Omen: 6, 20

Jurot held up the terrified Wolf in one hand, holding an axe to its throat so it knew its place. The wolf shook as the pups fed from its nipples, Jaygak and Kitool holding them up to it.

“You could just lay it down and let them lay as they ate,” Adam said, snacking on some of the meat the Iyrmen had hunted the night before.

Jurot shook his head. “It must be done this way.”

Kitool and Jaygak nodded their heads, agreeing with him.

“Alright, I guess,” Adam said, rolling his eyes. “Since it’s like that, I’ll just leave it to you guys then.”

Once they had eaten, they made their way deeper into the forest, where Jurot and Kitool looked for signs of a Dragon’s lair. It was a few hours into their journey that the pair found something.

Jurot motioned a hand to a tree which had its twigs scattered about. “It’s flight. It may fly from ahead?”

Kitool nodded. “We can check.”

Another hour later, she stopped, tilting her head towards a group of trees nearby which had fallen. She walked over and glanced around the fallen trees, before looking back to Jurot. “Entrance?”

The other Iyrman squated down in front of the trees and eyed them up, his eyes scanning them for anything amiss.

“What are you looking for?” Adam asked.

Jurot pointed towards the tree in a very specific spot which had been cracked. “This is not the mark of a tree being struck by wind or another tree, but a large creature.”

“How do you know that?” Adam asked.

Jurot threw Adam a stern look. “I know my wood.”

Adam nodded.

The pair then tied their ropes around the trees and pulled at them, with assistance from Jonn and Jaygak. Dunes and Kitool kept an eye around.

They continued to move apart the trees before finding a brush which had been crushed.

“Well?”

Jurot nodded his head before he then started to dig into the earth using the handle of his axe.

“The earth there has no life,” Kitool said.

“Meaning?” Adam asked.

However, before she could explain, the brush shook and fell underneath, revealing a hole.

“The entrance,” Jurot said, before dropping down without a second thought.

“Careful,” Kitool said, before dropping down after him, and the rest followed after.

Adam’s heart pounded wildly, wondering what a Dragon’s lair would look like.

Jurot lit up his torch, allowing Jonn and Adam to see further in.

The tunnel led further for about fifty steps before it opened up to a large room, one which was completely empty.

Adam squatted down and slashed the earth with his sword, marking it.

“What are you doing?” Jaygak asked.

“Marking our way so we don’t get lost.”

“We won’t,” Jaygak said. “Jurot and Kitool will be able to remember.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t trust myself.”

Adam continued to mark the areas as they continued to slip through the underground area. It hadn’t taken long until they had swept through the entire area. Seven rooms, most connected through to only one or two other rooms, and some tunnels led to dead ends.

However, it was the last room which had really caught the Iyrmen’s attention.

Jurot and Kitool glanced between one another, and Kitool lit up one of her torches as the pair went around scanning the area.

“What are they doing?” Adam asked, glancing around. He had expected so much more from the lair, but other than it being a little quiet and spooky, it was…

Boring.

“They’re trying to find the-“

The ground shook before Jaygak could explain what the pair were doing.

Kitool’s torch went out as she was buried in earth. Jaygak quickly ran towards her, digging her out of the earth, revealing her head quickly as the woman gasped for air.

“Found it,” Kitool said.

Jaygak ignored her, quickly sweeping away the dirt before pulling out the baby pup from the Iyrman’s pack. “Are you okay?” she asked the little pup, which coughed a bark and went back to sleep.

Kitool stared at Jaygak with narrowed eyes, knowing that the Devilkin was teasing her.

The group kicked away the dirt to reveal an open tunnel, which was barely large enough for them to move through.

Jurot’s torch illuminated the small room they had found, which glinted silver and gold.

“Nice,” Adam whispered, staring at the hoard before them, before his lips formed a small frown.

It wasn’t quite a hoard, more like a small pile of coin and gems.

There were mostly silver coins strewn around, but there was plenty of gold coins too. Adam spotted something which was nearly white, not quite silver, and as he picked it up, seeing the crossed sword stamped into the coins, he revealed it to the group.

“Platinum coins,” Jurot said. “They are worth ten gold a piece.”

“Five gold in Aswadasad,” Jaygak said.

“Huh,” Adam said. “Cool.”

“We’ve found the loot,” Jurot said.

Adam looked around, finding the lack of weapons or other loot, a little disappointing.

“What did you expect?” Jaygak asked, brushing her hand along the pup’s head.

“I don’t know…” Adam shrugged his shoulders. “There’s some gold around, and I’m sure the gold amounts to more than a couple hundred each, but there’s no magical weapons, or even nonmagical weapons.”

“That’s because it was a Young Blue Dragon,” Jurot said. “A Young Blue Dragon which made its lair under a forest.”

“It was probably quite unlucky,” Kitool said. “It found a lair quickly and went to sleep for a few decades. It recently left to see if it was safe to hunt. It was still probably trying to find a better lair.”

“Which is why there was only one trap,” Jurot said.

“A trap?” Adam asked. “Where?”

“The third room we entered,” Jurot said. “The edge of the room held a trap which would cover half the room in earth.”

“I didn’t even notice,” Adam admitted.

Jurot nodded. “You weren’t meant to.”

“This was all so… easy.”

“Easy?”

“We killed a Dragon, which wasn’t too difficult, and then we found the lair in a couple of days.”

Jaygak smiled, reaching up to pet his head. “What did you expect? Who would be better to find a lair than Iyrmen?”

“We grew up on the tales,” Jurot said. “We have heard hundreds of tales about those who came before us, and we each know a dozen stories where a Blue Dragon was slain. The markings for a Blue Dragon’s lair are obvious to Iyrmen, most of the time. We made some educated guesses for a Dragon which made its lair elsewhere.”

“How come you thought it was the forest and not the hill?”

“It was more than likely the hill, but if it was fleeing from an invader, a forest provided much more cover,” Jurot said.

“It also made its way from the forest’s side,” Kitool said.

“Oh.”

Soon the group carried most of the loot up, leaving behind all the copper coins and some of the silver coins. They packed their packs full before spilling everything into a clearing, where the three Iyrmen began to sort through the loot.

“One thousand and two hundred silver coins, one thousand gold coins, one hundred platinum coins, and a hundred gems,” Jurot stated.

“The bare minimum we could have expected,” Kitool said.

“It could have a second lair, and we found its decoy,” Jurot said.

“Perhaps, but it was recently active in that lair, with the scratchings on the walls,” Kitool said.

Adam blinked. It was as though he was in another world from them, as he noticed almost nothing out of the ordinary, even with his Elvish eyes.

‘Oh, right, I am from another world.’

“We will be unable to take all the silver coins from the hoard, but this should be enough for us all,” Jurot said. “How should we split it?”

Jurot’s eyes met Adam’s, and the Half Elf noticed everyone else was looking at him too.

“Why are you looking at me?”

“You’re our leader.”

“Oh, right.”

Adam stared at the pile of loot. “We’ll take two hundred silver coins, one hundred and fifty gold coins, and fifteen platinum coins each. The gems will be split evenly too.”

“That’s two hundred gold in the Party Fund then?” Dunes said.

Adam nodded. “We’ll keep the gems unless they can’t be split evenly, and at that point we’ll put the remaineder in the Party Fund too.”

Jonn had wondered whether he would get a share of the loot, but considering he had joined their party, he wasn’t sure why he was worried about it.

Adam stared at the gems, seeing the myriad of colours. “How much are the gems worth?”

Jaygak split the gems into three piles. “Ten gold, fifty, one hundred,” she said, pointing to the three groups.

Most of the gems were worth ten gold, as expected, but there were more than a handful worth fifty gold, and three worth one hundred gold each.

“Didn’t this excite you?” Jaygak asked, staring at him. “We slew a Dragon and looted its lair. What kind of Adventurer at our Rank could say the same?”

“How can I get excited at this little?” Adam asked, his lips curling into a smile. “After all, we’ll be Diamond Rank when we go around slaying Ancient Dragons, each whose hoards would make this look like pennies.”

Jaygak smiled.