The fluorescent lights in the conference room buzzed dimly as the four adventurers passed the time waiting for their client. Thinneus was doing pushups to pass the time. He wore a stylish, tailored cloak over low-profile body armor with a pair of autopistols at his waist. Glyph tattoos covered his pastel pink skin and a single earring hung from one of his pointed ears. He finished his 50th pushup, stood up, and cracked the door to glance into the lobby. “He’s still not here”

Sarah checked her watch. “He’s only 11 minutes late.” But the light fluttering of her wings betrayed a hint of irritation. She was performing routine maintenance on her enchanted machine gun, keeping it on a dropcloth so as not to leave any oil smudges on the table. The bulky body armor she wore would have been too heavy for most birdkin, but her motif animal was a condor, giving her a size and a strength that rivaled even Memlen. She wore a cloak made from laminated elderbrand paper to provide protection against magical attacks. A split in the back made room for her massive wings, with a flap of bulletproof fabric covering the gap between them. 

Memlen was reading from the New Babylon Journal of Thaumaturgy, his feet propped up on the table. He looked up from the periodical. “surface-worlders! You’re way too focused on time. Let’s relax on our day off.”. He wore Guild of Magi robes with insignia showing his mastery of red, green, and violet magics. His magic elderbrand staff and automatic shotgun lay at his side. The stereotype of mages was that of a bookish nerd, but Memlen was tall and well-muscled even for a hafftrow. His trow mutations included spikes growing from his head and hands, as well as four small tentacles that came through the special holes cut into the back of his bulletproof vest. A pair of sunglasses protected his red eyes from the light that, even indoors, was a bit bright for him. 

Anthony was checking the stock market, looking for financial or theological insights, though as a priest of Arjax, those were much the same. He said, “I don’t need more rest; I need more lucre. And yet my time is being wasted while I get neither. We should have charged an appointment fee.” Anthony’s priestly vestments included a suit, tie, and formal business cloak. The look should have been spoiled by the body armor and bandolier of potion grenades he wore. But the mixture of business attire and top-tier equipment made him look every bit the professional warrior. And on his breast pocket and back of his cloak was printed the holy symbol of Arjax: the dragon, reminding everyone of the inspiration for that excellence, and the supernatural power that backed it. 

Sarah folded her giant wings behind her. “We’ll talk about that for next time. In the meantime, we’ll give him another ten minutes, and if he doesn’t show, we’ll head home and try to reschedule. Everyone shrugged and returned to what they were doing. 

After a few minutes, their client finally came through the door. “Hi, I’m Martin Chambers.” He held out a hand and Thinneus shook it. “Hi. I’m Thinneus the Gatecrasher. The big one over there is Sarah Fimber. She’s our leader.”

“I didn’t know birdkin could fly with all that weight,” said Martin. 

“Actually, she can’t.” said Thinneus. “But she’s still able to run fast, jump high, and lay down an amazing amount of suppressive fire, like some sort of death-dispensing murder chicken.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Our hafftrow friend is Memlen. He’s from household Petchreh and he’s a Journeyman third class in the Guild of Magi. And finally our chaplain over there with the dark skin and the darker scowl is Anthony Jackson. He’s a skilled rifleman and, as you can tell by the vestments, a priest of Arjax.” 

“What do you do?” Martin asked Thinneus. 

“Skirmisher,” said Thinneus. “I’m usually the first one through the door and I handle problems with grace and more grace,” he said, motioning to his pair of Magnificent Grace pistols. 

“No,” said Martin. “I mean, you’re a strangeling, right, so what do you do?” 

“You mean my spell?” Thinneus said a couple words in truespeech and gestured, then appeared right behind his client. “I can teleport.”

As this was going on, Anthony rolled up a lucre bill, placed it upright in an incense holder, and lit it as an offering. The priest prayed, “May Arjax bless this meeting and bring profit to all our works.” But Thinneus noticed it was only a one lucre bill. Priests of Arjax believed that you got what you paid for, especially when it came to their archon. So if the priest was only willing to offer up one lucre to bless this meeting, it spoke to his minimal expectations. 

The incense from the burning bill started to permeate the room, and Martin began talking. “I have a job that I need your talents for. But first, I need to be sure this is confidential.” He was starting to sound nervous. 

Anthony stood up. “Mostly. I of course promise you confidentiality to the highest standards of business ethics, and I can vouch for my companions. But we’re also sworn to protect the city, so if you tell us about a serious crime or a supernatural threat, we may not be able to keep quiet.”

Martin smiled. “No. Nothing like that. I found the location of the Wondertrove!” He held his arms wide, expecting a shocked reaction. What he got was a mixture of skepticism, interest, and confusion. 

The skepticism came from Anthony and Sarah, and the birdkin’s wings stretched out as she said, “You called us here on our day off for some dimwitted legend?” 

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The interest came from Memlen. “It’s not a legend. My cousin saw one of the shipping containers a few years ago. It’s down in the undercity somewhere.”

The confusion came from Thinneus. “What’s a wondertrove?” He asked. 

Martin was almost offended. “You don’t know what the Wondertrove is? Have you been living in the Strange for the last fifty years?”

“Yeah,” said Thinneus. “Actually, about five hundred years.”

“Oh,” said Martin, sheepishly. “I’m so sorry.”

Thinneus shrugged. “Eh, life happens. Besides, in the time I came from, it was a good day if I could get some squirrel meat in my gruel. Now I can go down to Piggy’s Pies and get a Biggie Piggie combo whenever I feel like it. If a portal opened up for me to get back to my time, I’d shove a chunk of astrium in it to close it forever.”

Sarah sighed. “Well, given your taste for junk food, you would have loved Wondercakes. Up until a couple decades ago they were the treat every kid had to have. Then people got addicted and a few died, so the cakes were outlawed.”

Anthony interjected. “That was all nonsense! The news media hyped up the danger for shock value but they were as safe as any other treat on the market.”

Sarah clicked her beak at him but continued. “Anyway, there’s an urban legend about some new flavor they were working on, but when the lawsuits came and the company was going bankrupt, they hid the snacks in a warehouse somewhere and no one’s ever found it.”

“But wait,” Thinneus said. “If these cakes are a couple decades old, won’t they have rotted by now?”

Sarah chuckled. “If they were actual food, then yes. But they’re so full of sugar, preservatives, and unpronounceable chemicals that even mold knows better than to touch it. They won’t go stale either.”

Memlen chimed in, “There’s alchemical stabilizers in them as well to keep the flavor potion fresh.” 

Thinneus still looked confused. “So they’re delicious, but illegal. I don’t see what the angle is for us.”

Anthony sighed. “Wondercakes aren’t illegal to sell, only to manufacture. And as Saint Parthan said ‘Where there is scarcity, there is profit.’ I think the market is around twenty lucre for a cake these days.”

Sarah scoffed. Anthony said, “A lot of people want to relive their childhood. Regardless, if the Wondertrove is real, it would have been manufactured at the height of the treat’s popularity. Back in the day, rushes for new flavors tended to cause people to wait in line for days, and sometimes fights broke out in a struggle to get them before they sold out. The company started manufacturing new flavors in secret and stockpiling large batches ahead of time to compensate for the demand. So the stories are plausible—at least some versions of the legend. If there is a secret flavor, odds are there’s about two to five million packs down there. At six to a pack, we’re talking a street value around two hundred million or so. More if you’re smart enough to sell them slowly and not flood the market.”

Martin smiled. “Exactly!  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” 

Anthony raised a hand. “It’s not that simple. Wonder Treats Incorporated filed bankruptcy. So those cakes would legally belong to any creditors, not us. However, if we did locate them, we should be able to negotiate ourselves a nice finder’s fee. Of course, that’s only if the legends are real. And even then, if your information is accurate and useful.” He turned to look at the client.

Martin pulled out a folder stuffed with papers. “I manage records at the skydocks. A couple months ago I found these documents. They’re written in Grenter, but when I saw the Wonder Treats logo I used some translation software and found out they outline preparations for a large shipment from deep in the undercity…a shipment that was canceled right after the lawsuit ended.  This has to be the Wondertrove.”

“That’s one possibility,” said Anthony, cooly. But beneath his stoic demeanor, his teammates recognized signs of excitement.

Martin continued. “So, I was thinking, I’d be willing to cut you in for half—” 

Anthony cut him off. “Half! You want us to do all the work and take all the risk just to walk away with less than a third of the money after the Guild takes its cut? No. Here’s what we’re willing to do. We’ll take a closer look at these documents and see if they say what you claim they say. If it all looks legitimate, and we decide to take the job, we’ll split the payout into five shares, one for each of us.”

“But, even with half, you’d still get millions.”

“Maybe. There’s a lot of ifs here. You’re asking us to take a lot of risks in time and effort. And I’m guessing with our lives. There are plenty of private detectives in New Babylon, but you’re hiring an adventuring team. Which means you probably expect that there’s some sort of threat, natural or otherwise, involved with this whole deal.”

Martin examined his feet. “Uh, yeah. I went down there to take a look. It was in section seven, apparently. But when I was exploring that area…”

Memlen filled in the silence. “They weren’t happy to see a human down there were they?”

“No,” said Martin. They chased me away. With knives! I barely got away with my life.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Memlen. “That’s Clan Simistil territory.” 

Sarah rose to her feet. “We’ve got a lot to think about. Why don’t you let us discuss it in private and we’ll give you an answer in a bit.”

Martin left and Sarah was the first to speak. “I don’t like this job. I got into the guild to help people, and this looks like it’s just money.” 

“You can do a lot of good with several million lucre,” said Anthony. “The job is to recover something of value, something that will make a lot of people very happy. It’s solid work.”

Memlen frowned. “The Conclave is pretty sure that there’s a cell of the Trow Liberation Front operating somewhere down in the coal mines of section seven. And the refugees down there will likely be sympathetic to that organization in exactly the same way they won’t be to us.”

Thinneus piped in. “Maybe we just send you in to do the talking?”

“No,” said Memlen. “They see my clan as betraying trowkind to kiss the boots of the surface world. They’ll take one look at my suntan and want me gone or dead, same as you.”

Sarah said, “So you don’t think it’s a good idea either?”

“I didn’t say that,” replied Memlen. “I think the potential payoff is worth it. But I’m just pointing out the difficulties. And that might include a firefight with the Trow Liberation Front.”

Thinneus leaned forward and said, “If things get rough, we can just call in George.”

“We’re not spending money calling George,” said Anthony. “We’re adventurers. And not just any adventurers; we work for the Guild of Champions. If we can’t handle some third-world terrorists with second-rate guns, we don’t deserve to wear the cloak.” 

Sarah turned to Thinneus, “What do you think?” 

“Buried treasure? Riches untold?” Thinneus smiled. “This is why I became an adventurer. I’m in!” 

“We’ll make a disciple of Arjax of you yet,” said Anthony. “I think this is a worthwhile course as well.”

“I’m outvoted, then,” said Sarah. “I’ll tell Martin we’re taking the job. In the meantime, Memlen and Anthony, you two should look over those documents, figure out everything you can. I have a contact I want to check in with. And Thinneus, I’ll give you a list of supplies to pick up. We’ll get a plan together tonight and then head out tomorrow morning.