Post-apocalyptic definitions of ‘value!’
We did take it slow as we checked every other room at ground level, which yielded nothing of interest to Bigwave and only mild interest to me and the halflings. The inhabitants had a taste for unadorned gold bracelets and rings, with the occasional piece of aluminum jewelry for lucrative variety. I let Jim act as bagman for those, since it’d all get sold by the pound anyway.
“Weird how they all got scattered across the floor,” he mentioned as I checked for secret passages and/or cubbyholes. There weren’t any, and I didn’t expect any, but you have to check. “Nothing’s in a desk drawer or bag.”
“Well, there aren’t any desks,” I pointed out. “All the furniture’s been rotted down to mush.” Still, Jim had a point. People don’t just leave jewelry out where anybody could grab some. If they were stored away, some of them would have been mixed in with the rotten wood and hunks of rust. Also, why were they even on the floor to begin with? Did somebody run in, randomly empty a bag of jewelry onto the floor, and run out again?