"Kallvindr!" Astrid wailed, kneeling down beside the dragon and sobbing. It was one of the more pathetic things Emma had ever seen, and also not her priority for the time being. She rushed to Aexilica and Vari, actually surprised to find them both alive.

Well, within reason. Vari looked like he'd been hit by a brick. Probably, it was a flying scale. A dragon scale, which meant the thing was more like a piece of dinner-plate. It'd gashed open his forehead, but he seemed cognisant enough that Emma thought there wasn't too much damage beyond that. Aexilica was okay too, not having been even hit by any of the debris from Groygar and Kallvindr's fight. She was bruised and battered enough in any case, but still mobile.

"We lived." Aexilica grunted.

"We lived." Vari agreed.

Emma tried to echo them, but to her horror she just started crying. Ugly crying, of course. Snot bubbling out of her nose and running down her chin as a gluey river.

"I…I thought you both…I thought…"

She took some time to regain control of her emotions, finally wrestling thought from their steely grip. It was relieving, for all of two seconds before Emma found herself crying even harder.

Aexilica awkwardly patted her shoulder, seeming genuinely unsure of what to do for the first time in a long time.

"It's…It's okay." She tried to assure her, "We're alright Emma, you don't need to—"

Emma shook her head, cutting Aexilica off only by focusing all of her will on speech.

"N…No, not that, not…Oh fuck, we're not gonna get paid now!"

Another fucking fortune they'd missed out on, Emma took a good few minutes of sobbing before she'd finally regained some mastery over herself.

When she did, it was Astrid who spoke to her next. The idiot had gotten herself burned kneeling in the boiling blood of her dead pet, and her face was puffy with spilled tears. It made her look even younger, though the quivering rage was clear enough regardless.

"You, you people, you kill things for money right?"

What?

"No." Emma sniffed, then laughed as her nerves frayed. "Noooo, no. Fuck that. Fuck you, I don't plan on fighting a fucking Demigod for money, and I definitely don't plan on fighting one for you for money."

Astrid glowered at her.

"You invaded my home, what else should I have done but force you away?"

"You don't have a home." Emma snapped. "You lived in a fucking cave."

Astrid started crying again, and Emma laughed at her before turning to Vari and Aexilica. She lowered her voice before speaking.

"How much do dragon scales sell for? Dragon teeth? Dragon…parts, in general?"

Without warning, Astrid got up and stormed towards Emma. She actually raised her hands in anticipation of an attack. Magic or not, even random eighteen year-old women were bigger than her. Fortunately, things didn't get physical. The girl stalked past Emma and into the cave.

Perhaps against her better judgement, Emma followed.

"A cave." Astrid spat, as if Emma had in some way slighted her by correctly identifying the natural, underground chamber made of stone. "A cave! This was my home. Kallvindr's home, our…" She sniffed. "Our home."

Yes, and I was making fun of you for making your home a cave.

"Look, I don't know where this is going but I have a lot of stuff I need to—"

Astrid knocked on a wall a few times, felt for a particular rock, then twisted it. An entire section of the cave fell away to reveal a cavern hidden away. It was absolutely filled with…Riches.

Not silver and coins, though. This was in equipment. Lots of it seemed old and battered beyond worth, but Emma saw a few bits of arms and armour that looked pristine enough to sell…Or use.

"Where did you…Get this?" Aexilica frowned, leaning down to quickly snatch up a sword. It looked good. Incredible, really. Razor-sharp, with an edge that seemed so thin it almost disappeared when seen side-long. Vari didn't even say anything at all, just lifted up a hammer with weird glowing runes on its sides.

"K…Kallvindr found it all." Astrid whispered, her smugness suddenly evaporating as tears welled in her eyes again. "He never talked about it but…I think most of it was loot from people who tried to murder him over the years. Dragons like treasure, you know."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Emma frowned at that. "He could talk?"

"Of course he could." The girl snapped. "He just chose not to."

Right.

"Hold that thought." Emma skipped from the cave and hurried to Larry, who was predictably sulky as he always seemed to be.

"You left me again!" He snapped. "Right there, with fireballs exploding everywhere, I could've died you moron, do you even…" Emma tuned him out, just waiting for the yapping to cease so she could get a word in edge-wise.

"We're being given a mini-cave full of magical loot." She told him, which seemed to quieten Larry quite fast.

"What kind of magical loot?" He asked, suspiciously.

"That's what I need you to tell me, but if it's really good it might speed me on my way to having a kingdom or something. Which means more time to spend learning my powers. Which means less time for you to wait before being sent to go and bother someone else, right?"

Larry changed his tune almost instantly.

"Did I ever tell you that you were the prettiest, coolest, most intelligent wizard I've ever seen, after all my time spent ferrying people between worlds?"

"Only when I was threatening to leave you face-down in a toilet." Emma beamed, just as they finally reached the cavern. Astrid shrieked as she entered with Larry, pointing at the head in outright panic.

"T-That! What is that? You…What did you do to him?"

Emma resisted the urge to grin at that as she held Larry up for the woman to see more clearly.

"He angered me, so I used my dark magic to cut his head off and trap him in a state of undeath forever."

Astrid screamed again, and Emma cackled.

"Show me the equipment." Larry snapped, seeming to have had his mood fouled again. Emma was always pleased to take a notch out of his smugness, and tallied another point scored by her in their silently-agreed-upon game of constant antagonism. She turned him towards the smaller cavern and let him do his thing.

"Useless, useless, useless, okay, useless, overpriced, dildo, useless…Ah." Larry's eyes narrowed as they fell upon one of the pieces of equipment. He glanced to Aexilica and Larry. "So both of you grabbed cool, shiny gear right away, right?"

They nodded.

"You're idiots." He told them. "You grabbed useless trash, get that stuff instead."

"Fuck you." Aexilica growled. Vari spat at his feet.

"Cursed head, cursed for a reason I think. Bastard."

Larry grinned as he watched them sift around for the items he'd directed them to, while Emma tilted him to help his highlighting it all.

"That sword and that mace." He said at last, watching as Aexilica and Vari lifted the weapons up. "Also that hauburk—suit of chainmail—is enchanted as well. And that helmet and those greaves."

It was oddly refreshing to be directed to loot with such simplicity and ease.

"What will they do?" Vari asked, testing his mace with a few gentle swings at the air. Before Larry could answer, one of its edges clipped a rock. There was a sharp crack, then another. The first came from some discharge of force that sent the thing almost spinning from the Sculd's grip. The other came when a section of stone fell away as broken debris.

"That, basically." Larry grinned. "The armour will stop that from being done by other people's weapons. Amazing, I know. Can we go now?"

"We can." Emma grinned, turning to Astrid. "Oh, yeah, sorry uh…I'm gonna just rob you I think? I really don't want to fight a Demigod and I'm sick of being a hobo again."

Astrid didn't scream of scowl, as Emma would've expected. Just smirked.

"I thought you might say that." She grinned. "So I only showed you part of Kallvindr's fortune, if you want the rest—the remaining ninety nine hundredths—then you'll have to avenge him."

She could've been lying. Emma so desperately tried to remind herself that she could have been lying, but…

"How far will this treasure take us?" She asked the rest of her group. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Vari who replied.

"We could live comfortably for a year, or not so comfortably for two." He told her, frowning. "Depending on what you find comfortable. We will not be wealthy, most of it is…Not worth anything."

Emma inhaled, and forced the breath to remain still in her chest for a few moments as she thought.

"I don't want to die." She said, flicking her eyes across everyone present. Aexilica looked sympathetic, Vari…mocking. He knew better than to say anything at least.

"So you won't be doing it?" Aexilica asked.

Emma paused. What was…What was this? Were they asking her, deferring to her? Why? What the fuck?

But…No, there was no time for that concern. Not with the question now steaming at her feet.

"We'll need to risk ourselves eventually, right?"

But I won't need to for a while now.

"So we may as well get it over with, secure a future sooner."

Unless I just spend a year training, perfecting my powers.

"Let's get this over with." Emma said, finally. "Let's prepare first, while we can, but…Sure, let's do it." She turned to Astrid. "You're your father's heir right? We'll need equipment."

Emma took her time setting up this new glider, not having anything as pressing as Aexilica's imminent demise to force her to haste.

It meant she had time to think, to introspect. That felt weird. Unpleasant. Emma had never made a habit of it in the past, never enjoyed it. It almost hurt, and now it was practically agonising. She was being selfish and risk-taking to throw herself into this fight, now, instead of just taking the money and running. So why? Why was she putting her neck on the chopping block? Was she that eager for money?

However tempting it was to remember the ruined villages and tell her she was putting down a threat to human life, that certainly wasn't it. Emma had made something of an art of misanthropy and she wasn't slipping from that old habit now of all times.

No, the more she thought about it the more clear her real fear became.

I don't want to go back.

If Emma took the easy money, she could live a quiet, simple, unremarkable existence for as long as a year. And she would never leave it. She'd remain trapped there, smothered by her own mediocrity. Her powers would change nothing. It had taken the lunatic certainty that she was hallucinating all of reality to make her actually exert agency over her life.

And that wouldn't come to her again.

The glider took to the air, twisting and shaking as Emma focused on stabilising it. Their flight back to the town wasn't anywhere near as long as their walk away from it. Another miracle of magic, of her magic. Of the magic Emma could barely even scratch the surface of.

She'd have to take her time, Grogyar had claimed to be missing something like nine tenths of his power during their last fight. From what he'd done in this one, Emma believed him. She wasn't going to be aided by the Storm-Eyes or Battle Bitches either, this time it was just her, Vari and Aexilica. Did they have a chance? Yes.

Did they have a good chance? Well, that would very much depend on the next few days. Emma intended to make some big changes, and she wouldn't stop making those changes until her powers her jumped up another tier.

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