Tag: treasure

Isle of the Immortal Crab

“Do not speak his name!”

The cry came from across the way, from the man who leaned beneath the shade of a great palm.

The woman he’d called to turned away from the little girl by her side, to whom she’d been speaking, and turned to the man. When she saw who it was, she smirked.

“Why not?” she asked. “He’s long dead. Are you afraid he’ll come for your other arm?”

She approached him, for it was him she had come seeking.

He did not move, but his eyes did, dropping to peer at the girl.

The girl’s own eyes were seeing him.

And seeing beyond him.

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Vault of the Fortunate Heir

The canary sang to the high stone wall, as if it were the maiden-bird he’d been courting. She perched nearby, of course, hoping that his golden voice would loosen the locks to a vault full of golden treasure.

One of the most prosperous beasts in the world had died, an heir to a vast and uncounted fortune. News spread that he had a vault that could be opened by a single magical utterance. The utterance was known, but the magic was in how it was uttered. No one knew how it must be done. So all were welcomed to try.

So it was that the beasts of the world made their way to the vault of the fortunate heir.

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The Fool With the Clever Eyes

Hands in pockets, inhaling sharply, and exhaling a sigh, Freddie glanced around the room that was not an escape room. He was standing in front of a typical-looking door smoothly painted in a pleasant shade of beige. He adjusted his glasses and peered at the textures on the door’s surface. His friends murmuring amongst themselves behind him. They weren’t trying to get out of the room. They were trying to get into the next room.

That was the objective of the game. Because the room they were trying to get into was filled with treasure. And that “treasure” could have been anything from a book of gift certificates to a brand new car.

Freddie felt and heard the rumble in his stomach. He sighed again, turned his head around, and said a single word.

“Legerdemain.”

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The Treasure of Gilda

Upon her inheritance of a great fortune from a distant uncle who had favored her when she was but a toddler, the woman, named Gilda, had immediately adopted a lavish style of living.  Thereafter, she and her husband and their two children abided first in comfort and then in opulence.  When one of her less fortunate cousins came asking to share in a small portion of the riches, Gilda agreed, but only if he earned the portion, by being in her employ.  He became her carriage driver.  And he was driving her home one day to her countryside manor, when a sudden obstruction appeared, and he drew back the reins to halt the carriage.

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The Mage, the Troll, and the Gold Coins

When Sona first came upon the velvet sack lying just beside the road, she almost passed it by after a quick and curious glance.  But with a sigh, she veered off the path and knelt down to inspect the sack.  It was partly hidden beneath a bush, and the velvet was the color of leaf and dirt, so it was no wonder that another traveler had not yet found it and picked it up.  She lifted the sack and checked it for markings, a monogram or crest stitched into the fabric, or perhaps something a bit more subtle.  With one hand, she raised the sack, as she waved the other before her eyes, casting a lensing spell that would allow her to see any magical markings upon the sack.

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The Lost Treasure of the Arcadian

Over the last three hundred years, elaborate guesses have been made about the nature of the treasure aboard the Arcadian. It was only after news spread of the ship’s loss to a freak storm as it passed through open and unclaimed seas that the rumors of what it carried began to spread along with the news of the wreck.

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The Telescope of True Sight

“Ours is a family of seers,” Gran would say, before she began one of her tales. “But like everyone we can choose whether to look or not to look.”

Then she would tell us, a varied collection of her grandchildren, of what she had seen when she chose to look. We’d listen raptly as she told us stories about all the odd items in her collection of treasures from her life. She had the usual things that people had: birth certificate, diplomas, love letters from Grandpa, pictures of her children and grandchildren, books, trophies, vacation souvenirs, and so on.

But she also had things that people typically did not have: a petrified dragon scale, pearlescent flecks from a unicorn horn, a shard from the sword of a giant, a seed from a long-extinct and legendary talking tree, and so on. Every odd treasure of hers had a story to it. And every story was an adventure from her own life.

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