Part XCVIII: Under Mountain
Kapton 10th, 114 A.U.
“If I was a buried treasure, where would I hide myself…” Flek mumbled.
“Or where would you hide one, if you were an evil Sla’ad king,” Monty replied. “Honestly, we’ve just been wandering around in circles. I have no idea where we are going to be able to find it.” They were all sitting on a ledge on one of the mountains that they had been searching the past few days, and had come up empty.
“If I was a Sla’ad king…” Hagion mumbled, thinking carefully. “I mean, it’s not like he had many options about where to hide it. They hadn’t lost complete control of the air yet, but they were still carting several treasures around, and they had to be doing all of this in secret.”
“Why didn’t they just bury it under the palace?” Flek asked. “Maybe-”
“The Sla’ad who was sitting at those meetings told us it was hidden in the mountains,” Augger replied. “And with them in danger of being bombed out, I’d doubt they’d hide it close to where the main fighting was. It would have had to be a secretive attempt, but they had to bury it somehow.”
“They didn’t have much time,” Hagion replied. “From the beginning of the siege to when we finally broke in was a relatively short amount of time. If they had carted over lots of heavy equipment, we would have noticed. We were attempting to keep a tight surveillance on this area.”
“Of course, Sla’ad tend to be able to blend in and not be as visible given their dark forms,” Monty mused. “And if they were trying to do this in quick order, then I’d suspect that they might have found a large cave with a narrow opening to try and hide these in so that they wouldn’t have to do all the work of making their own little catacomb.”
“Of course!” Hagion said, jumping up. “It makes complete sense now! The Caves of Dragla.”
“The caves of what?”
“The Caves of Dragla!” Hagion said. “They were a well-known network of caves in these mountains that had been a fairly well-populated tourist attraction until, after the war, they appeared to collapse after all the bombs that went off and the fighting. They would have been a perfect place to hide treasure. Especially if you closed off the entrance to the caves first.”
“Do you know where the caves are?”
“Not exactly, but they were in Dragla Mountain,” Hagion said confidently. “Somewhat near the bottom. And so we have to be able to find the entrance there.”
The team stared at what looked like to be a large landslide on the mountain as Hagion slowly nodded his head. “Yep,” he said. “This is it. This is where the Caves of Dragla once were.”
“Well, at least we found them,” Flek said. “But how are we supposed to get through into the caves? That’s a massive landslide right there! To get through that landslide is going to cover some machinery—machinery that we don’t have, I might add.”
“To get through the landslide, yes,” Hagion mused. “But not if we decide to enter the caves by another way.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Caves of Dragla went all over the place and was a whole series of caves and tunnels,” Hagion replied. “There may be another cave that’s closer to the surface which we could just dig down to. I did see some machine in the aircraft that we had that would help us in digging. We just need a map of the caves.”
“I’ll call Reynyagn then,” Augger replied. “If there are any maps to be found, we’ll be able to find them in the city.”
“That was Reynyagn,” Augger replied as he put his walkie talkie back into his bag. “He just called to say that he was able to find a map of the Caves of Dragla. We decided that it would be too complicated for him to try to direct us how to find it while he’s over there, so, since he’s been doing nothing for the past couple days, unable to find any good leads in the ransacked palace, he and Jroldin and Brother Tomas are going to be coming to re-join us.”
“Is that safe?” Number 994 asked nervously. “I mean, if one of us is the traitor-“
“Well, given that they haven’t been able to find any information from where they are, we really don’t have any reason to continue separate,” Augger replied. “They’re going to have to come here. And once we breach the opening of the Caves of Dragla, well—then we will be able to figure out what we should do about the traitor.”
Question of the Day: What are they going to do about the traitor?
Kapton 10th, 114 A.U.
“If I was a buried treasure, where would I hide myself…” Flek mumbled.
“Or where would you hide one, if you were an evil Sla’ad king,” Monty replied. “Honestly, we’ve just been wandering around in circles. I have no idea where we are going to be able to find it.” They were all sitting on a ledge on one of the mountains that they had been searching the past few days, and had come up empty.
“If I was a Sla’ad king…” Hagion mumbled, thinking carefully. “I mean, it’s not like he had many options about where to hide it. They hadn’t lost complete control of the air yet, but they were still carting several treasures around, and they had to be doing all of this in secret.”
“Why didn’t they just bury it under the palace?” Flek asked. “Maybe-”
“The Sla’ad who was sitting at those meetings told us it was hidden in the mountains,” Augger replied. “And with them in danger of being bombed out, I’d doubt they’d hide it close to where the main fighting was. It would have had to be a secretive attempt, but they had to bury it somehow.”
“They didn’t have much time,” Hagion replied. “From the beginning of the siege to when we finally broke in was a relatively short amount of time. If they had carted over lots of heavy equipment, we would have noticed. We were attempting to keep a tight surveillance on this area.”
“Of course, Sla’ad tend to be able to blend in and not be as visible given their dark forms,” Monty mused. “And if they were trying to do this in quick order, then I’d suspect that they might have found a large cave with a narrow opening to try and hide these in so that they wouldn’t have to do all the work of making their own little catacomb.”
“Of course!” Hagion said, jumping up. “It makes complete sense now! The Caves of Dragla.”
“The caves of what?”
“The Caves of Dragla!” Hagion said. “They were a well-known network of caves in these mountains that had been a fairly well-populated tourist attraction until, after the war, they appeared to collapse after all the bombs that went off and the fighting. They would have been a perfect place to hide treasure. Especially if you closed off the entrance to the caves first.”
“Do you know where the caves are?”
“Not exactly, but they were in Dragla Mountain,” Hagion said confidently. “Somewhat near the bottom. And so we have to be able to find the entrance there.”
The team stared at what looked like to be a large landslide on the mountain as Hagion slowly nodded his head. “Yep,” he said. “This is it. This is where the Caves of Dragla once were.”
“Well, at least we found them,” Flek said. “But how are we supposed to get through into the caves? That’s a massive landslide right there! To get through that landslide is going to cover some machinery—machinery that we don’t have, I might add.”
“To get through the landslide, yes,” Hagion mused. “But not if we decide to enter the caves by another way.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Caves of Dragla went all over the place and was a whole series of caves and tunnels,” Hagion replied. “There may be another cave that’s closer to the surface which we could just dig down to. I did see some machine in the aircraft that we had that would help us in digging. We just need a map of the caves.”
“I’ll call Reynyagn then,” Augger replied. “If there are any maps to be found, we’ll be able to find them in the city.”
“That was Reynyagn,” Augger replied as he put his walkie talkie back into his bag. “He just called to say that he was able to find a map of the Caves of Dragla. We decided that it would be too complicated for him to try to direct us how to find it while he’s over there, so, since he’s been doing nothing for the past couple days, unable to find any good leads in the ransacked palace, he and Jroldin and Brother Tomas are going to be coming to re-join us.”
“Is that safe?” Number 994 asked nervously. “I mean, if one of us is the traitor-“
“Well, given that they haven’t been able to find any information from where they are, we really don’t have any reason to continue separate,” Augger replied. “They’re going to have to come here. And once we breach the opening of the Caves of Dragla, well—then we will be able to figure out what we should do about the traitor.”
Question of the Day: What are they going to do about the traitor?
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