This battlefield is a large black patch of terrain and a poor tree that had the misfortune to be hit by a beam of concentrated fire, the terrain was burned unevenly to the point that it looks like the landscape was painted with a full brush. of black ink.
Apart from the wagon which was completely disintegrated by the fire element mage the other wagons had their outer layer burned and cracked by the package from being thrown away. But as far as we can see the items inside them were rummaged around, the first wagon I arrived that was being looted by Zephyr's group and two other smugglers working for Erick and Gloria behind them all, had all the weak that were inside the wagon destroyed. , a colorful mixture painted the interior of the wagon.
When they broke open the door a chemical smell was released into the air, when Zephyr tried to enter Gloria pulled him back letting the smugglers into the wagon. I checked just as Zephyr was trying to free himself from Gloria's grip who had just saved him.
A closed box where a huge number of medicines from different sources that may even have poisons in my mix is not a smart place to enter.
"Shut up Zephyrus, Gloria just saved your life. We're going to back off, and you two in there must leave now!"
But when Gloria pulled Zephyr back the two smugglers didn't get out, when I summoned a flame to light up the wagon entrance from afar, I saw two smugglers passed out on the ground. It seems that a deadly mixture or a powerful sleeping pill was born from this mixture of substances.
"I need help here! Did the water element warrior survive the attack?"
I doused the fire and approached the carriage entrance, but didn't put my face to it. I approached from the side to break the entrance and widen the entrance to the carriage, I covered myself with my wind element to make sure I protected myself from the toxic gas that was coming out of the cart.
I started to widen the hole in the carriage to ventilate the air, until my attention was directed to Erick who had just appeared to be running towards the carriage.
"She's dead, Ulric! What happened?"
"Two idiots passed out inside the wagon. This wagon was full of vials and now they are completely broken and mixed up, do not approach the carriage without protection, breathing this air will knock you down too."
"Fuck! You also need to get away from Ulric, this mixture can become unstable and cause an explosion, we're going to have to burn this shit down before we go."
"But if you set it on fire then an explosion will happen."
"After the fire goes out, we will be able to bury the wreckage, we can't leave anything behind. That's the best way to clean up this mess the two idiots are already dead, let's save what wasn't badly damaged in the other two wagons."
I still think it's risky to set fire to the wagon, but the dead men aren't mine. If I hope there isn't a big explosion, it would be very unlucky for the explosion to get anyone's attention. The last thing we want right now is for the Border Sentinels to find out that there's been a big battle near the border.
Of the two entire wagons, I went in the one that contained the chest that didn't hide the mana and energy of the fire element that is inside it, obviously I'm not going to open the chest here, but nothing stopped me from getting it so I'm now leaving it to open it when we are in a safe place and away from the smugglers.
Along with me in that wagon are Hilda and Alice and some smugglers who are carrying the loot away from the broken wagon. I get in the wagon only to see that more than half of what it should be carrying is gone and the half that was left most of the items are either damaged or not very important.
The chest I desire is hidden inside a broken bookcase; it seems that luck is smiling on me again. If this trunk hadn't been buried in broken rubbish, the smugglers would have taken it away by now, and maybe I even discovered what it's worth.
I get rid of obstacles only to find a simple chest, but at this distance I can easily see the runes that are engraved on the inside of the lid and inside the lock, away from him this detail was hidden by the light that ends up covering the chest. It looks like it won't be easy to open this chest, it will be a lot of work trying to disarm its lock, but unfortunately, I have no other option to force a rune lock and ask this thing to explode and kill me.
It's a pity that it's impossible to get the key from it, it's probably in the hand of the person who will receive the chest or the mage who turned coal. Only the little coal would have the strength to protect the key to such a valuable item, but if the key was with him, it's already gone.
I took the trunk and put it in my bag discreetly and I took some less damaged items like a small tapestry that ripped the end and a bottle holder that still had three whole bottles, these tubes must contain some liquid ingredient because they don't look like potions or oils prepared by alchemists their flask is very simple and without even a marking.
"Did you get him something good?"
"Probably not, the wagon is already quite empty. And you two?"
"I got some good stuff and Hilda managed to find a box full of chemicals, I had three safe boxes of these in the carriage, but the rest of the contraband inside the cart was luxury or religious items. The tax is also high on this type of garbage so they are worth picking up."
"You seem to have been unlucky, Ulric. This rug may look nice, but it's a prayer rug and can only be sold to the followers of the goddess Zita, they tend to be kind of poor if you get my meaning, their religion has a lot of ascetic characteristics."
"Good to know, so I don't think they'll care too much about the damaged end of the rug. But we better finish taking everything that is in the wagons, there was a problem in one of them and we are going to destroy it. The gains will be less than expected, try not to make the situation worse, ok?"
"OK."
"What's wrong with the wagon?"
"That should be the wagon with the most valuables, it's full of drugs. Medicines, potions maybe even poisons, but when the wagon was blown away by the explosions the weak ones broke and most of the substances mixed in."
"Holy shit, a waste of money, but why do they have to destroy the wagon?"
"You're lucky to have attacked the convoy this way, Hilda. A bunch of chemicals got mixed up in a closed place, that's very dangerous, we were lucky that wagon didn't explode because of it."
"The two idiot smugglers who got inside the wagon either passed out or were killed because of the air created by all this mixture, if Gloria hadn't been their Zephyr would have the same end as the two idiots. Erick decided the best way to clean the place is by attacking fire that might cause an explosion, but I still find it dangerous."
"What bad luck."
"We better get going, almost everything has been looted these smugglers are very efficient at looting. As I said before, you don't have to pick a fight, nobody is happy after the disaster that crazy little coal did today and about a good part of the goods being lost or damaged."
Hilda grabbed some boxes and started to walk away from the carriages, but Alice stayed by my side.
"You shouldn't talk like that about the dead, they might come back for revenge."
"That's pretty sinister, but as far as I can remember there are echoes of dead people, but they're pretty harmless or am I wrong."
"I'm not trying to scare you, but not everything that exists is recorded in books, Ulric. My family takes ghosts and specters very seriously, some members of my family have had bad experiences facing incorporeal beings, so we avoid messing with the dead now."
"Okay, but how do you kill something already dead?"
"My uncle says I managed to hurt the vengeful creature with his lightning element, but it wasn't very effective which shows how that thing wasn't common and not the work of a necromancer. We all know that the dead and the spirit or shadow creatures they create are vulnerable to light or lightning."
"So, your uncle really faced a kind of spirit that wasn't afraid of lightning?"
"To be exact, the lightning barely managed to hurt him, but what scared my uncle the most and led the family to make new rules to respect anyone who died and avoid making their enemies suffer before killing them, and because the creature had the face distorted by the agony and rage of a wizard who was killed in a very violent way by my uncle's bad guys several years before he was attacked."
"You're not messing with me are you, Alice?"
"Of course not. Why would I play with something like that?"
"Okay, but we better get back to work."