We can see the entrance of the cave from our current location. We check that all our equipment is in order, our mana is replenished, and we proceed. The cave floor is littered with small pieces of metal, and the atmosphere is dark. It's difficult to see the pieces on the ground and not make noise while stepping on them. Barely a few meters into the cave, a man asks who is there. We do not respond and continue. I hide in the darkest corner of the cave and wait for the man to approach Mike and Zephyr. After a brief moment, a man appears and asks us who we are.
"Who are you two? Did you kill my little babies?" he screams angrily in his loss.
Zephyr asks him if those mechanical golems belonged to him, as they tried to steal from us and kill us!
"You killed them!! You're going to pay for that!" he roars with rage. His eyes turn red and he raises his arms.
But before he can do anything, I use Shadow Stealth and appear behind him in this dark cave, the terrain is perfect for completely concealing my presence, especially when using this skill. Behind him, I stab him in the heart with the blade of my musket and quickly slash his throat as the man falls to his knees. He gurgles something, but with blood coming out of his mouth, I can only rely on his eyes to understand that he's wondering how it's possible. I search him and find nothing important.
We venture further into the cave and find a room serving as a bedroom and another as a workshop. We find a lot of unique-shaped metal pieces, some empty bottles, and a few crystals. I ask Zephyr if she can put everything in her ring except for the empty bottles, and she does. After thoroughly searching, Mike finds a mechanical bracer that can deploy small hooks, perfect for a surprise attack in close combat. We decide to report the body to the guild in case there's a wanted notice for him. Zephyr adds it to her ring, and worst case scenario, we'll dispose of it in the forest if he's an unrelated bandit.
Once back in town, we complete the mission for the Cliquatus and receive a total of 25 AP. We also ask if there is a bounty on an Artificer in the forest, and she confirms that there is. For the past few weeks, an Artificer named Barbos has been creating mechanical golems to harvest resources and rob low-ranking mercenaries. She shows us a picture of his face and advises us to stay away from him if we encounter him. We tell her it's too late and explain what happened. Surprised, she asks to see the body, and Zephyr shows it to her. The secretary asks us to wait, and she returns with a man who introduces himself as the manager of the establishment and congratulates us. The bounty on Barbos was 10 gold pieces (GP), and he gave them to us in exchange for the corpse.
Zephyr declines the gold pieces as well as the AP, as she doesn't need them, so Mike and I divide the coins between us. I ask if they want to split the resources we found into three, but Mike and Zephyr don't want the metal pieces. They leave them to me, so to be fair with them, I reduce my share of crystals. We return to my room at the academy so that Zephyr can empty her ring. All in all, I leave with 5 GP, 15 AP, a pile of bones, a mountain of hides, two medium crystals, a stack of various corpses, and about twenty differently-shaped metal pieces. I thank them for the adventure and suggest that we should do it again soon! Finally alone in my room with a pile of resources, I head back to the Void Mall.