Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter X

Elle

Music: Cloudy Court Galaxy from Super Mario Galaxy 2

The past half hour has just been us hovering in the skies somewhere above California, trying to figure out where to go next. There wasn't a sheet of paper with the jewel giving us a clue like there was at the first location, and the jewel doesn't exactly give us much to go on.

Brea's trying to look up the order of the places to go for the clues, and isn't getting anywhere. "Guys, there's nothing on the internet that tells us where each location is," she tells us after about twenty minutes of searching online.

"Why would there be?" I grumble, impatiently tapping my fingers on the railing.

While Brea's been doing that, Heath, Luke, Skylar, and Avery have been checking out the jewel we found at the temple. It's a cool artifact to have, I'll give it that, but we can't really do much with it unless we have all the other items needed for the ritual. Besides, there's only so much amazement you can get out of staring at a jewel as simplistic as this one.

For whatever reason, Avery decides to pick up the jewel and turn it over so that the bottom side is now facing upwards. And that's when all eight of their eyes lock onto something.

"Um, guys? Come check this out," Avery says. Sam, Brea, and I walk over to them and look at the jewel with them. What they've found is a very odd-looking shape drawn in black ink on the bottom side of the jewel. The top and right sides are perfectly straight lines, while the bottom line starts out straight but then slopes upward to the left, and the left side is a jagged mess.

"It looks like the shape of a state. I just can't figure out which one," Sam mutters, scratching his chin.

Skylar's the first to figure it out, as usual. "Guys, that's Arizona!" she exclaims.

Avery gets out the map showing all the locations the clues are at, and sure enough, there's a red circle with the number "3" drawn over Arizona, specifically near the lower-right hand corner of the state.

"I'll fly us around that general area and see if we pick up on anything," Sam tells us, running back to the hovercraft's control panel and setting our destination to southeast Arizona. On the way there, the rest of us sit in a circle to have a group discussion.

"So, what do you guys want to do with the treasure when we find it?" Brea asks.

Heath and Luke look at each other contemplatively, as do Avery and I. Skylar shrugs and answers, "Depends on what the treasure is."

"All I know is that it's supposed to be some kind of insurmountable riches," Brea says.

"Well, if it's money, and there's seven of us, that means we'll need to split it seven ways," I say, glancing around the group.

"Which is..." Skylar gets out her phone to calculate the portions that would be given to each person.. "Roughly 14.29%."

"Not sure how the math is gonna work out on that one, but we'll see what exactly the numbers end up being," Heath comments.

"How about we just split it evenly six ways and give none of it to Luke?" Avery suggests.

Luke narrows his eyes at Avery and asks, "Seriously?"

"Well, you're an asshole. You don't deserve any of it."

"She's got a point," Heath snickers, elbowing Luke in the shoulder. Irritated, Luke smacks his arm away.

We arrive in Arizona about twenty-four minutes later. Sam turns on the hovercraft's scanner (but sets it to transparent so nobody sees it), then flies along the entire southeast region of the state. It turns green when we pass over a small forest in Benson.