“Well.” Caden pursed his lips, watching the sky cautiously. “That wasn’t too ominous or anything.”

  “Can we trust him?” Olivia asked. The eclipsed girl chewed her bottom lip, obviously expecting the man to return at any moment. “There’s only two of us. Trying to keep an eye out for him is going to get… tiring.”

  Caden shrugged, still staring at the sky with unease. “I don’t know. Aton was convinced that, for all his power, Egin was a coward. He tried to kill us and failed, even with an ambush and a specter to help him out. I don’t know that he’d take the risk again, now that he’s out of tricks.”

  “Unless he caught us by surprise again,” Olivia pointed out, her eyes trained suspiciously on the clear blue sky overhead. “It’s going to be pretty hard to keep an eye on the sky at all times.”

  Caden frowned, but he had to concede that the squire had a point. “Okay. We’ll just have to travel at night for a day or two. Once we get some space between him and us, it’ll take blind luck for him to find us again.”

  “Maybe…” Olivia continued fretting at her lip.

  “In the meantime, maybe we should find out what it was he wanted so badly?” Caden tilted his head towards the cave, trying to distract his friend.

  “Yeah…” Olivia pursed her lips, then shook her head brusquely. “No. You go. I want to keep an eye out here, in case he tries to circle back around.”

  That wasn’t a terrible idea, even if it did mean splitting up. “Alright. I’ve still got a Soul Surge ready to go, so if he shows up, give me a shout, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  #

  As Caden had suspected, the cave was much larger than it looked. After a brief, tight, entryway, supported by a pair of wooden beams to each side, and a rough, steep slope, the innocuous cave mouth opened up into an entire subterranean complex, a natural cavern with several different chambers immediately apparent. Each was marked by a single flickering oil lantern by their entryway.

  It was a good thing Olivia had decided against coming with him, Caden decided. The lanterns were dim, likely kept low to conserve fuel, as Egin’s awareness boon would require much less light than a normal person. Fortunately, that was a boon Caden shared, and the cavern was only as dark to his eyes as the first hour after sunset.

  Two chambers held a large assortment of crates and canvas-wrapped packages; the ill-gotten gains of the various caravans the bandits had looted. They must have transported some of the goods to this fallback point periodically, for safekeeping. Two more rooms revealed empty, musty bunks, little more than stretches of canvas slung between support beams, sleeping chambers for the rest of the bandit clan when they hid here. Further on, shadowed archways hinted at more chambers, but Caden ignored them, as he noticed some scuffs in the loose dirt and gravel of the cavern floor.

  Caden had spent comparably little time in caves, but Ryme had taken him into a few over the years. Some were boltholes carved by earth gifted in generations past, others were natural, and some even split the difference, like the burrows dug by certain arcane beasts. This place had the look of a natural cavern, found and repurposed by the bandits. Tracking footprints in such places wasn’t always easy–but as this cave had only held one resident for some time, it was simple enough for Caden to follow the only disturbed sediment in the cave, leading to what could only be Egin’s personal chambers.

  Rather than a bed, the bandit had wadded up a bunch of linen and cotton cloth on one end of the rough, circular chamber. Another sheet of canvas hung across the entryway to the chamber itself, like a crude door, but it was pinned back along one edge, unneeded while Egin had been here alone.

  There were a couple small bags of food, including a mix of nuts and dried fruits that Caden absently grabbed a handful of to munch on. A flat-topped section of log was being used like a table, with a canteen of water, a dusty glass, and a half empty liquor bottle placed atop it.

  Was this really the accumulation of a bandit? Looking at this space, Caden couldn’t help but feel pity for the bandit leader. Egin had stolen and killed, and this was all he had managed to gather for himself. A cave with a musty nest in place of a bed, some pilfered alcohol his only luxury. Why even bother, at that point?

  Caden shook his head. It was beyond him.

  On the far wall, opposite the nest of dirty rags, was what Caden was looking for: a lockbox.

  It wasn’t large, though it wasn’t particularly small either. Little more than a simple wooden box that came up to Caden’s knee, bound with iron at the edges. A fat, heavy iron lock was threaded through a ring in the front–but it was unclasped.

  “Really?” Caden muttered. In the stories, the chests like this were always locked, but Egin evidently hadn’t even bothered when he came up to meet them.

  Of course, in those stories, the bandits always lived like nobles in secure forts filled with gold and barrels of mead and down mattresses, so maybe they didn’t set the most realistic of standards.

  Caden paused as a faint echo reached him. Had that been Olivia?

  He cocked his head, listening with every fiber of his being… but the sound didn't repeat.

  Somehow that was even less reassuring. Egin had been alone in this cave, right?

  Caden tried to ignore the little shake in his hand as he pulled the lock free and tossed it aside, then opened the lockbox itself.

  Another disappointment. According to every story Caden had ever read or heard, the bandit’s treasure should’ve glowed and glittered with the gold contained within. Although, come to think of it, he never had been sure why exactly gold would glow.

  Nevertheless, no light shined from the lockbox when Caden opened it. The interior was split neatly in half. To one side was a large pile of little leather bags of various sizes, with a few papers on top. Caden flicked through them– they were inventory lists, it appeared, written in a hasty scrawl, with hash marks indicating goods they had failed to steal, or that had possibly been destroyed. One parchment, though, proved to have a neatly folded map of the area, with Jelles, the Flax Road, and the borders of Correntry, Emetson, the deadlands, and Valley Hearth clearly marked.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Caden slipped the map into his vest, then turned to the pile of little pouches. When he picked up a couple of them to look inside, they clinked softly, and so he was unsurprised when he opened them to find coins within. A smaller pouch held five mantles, while a large one held a significant number of scepters. Caden nodded, and placed the bags back down.

  That made sense. The smaller bags would be trade coins, mantles and crowns, while the larger bags would have common scepters and rings in them. Caden didn’t even consider pocketing the small wealth of the box–he had plenty of money from Storyteller’s parting gift. Besides, the coins weren’t his anymore than they had been Egin’s. Maybe Olivia’s order, or the sheriff back in Jellis, would be able to help return them to their proper owners…

  That left the other half of the lockbox, which was occupied by a case of fine, dark wood. Caden didn’t recognize the grain, but he immediately judged it to be a magical wood of some kind, polished to an almost metallic finish. The case was heavier than it should’ve been as Caden pulled it out of the lockbox, and a small chain of chiming clinks told him the bundles of coins had fallen into its vacated place.

  Fortunately, the smaller case wasn’t locked either, with only a simple silver clasp holding its lid in place. Now this fit the stories. It must’ve held Egin’s real treasure, perhaps what he had actually been looking for when he had attacked the caravans.

  Caden held his breath as he lifted the lid to find…

  Three seemingly innocuous objects. A loop of soft snakeskin, notable mostly for being as wide around as Caden’s wrist, and for having no noticeable seams despite being a perfect circle. A simple chain necklace that held a charm of some burnished bone, carved with intricate whorls. An obsidian snake skull the size of Caden’s closed fist, with fangs of vivid green.

  Caden drew a breath, despite the seeming simplicity of the objects. Given how securely they had been placed, they could only be one thing. Caden activated one of his most seldom-used abilities as he stared down at the unsettling skull.

  [Wanderer’s Knowledge] - Active, Utility - Learn rudimentary knowledge about any single target. May not work on exceptional or rare targets. Minor Focus cost per use.

  Moderate Totem of the Serpent - Relic - A totem formed from the magic of a slain magical serpent. Advances the gift of the serpent to Initiate or Adept level.

  They were totems.

  Egin, who had somehow managed to use two totem gifts, giving him the wings of a raptor and the claws of a hunting cat, hadn’t been striking caravans at random. He had been collecting totems.

  #

  “This changes things,” Olivia told Caden, as soon as the celestial finished filling the squire in. “Primal’s staff, three totems, one of them moderate. That’s a fortune by itself, to say nothing of the coins and other goods down there.”

  Caden nodded. “He’ll come after us if we take them. There’s no way he’ll be willing to give up totems like that, whether he plans to sell them or use them himself.”

  Olivia frowned, and a little shudder ran through her. “Primal… I didn’t even think about that. He was bad enough with two totem gifts. Could he really get a third too?”

  Caden huffed. “I don’t know… he mentioned something about a chimera, right?”

  “The authority of the chimera,” Olivia said. “That’s what he said.”

  “You ever heard of anything like that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay…” Caden flashed a worried look up at the sky. A stick snapped some distance away, making Caden jump. Knowing what he now knew, he was surprised the bandit leader hadn’t tried to take another swing at them, if only to get these totems… in fact… “You’re right. If we take the totems, he’ll come after us. We couldn’t carry that whole lockbox with us to Culles anyways, not with just the two of us.”

  Olivia arched an eyebrow. “Culles is it? You want to head for this leader he mentioned?”

  Caden paused. He hadn’t really thought about it, once Egin had given them yet another destination. But they were getting farther and farther away from Jellis…

  “I mean… I guess we maybe shouldn’t, if you think…”

  “I want to go too,” Olivia said firmly. “We’ve been out here for close to two weeks, and it's like we’ve spent the whole time chasing shadows. I want to find the person actually behind this all.”

  “I found a map of the area down there,” Caden told her. “I’m pretty sure, if I take a couple hours to trace our route, I could get us to Culles.”

  Olivia nodded, face solemn. “Okay. Then what’s your plan with all this?” She waved at the cave mouth as she spoke.”

  “A cave in,” Caden told her.

  The squire huffed a small laugh. “A cave in. That’s… a little much, don’t you think?”

  Caden shook his head. “Not at all. I passed some support beams just a little ways in, with a lot of loose stone and earth piled up over them.”

  “Really?” Olivia asked, turning back to the innocuous little cave mouth.

  “They’ve got so much stocked up down there, Olivia. Goods and gold, yeah, but also crates of food and barrels of water. I bet the plan was that if they had to retreat here, they could collapse the cave entrance, pull their hole in behind them and wait out any search.”

  “Hmm…”

  Caden continued, “If they sized the collapse right, it would only take a couple earth gifted, or even just a few with strength boons, to clear out the entryway, so they could leave at their leisure.”

  “But no one would be likely to find them while it was closed off…” Olivia said thoughtfully.

  “So I say we break their supports from out here and cave in the entrance. That’d get Egin off our backs–worst case scenario, he wastes a while trying to get through himself. Once we’re done, we get some gifted with the right abilities from Jellis, and some wagons, so we can get all of this out of here.”

  Caden met Olivia’s gaze directly as he spoke, carefully not changing the tone of his voice. He blinked slowly, clearly, praying that the girl would pick up on what he was implying.

  He didn’t know if she got the message or not, but after a moment, she nodded. “Seems like the best option we’ve got, then. Let’s do it.”

  #

  To be safe, the pair kept walking that evening, even as the sun set. Even with the cave collapsed, they didn’t want to take the chance that Egin would decide to take his frustration out on them. They decided they could rest tomorrow, once they had put some miles between themselves and the cave.

  Caden couldn’t help a smile as he looked back at the clearing, and at the collapsed pile of rubble that the cave entrance had become. He thought again of that faint sound he had heard deep in the caves, that stick he had heard snap while he and Olivia had talked.

  There was no way Egin had simply left. The bandit must’ve circled back, used his enhanced coordination to sneak up on them and listen in. Maybe he had another undead in those caves, a guard he had thought would buy him some time.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. Egin had no reason to rush, not expecting them back until they made the trip to Culles, then Jellis, then back to the cave. And even if he wasted the days trying to break in, he’d be disappointed once he got to that lockbox.

  The coins hadn’t belonged to Caden, and neither did the totems. But that didn’t mean he was willing to just leave the powerful relics behind, to let the bandit leader have them. Once he had dumped a few of the coin pouches out, the totem had fit into the leather bags easily enough, and they looked perfectly innocuous tucked into his travelsack. By the time Egin knew to come looking, with any luck, they’d be done in Culles and on their way back to Jellis. It would take pure, blind luck for the bandit to track them down, if he even bothered at that point.

  It wasn’t what the adventurers in the stories would’ve done, but then, Caden wasn’t Storyteller, was he? And as the past few days had made perfectly clear, this was no simple story.

  Besides. Who said the hero had to be dumb?