We spend the next twenty minutes unpacking the crevice, pulling out several sacks of what appears to be food stuffs, some mismatched boots, a few dresses that look to be of nice material but that have seen better days, two daggers, a short sword, a quiver with six arrows, and a pair of chests partially hidden in the sand and that need to be dug out. After we lay it all out on the bank, we stand back, staring at it.
I look between some of this loot and the creatures we killed to get access to it. “Some of this stuff is bigger than they are. By a lot.”
“Yes, it is,” Meg agrees.
“Are goblins like ants? Can they carry fifty times their bodyweight?”
“Not that I know of,” Flynt replies.
“Can ants really do that?” Jonas asks.
“Then…” I make a questioning motion toward the loot.
We all frown deeper.
“Did you see the symbol on one of the chests?” Tyrus asks.
“Governor’s seal,” Flynt says. “Didn’t your brother say the governor’s convoy had been robbed a few days ago?”
“He did.”
“Great,” Meg mutters. “That is not something I want to get involved in.”
“Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?” I raise an eyebrow. “We just learn about it, then the easy quest we pick up ends up leading directly to what was stolen?”
“You say coincidence,” Meg says, “I say it’s the world fucking with us. This isn’t a quest tree I want to follow.”
I blink at the introduction of yet more gaming parlance. “Quest tree?”
“What would you call it?” she asks, glaring at me— though I understand it to be more a glare at the situation than at me in particular. At least, I think that’s the case. “One small quest leads to another bigger quest leads to progressively more difficult and tenuous situations? Like climbing a tree. The goblins are the first handhold.”
“No, I get it. The metaphor just threw me at first.”
“We don’t want to risk running afoul of a bandit party brazen enough and capable enough to successfully rob the governor’s caravan,” Meg says, looking between us. “They’re going to be well above our level and playing a bigger game than we can keep up with right now. We’re better off putting all this back where we found it and just turning in our goblin ears for the bounty.”
“They just abandoned it out here,” Jonas points out. “They had to have known it would attract goblins, shiny things like this? They can’t be too worried about the contents. There must be a hundred other places they could have stashed it.”
“They may have been using the goblin nest as a safeguard,” Meg replies. “Look. I don’t want to debate it. I’m the most experienced of all of us, and I can promise you, these guys are going to be so far above us that one spell from their caster will Area Effect us all to death.”
“We can’t think they’ll have taken a full account of everything here,” Tyrus argues. “And these aren’t mountain goblins, there’s nothing on them worth anything. We should at least consider taking a cut. Whoever left this here won’t be able to track a few errant gold pieces.”
“Assuming that’s even what is in those chests,” Flynt says. “I’m inclined to agree with Meg. We should just put it back. Pretend like we never saw it.”
“Aw, come on,” Jonas complains. “It’s adventuring basics. You find loot, you take loot. Or you return it for bigger loot. That’s how adventurers make a living. Bounties are all well and good, but they’re not going to buy the magic items we need to really advance what we can do. You all know I’m right.”
Meg shakes her head. “You know I would normally agree with you, but it’s just not worth the risk right now. What if this is the work of the Kartesians?”
“What if it’s not, though? What if it’s just some bandit squad that happened to get lucky?” Tyrus asks. “Or, what if it was the work of some adventuring party trying to make an as-of-yet unstated point? And again. I can’t see them having a tracking spell on any of it. We see what’s in the chests, leave the big stuff, and take some souvenirs. Everyone can be happy. Keira, you can take the quiver!”
“Maybe whoever did this is the altruistic type who wanted to give whatever starting adventuring party that took this job a bit of a boon,” Jonas says, his expression earnest enough to give a golden retriever a run for its money. “That could happen, right?”
“In what world does that happen?” Meg asks incredulously.
“You ask this just after the Silver Swords split their reward with us so we could get started?”
“Keira, what do you think?” Flynt looks at me. “You’re the tie breaker.”
I startle at my name, pulling my gaze from the small chests. They look like classic treasure chests, with big brass locks and everything, like they were pulled directly out of a tabletop handbook or off a game screen. It’s weird to see something so borderline cartoony out in what is (at least functionally speaking) reality.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I dunno,” I reply, frowning deeper as I fold my arms. “I kinda want to open the chests though. Even if we’re going to walk away from it, I want a full picture of what we’re walking away from.”
Meg groans but Flynt cocks his head at me curiously. “Why’s that?”
“Because I think Meg’s right? I think this could be the start of something that might end up following us for a while. I want to know what’s behind it all.”
“That quest tree thing?” Tyrus asks.
“Exactly.”
“I don’t entirely understand that,” Jonas says.
“It’s just a hunch,” I reply shrugging. “Something nagging at me. It’s too much of a coincidence. And if fate wants us to be involved, I want to at least have the facts before it forces our hand.”
“Fate, huh?” Tyrus wrinkles his nose at that, causing his mustache to move. “I don’t like the idea of that.”
“You don’t have to like it for it to be a thing,” Meg says. She’s looking around us now, seeming uneasy. The whole situation has her unnerved. “Okay. If we’re going to open the chests, we should open the chests. But make sure you check for traps, and if there are any, we’re going to leave it be, okay? We’re not going to go about trying to disarm anything.”
“That takes all the fun out of it,” Tyrus complains.
“No, I mean it,” Meg says. “If I can’t trust you, I can’t adventure with you. And I can’t trust you if you take unnecessary risks.”
“Sometimes I’m going to take unnecessary risks,” Tyrus says, “I’m warning you right now.”
“But not this one, right?”
Wind rustles the treetops and the stream babbles beside us as the two of them stare at one another for a long beat. She towers over him almost comically but, to Tyrus’s credit maybe, it still takes a long moment before he backs down with a small nod.
“Not this one.”
“Okay. Then do what you need to do.”
He nods again and takes a small wallet from one of his pouches, unfolding it to reveal sets of lock picks in various sizes and what looks like a jewelers’ eyeglass. He lays the wallet on the ground in front of one of the chests and then begins to carefully examine it, looking in and around the lock with bare eyes before picking up the eyeglass and using it for a closer inspection.
“I don’t see any signs of a trap on this one,” he mumbles, picking up one of the lock-picking devices and carefully inserting it, probing around gently. “Just a lock.”
“Okay,” Flynt says, watching Meg’s expression. I also notice that he takes a step back, putting a little more room between himself and the chest. I do the same thing, and Meg grabs Jonas by the shoulder, pulling him back as well.
“I notice you all moving, you know that, right?” Tyrus asks, focus still on the chest as he takes a second lock pick and goes to work. “That wasn’t subtle.”
“Wasn’t trying to be.” Flynt chuckles, but there’s an edge to it.
Tyrus works for about a minute, though it seems like way longer. I find myself trembling slightly in the tension and the chill of the breeze coming up on my clothing, which I realize is damp with sweat, goblin goo, and stream water. We all look like walking disasters, and I hope that Flynt is able to recover enough— what did Jonas call it again? [Essence]?— that he’s able to magically tidy us up before we head back into the city.
There’s a quiet click and Tyrus lets out his breath, lifting the lid of the chest.
We crowd around him. It’s a little anticlimactic as we stare into the folded velvet fabric.
“Are you sure that’s the governor’s seal?” I ask. “I feel like we’ve robbed a cosplayer.”
“What’s a cosplayer?” Jonas asks.
“Like a really fancy tailor, but often more colorful.” I watch as Tyrus pulls out the top layer, holding it up out of the chest. It looks like a robe of some sort.
“Vestments of office,” Flynt says. “Expensive, but not something we can easily sell.”
“No,” Meg agrees. “Like I said, more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Why would bandits steal that?” I ask.
“They probably didn’t know what was in it,” Tyrus says, sorting down to the bottom of the chest and not seeming to find anything. “Just took the first things they saw that had potential to have value.”
“Maybe,” Meg replies. “Are we opening the other one? It’s about the same weight.”
Tyrus glowers at the other chest, but nods. “I have to know what’s in it.”
He repeats the process and again it ends up being clothing, though Tyrus identifies it as tunics belonging to the governor’s household guard, which we all agree is also not something we want to have on us. Tyrus packs everything back, and I move forward to help him return the chests to the crevice. The moment I touch one there’s a brief blink in my vision and—
> [Quest: Wardrobe Malfunction. Return stolen wardrobe to the governor’s household. Accept quest? Yes/No]
“We could always return it,” I say. “To the governor’s household, I mean. We wouldn’t be hanging on to it that way, and it might help get the attention of a wealthy patron like what Meg was talking about.”
“Something like that would get talked about,” Jonas agrees, looking at Meg. “I bet there’s a nice reward for it.”
“What’s to keep them from blaming us for it?” Meg asks. “Didn’t Tyrus’s brother say something about the team being led by a half-ork?” She then presents Flynt with a hand gesture, soliciting an unhappy scowl from the part-ork member of our party. “I don’t think we want to attract that attention. There are too many variables. Even if they didn’t blame us for the disappearance in the first place, the fact that it would get talked about isn’t necessarily all positive. Again, the people who actually stole it may come looking for retribution.”
“Over some old clothes?” Tyrus asks.
“Some valuable old clothes that could get them access to the governor’s house,” Meg points out. “Guard livery?”
“Oh,” he says. “That’s a very good point. Should have thought about that.”
“So not returning it?” I ask.
“No,” Flynt agrees. “Let’s stay out of it.”
“Alrighty.” I refuse the quest pop-up and continue to help move the would-be loot back to where it was originally hidden. Then, as the others fuss over putting it back into as close an approximation as possible to how we found it, I walk the area and collect my arrows, cleaning them off in the stream. I’m able to salvage all but one, which had ended up snapped in half in the chief goblin’s gut. I just leave it there.
“Sorry, little dude,” I mutter to it, cringing at the death but also at the smell already starting to come up from the slimy bodies. I look over my shoulder at the others. “Do we just leave them here?”
“They’ll break down pretty quickly,” Meg says. “And there are direcats and other things in the hills here that will likely come across the remains and appreciate the easy meal.”
“Just as long as it doesn’t attract anything bigger,” Jonas replies. “I don’t want to find a notice to come hunt down the harpy that started killing farmers’ cows or anything like that.”
Meg shakes her head. “Harpies live farther up the mountain. And they wouldn’t come down for river goblins.” She looks up at the sky and frowns. “That all took a lot longer than I thought it would. I don’t know that we’re going to get back before nightfall.”
“If we keep to the road, we should be okay to still travel,” Flynt says. “The lanterns should discourage any creatures that may want to give us trouble.”
“I’m not concerned about creatures,” Meg replies. “We can deal with any creatures in the foothills. It’s other people I’m worried about.”