[treasure] Ruin Renewal

Bookmark squinted as she tried to make heads or tails of what she was seeing out in the distance.

"Don't look now Lilac," she hummed, "but I think our next payday is coming up just on the horizon..."

Lilac just snorted in reply - as it couldn't understand anything Bookmark said anyways, just the general tone. It kept at its job, rolling their mobile cart forward until Bookmark told it to stop or turn.

Bookmark quickly knocked on her wooden seat as she kept watching the unfamiliar shapes grow into focus, and... grinned as her suspicions were proven right.

"It is! I haven't explored ruins in forever!"

Lilac snorted softly again, slowing down before Bookmark gave a quick light snap at the reigns - to which it sped up once more.

"I wonder what kind they are... or what era they're from. Maybe this one will have actual magical artifacts, I'm getting tired of trying to get folks to buy tech when I can't figure out what half those things do..."

As she got closer, Bookmark clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. The ruins looked to be more metallic than made of wood or other de-composable materials - which meant a bigger chance of this ruin being a more modern one. Not the best, but she'd work with it.

A few large buildings could be spotted alongside smaller ones that surrounded them. Typically, these would be houses, compared to larger buildings like museums or libraries. This meant she had to decide on her first stop - while larger buildings typically had better objects in them to unearth, they were also the ones that most other treasure hunters would check first, leaving them without much to find if other symprites had gotten here first.

On the other hand, most treasure hunters didn't have the time to check every single ruined building, so smaller buildings, typically ones used as homes by previous civilizations, tended to have more artifacts left over - the downside to these were the fact that these "artifacts" were usually things like plates or spoons, instead of great cultural and magical artifacts.

Bookmark didn't have to worry as much about time - she had enough food rations in her cart to last her quite a while if she really wanted to take her time searching through these ruins with a fine toothed comb. However, if she didn't find anything at all, that would just give her more costs, along with making Lilac get antsy the entire time... it got frustrated if it didn't get enough exercise each day.

Snapping her out of her thoughts, and almost on cue, Lilac tugged harshly on its reigns - trying to ask Bookmark, in a way, if she was going to keep going, or if they should go.

"Right, right. Sorry, gal," she said, getting down from her seat and removing the lead from Lilac's head. "Here - you can guard the cart. How's that sound? Big juicy fish in it for you if you can do that for me for a few hours, okay?"

Lilac may not be able to understand Bookmark's words most of the time, but there was one it did know - fish. Its tail wagged with such fervor that it smacked and slapped on the ground with a powerful force, causing Bookmark to laugh loudly in response.

"Attagirl!" She said, patting Lilac on the head. "Alright, your mom's gonna go treasure hunting. Cross your claws!"

It would be best to start small, and then go big, she decided. That was the opposite any other treasure hunter did, so that gave her the largest chance of finding something.

She smiled as she puffed out her chest, ready to go explore what these ruins had in store for her.