Ragged and barely on her feet, a look of satisfaction made up most of Phoebe's face. Her eyes were glued to the Boss Chest that'd appeared in the distance. The Boss in question twinkling into motes of light at our feet.

“Finally!” she cheered, barely stopping to breathe as she made for our hard-earned rewards.

“Hey!” I called out, “You know the drill, come on.”

She turned, noticed the canteen I was offering her and rolled her eyes dramatically, “Oh, for the love of-”

She took a few moments to drink, and to my relief, breathe a little, before thrusting the object back into my hands.

“Thanks Mum.” she huffed.

“You’re very welcome Pebble.” I said in my best motherly tone, only her parents called her that, and the withering glare she shot me was perfect. I first heard her Father call her that when we were barely three cycles old. In the nearly two decades since, I’d never let her forget it.

She laughed, slapping my shoulder, a small ripple running around my body from the contact, made much more evident by the lacklustre remains of my shirt. My chest was barely covered at this point, my abdomen entirely exposed, and I silently cursed the creatures that’d been responsible as we’d made our way through the dungeon.

Three days. I thought. I nearly made it three days without replacing some clothing. At this point it wasn’t a hassle, nor unexpected, just annoying. Sure, I didn’t need to wear a shirt, or any clothes if I really wanted. It just felt like I should.

Can’t be the only person in the village not wearing clothes. I grumbled mentally, lamenting my rather unique problem. My childhood friend was quick to break me out of my thoughts.

“Alright. I did the thing, look, I’m even breathing.” she said, pointing at the rise and fall of her chest for emphasis, “Can we go get the loot now?”

Pointedly not looking where she was gesturing, my eyes instead caught the motion of a bead of sweat. It traced a line from the sensitive skin of her neck, over her collarbone and down to the hem of her undershirt. The leather armour on her front was thankfully free of ‘feminine’ accents. We weren’t that kind of party. But I definitely lost a moment or two as my eyes got equally lost.

Recovering, I gulped. If the knowing smirk on her face and the glint in her eye were any indication, none of it had gone unnoticed.

She turned and made a bee-line for the chest at the far end of the room, and I could swear she added some sway to her gait, hurried as it was.

It was getting harder and harder to look at her as the friend I’d grown up with.

“What would your mother say if she saw you making eyes at humans, huh?” she teased as she went.

“I- I.. Uh..” I stammered eloquently.

“C’mon wet stuff!” she interrupted mercifully, kneeling by the chest, “Come get this open, looks like a level 2.” she added, head tilted down and staring at a padlock.

“What?” I huffed, making my way over, “You’ve got the lockpicks. Aren’t you practising?”

“Yeah but..” she said, making a face, “You’ve got the.. magic hands.” she finished, gesturing at me vaguely and wiggling her fingers.

I levelled a disapproving look at her, and I liked to think I was getting pretty good at it. The time we spent together certainly gave me lots of practice.

“And I’m tired.” she complained with a pout, stretching out the last word unnecessarily.

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, so I did, and I enjoyed it. “Fine.” I said, kneeling in front of the chest as she shuffled over, though she didn't shuffle far, “You really do need the practice, though.” I chided as I squeezed in beside her.

She didn’t respond, watching my hands intently.

I sighed, and began to examine the lock.

“Are you sure it’s level 2?” I said, moving it around as much as I could while it was still anchored to the chest. For all I could tell, it looked rather plain.

“Definitely. The shape is simple, but the working is too detailed.” she said confidently, pointing to a couple of places on the lock and nodding.

One of my eyebrows shot up, “You used your Skill?”

“What? No.” she shot back, “I didn’t look that close.” she crossed her arms, looking away from my hands for the moment, “I’m saving that for the loot!”

“Alright, just checking.” I assured her. Her [Appraisal] Skill was rare, and at our level she could only use it a couple of times a day.

My attention shifted back to the lock, and I mentally prepared to use a couple skills of my own.

Pushing a couple of fingers against the face of the lock, they bent and moulded around the object, until they pushed through and into the keyhole that was smaller than both.

This was normal, I was almost entirely made of water after all, but the next part was tricky.

[Minor Morph]

Activating the Skill I’d had since birth, the tips of my fingers explored the internal workings of the lock, subtly changing shape as they went.

“Definitely level 2.” I mumbled, slowly mapping out the mechanism as my brow began to crease, “No.. 3.”

“No way!” Phoebe said excitedly. “You think?” she said, leaning against me and staring harder at the lock in my hands. “We’ve never gotten a chest this good!”

Her excitement was distracting, the contact more so, but I had a good picture of what I needed to do to get the lock open.

[Solidify]

The part of me inside the lock took shape and condensed. [Minor Morph] would still be in effect for a few minutes, so I wouldn’t be stuck with a key for fingers for long, thankfully. Though those couple of fingers would be dense and a little shorter than the rest while [Solidify] wore off.

My parents said at later levels I could use mass from anywhere to achieve the effect. Like extending my forearm into a long sharp blade while my body got a little shorter or slimmer. But I really didn’t have that kind of control yet.

“Wow.” I heard, snapping me out of my wandering thoughts. The regular light blue shade of my skin had taken on a darker hue where it met the lock, as it condensed and hardened.

I chuckled as the process finished, turning the ‘key’. Both surprised and relieved as the lock sprung open on the first try.

I smiled smugly over at her, witty comment primed and ready to go.. When I noticed the red of her cheeks, staring intently at my hands. And my thoughts evaporated.

Phoebe's breath was warm on my shoulder, heavier than usual, and the flush of her cheeks extended down to her neck. A neck still glinting with the moisture of the earlier fight.

I looked back down at my hands, one holding the lock steady, and the other positioned in front, two fingers pushed to the knuckles into the tiny keyhole.

I blanched. Swiftly retrieving my digits and looking off to nowhere in particular, willing my face not to give away my embarrassment. But I could feel the little bubbles forming in my cheeks already.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I heard a gasp, and felt Pheobe moving beside me. She’s going to tease me about this for weeks! I panicked internally, my cheeks were roiling.

“Oh Nine..” she swore, “Is that?”

More shuffling. I braced myself.

One very long moment later, I realised Phoebe wasn’t focussed on me at all. When I turned back, her head was so far in the, now-open, chest I was pretty sure she could taste whatever we’d been given.

I sighed in relief, she never changed, and she really couldn’t control herself in the face of new loot.

And then I noticed the definitively purple feeling wafting out of the chest, no amount of friend-shaped obstacles could staunch the veritable aura radiating from inside.

It was hard to describe, it wasn’t a colour you could see. It wasn’t glowing or giving off light. But there was a vague notion of quality that felt purple. It was unmistakable. There was also a good deal of white mixed in, and it was all coming from whatever was inside of the chest itself.

“No way..” I breathed, all embarrassment forgotten in an instant. As I rose to look into the chest with my childhood friend.

Who was still blocking my view of nearly everything inside.

And then she wasn’t.

“I’ve… never even seen an [Epic] item before.” she said, almost reverentially, as she emerged with something in her hands, “Mum says the Mayor has one in a safe somewhere but..”

“But this is ours.” I finished for her, “We get to keep it.”

She had it in her hands before I could make out many details, but it was a rod of some kind. A dull metal made up it’s length with a brighter metal in the shape of a long lizard coiling around it from top to bottom.

“Is it a wand?” I asked excitedly, “It might have a Spell!”

“I’m working on it!” she huffed, “It’s got a lot of detail.”

She wasn’t wrong, it was clearly the work of a [Smith] of some kind, but I couldn’t spot any trace of the hammer blows that must have given it shape.

Her [Appraisal] skill took a while to activate, from what she had told me, she needed to inspect an item very carefully. Depending on the rarity, some items needed more inspection than others before the World would let her see exactly what it was. And she looked like she was pouring over the item in exacting detail.

As it turned in her hands, I noticed the ‘lizard’ wrapping around the shaft had wings. That’s not a lizard. I thought to myself. Deliberately avoiding thinking of the being that came to mind. Some things you just didn’t meddle with, in the privacy of your own thoughts or otherwise. I only hoped she was being just as careful.

It soon became obvious it would take some time for her skill to activate, so I turned my attention to the rest of our glorious new haul. The loot beckoned.

The white feeling of quality was coming from a handful of sources, and I couldn’t be happier. Magic items were rare, even if they weren’t [Rare], you still didn’t see them much. Well, not in these parts of the World.

All in all we’d gotten a matching pair of metal wrist guards, a leather chest plate of some kind, and an empty scabbard.

The [Common] quality radiating off of the items meant they had at least one magical property. It could be something like [Minor Fire Resistance] or [Lesser Haste]. I pondered for a moment, examining the contents of the chest. No.. even [Lesser Haste] would bump it through [Common] into [Uncommon]. I thought, remembering a rant our village [Teacher] had gone on about the subject.

I tried, and failed, not to get my hopes up. I was excited to see what they would all do, even if it would take Phoebe a couple of days to get through them all.

From the looks of it she hadn’t finished with the [Appraisal] just yet. Shrugging internally, I started to close the chest so the dungeon could reclaim it and almost missed the white haze of quality still coming from inside. What I’d thought was a cloth lining on the inside of the chest, turned out to be another item. Which was obvious given that it was just at the bottom and didn’t run up the walls. Like a lining would.

Chiding myself for being so distracted by the rest of the loot I almost missed an entire magic item, I pulled it out to join the growing pile in my arms. Finally, I returned the lock to it’s rightful place, and snapped it closed. It was only right, after all.

The chest wouldn’t disappear until we stopped remembering it was there, or couldn’t see it, but the dungeon would be grateful. Reclaiming the resources it had used to put it there was said to be easier if it was left in the same state it appeared in.

“Oh wow.” Phoebe said as I was finishing up, “It really is [Epic].”

She was looking at the space in front of her, clearly reading the information the World had finally shown her.

“What does it do?” I asked hopefully. Only to get no reply. Or a reaction. Her eyes were moving, so she was probably reading. And, yup, she was still breathing. Just distracted then. I thought, doing the mental equivalent of rolling my eyes.

I waved a hand in front of her face, and when even that failed, a sigh issued forth against my will. I retrieved a neatly folded-up sack from one of my belt pouches, and carefully started placing our new [Common] loot within. She’d ask about them later, no doubt.

“It seems really powerful. I’m.. just not sure what it does?” she said a handful of moments later.

“Can I see?”

“Oh! I’m sorry.” she said, flushing slightly, “I did the thing again.”

I laughed at that, “You really are a loot goblin.”

“Oh, shut up.” she said, a radiant smile on her face, “Check it out.”

Not a moment later, she shared the skill result through our Party, and was holding the item out towards me. When I laid my hand on it, and willed it to tell me about itself, the World responded to my intent.

Rod of The Seeker: True North

Epic

???/???

???

When free of substantial friction this item will unerringly point in the direction of True North.

???

Though free of the maker’s usual flair for embellishments, this item undoubtedly bears her mark. ??? the [??? Smith] took pride in all of her work, every piece a masterwork and masterclass, both.

Seeker of many things, her works were a guiding light for her people in times of great need.

Whether hunting dangerous prey, or seeking safe hearth, all who claim the Dwarf Fortress as their home have a Rod in their pants. Made by me. Because I’m great.

~ ??? the [??? Smith]

“... It’s a compass.” I mumbled. I blinked several times before scanning the description again. “Wait, why did this take you so long to read?” I asked not a moment later, looking at Phoebe with a puzzled look on my face.

She looked back at me, taking a moment to find the words, “It takes a while for the gibberish to become words, dummy.” she said, before straightening suddenly, “It can’t just be a compass! It’s [Epic]!!” she said with a touch of hysteria.

“What about the untranslated stuff? The better stuff is probably hiding there.” I replied calmly, trying my best to be comforting. In all honesty, I was doing all I could to hide my own disappointment.

Phoebe sighed loudly, “I- I don’t know… It was all just gibberish, my Skill’s not high enough yet.” she complained. The frustration on her features was plain to see, and I knew not to push. She'd bounce back soon, even from this, she always did.

Though if she couldn’t manage to translate it, the question marks were all anyone else would see. Apparently, for her, she didn’t see those at all. What she saw was a complete tangle of letters and symbols, and depending on the contents, it seems like some were harder to untangle than others.

“[Appraisal] did level up though.” she continued, “After I translated the [Maker’s Mark]. Then I went through it all again to see what else I could figure out.”

Ah, that’s why it took so long.

A smile blossomed on her face, “Who talks about themselves like that while leaving their mark anyway?” she added, chuckling.

“I mean..” I started, thankful for the change in mood, “If you were great and had given a whole city's worth of people a Rod in their pants.” I managed, struggling to keep a straight face, “I’m sure you’d never shut up about it.”

She laughed, hard, and it wasn’t long before I joined in. A knot of tension unwound somewhere inside of me and I realised I was grateful just to be safe and successful in our delve. It had been a long day.

“I’m sure it’ll do something cool when we figure it out.” she said once the laughing had died down.

“Yeah.” I nodded, “And you got a Skill level out of it already!”

“You’re right!” she beamed, her eyes drifting to the bag over my shoulder. “And we got a bunch of other stuff! Gimme!” she demanded playfully, making exaggerated grabbing motions with her hands in the direction of the bag.

I laughed, making a play of batting the offending grabbers away before handing her the loot, also bubbling with curiosity over what we’d found. Literally.

As she looked inside, eyes sparkling at the haul, I figured it wouldn't be so bad if the [Epic] was a dud. Disappointing, sure, but even the [Common] items were a big windfall at our level. If nothing else, we could always sell the [Epic].