Uriel found himself in a bitter mood after the defeat of the black dog. He felt as if all of his efforts were for nothing but the rest of the party didn't share his opinion. Everyone but him was in a joyful mood which only served to irk Uriel even further.
"Drop the long face, Sage, we made it!" dusa said cheerfully.
Uriel remained silent as he mourned the loss of all the potential rewards as well as the wasted ti and effort. He couldn't fathom the gleeful attitude their companions carried. Even if they ca from a wealthy background and money didn't matter to them, how could they celebrate after losing so much.
"We need to head out and hunt sothing, anything!" Uriel let out as if his very life was at risk.
"Uh... dusa is still wounded." Luna pointed out. "And if Sam goes out at night he'll probably see a lot of cryptids he won't be able to unsee. Do you really want to put them through that?"
"But we can't go back empty handed!"
"Stop acting like a child, you can't be that greedy." dusa glared at Uriel, making sure this ti to keep her trait under control.
Unfortunately for the group, he was that greedy. It wasn't just because he ca from poverty or even the fact that he could beco stronger by acquiring artifacts that could potentially be really expensive. It was his true character and one of the reasons why he decided to be an archaeologist in the first place.
Archaeology wasn't the study of ethereal concepts or taphysics, it was the study of material remains. In other words, treasures.
Be it cultural or monetary, every artifact, relic and piece of art possessed an imasurable value. Needless to say, Uriel hoarded knowledge about historic artifacts like a dragon his pile of gold, but it wasn't enough. Once he got the taste of acquiring artifacts he couldn't stop himself from daydreaming all the ti about different historical or mythological treasures.
Excalibur, Mjolnir, Bellerophon's rcurial spear, Perseus shield, the golden fleece or even the monkey king's staff. If cryptids from legends were real, why couldn't those artifacts be real too?
"I'm not acting like a child, think about it. We already asked for the bounty list, if we co back without achieving anything of importance instead of gaining reputation with the agency, we'll be the laughing stock." Uriel stood his ground, but dusa wasn't yet convinced.
"It's just too dangerous, even Luna is worried about Sam! Doesn't that tell you that you're taking things too far?"
They argued back and forth for a while, but then soone they didn't expect backed Uriel up.
"We should do it." Said Sam. "We chose him as our leader because we trust his judgent, if he says we can hunt at night, then we should do it."
It was a cold night in the lost city and the huge hole in the concrete wall didn't help at all. The whole place was in shambles and the barricade they built turned out to be almost as useless as the makeshift staircase they built with furniture.
Things didn't turn out how they expected even after making extensive preparations during the evening, and yet Uriel pushed them to go hunt in the open at night. No one expected that it would Sam out of everyone who would agree with Uriel. Sam was an ascended, but his trait wasn't combat oriented and he was among the weakest ascended of his generation.
In a physical confrontation he was even weaker than the petite Luna.
When the usually cowardly Sam agreed on going hunting they couldn't refuse anymore, but they still convinced Uriel to rest for a while and take so ti to prepare. They had another cup of synthetic food, grabbed the lanterns and sorted their backpacks. dusa also attempted to at least salvage so parts from the batteries she used to craft the tier 3 battery, but it was impossible.
Uriel took the chance to enter his museum as he wanted to shed light on the reason why the Ocelotl consud the flux orb. He was mad at the cryptid, but he still kept an open mind thinking that even though the jaguar disobeyed him, maybe it did it for a reason.
Much to Uriel's disappointnt, nothing had changed in the ancient exhibit. The figurine was in the usual place on top of the pedestal and the glyphs remained the sa.
A bit taken aback by this Uriel then took out his phone to check the system app. He still had unanswered questions, particularly about the 'Dash skill' he activated. While his stats were the sa as before, he was shocked to see a new screen detailing skills. That screen wasn't there before, he was absolutely certain, but there were only two skills on the list.
The first was 'Dash' and the next one was 'Rain dance', though the latter was greyed out and next to it appeared a ssage stating the requirents weren't t yet.
Noticing Uriel's expression, his companions panicked for a second as he was staring at his cellphone screen with a worriso expression on his face. They thought the reason for his strange behavior was that a cryptid appeared nearby and its FOD interfered with his device. Sam hurriedly took out his phone and sighed in relief when the screen unlocked without issues.
"Hey man! Don't scare us like that!" Sam scolded Uriel, but his friend was too focused on his own business. Sam was still holding his cellphone when the device turned off suddenly and a human scream was heard at a distance.
"Save please!"
"Soone needs help!" dusa quickly stood up with the intention of rushing to the rescue, but Uriel stopped her from exiting the building.
"We don't know if its really a person, it could be a skinwalker or sothing even worse."
"But you just said you wanted to go hunting. How is saving soone any different from that?"
Hunting for profit was one thing, but risking everyone's life on the off chance that soone needed saving was an entirely different matter to Uriel. Though he couldn't say it out loud, he was reluctant to take a risk like that for soone he didn't know. In the end, it was Luna the one who convinced him to go outside.
"If it's a skinwalker killing it should be easy, we already know their weakness. And if it's truly a person, we would be entitled to a share of their loot for rescuing them." Luna said, and Uriel nodded in agreent.
The group gathered their belongings and rushed outside unknowing of what expected them in the desolate streets of the lost city.
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