Chapter 33 Loot Collector  

Watery blood filled Durandrus’ mouth as he floated between us. “Do we bring him to shore?” I asked Brutus.

Brutus considered and searched him. He found the mage’s pouch with essences he had accumulated and a small coin pouch. He considered for a long moment before saying, “Shit. Damn, Truthseekers would talk the theft out of us if we took anything. Let’s bring him to shore and see what Flavius wants to do.”

We floated the body to shore, and men came and helped us drag him up to the center of the small island. They had already buried their companion’s two bodies in the island’s soft soil. Flavius was the archer-trained scout who was taking command of the remaining men. He looked at the body and just rasped angrily, “Greedy bastard. It finally bit him in the ass.” He looked up and addressed everyone, “Ok, we are going to haul the body back to the road.” He picked up the mage’s pouches. The essences will be divided among us, and the coin will be sent to his estate. Did you find the collector?” He asked Brutus and I.

Brutus answered, “No, could have gone anywhere. Eryk was holding the glowstone aloft the entire time we searched, and we didn’t see anything.” I kept a straight face, and Flavius grunted.

“Ok, we will search for the collector in the morning. If we don’t find it by mid-day we will head to the road,” Flavius announced. He pulled the string on the essence sack. “Since essences collected on campaigns are administered at the discretion of the commanding officer in the Legion, I will be handing these out!” There was a chorus of affirmations as the seven of us circled around him.

Flavius took his cloak and placed it on the ground. He slowly dumped the marble-like essences onto the cloak. There were thirty-seven smaller marble-sized essences, three golf ball-sized essences, and seven more in between those sizes. “For those of you who have never consumed an essence before, the small ones are minor essences, the middle-sized ones are major essences, and the three large balls are apex essences. Each one is ten times more valuable than the prior. Now these,” he took the three apex essences, “are required to be turned into the Empire.” He moved them back into the pouch.

Someone asked why, and Flavius replied, “First Citizen privilege. They buy them all to use amongst themselves. You don’t want a Truthseeker asking you if you consumed one. Although working for Durandus these last few months, the laws are pretty loose.” There were murmurs of agreement among everyone. He had taken the apex essence of the storm giant and consumed it right away, and that must have been his pattern in the past.

“Now the question is most of these minor essences are from our comrades. Do we want to consume them or return them to their families?” Flavius asked us. An argument ensued. Two men really wanted to consume them, and two wanted to return them to their families, not that we could tell which essence belonged to whom. In the end, we added one minor essence to each bag of personal possessions—leaving nine small essences and seven medium.

Flavius continued, “The color of the essence determines which aspect of self it is related to. The darker colors are all physical traits. The lighter colors are the mental aspects.”

Flavius slowly went through the colors from memory:

Strength

Dark Purple

Intellect

Light Purple

Power

Dark Orange

Reasoning

Light Orange

Quickness

Dark Green

Perception

Light Green

Dexterity

Dark Yellow

Insight

Light Yellow

Endurance

Dark Blue

Resilience

Light Blue

Constitution

Dark Red

Empathy

Light Pink

Coordination

Dark Pink

Fortitude

Light Red