Shackled City: Ruce Blackwind; Urban Ranger 3: Entry 7

Ruce tightened the bandage around his hand and hissed. What he thought had been just a nick ended up being much more serious.

It started when his cohorts and he finally overpowered the one-eyed dwarf and began exploring his business. Their hunches had proved right, and they all had found a maze of tunnels not unlike the gnomish "lost city," only this one was swarming with goblins.

They seemed endless at first; for every goblin that fell to the lizard man's shuriken, or his own crossbow bolts, or the cavalier's mace, three more would instantly appear - crawling over the bodies of their fallen kin to get closer.

An early mishap with his crossbow had slowed Ruce down, especially after a few minutes of fighting. He had his hand in the wrong spot and the weapon had gone off on him instead of the goblin horde. It was a minor wound, surely, but the longer he continued fighting, the more the pain grew. Only after the last of the enemy had fallen did he take the time to drink one of the "health elixirs" that herbalist had sold him. It eased most of the pain and even closed up most of his cuts and punctures (although one goblin arrow hole still was oozing a bit).

Ruce pulled out his canteen and dribbled about half of the water over his wrapped hand, sighing as the cool water eased the ache. He looked around at his battle mates doing mostly the same, or still arguing over the random junk they had found in the  loot stolen from those warehouses.

What a waste.

It seemed wrong that nearly the entire party's instinct was to keep it and resell it for themselves. Oh, sure, it was perhaps a common instinct -- undoubtedly the city guard would have done the exact same if they had had the balls to come down here in the first place -- but it still felt…. wrong.

They are thinking so short term.

Couldn't they see the much greater benefit they could get from the goodwill of the businessmen whose merchandise they returned? Did they not remember the 2000 in gold they received from St Cuthberts at the end of their adventure that started with a mugged priest in an alleyway? The priest might have had 30 gold on him -- free for the taking by a group of killers as strong as this party was, even back then. 30 gold versus 2000.

Well… 2000 after two deaths and that experience with the beholder….. GUH…. Long term outcomes have a high cost too sometimes…

Ruce hoped he could choose well which path to take in the future.