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Scuttle worked tirelessly over the ornate chest they had secured from the Fifty Fathoms. He held it out to the rest of the small council in the captain’s quarters. “Don’t ye think if they knew how to open it, they would have already?” Scuttled asked Valgur.

“Right, makes sense since they still ‘ad it, and it was locked. They couldn’t open it either,” said Valgur, pacing.

“Maybe we should just break it open,” said Atrocius, balling his hands into fists and grinning.

“No, can’t have that. Might hurt the treasure inside. Beside, it’s too beautiful a piece to be wasting it like that. We could easily just sell the box. They said it was an expedition ship. There’s something good in there, I can wait. I just know it,” said Valgur as he paced.

Long beads of sweat rolled down the side of Scuttle’s temples, as they had for a while now. His hand was starting to tremble from lack of sleep and the stress of having the captain and his three highest ranking officers breathing down his neck. Sharply, Scuttle put down his tools. “I’ll need a bit of peace for this, not opinions. If y’please, give me an hour to meself and I’ll have a better idea for you cap’n.”

“Right. As y’will,” said Valgur, and they left the thief to his work.

Scuttle needed an hour, and many more. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t open the ornate chest. Ye Ol’ Marigold was in view of the Barrier Isles that hugged the eastern coast of Karobos when Valgur called up to Picaro as he perched in the crow’s nest.

“Oi. Got somethin’ interesting for ye, boy,” called the captain.

“What you mean?”

“There’s a lock needs picking,” said Valgur, grinning. A light was in his eye, one like a father anticipating watching his son perform a talent that he was quite proud of him for. Intrigued, and with an inkling of what the task might be, Picaro came down from his roost.

The boy was well satisfied to hear that Scuttle had been unable to budge the lock. When he asked what progress had been made, Valgur kind of shrugged and said. “He got through three tumblers. Says there’s more.”

Picaro whistled. More than three tumblers, he thought, that’s new. “Let’s see what I can do.”

The chest was indeed one of the most beautiful things the boy had ever seen. It was meticulously crafted. The flowing brass shimmered in the candlelight, and its vein of gold seemed to be grafted in with the making of the world.

His heart rose with the elation of expectation. It was like getting a new toy. To Picaro, it was a beautifully intricate puzzlebox. The art of its making would in the end reveal to him its mechanism to which it was shaped.

A delicate sort of poetry took over Picaro’s movements. He did not make a decision hastily. He examined the lock, looking for any clues. As Picaro turned the chest over in his hands, it seemed to grow heavier. There was no definite direction all the waves flowed in. His eyes followed the golden vein. Did it have a starting point, an ending point? Picaro pondered such questions for quite a while with a precision beyond his years.

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The chest had small angles welded into its shape. He inspected the sides and corners of the box, looking for any pressure plates or trigger buttons that if he didn’t press could deny its opening. After many minutes, he concluded there was none. It seemed to be an incredibly ornate chest, but nothing mechanically more.

Picaro painstakingly worked the lock. He got through the first three tumblers, and then the fourth. The candle had burned low and the night was dark when he finally got through the fifth tumbler. As he did so, he felt a sudden snap within the chest’s mechanism and the chest jolted slightly in his hands, spitting out his tools and resetting the tumblers. It was like the chest slammed the door in his face. Exhausted, Picaro slept.

In the morning, Grit came to check on him. “Not yet,” said Picaro.

“Right, well let us know if y’get anywhere soon, otherwise cap’n said to let Scuttle have another crack at it,” said Grit. Picaro nodded. Not if I can help it, he thought.

He stared down at the ornate chest, letting go of his frustration from the night before. He turned it over in his hands again, looking over the golden vein that wound across its sides. One side had three waves of brass, another five. He began to count the sides. In total, the waves across the surface counted thirty seven. He divided that by six for the number of sides, but that didn’t help.

The chest was beginning to feel heavy again. Picaro put it down and stood up, staring at it from different angles. For a moment, he saw an outline of where the golden vein wound across the sides of the chest in a misshapen square. Picaro blinked. There was one place, just one small place on one of the side of the box where the lines did not meet no matter what angle he looked at them from. No optical illusion could make the lines of gold visually meet at that particular point to complete the square.

He leaned in close to examine that side of the chest. There, on the surface of a brass wave, seemed to be a sliver of color removed from the metal. Picaro scrubbed it, but the blemish did not go away, almost as if the metal had been blemished purposefully. He felt across the blemish with his fingers. It seemed, ever so slightly, that there was a space there, an indent, like a sliver of the metal had been chipped away. Intently, Picaro peered closer. He was still unsure if it was a chip in the metal or not. This chest must have passed many hands. Yet from what Picaro could tell, no other such blemish was on chest’s surface.

Curious, Picaro fumbled with his tools. With the finest tip, he pried into the space. After a few long moments, to his surprise he heard a very satisfying click. Shaking with eagerness, the boy licked his lips and collected himself before working through the tumblers again. The first three tumblers were already routine. After the fourth tumbler, his heart began to race and his cheeks grew hot. He made the final, deft motion to release the fifth tumbler, and a lone bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Then came a final click, and the chest opened.

Laughing, Picaro sprang from his quarters. He passed Scuttle on the main deck, who stared daggers at him as he passed. Valgur echoed the boy’s laughter when he heard the news. “I knew ye could do it, lad.”

The captain was quite enamored with what was inside. For there was only one item in the chest, a key. Though, the key itself was indeed its own a treasure, crafted from whalebone and gilded with gold. The teeth of the key resembled shark’s fangs outlined in gold. In its handle was carved a scene Picaro could not quite make out. Valgur took a magnifying glass to it. The end of the key was carved into a skull with eyes made of gemstones and teeth fashioned from gold. “It’s scrimshaw, lad,” said Valgur wondrously. “Never have I seen anything like it.”

“What do you think it’ll sell for?” asked Picaro.

“Sell it?” Valgur laughed heartily. “Lad, I’m trying to see what it’s for. And I think I know just the man who can help us.”