After a while, Nua wandered away from the recent garbage mounds and found herself increasingly surrounded with the trash that could be well called antique. It was time travel of sorts, the older piles of rubble as tall as a three-story building, covered in moss and withered bushes, with rusty metal parts sticking out. Most carried signs of excavation, and those that didn't probably had some hidden danger lurking nearby. There were no roads in this part of the junkyard except for narrow paths, well-trodden by the human scavengers and local fauna. Nua had to watch her steps. She knew, though, that she was getting close.
And here it was, The Lonely Guy, that's how she called it – the remains of a goliath, or more precisely, a head and torso. She stood in front of it, a tiny human figure looking at a rib cage the size of a mushusu race track. It was mostly stripped of its plating, a loose wire hanging here or there, pitch-black bones made of an unknown and unsalvageable material. It was the nearest – and most mined out – goliath in the junkyard, providing an acceptable trade-off between danger and profit.
She made her way well inside, then onto a rib on the left. She started climbing, using wires, chunks of plates made from metal, or some other, unrecognizable stuff. They were covered with layers of muck, life already creeping into cracks and crevices filled with detritus. Red moss was slippery, and Nua had to watch, as well, for an accidental fire ant or a scorpion.
Somewhere in the mid-height, she had a good salvaging place. Once there was a small chunk of crushed armor hanging by a thread on the rib right where the arm was formerly attached. Later, it loosened and fell off after a storm. There was a black net underneath, spread between the rib and the giant's armpit, that served as a scaffold for the intricate wire mesh. It was not visible from the ground and far from the other areas favored by the scavengers. Nua knew that she wasn't the only one to discover it, but there was still some loot to collect – with her thin frame and small hands, she could fit in the crevice between the rest of the armor and scaffolding, then harvest leftovers. She needed to be smart about it and take only as much as she could conceal under her clothes. In the junkyard's jungle, she was not on top of the food chain.
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So far, nothing had happened. Nobody seemed to be in the area. She avoided a scorpion and chased off a rat the size of her forearm by stomping and hissing. The animal could be dangerous, but it was still smaller than her and too sensible to bother a crazy human.
"Luck is on my side," she thought, then worked her way onto the scaffold and into the cranny beneath the giant's armpit. She was already covered with soot that Auntie Hala would immediately recognize and not be happy about it, but at the moment, she worked with the fever of a treasure hunter. With her pocket knife, at least as old as she was, she pried loose, thin metal plates and picked at the wires. Her gold-tinted Unsagga eyes made seeing in the dark much easier than for an average human, so it wasn't too long before she dug into the rusty casing and discovered a palm-sized bronze plate with ancient signs. They looked very etheric, but Nua had seen these before and had it explained to her; the scripture wasn't a spell, just something like a craftsman's mark. Nua shivered with anticipation. These did not rust or degrade; it was still etheric material, even if minor. They could fetch a few silvers on the market. She would give it to Auntie to sell for a good price, never mind the scolding. It would provide for them for a full month. She could already imagine loaves of dark bread or a sack full of blue tubers. Perhaps, who knows, even some dried fish.
Such a bounty, and so easy at that!
With a happy smile on her face, holding the plate in soot-covered hands, she squeezed out of the crevice and bumped right into someone's muscled, dark-skinned, hairy leg. She looked up.
"I'm not a rat," she said and quickly hid the plate in her pants. "I was here, uh, eh, just for a moment. Actually, I wasn't here at all. You didn't even notice. Already going, bye!"
The explorer, because he couldn't be anyone else, towering over her with his two swords in decorated scabbards, a glimmering shield, a fine red mushusu leather jerkin, and a coiffed, brilliantined beard, laid a heavy hand on her arm.
"Not a chance, kid," he said. "You're not going anywhere."