Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter XIX

Brea

Music: Melty Molten Mountains (Ice) from Super Mario 64: Last Impact

Isn't it just amazing? You have two countries. One is named Iceland and the other is named Greenland. You would think that the former would be mostly ice or tundra, and the latter would be lots of plain, grassy areas filled with nature to marvel at. Also, Iceland should be the colder of the two, right?

Wrong. News flash: They're reversed. I mean, what genius came up with THAT idea?

Pointless complaining aside, and in case it wasn't clearly established earlier, Greenland is freezing by the time we get there. Well, it's actually not freezing temperature. It's only 8 degrees Celsius, according to the hovercraft (which converts to 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Still incredibly chilly, though. Luckily, we made a pit stop at the clubhouse before coming here to grab some coats, sweaters, and scarves just in case. We end up only needing to put on an extra layer at worst.

Sam lands us in the middle of a small village-looking place. The village is right next to a large body of water separating it from some glaciers and mountains. It's a fairly small-looking town, and definitely not a very modernized one.

Heath's the first of us to make a comment. "For a place that's called 'Greenland', this place sure doesn't look very green," he mutters, shaking his head. There are some hints of green grass here and there, but most of it is brown. And almost none of the buildings are green.

"Yeah, because that's Iceland, you dope," Skylar snorts, lightly shoving Heath.

"Don't call your boyfriend a dope," Luke says mockingly. This takes me by storm; I didn't even realize Heath and Skylar were dating until now. Nobody had bothered to tell me, and they didn't make it obvious. Sam and Elle were pretty easy for me to figure out, though. And Luke and Avery have already given me the status on their "relationship".

"Luke, I can call whoever I want whatever I want," Skylar smirks. Luke chooses to not take the argument any further.

"Okay, but seriously, how in the HELL did these two countries get their names mixed up?" Avery asks.

"Yeah, like, seriously. There's no way these are the actual countries' names," I laugh.

"Somebody must've written the wrong names down on the forms," Sam snickers.

We all share a laugh over that for a moment, then trek into the village. There aren't any people outside to notice, and it's overall very quiet, save for the noise of the water splashing onto the shore. As always, our last clue didn't give us much to go off of.

"Remind me what the hell we're supposed to be looking for here?" Luke asks after less than three minutes of aimlessly walking around.

"The next artifact, I suppose," Sam shrugs.

"And it doesn't even say what it is?" I ask, sighing.

Elle looks over the list of needed artifacts once more. "We're still missing the cloth and one of the jewels."

"That narrows it down a lot," Skylar nods.

A few minutes later, we walk into the middle of a large field with no houses around it, something unusual for this tightly-packed city. Elle immediately freezes in her tracks and stops breathing for a moment. Sam, Heath, Luke, Skylar, and Avery seem to know why, and they suddenly start looking more alert.

"Elle? What's wrong?" I ask, worried.

"Someone's watching us. I just know it," she replies, panting. Sam grabs her arm and her breathing slows back down.