Oliver spent the rest of the day carefully removing dozens of statues, statuettes, busts and figurines out of the basement. Along with a big yellow crystal, which was the most challenging to remove. It looked like hundreds of random rectangular, cubic and cylindrical shapes fused into a singular crystalline structure. At the core, there was a reddish-brown stone. It weighed hundreds of kilos and burned his skin even through the leather gloves.

“Ow… Damn it. Mmmmn…”

After dissipating his gloves, he blew on his scalded hands a few times, but it really didn’t make much of a difference. Grun came back with a large wheelbarrow shortly after Denver was turned into charcoal and buried by Klein nearby. He didn’t stick around to help haul Oliver’s ‘treasures’ though. So the short boy was once again alone in the wilderness.

“Hot… So hot…”

“Hmmm?”

Oliver looked around cautiously. He ignored the pain in his right hand and pulled out a short single-sided pick from thin air. He crouched down and listened closely.

“It burns… I’m sorry… Please… No…”