“Not a pretty sight, huh?” Jacq grimaced once the view had cleared up.
“Well, they should’ve expected this sooner or later,” Seetha shrugged.
“I was talking about the dead chickens,” Jacq pointed across the cellar.
“Oh…” said Seetha, as though she had said something embarrassing.
In the midst of the last transpiring hours since they came to Pike’s Pike Inn, she had almost forgotten about their initial goal, which was usually not like her. In the past, she had always been the level-headed one keeping their party of two focused on the goal; but then it was as if the excitement of the battle had blurred her vision in something of a haze of subliminal ecstasy. It was a feeling that she had not felt before.
Once it had dawned on her, she realized it wasn’t so much of a fight as it was simply putting down the local vermin in their own hole, albeit with a cleverly assembled home remedy and strategic superiority against one-sided odds. Even the rising smell of blood and loose excrements, mixed with the stale and musty scent of dust and hay, did not rob her the notion of civil service by what the two of them had just executed. The thought of that, along with the thrill of the clashing of steel, was something that one could, perhaps, anticipate from the more belligerent kind like those of Jacq’s ilk. Tonight had been different. Though Jacq betrayed no expression upon her blank face, Seetha knew she had enjoyed committing what had occurred, for any chance she could get to flex that big sword of hers. Yet, the feeling was like spilt wine bleeding through the table cloth and seeping into the Sword Dancer’s subconsciousness. It was a thrill to fight evil…
Seetha rubbed her brow with her palm as though she was shaking the feeling off like a fly from her hair, before her companion caught her being too thrilled about their business. It had been a thrill to fight evil, but it was not without its qualms to those with scruples. She wiped the blood from her sword on one of the dead men’s trousers, partially to keep it clean and partially as a final insult.
The Rüzgârian, meanwhile, took a candle off of the stand on the support beam and glanced into the makeshift fighting ring. A tinge of guilt somberly glowed in her eyes at the poor, feathered creatures lying in a disordered row within the dismantled ring that brigand no.16 toppled over. All of them had been torn to pieces. What caught Seetha’s eye was the strange, headless bird-like reptile, also lying dead as a doornail, in a dark pool right next to a notched sword on the ground. Now that she had seen it for the first time, even a lifeless one, what with its scaly body, unnaturally protruding tail, and its wings contorted into leathery flaps, a part of her was glad that it was no longer among the living. It was safe to conclude that one of the brigands had accidentally lopped its head off during their blind commotion, not that the realization brought much satisfaction once she remembered the previous conditions of their contract. Jacq said what was already on Seetha’s mind: “Are we too late?”

Ultimately, they had failed to recover Ashinghamm’s stolen property.
“Well that’s just perfect,” huffed Seetha, dropping her soft bottom on an empty mead barrel. “What are we going to have to show for this?”
A sign of life stirring in one of the stacked cages, in the dark corner of the cellar, snapped the two women out of their defeated disposition. They rushed over and, peering through the dark with Jacq’ aloft candle, they found only one hen cowered as far back into the corner as it could push itself. It was frightened, and a little gaunt, but alive.
“Aww, you poor girl,” said Jacq soothingly, kneeling down in front of the cage. She set the candle down before opening the door, and then attempted to coax the bird towards her as though it were a dog If it can work on dogs, she reasoned, it’s bound to work with a hen.
“Well, at least it’s not a—Hold on a sec,” said Seetha rapidly. “What if it’s a trap?”
“A trap?” Jacq incredulously frowned. “Seetha, those guys didn’t even know who ordered ‘the strumpet’ a second ago. Why would they boobytrap their own cargo if they didn’t think anyone would be on to them?”
Seetha shook her head. “You know, you surprise me sometimes, but there’s no harm in thinking things through; we are dealing with Malizauberai magic.”
“Brigands doing magic? Yeah, that’ll be a first.”
“I’m just saying, we shouldn’t let our guards down until we’re certain that everything is clear. I mean, I know its—” Seetha was interrupted by a playful bump to her side.
“Oh, come on, Seetha, just look at her.” Jacq nudged at the hen in the cage. “If it was a monster, I think it would’ve attack us by now. But right now, she’s just a normal hen who needs someone to look after her, until we get her back home.”
Jacq tried once more to gently bring the hen out. Seetha secretly continued to keep a wary eye open, despite her friend’s assurance, and her hand tight on her sword grip. At last, the creature sensed that the tall human before her seemed to pose no threat. It approached her, on dithering tiptoes, until it came into her cradled grasp and instinctively nestled in-between her forearm and chest.
“See?” Jacq smiled with a chuckle.
Ever since childhood, and three years since their first misadventure, Seetha knew well that whenever her less pragmatic friend had something set in her heart, there was very little that could change her mind. Reaching over, Seetha gave the hen an assuring stroke along its heckled feathers.
“I guess she’s stuck with us for now,” she smirked, shrugging her shoulders in playful defeat.  “Let’s go back upstairs and tell Leo the good news.”
“Hold on a sec,” said Jacq, looking around. “I see some coin scattered all over the place. Maybe we should help ourselves?” True enough, there were imperial florins, previously owned by the dead brigands, glittering in the dark by candle-light amidst the scattered straw collecting dust. By some miracle, none of them were touched by the pool of split blood. Looting bodies was disreputable enough; much harder justifying carrying around literal blood money should anyone ask.
“Hmmm,” Seetha examined the ground. “It doesn’t look like very much. Sixteen penny florins, and only two silver florins by my count. These cheap hayseeds couldn't buy two sticks of butter with this much, so what the hell were they even putting up to bet?”
“Don’t know, but what’s the harm in taking it?” Jacq shrugged. “Every penny counts, right?”
“Alright, but let’s hurry,” Seetha sighed as she glanced up at the doorway. Someone other than Leo, or the barkeep, coming down and walking into the bloodied scene with no prior knowledge of their quest, was the last thing Seetha wanted to deal with this night. Sheathing her sword in the loop hanging from her belt, she helped expedite Jacq’s progress by searching the bodies for more loose coins. As she turned them over, patting their pockets and pouches but coming up empty each time, her nose wrinkled at the stench already fouling the damp air of the cellar. “They smell even worse dead than alive,” Seetha squinted.
Beneath the glamorous tales of glory and riches from fighting monsters, dethroning tyrants, and excavating lost ruins of the forgotten past, the Adventurer’s life was not always guaranteed compensation. Not only coin, but also the fundamental essentials such as clothing, food, weapons; and any miscellaneous necessities like kindle and whetstones. The Questing Guild was responsible in providing its members with funds and sufficient travel supplies, until in recent years the (theoretical) ease of purchasing accommodations was made possible with limited credited vouchers for whichever tavern, blacksmith or apothecary that dealt in them.

Seetha recalled that credit vouchers, much like the banking system, was an invention dating back to the Old Cimbrian Empire. When Old Cimbri fell, however, so went most of the prior wisdom of ancient merchants, accountants, and misers on how to efficiently run a banking structure, leaving the continent of Avrupa in an economic quagmire for centuries. It would be later reintroduced by the Laconian Republic, that was after the bloody Relic Crusades of the 8th Century Y.III.S. Even so, certain aspects such as mercantile security and payback accuracy had to be relearned, if not perfected, through generations of trial and error, and even then the success of a simple transaction was not categorically assured.
“So, you’re telling me,” Jacq once inquired about their credit voucher back on the continent, “that this flimsy, piece of parchment is worth over one hundred silver florins?” The machinations of civilization were still bewildering to the Barbarian, even after having a childhood growing up along the fringes of cities in the continent, yet even the Sword Dancer couldn’t fully wrap her head around this concept, though she made no face that betrayed her uncertainty. Now that they were on the run from a pack of vindictive imperial wolves, they would need all the help they could get.
“It’s backed by the Guild’s bank in High Cimbria, so,” Seetha remembered answering in an uneasy voice, “theoretically speaking, yes. It’s worth a lot.”
Jacq caught a shift in her tone. “You don’t sound so sure.”
“My father told me he used one of these once—so yes—I’m sure,” was the only answer Seetha could give. She was telling the truth about her father, the Knight Marshall of Queens’ Barrow, though he never had the nous to tell her, in his letter, if they were actually worth the ink written on them.

Thankfully, the one he had sent to her and Jacq, to support their oversea escape from the Guild until circumstances simmered down, was enough for one passage from Sloane to Angevin, a tent and five days worth of rations for outdoor encampments. Sharing the tent with a single blanket, however, was one more tribulation between the 5’3 Isyrian and the 6’1 Rüzgârian…

Thinking she’d find better luck with the posse’s ringleader, the head brigand who was lying facedown close to the wooden support beam, Seetha tiptoed around the pile of bodies to reach him. “Too bad we don’t have any bird food on us,” remarked Jacq, that was until she spotted the small pouch of seeds next to the cage. “What should we call this cute little bird?”
Seetha’s focus was directed at the slip of parchment she found between the head brigand’s bloodied tunic to care much about Jacq’s fowl friend. Unfurling it with her slender fingers, she was astonished to find the surface grid-marked with some of the squares labeled with peculiar symbols. There were also cardinal directions etched on the bottom left corner.
Jacq stepped over the bodies to where Seetha knelt, asking: “What ‘cha got there?”
“I think this was what they were putting up to bet,” said Seetha, carefully spreading the map across under the candle’s light. A metal ornament woven with bands slipped out from the folds, unbeknown to the two women at first until it hit the stone floor with a jittering thud that took them by surprise. They flinched, anticipating some flash of incinerating light, or a demonic whisper from the dark before everything faded to black. The hen in Jacq’s cradled arm flapped uneasily at first, before it settled back down in its perch. After a moment passed, nothing happened.
“Phew,” said Jacq and Seetha simultaneously.
“That could’ve been a nasty surprise coming right up at us,” whispered Jacq. “Be careful next time.”
“Says the one wearing no underwear,” Seetha softly jeered at her. It was an attempt to save face, yet, the realization of her ‘bout of carelessness couldn't be ignored, tried as she might to poke holes at the easy target. The precarious endeavors of many Adventurers had been abruptly marked ‘the end’ by only one misstep; many times from slow reactions. “But yes,” Seetha half-heartedly admitted, “I—I guess I should’ve seen that one coming.”
“To err is human,” said Jacq, not unkindly. “To forgive—oooh! Looks like we got a key.”
Seetha held up the metal ornament to her face by the string of it’s necklace line. “And a map to go with it. Might be our lucky break.”
“Great!” Jacq smiled. “… Ahhhh, one question. A key to what?”
“I'm not sure,” said Seetha. She moved the metal ornament closer to the light of the candle, and upon a closer look at the woven bands set in-between the metal frames, she could see that there were beads hanging in cross-sections of the leather strings. Peculiar ones.
A fish-like shape that seemed to have been carved out of a jasper stone hung on one side of the frame. Close to it was a trail of lapis lazuli beads going down in a wavy line from top to bottom, where it grazed the fish carving. Last was a tiny slab of pyrite positioned along the top of the frame on the other side of the line of blue beads, with an engraving that compelled Seetha to strain her eyes a bit in the poor light. The pyrite had a circle with an x etched in its center. Seetah’s eyes widened as though she had recalled something, and that something made her look back at the map and saw that the woven bands made the same, squared grid shapes as on the map. She then made the connection.
“Hang on a second,” said Seetha, pulling Jacq close to her. “The beads on this ornament—these are symbols!”
“What?” Jacq looked at her with confusion. “Who would put beads on an ancient key? A child?”
Seetha pointed at each symbol on the ornament. “No, it’s not a key. It’s another map, see? Here’s the Pike’s Pike symbolized as a fish, and these blue beads connecting together must be… the Winding Blue running along side it, which, given it’s location, could mean that we’re standing—southeast—from whatever this little pyrite might be. You wouldn’t happen to be pondering what I’m pondering, are you Jacq?”
“That we’re looking for fool’s gold across the pond?” Jacq chuckled.
Seetha gave her a wry smile. “I hope not.”
“Well, setting aside the ‘pond puns,’ who would make a map look like traveler’s junk?”
“Maybe that was the point,” Seetha reasoned. “Maybe it was ‘disguised’ to look like junk, and whoever went through the trouble of making these things must’ve been someone important around these parts, or even someone from a hundred or a thousand years ago.”
“Maybe someone who had something of immense value to hide,” said Jacq, stroking the hen’s downy neck. “What do you think, Fluffers?”
Seetha raised an eyebrow: “Fluffers?”
Jacq looked at her companion gleefully. “Yeah, it’s what I named the hen. Don’t judge.”
“You do realize that she has to go back to the farmers, right?”
“I know, but what are they going to do with just one hen? Have a pot luck in the middle of winter? They certainly won’t be laying golden eggs, that’s for sure. But, maybe that map and that, um, other map as you put it, will lead us to some ancient ruins or lost dungeon where there definitely is treasure.”
“Assuming that no one’s beaten us to it yet, or if anything is still there,” said Seetha with a hint of pessimism.
Jacq couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s acerbic energy. “Where’s that stiff upper lip you had when you slashed through these guy’s faces awhile ago? This is our chance, Seetha. We’ll finally have something to rub in those stupid, Guild-prick’s faces, and whatever we find where X marks the spot, we’ll just take our cut and give the rest to the villagers. Simple!”
Seetha glanced warily at the two maps. She glanced back at Fluffers, and then at the youthful yet usually air-headed face of her companion. Whether to listen to her worst side that safely presumed every pitfall before their road together, or the pagan woman who handle perils like water off a duck’s back, the Sword Dancer could not decide yet. She still did not know what came over her during the fight. It wasn’t what she’d call having a ‘stiff upper lip’ as Jacq had flippantly put it. Either way, however, she was right about this much: they couldn’t return to Ashinghamm with one hen and a meager pouch of coins to show what they were worth as Adventurers, and should they get themselves captured, the Guild was not going to overlook her part in Jacq’s escape. All in all, their pool of options was a pitiful bucket. The cards that life had dealt them tonight illuminated one point of fact: it was their time to seek their fortune or not at all.
“Okay then Jacq and, uh, Fluffers,” sighed Seetha, taking a coin pouch off of the head brigand and poured their florins into it. “So here’s the plan: we hand Fluffers and this pouch over to Leo, let him take a message back to Ashinghamm to tell them that we dealt with the hen thieves, and that we’ll be back with an even bigger prize to square things out. Then, you and I will follow the river up north until we get close to the spot that the pyrite stone is pointing to, we set up camp, cross the river, then go into this ruin or dungeon or whatever, and then we come out with the treasure.” Assuming that we’ll find anything, she thought.
“Sounds good,” nodded Jacq. “So, what’s on the other map?”
Seetha put the woven ornament around her neck to spread the crumbled map out evenly, while Jacq gently put Fluffers down and held the candle up to cast away the dark. What the two women first noticed was that the map did not look at all like the sloppy etchings of some thief’s treasure map. Rather than some cavern or a tyrant’s twisted dungeon, the floor plans pointed to some architecture that was too linear and refined for either of those. There were half faded words across the brown parchment; some were listed in the legend box while others were situated next to certain points of the floor plan. Perhaps to point out some direction to the treasure, according to Jacq. Or where the traps were hidden, according to Seetha.
There, along the top left, appeared to be a date and perhaps a name, both in a hidden language written in slightly eligible cursive. If it was a name, it was either the author of their discombobulating treasure hunt, or perhaps the architect of the undefined building where the treasure was hidden. Unfortunately, to the Sword Dancer’s discouragement, every text on the map was written in Old Cimbrian, which was an ancient dialect of the Imperial tongue that eluded her knowledge.
“Um, Jacq,” Seetha looked uneasily at her companion, “not to put you on the spot or anything, but please tell me that you passed that course in Language Arts of Old Cimbri back in Rourkehaven.”
“Well, the only words I do know are ‘1-1-6-4 Y.III.S,’” said Jacq, motioning at the map with her other hand, “…and cacas.” Her optimism slowly dwindled. “In other words, unless we kidnap a priest or scholar who can translate all of this for us, we’re—”
The sudden cawing coming from Fluffers almost made the two women jump. “Fluffers?” Jacq looked back at her fowl friend. To her horror, the bird was lying on her back, convulsing and coughing as though she was suffering from fever, her tiny legs kicked up and downy feathers fluttered wildly. Thinking of nothing else, not the treasure map or the racket that Fluffers was making, Jacq dropped the candle and tried to put a protective hand on the bird. “Fluffers! What’s wrong?!” Jacq panicked. “Seetha!”
All that Seetha could do was stare helplessly at her friend’s pet writhing in pain. The sudden sound of ripping flesh and cracking bones was a repulsive sound that made the two women stagger back. Fluffers then made a retching cawing before she bent her neck back in an S shape; spines like sharp quills erupted from her spine. The violent shivering shook the feathers from her wings and upper body, revealing blackened scales slowly pushing themselves up from the pores of her skin like pimples before they hardened over her pink, naked flesh. There was hen blood dripping from her body from the exertion of the transformation, and whatever black magic was devouring her old skin was not finished regurgitating her final form.
Fluffer’s face began to elongate from a petite beak into a bird of prey’s sharp, projecting jaw with a hooked edge. The benign, unassuming brownness of her avian eyes sunk into pools of milk, only to dilate seconds later into the yellow, calculating eyes of a reptile. Little feathers remained on her small, delicate form, yet that was no horror compared to the finale of the abominable transformation. The tail feathers dropped off like leaves in Fall; some invisible hand seemed to spread the cheeks of the bird’s anus apart as they made way. With a last, horrid screech that marked the end of Fluffer’s existence as a hen, a snake-like tail suddenly shot out of the bird’s backside like fecal matter and hung there. The silence in the dark cellar that followed was a reprieve to the requiem knell.
Words failed to delineate that which had unfolded before the Barbarian and the Sword Dancer Both were wide-eyed, breathless, and pale in the faces. The creature that stood in the hen’s place flipped itself back on it’s scaly haunches, preening the dried blood from between its scales and hissed like a serpent, as though it had assumed its existence to have always been a monster. And not anything else before.
Before faintness from the aftermath of the shock could settle in, there came a loud crash from back upstairs that made the girls jump.
“What the hell was-” Jacq started, but never finished, for the next moment passed like an arrow from a bow.

The sound of the inn’s main entrance was violently kicked in, all at once silencing the happy noises of the patrons and their music. Then came a voice spoken in a loud, belligerent proclamation that feigned merriment, followed by the melancholic plucking of a lute’s low strings, accompanied by the sharp, menacing, rhythmic tap of some imp’s tail on the floorboard. Jacq’s hair stood on end; hand in a death-grip on her sword, breath stolen away from her. Shaken to the core, the fiery resolve in her heart was suddenly enveloped by something of an icy shadow. Darkness seemed to dim the candles with a foul, phantasmic breath. There came three voices, one male, and three female, three furies singing delightfully as one devil:

“Oh, what’s that sound? It’s a dying ape—no, wait!
It’s a shameless, pagan knape!
Just a stinky trape who’s gonna get scraped
like a dog off the wheels of her dooming fate…
Jak’har, oh, you won’t escape,

from sweet justice’s hungry glaive!
You think you’re a bad bitch?
You’re a bad itch,
now suck our baaaaaaaaaaaaaalistics!”

The Questing Guild had found them.
“—shit out of luck.” Seetha finished her words.