The loot – and the (hopefully) last Hag – was located not far from the Mayor’s Office, basically right across the street in another more or less intact building. More or less intact meant in this case that demolishing it and building something else on the lot was probably marginally less expensive than just repairing it. Assuming, there was a possibility to get a bunch of masons into the city.


    As it was, the building still had a roof, giving it an attribute of any good house (weatherproofing) and most of the ugly decorations were crumbling. That made it actually less ugly, but not by much.


    This time, the Hag – a Level 10 Brook Hag – wasn’t asleep, and neither was it surprised by Prof bumping into it at a corner. On the other hand, neither was Prof’s party surprised. Or wading through a brook on a rainy day. More importantly, they weren’t screwed over by the finicky relationship of the Valley with space-time this time.


    Mini started shooting, Sharpclaw faded into the background – most likely preparing to surprise the Hag with a hard and straight toy into the back – while Prof and Bianca occupied its attention from the front. Binky prepared to launch itself at its future lunch too. Just as they practiced a few times and were planning to do with the very first Hag they stumbled upon. Wolfgang was hesitating for a few seconds, clearly not knowing, where his position should be, but finally decided to join the other two front-liners.


    In the end, they didn''t even need Binky to munch down on their enemy – overwhelming firepower and numbers were enough. First, Mini''s bolt interrupted whatever spell the Hag was trying to cast, next Bianca slashed its chest diagonally, Prof stabbed it in the stomach and finally, Wolfgang bashed its head with a theatrical, overplayed smash. He then whirled around, mace planted on his shoulder, and struck a pose. Ok, so that was what Showman did…


    That Sharpclaw assassinated the Hag was just an afterthought.


    “What time is it? It''s looting time!" Prof had to work on his stupid one-liners, that was clear, and not just because everyone else – and that included Binky – grimaced.


    “Don’t try to be funny, Prof” Mini told him with a strict face “I’m much better at it, you would be just a bad copycat.”


    “Yes, I agree with Miss Mini.” even Bianca stabbed him in the back. Backstabbing was Sharpclaw’s forte!


    “Head hurtsssss. Pleasssse no more funny.” that little traitor!


    “Me agree with others. Humor should be portioned carefully. The less humor one has, the more carefully. You out of humor.” hey, they only knew Wolfgang for a short time, and he already was a wiseass. Oh, he had a Perk for that…


    “Fine, fine. Sorry. Oh look, loot!” that was either the best or worst change of topic in all of history. Probably best, because valuables were literally just lying waiting to be repossessed by any interspecies party in need of spending money came around. Well, since Prof’s gang was the only interspecies party currently around, and they were in need of money…


    Almost equally importantly, they were in need of clothing too.


    Dragons weren''t the only species to build a hoard, obviously. The building was full of pilfered stuff, thrown haphazardly into piles. From coins to precious stones, metal bars and ingots, weapons, armor, clothing, books, jewelry, tableware, statuettes, vases, and even some furniture! If you had a few hundred years to pilfer a whole city – and probably some adventuring folks – you would end up with an unmovable quantity of more or less valuable stuff. The Hags had a few hundred years and did end up with more stuff than was healthy for any group that wasn’t some kind of state.


    It was a wet dream for everyone with an urgent need for more money. No, it was a wet dream for everyone. Period.


    Wolfgang immediately set out to look for his book, while Prof and the others were just standing there stupidly. Prof thought about reenacting a certain duck with a top hat diving into a pool full of money, but unfortunately, there was no pool, the coins were just put into multiple heaps and some chests. That, and metal coins were hard, diving into a pile or pool full of them was probably painful.


    “Right, guys, start looting." Prof finally said. "First, try to locate our stuff, hopefully, some of our extra clothes survived. Next, concentrate on precious stones, they are probably the most valuable for their weight. If you see something obviously extremely valuable, bring it back here, as soon as we finish with the first sweep, I will try to put a value to everything and we can decide, what to bring!"


    Well, Prof was a professional looter and it showed.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Finding their stuff was easy in the end – it was just dumped in a pile in one corner, either the Hags did not have time to distribute the bags'' content, or just dumping stuff in a pile was how they did things. Both were possible, with all the mixed piles all around. The bad news was, that only the magical or shiny items were there. No camping supplies, no food, no mundane weapons, armor, or clothes – from the latter, only scraps survived. Prof''s cool armor, bought all those months ago in the Afterlife Office was shredded, his nice axes missing, and only his Dire Bear suba was in the pile. Rest in pieces, dear stuff. Bianca was even less fortunate, nothing of hers was in the mortal plane anymore.


    “Hey, Prof!” Mini interrupted his mourning “I think, most of the stuff here is magical.”


    “Why do you think?”


    “Paper, cloth, and wood don''t do well in open spaces for hundreds of years. Look around! That’s an Elven fluffy carpet over there, right on top of a four-poster bed, that includes a soft-looking mattress! Look how many books are there sitting around! Even the steel weapons have no rust on them! This here is a gold… no, a diamond mine… no, a mine for something more valuable than diamonds! If I’m right, and I’m always right, you could buy half a kingdom for the stuff!”


    “We are filthy rich?”


    “Yes and no. We would be filthy rich if we could move all of this. Move it outside the Valley, that is. And assuming no one thought, they would be a better guardian of our stuff than we are. As it is, we are not richer than a few days ago. Probably even poorer, because of the lost stuff.”


    All that shiny stuff made Prof forgot a very important detail: the Hags ate all of their mules. They had no transportation, no food, and no booze. Most likely they would even have to leave behind their previous loot too, just to reach civilization again.


    Maybe they could get dressed by the clothing articles lying around, but since Arkadian clothes weren’t one-size and they didn’t resize either…


    Crap…


    “Me friend! Prof!” At least one was happy. Wolfgang bounced happily between the piles of invaluable valuables and priceless clutter “Found book! Look!”


    “Hey, Wolfgang. Say, can you identify magical stuff?”


    “Sure! First thing you learn! Not now, need to read book! Later!" Wolfgang flopped down next to their stuff, looked around, and pointed to another pile "Me stuff! Stuff of band!"


    The Orc fished a leather vest out of the pile and put it on. It was black, had metal studs on the shoulders, and the skull of something pig-like painted on the back – including chains, a metal hat, and glowing green eyes.


    “Nice vest. What’s that on the back?”


    “That Warhog, family crest. See, this ancestor''s axe, it''s family heirloom!" Wolfgang held up a huge two-handed axe. What? Why would an axe need chords? Was it even possible to fight with it in its current state?!?


    Wolfgang did not care for Prof’s confused look, sat down again, and started reading.


    Prof shrugged. Different species, different cultures, different sensibilities. No need to question them.


    The day went by with sifting through mountains of… basically everything a deranged author could dream up in the way of "that should be cool to hand out someone". Mini was right, though; almost everything that was not a precious metal or stone was magical in some way, and a lot of the former was too. It would take a largish guild weeks to identify all of it – but Prof had only access to only one magic user, and that was occupied with an ancestral book.


    Their sorting was sometimes interrupted by Wolfgang exclaiming loudly or oohing and aaahing. After a time, no one gave him any heed.


    The coinage (only counting gold and silver) only was in the order of several ten thousand something in value – since Prof had not the faintest idea about exchange rates, all of it could be worth only a loaf of bread, but Prof doubted it very much. Loose precious stones in the order of a few hundred kilograms, enough jewelry and artwork to fill a ship, Prof feeling dizzy from all the wealth around him. Even if he only owned a fifth of all that and had to pay taxes… No such a number simply did not exist, not even in math examples.


    It was close to dusk when they decided to be done for the day. They only ate very little the whole day, and Mini had only a few portions of trail rations, so food would be a huge issue in the coming days.


    “Me friend! I been right!” Wolfgang joined them “Tru Greenskin musics wasn’t Granite in beginning. Ancestor recorded everything! Granite is just softer version of tru musics! Ancestor had name for it, but me not understood word. Not very good at [Dead Language: Old Greenskinian]. Called it steel but not steel. What is bester than steel? The bestest?”


    Prof''s first idea was gold. If you had enough, you could freely exchange it for every and all other metals. His next idea was some kind of steel alloy, or maybe something like Titanium, Chromium, Tungsten, or something like that. Then he remembered his shopping spree with Sandy. What was the very best metal there was on the list? Unobtanium, maybe, but if he remembered correctly, it was prohibitively expensive and almost impossible to obtain. What else? He hasn''t spent much time on the more expensive part of the catalog, seeing the price tags once was enough. He did remember, that the usual fantasy metals existent on Arkadia though, so why not?


    “I think, the very best is Mythrill." almost every fantasy novel displayed it as the best, and he was neither a metallurgist nor versed in legends. Even his Skills told him so.


    “Mythrill? Hmmmm… YES! Me name old-new musics ????????????????!”