Chapter 74: Driftwood
Riv smiled and hefted his club. He took his job seriously and didn't seem to subscribe to a philosophy that allowed for much delay. With a blaze of golden glory brighter than any Marco had seen before from any source at all, he lit up the entire cave for a split second as he swung his club at a big slab of rock jutting out of the cave floor.
Just like that, there was no big slab of rock anymore. Riv himself was blasted backwards as the rock broke into hundreds of chunks and chips, flying forward in a cone of geology so quickly it filled the air with deafening whistling. It was so loud overall that Marco barely heard the screech and thump that followed.
"What in the frozen hells was that, Riv?" Elisa asked. "How did you do that?"
"I burned 70% of my strength," Riv answered back. "I was pretty strong for that second. Do you think we got it?"
"Only one way to find out," Marco said. "Can you walk?"
"Sure." Riv stood up without much trouble at all. "Just don't expect me to do any fighting. Let's go find the bastard."
They crept forward through the dark, moving the circle of light cast by Elisa's hands closer and closer to the edge of the room. Riv's blast had been in pretty much one direction, which simplified the search.
"When I find that thing, I'm going to destroy it," Marco said. "I'm so mad at it. I hardly knew I could be this mad. I need to vent on the thing."
"Somehow I think you’re going to have to learn to live with that anger and vent it out another day," Aethe said. "Look."
She was right. There really wasn't much left of it to vent on. One of the wings was off the bat completely, while the rest of it was so riddled with rock it was more granite than animal at this point. Just as they found it, it breathed its last.
"Not that strong after all," Elisa said. "You were right, Aethe. We just had to hit it."
—
They looked down the last stone corridor together, creeping carefully just in case there was another one of the bats. If there was, the plan was just to run. There was only so much battling they could handle, and as the Slicing Dark hadn't fed Marco any new powers for the ship, there was no real reason to keep grinding them. The experience wasn't even that good.
The treasure, such as it was, was a bit different.
| Noble Driftwood. This slab of wood came to this island on currents and tides. Where it originated is an open question, but its quality is not. Beyond that quality, you can tell nothing of it. It's simply too high of a grade of a material for you to otherwise assess it.
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