.”

“Whose money is that?”

“Not sure,” Rita admitted. “The villagers never said anything about money being stolen. It could be theirs, it could be Slicer's, it could be anyone's?” She then realized, “Hey, your bag is much bigger than mine, so I'll be on the lookout while you put the cubes in your bag.”

Takeshi had completely forgotten about his bag. Between that and the clothes he was wearing, that was all that remained of his connection to his life before The Game. Completely empty, just as he had left it that day. He must have left all his books somewhere else. Oh well, more room to store treasure.

One by one, Takeshi put the cubes into his bag. His idea was that neatly stacking them would protect them (and the items inside) from damage. It took some time, mainly because there were so many cubes to sort through, but Takeshi was finally down to one last cube: the money.

Without any warning, the ragbunny in Takeshi's pocket leaped out and grew back to full size.

“Oh! Hey there, little guy. You wanna help me pack?”

The ragbunny put its nose up to the money cube, then tried to bite it.

“Hey! Don't do that! That's got very important stuff in there!”

Takeshi tried to snatch the cube from the ragbunny, but it was too late. It picked up the cube with its mouth and ran out of the cave, right behind Rita, who didn't even notice. Takeshi tried to give chase, but the ragbunny was much faster than him.

As Takeshi made his way out of the cave, he said, “Rita! We've got a problem!”

“What is it, now?”

“The ragbunny stole the money…”

“The ragbunny has the money?”

Takeshi nodded silently. 

“A ragbunny just ran off with ten thousand libras?”

“Yeah…”

“Anything else?”

“No… just the money.”

Rita thought about it for a moment, then said, “Let's go!”

Rita immediately hopped onto the speeder parked outside the cave.

“Wait a minute, you can drive?” Takeshi asked her.

“You can't?” Rita asked back.

“Also, are you sure you want to be carjacking this guy?” Takeshi then asked.

“Takeshi, this is a bit of an emergency,” Rita insisted. “Besides, this probably wasn't his to begin with. Now, are you hopping on or not?”

“Eh, why not?”

“Alright, hang on tight!”

•

The speeder chased after the ragbunny throughout the Badlands, across the rocky terrain, over small cliffs, under arches, and through the twisting, winding paths. Eventually, they managed to catch up with the creature.

“Alright, Takeshi,” Rita told him. “As soon as I pull beside him, you tackle the bunny.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Takeshi asked.

“Not at all,” Rita said, “but have we really got any better ideas?”

“Fair point.”

Rita tried to pull the speeder right beside the ragbunny. However, the ragbunny was incredibly agile, trying to shake them off by driving them into rocky pillars or onto other paths.

“I've never seen a ragbunny move so fast!” Rita exclaimed.

One time, she had to, with almost zero warning, veer away from a pillar, just in time to prevent a crash. The force of the turn caused the speeder to flip upside down. Takeshi was completely unprepared for this and found himself dangling from the top of the speeder.

“Uhh, Rita? Can you flip this thing back over?”

“Oh right, sorry.”

Rita then righted the speeder, still maintaining pace with the ragbunny. She went in for another attempt. Left, right, forward, backward, it didn't matter. They were now out in the open.

“Alright, Takeshi! It's time to go for the money.”

Takeshi went for the same move he did to protect the ragbunny from the giant spider: a tackle into a roll.

“Alright! On three!” Takeshi shouted. “One! Two! Three!”

He leaped off the speeder and directly onto the ragbunny. The move went exactly as he had hoped; he had the creature in his arms.

But something was different this time.

The ragbunny felt a lot bigger, and a lot less fluffy. One of the two accidentally opened the cube, causing money to spill across the ground. When they finally stopped rolling, Takeshi discovered that the ragbunny wasn't a ragbunny at all.

He was human.