We return now to Those Wacky Bandits, starring Siiga.

Rather than wait for her clueless gadabouts to catch up, Siiga ploughed on. No point on lagging behind waiting for a load of drunk chumps to catch up. Besides, the sooner she got there, the sooner the Artifact was hers.

She moved surprisingly fast considering she had no mount. Maybe now that she had cast off her drunken companions, she didn't have to stop and start every thirty steps. The terrain was familiar to her as a bandit, forest making way for rocky outcrop. She marched on and on, ears sensitive for the sounds of horse hoofs while her eyes scanned for this cave.

She found it on the northeast side. It looked pretty unassuming, but experience told Siiga that didn't mean anything in the long run. Entire treasure troves were buried in the back of seemingly unassuming caves, so it paid to check out each and every dusty hole with a fine brush just it make sure it wasn't hiding the Holy Grail. And although this wasn't hiding any grails, it was hiding something equally as impressive.

A long rocky bridge stretched out before her, leading to a castle like structure at the end. Siiga knew better than to question the logic of the storage areas for magical artifacts and didn't bother asking questions as she toddled gormlessly along the bridge. Her hand was on the hilt of her blade the whole while, expecting some hidden guardian to rise from the floor and pound her into luncheon meat. No such fortune, and instead she wound up in a room with a spiral staircase. Boy, whoever designed this place was really overthinking it. What happened to the old "hidden nature sanctuary" method of hiding mystical bullshit artifacts? Some trees, a river, maybe a waterfall or some crystals... why a massive castle inside a cave? It was like someone had an image that they really wanted to use and just built the place to specification without rhyme or reason as to what would be logical.

But whatever, if it had the artifact and those knights werent here, then she was quids in, right? That's what she thought as she went up the stairs.
But this place was cliche central. Some old biddie in a hood sat over an orb and whisper into it like a gypsy. She couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"So what brings you here?" Asked the Gypsy. Siiga shrugged, her hands still firmly on the hilt of that sword.

"Looking for a magic artifact. Was told it would be here" she said candidly.