Chapter Twenty: Big Sword for a Small Man

Nathaniel watched as William melted through the last remaining piece of golden arm. The sword, hand and wrist of the statue was seconds from snapping off the statue. It was bent very far already. Nate wondered how they would move it out of the dungeon.

Obviously, Tanner had started to plan to come back for the rest later.

Nathaniel looked at his progress. He had removed half of the gold tiles from one of the mandalas, and had stashed around five hundred small square pieces of gold in his bag of holding.

The giant golden sword came falling to the floor of the dungeon and the treasure hunters cheered, Tanner pulled out a cask of ales from his bag of holding and they decided to rest and celebrate. They set up a campfire and sat down.

They cooked chilli spiced chicken meat on skewers and Tanner talked about how they would remove the sword in-between bites.

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“We’re going to open a portal from here, and drop the sword onto the carriage gently so we can cart it into town and smelt it down at the forges.”

After dinner, William opened the portal to the surface and Tanner sent one of his team to the surface to fetch Nala and tell her the plan.

Nala and the other Treasure hunter appeared on the road beneath William’s portal. The entire group, including Barraud, jumped down onto the carriage and climbed off onto the forest road. William waited and stood beside the gold sword. He opened the portal and dropped the sword onto the carriage. It fell only a few metres but the carriage was broken by the weight of the sword. The rear right wheel fell off because the axle snapped. They would have to repair the wagon in order to move it.

Tanner cursed and they quickly covered the gold sword with cloth tents. It looked maybe like a pile of lumber under some rags. Tanner told everyone to wait and guard the carriage while he found some help in the city. He walked away and left them standing there. Nathaniel looked at the sky for the first time in two days.