6. Chapter 6 The Haul
Going through the portal didn't get easier the second time. There was the same flat white nothing, and then I had cobblestones under my boots and Halver's Reach around me and a bit of nausea.
It was late afternoon. The sun sat on the avenue and a cart rattled past with firewood.
People were doing ordinary things while I stood there with dungeon grime on my boots and the memory of a living hive still sitting in my chest. We'd spent hours underground fighting through something that shouldn't exist. The town didn't care. It was just business as usual.
I stepped clear of the portal and took a breath. The air was cold and clean and didn't taste like organic walls and nasty slimy stuff.
Sif came through behind me and stretched both arms above her head, arching her back so her shirt pulled tight across her chest. She held the stretch longer than she needed to. She caught me looking and didn't let it go.
"See something you like, or do I need to actually take the shirt off?" she said.
"I see someone who had half the bones in her body broken not long ago and is posing in the street like nothing happened. I’m not complaining about the view though."
"You fixed me. I feel incredible." She dropped the stretch and tossed her loose silver hair back over her shoulder.
The leather cord she usually wore had been lost somewhere in Cold Hollow.
Without it, the silver fell across her face and she pushed it back with two fingers.
"My body is in perfect condition. You should know. You had your hands all over it."
"Don’t tarnish my reputation,” I said. “I was healing you."
"Is that what we're calling it?" Sif shot back.
Liv shook her head once and looked at Sif, then at me, then back at Sif.
"Are you already flirting?” Liv said, exasperated. “We've been out of the dungeon for like ten minutes."
"Eight," Sif said. "And I wasn't flirting. I was thanking our healer for his thorough hands."
Liv scoffed playfully. "His hands were on me too. It's called [Mend]."
"Did you enjoy it?" Sif asked.
"Sif," Liv said.
"I'm asking a legitimate question!"
“Of course, a handsome man put his hands on me. Who wouldn’t like that?” Liv replied.
“Girls, you are making my heroics sound sleazy,” I said.
Sif and Liv giggled simultaneously.
“Don’t you have any lewd comments, Nott?” I asked.
“I’ll leave that kind of banter to those two. I commend your heroics by the way,” Nott replied.
“Well, thank you. That’s what I like to hear. Make sure to drop into the Healer’s Guild and tell them how great a healer I am.”
Nott shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Gods, we have created a monster.”
Bjorna came through last, the portal collapsing behind her in a wash of violet that faded to nothing. She rolled her shoulders and scanned the avenue in both directions.
"Apartment," Bjorna said. "We need to sort what we brought out. I’m anxious for Nott to tell us what most of this stuff is."
The apartment was a few minutes up the avenue, on the second floor above Larg's smithy. The forge was quiet, the chimney putting out thin smoke that meant the coals were banked. The plank stairs up the side of the building creaked under Bjorna's weight the way they always did.
Sif was talking before we reached the top. "I still can't believe we cleared the whole thing. Four depths and a boss. I honestly thought we would have to turn back after a couple of floors."
"It was a good run." Bjorna headed for the stairs.
"Good? It was incredible. I killed at least thirty of those things. Did anyone count?"
"Nobody counts your kills, Sif," Nott said from behind me on the stairs.
"Somebody should. I was very impressive."
"You were impressive," I said. "You were also impressive when you hit the wall at full speed, but we don't have to talk about that."
"We absolutely don't have to talk about that." Sif pushed through the apartment door and walked inside like she'd already moved on from every near-death experience she'd ever had.
The apartment was the same. The heavy trestle table sat in the middle, the bench under the east window, the coal-pot throwing heat into the low-ceilinged room.
Gear lined the shelves along the walls and the slate by the door still had yesterday's notes chalked on it.
The place smelled like banked coals and old coffee.
Nott put her hand flat on the trestle and closed her eyes.
Items began appearing on the wood, pulled from her Ring of Holding in neat batches.
Coins first, copper and silver and gold in mixed piles.
Then crystals, ranging from the small dim ones we'd collected in the early chambers to the larger bright ones from the boss.
Then dungeon materials, organic components sealed in cloth wrappings.
And last, the blackstone discs. Dark metal the color of a cast iron pan, each one the size of my palm, stacked in groups.
Bjorna emptied hers at the other end of the table. The boss loot came out heavier. Larger crystals, more gold, and more of the blackstone discs.
The spread covered most of the trestle.
"That's a lot of stuff," I said.
"That's what I was thinking. It would be depressing to have gone through all that without a good score," Liv said. She'd settled onto the bench under the window with her legs tucked beneath her, her ears swiveled toward the table, tracking the inventory with interest.
Sif whistled from the doorway where she'd dropped her belt and daggers on a shelf. "Look at all that coin. We're rich."
Liv blew raspberries. “You’re already rich, Sif.”
“Nonsense, my family is rich.”
“Says the girl that purchased us all a month’s pass through the Reach portal.”
“Fair enough.” Sif shrugged. “I do like sharing the wealth at least.”
"We're not rich," Bjorna said. "But this is a significant haul. Nott, walk us through it."
Nott started sorting quickly, her long fingers moving through the crystals with a precision that made the work look effortless.
She held up a crystal the size of a walnut, clear and bright, and turned it in the light from the east window.
"Fire-aligned. Decent grade. These came from the sentinels in depth three.
" She set it to the left. She picked up another one, bigger, cloudier, with an amber vein running through the center.
"This is raw. Unaligned. Worth roughly three times the fire crystal on the open market. "
"Three times?" I said.
"Raw crystals can be attuned to any element by a skilled enchanter. Fire crystals are locked to fire applications only. The value is in the flexibility."
"Nott, you're incredibly sexy when you talk about crystal markets," Sif said.
Nott's pale cheeks turned pink. She didn't look up from the sorting. "I'm explaining the loot. You can listen or you can leave."
"I'm listening. I'm listening with great interest and admiration." Sif pulled one of the chairs from the corner and sat on it backwards, her chin on her folded arms. "Tell me more about flexibility."
"Sif, if you make this weird, I'm going to stop talking," Nott said.
"It's already weird. Daniel is staring at you."
I was, in fact, looking at Nott. The feather-patterning at her temples caught the light when she turned the crystals, and she sorted with a care that reminded me of watching Mildred work at her counter. I pulled my eyes to the table.
"I was looking at the crystals."
"You were looking at Nott's perfect neck."
"I was looking at the crystals and Nott's neck happened to be nearby. This is odd talking about someone’s neck."
Liv snorted from the bench. "Smooth operator."
Bjorna picked up one of the blackstone discs and turned it between her thumb and forefinger. "How does blackstone trade right now?"
"Well," Nott said. She'd recovered from the pink in her cheeks and was back to business.
"Larg would take it. He works dark metals and he'd pay fair.
The market traders would bid against each other on volume, which usually pushes the price up.
I'd recommend the market for the bulk and Larg for anything we want worked into gear. "
"Good." Bjorna set the disc down and started separating loot into three piles.
Her hands were fast and certain. She knew prices, she knew the Halver's Reach market, and she made the calls without second-guessing.
"Gold and silver splits five ways after the Crown's tenth.
Crystals and blackstone go to market. Usable dungeon materials, Nott identifies and we sell what has value. Scrap goes to Larg as credit."
"What's the total?" Liv said.
Bjorna finished counting the coin. She sat back. "Before market sales, we're looking at a party share of four gold and change per head from the coin alone. After the crystals and blackstone sell, I'd estimate eight to ten per head."
Liv’s ears stood straight up. "Ten gold. Each?"
"Give or take. This is the biggest haul we've had from a single run in a long time."
I nodded. "And people do this for a living. I'm starting to understand the appeal."
"The appeal is the money and the glory," Sif said. "And the tight pants."
"And the getting hit by a giant monster," Liv added.
"That part I could do without." Sif stretched her arms over her head again, casual about it but aware of what the motion did to her shirt. "But ten gold buys a lot of nice things. I could use some new leather. My current set has goblin blood on it."
"Your current set has character," Liv said.
"My current set smells like the inside of a dungeon rectum. I'm burning it and buying new gear," Sif insisted.
"Fair enough.” Liv fell into silence, staring at the loot.
Bjorna stood and began transferring the sell pile into her Ring of Holding, tapping each item off the table with practiced efficiency. The loot disappeared into the ring without ceremony. She kept the two blackstone discs she wanted Larg to look at and set them aside on the shelf near the door.
"Don’t burn your gear yet. There's something else," she said.