Who's 4 a Treasure Read online

Tricks

  Hottest woman in the kingdom! If you are into well-built warrior, break your legs off at the knee if you look at them too closely, women. Don’t mistake her nickname for the services the very friendly woman of questionable virtue at the Swill and Donkey perform. (Shamus the Idiot’s story should help you remember not to try. Someone, it might have been me; it was one of those nights that no matter how much alcohol you consume you never forget, mentioned to Shamus that that tall, curvaceous woman dressed in tight leather standing in the corner’s name was Tricks. Before anyone could pull him back the drooling idiot was standing next to her whispering in her ear. Six months later they were still cleaning bits of Shamus off the wall.) Oh no, she is called Tricks because of what she can do with weaponry. I was there the night that the Royal guard came to fetch her for King Clement’s bed. She held all twenty of them off with nothing more than a pair of nail clippers and an emery board. The next day King Clement made a hastily planed tour of the Great Plains with two hundred of his best guards, after Tricks mentioned to the fleeing survivors of the manicure massacre that she might just visit King Clement’s bed one night, but she would bring a sword. Nobody is sure where she comes from. Some say that she is the daughter of an Amazon princess, others that she was secretly bred in the dungeons as an assassin or was conjured up by a wizard as his warrior love slave. (Nobody says the last very loudly.) Where she comes from is left to speculation, as no one has had the courage to ask her.

  When Siege entered the Swill and Donkey, Tricks was in her usual Friday night mood, happily tipsy. (Never let it be said that she ever got drunk or had a hangover. By that I mean if you value your life, never let it be said.) She spent most of her Friday and Saturday nights scaring the students into buying her drinks. The other four nights a week she spends scaring us regular folk into buying her drinks. Sunday she reserved for religious purposes. I.e. scaring priests into buying her drinks. Siege walked up to her and, because it was Siege, spent a good ten minutes trying to get Tricks' attention.

  "Hey, Siegey baby, didn't see you there." Tricks said when Siege finally got her attention.

  "Can I buy you a drink or a young lad or something?"

  "Uh, um, perhaps a drink, one with an umbrella." she replied.

  Of the three choices Tricks had given her the drink sounded safest, even though she had enough drinks in her pockets to start a small pub; it was a busy night. (Tricks could well have supplied a lad, shouting something like 'Oy, you, no not you, your good looking friend, yes you, come here and service my friend.' And no one could refuse, at least not twice. The 'something' could have been anything. Once, the 'something' turned into a hubcap from King Clement’s carriage. Boy did we laugh that time, all two weeks in the dungeon. It's enough to say that when Tricks offers you 'something', always take the drink or prepare for a little pain.)

  "Guness, can I have a drink for Siege, make it one with an umbrella. That guy over there with the pink shirt is paying." she shouted above the noise of the crowd.

  When she shouted the bar tended to go completely silent, so everyone got to hear the crack about Greg the gay. (Greg the gay was not actually gay. He just wore very nice clothes, was always clean and lived with his mother. However, he never wore pink.)

  "Coming right up Tricks. Good to know Siege is here, if I see her I'll say hello, just give me a minute to put the silverware in the vault. It won't do any good, but one must try."

  Siege turned bright red, (She was a bit embarrassed about her skill.) but no one saw.

  "So what brings you out on a Friday night?" Tricks asked in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink sort of way. "I thought you stayed home on the busy nights, too much stuff to carry. Which reminds me, just check my wallet and see if I remembered my riding licence." (King Clement came up with a great idea to make money, the riding license. You had to go down to the DHA, Department of Horse Affairs, and show an examiner that you could in fact ride a horse. For this they charged a small fee, it was not however how they made the money. If you were caught riding a horse without a riding licence they confiscated the horse. It worked well for about a month, but now everyone has a riding licence. As King Clement claimed he was instituting the policy to keep the streets of Clemville safe, he couldn't rescind the law even though it was now costing him money. For a week he tried instituting a law about drunk riding, but after stopping the rebellion he said that it was just a joke.) Siege checked her pockets and found Tricks’ wallet. She gave it back, but Tricks said "Keep it; it will just end up back in your pocket anyway. I'll get it back before we leave. So tell me, what’s up?"

  "I found this scroll; I was hoping you could translate it. It looks very old."

  Tricks managed quite easily to get an empty table. She spread the map out and looked at it.

  "Not in any language I know, but it sure does look intriguing. Look here, that bit almost looks like the Horn Mountains. Tell you what, it's Friday night, so Brain should be home, let’s go ask him."

  At this point Siege’s drink arrived.

  "Sorry Ms Siege, are you here?" Guness asked.

  Siege said she was right in front of him.

  "Of course you are, anyway here’s you drink. I couldn't get the handle of the umbrella into the tankard, so I had to use a parasol. Only thing is Parasols cost three times what umbrellas do and Greg the gay is asking if, as and when you finish your drink, he could take the parasol home for his mother?"

  The Brain

  Brian O'Shaunase was born to a dyslexic father. When his father got to the births registry office the celebrations had been in full swing for five hours, compounded by his dyslexia he got the 'i' and 'a' switched. While everyone in his household called him Brian, at school they all thought it was hilarious and called him Brain. As time passed, some even started calling him The Brain. (Quite often, positive reinforcement has a profound effect on the young, for example; calling someone the brain his whole life could make him into an intellectual. This however was not the case with Brain O'Shaunase, although he thought it was.) Being of the opinion that he was super smart when in fact he was just average gave him the diehard opinion that he could do anything, if it went wrong he could always blame the incompetence of others. So he went to magic school, which he breezed through. (The wizards teaching him were so scared he would blow up the university or the world that they sent him through as fast as they could. They concentrated his studies on the fundamentals of magic, things like: Curing with herbs 101, small puffs of smoke 207, small puffs of coloured smoke 302, Chemicals for the seriously stupid 1820 and the old favourite, woodwork that looks like magic and metalwork that looks like magic. He really excelled in the last two, so much so that when he left he thought that that was what magic was all about.)

  It wasn't long before he became the guy you went to see if you wanted something made that was a little unusual. It was not always as the client expected. Thinking that he was smarter than anyone else, he had a tendency to overdo his inventions, for example: Lord Hadalot was trying to save money, so he went to the Brain to make his carriage move without the expense of keeping up the horses. The Brain came up with a brilliant idea that involved cogs, wheels, pulleys, cables and a water wheel. He showed the plans to Lord Hadalot, who thought it was wonderful and had him make a working example. Lord Hadalot used it for about a week, but quickly found out that the upkeep of five extra slaves to keep the machine running was more expensive that the upkeep of the horses. (The 'Incredible horseless slave carriage machine' is now in the Clemsonian museum in the section titled 'the display of things that the inventor should have known better', which is almost entirely dedicated to the inventions of The Brain. It's that huge monstrosity next to the arrowless bow. More on the bow later. Okay, enough with this ‘The Brain’ stuff. We’ll just refer to him as Brain, his ego is big enough.)

  It was Friday night and Brain was sipping on his cider. (His preferred drink was beer, but he wanted a clear head while working on his experiments, he didn’t know that cider had alcoh
ol in it.) While looking for a part for his new machine, he had stumbled upon his old course notes 'small puffs of smoke 207' and found a hand written note on the side of one of the pages. He remembered over hearing one of the wizards talking to someone about not letting them add crushed charcoal to the experiment, as it was too dangerous. At the time he had been too busy trying to chat up one of the girls from his class and he didn't hear which one it was.

  It was a slow night, most people spend their weekends drinking and not looking for odd inventions, so he thought he would run through a few experiments, adding a bit of crushed charcoal to each. The wind was finding its way into the room, through the half closed window, making it a little chilly. (The window was being held half open by his next entry into the Clemsonian, 'the incredible automatic window "half" closing machine'. He still had some bugs to work out; the little ladybirds he was using as a power source were not strong enough to close the window fully.) He would throw his experiments in the fire, as they had charcoal in them, when he finished seeing if the charcoal had any effect. He took a sip of cider, added an ingredient and shook it up, all the while mumbling about the inefficiency of desk top sorcery, and surely he could make a machine that could do it all for you. He had gotten down to the last few and was starting to lose interest in the whole thing. He took a hand full of salt peter added it to the sulphur, added some crushed charcoal, had a sip of cider, when there was a knock on the door. He turned and shouted that they should come in, as the door was unlocked. The wind took this opportunity to blow the book a few pages ahead. (The wind has always had a great sense of humour.) The next instruction was: place ingredients in a sealed container. He had just finished putting them in an iron pot and really screwing the lid on tight, when the door came crashing down. Turns out he locked the door after his distraught house keeper had run out screaming that she was going to call the police if he ever made her drink one of his energy drinks again. Obviously the drink was a complete success, as he had never seen his chubby (big boned) house keeper move so fast. A small thing like a locked door wasn't going to keep Tricks out. As Brain had said it was open, she made sure he wasn't a liar, by totally destroying it.

  "Ah. Tricks, so good of you to drop by. Can I offer you an energy drink?" Brain said, completely oblivious to the door lying in splinters all over the floor.

  "You know what Brain, I think I'll pass, but do keep one cold for me."

  Like the door, he completely missed the sarcasm and proceeded to put one of his vile concoctions in the cooler. (Another of his great inventions. It might have actually been one of his few resounding successes if he had put a handle on the inside of his experimental walk in version, thus avoiding the rather unpleasant 'Iceman' incident.)

  "Looking for a new sword sharpener or something?"

  "Something." she replied without batting an eye. The groan was almost audible on the Great Plains.

  "I have this scroll."

  "Oh, hi Siege. Didn't see you come in, can I offer you an energy drink? I have a fresh one in the cooler."

  "No thanks." she replied. "I already tried one. Like I was saying, I have this scroll; Tricks thought you might be able to translate it."

  "Sure. Hand it over and I will stick it in the machine."

  Tricks didn't think this was a good idea, so she wrote a quick note in Tra'ker and told him to try that out first. Brain feed it into the machine and out came a blank note and a pile of shredded paper.

  "See, a perfect translation."

  "But nothing is written on it. Look what it did to the original." Tricks said, running the shredded paper through her fingers.

  "Well, um. Well you see it's a sort of physic machine. It more gets a feeling for the person who wrote the note. Apparently you have nothing going on in your head." (Whoops!!) The machine chattered again. "Hold on, put that sword away you might hurt someone. Let’s see what this thing says. 'I will chop you in half.' Hum, an interesting thing to translate, I wonder where it got it from. Anyhow, pass me the scroll and I will..." The machine whorled again and out popped a really big 'NO'. "Piece of junk." Brain said and kicked the machine, which promptly collapsed in to a pile of wooden cogs and bits of scroll all containing the words 'Please don't kick me.'

  "Tell you what, as my machine seems to have fallen apart, why don't I take you to a guy I know. He's really into scrolls and things. Maybe he can help you, but we will have to stop at the Swill and Donkey and pick up some pies." They left the apartment, with the door still lying on the floor. On the way out Brain remembered his last experiment, and rather than leaving the metal jar filled with Salt peter, sulphur and charcoal, lying around as a tripping hazard, he chucked it in the fire.

  Mister Opie jnr.

  Scroll worm extraordinaire. This is how Mister Opie would like to have grown up: Raised by dragons, in the heart of the Horn Mountain. The slayer of demons. The rescuer of maidens and the hero of the people. This is how it really was: Raised by Alexandra and Mister Opie Senior, reader of way to many scrolls, can't talk to women, oh and so pale he is almost see through.

  He grew up in the middle class suburb of Okoff. His parents insisted that he take over the family bakery, so they sent him to business school. It didn't work out quite as they expected. While looking for a scroll on how to make money from twenty loaves a day, he came across 'The Adventure of Rodney the Demon Slayer’; from that day on he was hooked on reading. His brother Mister Opie Junior-ner became a successful baker and Mister Opie jnr. became an impoverished librarian. Who needs money when you’ve got thousands of scrolls at your disposal? Well, Mister Opie for one. A diet of rat and old scroll soup can leave a guy a bit odd. So he sub-contracted out his vast knowledge of all things fantastical to anyone who would feed him a decent meal. That was how Brain had gotten to meet him. Brain, never one to do any sort of research, had been in the sub-basement of the Grand Library, munching on a pie and looking to see if there was any patent on 'The incredible horseless saddle machine' when a strange pale creature had come out of a huge pile of scrolls and taken his pie. They had spent the rest of the day discussing how they could help each other. Mister Opie would check for patent and Brain would supply the food.

  It was late on Friday night so Opie was reading 'How to tame a Dragon' by Two fingers Die Mil. He had read it hundreds of times before and just like 'Armchair Sorcery' and 'Battle axes for beginners', he had as yet to put any of them to practise. He had read so many magic books they had created a powerful 'reality field' around him. (The 'reality field' is one of those Holy Grail type things. Wizards are undecided if it exists or if it is just a figment of some gods imagination. It does not allow magic to pass through it, so it would be really handy if someone cast a spell on you; on the other hand, swords and arrows have no trouble getting through. Buldock the Lesser once managed to create a small field around himself, but as his spells couldn't pass through from his side, his opponent, Giant Bob, just hit him on the head and took the money back to one eye McCready's casino.) Anyway what this meant was that he, Opie, could find all those magic scrolls that had cloaking spells on them. In fact there was a whole section of what looked like empty shelves dedicated to them. The cloaking spells from the scrolls had leached into the wood and the shelves had disappeared. Opie being the only one that could find them, now ate very well. As the library was closed for the weekend, Opie had two days of rat and scroll soup to look forward to. He was just getting to the part were Die Mil was explaining how to remove the over eager dragon from you hand without losing too many fingers, when the front door turned into a pile of splinters.

  The whole quest for a translator had started to wear a bit thin for Tricks. When she got bored she had a tendency to amuse herself by breaking things.

  "I think he would have let us in if we had knocked."

  "Shut up Brain, if I want to break a door, that's my right as a free citizen, just like it's my right to break you in half if you annoy me too much, Comprende."

  "It's not you right to break me in half."


  "Starting to annoy me, Brain."

  "Hi Brain, Is that steak and kidney I smell?" Opie asked sniffing the air, while almost drooling.

  "Brain, can I have a private word with you?" almost dragging him away. "Who is that gorgeous lady with you?" he asked in a whisper.

  "You mean Tricks, I would hardly consider Miss Warrior a lady and in fact, lady would be the last thing I'd call her."

  "No, no, not Tricks. The redhead."

  "Redhead?"

  "Yeah, the one that keeps putting stuff in her pockets."

  "Red head, pockets? Um, oh yes you mean Siege. Hey Siege Opie can see you, come over here and meet him."

  "Shush man, you know I'm no good at this stuff. Oh no she is coming over." Siege came over and stood in front of the two men. Opie blushed and tried not to look at her. Brain sort of wondered off. As both Siege and Opie were hopeless at wooing the opposite sex, they just stood there blushing. It took Tricks hacking at a book shelf to pull them out of their romantic blushing exchange.

  "Excuse me; I should probably see what all the fuss is about."

  You have never seen a librarian move so fast. (I may have given you the impression that Opie was a librarian, that is not so. He was in fact the third assistant to the lower librarian, i.e. the real bottom of all things librarian. So on a Friday night while all the other librarians were out celebrating a new acquisition, cataloguing system or generally not being at the library, Opie was left in charge.) Tricks had just finished testing the sharpness of her blade on a pile of scrolls when Brain and Opie joined her.

  "Brain, why are you here?"

  "I was busy adding a little charcoal to some stuff when..."

  He was interrupted by a rather loud bang.

  "Sounds like the methane factory are going to be hiring again. Anyway Tricks here sort of came over for some of my new energy…"

  "Shut it Brain. Can you translate this scroll, um, what the hell is your name?"

  "Opie. Let me see it. Ah yes, I saw something about this."

  He took the scroll and wondered off into the darkened recess of the library basement. Tricks and Brain followed closely on his heels, Siege behind them, giggling from time to time.

  "I could probably make a decent lighting system for this place." Brain said, looking around for possible places to put his patented 'Hardly ever explodes methane gas lights' (He probably should have added 'but when it does it will take half a block with it'. Methane was only used to keep the really big swamp monsters from invading Clemville. Whenever one of the creatures would venture beyond the great barrier, [a small wooden fence] the Clemville Anti-Swamp Monster Brigade would light the moat of methane. Sometimes the monster leaves, [most swamp monster don't want to go to Clemville, they think it is beneath them, the methane is more of welcome to Clemville that most of them refuse] but mostly the CASMoB get very singed.)

  "So Tricks wanna find a corner and make out? Ouch, that hurt."

  "It will be more painful if you don't shut up."

  "Gees, there is just no...Ouch ok, I'll stop, see lips are...ouch"

  Before too much damage could be done to Brain, Opie returned looking all excited, clutching a handful of scrolls.

  "Hi Siege." followed by giggles.

  "Hi Opie." followed by giggles, and then complete silence.

  The silence lingered heavily in the air. Then it left to read a scroll.

  "Well, what did you find?" Tricks asked, finally letting go of Brains collar and strolling purposefully towards Opie.

  "What? Oh, yes." he said, dragging his eyes off Siege. "It seems that this is Gelmont the Lost's original scroll to the treasure of Da’Loose."

  "Don't look at me like that; you aren’t going to spend my money."

  "No, no that’s not what I meant. Lord Da’Loose was a real guy. It's just that people thought he stole the money and that's where the story comes from. Anyway, this guy Gelmont the Lost went searching for the treasure. He figured that Da’Loose got lost in the Horn Mountains, you know they use to be called the Eagle Mountains?"

  "Why the Eagle Mountains, I went camping there with my dad and we didn't see nothing but vultures, boy did they taste foul or what. Did I ever tell you about..?”

  "Shut up!" Opie, Tricks and Siege said in unison. "Please Opie continue."

  "Thanks, as I was saying, you see this mark at the bottom here. That means it was checked out of this library."

  He opened up one of the scrolls he had just retrieved and showed them the same mark. "See, it was checked out a little less than sixteen hundred years ago. You see that annotating in the left column. No, I think that is a coffee stain. I mean the one that looks like an x, as in marks the spot. It was taken out of the treasure map section."

  "I didn't know you had a treasure map section. Anything interesting in it?" Brain asked rubbing his hands and thinking about an incredible automatic treasure-digging machine. (The idea of treasure slowly faded and the idea of a backhoe started to take its place. Luckily for the Ditch Diggers Guild [they always gave thanks to Lady Luck even though they had a really bad life, they could have been part of CASMoB] Opie answered Brain’s question before the idea could take root and start blooming.)

  "No one would return the scrolls, so it now contains the scrolls about what happened to people who didn't return their library scrolls. Real horror section."

  "I swear Brain, you say one more word and you will be walking home on the stumps your legs used to be on."

  To emphasize her point she tapped his legs with the flat of her sword. "So we have a treasure map. What does it say?"

  "I don't know. It is written in code. Only Gelmont will know."

  "Fat lot of use you are, he died over sixteen hundred years ago. Come on Siege, let’s go get a drink."

  "Wait. I know someone who could translate it, but it will cost."

  "Who?"

  "Mrs Maude’s Palm, Tarot and Tea readings incorporating Sun, Moon and Stars Séances including Bill’s notarising and past life civil attorney at law."

  "That will cost. Fancy a quick stroll through Bullion Heights, Siege?"

  Mrs. Maude’s Palm, Tarot and Tea readings incorporating Sun, Moon and Stars Séances including Bill’s notarizing and past life civil attorney at law

  A fine place. Ever wanted to know your future? Perhaps ask granddad where he hid the family gold? Even get your own back on your ungrateful decedents after you're dead, by getting a full notarised change of will. Some may think they are a little pricey, but think of the benefits. Imagine your wife’s surprise when you kill her new lover even before she has had a chance to meet him. Or finding all that gold that was left under the floorboards by dear old granddad. Or even suing the guy you beat to death for breaking your best club. (This is a paid for product placement; actual readings, Séances and court cases may differ from advertised. I.e. granddad squandered the family fortune at McCready's Casino and House of Interesting Repute. Feel free to visit Bill and sue the philanderer.)

  Friday night after payday at Mrs Maude’s was a sight to behold. The queue was halfway around the block, and it was in a tough neighbourhood. Quite often you got to jump the line, simply because you were mugged and murdered before you got to the door. Luckily our intrepid travellers had a go-to-the-front-of-the-queue pass, Tricks. She had never stood in a queue before and she wouldn't start tonight. A couple of "What the... oh hi Tricks, sorry didn't see you coming through." and they were at the reception desk. Lovely Matilda looked up from her ghostly writing pad.

  "Tricks, Brain, Mister Opie and Siege to see Sarah, sorry I mean Lady Laseer. Please go on through, she is expecting you."

  The four walked through the door and entered the world of the Séances.

  It was quite a mess of ghostly figures. Half the newly dead were coming back to tell their dearly leftbehinds that they had left the keys under the mat or that water-skiing behind a swamp monster should be left to the professionals. Lady Laseer hadn't yet made her entrance, so the dead wer
e getting a bit out of control. The constant begging for messages to be carried to their loved ones was really starting to get on Tricks’ nerves. (It is said that once you are dead you can no longer feel pain from the living. While this is mostly true, it is not always the case. Case in point: Tricks’ skill with a sword actually transcends the life/death barrier. Another case in point: Simon the foolish had just ask Siege, why they didn't call her Sam. It turns out that it not only is a fate worse than death, it is also a fate worse than being dead.) Tricks was about to swing her sword when Lady Laseer walked in.

  "Hi Tricks, please don't kill the dead, they are my living."

  "Hi Sarah, long time no see."

  They hugged each other. The other three living people in the room almost died of shock. Unfortunately Brain recovered first.

  "You two know each other? When did this happen?"

  "We grew up together." Lady Laseer replied.

  "Tricks grew up?"

  After that Brain was silent the rest of the Séance. He always found it difficult to speak with a bloody nose.

  "So shall we get on with the Séance?" Sarah said after they had wiped up the blood.

  The spirits saw what Tricks had done to one of her friends and decided that next door at Max's Mix State of Consciousness would be a better place to hang out.

  "Maude says you guys want to contact Gelmont the Lost."

  When she got an agreement from the four of them she started to clear the candles off the table.

  "Don't we need those?" Opie asked.

  "Candles, hell no. That is for the tourists. They interfere with the signal, sort of makes it hard to hear the dead buggers, all fuzz and stuff. As I understand it you want a clear channel to the wonderer."

  "Should I dim the lights, it doesn't feel right with all this brightness in here."

  Opie just wasn't into bright things. Spending most of his life wondering around the catacombs of the library had not prepared him for the five hundred watt candles they favoured at Mrs Maude's.

  "If it would make you feel better, go ahead. I just thought you might like to get a bit of a tan going."

  Opie rushed around blowing out candles and soon they were ready to try calling the spirits. The old scroll was spread across the table and Laseer was starting her low hum. (Calling spirits is a true art. Billions of people have died over the millennia and finding one in particular can be a real mission, especially when he has been dead for thousands of years. When you first die you either take an old wagon to your final destination i.e. Hell, heaven, the beach or some sort of prearranged religious hideout. Or you hang around moaning with the other dead people about how great it was when you were still flesh. Things like 'boy did I ever enjoy that last pie' or 'remember sex, I really should have been a member of the screaming orgasm cult.' Slowly the bitching and moaning gets too much and you start a tour of the various places eternity has to offer. Eventually you find a nice place to settle down and start going to bed earlier and earlier, until one day you just don't bother to get out of bed. Then suddenly, while you half asleep having that really great dream about that sexy Tiffany Johnson, someone grabs you by the shoulder and rips you into a darkened room with five people sitting around a table. Yeah you would be pissed.)

  "What the hell do you want?" the really dark spirit said hovering above the table. (The darker they are the angrier they are, and this one was nearly corporeal.)

  "Are you Gelmont the Lost?" a sweet voice asked.

  "No I bloody ain't!"

  "Sorry, wrong number."

  Before he could get another word and/or deed in he found they had hung up. He sat fuming in his bed. Then decided that it was his loud 'party animal' neighbour they were looking for, so he went next door to give the bastard a piece of his mind, only he was out.

  "Hey, how you guys doing." Gelmont the lost said, almost invisible above the table.

  "Are you Gelmont the Lost?" a sweet voice asked.

  "Yeah, that would be me." he continued in his slow drawn out slur. "I was just finishing off this like really big bong and I like heard you guys calling. So I hopped on over, man, the after life is like so wicked man."

  He almost disappeared. It was lucky that he was still filled with smoke, or they wouldn't have seen him at all.

  "Gelmont, can you translate this scroll?"

  "No sweat."

  Before their eyes the scroll changed from being a scroll into a map. It clearly showed that it was just the rambling of some old guy that had never found anything in his life.

  "Well, so much for finding Da'Loose's treasure." Tricks said, starting to get up to make her way back to the Swill and Donkey.

  "Hey are you guys looking for the Da ’ Loose treasure. Bummer man I think I'm losing my high. Sweet man, I think I left the original map in Nad. Yeah, it had like all these really cool directions and things, but you know how anal these mapmakers can be. So I sort of copied the important stuff, you know, where to get the best weed and who has the best ale, that sort of thing. No jokes that was a wicked trip man. Sorry I can't hang and chat, got a heinous party to go to at Mrs Johnson’s. Chow." And then he was gone.

  "Well, that was certainly interesting." Tricks said, "Anyone feel like an adventure?"

  They all went to the Swill and Donkey to discuss their strategy.

  The Swill and Donkey

  Dark, secluded and altogether seedy looking. The type of place that you go into and kind of wish you had rather spent the evening in the torture chamber. Frequented by Pirates, ruffians, vagabonds, lowlifes, the occasional student, Greg the gay and other riff-raff. Tricks loved the place. She spent every…sorry been through all that. Anyway, one more point, the bed in the back room was in fact Tricks'. That's right she lived in the pub, in fact she was the owner. Never let it be said that she got drinks on the house though. (She always got someone to pay for them. While owning a Pub may seem like a great idea, it can get rather boring.)

  A quick recap courtesy of Brain. His nose had finally stopped bleeding and as usual he was feeling a little talkative.

  "So there I was minding my own business when who should come crashing through my door. That’s right, Tricks herself, demanding one of my new energy drinks. So I tell her, not on your life, you will have to...” (So much for the recap). It was at about this point that the drunken old miner wondered off and the other three returned.

  "How's your nose?" Tricks asked, sitting down and offering Brain a large raw steak.

  "Don't eat it. Put it on your nose, it will help with the swelling."

  Brain thought it would help more if it was in his stomach, but didn't say a word. It had gotten quite late and only the hardened drinkers were left, those and the ones that had tried Guness' secret won't-be-able-to-walk-for-three-days brew. The four sat in silence for a while sipping at their ales, quietly pondering their choices.

  "Well I'm off home, see you guys around."

  Ten minutes later Brain was back.

  "Someone nicked my house; there is just a bloody great crater where it used to be."

  The others chuckled and bought him a fresh round.

  "So when do we leave for Nad? Anyone have any idea of which part of town it's in."

  Opie cleared his throat.

  "Well actually, um, it's across the sea of a thousand widows. I have been trying to get there for years. It has one of the greatest libraries of all time. Past, present and future scrolls, all waiting for me to come and read them. Every time I make the arrangements, war breaks out on The Kingdoms of Lob and Cray. So I'm still in, even if there isn't a treasure, seeing the books will make it all worthwhile."

  "I found the scroll, and I would really like the opportunity to get out of the crowded city. Feel what it is like to have empty pockets for a while, so I'm in." Siege said, looking mostly at Opie and blushing.

  "There had better be a treasure, I need to rebuild my house and catch up on a few experiments, so I'm in. Tricks?
" Brain asked.

  "Sure why not? I could do with another quest." Raising her voice she shouted. "Guness bring us some more beer, for tomorrow we are off a ‘questing."

  A loud cheer resounded around the pub; everyone would be richer with Tricks out a ‘questing.