The Golden Gift

Chapter Nine, An Execution

Hunter's Perspective

After digging through the chest and finding many curiosities, I kept only a few as my own out of respect for the original owners. I had scavenged a locket with a tough seal on it, a small cardinal plush that was hand sewn (quite the strange find, it was my favorite), and a beautifully done sketch of the very same cardinal the plush had been modeled after. It seemed even though these people were struggling, they took time to enjoy nature. I suppose the cardinal population was bigger back then, for them to be able to draw a whole sketch of the species. Now cardinals are rare, because of one reason or another. I'm comforted by the idea that these people liked cardinals just as much as I do. It did remind me of Rascal not being here though, which saddened me. "What did you pick out?" I asked Ed to distract myself. Edric seemed to still be deciding, but he had somewhat of a selection in his hands.

"Well, the thing that caught my interest the most was a bag of jewelry made of leathered demon skins. I just find it strange because I know older history of the Isles didn't have jewelry like this, it must have been from whatever world the people in the diary came from." He observed and opened up the small bag, revealing a collection of golden and copper bedazzled earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. They were of a similar makeup to the locket I had found, so it backed up that this was their jewelry and not just stolen, along with Ed's observation. "I also found this fermented honey, you should really try it." Ed suggested to me and held out a tightly sealed jar of honey. "Wouldn't fermented mean alcoholic-?" I asked and Edric shrugged. "You won't know until you try it, but yeah I'm pretty sure fermented honey has alcohol in it." He said and looked closer at the bottle. "It smells really really good though, you can practically taste it through the jar." He commented and carefully unscrewed the lid. The scent hit my nose like a brick, it was heavily fermented and smelled like the sweetest liquid sugar. It also had that sting of alcohol, I could tell this jar had very expensive contents in it. Almost like liquid gold.

"Are you really going to drink that? Is it even safe to drink???" I asked worriedly and he shrugged it off thoughtlessly. "I'm going to try it because you only live once, and this stuff is calling to me." He stated and took a modest sip of a first taste. I did want to try it because it enticed me, but I knew better than to drink alcohol at such a young and impressionable age. Maybe because of how small of a dose Edric had consumed, it wouldn't hurt him. He pulled the jar away from his mouth and eagerly licked his lips. "Dude this stuff is so good! You need to try it-." He said before holding out the jar to me. I stared at the strange liquidy substance and rubbed my nose. "No thanks, the alcohol is so strong in that jar. You can keep going though, I won't stop you." I turned down the offer and lightly pushed the jar back over to him. "Ah, I better not. I just wanted to try it because no adults are going to stop me." He replied somewhat responsibly and closed the jar up, putting it with our collection of items.

"Now the question is, how are we going to bring all of this stuff back? I mean I could make a temporary bag of holding with a spell, but it'd drain most of my magic." He stated as a second-rate option and I shrugged. "As long as we fly high above, and you don't get overly tipsy because of your little joy-drink. Also- I just thought of this, isn't fermented honey just mead-?" I pointed out and Edric took a moment to think. "Oh... Hm, Yeah, I didn't think about that. That's a lot of alcohol- but I'll be fine, surely. Even if I do get tipsy, Ruru can handle it." He tried to reassure me, though it was definitely failing. "Right.. Just make that bag of holding or whatever and let's get on with it. I'm tired of being in this old, smelly, damp house, even if it is very interesting and historical." I sighed and Edric nodded, calming his goofy expression. He drew a careful circle in the air, a crackle being heard as the lit ring sparked with magic flowing from his fingertips. I watched in amazement as the ring came together and formed the top of a drawstring bag, and descended into a tiny little pouch.