“Don’t break the tavern,” Vela mocked softly. “Don’t worry Drake doubles as my handler. I’m sure he’ll keep me as well-behaved as possible. I’m sure he can think of something to bribe me with to get me to behave.”

Vela looked over the scrolls before putting them in her bag. “We’ll stay the night here and fly our way there in the morning.” She informed Drake. “You can catch me if I get tired. Once my wing is done we can go retrieve it.”

They bid farewell to Raile before turning in for the night. In the morning they went by air to the Efe mountains. It was a beautiful place with gardens and ruins transcending the ancient mountain tops. Rainbow Papels were grazing. “We’re here…”

The fields looked utterly ruined from whatever disaster hit them. “The treasure here might not be as obvious as gems or jewelry. People pay a fair amount for actual old-time artifacts. Even arrowheads. You would be surprised.”

She went up to a building and tried to open it. She pulled on it a few more times and made a face. “Really?” She sighed a bit as she took a hairpin out of her hair and began to work it. The hairpin was probably expensive just from the looks of it. Had to be something Vela had looted before. The lock popped and she slid the door open. “There we go. We can set up camp in here since there's a lock. Plus there's probably all sorts of goodies in here. Looks like it's a temple of some sort~”

When the next day dawned, the two made their way towards the ruins in the Efe Mountains, with Drake only having to ‘catch’ Vela once along the way, though he had a suspicious feeling that she had done it on purpose judging by the way she recovered so quickly.

When they arrived, Drake looked across the ruined landscape. Despite whatever had happened, the ruins themselves looked oddly at peace with the world. Vines, moss, and grass had overtaken a vast majority of the houses as nature took back its land. Even the place that Vela had broken was being reclaimed.

Drake took a moment to tidy the room up, scorching some of the plants and making a space for them to place their supplies. As he was cleaning, he noticed a few old tomes and papers. As he finished up, he sat down at the table they had cleared, and looked them over.

“I can’t read much of this,” Drake said as he poured over the pages. “But it does look like there are some places of worship near the center. We should definitely make that a destination. There’s a map here, as well. Maybe…a farm on the end? We should take a look there too. If people like older stuff, maybe we can find some farming equipment.” He looked over to Vela, who was already stripping down and donning one of Drake’s shirts.

“Tomorrow…of course.”

Vela looked up at him with a sly smile. “We can do all of that tomorrow.” She spoke as she buttoned his shirt. “Raile likes old shit too. I’m sure we’ll find some good stuff.”

She pulled him along with her to the bedroll. “I say we go to bed early and I show you a new trick or two.” She pulled him down to her level and kissed him delicately.

In the morning Vela untangled herself from him and stretched. “Let’s get breakfast!” She flopped on him before pulling out some of the dried venison she had managed to get at the market before they left Cameroon. “Here,” she spoke with her mouth full as she got dressed.

“Let’s check out that farm first.” She brushed her hair and soon they were on their way. She locked up the temple so no one got into their stuff easily. She had the map in her hands as they navigated to the farm. “We can get any of the bigger equipment too. Just have to transport it to Raile.”

Vela kicked down a shed down with a loud bang. There was a blank expression on her face as she lit a torch so she could see inside. “Let’s see… old tools… Old tools…” She found a bunch of them. “Should we tie them all together and keep them for now or send them back to Raile now?” She held up a bunch of them.

When the two got up the next morning, detangling themselves from each other, Drake began to wonder if this was going to become a routine. Not that he minded, of course. He shared in the dried venison, and soon they were off. The ruins themselves, like the day before, were oddly at peace with the world. Unlike the caves they had previously explored, Drake found this place to be almost relaxing. It was calm, pleasant, and if this hadn’t been in the middle of a dead civilization, Drake would have considered living here.

When they neared the farm, though, that silent serenity changed as Vela smashed down the door to the nearest shed. They wandered the torchlit dark for a moment before stumbling across a small variety of tools. From what Drake could tell, they were stone and bronze style gardening tools, and farther in the back looked like metal objects that could be pulled by large animals to till the earth.

“Wonder how much it’s worth,” Drake said aloud. When Vela asked her question, he immediately waved his hand. “Send it to Raile. We don’t have the luxury of sitting on it, nor can we lug it around. It’ll be easier to drop and go.” They opened a portal and shoved the stuff through, and they moved on through the ruins.

The two explored some of what Drake assumed were houses. It looked like whatever calamity struck the place was sudden, and a lot of the families didn’t have a chance to escape. “Is that a doll?”

Vela opened the portal and began to chuck things through. She closed it and dusted off her palms. “Okay, let's get to work elsewhere then.”

They walked until Drake spoke up and Vela jumped near it so she could look. “That is a doll… Collectors love these things.” She pulled it up and dusted it off. “I wonder if there are more.” She looked up at Drake with a smile. “We might have hit a bit of hidden gold.” She flicked his nose and giggled.

They spent an hour or two looting the rest of the dolls and she looked at the collection. “Nice finds. Raile can probably get the damaged ones restored too.”

“Well… Well… Well… If it isn’t Vela.” There was a tall dark-skinned man leaning against the building. “I know that ass anywhere.”

“And I know that voice anywhere. Get lost this is my treasure area,” Vela stood up and put her hands on her hips.

“Watch out for this one she is feisty. She fucks you and then she loots your entire fucking ship,” the man got closer to Vela.

“It was justified. You stole from me,” she didn’t back down as she stomped his foot.

“God damn it!”

“Get fucking lost Waylon. Last chance before my boyfriend kicks your ass.”

“Ohh, a new boyfriend. That makes what five this month?” Waylon got a glare from Vela. “We’ve been here for a week Vela. I think that means the area is ours.”

“I’m your wha-” Drake about asked, but dropped it when Waylon started on about how he had been there for a week. Odd. I would have felt that… There was something about Waylon that felt…off. The way he moved. Perhaps it was instinct, or perhaps it was a fragment of a memory, but he knew these kinds of people. They weren’t the best people. The fact that Vela had associated with them…well, it was evident that they were exes for a reason.

“Strange,” Drake said as he took a rather aggressive step towards the man. “I don’t recall seeing you when we got here…yesterday. Where’s your camp?”

The man looked around. “Oh…right…over there!”

The draconian rolled his eyes. “Over by the farm?”

“Yeah…the…uh farm…”

It was obvious that he was trying to get a one up on Vela. Either it was a grudge, or a treasure hunter’s sham in order to rake in the goods. “Right…tell you what…since I’m nice, how about you take the area where you landed, that farm section over there for yourselves. We’ll take this side, where our camp is…sound good?”

Of course, the duo had already looted the farm area.

Vela loved watching Drake lock them in the corner. She crossed her arms, “We got a deal, Waylon? You get the farm area and if you cross into our area… well… I got a badass dragon man.” Vela wrapped herself around Drake and patted his chest.

“Sure, whatever. You don’t ever change Vela.”

“No, I don’t. It makes seeing through bullshit a lot easier.” She pulled Drake with her. “Let’s go. We’re done dealing with the common ramble for now.” After they got a bit away she looked behind her just to make sure. “Fuck, I didn’t know he was on this continent. He’s a total ass. Would rather deal with Claude and he shot my fucking wing off.”

She rolled her eyes a bit, “Sorry about dragging you into that. It wasn’t a pretty breakup. Caught him in bed with like…” She used her fingers to count. “He had five women in bed with him. We were supposed to be exclusive. God knows I don’t give a fuck if you fuck around as long as I know about it but damn. At least fucking tell me. So I torched his airship and took his entire treasury. Raile was seeing stars with that one.”

“I’ll bet,” Drake replied dryly. “This is becoming a theme…you tend to have bad taste in men…” He thought for a moment. “Well…other than me,” he said with a half smirk. “You got lucky with your latest boyfriend,” he jibed. “What was this that? Just trying to show off?” The man, Weylon, though had quite a few men with him. If something were to go down…

“Well, if he does go back in his word, I have a plan…” He smirked. “A really good one, actually…”

“Oh, I have super bad taste in men because I attract bad boys.” She gave him a smirk when he said he was the only good one. “You are a bad boy too but… you aren’t an asshole.” Thinking about it she chuckled. “Well, I thought you wouldn’t mind but also I wanted to make him jealous. It worked. He glared at you.” She held Drake’s hand in hers now. “Like I said, didn’t think you would mind too much.”

Vela’s eyes sparkled with excitement, “Really? A really good plan?!” She let out a little squeal as she thought about it. “Kinda want him to fuck up now~”

They got back to their base and she stretched, “I date a lot of treasure hunters. The thing about treasure hunters is most of the time they end up being pirates or something of that sort. I think the only one I didn’t do anything to was Rhenakos and that’s because he wasn’t actually a treasure hunter. I ghosted him. He tends to be an idiot.”

She snapped her fingers, “There was this one guy in Iria… He was super nice, polite, kinda romantic… He wouldn’t have sex until marriage and I’m not really… the marrying type. Maybe I could be convinced but… That’s not going to convince me. I ghosted him too! See they aren’t all bad.”

She got a spyglass out and was spying on Waylon. “They are totally watching us. Probably waiting for us to not pay attention before they look what is ours.”

“Just ignore them for now,” Drake said as he motioned for Vela to come along. “It’s a good thing we’re sending stuff directly to Raile. We don’t have to worry about watching our stuff…” He smirked. “All right, let’s get to it.” The two scavenged through more of the ruins, finding odd trinkets and old tools, all of which were sent directly to Raile. The two even took a few breaks, taking advantage of the nice weather, the scenery, and each other in the process. Drake had a feeling that they were being tailed, and didn’t quite mind putting on a ‘show’ as it were, to fake their attention.

“Ah, and there we are,” Drake said as they neared the place they had stashed their supplies. The door had been broken in, and their bags ransacked. Nothing of real value had been lost, but it was obvious that the ‘truce’ was never going to be upheld. “Here’s the plan, Vela…” He looked back to her. “The whole place was supposedly ransacked by Etanu before he was sealed…. Well, what would happen if, let’s say…a dragon attacked here again? I’m pretty sure if you spin up a tale about the legendary Etanu, these pirates here might freak out a little. That’s a good enough distraction…and while they’re distracted…” He smirked, giving a knowing look to Vela.