Band of Misfits

CHAPTER 4: UNWANTED ALTRUISM

The group stopped their barrage of attacks and Sol used his magic to re-light his staff once more. Before them was the cut and singed body of the once hulking beast. The group took a deep breath and let out a collective sigh as most of them put away their weaponry and cleaned the sweat off their faces.

Lyla dashed towards the beast's corpse and dug her blades deep in its nape. She sawed through the bits of flesh and tendons, decapitating the beast. Rydel and Alexia looked horrified.

"What the hell are you doing?!" asked Alexia.

"The poster said 100 gold pieces per Goblin head, right?" answered Lyla as she picked up the head. "And this guy is basically just a big Goblin, so just imagine what he'll be worth!"

Sol ran past the rest of the group, towards the shiny pile in the next room, shouting, "Mine, mine, mine!" Lyla gave chase and immediately outran Sol and his stubby little legs. In front of them was a large pile of silver pieces with bits of gold pieces and bones scattered about. Sol stuffed his pockets with as much money as he could. Among the pile was a worn, brown cloth bag with colorful patch work of what seemed to be a face. Lyla grabbed the bag and stuffed the head along with several handfuls of silver pieces into it, not noticing that no matter how much she filled the bag, it never seemed to get any heavier.

"Well that's lovely," said Alexia as she and Rydel walked up to the pile of money with crossed arms, "I hope you intend on sharing some of that with the rest of us." She looked at the bag that Lyla was holding. "Oh, well lucky you, it seems like you've found a Bag of Holding."

"A Bag-of-what now?" asked Lyla.

"A Bag of Holding. They're magical bags that have their own little pocket dimension inside of them. Anything that goes in them also doesn't affect the bag's weight either... to a certain extent that is. As you can imagine, they're rather useful."

"Well, well, lucky me, I just keep finding great things down here don't I? And sure, you guys can get the rest. I've already gotten plenty." Alexia and Rydel knelt to collect their treasure.

With his pockets full, Sol inspected the rest of the room. Despite its size, the room was rather empty. Sol couldn't see much other than the few occasional cockroaches scurrying in and out of the cracked stone walls and broken floor tiles. But then, off in the corner, was the Caliban's Moon rapier. He went to the weapon and picked it up. It took both hands to hold, as the blade was nearly as long as Sol was. It was as white as the moon, and had a gem embedded in the pommel that reflected the current moon's phase. Despite being in such a decrepit and filthy area, the blade was clean and spotless. Now THIS is mine, Sol thought to himself. He crudely tucked the blade on his back within his robes, not noticing that the blade was sticking out past his head, and waddled back to his companions.

"Oh, Sol, did you manage to fi-," in the middle of her question, Alexia noticed the handle sticking out from Sol's back. Her face filled with glee and she drew the rapier. "Oh my, you actually found it!?"

"No!" Said Sol. "Give it back you fool, it's mine!"

"Absolutely not!" Alexia leaned in closer and poked Sol's forehead. "We've already risked so much when you were the one that killed Kaynith and his guards." She then poked his forehead with each new sentence. "So we're going to take back the rapier. We're going to turn it in for the reward. And we're going to put this all behind us!" Sol quaked and nodded. "Good, now you can at least carry it there." Alexia tossed the rapier back to Sol.

"Yeah, I agree with Alexia," chimed Rydel. "We messed up, horribly. I think it'd be best if we just regroup now so we can get out of here and put this all behind us."