IWUAaDNW: Growth 3.9

The chests in the treasure room had changed. Whereas before, they had been shoddy wood and iron chests, they had transformed with the death of Atlas into… well, neater wood and silver. They had gone from little square boxes, to the kind of ornamental, curved-top chests you find in video games. Samel had stayed behind in the boss room to keep a hold of the elytron––“Don’t let it go, otherwise it might vanish. I think. Either way, I'm not taking chances,” had said Gwen––leaving Horzel, Cirys and Gwen to open them.

“Sweet, gold!” Cirys reported. “I’d say… uh, maybe twenty coins?”

“Hm…” Gwen reached into the chest in front of her. She picked up a small cube of crystal that reminded me a little of those they used to cast spells. It didn’t have quite the right shape, though; those crystals were longer on one axis. She brought it to her eye, inspected it for a moment and said, “It's... some kind of wood, I think?”

Cirys grimaced. “Wood? Really? I mean, it’s always useful, but…”

“Dungeons’ woods are special and have a lot of uses,” she replied, though from her tone of voice she wasn't convincing herself. She turned to Horzel. “What about you?”

Instead of replying, he showed them. It looked like a little piece of chitin sitting at the end of a thin rope. The chitin was pink.

“An amulet base,” Gwen said immediately. “That’s very nice. Our crafters can use that to make really good amulets––well, kinda. This one is a bit shoddy,” she added with a closer glance at it.

[...]

She checked the final chest, which had gone through a similar transformation as the previous three. It contained a glass jar the size of a milk jug, three-quarters full of some kind of dull black powder. She didn't react strongly one way or the other, nor did she identify the substance. I guessed that she didn't know what it was, or she was too tired to care. Probably a mix of both. As for me, well... I had a first idea, but it was entirely too dark to be gunpowder. Plus, so far, no one had shown me a piece of technology more advanced than a bow in these lands.