The Chest

I immediately realised that I might be looking at the back door to the bandit camp that we always suspected might exist, but closer inspection showed that while it may once have been another tunnel out of the camp it was currently not a useable one. From the looks of things, it had either collapsed a long time ago or been filled in at some stage, either way, it was currently unusable, and I had no reason to even try to change that. Now that the bandits had been taken care of, we would strip their former camp of everything useful and then abandon it.

Other than maybe as a pen for sheep or something like that I couldn't foresee it being of any use to anyone. We would of course keep an eye on it to make sure no one else occupied it for nefarious purposes or otherwise but other than that it would be left alone unless someone else was to come up with a use for it.

With that out of the way, I turned my attention once more to the locked chest.

"Erdal I suppose that if a key had been found in the possessions of the late bandit leader or any of the other bandits I would have been informed?"

"Naturally milord though as far as I am aware no one has yet reported on what this new lot may have had in their possession if they have even been searched yet that is."

"Let's go and find out the situation with the new prisoners, best leave the chest here and have someone guard the outside of the tent if you please."

"We could force it open you know."

"Yes but I think it best not to do so until we're sure we have no alternative after all it could for all we know be booby-trapped. I'm no expert of course but I've encountered such situations in the past and am thus wary when it comes to unknown chests that possibly contain things of value."

It turned out that the prisoners had been searched and no key had been found or much of anything else actually. When questioned they had no idea where it might be found or for that matter what was in the chest. Apparently, this particular group of bandits hadn't been together for all that long and their leader didn't trust his men all that much, not even his second in command whom he had once worked with several years ago.

"Alright, Erdal have the campaign tent thoroughly searched top to bottom for the key or a clue to its location, if they haven't found anything in half an hour we'll just have to do it the hard way."

While the search was carried out I had the six male prisoners from the camp escorted over to where we were holding the rest of the prisoners we had taken earlier and had the dying female prisoner transferred to where the wounded prisoners were being seen to. I had the remaining female prisoner stay where she was for the time being as I didn't want her to be kept with the male prisoners, purely for moral reasons you understand. I also had the smaller tents taken down and had them begin to transfer everything but the campaign tent and its contents out of the camp to prepare them for transport back to Membe.

When the deadline I had imposed had run its course without them turning up what they had been looking for I had the smaller tent inside the larger campaign tent taken down and everything, but the locked chest moved with the rest of the stuff from the camp. I then ordered Evarist to attempt to open the chest by force using whatever method he thought suitable.

I had picked him and not someone else for the task because I remembered hearing that his father was or had been a cabinetmaker or something like that. While for whatever reason he hadn't taken up his father's craft he may have picked up some knowledge of the craft from him. I know it was a long shot but no one else had any relevant skills, not as far as I was aware anyway. Unfortunately, he claimed to be no more likely to be able to open it without the key than anyone else but suggest we have one of the prisoners do so since perhaps one of them might have once tried their hands at burglary or the like.

While none of the prisoners claimed to know anything about picking locks one did however claim to have once witnessed someone else gain access to a booby-trapped locked chest by the simple method of dropping it from a large height. It seemed like a good idea, so I first had Evarist pick it up to see how heavy it was and after having done so he stated that he thought it weighed about the same as a similar-sized cask of beer. I then had him move it over to the hole in the centre of the tent, raise it as high as he could before dropping it.

The result was disappointing as while it showed some signs of damage the chest remained intact, this didn't discourage so I had him retrieve it and try again but the result was the same and then I realised that we needed to drop it from a greater height. With that in mind, I summoned the scout who had managed to reach the top of the sinkhole and asked him how easy it had been to reach it and if he thought he could carry the chest up there with him.

"Well milord I can't claim it's impossible but it might be safer for me to go up only encumbered with some rope and then I'll lower it down, someone can then attach the chest to it and then I'll pull it up, hold it over the rim of the sinkhole before letting go."

"Do we have enough rope?"

"More than enough."

"In that case get on with it."

It took him about twenty minutes to get up there and lower the rope and a further five to pull the chest up with it. I then ordered the area of the bandit camp below him to be cleared and he then dropped the chest over the rim of the sinkhole.