Dick Jones picked the toy Alaskan Malamute out of the tray on his door and chuckled. Sometimes he wished the rest of the department had never figured out what his middle name was; someone would always pass it along to the students every year, then the class joker would leave him something. It was a bit late this year, really; it was already October and this was the first one he’d gotten.
At least it was a toy dog this time, and they’d even gotten the breed right. All too often it was a bullwhip, a toy gun, or even an Indiana Jones figurine; those were harder to figure out what to do with. He’d eventually given up and started displaying them in his office. It made it impossible to keep his name quiet, but that hadn’t worked anyway.
One time, it’d been a real gun. That time he’d had to go to Campus Security, and he didn’t want to go through that again.
Dick tossed his jacket over the back of his chair and turned to the computer.
Ah. Now he saw why it was late this year. His keyboard was covered in tiny plastic snakes; it was a far more elaborate prank than anyone usually bothered with.
There was a tap on the wooden door behind him. “Professor Jones?”
Dick turned around to see a young man about the age of one of his students standing in the doorway. He’d have assumed it was one of the students except for two things. He’d never seen the man before - which wasn’t a guarantee - and the fact that the department’s secretary was hovering behind him, clearly having just led the young man to his door.
April didn’t do that for ordinary students. Directions, sure, but that was all.
The bandages swaddling both of the man’s hands were the first thing Dick noticed about the man himself. He was short, barely over five feet tall, pale-skinned, and blond; the sunburn made it clear he spent some time outdoors. Strangely, he was also carrying a leather backpack hung over his right arm.
“I’m Professor Jones. You are?” Dick started to reach out to shake the man’s hand on reflex before realizing that wasn’t the best idea, given the bandages.
He was also still holding the plush dog, so he hurriedly set it down on the table next to himself.
“I really can’t shake your hand right now.” The young man smiled and half-shrugged with an abortive gesture that emphasized his right hand, showing off the bandages. “I’m Rupert Merryweather, please call me Rube. I, ah, heard that you can identify stuff found around here, old stuff?”
Dick sighed a little but tried not to show it. It was going to be another arrowhead or something, wasn’t it? There were always several each semester who thought they’d found something new and interesting, but it was usually arrowheads or beads. When it wasn’t, it was usually something far more recent than anything Dick was interested in. If he was really lucky, it’d be something with Viking roots, but that had only happened once in the past decade. “I specialize in the local area, particularly precolonial into early colonial times. What did you find?”
“Pottery,” Rube answered. “It’s in the main opening, in a box. Uh, can I get you to open it? I can’t, really, with my hands…”
Dick wasn’t happy about that, but couldn’t really argue. What do you say to someone who can’t use their hands, no I won’t help you? It was simply inconvenient, that was all.
He reached out and took the backpack, setting it on the table next to the stuffed dog. When he reached into the backpack, he got his first surprise: it was far bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. He couldn’t see the inside and he also couldn’t feel anything, not even the sides of the bag. “Uh…”
“It’s a Tutorial backpack - just think that you want the box, it’ll come to your hands.” Rube didn’t elaborate on what he meant by “Tutorial backpack”, but Dick could guess; he’d seen the news like anyone else.
He hadn’t been sure he believed it, but this was fairly convincing.
Dick concentrated on the word “box” and felt something touch his fingers. With relief, he grabbed it and pulled it out of the bag.
It was a beautiful wooden box covered in colorful patterns. It was small - only two or three inches on each side and about four in height - but that didn’t mean it wasn’t intricately done. It definitely wasn’t local, but Dick thought he recognized the style; it was strongly reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest in both the colors used and the shapes. A closer look at the base of the box showed that it wasn’t separate pieces glued or bolted together; instead, it seemed to have been formed from a single piece of wood. That was also accurate.
It had clearly had a hard life; there were numerous scrapes and even several dents on the sides. Still, it was likely that it was a modern reproduction; not only was it in far better shape than most artifacts, but this was also entirely the wrong area for it. “Where did you say you found this?”
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“I’d say it found me,” Rube commented, “But I was out in the woods when I saw it.”
Not very specific. That wasn’t the first time Dick had heard equally vague answers, but he didn’t care when it was just another arrowhead. It probably didn’t matter for this either, but it was still worth having an expert look at it. “Boxes like this are still made,” Dick started.
Rube didn’t let Dick finish. “Not the box. That’s not what’s important. Open the box, it’s the vase.”
Dick shrugged to himself and carefully lifted the lid off the box. He knew he’d smack himself later if the box turned out to be a legitimate artifact, but without the provenance there wasn’t that much that could be learned from it anyway. It would only be important if Rube could lead them to where he found it and there was more there.
A clay vase filled the inside of the box; it looked like there was very little if any space for it to rattle around when the box was closed. Dick couldn’t see much of it without taking the vase out, but what he could see was very simple; just an old clay vase with a clay stopper in the top. It was obviously old, but without detailed examination he couldn’t tell if it was “old” as in “a decade outside” or “old” as in “artifact”.
The stopper was strange. It looked like it had never been intended to be removed; it simply filled the mouth of the vase. That was reasonable with a wax stopper; you could peel it off or pick it out. With a clay stopper, though, there was no easy way to get in later.
Dick took a careful look at the stopper. There were some odd lines on it, and when he actually looked at them he realized what they were - a six-pointed star with a circle around it.
Not only was that not native symbology, it was not something he expected to see on an old-looking fake. It was definitely something he’d seen on things around Halloween, but this didn’t really look like a Halloween prop. It was too fragile and not garish enough.
Dick glanced across the hall; Eric’s office was right there, and Eric was in. He’d be a good second opinion; Eric Rasmussen was the department’s Middle East expert. “Dr. Rasmussen? Can you come over here and look at this?”
Eric looked up from his tablet. “Decided to share the pain?” Despite his words, he stood up and came over, quietly excusing himself as the visitor moved out of his way.
His quick look at the stopper turned his calm expression into a frown. “Hmm. I’ll need my light and…”
Eric took the three steps it took to get back to his office, then rummaged around in a drawer until he found a jeweler's loupe and a tiny penlight. Dick knew from experience that the penlight was very strong; he’d had to borrow it once, and had vowed to never do it again. Eric used it to bring out details that otherwise weren’t obvious by looking at the shadows.
He had better eyesight than Dick did. Well, he should; he was almost twenty years younger.
Dick made certain not to look at the artifact (or especially the penlight) when Eric came back. From the “Aah!” noise he made, it was obvious Rube didn’t take the same precaution.
Maybe he should have warned the man. Oh well, too late now.
Once the penlight clicked off, Dick blinked the spots he hadn’t been able to avoid out of his eyes. He hadn’t even been looking at the thing; how did Eric stand it? “You done?”
“Yes.” Eric sounded unhappy. “Where did this come from?”
“It found me in the woods.” Ribe sounded a little more sure of himself this time.
Dick dared to look over at the pair of them, now that the light was gone. Eric was still staring at the artifact; he looked as serious as Dick had ever seen him. Was there a chance it was real?
“Mmhm. If this is what I’m afraid it is, we’ll need a better location than that, but that can wait until I get confirmation. When you say it found you, what do you mean?”
Rube shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, I, ah, went through the Tutorial a few weeks back. I’m sure you’ve heard of it?” He didn’t wait for confirmation before he continued. “So, I picked up a Path, it’s called Sensitive. It’s all about seeing stuff around me, magic stuff. There’s supposed to be limited magic on Earth, only the new stuff, so when I was out walking through the woods and saw a magic gleam from under a tree I had to go check it out. It was caught between some tree roots; I’m not sure how it got there. It was an old tree.”
Dick watched his colleague’s face sag as Rube talked. There was definitely something there that worried him, but Dick had no idea what it might be.
“Was the seal already broken when you found it?” Eric turned to face Rube. He started noticeably when he saw Rube’s hands. “What’s wrong with your hands and when did it start?”
Rube looked at the bandages covering his hands. “An infection of some sort. I’m on antibiotics, but the first round didn’t do any good. I’ve had it for a few weeks? It wasn’t real obvious when it started.”
Dr. Rasmussen couldn’t seriously be considering that the object might have carried something, could he? That was an urban legend.
“Before or after you found the vase?”
Apparently he was. Dick started to object, but Rube got there first. “After, definitely. Wait, you’re saying that it’s connected somehow?”
“I hope not.” Eric couldn’t have made the statement any more ominous if he’d tried. “I need to call in an expert on this.”
“Aren’t you the expert?” Rube looked uncomfortable.
Eric shook his head. “Not if it’s magic. But I know who to call.”
Both of them watched as Dr. Rasmussen pulled out his cellphone and made the call right in front of them. It was picked up quickly. “Mr. Latimer, this is Dr. Rasmussen, I’m an archaeology professor at New York University …”