Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter XXVI

Mia

Music: Ending from Gradius Gaiden

After several minutes of negotiating, we come to an agreement with the guardian of the treasure. Since we're not really old enough to have any good use for the money we would gain from the gold, he says he'll keep us in mind in case we come back for the riches once we're older. We also take a picture of our entire group for him to keep in the event that he passes and the next member of Kaori's bloodline is left to guard the treasure. If another group happens to find the treasure before we're old enough to come back, then we said we'll be okay with letting them have it. However, we're higher up on the priority list for the treasure.

As we exit the temple. Sam hands a printed-out photo of our group--which he had the hovercraft take then print out--to the old man. He takes it, places it in his robe pocket, and says, "Now, remember, you kids are welcome back here at any time."

"You might have to wait a few more years, but hopefully we'll all be back in due time," I reply.

The man chuckles lightheartedly. "You kids take care of yourselves, okay?" He walks back into the temple and shuts the door, and we wave goodbye at each other.

Once the man's gone, we all stand in peaceful silence for a moment, taking the time to have personal reflections on everything that's gone down today. I'll surely say that of all the adventures I've been on with these bozos, this has been one of the more interesting ones. Luke's the first of us to speak. "Okay, look. I know we did the right thing and all, but does anybody else feel like we just made this entire day a waste of our time by doing that?"

"Oh, come on, Luke," Brea laughs in reply. "It wasn't a complete waste of time, especially not for me. I got to hang out with you guys, go on an incredible adventure, take on bad guys..."

"We almost got killed, like, fifteen different ways again..." Skylar mumbles.

"Isn't that part of the fun, Skylar?" Heath jokingly replies.

He gets a few snickers for that one. Skylar even rolls her eyes and says, "You've got me there, Heath."

Shanna stretches her arms out--using it as an excuse to pull me into a hug with one of them--and yawns. "Man, it's been a long day. What time is it back at home?"

Sam checks the time using the hovercraft. "It's almost 9 PM back at home."

"Has it really only been 12 hours?" Mackenzie asks.

"That might be a new record for us," I snort.

"Whaddya say we call it a day here?" Avery asks. Her response is a bunch of loud cheers from the rest of us. And so, our tradition of having a long, satisfying flight home on Sam's hovercraft commences once more. During the flight, we use the time to reminisce over everything that happened to us and tell each other what we encountered over the course of our separate trips.

"So, aside from creepy-ass warlock dudes and that other group, what did you guys have to deal with?" I ask, starting the conversation off.

"Being pelted with toilet paper, ambushed by snakcs, ghost knights, lions... nothing out of the ordinary, y'know," Avery replies, laughing. "How about you guys?"

"You guys sure had it worse than we did," Sean smirks. "We just had those crazy third-party members, the weirdos at the candy store, and... oh yeah, there were mermaids."

Everybody on the other team gawks. "MERMAIDS?!" Elle exclaims.

"It wasn't as pleasant as you'd think," Shanna tells them. I nod along with her.