The party stood together, pensively staring at the sea of wealth spread before them. It was straining at their nerves, resisting the urge to rush forward and start grabbing handfuls of gold coin.

“Ye know what?” Winifred suddenly said decisively, breaking the contemplative silence. “Fuck it!” She stepped forward and grabbed a handful of coins from the nearest pile. Skrakch held his breath as she did so.

When nothing happened, the pit fighter turned to face them, a triumphant look on her face.

“Ha! See? There’s nae instant death, nae evil trap. Maybe this place is a treasury!” Without waiting for further replies, she started to fill a couple of coin purses she’d filched off the corpses from the cavern, whistling happily to herself as she did so.

“A treasury with no way out, and a cryptic warning scrawled on the wall.” Skrakch scoffed, nudging over a pile of gems, sending them sprawling with a pleasant tinkling noise. “We’re in a Dungeon, there is no treasury, and there’s no way we’re going to keep any of this.” The Ratling continued, nodding to himself. “Try not to get too attached, I’m 90% sure it’s all going to vanish once we leave.” He shook his head at the now bulging coin purses that Winifred attached to her leather belt.

“Well hold on mate, how do you know if we keep it or not?” Zach was quick to retort. “Last I checked you weren’t some mystical expert. Hell, this might not even be a Dungeon for all we know.”

Skrakch scowled at the Halfling, looking at him like he was an idiot. “It’s pretty obvious we’re not under Dray’Mel, Zach. Use your brain, we’d be deep in the sewers at the moment. And there’s no way in hell there’s a bloody giant skeleton snake under the city!”

“Are you kidding me?” Zach replied incredulously. “The city walls are lined with Skeletons, Wraiths fly over our heads daily, but a giant snake under the city is crazy? Stuff it Ratling, I’m keeping the good stuff here.”

Zach started to grab some of the rubies, turning them this way and that, looking for any flaws. Rubbing the largest of them, the Halfling happily began stuffing them into a soon-to-be bulging sack.

“What about the weapons, are they going to disappear too? ‘Cus those gauntlets are looking wicked sharp.” Winifred mutters to herself, heading over to a weapon rack and grabbing a few specimens from the shelf to examine them. Her stock was pretty meager and anything she didn’t want to keep for herself, she figured she could sell.

As his tail lashed from side to side in anger, Skrakch made the only sensible decision, to tune out his companions. Let them make fools of themselves! He was going to work out how the Hells they were going to get out of here. What good would untold wealth and fancy weapons be if they were stuck in this room?

Reading the warning over and over again, he tried to parse out a clue from “Show me only Wealth.”

“Maybe it’s asking us to hold a treasure up to the visage?” He muttered, eyes running over the words again. “But no, that would be too easy... Maybe Winifred is right, and it wants us to act out a concept. I could show an empty coin purse, that’s what Wealth is to me of late.” The Ratling mused to himself, his whiskers twitching as he pondered.

“You sure that what squiggly words say? They look weird to Meek. They in rat people language? Me not know how to squeak.” Meekknuckle speaks up from beside Skrakch, startling the Ratling. “See, me not understand you.” He added when Skrakch let out a shocked squeal.

“No, it’s not in Iskrian, Meekknuckle. I think it’s written in a dead language.” Skrakch clarified. “It was something I learned when I was younger. My… owner was a… mage, of sorts. Part of his day included learning random bits of knowledge, and a bit rubbed off on me. So if I’m right, that’s written in Seotada.”

Meekknuckle tilts his head to the side, thinking hard. “Was he nice Owner? Father say it not good to be owned. That why he stay underground, keeps other Goblins underground too. “

“He was… he was nice enough, once upon a time. He taught me Common.” Skrakch mused, his tail flattening against the floor as he lost himself I thought. “He said it was so that he had someone to practice speaking with. But that was before he… Well, it doesn’t matter.”

Skrakch shook his head. He needed to leave his thoughts about Master Jace behind and concentrate on the task at hand. He stared at the words again, focusing hard...

“Though you’ve reminded me of something else I learned from his lessons. Sometimes the answer is right in front of your face.” Skrakch grins, cracking his knuckles. “Go make sure Ornn’s okay, we shouldn’t be in here for much longer.”

Casting his gaze over the piles of treasure, Skrakch makes his way over to Winifred. Ignoring the red-head, he throws all the weapons on a rack to the ground, before pulling the rack loose.

“Watch it vermin, you could take out an eye tossing weapons about,” Winifred warns, smirking slightly. “The Hells do you need the rack for? I dinnae, there’s all kinds of treasure to be had and yer yanking at that thing like yer life depends on it!”

“Maybe it does,” Skrakch said enigmatically, “Help me move this, and I’ll show you.” He asks, slowly pulling the rack into place. “It’s some sort of puzzle room, so naturally I’m the one who figured it out,”

“Oh aye, yer quite the crafty one”, Winifred replies before getting in place to shove the rack. “By the way, did I remember to thank ye for trying to run to safety without me in the last cavern?”

Skrakch ignored her dig and continued to pull at the rack. Taking a firm grip on the rack, the brawler shoved it with all her strength, sending it straight into Skrakch’s left shin.

As the Ratling let out a squeak and began hopping in pain, favoring his right foot, Winifred showed a toothy grin, full of malice. “Best not be trying to get the rest of us killed again, ye filthy Rodent.”