The Amethyst Wreck | Part 2

Nox slid forward, small and careful. The stone beneath the lift was cracked, and the floor around it sloped toward a broken gap in the stage. His teal eyes narrowed with focus. The amethyst-veined rock below the wreck shifted gently, not lifting the whole thing, just bracing it. A few rough stone ridges rose around the lift’s base so it could not slide while they searched.

“Thank you, Nox,” Levi said.

Nox flicked his tongue and settled near Levi’s foot.

With the lift steadied, they began collecting.

There was a lot packed around it: bent brass rods, cracked stage masks, old coins that had fallen between boards, amethyst chips, curtain rings, a small silver cup, and pieces of painted scenery worn smooth by time. Speedy was delighted by all of it. She moved quickly from scrap to scrap, snatching things with her claws or mouth, then passing smaller treasures into her tentacle mane so they could hold them close against her head.

Levi kept one eye on her.

“Useful pile,” he said, pointing to one side. “Pretty pile over there. Suspicious pile nowhere, because we are not keeping suspicious things.”

Speedy dropped a cracked purple glass eye into the suspicious pile that was not supposed to exist.

Levi stared at it.

Speedy stared at him.

“Fine,” Levi said. “A very small suspicious pile.”

Cyborg found a broken lever set into the lift’s side. He touched it once with a mechanical hand.

The lever snapped off.

Cyborg held it silently.

Levi winced. “That probably wasn’t your fault.”

Cyborg stared at the lever.

Speedy chuttered, then took it from him and placed it in the useful pile with great confidence.

Behind the broken lever was a narrow gap in the lift’s frame. Purple light glimmered through it.

Levi leaned closer. “Wait. There’s something behind there.”

Speedy’s head snapped toward him.

“No shoving your face into the mystery hole,” Levi said quickly.

Speedy growled.

Nox slipped closer and pressed his small body near the floor. The stone under the lift shifted again, subtle and careful, nudging the damaged frame just enough to widen the gap without making the structure collapse. Cyborg braced the loose brass edge with one artificial limb. Tucker rumbled from the entrance, watching closely.

The gap opened.

Inside was treasure.

Real treasure.

Gold coins had spilled into the hidden space beneath the lift, bright even under the dusty purple light. Amethyst gems lay scattered among them, polished and deep violet, each one catching the glow from the crystals in the wreck walls. There were silver bracelets, old rings, a necklace set with tiny purple stones, and a small crown-like circlet bent slightly out of shape.

Speedy’s pupils widened.

Her short tentacles lifted all at once, curling close around her head.

Levi inhaled sharply. “Oh.”

Tucker made a soft, startled sound from the entrance.

For a moment, even Speedy did not move. The wind sighed through the broken theatre. Dust drifted over the treasure. Somewhere above them, birds cried across the chasm.

Then Speedy reached out with her snout toward the nearest coin.

Levi gave her a look.

She paused.

Very slowly, she picked up the coin with her claws instead and placed it into Levi’s hand.

Levi blinked down at it.

“That was… actually polite.”

Speedy growled, offended by the accusation.

They salvaged what they could safely carry. The coins went into a cloth bundle. The amethyst gems were wrapped carefully so they would not chip. The bent circlet went into Levi’s satchel, and the rings were tucked into a smaller pouch.

Speedy was allowed to carry some of the treasure close in her short tentacles, under very strict supervision.

This supervision did not stop one silver bracelet from vanishing for several minutes.

When Levi noticed, Speedy looked away.

“Speedy.”

She chuttered innocently.

The bracelet reappeared from within her mane and dropped into the treasure pile.

Tucker watched all of this with gentle amusement, though he seemed more interested in a tiny purple wildflower growing through a crack near the wreck entrance than in the coins themselves.

Levi noticed his gaze and smiled. “You found treasure too?”

Tucker’s crest shifted softly, raising just slightly.

The little flower was bent nearly flat by the wind coming through the broken theatre, its thin stem trembling between splinters of old wood and stone. It had somehow rooted there anyway, stubborn and delicate, glowing faintly in the purple light.

Tucker could not reach it properly. His head was too large for the wreck’s narrow entrance.

But he did not need to reach it.

He lowered his nose as close as he could and breathed out slowly.

His jungle magic moved gently through the cracked floor. It did not burst or blaze. It simply warmed the air. A bit of green pushed through the dust around the flower. Its leaves lifted. Its stem straightened. A second tiny bud formed beside the first and opened into a small purple bloom.

Tucker looked happier about that than Speedy looked about the gold.

Which was saying something.

Cyborg stood beside the broken salvage lift, perfectly still except for the occasional creak of his artificial limbs. His eyeless face pointed toward the treasure compartment. One gold coin had rolled against his mechanical foot.

He did not pick it up.

Speedy noticed.

She crept over, took the coin delicately in her claws, and placed it on top of his artificial head.

Cyborg stared.

Levi covered his mouth.

The coin slid off and clinked onto the floor.

Speedy chuttered once, as if disappointed in his design.

Getting out of the wreck took longer than getting in.

Treasure was heavier than junk, and Speedy kept trying to argue that she could carry more than she should. Since most of her arguing was growls, chirrs, and offended chuffs, Levi could not understand the exact details, but the meaning was clear.

“You are not carrying the entire treasure pile,” he said.

Speedy made a sound like a kettle full of bees.

“No.”

Nox helped guide the stone beneath their feet as they climbed. The chasm walls shifted in small, safe ways, giving them footholds and steady ledges. He stayed close to Levi, sometimes curling around his wrist, sometimes moving ahead to test the path. He did not strain himself. He did not try to be strong. He simply made the earth kinder.

Tucker waited above, braced and ready.

Cyborg climbed first this time, because Tucker clearly wanted him back on solid ground before his wings could get any ideas. Halfway up, the yellow artificial jetpack clicked.

Tucker’s head lowered.

Cyborg froze.

The wings quieted.

Speedy chuttered in a way that sounded suspiciously amused.

Once everyone was back on the plain, Levi sat down hard in the purple grass. Nox immediately climbed back into his usual place around Levi’s neck, settling his head on Levi’s shoulder. Levi leaned his cheek carefully against Nox’s crest and exhaled.

The wind swept around them, full of feathers, dust, and the distant cries of birds. Floating islands drifted overhead, their amethyst undersides shining in the late light.

Tucker lowered himself beside the treasure bundle. The huge dragon sniffed it politely, then turned his attention back toward the chasm, where the little flower still bloomed in the wreck below.

Speedy sat on the other side of the bundle with the intense posture of someone guarding a kingdom.

Levi pointed at her. “We are sharing it.”

She growled.

“We are.”

She huffed.

Cyborg stood nearby. He was still, silent as ever. The artificial wings on his back gave one small click.

Tucker immediately shifted one large foot closer to him.

Cyborg did not move.

Levi looked at the bundle of coins, rings, gems, and silver. Then he looked at Tucker, who had found more joy in one wind-bent flower than in all the treasure below. He looked at Nox, warm and small around his shoulders. He looked at Cyborg, still wearing no expression at all. He looked at Speedy, who had somehow snagged a gold coin and tucked it against her tentacle mane and was pretending she had not.

Levi smiled despite himself. For a trip with Speedy and Cyborg, it wasn’t so bad.