Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter XVII

Skylar

Music: Wildlife Valley from Super Mario 64: Last Impact

According to the hovercraft's scanner, our next location is somewhere in a forest just a few miles away from the mine. If you've read about any of our past expeditions, you'll know that something always seems to happen whenever we go into a forest.

Brea, of course, has not been with us on any of those trips, so she wouldn't know this. That explains why, when she notices how our eyes are constantly darting all over the place and we're moving a bit more cautiously than normal, she asks us, "Um, what's with all the caution?"

"Every time we go into a forest, we get attacked by something. Just natural instinct to be on the lookout," Avery replies.

"We have a similar problem with beaches," I add. Brea still looks confused, but shrugs it off.

As for the forest itself, it's somewhat of a new experience for us, as it's our first African forest that we've really deeply explored. There are all different kinds of trees, grass and bushes everywhere, and animals you rarely see in the United States forests. I'm specifically referring to elephants when I say that. Honestly, if we weren't all wearing street clothes, I'd feel like I'm on some kind of safari. Out of all of us, though, Brea's the only one who I would consider dressed in that kind of attire. She has on a camo shirt, a light grey vest, and black shorts. She also has a pair of binoculars with her, which I don't think she's used at all yet.

After spending a few minutes just looking around without having much to say, Luke asks, "Do you guys think it's possible that the warlock encounter was meant to be part of the treasure hunt? Like a boss fight in a video game or something?"

"I thought we agreed to not speak of that again," Sam replies sternly.

"Well, I just wanted to see what you guys thought."

"I don't believe so," Brea answers. "The warlock did indicate that he knew about Kaori's Treasure, but I don't imagine Prince Kaori intended for treasure hunters to run into him. And if he'd really been hiding there for 200 years, that means none of the other hunters had to encounter him."

"So that entire thing was just a waste of time?" Heath asks, getting no response.

"Can we please stop talking about this?" I ask loudly out of frustration. "That whole sequence of events has given me a headache just thinking about it, and it's getting worse the more we speak about it."

That ends the discussion right then and there. A few minutes later, Avery sees a piece of paper sticking out of a tree. She jumps up, barely nabs it, and reads what's on the paper out loud: "Your next stop is Greenland, where you will receive your next artifact."

"Okay, seriously?!" I groan. "Why can't you just leave the damn artifacts with each clue? This is seriously starting to piss me off."

"Is Greenland the one that's cold, or is that Iceland?" Elle asks.

"It's Greenland," Heath answers.

"Great," Elle snorts.

Suddenly, the sound of guns clicking from reaches our ears.

Sam

Music: Shoot and Shoot from Gradius II Arcade

Behind us are a group of four middle-aged men. They remind me of the three men we killed way back in Arizona. They have on similar outfits and look to be of similar age to those men. The two men in the middle have hunting rifles pointed at us. Our deepness into our discussion about our recently found clue kept our awareness down and our expectations low, so we're taken by surprise from the sight of these men.

"Whatcha got there?" the middle-right one sneers, nodding towards the piece of paper Avery has in her hands.

"A photograph of your mother," Luke snorts in reply. Heath and I give him high-fives and laughs for that one.

"Enough with the bullshit, kid," the middle-left one growls, lifting his gun up and aiming it at Elle. I pull her closer to me since she seems to be too scared to move herself, then wrap my arms around her protectively. "Give us that clue, and nobody has to get hurt."

"And if we don't want to?" Brea asks rhetorically, placing one hand on her hip.

The other middle-man raises his gun up as well, pointed at either Avery or Brea; it's hard for me to tell from my perspective. "Then we're going to have to do this the hard way," he growls, getting ready to pull the trigger. What stops him is getting blasted in the face by an energy orb fired from the hovercraft, which I had instructed a while back to stay a few feet away from us (diameter-wise) in case this situation were to arise. He's knocked unconscious when he hits the ground. The man on the far right runs to help him, while the other two stay behind and start shooting at the hovercraft. Its force field protects itself from every shot, and the two men somehow take forever to realize they're not going to get a shot in edgewise.

It's good for us that they do, though, because that gives us the chance to run like hell away from them. The man tending to the fallen one spots us running first, shouts, "Hey! Get back here!" and gets up to take off after us. His two acquaintances stop fucking around with the hovercraft and join him.

We end up getting cornered by a cliffside. Now all three men have guns out, and are ready to fire at any moment. Everyone puts their hands up except for Brea, who slowly stuffs the clue into her vest pocket.

"Girl, hand that slip of paper to us this instant," the middle one (who was previously the far left one) growls. "Don't make me request it again."

"Who are you guys working for?!" Avery shouts, a few seconds away from crying.

"That, young lady, is none of your concern," the far left one replies, cocking his gun's trigger back. The hovercraft is barely visible in my peripheral vision, and I (and hopefully everybody else) knows that it will be here to protect us before they can even fire a single bullet.

However, things don't always go the way you think they will. For example, here, I'm thinking that the men are going to fire at us, then the hovercraft's going to come in, shield us with its force field, and blast the men to oblivion. So, you might be thinking, what could POSSIBLY happen instead of that?

Music: A Fighter from Nemesis 2 MSX

Well, the guy who spoke last says to us, "Get ready to-" and then gets interrupted by the sound of a omnious growling, which then turns into a roaring. Everybody's eyes dart to the left (or the right, for the men), and standing right there are two lions.

"Nobody move a muscle," I sternly whisper to everybody. None of the others nod or say anything, so all I have to know that they heard me is the fact that they all looked towards me when I said that.

The hovercraft slowly begins hovering towards us, and the three men shakily point their rifles at the two lions. The lions respond by growling and stepping closer to the men. I don't know much about lions, but either we pissed them off somehow or they're hungry, because they look ready to pounce.

When there's less than five feet of distance between the men and the lions, two things happen. First, the hovercraft reaches us and surrounds us with its force field. Second, one of the men panics and fires a bullet at the bigger lion. The lion barely flinches, and the other lion lets out a loud roar and tackles him. From there, I don't know what happens, because I shield my eyes so I don't have to see the bloodshed. Judging from the sounds of the roars, clothes being ripped, and the men screaming in terror and/or pain, I don't really need to see to know what's going down. I take a peek out of one eye and see that everybody else has also covered their eyes.

The hovercraft uses a tractor beam to carry us all out of the forest. It's only when our feet hit the ground that I decide to uncover my eyes.

"Should we feel bad for those men?" Elle asks, looking worried.

"I don't care. Let's just get the hell out of here before anything crazier happens," Skylar begs. Heath, Luke, Avery, and Brea nod their concurrence with her.

As I'm setting us up for a flight to Greenland, I think to myself, I don't think any of us are going to want to go back to Africa anytime soon after all of this is over.