Unexpected Loot

After our short break from combat, where we sat in silence and sipped on healing potions, it was time to return to the mission at hand. We were on a schedule after all, even though everything had changed after the murder of the bandit leader. Every time I glanced at his way, I couldn't help but wonder what repercussions it would have on the story and what blanks would be filled in as a result of my decision not to roll over and die when facing him.

Too late for that now. I reminded myself, looking back at my two battered companions and Rionriv. The Level One boss is dead. All that's left is the looting.

"Alright," I muttered, standing to my feet and giving my body a final check. "Time to get back to it."

"Already?" Aesandoral groaned as she lifted her head from Rionriv's shoulder. "Fifteen more minutes?"

"Nope, especially not for you," I said, reaching over and pulling her to her feet by the arm. "I need your eyes to help me find the traps and Sharzin's hands to disarm them."

"And me?" Rionriv asked, dusting herself off. "Should I start looting?"

"Why don't you go get those mundanes stocked up on travel supplies and send them on their way?"

"Ugh! Lame! Fineee..."

Extending an open palm to me, I gave the sorceress the travel map we had used to make the trek from Squalls Crossing as Sharzin handed over the necessary objects to open and close the dungeon entrance. With that, we split the party and continued as planned. Utilizing my knowledge and the other girls' abilities, it took us less than an hour of quiet stalking to double-check the entire level for rogue enemies and booby-trapped rooms. That was when the real work began. 

Thoroughly clearing the floor of all valuable loot would take time. It was a bandit hideout after all, and there were a lot of places to check. Even with my knowledge of the space, I wanted to ensure every possible hiding spot was thoroughly investigated. We had already encountered several unexpected changes, and if our loot haul was one of them, I wanted to be sure we collected every loose copper.

After checking through several known hiding spaces, I pushed through a door into one of the larger rooms and stared at one of the said surprise loot drops. In this space, three separate mounds rested before me. They weren't gemstones or piles of coins, nor were the materials magical or of any great value. But what I saw still brought a smile to my lips as I placed my bag on the ground and opened it as wide as it would go.

"Really?" Rionriv asked from the doorway. "We can just leave that, can't we?"

Looking between her and the mound of mundane materials, I shook my head in disbelief. Piled before both of us were years' worth of stolen construction materials that, back on World Eighty-Two, would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. The cache had planed lumber and carved stone, cloth and metal, nails and mortar, and even all the tools necessary to supply a small workforce. It was too good a value for me to pass up.

"Rionriv, do you know how much material like this costs in bulk?" I asked her as I took an eight-foot board and shoved it into the bag. "There's probably three to five thousand gold in raw construction materials here alone, not to mention the tools."

"And?"

And I want to build a house that can survive the apocalypse. I thought, though I would never say that part out loud.

"And it could be useful in barricading a door or helping a village get back on its feet. So help me stash all this in my bottomless bag!"

With a roll of her beautiful blue eyes, Rionriv stomped her way into the room to help me. A task that I hadn't expected her to agree to, but appreciated nonetheless.

By the time the triop and I had finished thoroughly checking the entire first level and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, five hours had gone by. In that time, we had collected more than just a CasaCache's hardware section worth of materials. Gemstones, hundreds of loose coins, ancient, magical and mundane weapons alike, all of it was shoved into the bottomless bags we wore on our hips. And, sitting down for a breather at the end of it all, I thought it was finally time to check Bully the Kid's very own bottomless bag, which had survived Rionriv's electrocution.

“Anything good?” Sharzin asked, eying the sack from across the room of our temporary rest stop. "What's in it?"

"I don't know?" I replied, looking into the void within and fumbling my hand around. "And without knowing, I can't just call it to my hand. I'm going to have to dump it all out, which could be dangerous."

"No, you don't." She corrected me in an instant.

"What?"

"Yeah, just reach in and say 'Call Inventory' and you'll get a log of contents."

"WHAT?!" I cried out with astonishment. "Y-You can do that? How did you know?"

"I read the Phyllis book, duh!"

"Seriously, Sharzin, when have you had time to do that?"

"It's a quick read. Honestly, give it a shot sometime. You may learn something, oracle."

She giggled at the last bit before crawling over and sitting at my side.

"So? What's in it?"

"Fuggin', hold your horses," I grumbled, reaching into the bag and concentrating for a moment before speaking the magic words. "Call. Inventory."

Immediately, a small sheet of parchment leapt into my hand. Pulling it out, I inspected the glimmering pink paper listing all the items in the magical container.

"Okay," Clearing my throat, I began to read from the parchment. "We've got six basic wands, obviously backups for Bully, valued at twelve gold. A bottle of fine whiskey, valued at fifty gold—"

"Oooh, that sounds nice." Aesandoral interrupted. "Can we have some?"

"Maybe later." I waved off her question and continued. "One unlabelled map, valued at two copper. And three—"

The words became trapped in my throat as my heart began to race. Looking down at the sheet, I could see my hands visibly beginning to shake as I stared at the last item on the list.

"Iz?" Aesandoral asked again. "Wh-what is it?"

With a gulp, I looked up to my companions excitedly.

"Three hundred and sixty-one shimmer crystals. Valued at...fifty thousand gold."

"Fif—" Rionriv gasped. "Fifty THOUSAND?!"

The triop squealed with delight as they hopped to their feet and jumped excitedly. As they did so, Aesandoral looked down at me and extended a hand. Grabbing hold of my arm, she pulled me into the celebration as we all cheered joyfully. It was a nice feeling to be happy with friends, something I had forgotten about for a long time. But now, back in the thick of it, I just wanted to relish in the feeling for as long as it would last.

Eventually, I pulled away from them, reaching into our new bag of wealth and withdrawing the bottle of whiskey Aesandoral had asked about. Taking a swig, I allowed the smooth and smoky flavour to tease my senses before passing the bottle around. Each of the girls gleefully drank, downing the fine liquor as though it were a cheap ale not worth savouring. But, I wouldn't say anything about it. We were celebrating after all.

Watching everyone as they passed the bottle around, I withdrew the low-value map of Moal’aw and inspected it. With no legend in place and the only defining characteristics being nine red spots marked with an ‘x,’ I knew what I was looking at.

Cliche treasure map stuff. I thought, eying locations that I knew to be loot caches for Bully the Kid. And the remaining half a million gold in shimmer crystals that Bully and his crew stole on Samhain.

Sitting back down on the ground, I knew exactly what needed to be done with the crystals. Unfortunately, the three governmental bodies of Moal'aw were looking for the missing shimmer crystals, and with them in the triop's possession, that painted a huge target on our back. Luckily, I knew who could use them for more good than we could. So, as we finished up our rest, I allowed the girls of the triop their excitement over the find for a short while longer before finally breaking the truth to them.

"So," I began softly, looking between the excited faces. "We can't keep the crystals."

"What?" Rionriv led the angry charge. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, these crystals are hot. The government is looking for them, and the minute we start suddenly selling fifty-grand in shimmer crystals back to brokers, there're going to be a lot of questions."

"So we sell a few at a time in separate locations!"

"Yeah, I get it. It works for crypto A-T-Ms, it should work here—"

"I have no idea what that means!" Rionriv yelled at me. "We're not getting rid of the crystals!"

"I'm not saying we just dump the crystals, Ri!" I returned with equal zeal in my words. "But, I'm saying we give them to Shatter as a show of good faith—"

"You want to give them to the terrorist organization?!"

"They're not terrorists! They're freedom fighters!"

The fighting between Rionriv and me went on for a while after that. Aesandoral and Sharzin, remaining quiet for the duration, finished off the bottle of whiskey as they enjoyed the free entertainment. But, as usual, the two of us eventually came to an understanding. In the end, our group would give the crystals to Shatter, including the bandit map and the dozen ancient Talir'sahn weapons I expected us to find. The catch was the single condition that our group received some form of financial compensation from them.

“Okay, but why them and not one of the other governments?” Aesandoral drunkenly asked at the end of the conversation. "Wouldn't they also like to have it? Oooh, maybe we have an auction!"

“No, Aes," I said softly, finally having gotten Rionriv onboard and not feeling up to continuing the debate. "They should go to Shatter because it'll help them unlock the ancient bunker at the heart of the Broken Shard Sea. If we can befriend them now, it’ll make it easier to establish positive relations in the future.”

“He wants to make friends with the insurgents so he can get some powerful arcanotech or something,” Rionriv cut in as she grumpily began sorting her personal pile of loot.

“Not insurgents. They're freedom fighters, Rionriv. But yes, I would like access to the vehicles and weapons they have stored away in their hangars.”

“Well, I think some of this should go back to the people it was taken from, too!” Aesandoral pouted, her red face shifting down as she reached into her bottomless bag and began withdrawing her looted items. "Just saying. It's the fair thing to do."

I chose to ignore the drunken ramblings of the elf, as I began to withdraw the loot I had also compiled. Being sure to leave out the mounds of mundane construction materials collected, I pushed the objects into a big pile before us, where we began to distribute the gear amongst ourselves. Aside from the gemstones that had been hidden away, we had also collected quite a haul of gold, silver, and copper coins, which were easy to divide up. As for the magical items and strange-looking potions and bottled spells that had been on the bandits at the time of their deaths, those were more difficult. And, other than a magical rapier that Aesandoral had taken a liking to, the group had decided that the remaining items would be sold back to Phyllis and the earnings divided amongst the group.

"So what does everyone think?" I asked the triop as we began to move out. "Do we want to camp here tonight, or does everyone think we can actually make it to the planned checkpoint today?"

"I'm still good to go," Rionriv responded, looking between me and her triop. "I've got plenty of magic left."

 "Yeah! I say we do it!" Aesandoral exclaimed, absent-mindedly opening the door to the next section.

“Aes, wait—” I tried to stop her, but she had already committed.

We were immediately met by the loud, ferocious barking that came from a pair of caged dire wolf pups. The beasts were no more than one or two years of age, though they were already the size of the biggest dogs I had ever seen and full of energy.

I immediately recognized the beasts to be Bully the Kid's hounds. Two wild animals that would have grown into vicious beasts if he had been allowed to live. Though now, they would unfortunately be left to die in the cages waiting—

“Oh. My. God!” Aesandoral squealed. “Puppies!”

The elf ran over to the kennel, keeping her hands away from the bars as the beasts gnawed angrily at the flimsy metal.

“Aes, stay away from them." I cried out to her. "They’re vicious.”

“Noooo,” She replied to me with a cooing voice. “They are precious little puppers. Aren’t you? Yes, you are. Oh, my gods, I want to let you out and play.”

“Nope, not happening,” I ordered. “We need to continue—”

Oh, noooo. I thought as Aesandoral turned to look at me with the biggest puppy dog eyes I'd experienced in my life. No, don’t do this to meeee. Not now!

Not wanting to make it too obvious, I subtly grabbed at my chest in an attempt to slow my racing heart. The way Aesandoral looked at me made my heart beat as fast as it had when Rionriv saved me. Her adorable expression and big eyes were slowly breaking me down bit by bit every second they remained in my view.

“Izzzz, pweeease.” She spoke softly to me, her lips pouting and eyes blinking. "I want to loot the puppies!"

My heart! My pants!

“Th-they’re wild animals.” I attempted to hold my ground. “We-We don’t have time to train them.”

“I’ll just ask them to behave.” She replied in an instant, turning to the beasts and drawing a quick sigil into the air.

I watched as a small puff of green energy swirled in front of Aesandoral before disappearing. She then began grunting and growling for a full minute as she communicated with the beasts. In that time, the dire wolves not only calmed but also sat down and began wagging their tails.

What the fug?!

“Whaaaat did you doooo?” I asked, my mouth hanging wide. "Aes? What was that?"

“Oh, I just told them that we were in charge now and we'd let them out and feed them tasty food if they behaved.”

I shook my head and chuckled to myself.

Of course, Aes would be the bleeding heart who wanted to adopt every animal we came across—and the only real spell I had ever seen her cast would be to talk with them.

Looking between her and the beasts she had tamed, I had to agree that a pair of dire wolf pups could become handy in the long run.

“Okay, fine,” I gave in with a shake of my head. “Sharzin—open the cage, please.”