Vash raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"Details, details." Lina replied, waving him off. After all, if she admitted that he'd killed it on his own, that would have meant admitting he'd just saved her life, again.
She was too young to be a mother!
"You have a knife, right? Gimmie it." Lina demanded.
"What?"
"The Knife. Give it to me. Now, please."
Vash blinked, but handed over his knife.
Lina was impressed. It was well balanced and made of good steel. The she shrugged, and started jabbing it into the Death-Rad's armor.
"What are you doing?"
Line didn't stop working while she answered him. "Well, we don't have the equipment to haul this thing to the nearest town, were we could sell it for lots and lots of bottlecaps. So, rather than let it all go to waste, I'm going to get the bits really worth getting, and that we can carry with us.... uh!" She finished as she pried lose the upper jaw and face plate, with the huge hole through it.
"We need this to prove we killed it. Death-Rads have bounties of up to 100-150 thousand round these parts." She got back to work.
Vash whistled. "Why so much?"
Lina was cutting the claw arms off. "Hey! Normally, it could take a team of ten men with high-caliber weapons to bring down a Death-Rad. Just one could lay waste to a whole caravan, and some places around here, those caravans mean life or death." She set the claws aside. "Some people like to have those claws displayed. Maybe another couple hundred there."
"How do you know all this?"
Lina shrugged as she walked over to the tail. "As I said, my dad was a merchant. Used to live in one of those towns where the Caravans could literally mean life or death for us. I learned what we could expect things to sell for, and what could be sold." With precision, she cut off the Mace end of the Death-Rad's tail. "A weapon-smith will pay for that. Exact price for that depends on what things are like where we sell it, but it could be worth between 50-100 Bc, right there." Then she turned to the main body, trying to pry off one of the plates there. "Hey, could you help, here?"
Vash, looking amused, walked over and griped the plate where she'd wedged the knife. Together, they lifted, until half the plate broke off with a crack!
"I hope you didn't want that..."
Lina shook her head. "Nah... most the Death-Rads shell gets too brittle to practically use a few hours after death... the jaws and Mace being the only exception. There's a treatment that can be used to prevent that... but I don't have any, I doubt you do, and we won't get to the nearest town in time to make it worth taking any of it." She began cutting through the soft inside of the Death-Rad. "Similarly, the meat's poisonous to humans if it isn't prepared just right, so there's no reason to bother getting any of that... but... AHA!" Pulling her arms back, Vash saw her holding a pair of fist-sizes off-white sacs. "These are the real prize, though."
"What are they?"
"Papa called them the stink-glands. They can keep for months, and can be used to make a beast repellent... one that puts your little collection of herbs to shame! Just about nothing is willing to deal with a Death-Rad out here, even another Death-Rad! These are probably worth another couple thou, each!"
Vash shook his head, slightly amused. If nothing else, he'd have plenty of Bc to replace his supplies, and then some from this.
(Posted Tue, 18 Feb 2003 17:07)
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