...Damned if You Don't!
1892 Words
The chest was stuffed with coins.
Dusty, worn and old, but coins nonetheless.
Samuel raised an eyebrow as Needles cackled happily, Elena bouncing in place as she seemed to vibrate with excitement. “Damn,” Wheeze said, running a hand through his wild hair, “tha’s quite a haul!”
“Good stuff, then?” Samuel asked.
Elena spared a glance at him, incredulous. “Are you… what is wrong with you? That’s all Dwarven gold!”
“Pretend that means something to me?” Samuel sighed. “Dreaming, remember?”
Skelly peered over at the collected loot. “Lot of copper and silver in here…”
“Lotta gold too, an’ tha’ mutts right.” Wheeze said, stooping to scoop a handful of coins. “Heavy too, gotta be old.”
“Any family marks?” Elena asked, hope in her voice.
Needles snatched a coin from Wheeze and held it up over the flickering torch. He hummed, turning it over in his hands as he studied it. “Kaine, of course, and it’s old. Like, really old. I’d gamble… Second Age?”
“Which one are we in now?” Samuel asked.
“Fourth. Second age was a little over fifteen thousand years ago.” Elena cheered, hopping back and forth around Needles. “You sure? Are you? Please be sure before I get too excited!”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m certain. Found a few coins like this a few years ago, remember Wheeze?” Needles asked, eyes still locked on the coin. “The old silver mine that those Shaft Wights had set up shop in?”
Wheeze dumped the coins back into the chest. “Yeah, I ‘member. Got a few scars fer me trouble there. But we only got like, wha’, twenty ‘er thirty then?”
“Traded them with Clan Kaine later, we scored an easy grand for the lot.” Needles nodded. “And there are probably a couple hundred in here.”
“How are we going to carry them?” Samuel asked, feeling like that should be addressed before people started getting carried away. The others looked at him, confused. “I mean, it’s an enormous chest, right? We going to lug that thing around, back over some walls? Or are we going to empty it out?”
Elena stopped her dancing and paused, growing horror dawning on her fair features. “He’s right… if there are hundreds in there, that’ll fill up a backpack and be a b***h to carry.”
“I can do it, I wager.” Wheeze shrugged. “Bein’ the muscle is kinda my game, ya know?”
“Empty the chest.” Skelly ordered, their attention snapped to him. “Best check it over, we might be in luck and my relic will be amongst the treasure. If so, we can beat a hasty retreat and be gone of this horrid place.”
“Yer tha boss, I guess.” Wheeze said, looking to Needles for confirmation.
Needles stepped to the side and motioned for Wheeze to help him and, together, they tipped it over and spilled the contents out over the dirty flagstone floor.
Coins rattled and rolled about, revealing a plethora of small gems, and assorted pieces of equipment had been buried amidst the mound of ancient currency. Elena dove into the treasure and began picking out the silver and copper to toss away. Samuel gathered a good deal of the silver, earning a few strange looks from the others.
“What?” He said, scooping dozens of silver coins into his own pouch. “If the gold is ancient, so is the silver, right? Besides, they’re smaller and will be easier to carry about. Just consider the silver to be my share of the coin. Fair?”
“If you’re certain…” Needles said with a smile. “Means more gold for all of us, I guess.”
“Not complainin’.” Wheeze agreed.
Elena seemed to hesitate before she nodded, remaining silent as she resumed her sorting.
“Careful not to handle any equipment with bare hands.” Skelly warned, watching on the sidelines with amusement. “I’ll start scanning what’s here. Might get lucky and find what we came here for.”
“Shouldn’t you know just by seeing it?” Samuel asked as he loaded his own shares into his sacks.
Skelly shook his head, frowning. “Sadly, it’s not that simple. I don’t know what the relic is, just what its mystical aura will look like.”
He frowned as he looked over the items. “And unfortunately, I don’t see that aura here.”
“Anything else worth the weight we’d have to carry?” Needles asked.
Skelly nodded. “There’s a dagger and sheathe, two vials, and a small sack of something that has a bit of a darker aura. Be careful with that one.”
“Dibs on the dagger!” Elena and Needles cried at once before glaring at each other.
Needles was the first to speak. “I don’t have any magic weapons, mutt, leave it for me.”
“I fight with knives, you lout!” She snapped back. “A magical dagger AND sheathe? Sign me up!”
“Wha’s in tha vials?” Wheeze asked Skelly, ignoring the two as they argued.
Skelly popped the wax seals and gave a few experimental sniffs. “Smells like… a mixture of Jotelf’s Teeth and Goldenrod Honey? Something that should help with healing. They’re safe, either way.”
“Gimme one then, never know when I’ll need a pick me up.” Wheeze said. He accepted it from Skelly, sliding it into his side pouch after packing the wax back in.
“I’ll take the other,” Skelly said, pocketing it. “Should be something I can replicate, I imagine.”
“Never hurts ta have an alchemist, tha’s fer sure…” Wheeze agreed. He crossed his arms and looked back at Needles and Elena. “Oi! Ya’ll got dice, don’t ya?”
They turned and glared at him. “Yeah?” Elena said, annoyed. “You saying we should roll off?”
He shrugged. “Seems fair, right?”
“How do we know they aren’t loaded?” Needles growled.
Samuel perked up at this. “You each use the same pair and roll them sequentially?”
“The ‘Ell is tha mean?” Wheeze asked, eyeing Samuel.
“What do you… Oh! One after the other, do it one after the other and it should be fair.” Samuel said, chuckling.
Wheeze nodded and watched as Elena pulled a pair of worn, yellowed six-sided dice. She gave them a kiss and rolled without fanfare, clapping when she rolled a combined ten. “Ha! Mostef’s Blessings, the gods still love me!”
“Fat chance of that, ya mutt…” Needles said, scooping them up to roll himself. He frowned when he only got an eight. “Damn… fine, take the stupid thing. Hope it breaks on you.”
“Come to mama!” She grinned as she collected the sheathed blade, pulling it to inspect. “Oh score, blessed silver!”
Needles swore as he went back to sorting the coins. “Lucky b***h… Sammy! You recognize these gems?”
“Why would I know what they are?” He asked, looking over at five small red crystals.
Needles shrugged. “You’re a Mage, ya’ll know weird things.”
Samuel frowned. “Garnets, maybe? Probably worth carrying.”
The treasure was sorted and counted, with over one hundred and thirty pieces of old Kaine-minted gold coins stacked into small towers of ten.
“So…” Elena said, fiddling with her new dagger after having attached the sheath to her garter belt beneath her clothes. “Wheeze is going to lug it around?”
“I guess?” Needles said, standing to the side as he finished his cigarette. Wheeze just grunted, having finished his while eyeing Needles and his pouch where he kept the rest, clearly thinking of a way to get another. “I mean, we could always divide them now, right? We all carry our share?”
“Just leave them for now.”
Everyone, even Skelly, who’d seemed rather disinterested despite the apparent fortune sitting before them, looked at Samuel as he spoke.
“What?” Elena was the first to speak. “Are you nuts? That’s more money than I’ve ever seen in my life! How could you suggest we just ditch it and forget about it?”
“Never said forget, just leave it here… for now.” Samuel replied, turning to look at Skelly. “You thinking the relic of yours is down that hole back in the hall, right?”
Skelly considered him for a moment, eyes narrowed. “Kind of. Why would you think so?”
Samuel shrugged. “Rest of the place is in shambles and, most likely, empty. The downstairs would be the place to look as it’ll be the biggest pain to work with. No clue where the stairs are, you know?”
“We could always look.” Skelly said. “And why would you think the rest of the keep is empty?”
“We could. But why do that, and possibly hit a trapped stairwell or whatever, when we could just rappel down into the chambers below? We can look down to see if there're any nasties lurking before we drop.” Samuel explained. “And for the last part? Come on, what would nest in a place like this with that massive Trog lurking about? If there were other Trogs in here, they would have heard the big one fighting and come to help, right?”
Needles hummed, tossing the crumbling remain of his smoke to the ground. “Guys got a point. Not that I enjoy ditching treasure though…”
“We wouldn’t just leave it forever.” Samuel explained, shaking his head. “We leave it here and collect it before we ditch this place. Nothing is going to claim it, most likely, as they’d assume the big guy was in here sleeping or whatever. He was clearly the head guy, and nobody would mess with him unless they were nuts, right?”
“You did!” Elena exclaimed, laughing.
Samuel smiled. “Yeah, I did.” He agreed. “But like I said, only nutty people do something so dumb. And I didn’t like the image of him making you guys into a meal before my very eyes, so… there you go.”
“Well, thanks fer tha save.” Wheeze said, slapping him on the back hard enough to make Samuel stumble. “Don’t think I rightly said it ‘fore. But again, thanks.”
“I guess you have a point…” Skelly said, though he didn’t seem pleased. “I suppose we can explore the lower reaches easier if we just delve now. If the relic isn’t down there, we can always look in the rest of the place.”
“Makes sense…” Needles said. “Come on then, let’s break out the rope… Wheeze, help me here, would ya?”
Wheeze knelt so Needles could fish out some rope from his pack, and the two began knotting it so that the group could climb down (and up) easier. It took a scant few minutes, but they finished with thirty feet for extra insurance and headed out into the chamber.
It stank, the burnt Trog’s corpse having released its bowels and pheromones in the time they’d been looting its room. It smelled like a burning pig pen, and Samuel found himself happy that he’d had a light breakfast earlier.
Elena outright vomited into the water by the corpse, earning a comforting pat on the shoulder from Samuel as she recovered.
Needles took a hammer and a few pitons, narrow iron rods that ended in thick rings, and hammered them into a large section of ceiling rubble before working the length of rope through the slits, tying them off for extra measure. After a few experimental tugs, he declared they would be safe to use.
“Wheeze, you go first.” Skelly instructed, looking down into the open chambers below them. “Just in case something is down there that is hiding. If there is? Kill it.”
“Gotcha!” Wheeze grumbled, taking the offered rope and rappelling down the side of the massive pieces of rubble half emerging from the cavernous hole. He splashed down into the chamber and called for the torch to be held out further, Samuel happily complying.
“Huh…” Wheeze said, staring towards the side of the room, obstructed from the view of the rest of the party. “Migh’ be a problem down ‘ere.”
“What is it?” Samuel asked.
“Looks like we ain’t tha first people ta visit.” He called back up. “’Urry down, ya need ta see this!”
- Writer
