As Jaeger stepped through the portal, he felt a weight settle across his shoulder. As soon as Kaeleth and Palu stepped through, he felt familiar claws lightly pierce into his skin. As he surveyed the poisoned wealth around him, the glint of gold stealing his sight and the sound of clinking jewels overwhelming his hearing, he felt a fur-clad head roughly press against his head and turn his gaze towards the cabinet.

  “No time for distractions, grab the chaos elf and your freed slave/ex-steward/hostage and get to the cabinet.”

  Shaken from a daze, he hadn’t felt, he acted fast. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the arms of his companions and moved, dragging the dazed pair as he did. He didn’t slow down or release them until he felt them keep up with him. Not turning back, lest he catch sight of the charmed coinage again, he spoke.

  “Keep walking, do not stare at the gold or gems.”

  “This was a dangerous risk. I hope you have a plan.” Kaeleth cursed, stepping up to match his pace.

  “I am sorry. This isn’t my first time coming into the treasury, alone or with guards, and the times I have been through here, I have been immune to the curse.” Palu said, his voice waning and weak. “I… I think that with the death of the Flesh Trader, any magics he cast are starting to come undone, but I have never heard of magics coming undone so fast.”

  Mischief leapt from Jaeger’s shoulder and landed upon Palu, flopping across his head and shoulders; the man froze until the press of sharp claws pushed him forward.

  “The world rejects foreign magics like those created by Flesh Maker.” The cat stated.

  “I... I what?”

  “Your master was not of this world, nor was he accepted by it, so his magics are being unmade with a focus that most others would not receive.”

  “You…What are you?”

  “Bored.”

  “You are bored?”

  “Yes, you are boring. I wish my Warlock had killed you; this whole situation would be much more fun then.” Mischief said before rolling off the man’s head and disappearing in a puff of smoke.

  “Lord Mischief came with you?” Kaeleth asked Jaeger, an edge of adoration in her voice.

  “I suspect he’s always around me. He is the one who directed me to come in here.” For the first time, Jaeger turned around and looked past Kaeleth and Palu, towards the portal. “He’s also the reason I’m not worried about that.”

  Kaeleth spun around, her eyes on the floor until she was facing the portal, and cursed.

  “Damn your bones, Palu. The guards are closing the portal.”

  Palu paled and tried to turn around, only to catch a glimpse of a nearby gold pile. Clenching his eyes, he stopped turning and spoke.

  “I had wondered why Daren let us pass so easily. The few times I’ve had to come here, without the Master, he pushes me for a bribe to pass, like he was some common city guardsman. I thought he let us pass easily because of you two and your obvious danger.”

  “It seems our ruse was up at some point.”

  “And now we’re trapped here, until an overwhelming number of guards come through here to kill or capture us.” He buried his face in his hands. “Which is the best case scenario, the worst case is they just leave us here. With no food or water, our deaths will not be easy or clean.”

  Jaeger ignored the despairing man on the ground and continued to the cabinet, Kaeleth hot on his heels. Upon approaching the cabinet, two things were made quite clear about it. One, the cabinet was huge, sized for a titan. Two, he saw no way to get up to it.

  “Well, we’re here. What is the plan?” Kaeleth asked as they stood before the cabinet, its doors out of reach above them.

  “Palu!” Jaeger called over his shoulder.

  “…”

  “PALU! Get over here, now!”

  A shuffling noise announced his arrival.

  “How did you get into this?”

  “Why does it matter? We’re trapped here.”

  Jaeger held back his first response and a sigh; Kaeleth was not so kind.

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  She met him with a swift backhand before grabbing the squirming man and shoving him in front of the cabinet.

  “Your job is not to question, it is to act and follow our orders. Need I remind you, your life is dependent on our mood? Now answer him.”

  Palu shook and eyed the elven woman, fear evident in his expression.

  “Yes? What was the question?”

  Jaeger gestured at the cabinet.

  “How did you get into this?”

  Palu nodded and scanned around the bottom of the cabinet. He searched between the legs before retrieving something and presenting it to Jaeger.

  “Here, it's a control rod. The cabinet is a compressed space, similar to the treasury.”

  Jaeger held the rod.

  “The Flesh Trader used more space magic than I expected.” He tapped the rod. “How does it work?”

  “Yes, he did. He always said it reminded him of home, the complete absence of anything just waiting to be filled.” Palu shuddered at the memory and then shook his head to free himself of the thoughts. “To control the rod, you simply point it at the cabinet and say Meíosi. That will cause the cabinet to shrink down to regular proportions. The items inside will appear small, but once you remove them, they will start to regain their intended size.”

  “That is impressive. Could we not simply take the whole cabinet?”

  Palu shook his head.

  “No, the Flesh Trader said that the magic only holds because it is anchored to the ground and that the earth itself powers it. He could have been lying, but I do not know why he would, about this at least.”

  That was a fair point, Jaeger thought. Pointing the rod at the cabinet, he spoke the activation word.

  “Meíosi.”

  And just like Palu said, the cabinet shrank down to a more human size. Smirking in the shadows of his outfit, Jaeger grabbed the doors and swung them open.

  Inside were five items. A worn black journal with the words ‘Neir Lagune Compagnie’ carved into the cover, a worn and torn saddle, a bangle etched with numbers that are always changing, a red gem that held a ghostly howling face, and a glass dagger that filled with a black fluid that had a glass case covering it.

  “Take the bangle, the journal, the saddle, and the glass cover; then our bargain shall be complete.”

  “And the other items?”

  “I would not recommend anyone touch that gem; the being within tends to corrupt and consume its bearer. The dagger is not something you should take; simply the cover will do.”

  Mischief had resumed lying lazily across Palu and waiting for Jaeger to hurry along, a fact reinforced when he started to claw at the man’s neck. Jaeger ignored the man’s plight and reached into the cabinet. First, he picked up the glass cover, then grabbed the bangle and journal, knowing their sizes were unlikely to change very much. When they came free, the bangle and cover changed not at all, while the journal grew to the size of a large business ledger.

  “You, my dear Warlock and your adventurous friends, will find its contents especially enlightening.” Mischief said as he hopped from Palu to Jaeger and retrieved the bangle, which he slipped over his back leg.

  The cat shook its leg and, satisfied, jumped off the bounty hunter hanging in midair for a moment before fading away slowly, leaving a slow ticking sound and its toothy grin behind it.

  “I wouldn’t spend any time going over the journal, though, now that the dagger has been uncovered, its owner shall come to retrieve it, and better they find this place empty, instead of finding you.” With that, he faded away completely.

  Pocketing the journal and glass cover, Jaeger reached back in for the saddle. When it came out, it grew to a size beyond even Ventress; whatever creature this fit was the size of three or four horses together.

  “Does that get us out somehow?” Kaeleth asked, a forced calm in her voice.

  “No idea, I can’t check and was hoping he would say before disappearing,” Jaeger responded.

  Kaeleth’s face twitched, and the neutral look she held slowly started to melt as she grew angry. Palu jumped in before things turned even more dire.

  “I can identify it!”

  That drew the gazes of two deadly people to him, and he shook like prey before a predator.

  “How?”

  “Why?”

  Both words came at the same moment, and he went tongue-tied trying to respond to both at once.

  “The Flesh Trader. He…he made me learn identify and analyze, and then he had me train them extensively. As his steward, I was tasked with identifying all his loot and analyzing all his food for poison.”

  “Why would he trust…”

  Jaeger put a hand on Kaeleth’s shoulder.

  “No time for questions. Identify the saddle.”

  Palu nodded and hurried forward, raising both hands. He held them over the saddle and focused. As he did, a flat transparent stone slate appeared before his eyes, and the item's details slowly filled themselves before his eyes.

  Going over the item details, he nodded and then focused on displaying the item details to the other two.

  “This could get us free,” Jaeger said.

  “Oh? Do you happen to have a mount somewhere on your person? Or are you going to become one?” Kaeleth asked sardonically.

  “Ventress, I need you.” He called out.

  “Who is Ventress?” Palu asked hesitantly.

  The sound of hooves in the distance, growing ever closer, answered him.