System Escape, page 10
Beggar was out of sight again already, although Marc felt the raccoon brush against his leg a couple of times. When he looked over it seemed that more people had looted the catfish since there were two more decomposing corpses alongside the first one. He shuddered at the sight before wandering up to do his own looting.
“What's up with the corpses?” he asked, backing off after getting forty pounds of catfish fillets for his efforts.
“I think that's a small group that decided to try this place a while back,” Todd said, softly. “We told them they wanted more people with them, but...”
Todd just shook his head.
“Did anyone check the corpses? There might have been something on them worth grabbing since they were given as loot.”
Jeff's face screwed up in a moue of distaste.
“One had a ring, they all had pouches with coins. That was about it,” he said.
“So, did anyone get anything other than fillets and those?” Marc asked, indicating the corpses with a tilt of his head.
A bunch of head shakes answered his question.
“Then I guess we know where the real loot for the encounter is. You saw a chest about the same time you saw this thing, right?” Marc asked, looking at Jeff.
At that, Jeff broke into a grin.
“Yes, I did, but it's got to be like a hundred feet of water or more.”
“I guess we know why this was on the last level then, don't we?” Marc asked, pulling the necklace of Water Breathing from his inventory. “Anyone got enough rope to get down to the bottom? I don't know that I can shift that thing and swim at the same time.”
“I can,” Rob said, “but I don't swim as well as you do.”
“Well, you can both go down there. One keeps an eye on the other all the time in case there are more of those things,” Felicia said, pulling the Water Breathing potion out of her inventory.
She'd been going to save it and try to reverse engineer it, but obviously thought that getting the chest was more important than that.
“You up for that, Rob?”
“Sure, but I won't be able to use my ax if we have to fight. It'll be one of my swords since they both support thrusting attacks.”
“Yeah, my spells will be limited also, but I figure at the very least the Mana Darts should work, Water Jet might, but I doubt it would have the same range in water.”
“Why are you worried about that?” Jeff asked. “Just use the one you were using to get us out here and encase anything that attacks you in ice.”
Assuming any creature would stay still long enough for that, Marc thought.
“Well, let's see how this thing works,” Marc said, donning the necklace.
After a moment, nothing had happened. He thought about triggering it so he could breathe water. At those thoughts, he felt a sharp pain along the top of his neck, a little under his jawline.
“What the...” he said, but his voice was softer than he was used to.
The pain along his jawline intensified for a moment or two before finally fading away.
“Marc, you've got... You've got gills,” Felicia said.
His hands went to his neck where he'd felt the pain, only to find a flap of skin to either side. When he messed with them for a moment, his fingers slid beneath the flaps and were greeted by ridges of some sort of flesh. The ridges did not like contact with his fingers, twinging badly, so he withdrew his fingers quickly.
“Well, I guess we know what they meant by painful,” he said. “I'm going in the water. I can breathe out here, but it just doesn't feel right.”
Once again, he stripped down to his skivvies, accepting a long length of rope from Jeff.
“Go ahead and tie this to that chest. If you can get the free end to us we can all help pull the chest out,” Jeff said.
Marc slung the rope over his shoulder and slipped into the water. Just before he went under he heard Rob.
“This potion isn't gonna give me gills like Marc just got, is it?”
* * *
Ten seconds later Rob splashed into the water alongside Marc. Marc had taken those few seconds to get his bearings. He was pretty sure he remembered where the chest was, despite the spinning and drifting of the ice.
It should be just a little bit to this side of where the ice path from the other side ends. The catfish didn't smash the other end, only the part we were on, he thought.
When Rob was in the water with him, Marc started swimming. He'd thought he was going to have to keep his speed down so Rob could keep up, but evidently Rob's new standard of fitness was sufficient to make his lesser skill at swimming more than adequate to keep up with Marc's top speed. It helped that they didn't have to worry about constantly keeping their heads above water also.
When Marc spotted the end of the ice bridge, he looked down. After a minute of scanning he thought he saw the chest. The bottom had been stirred up by the catfish's thrashing when it had gone deep, so there was a heavy cloud of silt obscuring the lower portion of the lake.
Marc dove, Rob following, and within a couple of minutes, they'd made it to the chest. Although they could breathe water currently, talking was beyond them, so Rob pantomimed each of them taking a handle and pulling.
Marc grabbed one handle and Rob the other, then the two of them started tugging. Apparently a good two feet of the chest was sunken into the bottom of the lake and the mud and silt were reluctant to allow it to leave. With a lot of tugging, jerking, and finally, Rob getting a hand under the bottom of the chest, they got it released from the muck of the bottom.
Marc tied one end of the rope to a handle, then the two of them, once again pantomiming intent, each took a handle and started swimming along the bottom towards where Marc thought the island would be.
They were about halfway there, at least by Marc's best estimate, when Rob tapped him on the shoulder. Rob pointed to his mouth, then pretended to take a deep breath. He dropped to the bottom and shot towards the surface of the lake as quickly as he could go.
His potion must be wearing off. I'll tie the rope off to a handle and see if I can get the other end to the island, Marc thought.
He could move the chest by himself, but it would be significantly slower than it had been with Rob helping. He tied off the rope with just a double knot, not having Jeff's skill with Rope Use, then started swimming for the island, paying out the rope behind him.
The rope stopped when he was chest deep in the water leading up to the island, so he called for a few others to come help him. Within a few minutes, they had the chest dragged up onto the shore.
The chest was made of metal, not rusted in the slightest, and stood as tall as Marc's belly button. It was nearly as wide as his arms would stretch and the other dimensions were in accord with those.
Jeff just stared at it for a moment, blinking.
“Damn, that's a huge chest!” he said, practically drooling.
Marc saw Felicia break into a grin and knew she was up to something.
“Why thank you, Jeff,” Felicia said, arching her back and stretching, “but don't you think Ella and Marc might be jealous over you saying things like that?”
Jeff spun to look at Felicia, apparently dumbfounded since he was silent. Marc saw Ella struggling to keep a straight face as she turned so Jeff wouldn't see. For his part, he just turned away and pulled off the necklace, wincing as the gills the necklace had created on him went away as painfully as they'd appeared.
* * *
Chapter Eight
As Jeff stalked over towards the chest, he passed right by Felicia and Marc. As he did, he shook his index finger at Felicia.
“I'll get you for that,” he said softly.
“And my little dog too?” she replied. “Sorry though, Marc's already got me, and Ella has you, so maybe you need to rethink that?”
Jeff gritted his teeth and continued over to the chest.
“So, who hasn't looted the catfish yet?” Marc asked, the fish's corpse conspicuous where it was lodged in the ice raft.
Felicia shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Well, it's good that they didn't. Maybe we can drop a few hundred pounds...,” he paused and looked at the corpse, “or even a ton or two of fish fillets on them when we leave.”
He turned to look at the rest of the group, knowing that Jeff had looted already.
“Hey, who didn't loot the catfish?” he called.
Todd looked over, guiltily.
“That was me. I was afraid I'd find the corpse of someone I knew,” he replied.
“Well, hold off on it for just a bit more. I'm thinking we need to clean the fish, you know, butcher it down, and get your Safe Zone a shit-ton of catfish fillets.”
At that, Todd brightened.
“We're always short on meat. We can grow crops, and we do, but most of the meat we get we have to buy from the shop.”
“Hey, Rob,” Marc called. “Want to help me get some fillets from this thing?”
“Sure,” Rob said, “be careful though. Catfish are poison—”
He broke off and glared at Marc.
“Venomous,” he continued. “So watch where you touch them. Normally the stings from the smaller ones are what hurt the worst, but with the System and something this size?”
He shrugged to finish his statement.
“From the whiskers?” Marc asked, looking at the big drooping whiskers hanging from just outside the mouth.
Rob shook his head and pointed.
“Nah, that's just an old wives tale. That top fin can deliver poison, so can those lower ones up front, just behind the gills.”
Suddenly Jeff was invading both of their personal spaces.
“Did you say poison?” he asked.
Marc rolled his eyes, and Rob just pointed and explained again.
“I'm gonna try to grab that poison before you guys get to work on this thing then,” Jeff said, rushing over to the catfish and examining the areas Rob had pointed out.
Rob sighed.
“I'd tell him that there won't be much, but that's just for a normal sized catfish. With this thing? Who knows,” Rob said.
“Well, let's get started, this is going to take a while,” Marc said.
They started removing the catfish's head and when they were halfway through with that, Marc smiled.
“I guess Jeff got his bomb right into the fish's mouth,” he said.
He was looking at the throat cavity inside the fish. It was shredded, as were the parts of the mouth he could see from here.
They'd almost finished removing the head when Jeff exclaimed.
“That's got it, that'll make the other two easier.”
Marc turned and saw Jeff cradling a potion vial filled with liquid. The vial quickly disappeared into Jeff's inventory, only to be replaced by another pair of empty vials. Jeff scurried around to the other side of the fish and started working on the next poison gland.
Once they got the head off and started peeling the skin back, they had more help. Instead of cleanly filleting, they were just hacking off chunks of fillets since the complete fillets would be too large to go into their inventory.
Beggar was helping in his own way, munching his way through various and sundry portions that were discarded in the process of cleaning the fish.
Chris and Todd came over and started hacking away at chunks of fillet as well, meanwhile Jeff had finished with the poison glands and gone back to the chest.
It took more than an hour before they just weren't willing to do any more. Beggar had switched over to being much more picky about what he ate, going for choice morsels before curling up for a few minutes until he was ready for more.
“I still can't get over it. That's just a raccoon?” Todd said.
“That is a leveled raccoon,” Marc said. “He sort of adopted me after we scared him into hiding during the first few days after the System showed up. I made sure he got more of the food he'd been eating when we scared him. He's like a natural rogue. Seems to be able to climb, can pick simple locks with his claws, he's a pretty good fighter with his teeth and claws, and his Stealth is unmatched, even by Jeff.”
“I heard that,” Jeff said.
“But you aren't going to argue the point, are you?” Marc replied.
The only answer was silence.
“Alright, I'm done with this and my inventory is almost full, even with these fillets stacking. I need to leave some room for loot since we aren't done with the dungeon,” Marc said.
“You could probably just empty a stack and Beggar would clean it right up,” Todd said.
The raccoon lifted his head from where he'd had it curled in tight and gave Todd a baleful glare.
“Sorry dude, just joking,” Todd said, quickly.
“Can we open this damned chest yet?” Jeff asked.
“I don't know, that's up to you, unless we have to ask Beggar to pick the lock,” Marc replied.
“Hardy har har, I guarantee I can open this thing,” Jeff said.
“What are you waiting for then?” Marc replied.
“You, I figured you and Rob wanted to see what was in here since you guys dug it out. Besides that, Ella told me I'd better wait until you were done.”
Ah, I wonder what she threatened him with to get him to wait? Marc thought.
“Go ahead then, did you check for traps?”
Jeff nodded, then peered at the lock again.
“I still don't see any, so...”
He walked right up to the lock, obscuring Marc's view. Marc shifted to the side and saw that Jeff had a key that he was inserting into the lock.
“A key? Where'd you get a key?” Marc asked.
Jeff blushed, not having expected anyone to notice.
“Well, coins weren't the only things in those pouches. This was there too. It's open now, though.”
Jeff pushed the lid up and back as Marc peered in.
“Oh, those bastards. Imagine the mess if we'd opened it under water,” Marc said.
The top of the chest was layered with several books and a bunch of rolled up scrolls and Marc could just imagine what being flooded with water would've done to them.
Jeff, of course, practically ignored the scrolls, pushing them to one side before digging deeper into the chest.
“What the hell is this stuff?” he asked, tossing a few items off to one side.
Marc stared, wondering that himself. It looked like there was a wig, some sort of makeup container, and a few other things he wasn't familiar with.
He looked back up when he heard a clinking sound, only to find Jeff running his hands through coins, picking them up in the air and letting them fall back into the chest.
“Now that's more like it,” Jeff said. “Even if it is mostly copper.”
Marc stepped up to the chest and started gathering up the books and scrolls, but stopped cold when he caught the title on one of the books.
“Are these skillbooks?” he asked, holding the book out so everyone could read the title on the book.
The title read: Everything you Need to Know about Practicing the Art of Disguise.
“Skillbook or maybe a non-magical one? You know, the type you need to learn a skill the hard way,” Rob said.
Marc looked back over at the wig and the other various items on the ground.
“It explains that stuff also,” he said, gesturing.
Then he started looking at the other books. There were two more, one was 'The Essentials of Healing Spells' and the other was 'Scouting and You'. Setting those aside he started looking through the scrolls. Those were mostly single use casting scrolls. Not the type you could learn a spell from, without intense studying at least, but the type that any casting class could use to cast whatever spell the scroll was, once.
Meanwhile, Jeff was busy trying to get a rough count on the coins.
“So, there are only silver and copper in here, but there are several thousand copper and nearly a thousand silver,” he said eventually. “I'd kinda hoped for more, considering what we killed for it.”
Marc pointed to the scrolls.
“Even these single cast scrolls probably go for five gold each, or more depending on the spell, in the shop. There are twenty-three of those, so even at a base five gold each that's a hundred and fifteen gold. As for the books? I don't know if they're the magical type of skillbook, as in read and learn it immediately, but even if they aren't they're probably worth more than the scrolls.”
“So, add in another hundred and fifty to two hundred gold?” Jeff asked. “Yeah, that makes it a lot closer to what I'd think would be fair for this.”
“Plus all the meat,” Marc added, “and we don't know if any of those miscellaneous things like the wig and the makeup are just that or something magical.”
“One way to find out,” Jeff said, picking up the wig.
He set it down a moment later then picked up the first of the makeup.
“Okay, the makeup is designed to be used with a Disguise skill, it adds a percentage chance to the success of the skill. The wig itself is magical, so I've got no idea what it does. Well, I should say I can't Analyze it, so I assume it's magical.”
“Well, let's see,” Marc said, picking up the wig.
He cast his Identify spell, his mana having regenerated significantly while working on the catfish corpse.
Wig of Alteration (magic):
This item allows additional versatility to the Disguise skill. The Disguise skill normally only allows the user's height to appear several inches different, in either direction. With the Wig of Alteration, this limit is increased to one foot.
The Wig of Alteration adds +20% to the chance of successfully using the Disguise skill.
He shared the screen with Jeff.
“Now are you a little more satisfied with the loot?” Marc asked.
Jeff nodded.
“Sorry, I was kind of focused on monetary value and forgot that other things might be even more valuable.”
“So, that's everything?” Marc asked.
“Just about, this was in there under all the coins,” Jeff said, brandishing a key that was half the length of his forearm.
