Several bites into the bread Adelaide came to a cross tunnel and stowed her snack back into a pocket before brushing the crumbs from her hands and taking a small run. Mid jump she grabbed a pipe overhead and continued forward along the tunnel.
She rummaged through her pockets and pulled out the ring she had swiped from the marketplace. Pausing long enough to see the ring in the dim smoky light of the torches along the walls. She never understood why they insisted on lighting the sewers, and with magical fire no less. A follow-up thought made her question why magical fire gave off so much smoke. It was as weird as it was useful.
The ring glinted in a familiar silvery way and Adelaide smiled. That would be enough for a good meal or two even after the fence took his cut. Slipping it on, she waggled her fingers and admired the glint for a moment. Her other hand pulled out the small canvas pouch she had also pilfered. It was reassuringly heavy as she bounced it a little before opening it.
Coins from all over the Splinterlands stared back at her, disembodied heads of rulers from the gods know where looking regal and cast forever in ridiculous poses. It was mostly copper and bronze but still, money was money. Now to find a good place to sit and finish her lunch.
A sudden noise in one of the dim side tunnels had her crouched, dagger in hand. The tunnels were very different than the surface, someone coming at her down here meant it was life or death. The guards didn't patrol down here so often.
Adelaide moved closer to the edge of this new side tunnel and peered around the corner, quickly jerking backwards and off to the side. The gelatinous cube that passed out of the tunnel seemed not to notice her. She wasn't sure if noticing things was even something they could do.
Most of the items stuck inside it were junk but near the base of the disgusting thing was a backpack that looked damn near brand new. A quick toss around her revealed an old piece of wire which she quickly fashioned into a hook as she crept silently up behind the slimy mass.
Delicately reaching into the jelly itself, she easily hooked the backpack and just kind of, hung on as the cube kept moving away from her. The leather pack sizzled slightly as the acid kept eating away at it even after it was sitting on the bare stones.
Using the makeshift hook, Adelaide peeled back the flap to open the pack and started pulling anything out that looked salvageable. Whoever this belonged to had met a fate she never wanted to experience herself. Eaten by a slime, how very disgusting and undignified.
Several scraps of what looked like decently nice clothing were already mostly full of holes and slowly dissolving into a sort of linen paste. A dagger that used to have a finely wrapped handle, now only the blade and a metal stump where the handle had been. A boot came out next, almost dissolved away to reveal a skeletal foot inside.
How on earth did that guy's foot get inside his own backpack? she mused silently to herself, that's a hell of a bad day. She flung the boot and the bony foot together into the central stream of brackish, foul water. Best to not get involved in whatever that was.
After a few more moments of rummaging, she found the prize, a fine looking pouch. Hopefully whatever was inside was intact. As she pulled on the bag itself, it disintegrated and spilled out a number of large golden coins. Adelaide's eyes went wide but she wasn't looking at the coins. Instead she was staring at the one of the tokens she had only dreamt of ever holding.
Sitting there amongst the wealth of gold and silver was one of the Tract tokens the wizard's had minted specifically for the companies hired to divvy up the land they were offering for sale. It was worth a small fortune and entitled the bearer to 100 parcels of land and whatever resources were found there.
She forgot herself for a moment and reached out to touch it before she pulled her fingers back in pain as the acid burnt her immediately. She pulled out her waterskin and dumped the contents onto the coins before scooping them up and sitting down breathlessly.
Adelaide's mind raced. Was it illegal to have one of these if she hadn't paid for it? She had heard the wizards were making the tokens transferrable without all the extra paperwork involved in most transactions. Regardless, Adelaide now realized she was the richest person in these sewers right now and had a sudden feeling of vulnerability.
Scooping up the coins and the token once the water had nullified the acidic residue, she pocketed the coins and hurried off down the tunnel.
She had to get to Marty's right now. He had beds and a fire and most importantly he would know what to do. Because she certainly didn't.
The young woman pulled herself up as she grabbed the coins from the ground and moved quickly down the tunnel and out of view, no doubt eager to examine the Wizard's Token more closely. A lucky find some might say.
The figure in the shadows pulled its hood back low over their face and seemed to smile as they faded from view, moving back down the tunnel towards the guest that lay in their cot.
CHOICE TIME!
Does Adelaide:
A) Go immediately to Mary's without delay.
B) Take a scenic route to calm herself a bit.
C) Double back and search to see verify what happened to the owner of the backpack.
BONUS CHOICE!
Without context:
A) Blue
B) Green
C) Red
This result will be used at a time in the future and is without context to test how fun these choices will be.
Give your answers below in the comments and don't forget to follow to be included in the drawings for some Card Giveaways!
As before here is the scoring system I will use to determine which cards are given away. Also the cards will tie directly into the story, so more interaction means better cards and more powerful characters in the story.
An Upvote is 2 points
A Comment is 1 point
and
A Reblog is 5 points
Last time we hit: 638 points! So this means a LEGENDARY CARD!
I will also up the numbers here slightly because you guys did amazing but I'm not entirely made of legendary cards :P As you can see I boosted it only a little, thank you all for the time and the feedback. But remember only followers get entered into the giveaways, so make sure you are followed up top.
01-100 points will be a Common Card
101-200 will be a Rare Card
201-350 will be an Epic Card
351+ will be a Legendary Card
The Winner of the Legendary Card is: @marianaemilia ! Let me know your Splinterlands username below and I'll send the card along!
And here's the card:
Now the question is: How does the Scale Doctor fit in? And who is this shadowy figure? And what happened to Derian Kell?
If you want to support me, how about supporting me by doing things you'd be doing anyway!
I'm going to put some referral links below. If you don't like to do the referral link thing, I understand completely, just ignore the following few lines.
I promise this is the most you'll hear from me about it.
Use links at own risk and be careful out there. I can say fairly certainly
https://kryptogamers.com/?ref=tanzofett <- a Hive based gambling site with Video Poker, Blackjack and other games. While I do not condone gambling per se, it has a referral code and gives dividends for holding Gamer Tokens... something I use in DCity :)
https://freebitco.in/?r=3794418 <- a free bitcoin faucet, with notoriously small amounts but I have never had to buy or do anything other than click once an hour.
Comment, Re-Blog (Re-Hive?) and Upvote if you want to! I prefer comments and people picking choices for our characters over upvotes or re-blogs. I want the community to really make these choices and for ideas and theories to pop up down below for everyone to pick apart.
Plus Comments and Re-Blogs can help get some big card giveaways!
In any case,
Stay Safe Out There.
Tanzo