As Miri, Anne, and Isaiah traversed the keep while being guided by Isaiah’s soultracker rune to find his father, they walked in relative silence. While they traveled, they made sure to pay close attention to the infrequent sounds of the chimeragon’s growl echoing across the keep in order to avoid it as much as possible. However, when the quietness became too mundane to bear, Miri started doing some small talk along the way to alleviate the tension.

  “So, Isaiah, I was wondering, you seem a bit too young to be doing this sort of thing,” Miri said. “How old are you exactly?”

  “I’m…14 and three quarters,” Isaiah said with a shy blush.

  “Oh, so you’re just 14 then,” Miri corrected. She could never quite understand why children insisted on adding fractions to the end of their ages to make them appear older. It’s not like they’re going to be treated all that differently when they say they’re 15 as opposed to saying they’re 14. It certainly wouldn’t work if you’re an adult. No one would give Miri an ounce of extra respect if she stated her age to be 25 and three quarters as opposed to just 25. Ages can be kinda weird sometimes.

  “14 seems a bit too young to be coming here on a rune hunt like this, especially one this dangerous,” Anne commented.

  “Well, since I’m the only other family member my father has left, I might as well make myself useful. At least, that’s what my father said,” Isaiah explained. “What about you two? Were you part of a party when you first came here?”

  “Nope. I’m afraid it’s just the two of us,” Anne answered.

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  “What?! Just the two of you all by yourself? You’re not even part of a well-stocked party?” Isaiah remarked with a bit of surprise. “That’s crazy!”

  “Hey, you’re part of a two-person team yourself, aren’t you?” Miri retorted.

  “Well…that’s different. We were desperate," Isaiah said.

  “Well, so were we,” Miri said.

  “Just out of curiosity, what kind of a person is your father?” Anne asked.

  “Well…he started out just like any other parent, kind but strict—an overall decent father and a decent man,” Isaiah said, his expression becoming more downcast as he continued. “But then, as time went on, he started changing as a person—likely affected by the failing of his business and…the death of my mother.”

  Miri and Anne paused for a moment to try to process the heaviness of that last revealing statement.

  “Isaiah, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Anne said softly, giving him her sympathies.

  “It’s alright. It couldn’t be helped,” Isaiah said with a heavy sigh, as though the feeling of grief hadn’t entirely left him. “Ever since then, my father had started becoming almost a different person—a more bitter and cynical person. He thought he’d been dealt an unfair hand by the Goddess herself, that he was a victim of circumstance. He constantly thinks that the world owes him something—something to make up for all the misfortunes he’d suffered, misfortunes that were outside his control. And with the discovery of the heirloom treasure box, he thought that this was his one and only chance to finally get back what’s owed to him.”

  Miri took a moment to consider the kind of person Isaiah’s father was based on what she’d heard. Someone like that was probably going to be difficult to deal with when the negotiations on how the runes were going to be split were eventually going to be brought up. She’d have to be extra cautious when dealing with a person like that.