“Are you sure that it’s empty?” Ethan asked, looking at Fred intensely.

“Yes. Went inside, no dangerous animal.” Fred replied, crossing his arms in what seemed to be annoyance.

“Let’s just go; have Fred take the lead if you don’t trust him.” Alyssa said, glancing worriedly up at the sky. ‘Really, what’s she so afraid of?’ Ethan wondered. Did she know something about it that he did not?

“Fine. Fred, you heard her; go first.” Ethan said, glancing back at Gadget to make sure he was still close behind. The dog was limping due to the Ferrow’s bite on his leg.

Fred went inside, disappearing into the darkness of an underground cavity built into a small hill, and Alyssa quickly followed. “It’s fine in here,” Alyssa said after a few seconds, and so Ethan and Gadget followed.

As they entered, Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It had a crack running through its screen that hadn’t been there before, and it was on fifty-four percent now. Ethan turned on the flashlight and looked around the large burrow of sorts that Fred had found.

The burrow was roughly ten feet wide, six tall- judging by the fact that Alyss had to duck her head slightly in order to not hit the top- and ten long. Bones were strewn about the ground, and fur was everywhere, and a large pile of it in one of the corners. The fur was very long, and suspiciously familiar…

“Is this the burrow of a Wyrdfur?” Ethan suddenly asked. ‘I hope it’s the burrow of the one we killed, and not a still-living one.’ Ethan thought.

“Looks like it; I just hope that it belonged to the one we killed.” Alyssa said, echoing his thoughts perfectly.

While she spoke, Alyssa dropped all the branches and sticks they’d collected on the ground. Ethan had a couple other things to drop too, though, like the body of the Ferrow and the Wyrdfur sheet.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed when he caught a slight reflection of the light as he moved around, and he quickly aimed the phone’s flashlight at it again. Unmistakably, there was a sharp, shockingly clean metal edge sticking out of the ground in the corner of the burrow. He could just barely see some wood beneath the metal corner, and Ethan was pretty sure he knew what it was.

“What’s that?” Alyssa asked, having noticed it now, too.

“Let’s find out,” Ethan said, moving towards it. Before he got there, though, he heard a quiet growl, and he quickly aimed his flashlight at where the sound had come from- the large pile of fur in the corner.

‘Fuck... is there another Wyrdfur?’ Ethan wondered, but the one he’d seen wouldn’t have fit in there. Perhaps it was a smaller one, or the pile of fur concealed a second burrow?

After a few seconds, though, nothing more happened. Alyssa and Ethan were as still as statues, staring at the pile in fear.

“Fred, go check it out.” Ethan whispered quietly to his goblin. The goblin obeyed, but seemed a bit hesitant as it approached. Ethan began creeping towards the burrow’s exit as Fred approached, just in case.

Fred got there and, after a second or two of waiting for something to lunge out of the fur, kicked blindly into the fur pile. Fred hit nothing, but jumped back regardless, as though expecting the fur to attack him… which, upon further thought, wasn’t too stupid.

After a few seconds, Fred approached again and simply swept his foot through the fur pile until he encountered something- and this time, encounter something he did. Fred soundly yelped like he’d been stung and yanked his foot out of the pile, bringing a chunk of the pile with him.

‘Fuck; that’s not just fur.’ Ethan realized as the fur gripped the goblin’s foot fell off and tried to scramble away.

“It’s a Wyrdfur pup,” Ethan vocalized, a bit stunned.

It was roughly the size of Gadget when he’d been a puppy; it looked like it weighed fifteen or twenty pounds, with almost a foot of fur. Admittedly, it was cute, and it was also clearly scared, judging by how it clumsily waddled towards the burrow’s exit, tripping over its own fur. Luckily, Fred didn’t attack it, sensing Ethan’s conflicting feelings.

Stolen story; please report.

“Awww,” Alyssa said, but Gadget seemed to have other thoughts on it. He lunged forward, holding the Wyrdfur pup in his mouth and snarling loudly, but not biting down, luckily. Ethan took the opportunity to rush forward- as fast as he could, with his injured leg- and grab the pup out of Gadget’s mouth. He still wasn’t sure what they were going to do with it, and until they decided, it couldn’t just leave.

The damn thing dug its claws into Ethan’s hand. He hissed, almost tossing it into one of the walls in an attempt to get it off him.

It dug its claws into his skin like a cat, and the best solution was to simply wait for it to let go; if he moved too much, he’d cause it to cut a gash in his hands.

“What the fuck do we do with it?” Ethan asked. Gadget clearly seemed to hate the Wyrdfur, glaring at it from his position on the ground. Fred was holding the toe that the pup had bitten, and Alyssa still seemed entranced by its admittedly cute exterior.

“We can’t kill it or something!” Alyssa said after a second or two, and Ethan grimaced. He’d feel bad killing it, but… he didn’t like any of the other options, either.

“Let’s just toss it outside, then.” Ethan said.

“That’s no better than just killing it!” Alyssa said, raising her voice a bit in anger.

“What else are we meant to do with the little bastard?” Ethan asked.

“We could tame it or something,” Alyssa said, and Ethan shook his head.

“We can’t afford to feed and water it along with ourselves, and trying to tame it would almost certainly fail, and it’d be dangerous.” Ethan retorted.

“Why would it ‘almost certainly fail’?”

“It’s a wild animal, Alyssa. They haven’t been bred for thousands of years to see humans as friends; the other one clearly just saw us as food.” Ethan said, tossing the pup back into the pile of fur when it finally retracted its claws again. Gadget moved closer to him, staring warily at the fur pile.

Alyssa couldn’t seem to think of any retorts, but she looked angry nonetheless. She was silent for a while, and before she could say anything, Ethan offered a temporary compromise.

“Let’s just leave it in the fur pile for now. We can deal with it later, when we’ve thought more deeply on it. If it escapes while we’re not looking, then that’s its problem.” Ethan offered

“…Fine,” Alyssa responded after a few seconds. Ethan sighed heavily, having been holding his breath for far too long during the argument. His body was tense, too; he’d never been able to argue for long. If ‘social aptitude’ was an Attribute, it’d probably be at 0.5 or something.

Ethan leaned against the wall for a second, not really wanting to turn his phone’s flashlight off and plunge the burrow into darkness just yet… until he realized that he didn’t need too, yet.

“Alyssa,” He said, getting her attention. She’d been staring at the pile of fur where the Wyrdfur pup was, likely lost in thought trying to come up with reasons why they couldn’t leave it to die or kill it themselves.

She looked over at him questioningly, and he simply aimed the flashlight at the shard of metal they’d found jutting out of the dirt earlier. It took her a second to register everything, and she quickly jumped up. Ethan started towards it excitedly, but was stopped by Alyssa’s words.

Ethan and Alyssa approached the object sticking out of the dirt, and after trying and failing to simply pull whatever-it-was out from under the dirt, Ethan called Fred over.

“Fred, come and dig this thing up.” Ethan said. The goblin seemed strangely happy to do so. Fred’s claws and grubby hands tore through the dirt with relative ease, but it became increasingly obvious that there was a lot to unearth.

As Fred did his thing, Alyssa asked a question. “What do you think it is? You seem really excited.”

Ethan frowned. “Do I?”

“Yeah; you’re constantly shuffling your feet and are staring at it like its food and your starving- which you are, but it’s not.” Alyssa explained. Ethan chuckled at the amusing analogy and explained.

“I think it’s a chest.” Ethan said. That was it- it was pretty simple, wasn’t it? Half a minute or so after the exchange, it became very obvious that it was exactly what Ethan thought it was- a chest. Once Fred unearthed a significant chunk of it, Ethan, Alyssa and Fred gathered around and heaved, barely managing to pull the chest out of the ground.

Fred threw himself onto the ground dramatically, and Alyssa went to open it immediately. Before she could, Ethan quickly stopped her.

“Stop! What if it’s a mimic or trapped or something?” Ethan said. It was unlikely considering that it was buried, but it wasn’t like delaying the opening by a few seconds hurt anything.

Alyssa did stop, but she also asked a question. “What is a mimic, exactly?”

‘So… not a nerd or geek, I guess.’ Ethan thought to himself. “They’re monsters that disguise themselves as chests and stuff. When you open them, they bite your hand off or something; it’s a fantasy thing.” Ethan explained.

“Oh. But why would it be in the dirt, then?” Alyssa asked, and Ethan sighed.

“Yeah, it’s probably not a mimic, but it might be trapped and there’s no harm in waiting.” Ethan told her. “It’s not like I want to wait, though. Fred! Open the chest, please.”

Standing a distance back, Alyssa and Ethan watched Fred approach the chest with a dramatic sigh. He dug his grimy claws under the edge of the chest’s lid and pulled it open, and Ethan got a message. Judging by the slight gasp to his right, Alyssa had, too.

You have opened an Iron Chest.

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