The mana signatures that Aryn sensed numbered four. Considering he had walked over a dozen kilometers through the forest by now and hadn't sensed a thing yet, that was certainly strange.
Looking at the huntress in front of him, he debated whether to even tell her about what he sensed or let her think her heirloom was lost forever.
'No matter what reason there might be for so many mana signatures to be all clustered together like this, I simply can't imagine it being one I'd like.'
There was a risky decision to make. Either Aryn would continue on past the signatures, acting none the wiser. Or he would tell the huntress what he found and possibly earn himself three of the four potentially valuable items.
Aryn smiled like he had just thought of a good joke and opened his mouth to speak, "I found something."
The huntress stopped and turned around to face him, "Where?"
Ignoring the question for now, Aryn said, "There's more than one thing giving off mana. Anything that isn't your heirloom is mine, deal?" He made sure to keep the details for himself.
As the final words left his mouth, Aryn focused on the huntress, trying to get anything he could from her expression or her body language.
A slight twitch of her right hand had him increase his guard further, now subtly controlling two of his six Darts. He readied himself for anything but showed none of his caution.
If things went south, he planned to use his young appearance to his advantage. A spoiled ten year old was easy to underestimate. But hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
After a pause that Aryn felt was a little too long, the huntress finally replied with only a nod before gesturing for him to lead. He didn't like where this was going, but he couldn't show that or he would lose the element of surprise.
'Do I just attack now?' He was getting nervous. This was the first time he was in a situation like this. He couldn't be certain she had nefarious intentions, but his instincts were hard to ignore at the moment.
'It's only reasonable for me to lead though. I'm the one that knows where to go, and it would be strange if I insisted that she go first... Shit.' He'd made a mistake.
'I shouldn't have told her. I should've come up with a reason to split up and checked the signatures myself before deciding what to do next.' It was too late now though.
Accepting the disadvantageous position, he started slowly making his way through the brush while focusing most of his attention on the silently following huntress. The absolute lack of sound as she moved further unsettling him.
He steeled himself and decided that at the first suspicious move, he'd go for the kill.
'It's better to kill someone who's innocence is in question than to be killed because you assumed them innocent.' He kept repeating the words in his head as he slowly made his way to where he sensed the four mana signatures.
After about five more minutes of trudging through the unforgiving forest with his nerves strung taut, Aryn and the huntress came upon a small cave entrance on the forest floor.
Here, the lush forest floor turned to stone and gnarled roots. Slightly elevated beyond the rest of the stone was a crack about three meters tall and one wide. The surrounding roots seemed to converge around the mouth of the small cave, but none actually made their way inside.
'Fuck that. This is bad juju.' All four mana signatures were coming from about 20 meters down diagonally from the entrance. This whole situation practically screamed that entering was a bad idea.
He turned back to the huntress, who hadn't made any strange moves since the twitch of her hand earlier. Though if Aryn was honest with himself, he would realize that that wasn't really such a strange reaction.
"The mana signatures are coming from in the cave. It looks like they were all placed there purposefully." He left his suspicions unsaid, but easily heard.
"Hmm... Can you get them out?" She was as inexpressive as always, not giving Aryn anything to guess what she might be thinking.
With only 20 meters between him and the items in question, and him knowing exactly where they were, he could try using telekinesis from outside the cave. But he would have to guess the layout of the cave to successfully bring them out.
"I can try." He nodded and started focusing on one of the mana signatures.
Manipulating the ambient mana to control the object telekinetically, he lifted it up from where it was before slowly starting to get a feel for the shape of the cave. Whenever he couldn't move the object in one direction, he would mentally mark that as a wall before trying another.
After a few minutes of trial and error, his face fell and he realized something.
'It's completely enclosed. I can't get them out from here.' It was one bit of bad news after the other.
Now his only options were to go into the cave himself, convince the huntress to go in, or give up on the mission.
He knew it was stupid, but he really wanted to go in himself. Not because he was desperate to complete his first mission or anything. Not even because of the potential reward of the the objects.
'This is exactly what an adventure should be like!' He just wanted to live out the fantasies of his previous life.
In his somewhat twisted mind, Aryn thought that the perceived danger and mystery of the situation only added to the sense of adventure he was feeling. So he walked up right next to the cave and looked back over his shoulder at the huntress a few meters away.
"Wait here, I'll check it out." He waited for a nod before looking into the cave, still keeping a portion of his attention on her.
It was remarkably dry for a cave in the middle of a lush forest and the walls were strangely bare of any moss, but that was the only thing he found strange at first glance.
The walls of the cave were formed of normal stone, and seemed to be natural with no notable markings. It widened a bit past the entrance, reaching roughly three meters in diameter.
The cave was sloped down and east at a fairly steep angle. He would have to climb down carefully or risk slipping.
Carefully making his way into the cave, Aryn ensured his footholds wouldn't fail him as he made his way down. Every few steps, he would use a hand to grab ahold of something just in case.
He continued on his way slowly until he reached the bottom of the slope and caught sight of what was keeping him from remotely retrieving the items from the outside.
At the bottom, around 15 meters below the ground, the cave evened out and continued east for a few meters before ending. At the end of the cave, Aryn could easily make out what it was that was blocking his attempts.
'It caved in. But who or what brought the items down here in the first place?' The end of the cave was blocked by fallen stones.
Making sure he was a safe distance, Aryn started using telekinesis to clear the cave-in one rock at a time. Some were too big to move, but those he could move were enough to clear the blockage enough to see through to the other side.
Past the blockage was a perfect cube of empty space carved into the stone. He couldn't see the whole room yet and the space he made was too small to get through, so Aryn continued, his curiosity burning.
Stone after stone, Aryn cleared a path to the strange cube-shaped room until he had moved enough to squeeze through the top of the pile. Without too much hesitation, he started to crawl through head first.
As he made his way into the room, he struggled to make out anything in the darkness. The light that made its way into the cave was mostly blocked out by the pile of collapsed stone, but enough made it through that his eyes would adjust in time.
By the time he squeezed the rest of his body through and stopped blocking the little light that made it into the room, he took a look around the room and found a few things he deemed of import.
First, he looked to the four items he was draw here by. There was the bracelet he was looking for, a sheathed dagger, a compass, and a small pouch.
Before he did anything with the items, he looked at the only other thing in the room... Legs.
'Poor fool. He should've been more careful.' A pair of legs extended from under the collapsed stone. Whoever they belonged to had been killed by the cave-in.
'They are probably the one that brought all these things in here. But why? And did they make this place, or was it already here?' Aryn knew he probably wouldn't be getting all his answers.
Turning back to the four items, he directly stuffed the enchanted gold bracelet into his pocket before taking a look at the rest.
He grabbed the sheathed dagger and drew it, taking a look at the blade.
"Nice." He spoke to himself.
The dagger was unassuming if left in its sheath with a rather uninteresting but comfortable handle. But its blade was fancifully engraved with a beautiful pattern resembling a wolf's teeth going up the fuller of the blade, nearly reaching the tip.
The mana it was giving off clearly told him it was enchanted, but he didn't know enough about the subject to determine what effect it had.
Sheathing the dagger and attaching it to his hip, he turned to the compass and picked it up off the floor.
'What use could an enchanted compass have?' He thought as he looked it over.
It was a plain compass with the only things of note about it being that it only had one hand that was constantly spinning and that there was a rune on the bottom from a language he didn't recognize.
Placing it in his pocket, he turned to the last thing of note in the small room, the bag. The bag itself wasn't what was giving off mana, but its contents.
Without much hesitation, Aryn untied the leather strip at the top and gently turned out the contents onto the floor. To his surprise, out fell...
'Not a clue what those are.' He watched a bunch of what appeared to be marbles of various colors roll on the floor for a moment before coming to a stop.
Each of them were the size of the tip of his finger and they all gave off a faint bit of mana. Together in the bag, they had seemed like one enchanted item.
'Whatever, back into the bag you go.' He pushed them all in using telekinesis before tying the bag back up and strapping it to his hip next to the dagger. He wasn't willing to touch something he didn't understand with his bare hand.
With one last look at the pair of legs sticking out from the cave-in, Aryn started climbing back out of the cave.
Making it back to the surface without issue, Aryn stood up, dusted himself off, then turned to face the patiently waiting huntress.
"I got it. Let's head back to the guild and complete the mission." He didn't hand over the bracelet immediately.
For missions involving retrieving lost items, it was necessary to complete the trade with a guild employee present. Though there were exceptions in some cases.
Understanding this, the huntress didn't voice any displeasure and started walking back in the direction of town as if he wasn't even there.
Understanding by this point that this was simply how she was, Aryn followed silently, only now letting down his guard slightly. Not entirely though, he wouldn't do that until he was home.
***
Making it to the Adventurers' Guild without any trouble beyond the naturally difficult to traverse forest, Aryn and the huntress walked up to the counter to talk to Garret.
It was already nearing dinner time, so there was no line at the moment. everyone still in the building either worked there, or were enjoying themselves on the other side at the bar.
Garret, seeing them walk up to the counter, gave a smile and asked good-naturedly, "Any luck?"
"More than good! I even found a bonus." Pointing to the pouch and dagger on his hip, Aryn smirked.
"Good for you! Now you two can exchange the goods. Then I'll mark down the mission as complete."
Not having to be told twice, Aryn took the bracelet from his pocket and held it out to the huntress, who was doing the same with a small silver coin.
With the trade done and everyone happy with the situation — or not. Aryn couldn't really tell what the huntress was thinking — Garret pulled the paper that was originally posted on the mission board out of a drawer and stamped it before moving it to another.
Then he turned back to Aryn and said, "Congratulations Kid, your first job was a success."
"Thanks Garret, have a good rest of the day!"
"You too, Aryn."
Aryn turned to say the same thing to the huntress, but when he did, he realized that she was already gone. She was so silent that he didn't even notice when she left.
'Damn. I want to be able to do that too...' But he couldn't, so he walked home the normal way.