Jethro told me not to get up and went to get my foraging bag. When I tried to argue he told me that I’d just been through something terrible and that I needed to give myself a chance to get over it.

I sat there, on a fallen log, trying to work out which bit of that pissed me off more. Was I more angry at the idea that I might be more traumatised than the dead men? Or was I angrier at the idea that I might ever get over this?

Jethro returned with my bag and his own pack. He gave me water from his flask and some dried berries from his pack and then we shared the nuts I’d found, though I didn’t have much of an appetite.

“We’re going to have to do the decent thing and bury them,” said Jethro. “But first you need to search the bodies.”

“What?” I said, “Why? You already did that.”

“No. I removed some of their visible gear. I’m not a Scavenger or a Rogue. There’s no point in me searching low level murder hobos like these. If they had any valuables they wouldn’t be trying to steal them from the likes of me.”

“So?”

“Look at your career abilities,” said Jethro. He didn’t say “you idiot” but it was very loudly unsaid.

I closed my eyes and thought about my career path. The SCAVENGER career page appeared in front of my eyes. And there it was. One of the reasons I’d picked the career.

THE SCAVENGER ALWAYS HAS A CHANCE TO FIND VALUABLE LOOT IN ANY CLOSED CONTAINER OR SCAVENGED GEAR (INCLUDING ITEMS OF CLOTHING SO LONG AS THEY HAVE POCKETS) ON THE FIRST OCCASION THAT THE SCAVENGER LOOKS. THIS CHANCE STARTS AT 5% CHANCE OF TIER 1 LOOT AND 0.01% CHANCE OF TIER 2 LOOT AT LEVEL 1 AND INCREASES WITH SCAVENGER LEVEL

CURRENTLY 7% CHANCE OF TIER 1 LOOT, 0.15% CHANCE OF TIER 2 LOOT.

I’d forgotten all about it because it was so clearly impossible. I couldn’t find something in a box unless it was already in the box. That’s just physics. Of course physics also dictates that you can’t heat up at least a hundred litres of ice cold water to body temp in a couple of minutes with just a rock unless that rock is plutonium. So maybe the mere presence of a Scavenger was enough to open a wormhole to a pocket dimension of valuable stuff. An elemental plane of rare loot, perhaps.

I wondered why Jethro had mentioned rogues alongside scavengers so I checked the ROGUE career. I found a similar ability that generated coins, precious metals and gems. It applied to pockets, purses and money pouches; even while worn and also, chests, safes, strong boxes, gem cases and jewellery boxes but only if they were locked. So a really good thief could steal things that the victim had never owned.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The phrase “Rogue nerf when” ran through my mind. I decided not to say it. I further decided not to tell Jethro that I thought that this system was deeply broken in ways that made my brain hurt.

I searched the four, rapidly cooling, bodies as Jethro cleared an area and began digging a grave. The one I’d pounced on had his dagger and a few tiny silver coins. The dagger had a good blade, or at least one that seemed good to me, but it wouldn’t be much use as a tool because it was sharp on both sides. I also found a lovely purple silk kerchief in one of his pockets. It seemed both too clean and too fine to have belonged to him. I wasn’t sure it was a SCAVENGER LOOT item but if it wasn’t then he’d nicked it from someone with much better taste than him.

The guy who had distracted Jethro had a cosh, a small crossbow and a dozen bolts. He also had a few of the tiny silver coins. I had no interest in the cosh. I liked the idea of a crossbow but it wasn't in great condition.

“Horrible thing,” said Jethro when he saw it. “No use for hunting anything big enough to be worth hunting. The only use is to make a quiet ranged kill against people or their guard animals. Careful of the bolts, they might be poisoned.”

I wrapped the quiver tightly around the bolts and stuffed them into my bag. Then I moved onto the guy with the sword. The one with the teeth marks in his throat. He had bled a lot. By the look of it he never did get his sword free of his scabbard. Though now I looked at it I wasn’t sure it was a sword at all. It was on the short side and it looked more like a big knife. Only one edge was sharpened, and it had a handle like a butcher knife with a very rudimentary guard to keep your fingers from sliding up the blade. There was a little cutlery set in a pouch on the scabbard that added to the impression that it was just a fancy cooking knife.

“Is this a knife or a sword?” I said.

Jethro looked up, saw it and smiled. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a messer. It means knife in the old tongue of the Black Woods. There’s a few towns in this region that tried to ban weapons on the street but of course everyone needs a knife cause that’s just a basic tool for almost every career. They weren’t nearly careful enough about how they defined a knife. They just said a single edge blade,” he pulled the messer free of it’s scabbard to show me, “Full width tang,” he showed me how the handle was two pieces of wood sandwiching a core of steel that was the full width of the handle, “And a guard no more than a finger width. Now that’s two fingers on me and maybe three on you but there’s plenty of fat fingered Blacksmiths in the world. This thing is far too good for these idiots. They probably jumped a travelling merchant and stole it.”

I thought for a moment about the irony of the travelling merchant, who’d probably dropped a fair wedge of cash to buy a barely legal weapon so he’d be safe on the road, getting jumped by a bunch of murder hobos who mainly wanted the knife.

I finished searching the messer guy and his friend, the one that Jethro finished off with the hatchet. All I found was a few more coins and the quarterstaff that the last guy didn’t get the chance to use on Jethro.

I put all the coins in one of the pockets of the leather jerkin and helped Jethro dig a grave.

“I suppose this makes us real friends then,” I said later as we dragged the bodies into the shallow grave we’d scraped.

“What?” said Jethro.

“There’s an old saying where I come from. A friend will help you move house. A real friend will help you move a body.”