Chapter 26- The Eye of Tullius

{Uncommon Grade Spyglass}

Eye Of Tullius

Type: Tool

'Well, another tool added to the arsenal, that makes three tools and two weapon-type enchanted items.' It took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure out how the magnifying device worked. Even after learning the name, which wasn't much help as I didn't know who the hell 'Tullius' was.

It was more of a lucky coincidence than anything. But it was a game changer and it solved our greatest problem on this floor, at least I thought it would.

The spyglass itself didn't see anything, it was completely useless as a navigation tool in most cases. Due to the fact that whenever you look through it all you could see was darkness. But when I offhandedly turned to Ivar with it on my eye the darkness finally changed. Three bright green dots appeared, it took me mere moments to realize what it meant.

Either it could see enchanted items or merely wealth itself. As I looked over Ivar with more scrutiny I vaguely saw a plethora of small white dots, specifically on his waist. 

Exactly where our shared gold coin pouch was located.

"Fuck....." I said as I almost didn't believe what I was seeing, I calmly lowered the spyglass from my eye as I broke out in maniacal laughter. Unbothered by the fact that my companion was looking at me as if I'd been dropped on my head as a baby.

'This needed further testing, how far could it see? Could it view a 'treasure' of a higher rank than itself? How the hell was this merely an uncommon grade tool?' I began spiraling as multiple ideas and circumstances we could avoid with this item.

'If this works from a good distance….. then we would have no reason to raid every waterfall, only the ones that actually have treasure. Surely the boss room will be the brightest on the entire floor' 

"You gonna tell me why you look like you've just found a king's treasure room?" Ivar asked from across the fire, again running the 'burned scimitar' over the whetstone. Even though he hasn't even used it since the last time he sharpened it this morning. A coping mechanism maybe? Or it could just be a nervous habit.

"We might've just found our ticket out of this frog-infested shithole!" I said with excitement as I began sharing the results of my investigation. Ivar was wide-eyed and completely enthralled as I went over the theories I had already made. 

Eventually, our day of rest was indefinitely shelved, in favor of going through a lengthy testing process on the 'Eye of Tullius'.

The first test was extremely easy but also a point of worry. I placed the spyglass to my eye and looked down at the 'Wyrmling Gauntlet'. 'Nothing, we'll that would've been nice. Still, it wasn't like it was guaranteed that the floor boss would have a rare item. So the plan will likely work'

The next test was simple, could the enchanted spyglass see through walls? Particularly stone.

To check this I had Ivar stay in the cave as I left and went over to the left of the waterfall. It was vague but I could definitely see a bright green ball, oddly it was only a single one though I knew Ivar had at least three items on him. So that was a success.

Next was the range, I checked my surroundings and started walking. Every ten steps I would check if I could still see the 'loot' that was in the cave, I managed to do it thirty times until the green ball disappeared.

"One hundred yards huh?" It was better than I expected, I curiously did a circle around myself to check the surroundings for loot, but no luck. 'Still, with that range, we might struggle to check a waterfall without alerting the Bullywug'.The fourth test was a success. 

The 'Eye of Tullius' was a treasure-searching device. It couldn't see items of a higher rank, it could see through stone walls and it had a range of roughly one hundred yards.

The preliminary testing was a success despite the spyglass's poultry range and inability to see an item of a higher rank. 

'The range may not matter if we can get to a waterfall's apex or sneakily check from its side' I decided after a moment of contemplation. I headed back into the cave with a less enthusiastic gait, it was still an extremely valuable item but it wasn't 'broken'.

"Any luck?" Ivar asked as he was still in the same place I left him.

"It wasn't as powerful as I thought it was. Still if we can get close to a waterfall we should be able to tell if it has anything useful or not" I answered as I sat across from tossing him the enchanted spyglass so he could check it out for himself.

"It would save us from participating in worthless battles" Ivar said with a smirk, I could agree as I even felt our efforts were useless at times. Fifteen waterfalls and we only found a single enchanted item, a handful of gold coins, and a few miscellaneous tools.

"We still need to do field testing" I replied as I knew our research was far from over.

"As in?" Ivar asked as he held up the spyglass and began checking me over, nodding to himself as he noticed the green balls I spoke of.

"A multitude of variables, the chests inside dungeons might block out a searching tool. It's possible that there could be a cave system behind the waterfall, if it's big enough it would be possible that the spyglass's range wouldn't be enough" I said as I began going over a few variables that might be difficult.

"But the way to test them all is to raid a few waterfalls, if everything seems in order then we can rely on it to save us some time and sweat" I replied as I received a nod in return.

Despite the unknowns, I couldn't help but have hope. If everything worked out we could be out of this swamp in a matter of days, instead of weeks or months as I first thought when I saw the size of this floor.