Two weeks had passed since departing Kugnae. Sedraxis and Hyun had set out with no clear plan, but they had since come to an agreement on the best course of action. They were heading south towards the kingdom of Shilla, where they hoped to meet some Merchants from the guild there. They had learned that it predated the guild in Koguryo, and they felt as though the wisdom they could gain there would be invaluable. They had managed to reach a small village in the northwestern most reaches of the kingdom of Nagnang. At a tavern on the previous night, an older gentleman had told them of a group of bandits that had once plagued the village. He swore up and down that one time when he had been gathering materials to the west of town that he had seen a couple of bandits climb down a trap door in the dirt. After departing the tavern, they decided that the bandit hideout would be worth seeking out. Perhaps they could get lucky and find some abandoned treasure. Upon returning to the room they had rented they decided to rest up for tomorrow’s journey.
“Time to wake up!”, Sedraxis exclaims as he slaps the headboard with his sheathed machete.
Upon shooting up, while still in a haze, Hyun responds, “Why do you always do that? You know I hate that.”
“Because it’s effective.”, Sedraxis quips as he hands him a bowl, “Here, have some pork.”
“You already got breakfast? How long have you been up?”, Hyun asks.
“I got up at the first sight of sunrise.”, Sedraxis explains.
“Why in Kubera’s name would you get up that early Sed? You aren’t right.”, Hyun states jokingly.
“We needed a plan. How are we supposed to find this trap door?”, Sedraxis asks.
“Well…”, Hyun tries to forumulate a plan, “…uh, I kinda figured we would tap our feet around until we heard a knock.”
Sedraxis chuckles and responds, “Do you have any idea how long that will take us?”
“No, but I haven’t heard anything better from you either.”, Hyun announces with a grin on his face.
“Well, I have some things to show you.”, Sedraxis states as he pulls a box of items in from outside.
“You didn’t spend all of our money already did you?”, Hyun responds in surprise.
“No”, Sedraxis states. Hyun lets out a releived sigh before Sedraxis then says, “I only spent half of it.”
“What!?”, Hyun exclaims.
“Don’t worry, I invested it wisely. Just trust me and I will explain everything.”, Sedraxis says. Hyun rolls his eyes and nods as Sedraxis continues on pulling things out of the box. “Well, this bag is feed. We need it for our new horse. We needed the horse to help carry supplies after I purchased the rest of this.”
“You do understand how much it will cost to keep a horse, correct?”, Hyun chimes in.
“Yes I do. Now keep those lips sealed for now you smart alec.”, Sedraxis says with a chuckle before continuing. “It all started with a trip to the shop in the center of town. I headed there in hopes of formulating some sort of plan to find this door. The shopkeep was nice enough to let me in even though he had not opened for the day. I told him of our plan, and I was then able to negoitiate a deal with him to assist me.”, he tells him.
“You didn’t offer him a percentage of the treasure did you!?”, Hyun replies excitedly.
“Silence! I will explain everything.”, Sedraxis quips with a chuckle, “Now, if there are no more distractions I can finish this by the time you are done eating. So, the deal with the shopkeep is that we will head this way when we are in the area in the future and use his shop as a sort of base to purchase supplies. Also, we will tell any travellers in the area that his shop is the place to be. When we got to formulating a plan, the shopkeep was the first person to come up with an idea. He suggested that we use some of the ruby potions that he had and splash it around. We felt that there had to be some sort of wire system to open the door because a handle would be to noticable.
He thought that when the dye hit the wire, it would show itself more easily. I agreed, but I quickly thought about the fact that it would be hard to have a slow, restrained flow of the dye. It would end up either missing parts or would get used to fast.”, he continues as he pulls a large pot out of the box, “Then I spotted this. We could boil down the dye until the liquid had evaporated away. This would leave us with just the powdered pigment. It will be much easier to control than the liquid. The problem then became getting boiled down before it was time to head out. The shopkeep was nice enough to build a roaring fire with some of his personal lumber. While he did so, I thought to myself, if this gets to boiling hard it, it will likely splatter and we will lose some of the pigment. I went ahead and used my knife to gash some holes in the lid. This allowed the liquids to escape while trapping the pigment. In the meantime, I picked out some satchels, spoons and a mortar with a pestle. We can use the mortar and pestle to grind the powder down finer if need be, and the spoons will allow us to slowly sprinkle the pigment into the wind. When the pigment catches on to the wire, we should be able to see it plain as day.”, Sedraxis finishes.
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk to much Sed?”, Hyun jokes.
“Oh, shut up already.”, Sedraxis responds with a chuckle as he drops a satchel and spoon on Hyun’s bunk, “Get dressed already so we can go find this.”
—
With their gear gathered and a heary meal in their stomach, the boys set out upon the forest. They strolled along for what seemed to be hours, sprinkiling the red powder along the ground as they travelled onward. Their first adventure had seemed so easy, and they had it in their heads that they were going to just be great all the time. However, several hours into their search, Hyun began to grow weary and became frustrated. “I think the old man got us good this time Sed!”, Hyun exclaimed.
“I know it’s been a long day,” Sed responded, “but we still have more dye and the sun isn’t down yet. Lets keep going.”
“Do we have to?”, Hyun grumbled, “I don’t think there is anything out here.”
“You need to be patient Hyun.”, Sed told him, “If we wish to become great, we need to go through some trials along the way.”
“I want to be great now though.”, Hyun stated while giggling.
Sed just sighed as they continued on their way. Some time later, they ran out of the powder and were forced to begin there way back to town. Along the way, Sed suddenly came to a stop and backed up. “What are you doing?”, Hyun asked with a puzzled look.
Sed reached out and clinched his hand tightly. Upon lifting up, a door began to lift up out of the ground. “This is what I am doing.”, he stated, “How did you miss this?”
“Me?! I didn’t miss it!”, Hyun exclaimed.
“You were on this side when we were walking the other direction.”, Sed stated.
“So what?”, Hyun shot back, “Forget it. Lets see what is inside.”
As they ventured forth into the dimly lit passageway, Sed quipped, “It sure would be nice if you had spotted this before. We would still have dye to check for tripwires.”
“You think they really have traps here? This is pretty well hidden already.”, Hyun asked.
“Well, maybe we get lucky and they aren’t very smart, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”, Sed replied.
The two carefully set off down the corridor of dirt and rocks, ever vigilent in there search for traps that might lay in waiting. Much to their surprise however, there were none. Upon reaching the end of the tunnel, they found a small room with a table and two chairs. On the table there was a satchel filled with gold. They took the gold and set off to head towards town. Upon exiting the trapdoor however, they were greeted by an unfamiliar voice. “Hey! Where do you think you are going with our gold!?”. the scruffy looking man exclaimed.
“Bandit! Run!”, Hyun let out as the two began to take off towards town. They ran for what seemed like days and finally managed to make it back to town. The scruffy man was nowhere to be found. He had apparently thought it the wiser to avoid the town and the trouble it may have caused him.
They returned to the bar where they had got the tip and told the people of what they had found. After talking to the locals, it was decided that they would keep enough to cover the costs of their equipment that they took on the trip. So in the end, they broke even monetarily, but they more than made it up with a wealth of ingenuity, a little experience and the rest of the potion supply that they bought up the next day.