There was something odd about the armor the toad had been wearing that made me think this might be more than just where amphibians like to hang out.

Cambrin, still leaning heavily on me, made to move off and begin searching the room but he groaned and wavered on his feet (Investigation: 4+4=8). “No,” Ceylas said, raising her hand. “I’ll just take a quick look. We won’t dig too deep. I want to get you home in one piece.”

She started with the toad, tugging through it’s strange armor. There was nothing of real worth on it. Even the armor itself seemed mostly perished and water-logged. Cambrin took an interest in the cogs and machinery but shook his head when Ceylas raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

“The parts interest me but the piece is too cumbersome and mostly functionless at this point,” Cambrin said.

Ceylas started moving around the room, taking in its details. (Perception: 19+1=20) Cambrin and I both watched as she paced the length and then roamed further into the back where the giant green toad had come from. “Back here,” she cried out, running over to shove a pile of smelly rags and refuse off a bronze chest. It was about three by two by two feet in dimension. The metal was dulled so I was amazed she’d spotted it in the limited light that bounced off the murky water to spackle the room.

“That looks heavy,” I said.

“Maybe if we three carried it together?” Cambrin said, but he looked doubtful, especially since he and I were both worse for wear.

Ceylas rolled her eyes at us. “Guys can be so stupid sometimes. You,” she said, pointing at me, “open it.” When I didn’t move immediately she sighed and gestured at my haversack. “You know, with your fancy tool thingies.”

I eyed the lock. It was a sturdy iron lock and had rusted some. “I’m not going to be able to open that. Look, it’s practically rusted shut.”

She shook her head. “You can at least try.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching into my haversack and drawing out my thieves’ tools. “But I’ve got to tell you the odds of this working are next to impossible.”

I positioned the picks and actually closed my eyes, centering myself a second before beginning to work the tools in the lock. The strange tumbling sound I realised I’d actually been growing kind of used to was louder and I saw the twenty-sided die in my mind’s eye. It tumbled across my mind, twirling numbers. I jerked with surprise and the roll, which had almost settled at a very healthy nineteen tumbled slightly to settle on a much more unhealthy nine. At the top right the words ‘Dexterity Check (Thieves’ Tools) 9+2+2=13’ settled briefly into place before fading away.

“What the right hell,” I whispered with wonder. The positon of my fingers were completely messed up. I opened my eyes and Cambrin and Ceylas were both staring at me.

“What is it?” Cambrin asked.

“You can’t open a lock with your eyes closed you nerd,” Ceylas added. She tapped her crowbar on the lock scattering rust. “Try again, this time with your eyes open.”

Trying again was usually a bad idea at our gaming table. Jake always made repeat attempts harder. But in the real world it’s not like the lock is any worse for wear. If anything, having a chunk of rust dislodged from it might make it easier. Right?

I cricked my neck, raising my chin to stretch out my shoulders then knelt down to try again. This time I focused on the lock, keeping my fingers loose as I worked the delicate tools into the mechanism. I heard the tumble of the roll again but kept my gaze fixed on the task in front of me. (Dexterity Check (Thieves’ Tools) 15+2+2=19) For a while I felt like I was getting somewhere but there must have been a chunk of rust welding one of the tumblers because I’d heard the picks slip into the right place but could feel the resistance on my thumb as I tried to turn. Adding any more pressure would snap my picks.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“No good. I don’t think we’re getting into it this way. It’s rusted shut,” I said, carefully unlatching my tools and tucking them into their pouch before dropping them back into my haversack.

“The old fashioned way then,” Ceylas said, notching the crowbar into the latch and turning our way. “Muscles?”

Cambrin glanced at the door we’d come through. His nerves jangled off him. “Ceylas, we should not waste our time with this. There could be more toads on their way.”

“Don’t be a baby, there could be great loot in here. Dungeons always have great loot.”

“Don’t call me a baby. I note you are the only one of us who took no wound in our battle. We must retreat to recover. We can return when we are better prepared.”

“Retreat?” Ceylas’ voice rose a pitch. She looked shattered. “But some one might come and take it. We earned this haul, Cambrin. That was our boss kill, fair and square.”

I frowned. Ceylas had dropped a few too many familiar words in the last few minutes that I was starting to wonder if this was all an elabroate joke. Some kind of crazy intense live action role play scenario. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be because the technology did not exist to put us into someone else’s bodies, but Ceylas’ obsession with looting the boss kill sat heavy with me. My friend, Bec, had always been obsessed with loot. She was the ultimate min-maxer. And the more I heard Ceylas talk the more I kind of felt Bec’s voice in her body.

“Bec?” I asked.

Ceylas blinked at me, clearly shocked. “I dont’ know what you’re talking about.” She bit her lip, which was exactly what Bec used to do when caught in a lie.

“You are her, aren’t you?”

She swallowed, glancing between us.

“Nik?” Cambrin asked and I near slipped into the pool of water as I jumped at my own name coming from the rock gnome’s lips. My gaze fixed on him and narrowed.

“Who the hell are you?”

Ceylas put her hand on Cambrin’s arm and leaned in. “I don’t think we’re supposed to tell people.”

“You know?” he asked, turning to her.

“Of course I know,” she drawled. A heavy clang somewhere deep in the sewers startled the three of us and Ceylas glanced at the door then turned back to the chest. “Let’s sort this out later, after we’ve looted the damn box.”

“Lo’Kryn,” Cambrin said, using the name he must have known was not really mine in a very deliberate way. “I will assist you.” Together, we put our weight against the crowbar and heaved. (Strength Check (help advantage) 18+1=19.) The damn lock wouldn’t give, even with the two of us putting every inch of our tired muscles into it.

I sighed, unwedging the crowbar and handing it back to Ceylas. “Afraid this one won’t budge.”

She glared at the chest. “Well we’re not leaving it behind. You two will have to carry it.”

We both turned to her. “That’s insane,” I said. “It has got to be at least 70 pounds.”

“Lift with your knees,” she said, wiping it down with rags.

“The guards will not permit us to leave with this.”

I eyed it warily. “Actually,” I said, my own uncertainty humming in my voice, “I have an idea. But there’s a degree of stupid risk involved.”

Ceylas tilted her head at me. Cambrin blinked. “Explain,” he suggested.

I pulled my haversack off my shoulders and dropped it to my feet. I pulled out a length of hemp rope and a bunch of unlit torches. “Here,” I said, handing a few to Ceylas whose pack was the only one that didn’t look completely full. Cambrin pulled the loop of rope over his head and across his body. Lastly, I pulled out the jeweller’s box and carefully tucked it into what little space remained in the left pocket of the haversack. “Now, theoretically, this pocket of the haversack can take eighty pounds and weigh only five.”

Ceylas’ eyes went wide. “You’re right! You could put the whole chest in that thing!”

“There’s a snag.”

“A serious degree of risk I would say,” Cambrin said, his own expression firmly disapproving.

“Well, I mean, yeah. But what really are the odds that chest or something inside of it could possibly be an extradimensional space? I mean, really, it’s not like those fall off trees.”

“Your own haversack is one, Lo’Kryn. The odds are greater then you might imagine. And the consequences are unthinkable.”

“The consequences?” Ceylas asked. As much as she knew of and envied the treasure my haversack clearly presented she obviously didn’t know of one its serious limitations.

“Well,” I explained to her, “there’s just this problem where if you put an extradimensional space inside another extradimensional space it instantly destroys both and tears a rift in the fabric of reality creating a gate to the Astral Plane. Any creature within 10 feet gets sucked through and it closes forever behind them.”

She swallowed and took a dozen steps backward. I chuckled. “Yeah, you both might want to back up while I do this. Just in case.”

She nodded. Cambrin fixed me with a long stare before he sighed and stepped out of range.

I pulled the mouth of the haversack wide and lifted the chest into my arms. I grinned at them both as I held it ready. “You’d both come find me, right?”

“Nik,” Ceylas whispered, lifting a hand to her mouth as I lowered the chest into the sack.