Fin pinched the rock to steady it on the ground and brought the spiked end of the hammer onto it. The strength boost from the hammer combined with its imperceptibly leaden weight made it easy work to unveil the stone's secret treasure. Marriam watched, not with shock or amusement, but something else entirely. Greed? Excitement? She had the look of belief in a tale so bizarre that whatever practicality she had left was now wholly relinquished. The lesson of her grandfather's con artist vanished with the hammer on the wall.

Fin looked into her eyes and saw certainty. "I believe we have a deal then?"

"You really are the Gold Scry," she mused as she took the precious metal from Fin's dirt-stained fingers. "The hammer's yours if you'll accompany me to hunt for real estate."

Fin shrugged and looked at Brando, who also shrugged. "Sure, when do you want to meet?"

Instead of answering, she called for Genris. When a meek-looking Dwarf woman entered the room, Marriam started dictating orders, "I need two scribes, six guards, and transportation for the ten of us and our two guests. Be quick; you and I are going shopping."

"You want to go right now?" Fin asked, surprised at the haste.

"You'll have to forgive me for saying this, but you twicelings don't have a..." Marriam paused, reconsidering how to say, "Your reputation for keeping your promises leaves something to be desired. It is better to go now, in case you can't be found in the morning."

Brando clapped his hands together, "Great! I'm sure you will all have a lot of fun. Since you won't be needing me for any of this, I might just sit this one out."

Fin deadpanned, "You don't want to come?"

"Of course I want to come! However, I have little shopping of my own to do," Brando stated, not at all suspicious. "Besides, if you want me to replace the hammer's grip, I'm going to need supplies. I am a leather worker, after all."

"That's fine," Fin relented after looking at the cracked and crumbling grip on the hammer. "You really think you can fix this?"

"It's what I do best," Brando radiated reassurance. "Keep the hammer for now; I'll gather everything I need in town and craft the grip when you come back."

Soon, they parted ways. Fin followed Marriam out of the building, where three carriages waited for them. There were six dwarves holding spears and two carrying leather satchels. After squeezing into the tight-fitting carriage, Genris and two guards were forced to stay behind.

Fin rode in the tight carriage with dwarves squeezed beside him and against his knees. The trip seemed to take forever, so Fin was impatient to exit the cart and stretch his legs outside when they reached their destination. They were well outside the city. He assumed they were going to all the most affordable plots of land first.

Marriam looked at him expectantly, "This is our first stop. Can you sense anything?"

Fin languidly peered around, "There's nothing here."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"We haven't walked around yet," Marriam protested. "Maybe after you poke around, you will find a vein of gold or something?"

"As much as I hate to say this, I didn't need to leave the cart to tell you there was nothing here," Fin said, shaking his head. "But taking a break from nestling next to Pimly is nice."

Marriam shook her head to one of her scribes, who crossed something off her list. Fin saw how long the list was and lost any residual cheerfulness. There must have been a hundred locations written down.

"Let's try to make this more efficient," Fin said, trying to rekindle his determination. "If you want me inspect somewhere, just yell out the window and I'll tell you if the property is worth buying."

When they left, Fin allowed himself to fall asleep. Periodically, he was elbowed awake only to activate his ability, lean his head out the window, and yell, "No!" On several occasions, Fin saw enough precious metals underground to call the carriages to a stop and investigate. More often than not, there weren't enough trace metals for it to be worth purchasing the property and setting up a new mine. Once, he saw massive veins of what he assumed was silver, but a farmer already owned the property.

Not wanting to be involved in the attempted swindle to buy the property from the farmer, Fin told him exactly what his property held. This made for a poor start toward building relations with Marriam, but he did not care. He was leaving town soon anyway and wanted to do so with a clean conscience.

Not soon after did Fin find a veritable wealth underground. The area was not on the list of places to visit, but it was overgrown with foliage and in the less expensive outskirts of town. Both scribes worked frantically to mark their location as Fin walked around. He found some low-hanging fruit, so to speak, and unstowed Void for a snack. The deal he made with the sprite was that it would only eat half and allow Fin to have the rest. Soon enough, Fin reached into a perfectly round burrow and retrieved a handful of silver and raw gold.

He frowned at Void. "This doesn't look like half to me."

Behind the golden ball of greed, Fin noticed Marriam, the two scribes, and the guards staring at him with mouths agape. They cautiously stepped back and he saw the looks of horror on their faces.

"He gets hungry sometimes. Or she does? I'm not sure, but there's plenty…" Fin trailed off, realizing no one was as concerned about the potentially missing gold as the thing that ate it. "Don't worry, it's not dangerous; it just kind of follows me around and tries to eat all my gold."

One of the guards started stammering and pointed. However, the words came out of Marriam's mouth first, "That's a mine spirit!"

"Technically, it's a sprite, not a spirit," Fin corrected, inviting Void to rest on his hand and disappear. "It's harmless as long as you don't make friends with it."

"Where did it go?!" The stammering dwarf found his words.

"He carries it around with him?" "It's a curse!" and "I'm not riding with him." came the mutterings of the dwarves around Marriam before she quieted them down. Subconsciously, Marriam knew she was about to sell her dwarven intolerance toward satriks for wealth. Still, she was more than happy about it. She was getting such a good deal for her grandfather's counterfeit hammer that if Fin wanted to make friends with a goblin, she would offer the green savage a mug of her best ale.

"Everyone, calm down," Marriam ordered. "There will be time to discuss the dirt eater later. For now, I need the scribes to come with me while the rest of you safeguard the perimeter."

Marriam gave Fin an odd look as she approached but surprisingly did not mention Void. Instead, she asked if he could describe the locations of the gold and approximate its amount. Fin obliged and began pointing to various locations with brief descriptions as the scribes scribbled rapidly to capture every word he said.

Marriam's heart raced as he told her how much wealth they were standing on. She would buy this land for a pittance and get a return far greater than the original cost of the hammer. She hid her excitement. As long as Fin the Gold Scry didn't think she was satisfied, she would use him as much as possible. When the terrain was correctly mapped, Marriam had everyone back in the carts and moving with haste.