Chapter 63

Red lay in the vault and decided he quite liked gold.

Okay, that was a lie. Red didn’t like gold, he LOVED gold.

He shivered and squirmed as he rolled about in the pile of the stuff, the heavy metal titter tattering against his scales like raindrops drumming against a canvas. It was an immensely satisfying feeling, like relaxing around an open campfire, the scent of a fresh rat roasting, spiced with shaved Goblin toenails, his Kobold comrades around him, comfortable and safe.

Kobolds and gold went together like wine and cheese, like socks and shoes, like Kobolds ... and more gold. If there was one thing that Kobolds had inherited from their distant dragony cousins it was an appreciation for that lustrous precious thing that seemed to have an inner warmth all of its own.

The Kobold lifted his claws and watched blissfully as coins clinked and slipped between them to fall to the mound below.

Despite everything that had happened, being kidnapped and enslaved by levelers, then being rescued and enslaved again by some terror of a monster and repeatedly used as bait and terrified out of his scales and forced cough to watch that terror do lewd things with that Goblin, despite all of that he was glad he was there at that moment. Only a Kobold at the very tip top of a tribe could even begin to imagine rolling around in a literal pile of gold, if the tribe could even muster that much of the stuff, this was truly a luxurious ecstasy beyond ecstasies.

He watched lazily as the Goblin girl explored the room, or rather, vault. The spear had sheared through the wall revealing the sheet metal clad interior. From what he could tell it had no door on the inside so he had no idea how the original owner of the mansion had accessed it. Some dirty leveler trick no doubt. He shuddered to think that he had been so close yet with absolutely no idea that all this wonderful gold lay beyond a simple wall, that was the stuff of Kobold nightmares.

The room contained a number of chests. Most of them had been stoved in by metal shrapnel from the spear, wooden planks shattered allowing the contents of each chest to spill forth, coins, metal, jewelry, uncut gems, cut gems. Less interesting were the metallic devices marked with occult runes and even less interesting than that was the paper and scrolls, bundles of the things. Red had already looked at the paper, according to the sheep girl they were something to do with power leveling. He did not like the sound of that and had kicked the paper into a corner, shunning the suspicious stuff before subsuming himself into the largest pile of gold he could make.

Opal was picking at a small chest. This one appeared different than the others, while the other chests were at ground level and unremarkable this one was on a pedestal and set with iron filigree, its wood a plaster white. One of the metal shards had struck the lock, fracturing the metal, and Opal was digging at it with her gladius, working it up and down until with a crackle and a flash of blue the lock broke apart, and so did half the rest of the chest as the enchantment holding it together collapsed.

Opal fell back with a yelp as the box broke and a spill of vanta black rubies streamed out, clattering from the pedestal in a shower of gemstones.

“What ... is this?”

Lyra stepped by the confused Goblin and picked up one of the gems. It didn’t reflect the light in the slightest, instead appearing as a pitch black hole in the air, as though Lyra was holding a shard of pure darkness. The only reason she could tell it was a gem was because rotating it revealed its silhouette to be gem-like in shape.

“I ... I have no idea, these things are so dark, it’s like they’re eating the light. I guess they must be pretty valuable if they were kept above where the gold is in a special box.”

Opal huffed and picked up a fistful of the things and let them pour between her fingers.

“This nice secret protected room and there’s not even any swords in it! And my new spear got broken...”

She let the gems fall and then as her eyes passed by the chest she noticed something was still inside of it. It was a bag, a drawstring leather bag with intricate leatherwork carefully crafted and patterned all over. She reached out a hand for it hesitantly, perhaps a small conveniently sized dagger was hidden inside of it?

She plucked it free and pulled open the drawstring then seeing what was inside stumbled back and fell on her rump in surprise.

“What? What is it!” said Lyra alarmed by her reaction.

“It’s- it’s stone! b-but-”

Frustrated at Opal’s non-explanation, Lyra grabbed the bag from her and peered inside.

“O-oh, oh my.”

Red who was getting annoyed that his gold bathing was being interrupted sent a questioning snort in the sheep girls direction. “Is it more gold? It better be more gold...”

Lyra shook her head.

“I think we just found something more valuable than anything else in this vault...”

Red’s head lifted, suddenly interested, what could be more valuable than all this gold?

He watched as the sheep girl put her hand inside the bag and then her arm up to the elbow, then up to her shoulder, yet the bag barely changed shape, the sheep girl appeared to have made her entire arm just vanish into nothing. His brow rose in confusion and he sat up, coins sheeting off his body.

“How are you doing that? Tell me! If this is some tricksy leveler thing...”

Lyra let out a small laugh as she removed her arm. She held out the bag to him and Red took it and peered inside. There was stone inside, literally, stone blockwork walls, perfectly cut so as to be near seamless, walls in the interior shape of a sphere, a sphere somewhere between three and four foot across.