Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1

  Early the next morning they gathered their things and returned to the Command Building. They agreed that if they were going to still be in the ruins of Algoth come nightfall, they would spend the night in the kitchen where the secret stairs were located. At least that way they should avoid most of what would take place out in the hall.

  When they arrived at the kitchen, they deposited most of their equipment there except for their packs. Those they were taking with them when they descended below, just in case they came across any more treasure, which of course they were all counting on.

  “I hope we find the key today,” announced Chad. He was feeling better as much of his energy had returned. A good breakfast and most of a night’s rest had done wonders.

  “So do I,” replied Riyan.

  As soon as Bart had the lantern lit, they made their way down the stairs and resumed the search for the key. Riyan was quite happy that he had the foresight to make arrows out of the marker coins at all the intersections to point the way back. It was now a simple matter to follow them to what they believed was the last area yet to search.

  “What do we do if after searching we fail to find anything?” asked Kevik.

  The three friends were silent for a few minutes before Bart replied. “In that case, we’ll wait until tonight. When the battle manifests again, as I’m convinced it will, then when the lord makes his way down here, we’ll follow him. He should lead us to something.”

  “Good idea,” said Riyan. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  They passed through two more junctions as they continued following the path indicated by the arrows. When they reached the junction containing the final arrow, Bart took the lead. The passage through which they went continued for twenty feet before ending at another cross passage. There were no coins positioned at any of these passage openings so they knew they were in unexplored territory. A quick glance down to the left and right revealed both ways extended past the light of the lantern.

  He glanced to Riyan who shrugged. “I’d say left,” was Riyan’s suggestion.

  “Left it is,” Bart replied. He waited a moment for Riyan to place marker coins in the appropriate spots on the floor to mark their progress. Once Riyan was done, Bart entered the left hand passage.

  They followed it down for a ways before coming to another passage branching off to their left. Again, this one had no marker coins. They decided to proceed forward and Riyan marked the way appropriately. Then not too far past the left hand branching, they reached where the passage ended at another ‘T’ junction. After the marker coins were placed, they turned to follow the right hand passage.

  This one continued forwards a good distance before turning to the left, then a short way to another right hand turn. They followed this passage until the lantern’s light showed where it turned once again to the left.

  Ahhhh!

  Before they came to the turn, Kevik screamed as the floor suddenly opened up directly beneath his feet. He must have stepped on a pressure plate and triggered a trap.

  Kevik plummeted down and only his fast thinking saved him. Casting his goo spell again, he encased himself in the sticky substance, then started thrashing about in an attempt to make contact with the wall of the shaft. His fall was abruptly halted when his hand touched the wall and the goo adhered to it.

  “Kevik!” yelled Riyan.

  It was hard to look up, but Kevik was able to see the other three standing at the opening in the floor.

  “Make your light if you can!” Bart hollered down to him.

  Suddenly his bobbing sphere appeared. “We see you,” Riyan said.

  Riyan turned to Bart, “You’ll have to lower me down on the rope,” he said.

  “Can’t,” Bart replied. “I won’t be able to haul you both up here on my own.” Indicating Chad he added, “With his arm recently healed, he’ll be no help.”

  Riyan stared at him and was about to argue when he realized Bart was right. “What do we do?” he asked.

  Bart began uncoiling his rope and went to the edge of the pit. “Kevik!” he hollered as he tied a loop in the end, “I’m going to tie a loop on the end of the rope and then lower the rope down to you.” He paused and listened but no reply came.

  “If he’s covered in that goo stuff of his,” Riyan said, “he won’t be able to reply.”

  Lowering the rope down to where the bobbing sphere was, he said, “Here comes the rope. When it’s in the right position, cancel your light then make it reappear.” He continued to lower the rope rapidly until he saw the bobbing sphere disappear, then a few seconds later, reappear.

  Riyan grasped the rope behind him. “Now,” Bart hollered, “you’ll have to grab hold of the rope so we can pull you up.”

  Chad stood next to the edge of the pit to watch what happened below. He could barely make out where Kevik was stuck to the wall. All that was readily apparent was the bobbing sphere. Then suddenly, he saw movement as Kevik went for the rope.

  Bart and Riyan felt tension begin to drag on the rope for a second before it again went slack.

  “He didn’t make it,” said Chad. He and the others watched in horror as Kevik’s body fell until coming to a sudden stop when he hit the bottom. As soon as he hit, the bobbing sphere went out.

  “Kevik!” Riyan hollered. They listened for a reply but none was forthcoming.

  “Is he dead?” asked Chad.

  “Maybe,” replied Bart. “My rope isn’t long enough to reach him.”

  “We can’t leave him down there,” insisted Riyan.

  “How do you propose we reach him?” Bart asked. “He’s not even conscious.”

  “There has to be a way,” said Chad.

  Bart considered it for a minute and tried to recall what his father had told him about situations such as this.

  ‘Always keep in mind,’ his father had said, ‘if a pit is deep enough, they had to have a way for those who dug it to get out. At times it could be depressions carved into the sides of the pit to enable them to climb out, or a passage of some sort leading away at the bottom.’

  ‘But wouldn’t that allow the thief a chance to escape the trap?’ Bart had asked.

  ‘If the pit is deep enough,’ his father explained, ‘the builder wouldn’t worry about that as the fall would either kill the thief, or damage him to such an extent that he couldn’t get away.’

  “There may be a way to reach him,” Bart said as he came back to the here and now. “Check the sides of the passage for anything that might be used for handholds.”

  A quick check revealed there were none. “It’s possible there’s a way out at the bottom,” Bart old them. “We just have to find the other end.”

  “So we are to just leave him?” Chad asked. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “What else is there for us to do?” replied Bart. “We can’t get to him from here. By the time we managed to get back to the Marketplace to procure a rope, providing of course there are any there to be had, and returned, he’d be dead. His only chance is for us to continue and hopefully find a way to him.”

  “If he’s alive, he does have another healing potion,” offered Riyan.

  Bart nodded. “So I suggest we stop standing here talking and press onward.”

  Riyan felt bad about leaving Kevik in the pit, but in the face of Bart’s logic, there seemed no other alternative. Leaning over the edge, he stared down into the darkness and hollered, “Kevik! If you can hear me, we are not going to leave you there to die. We’ll find a way to you, I promise.” The pit remained dark. Had he been conscious, Riyan was sure his bobbing sphere would have been present.

  “Here,” Bart said to the others as he held out his rope to them. “I suggest we tie ourselves together in the event we trigger another such pitfall.” Bart of course took the lead with Chad in the middle. Riyan anchored them at the rear. He knew that if what happened to Kevik happened to Bart, it would be up to him to prevent them all from falling.

  Before he s
et out again, Bart turned to them and said, “Single file from here on out. There could be other traps such as what Kevik ran afoul of.” When Riyan and Chad nodded understanding, he began to move away from the pit. Riyan cast a last glance at the opening in the floor before the rope pulled him forward.

  Bart stayed on the left side of the passage as he quickly led them forward. All the time the possibility that he could meet the same fate as Kevik was foremost on his mind. He turned the corner to the left, proceeded forward another short distance then followed the passage as it turned left once more. From there it ran forward down a longer stretch until it ended at a room.

  When the lantern’s light began to illuminate the room, a monstrous apparition appeared before them. The shock of seeing it startled Bart so badly that he actually backpedaled into Chad.

  Chad stopped him with a hand against his back and asked, “What’s wrong?” He hadn’t seen what had scared Bart so badly.

  Bart didn’t reply, only stared at the darkness within the room. When his nerves settled down, and nothing materialized from out of the darkness, he started forward again. The monstrous apparition turned out to be a statue, one of two that sat prominently in the room.

  Both were nearly identical. The statues were of life size demonic creatures. The fact that they were standing upon two foot high pedestals gave them the appearance of looming over Bart and the others. Their faces were bestial with small horns sprouting from their foreheads. A long scaly tail extended outward behind them.

  “Look familiar?” asked Riyan as he turned his gaze to the other two.

  “Yeah,” replied Chad. “From The Crypt.”

  “Exactly,” said Riyan. “Remember the mural we found there? The knights were fighting creatures like these.”

  “Then perhaps they weren’t just an artist’s rendition to magnify the glory of the dead,” supposed Bart. “They may have actually existed at one time.”

  “Do you think they still do?” asked Riyan.

  Bart shook his head. “No. If they did I’m sure we would have heard about it by now.” He gave the two statues a cursory examination, especially the base. It looked as if the bases were solid and didn’t hold a hidden compartment, there were no seams.

  Another exit led from the room ten feet further down along the same wall they had entered through. “Shall we go?” asked Bart.

  Riyan and Chad were transfixed by the creatures. A shudder went through Riyan as he gazed into the eyes of one. They seemed so real. Then the spell was broken as Bart laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned to Bart just as he said, “We shouldn’t dawdle here. Kevik could need our help.”

  Riyan nodded. “Right.” Then he and Chad followed Bart from the room.

  Once into the passage leaving the room, they followed it in single file just as before. It went straight for a bit, then turned left and continued on for the same distance before turning left again. They continued to follow the passage until it turned back to the right.

  The passage then continued forward ten feet before opening up onto a large circular room. Emanating from the room ahead of them was a subtle, yet noxious odor. The light from the lantern revealed the floor was smooth as glass, though its light didn’t illuminate far enough to show the other side of the room.

  Bart came to a halt at the opening. The sight of the floor sent warning signals running through him.

  When Riyan came to stand beside him and saw the floor, he too was leery. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Bart. “You have any more of those copper coins?”

  “A couple,” Riyan told him.

  “Hand me one will you?”

  “Sure,” Riyan said and removed one from his belt pouch. “Here.” He handed one of his few remaining coppers to Bart. There weren’t that many left, most were still sitting on the floors of converging passages as arrows.

  Bart took the coin and tossed it into the room.

  Plunk!

  When the coin hit the floor, the surface splashed. It was a liquid of some kind. “Give me another,” Bart told Riyan. When he had the coin in hand, he knelt down by the edge of the room’s floor and very carefully dipped the coin into the liquid.

  As soon as the coin hit the surface, he noticed a very faint acrid odor coming from the point of contact. He dipped the coin halfway into the liquid and then pulled it back out. The surface of the coin that had been within the liquid was pitted and scarred.

  “Acid,” he said.

  “Acid?” asked Chad incredulously. “Why would they fill the bottom of a room with acid?”

  “That would seem pretty obvious,” replied Bart.

  “To keep us from continuing?” guessed Riyan.

  “Exactly.” Standing up, he pitched the ruined coin into the room and they watched as it disappeared beneath the surface. “At least we know we’re finally on the right track.” Turning back to the other two, he pointed to the pool of acid and added, “They wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of creating that, unless there was something of incredible value on the other side.”

  “Such as the key?” asked Riyan.

  Bart nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And a possible way of reaching Kevik,” said Riyan.

  “First thing we have to do though, is to get past this pool of acid,” Bart told them.

  “Any ideas?” Chad asked.

  “I think it would be a safe assumption that this would be part of the escape route the lord took when he fled the battle,” began Bart. “If so, then there has to be an easy and quick way to get through here in an emergency.”

  “That would make sense,” agreed Riyan.

  “But how?” mused Bart.

  “A secret way around it?” suggested Chad.

  Nodding, Bart said, “Could be. There has to be a secret trigger somewhere that will do something to enable us to continue.” He pointed to the edge of the acid pool. “Let’s begin here and work our way back.”

  So they began to check the floors and walls starting at the edge of the room and began working their way back down the passage. It was a slow and painstaking process, but they were left with little choice.

  Riyan had the idea that they could wait for the lord to show up and find out where he pressed. But then Bart reminded him that Kevik was still down the shaft and might not have that much time. It would be half a day yet, or longer, before the ghost battle manifested.

  They finally worked their way back to the turn in the passage and continued to search for some sort of triggering mechanism as they went. It was when they were about halfway past the turn when Chad triggered the trap.

  He had been working on one side of the passage while Riyan and Bart had been doing the other. Somehow his foot must have hit a pressure plate for the floor opened up on him just as it had for Kevik. If it wasn’t for the rope that still bound him to the others, he would have been a goner.

  When he fell, both Riyan and Bart were caught off guard. Riyan was pulled into the opening and barely stopped himself in time by grabbing onto the edge. Bart had hit the floor and came to a stop at the edge of the pit.

  They held their positions for a moment, none daring to breathe for fear of disrupting the delicate balance they held. Bart spoke first when his heart stopped racing so fast. “Is everyone alright?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” replied Riyan. He had both arms braced above the pit while the rest of him hung within the pit. Chad’s weight was a heavy burden and it was all he could do to keep himself from being dragged down with him.

  “Chad!” hollered Bart when he didn’t answer. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” he replied. “I would really appreciate it if you could get me out of here!”

  Riyan couldn’t help but give a halfhearted chuckle at that.

  “Riyan, you hold still while I pull him out,” Bart told him.

  “Not a problem,” he assured him.

  Bart very gingerly began to maneuver himself into a better position for pulling Cha
d up. Once he was braced, he hollered down to Chad, “I’m going to pull you up. Don’t move!”

  “What? Did you think I was going to start swinging down here?” came the reply.

  Bart just shook his head as he began pulling in the rope. Foot by foot, he brought Chad closer to the opening. Riyan was keeping an eye on his progress and gave Bart updates from time to time. After a couple minutes of pulling, Riyan said, “He’s almost there.”

  “Just stay where you are,” grunted Bart. “Don’t do anything until he’s up and out.”

  Riyan nodded and then said to Chad as he came abreast of him, “Have a nice fall?”

  “You could say that,” Chad replied, though from the expression on his face, it had been anything but pleasant. When Bart finally had him near the opening, he reached up and helped by gripping the edge and pulling himself the rest of the way. Once he was up he gave Bart a hand with Riyan.

  “Whew,” said Riyan. “Glad we had the rope tied about us.”

  “Should have had us do it after that very first pit trap we encountered,” admitted Bart. “But I just didn’t think about it.”

  “You know, I heard what sounded like a river flowing down there,” said Chad.

  “A river?” asked Riyan.

  “Sounded like it,” he said.

  Riyan moved to the opening and looked down. “Wonder how far it is?”

  “Further than we can get to,” Bart said as he returned to his feet. “We still need to find that trigger.” Chad and Riyan got to their feet and they resumed their search. From that point on while they were searching, they stepped most cautiously. Fortunately, no further pitfalls opened up.

  It took them some time, but they finally ended up back at the room with the two demonic statues. “Somehow I figured we’d end up back here,” said Riyan.

  “So did I,” agreed Bart. He undid himself from the rope. “You two check the walls. I’ll go over the statues.”

  “You already went over them once,” Chad told him.

  Bart shrugged. “I wasn’t looking all that hard and could have missed something. This time, I will take more care and be a bit more thorough.” He began at the head of the first statue and very carefully pushed, twisted, and pulled anything that could possibly be used as a trigger. It wasn’t until he was checking the area of the statue where the tail left the main body that he came across something interesting.

  Just underneath the tail, where the creature’s butt would’ve been had it been alive, he found a small opening. It was barely large enough for a single finger. He inserted his finger into it to the second knuckle before his fingertip encountered resistance. The resistance shifted slightly under pressure but otherwise didn’t move.

  Excited by the find, he removed his finger then went to the other statue to see if a similar opening was present there as well. Sure enough, when he checked under the tail, he found an exact duplicate of the previous opening. Sticking in his finger, he tried pushing the resistance. But just like the other one, it only shifted a little bit.

  “Riyan,” he said. “I need your help.”

  Turning away from the section of wall he had been checking, Riyan asked, “You find something?”

  “I think so,” replied Bart. “Come here and give me a hand.” When Riyan came to his side, he showed him where the opening was. “There’s another just like it on the other statue. I think we may need to press them simultaneously.”

  While Bart moved to the other statue, Riyan commented, “If this is the trigger, it would have thwarted a lone thief.” Indeed, the statues were sitting too far apart to allow a single individual to reach both openings at the same time.

  Bart reached the other statue and placed his finger in the opening under the tail. Then just as he was about to tell Riyan to press it, Chad started laughing. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  Chad was shaking his head as the laughter rolled forth. “You guys have no idea what you’re doing looks like.” He stood there staring at them and the laughter bubbled up again. Riyan and Bart were both standing next to the statues with their fingers, ‘up the butt’ as it were, of the demonic creatures.

  Bart ignored him and turned his attention to Riyan. He saw Riyan had a big grin on his face too as he came to realize what he must look like. “Riyan!” Bart said loudly and got his attention. “When I count to three, press it.”

  Riyan nodded.

  “One…two…three…” When Bart said three, he and Riyan simultaneously pushed against the resistance. This time, Bart felt it slide back an inch. When nothing in the room changed, he quickly led them back through the passages to the acid room.

  That was definitely the trigger they had been searching for. A line of stepping stones had risen out of the pool and led across the center of the room. Just within the room before them, there were two stones sitting side by side. Then another set of two stones past the first set before the line became single stones.

  “Not yet,” Bart said as he stopped Riyan from stepping on the stones.

  “Why?” asked Riyan.

  He pointed to the two pairs of stones before them. “Step on the wrong one and something bad could happen,” he explained.

  “Then which one should we step on?” Chad asked.

  The first pair was a foot and a half from the edge of the passage. The next pair was the same distance away from the first. Bart thought about it for a second then said, “You two hold onto my arm while I lean out and put my weight on each of the stones.”

  Riyan nodded as he and Chad both gripped his arm. Bart placed his left foot two inches from the edge of the acid pool. Then leaning outward, he brought his right foot down on the left stone. He no sooner had begun to put weight on it than the stone receded back into the pool.

  Riyan and Chad pulled him back as soon as they saw the stone begin to sink. Then they tried it again with the other one and found it to be secure. Once Bart had his full weight upon the stone, they let go.

  “One more time,” Bart said as he looked to the next pair of stones.

  “There’s not enough room there for all three of us at the same time,” Riyan said. In fact, the stone barely had enough room for two of them to stand on it at the same time.

  Bart nodded. “Riyan, you come and help me then.”

  Riyan untied the rope from around his middle and gave it to Chad. “Hold onto this,” he said.

  “Be careful,” Chad said as he took the rope.

  Bart then gave him a hand as he passed from the mouth of the passage to the stone. Once there, he took Bart’s arm and provided the counter weight while he leaned out to check the stones. Again, it was the left hand stone that sank into the acid.

  “The rest of the stones should be alright,” Bart said. “Just take your time and don’t fall in.” Then he had Chad hand Riyan the lantern who in turn passed it to him. With the lantern now in hand, Bart began moving from one stone to the next until he crossed the room and reached the passage leading away on the other side.

  Once there, he noticed a lever mounted in the wall several feet within the passage. He figured it would reset the stones to beneath the surface of the acid pool. Once Riyan and Chad joined him, he showed them the lever and told them what he thought it would do.

  “Are you going to pull it?” Riyan asked.

  Shaking his head, Bart said, “No. We may need to return this way for some unforeseen reason. I think it would be best to leave the stepping stones where they are.”

  “Very well,” agreed Riyan.

  Before setting off down the passage, they tied themselves in tandem once again just in case of another pitfall trap. Bart took the lead with the lantern in hand.

  The passage soon turned to the right. From there it continued straight ahead for fifty feet or so before turning to the left. Bart took it slow and careful as he studied the floor of the passage as they went. After the last turn to the left, the passage continued for some time before coming to an end.

  At the end of the passage was a s
ingle large door, much larger than any they had thus far encountered. Emblazoned upon the door was the coat of arms that has been so prevalent in the Ruins of Algoth. A sword pointing downward with a dragon grasping the hilt in one claw while it’s body twined around the blade.

  “This has to be it,” said Riyan when the light illuminated the coat of arms.

  “Most likely,” agreed Bart. He moved forward to the door and after a quick check for traps, tried to open it. To his amazement, it actually swung upon. He had expected it to be locked. This was far too easy. When the door swung open enough for the lantern’s light to shine within the room on the other side, they gasped by what they saw.

  “The lord’s treasure room!” Riyan practically shouted. For when the door opened, the light revealed that the room contained six chests. Two sat against the wall across from them and two each against the walls to their right and left.

  Upon a stand in the middle of the floor sat an ornamental wooden boat that looked to have survived the passage of time well. The coat of arms that had been on the door was engraved into the side of the boat and the prow boasted a carving of a dragon’s head. The boat was large enough to sit eight men comfortably and looked to be made most sturdily.

  Bart had to physically stop Riyan from running into the room in his excitement. “Wait a minute!” he shouted as he grabbed him by the arm. Yanking him out of the room and back into the passage, he said, “You better calm down right now!”

  Riyan glared at him for the way he had been treated.

  “If you go running around in there,” Bart began to explain to him, “you may wind up getting yourself killed.” He gazed into Riyan’s eyes. “Let me search it first.”

  Riyan gave him a kind of embarrassed smile. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Forgot myself there for a moment.”

  “You two stay here,” he told them. Then he turned back to the doorway and entered the room.

  First thing he did was to make a quick circuit around the room to get a good feel for the layout. He also discovered that further down the wall from where the door stood, was a very large depiction of the coat of arms engraved into the wall itself. It went from floor to ceiling and was encrusted with many gems. The lantern’s light was refracted in a myriad of color.

  Once he made a complete circuit of the room, he returned to Chad and Riyan. “I think it’s okay if you come in,” he told them. “Just don’t touch anything.” As they entered the room, he went to the first chest and began inspecting it for traps.

  “This is amazing,” observed Riyan. Upon entering the room, his eyes naturally went to the gem encrusted coat of arms on the wall. He and Chad stood in front of it and marveled at the gems. They had to be worth a fortune.

  “I couldn’t take any of those,” Chad said indicating the gems. “It wouldn’t seem right.”

  Riyan glanced at his friend and nodded. “I get that feeling too.”

  After a few more moments admiring the coat of arms, they went over to the boat. What once must have been some of the finest cloth ever made draped the seats inside. There was also a small chest sitting on the forward seat directly behind the dragon’s head.

  “Bart,” Riyan hollered over to him. “There’s a small chest in here too.”

  “Alright, I’ll get to it in a minute,” came the reply. “This one’s open, you two can go through it now.” He glanced over to where they were standing by the boat as he held the lid of the chest open. “I think you’re going to like this.”

  “Really?” asked Chad excitedly. He and Riyan crossed the room quickly to the open chest. It was filled with dozens of gems of varying sizes. The majority were small ones, but at least five were pretty big. As they began removing the gems and putting them in their packs, Bart moved on to the next chest.

  It took Bart the better part of an hour to disarm and open all six chests. Only one of the traps went off while he was working on it. Fortunately, it was a variation of the Prick of Poison and when it went off, his fingers were nowhere near the lock.

  The second chest held coins, hundreds of coins. More than half of them were gold, the rest being silver.

  The third chest held jewelry. Fourteen rings, seven necklaces and a smattering of other smaller paraphernalia like broaches and such. Each was worked in precious metal, some even held gems of varying sizes.

  The fourth chest held a well crafted longsword that had resisted the ravages of time. The scabbard was plain and nondescript, as was the hilt. Engraved in the nexus of the crossguard was the dragon-sword coat of arms. Attached to the belt along with the longsword’s scabbard was another scabbard holding a knife. When Riyan pulled it forth, he could see the dragon-sword coat of arms was engraved in the knife’s crossguard as well.

  Riyan glanced to Chad questioningly. “Do you mind?” he asked. Chad looked longingly at the sword and knife but nodded for Riyan to have it. “Thank you,” he said as he began unbelting the scabbard he was currently wearing and quickly belted the new one with the knife on around his waist.

  “Next sword we find I get,” Chad stated.

  “You got it,” agreed Riyan. “And if we don’t come across another one, you get to have first pick of something else.”

  The fifth chest held a piece of cloth. It was a foot and a half long with runes inscribed along its length. From the uniform bulge running from one end to the other, it was easy to see that it held something. Chad reached in and picked it up. The cloth was actually a long, thin, carrying pouch. Inside was something long and firm.

  One end of the cloth pouch opened up and he pulled forth a long stick. It looked rather plain with no markings or inscriptions on it. He held it up to Riyan and asked, “Could it be a wand?”

  “Perhaps,” replied Riyan. “Better leave it alone for now.”

  Chad nodded and slipped the wand back in its cloth pouch before placing it in his pack.

  The sight of the wand made him think of Kevik and what may have happened to him. He hoped he was okay and that they could get to him soon.

  Unable to do anything about it now, he returned to the matter at hand. Leaving behind the fifth chest, he and Chad moved to the sixth where Bart was just finishing with picking the lock.

  “Done?” asked Riyan as he and Chad came to a stop several feet away.

  “Just about,” replied Bart. “Give me another minute, this one’s kind of tricky.”

  They waited patiently while he worked and then he announced that he had it. They hurried over just as he was pulling up the lid and all three looked in to see what the final chest held. Riyan was half hoping the rest of the key to the King’s Horde would be inside, but he was disappointed.

  Inside the chest were two items. One was an intricately carved small box. The other was a folded cloak. Riyan picked up the box and opened it. Resting within on a soft cushion, were two rings. Unadorned and plain, they didn’t seem all that important.

  Riyan showed them to Chad. “Could be magic you think?” he asked.

  “Perhaps,” nodded Chad. “Better keep them in the box until we know more about them.”

  Riyan agreed with him. He remembered the tale that a bard had told one night he had stayed at the Sterling Sheep. It was about a group of adventurers that had uncovered some lost temple or other. During their exploration, they had come across a ring. Thinking it magical and valuable, one of their members had put it on. Turned out to be cursed, a trap laid by the former occupants of the temple against thieves. The man had died a few days later. Closing the box, Riyan put it in his pack. Then he glanced over to Bart who held the cloak.

  “This is fine material,” Bart said. “I think I’ll keep it if you two don’t mind?”

  They both shook their heads. If anyone deserved to have what they wanted, it was Bart. After all, he was the one putting his life on the line with every chest and trap.

  Bart grinned and said, “Thanks.” He folded it into a smaller square then placed it within his pack. After that he went over to the boat and soon had the small box
Riyan had found open. Within was a grey powder. He quickly shut the box again and locked it. He didn’t want something like what happened to Chad happening to him. After putting the box with the powder in his pack, he began looking around.

  “What?” asked Riyan.

  “If this was the place where the lord ran when his forces were overrun,” he began to explain, “then it would stand to reason that there has to be a way to continue from here.”

  “You think so?” asked Chad.

  Bart turned to him and nodded. “Most definitely.” He indicated the open chests around them. “I hardly think this is the lords true treasure room. I would imagine it’s here to satisfy thieves who made it this far so they wouldn’t continue to search.”

  “I don’t know,” argued Riyan. “This all seems rather valuable.”

  Bart thought about that for a moment then shook his head. “No. Maybe if I wasn’t aware the lord had come this way as an escape route I would feel different.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Chad.

  He glanced around the room with a sigh before replying. “We painstakingly search this room until we find the way the lord went.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

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