Challenge #00057: Unlikely Treasures

Chicken feathers, a glass eye and a grasshopper.

“The least you could do is pitch in,” grumped Hwell as he alternated between shovel and pick.

“The least I could do,” argued Axand'l, “is go meditate while you indulge yourself in this… adventure holiday.” He tisked at the thought of wasting time on frivolous things. “As it is, I am recording this for edutainment purposes.”

Hwell rolled his eyes as if to say, Saurians! to the universe at large.

Humans… show them something that looked like a treasure map and they just went crazy. Apparently, the mere existence of some hidden valuable that they might be missing out on sent them into a flap. Hwell had gone overboard on this item, tucked between the pages of some pre-loved cellulose books he’d picked up at something called a flea market.

Axand'l considered himself lucky that some bizarre human idioms were not at all literal.

The map itself was old. The paper had rusted and the markings on it looked like they might have been done by a child… but they matched archival maps of this area, and there had been an X. That was all the human needed.

Must not kill and eat the profitable mammal… Axand'l kept the vidcorder steady and tried to think of suitable narrative for the finished piece. Alas, he was not a documentarian.

Finally, there was a metallic ‘clunk’ as Hwell’s spade hit something.

Axand'l started to quietly pray that it wasn’t a vital service pipe.

It was a tin box. The sort of tin box that was usually used to house small snacks. The writing was incomprehensible and the previous form dented from the weight of the earth above. Hwell was almost glowing with victory. He was cackling. Cackling in humans was always a bad sign.

Axand'l put one leg behind him, ready to run away. Just in case.

Hwell vented some curses as he struggled with a seal no mortal hand could manufacture. It finally burst open, almost spilling the contents.

“What?” said Hwell.

Inside the tin, nestled in some colourful wrapping paper, was a treasure some child had buried and forgotten. Axand'l could identify the desiccated remains of an insect, some generically white avian feathers, and what appeared to be a glass eye for a squid.

“But–” whimpered Hwell. His visions of extraordinary wealth had been shattered.

“It’s your treasure,” said Axand'l. “Finder’s keepers.”

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