Despite Fin clearly asking to keep their operation secret, the group of miners waiting for him had increased to around seventy. He didn't dare turn any of them away for fear that the angry dwarves would turn on him, so he took his place in the center of the group and prepared himself to give another speech. This time, he would make it perfectly clear that no one else could join.
The speech was brief and to the point, except for a repeat disruption of a certain dwarf yelling, "Tell them the story!"
This time, Fin got his name before inviting him down to the front to regale the crowd.
Tib's retelling of the goblin slave mine story was better in some ways and worse in others. This time, he breezed through the basics but added parts about starving dwarven children and beds of nails. Fin would have corrected him on the spot, but it was close enough to the truth, he supposed.
He had a big day ahead of him and had to figure out how to make his Sense Treasure ability last even longer. He had spent too much time worrying about costs the day before. If he could minimize that interaction, he could probably get through all seventy or so dwarves without needing a break.
Fin addressed the crowd one last time before telling everyone to line up. He walked to the front of the line and motioned for Brando to lead the way. Brando took a moment to plan the best route, but before long he was moving confidently. His map started showing signs of wear and tear, but it was still serviceable.
Soon, everyone fell into a comfortable rhythm. When Fin spotted an area rich with gold ore, he made quick circles with Tory's chalk, gave the briefest explanations, and moved along. He let the dwarves figure out the rest themselves. He also wasn't worried about setting a price. When he showed up, and there were people he had never seen before with lunches in hand, it meant that everyone who showed up already knew the expectation.
During the past week, Fin had reached the end of the many tunnels in the mine. However, he had never found such a large cavern with a dense concentration of gold in one place. Strangely, it was completely devoid of treasures elsewhere else. However, the gold vein he saw was over twice what he had accumulated the day before. He was starting to feel the limit of his ability. Still, with only seven dwarves left trailing behind him, he was in much better shape than the previous day. He marked the wall and memorized the depth and angle of the vein before disabling the ability.
No sooner did Fin mark the wall that he noticed how uneasy the dwarves around him had become. "What's wrong?" He asked as a solemn murmur broke out among his group.
A dwarf by the name Guile tugged on his sleeve and pointed to the walls, ceiling, and ground. "Do you see those holes and grooves?" He asked with a cautious tone that made the hairs on Fin's body stand up. "It's a bad sign. We should leave now."
Fin looked closer and noticed perfectly round trenches carved into the cavern, like evidence of water corrosion in a dry riverbed. Only the unnaturally curved angles precluded the effects of water, and most of the grooves ended in a hole big enough for a snake or a large rat to fit through.
Brando held his jar of moss up to one of the holes. "What is it?"
Guile waved for everyone to slowly back out of the room before speaking. "They are called many things, satriks, mine devils, and dirt eaters. My grandfather told me that if I saw those grooves or holes in the wall, I should get away as soon as possible. You can't kill it, but if it gets angry, it can kill you."
Fin considered the advice, but not for very long. The massive amount of gold waiting for him just inside the wall was too great to pass up. He would be careful and run away if anything happened, but he would not let the opportunity go.
"I am going to stay for a while," Fin addressed the dwarves. "If you don't want to stay, I can meet you all at the last fork in a few hours. I need to recuperate my gold attunement anyway, and won't be much use until I do."
The dwarves understood and were more than happy to wait elsewhere.
When they were gone, Brando asked, "Are you sure you want to stick around?"
Fin smiled and responded, "Yes, and you would be, too, if you saw the size of that nugget in there."
They took turns hitting rocks loose from where Fin had marked. They were worried that whatever was hiding in the holes could come out at any time, so they pushed through the fatigue and dug deeper into the stone without rest. When the last layer of stone covering the gold came loose, they worked feverishly to dislodge the rest of it. However, the harder they worked, the less progress they made. Fin wondered if the rock had somehow become more dense, but a glance at Brando's next swing explained the truth. He halted everything.
"We're almost there," Brando said between heavy breaths, not ready to quit.
"Look at our pickaxes," Fin said, showing the tip of his own. Or, instead, what was left of it.
Brando's eyebrows lifted as he looked at the tip of his own pickaxe. It was completely dull and seemed shorter somehow, as was Fin's. A closer inspection showed the tips had been cleanly removed. They both looked from their tools to their exposed prize in the wall and took a step back. An orb the size of an orange sat on top of their gold, looking like a continuously glowing spark.
"It's eating the gold," Brando frantically whispered. "We have to do something."
"I think that's the dirt eater they were talking about," Fin explained, "I don't know if there's anything we can do."
"But look at the gold," Brando said with pleading eyes.
Fin considered if there was anything he could do and realized that the spark looked familiar. It had the same glow as the worms had in Clive Rae when they were eating. That meant that it was probably corrosive, but he was probably immune. If he caught it in his hands, he could hold it while Brando gathered the rest of the gold, but then what? He didn't want to make it angry. He wondered if he could stow it. Finally, he devised a plan and warned Brando to stay back as far as possible. If he was right, there was a good reason the dwarves were afraid; this golden ball could probably dissolve skin and bone with a single touch.
Fin approached his rapidly dissolving fortune and gently poked the creature while activating Greater Stow. His finger had not dissolved, but the creature had also not disappeared. He realized he would need to pick it up first, so he reached in to grab it. The spark seemed to wake up, slip free from his grasp, and hover around his head like a bee.
"Offer it something," Brando whisper yelled.
Fin unstowed his favorite rock in his hand and offered it forward. When nothing happened, the rock disappeared, and a small nugget of gold took its place. This got the orb's attention, and landed on Fin's hand to absorb the treat. Fin immediately activated stow, and the round creature disappeared.
"It worked?" Brando asked, astonished. "I can confidently say I didn't think it would."
"Me neither," Fin admitted. "Since it didn't burn my fingers off, I figured I could just hold it in my hands if all else failed. Help me get the rest of this."
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While Brando collected the gold, Fin checked on the creature in his inventory, where the golden energy ball was labeled as an "Earth Sprite." However, the Earth Sprite appeared to be moving freely from one storage space to another. Fin frowned as it landed in the location that held his money. He unstowed his coins, but the sprite unstowed, too. He then stowed the coins, but the sprite seemed to be able to enter and leave his inventory at will, outside of Fin's control.
"Hurry!" He yelled while juggling the sprite and all his wealth in and out of his inventory in a frantic effort to save his wealth.
Brando turned around, holding more gold than he had in his life. "What are you doing?" he asked as various coins, gold nuggets, and an earth sprite reappeared and disappeared in Fin's hands.
"It's eating all the money," Fin said, frantically moving items around and spreading them out.
He unstowed the sprite and one of the elemental cores simultaneously, and the orb momentarily stopped its rampage to investigate the earth-attuned item, seemingly interested. Fin moved the core back and forth the same way he would get a dog excited about a toy before rolling it across the room. The gambit worked, and the sprite followed after it.
"Hold your shirt open," Fin urged, not waiting for Brando to comply before wealth started accumulating in his hands. "When I tell you to run and go fast."
Brando nodded as Fin dumped as much treasure as he could into Brando's outspread shirt.
Looking at the sprite with either Sense Magic or Discern Earth brought a curious sight. The orb connected golden thread strings from the elemental core to the rocks scattered around the mine floor. Only when the string began compressing and drawing in rocks to create limbs did Fin understand what the sprite was doing. He told Brando to run and immediately stood his ground for another fight against an Earth Elemental.
"Protect the wealth!" came Fin's battle cry as the elemental stood and charged.
Only the limbs of the elemental were very short. They were made from the largest rocks in an area that were consequently all minuscule shards. The charging creature's bulbous head only came to about knee level. A smile broke out across Fin's face as he watched the pathetic thing run towards him. His joy was short-lived when the elemental punched him in the shin. Fin bent over, picked it up, and stowed it. He wasn't playing anymore, even if his pain-resist ability nullified the credibility of the punch.
The earth sprite moved to where its meal was supposed to be. It hovered in circles for a moment and then stopped, turning a piercing color of silver and back to gold. It started attacking Fin, putting holes in his shirt and cutting off one of his sleeves.
Fin flinched as the sprite charged at his face and bumped into him. It felt like getting hit by a dinner roll. When the sprite disappeared, Fin checked his inventory and noticed he still had a silver coin and a blue topaz gem. He immediately unstowed his forgotten treasures and held them tightly in his grip. A moment later, the pathetic elemental appeared in his hand and punched him in the face. He restowed the elemental, and the process repeated several more times. The elemental appeared in his arms, attacked his face, and then got restowed.
Eventually, the earth sprite gave up and reappeared. It looked around the room before moving out into the passageway. Fin did not want it to find Brando or the vast wealth he was carrying. If it got loose in the mine, there was no telling how much damage it would cause. So he charged after it, and with a combination of luck and habit, he called for it to stop. Surprisingly enough, it did.
"Look," Fin held out his silver coin. "I will give you this if you leave us alone."
The sprite squeaked, and a vision of walls flowing with delicious gold popped into Fin's imagination. It squeaked again, and all the gold was gone—no more delicious, buttery gold, just flavorless minerals in the rock. A third squeak showed Fin taking the last morsel from the sprite's mouth and eating it himself.
At first, Fin thought he was losing his mind and started imagining random things. That was until the third squeak when he saw the crude caricature of himself with a massive nose eating gold. That wasn't something he would imagine on his own if he was stuck in the mine for a hundred years. The only explanation was his Earth Commune ability; he might have just figured out how to use it, even if it was a vague understanding.
Fin said, "Trade," and held up the silver coin while imagining himself walking in one direction and the sprite floating in another.
The sprite squeaked and portrayed itself taking a small bite to see if it was any good.
Fin relented with the word "small" and showed exactly what he meant.
The sprite floated closer, and Fin held up the coin. It was one thing to believe you were conversing with an earth-plane creature, but it was entirely different to know you were. When the sprite approached the coin and took the smallest of bites, Fin felt wholly vindicated.
Another squeak brought Fin's attention to the fact that while the metal was nice and chewy, it was nowhere near as good as the gold was.
Fin slapped himself on the forehead. All he needed to do was find his little friend a new home. He told it to follow and walked out into the mine. It didn't take long before he was able to find a decent-sized gold deposit. He hit it with the sharp side of his pickaxe a few times before coming up with a better idea. He transferred what he saw to the sprite so it could dig its own hole.
The sprite hung in the air motionless while it processed what the dragonkin was truly showing. It moved cautiously toward the spot indicated on the wall and burrowed into it. It was one thing to say that you can see through walls, but it is entirely different to prove it, and the proof was delicious.
Fin crept away, relieved to have gotten rid of the destroyer of wealth.
He found Brando and the seven dwarves shortly after and almost regretted not listening to them.
"Did everything go okay?" Brando asked with concern, still holding his shirt like he was collecting walnuts.
"It was a close call, but everything's fine," Fin said before waving for him to follow. "We'll be right back."
Fin led Brando around the corner from the dwarves so they wouldn't see the massive transfer of wealth, followed by its disappearance. It wasn't that he distrusted dwarves, but more like he distrusted strangers in general.
"Let me find something to put that in," Fin said, opening his inventory and freezing in place. The mine devil was in his inventory, snooping around. He checked his hand to ensure he was still holding the blue gem and that it hadn't been eaten. Sure enough, he was still holding it and the nibble-bitten silver coin in a white-knuckled death grip. He immediately took a handful of gold nuggets from Brando's shirt and charged for the dwarves. He put a piece of gold in each of their little hands and made them promise to not tell anyone about his preferential treatment. That was to get them to go away.
"It's in my inventory," Fin admitted, feeling a sense of doom creep up his shoulders. "I don't know how, but he's in there. It's in there."
"What do I do?" Brando asked, seemingly ready to bolt at any moment.
"If it sees you, you're dead, so stand on the other side of the corner," Fin pointed to a well-shadowed area hidden from view. "I'm going to drop four lunchboxes and a pillow. When I tell you to, put the gold in the lunch boxes and stuff them in the pillowcase. Wait for me at the usual spot. If I'm not back in two days, just get out of here and pay the taxes. I have to ditch this thing before I can go anywhere."
Brando didn't move or speak. He didn't understand the full extent of Fin's worries, but he knew how worried Fin was, which worried him. When Fin yelled, "Clear!" Brando sprung from his hiding place and picked up the items left for him on the path. He then dumped the valuables from his shirt into two of the lunchboxes, stuffed the lunchboxes in with the pillow, and ran for Rasengold's favorite spot.
When he was back in the sprite's cavern, Fin sighed and pulled out the blue gem. He said, "Trade" again but added that he was not allowing any samples. The gem was the last thing he wanted to lose, but he also knew that Brando wouldn't leave the mine without him and have to pay all those taxes and fees.
The sprite approached the gem and hovered around it, getting close enough to make Fin's fingers twitch. Finally, it told Fin, "Squeak," but instead of them walking in different directions, the sprite followed him to find more gold.
Fin refused, so it made a counteroffer. This time Fin was surrounded by piles of gold and blue gems, but the sprite was being good and not leaving Fin's stowage space. It only wanted to "sample" one of each—and one more for good measure, maybe two more. Three at most.
Fin pulled out his favorite rock and offered to trade once more. This time, Fin offered the idea that he had no gold, and this rock was all he had left in the world.
"Is this rock good?" the sprite asked.
"You can sample it if you want, but I have nothing else," Fin answered.
It gently landed on it, creating a slight indent, and commented, "This is different. What is it?"
"It's my favorite rock," Fin replied. "So, do we have a deal or not?" Fin asked.
The sprite squeaked to confirm the deal. It would follow Fin around, finding all the hidden pockets of gold, but they would separate ways when it ate the silver coin and the gem. However, it wanted to use the rock for something, and there was something about moss.
The part where he and the sprite went separately was straightforward, so Fin agreed and held the items out.
The sprite landed on the rock, but instead of dissolving it, it sent tendrils of power through it. The rock looked like it had golden blood vessels pumping energy through it. Fin asked what it was.
"Moss."
Fin shrugged and held up the gem and the silver coin to conclude their deal.
"I'll eat it later," was the only response before the sprite jumped into Fin's inventory.