7 treasure chests
On the seventh day of Christmas...
seven treasure chests, six unusual readings, five tall towers, four meals of note, three delightful sights, two locked doors, and the beginning of a journey.
Fandom: Bully
Rating: PG
“I swear there's a pirate ship on the other side of this island”, Jimmy puffed as he pulled hard on the oars. Pete had offered to help but of course Jimmy said no - always had to act the hard man. Pete turned to look out over the water, mostly to hide his smile.
“Surely someone else has already been through it?”
“Yeah - there's a bum who lives out there”, Jimmy has sweat running down his face, “I reckon he's probably half-inched everything decent in there.”
“So why we going then?”
“We can probably hold our breath longer than the old guy anyway”, Jimmy directed the boat around the east side of the island, “Maybe there's somethin' down in the bottom of the boat for us to find. Anyway it'll be fun.”
“Fun?”
“What?”, Jimmy grunted, “Spendin' time with me ain't fun?”
Pete smiled again and settled down in the boat as Jimmy brought it into shore.
Fandom: Borderlands
Rating: PG-13
Loot chests...the glorious red boxes of guns and cash that seemed to lurk across all the corners of Pandora. Mordecai lazed in the back of the pick up as Roland and Brick trudged towards the chest, picking their way over the bullet riddled carcass of the giant Skag they had just killed.
“Jump on the turret Mordecai...just in case”, Lilith's voice drifted from the driver's seat and Mordecai dragged himself forward, earning squawk from Batwing. Every so often a psycho midget, and yeah yeah their naming of enemies weren't the most PC, decided to hide in one of these chests and burst out.
Now those little bastards were as hard as nails - the last one had tried to bite a chunk outta Roland's face.
Mordecai squinted against the sun and tensed his finger on the trigger as Brick opened the case in a single loud heave.
Silence.
“No bad guys this time!”, Brick bellowed as he rifled through the case, “Just...holy shit!”, Mordecai frantically zig-zagged with the turret, finger a fraction from firing as he looked for the enemy, “check out the magazine size on that electric shotgun”, and Mordecai relaxed.
“Hey, Lilith. You think Brick knows how many times he's nearly been shot?”
“I'm surprised Brick knows his own name”
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: PG
As Bilbo paced the desolate halls of the once glorious dwarven stronghold, he found his thoughts drifted to ones of treasure. It was hardly a surprise, being surrounded as he was by the stuff. The others were searching for the Arkenstone again, but unless they were to search him, they would remain unsuccessful.
This treasure seemed to do peculiar things to people, Bilbo thought as he sat himself on a flat and reasonably comfortable looking rock. He wished, briefly, for his pipe - able as it was at removing all stress from him.
Shadows flickered against the wall - as one of the dwarves stormed out of the treasure hall. He could not blame the others their short-tempers, for Thorin had become unbearable.
Bilbo had at first thought that the dark pull of treasure was a dwarven curse. Then he had seen the same look pass in the eyes of men and elves, the same look that had dwelled deep within Smaug's eyes.
Bilbo sighed and rose to his feet as he heard Thorin calling his name. Perhaps it would be easier to say that the pull of treasure - just wasn't a hobbit thing.
Fandom: Waking the Dead
Rating: PG
“I still don't know if we're doing the right thing”, Eve murmured as she shuffled her feet against the snow on the doorstep. The coat she had grabbed from the lab on the way out was barely thick enough to keep out a summer's breeze. Stella was much more appropriately bundled - with a cosy hat pulled down tightly over her auburn hair and a scarf wrapped around her neck. She looked nothing short of adorable.
Stella had cocked her head on one side, and Eve realised she had been caught staring. The blush that raced over her cheeks burned against the winter's air and she cleared her throat awkwardly.
“Wouldn't you want it back? Want your father's belongings returned to you?”
“I don't know...something like this...after all this time”, Eve shifted the bag in her hands and lifted her hand to knock on the door again.
“I would want it”, Stella said and the door swung open. A man in his thirties stood on the other side of the door - dressed in lounge pants and a vest - face stricken. People probably assumed the worst when they got a knock on the door at this hour.
“Mister Whittaker? Can we come in and talk about your father?”
Fandom: Prince of Persia
Rating: PG
My city...my city is in ruins.
Flames ravage the buildings, send houses crashing into ashes and leave screams in their wake. I can hear...no...I can feel people dying. Everywhere. The air, so shortly ago just dusted with the scent of the ocean, now chokes with thick smoke and death. There's so much crying, so much pain...
I will the boat to move faster - to bring me back to my people so that I might...do something. We should never have left, should never have chased after old wives tales of riches and immortality, for treasures are so often cursed.
And I have brought that curse home with me.
Fandom: Malory Towers
Rating: PG
Darrell,
I don't know how long this will take to get to you, so I will have probably moved on by the time you're reading this. I'll send you another letter from the next site.
Libya is hot, I know big surprise right? It's getting difficult to sleep with the heat, after all I can't exactly sleep naked can I? I bet you're rolling your eyes at that sentence, and thinking that you'll have to get rid of this letter before Sally sees it.
Darrell smirked, and reached for her drink with a quick check on the time.
See I just know you that well. Anyway, we haven't found anything big at this dig site which is rather disappointing, we're shifting the site a few feet because some of the others think we have miscalculated or misread information. I think this is probably a waste of time. Egypt should be a different matter though - I've got some film left so I'll bring back some pictures for your writing. Tell you what, your next book can be about a brave and intrepid treasure hunter.
Darrell finished her drink and ran her finger around the edge of the glass; she resisted the urge to roll her eyes because that was precisely what Alicia would expect her to do. Not that the other woman could see her...
I can't believe I thought this sort of work was boring. Digging through the dirt is hardly my idea of excitement, but the places I get to explore are something else. Plus there's a lot of people out here to meet, and you know how I like to make new friends.
Darrell didn't know if she was meant to read something into that sentence so she hurried swiftly on, the tips of her cheeks painted with a soft blush.
I do miss England I suppose, in one or two ways. Apart from my family...I suppose I miss you the most. Don't think I'm getting all sentimental on you, I just wrote that without thinking and it looked even more ridiculous to cross it out. Don't go getting any ideas over it. Now is probably a good time to finish this letter so I'll write again once we're in Egypt.
love
Alicia
Darrell finished the letter and carefully folded it to tuck into her trouser pocket, then poured herself another drink, preoccupied by thoughts of her friend lying in a tent, in a desert, two thousand miles away.
Fandom: Tomb Raider
Rating: PG
As Lara hung one handed from the crumbling rock face and wished that her team consisted of someone other than a tech-guy and a research - a helicopter pilot perhaps - she wondered for a brief moment if it was all worth it.
There were a frightful amount of near misses in her, relatively young, life. She had far more scars than other women her age, and probably far more nightmares as well.
She unclipped the rope from her wait with her free hand and swung it upwards, over the top of the cliff edge and tugged. The hook caught in the ground above and she cautiously released her weight onto the rope. Convinced it would support her, she began her slow wall climb.
Archaelogy was not a job that was supposed to have quite so many people out to kill you - if it were then there wouldn't be quite so many archaelogists with grey hair.
Then again, if there weren't so many things out to kill her, perhaps the job would lose most of its thrill.