Instead, the cavern was as quiet as ever.
Vexx leaned in close, noticing now that one side of the goblin’s face had been less burned than the other, as the creature had twisted away in pain. He held his disgust in as he turned it to the side and grinned as he saw one of the goblin’s ears was just slightly charred. Vexx produced his knife and pressed it against the ear.
He hesitated a moment.
Dred Wyrm wouldn’t hesitate. Dred Wyrm must have done this a thousand times.
Vexx gritted his teeth and cut away, pulling the severed ear off a moment later.
“There,” he said, his voice echoing in the cave. “All the proof we need.”
I hope.
Vexx stood up now, pocketing his trophy, and scanned the open cavern. The corridor had come to an end here, the massive rock walls pocked and spotted with lichen and the glowing emerald crystals. Yet in one corner, Vexx saw another glow—a faint, pulsing violet light that he expected to be Breithian cave mushrooms.
So that’s why the goblin turned and fought. There was no escape for him in here. The barkeep mentioned looking for loot—I wonder if he has anything in here?
Vexx paused in thought for a moment, wondering if Kaylin was still struggling to free herself outside. Then he shrugged. A couple more minutes won’t hurt her.
Vexx walked over, following the violet glow of the massive mushrooms.
13
The Dead Adventurer
The picked-over carcass of a sheep lay beside an empty bed of straw. Vexx sniffed. Mixed with the cool, mildewy smell of the entire cavern was a foul stench Vexx was beginning to recognize as goblin.
“Must have been a hungry fella,” Vexx said to himself, prodding the sheep carcass and bed with his boot, but there seemed little of value there. He shifted his gaze over to a collection of bones and other assorted trash. Some of the bones looked distinctly human, bits of faded leather rotting away on the body, and Vexx squatted beside it.
“Let’s see…”
He turned the skeleton over, the bones light in his hands, and grinned as he felt a pack. He wrenched it loose from the skeleton. Vexx wasn’t bothered much by being around corpses, not since his experiments with the Black Arts, and it was clear this adventurer had been dead for a very long time.
The faint glow of the emerald crystals and the nearby grove of luminescent violet mushrooms didn’t provide much in the way of light, however, and Vexx was growing increasingly guilty about leaving Kaylin on her own. So he grabbed the pack for himself, along with what looked to be a rotting quiver. He scanned the ground again, glancing at the Breithian cave mushrooms.
I have no idea what they’re for, but they might be worth a few coppers to the right person.
Vexx quickly cut away a few stalks, casting a dubious gaze at a nearby glowing crystalline rock, but gave up after a few tugs.
A dwarf with a pickaxe might pry it loose, but I’ve spent enough time here.
Vexx turned back down the corridor, humming to himself as he went along, following the twists and turns that led him back outside. He winced as he came to the cave opening, the light bright and uncomfortable as he emerged. It was fully daylight now.
A series of curses brought his attention back up to Kaylin, who was still struggling in her net. “That you, Vexx?” she called out, hanging in the net strung between two sturdy tree limbs. “Where have you been?”
“Solved our goblin problem while you’ve been playing around,” Vexx replied, walking under her.
Her legs were twisted to the side, bow jutting out behind her, and every time she wriggled helplessly, her whole body rocked back and forth in her net. She managed to lean down the side and glared as Vexx whistled.
“Are you looking up my outfit?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Vexx lied. It’s really quite the view. Still, I should probably do something about that.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Kaylin said, attempting to gesture at one of the two tree limbs that held here. “If you were to climb up and carefully cut away at the—”
Two fireballs flew up, bursting into the tree limbs and severing them with a crack. Kaylin shrieked as she fell to the ground in front of Vexx. The elf struggled in the net, indignantly swiping away the rope and debris as she got to her feet.
“Vexx, I swear…”
“What?” Vexx shrugged. “I got you down. More than that, I got you a few presents,” he added, setting the aged pack down on the ground and handing the quiver over as if it were a peace offering. “I found a dead adventurer in that cave. The wood has faded away, but there’s a few decent steel arrowheads here. You can have those. Next time we’re in town, we’ll stop by the fletcher.”
Kaylin took them and pouted with a sullen look on her face. “I still can’t believe you just left me there while you rummaged around in the cave.”
Vexx shrugged. “That’s what you get for getting caught in your own trap.”
“At least I know it works,” she muttered. “Next time, I’ll get ‘em for sure!”
Vexx had set the pack down and now took a closer look, raising a black stone in the air and squinting at it in the morning light. “What’s this?”
“Flint. For starting fires.”
Vexx snorted and tossed it into a nearby bush. “Don’t need it.”
“Vexx!”
He rummaged through a multitude of faded odds and ends and then pulled out an ancient leather scroll. Vexx whistled at the discovery. He unrolled the adventurer’s aged scroll and frowned as he tried to make out the words. Kaylin hummed beside him.
“I can’t read human writing. What does it say, Vexx?”
“This appears to be a log. Fairly boring, really, though it seems he used to be a dungeoneer. It’s mostly lists of provisions and complaints about mushroom stew. Hang on, what’s this?” Vexx furrowed his brow at the weatherworn passage. “Something about a ‘Ruby of the Pure.’ And…blah blah blah, something about a trap, and then…‘great power’?”
They glanced at each other, their eyebrows raised.
14
The First Job
Vexx wrinkled his nose for the hundredth time. “It stinks.”
“It’s just a little ear,” Kaylin retorted, flashing a smile at Vexx as they continued their walk back into Cloudbury. “At least it’s not a nose. That would be really smelly.”
Vexx glanced over, unsure if Kaylin was joking, but her deep green eyes looked earnest and serious.
“What?” she asked after a moment.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “Anyway, this Ruby of the Pure. Have you ever heard anything about it?”
“Nope!”
“Hmm…” Vexx mused, then shrugged to himself. “Well, never mind that. We’re almost back to Cloudbury and closer to payment for our first successful dungeoneering job! Never mind the burning barn, those goblins we killed, and you getting wounded and then trapped, and that bear we just ran away from…”
“It was huge!” Kaylin squeaked indignantly.
“It sure was,” Vexx said with a firm nod. “But anyway, that’s past us now, and soon we’ll be on to the next one. You know, they say nine out of ten dungeoneers die within their first ten missions. But we just got one step closer!”