Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter XII

Brea

Music: Extra Stage from Gradius PC-Engine

Looking back on how this trip has gone so far, I'm starting to notice that my eagerness and excitement is starting to get on the nerves of my teammates. I make a mental note to myself to dial it down from here on out.

Our previous clue told us that our second artifact would be in a history museum in Illinois. So Luke, our pilot, looks up Illinois history museums, and I look up information on the Kaori's Treasure clues to see if we can find results that match. Amazingly, I actually find something.

"I found this blog post saying that there's been reports of a hidden passageway somewhere in the Illinois State Museum," I tell Luke, showing him the blog post. Luke nods and sets that as our destination. We arrive less than a minute later. The building sort of resembles the outside of a college campus. It's mostly white and square-shaped all around, with a small dome with a point on it on top. Lots of vegetation surrounds the entrance to the building.

"Now, I have a hunch here," Sam says upon arriving. "With how many visitors this place probably gets, something tells me the hidden passageway wouldn't be anywhere inside the building, since that would be too easy to spot."

The rest of us catch onto Sam's idea, so we explore the perimeter of the building for anything out of place. On the west side of the building is a brown, rusty trash can that looks out of place compared to the rest of the shinier, black trash cans. Skylar lifts it up and finds a grating similar to those that cover sewer holes underneath. She lifts that up, revealing a small hole. A ladder made up of rusty, gray rungs provides a way for us to go down.

At the bottom of the ladder, we find ourselves in the entrance to what would normally be a sewer system. Like you'd expect it to be, the air is damp and reeks with a foul stench. The cracked, mold-covered white pipe does not actually lead us to a sewer system, but rather, a temple similar to the temple we explored earlier. This time, there are branching pathways all over the place.

"This must be a maze," Avery figures.

"Ugh... this'll take forever to explore..." Elle complains, leaning her head back and moaning.

"Then we'll split up so we can cover more ground in a shorter period of time," Sam says. Everybody seems to be on board with the idea, so Sam starts dividing us into groups. "We'll have Avery and Brea in one group, Heath and Skylar in another, and Elle, Luke, and I in the third."

Most of us are content with our groups. One person, however, is not. "Seriously? Why do I have to be with you two?" Luke groans.

"Because we all know putting you and Avery on the same team is a terrible idea, and I didn't want to risk pissing Skylar off either," Sam answers.

"Sam, I think I'll be able to put up with him for this," Skylar sighs.

Sam switches his glance between Luke and Skylar a few times, then shrugs and says, "Alright, then we'll go with that. Everybody have their phones in case someone gets lost?"

All of us pull out our cell phones and wave them in the air.

"Perfect. Now pick a random direction and move out."

With that, Sam and Elle walk straight forward and take the second branch to the left. Heath, Luke, and Skylar take the first branch to the right. Avery and I just walk forward until we're forced to make a right turn. While we're walking, I ask her, "Why would putting you and Luke together be a bad idea?"

"I think it's for the best if we don't speak about that," is all she tells me.

Skylar

Music: Don't Leave Me Alone from Nemesis 2 MSX