The Lightning Mage

37 | The Treasure Hunt, Part I

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The dim lights flickered as the rumbling floors came to a halt. Lyn suppressed a sigh of relief. This was the dingiest teleportation port she had ever been in, so she was relieved that they were still all in one piece.

Even though she had only been on one other open quest, Lyn was already certain about one thing—open quests were sketchy as hell. There was no information whatsoever about the quest, the transport equipment was always shabby, and the questmaster was always weird-looking. This time, it was a short, scrawny man with barely any hair or teeth left on his ghastly pale body.

As the port door began to open, the questmaster turned around and pulled his mouth into a wide, toothless grin.

"Enjoy the island, questers," he drawled, his raspy voice matching the creaks of the metal doors. "Be sure to be back in exactly twelve hours."

Squinting her eyes, Lyn stepped out of the port and into a sunny island beach. The cool wind ruffled against her auburn hair, leaving a refreshing yet salty taste on Lyn's mouth. Under her shoes, the coarse crunched with her every step as if the soles were gnawing on them. A few questers walked along the beach, poking sticks into the sand. One person was swimming out into the ocean.

Lyn tilted her head towards Neil. "How should we start?"

The fighter was stretching his arms, but he managed a shrug. "I don't know. We can go inwards and try to see if there's anything interesting. There's quite a lot of people on this quest so one of us is bound to find something." He glanced at the quester swimming in the ocean and snorted. "Although I gotta say, it's stupid to be roaming about in the sea. The quest is on the island for a reason. That guy can swim all he wants, but he'll just be wasting his time."

"Let's go inwards then," Lyn agreed.

Opposite the turquoise ocean was a dense crowd of trees. Their leaves sprawled over one another as if in an attempt to shield the island from the questers. The air around her filled with easily-chargeable saline, while the clouds above her were perfectly positioned for a strike. Lyn cracked her knuckles. Whatever this island was hiding, she—and her lightning—was ready for it.

"They gave us twelve hours," Lyn commented as they trudged through the forest. "I wonder if that will be enough to scour through the entire island."

"Well, if we can't find anything, then so be it. Such is the nature of a treasure hunt quest, after all."

"That's such a bummer."

Neil chuckled. "Indeed. And that's why the QA won't support treasure hunts. They would support only if there's a known treasure at a known location, and you can hire the right team with the right people. But in that case, it won't really be a treasure hunt anymore, will it? It'll be more of a heist."

"So treasure hunts are usually for unknown treasures?" Lyn asked as she swatted some spiderwebs away.

"Yep, a treasure hunt is usually set up just like this, with no specific treasure to be found. Sure, the very fact that this island had randomly appeared in the middle of nowhere points towards the possibility of magical treasures to be found, but there's still a chance that this is just a normal island, you know?"

"Hm." Lyn frowned. "So some treasure hunts are just useless quests."

"A lot of them do end up in failure, yes. Especially if you're those goofs at the beach who have no idea what they're doing or what they're even looking for. I'm pretty sure those people always end up not finding anything of value."

Neil nodded his head towards a quester a few feet away from them, who was checking a compass-like item as he strolled about. "But see that guy there? From the looks of it, he's finding a particular item. There's a high chance that it won't be found on this island, but he knows exactly what he wants. He's likely participating in every treasure hunt just to find whatever it is he's finding. So even if this quest ends up a failure, he's still more likely to succeed in general than the ones at the beach."