Ike collapsed into the single wheeled chair in the room, sweat pressing between his back and the loose fitting shirt against the chair. After a long morning of practicing his form with the shovel, he rewarded himself by wondering at the strange pile of black luggage sitting by the door.

At some point the butler showed up with a knock at the door. He started with two, and kept showing up with more until there was a veritable pile. All of them were different shapes, sizes, and materials, like Nerinai had disappeared to go on a grim aesthetic shopping spree. Ike might’ve convinced himself that was the truth had he not gotten a whiff of the unforgettable jasmine smell that lurked around Nerinai and all of her things.

The luggage arrived hours after Ike and Nerinai. Strange that they didn’t come at the same time. Then Ike tried to picture carrying a dozen bags over his shoulder through that crowd of worshippers and realized exactly why there had been a delay.

So far he’d been content to ignore the stuff, let it pile up, and wait for Nerinai. Emboldened by the talk from the night before, Ike was double checking every step he took or didn’t take. All that caution wore out his little brain, so he started working out to clear himself of responsibility and stress all in once. The thought of her walking in on him in all his shovel swinging glory, doing the duty of a proud guardian passed through his mind more than once throughout the day.

Now though, tired, sweaty, and with a growling stomach that was no longer used to eating scraps off the dinner table, he was getting antsy. And hungry.

The muscles in his legs tensed up to stand just before orders came down from the mind to wait, consider this. Touching Nerinais things wasn't exactly breaking a rule, but wouldn't she be pissed about it?

But- came the counterpoint from another, equally enticing voice- there could be something important in the luggage. Maybe the butler was secretly putting knives in her socks. Was that ridiculous? Did it really matter?

He got up anyway, wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand and crouched down by the pile of stuff. If she didn't want him poking around she would have said something. Probably. Besides, he'd be careful, and knew not to dig around in the things that definitely should remain private. He started picking through them gently, just to get a good luck at what was in front of him before picking through anything.

There were a few black leather cases, rough from use, frayed strands puffing out from the corners. A sack or two, one of which rattled. The rest were mostly bags of varying sizes or wooden boxes with runes carved on each side.

His elbow bumped into one of the sacks and knocked it down. The rattling inside caught his ear, then his attention.

Past the thin rope tie at the top was a bundle of bones. Just a lot of bones. White, polished, surprisingly clean bones mingled with the dirty and half rotted out bones. He shuffled the bag and some finger bones fell down between a femur and a pelvis, revealing half a skull in the middle of the pile.

He tied that bag back up and pushed it into the farthest corner of the room by Nerinais bed. Now he wasn't snooping, he was being productive. He’d check all the bags just briefly enough to know what was inside then stack them accordingly for the lady to organize by her own will. There was a small closet at one end of the room, right by the sink-and-toilet bathroom, but he wasn’t brave enough to actually empty out the bags.

He started going through some of the more normal looking bags and was happily unsurprised to find them filled with normal things. Piles of every article of clothing from silk skirts to thick wool sweaters in the deepest blacks conceivable. The monastery must have spent a fortune on dye. There were a few other things, little mementos, some books on shamanic arts, even a little memento in the form of a feather from her ravens. That was all of her normal, human stuff, so he moved on to the boxes.

The first one he picked off the top of the quickly dwindling pile. It was small, a simple mahogany case with a little iron latch on the front of it. He clicked open the box and saw only a few small things inside. Jewelry, mostly, fashioned in odd ways that he’d never see on anyone else in the streets. One was a feather, but carved out of silver with blue and green gems laid inside of it. There was a solid iron band with a symbol that looks vaguely like something the Arcani would’ve made, and then tucked behind that was just a piece of reflective glass.

Ike snapped the box shut and neatly tucked it with the rest of the ‘normal’ pile. He was starting to feel dirty about the whole business now, but he wasn’t about to stop something he started.

The last three boxes were solidly built. One was a crate, painted, and that was the one he looked at first. Under the cover was a wealth of squat glass bottles plugged with a cork. Dozens, three stacks filling up the crate and padded with pieces of white cloth in between. Ike picked out one bottle and shook it in his hands. Inside was just a pile of what looked like red salt. The rest of the bottles carried a ton of other odd things, mostly sediments or liquids.

Shaman stuff. That would be the next pile, and he decided to load it up right next to her desk. He was extra careful moving the next boxes. Who knew what was inside, what might blow up if he shook it too hard?

Before his hand could even brush against the next box it moved. Ike blinked at it, then stepped back. After a moment of hard thinking, he decided he would not be opening any boxes that move. He just grabbed it as quickly as possible and tried to convince himself the violent shaking it did from one side of the room to the other was a result of his shaking arms.

Skittering away from that box landed him right next to the last one. He was panting an embarrassing amount, eyes darting from the box to the other box worried something would jump out at him.

When nothing did, he started counting his breaths to relax. One more box to check. At least this one didn’t move when he touched it, so he ventured to open it as slowly as possible. When it passed that test, he flipped open the top and peered inside to see a single item sitting at the bottom of the box.

He pulled it out, held the thing in his hands. It looked like a big circle, carved up with pockets of empty space and a number of symbols in four rings with a face in the middle. The face was really just a misshapen skull, but made of the same yellow-brown rock as everything else.

Confused, Ike started flipping the disc in his hands, studying the symbols closer, looking for any clue as to what the hell he was holding. Nerinai could’ve popped into the room right then and he would’ve looked like a total moron, but his curiosity was a damned impressive thing when left alone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Quit manhandling, would you lad?” said the disc.

Ike shout-gasped, then the next thing he heard was the sound of a very expensive rock artifact crashing into the floor and shattering into a thousand pieces. He looked down at the pile and mouthed the words: Oh, fuck. The rubble didn’t talk to him while he scooped it up at least. Either the thing trapped inside was gone or he killed it. Both were horrifying thoughts, but neither quite so panic-inducing as knowing he totally just broke Nerinai’s things.

He hastily finished stuffing the carnage back into its wooden sarcophagus and shoved the box next to the others, then immediately started pacing around the room.

He hadn’t been this nervous about something in how long? Life would often shove problems in his face, all easily ignored. Fights? Either he lived or died, simple as. Even with other people, or women, he’d never really cared so much enough to have his body physically wracked with nerves like this.

Then it struck him that now he did. For a moment his mind was distracted asking itself what that meant. The quiet interlude was quickly washed away by a tide of anxious thoughts and an animalistic need to get the hell away from his mistakes.

Without putting much thought into his next moves he snatched up his shovel and his robe, throwing both over his shoulders in an catastrophic mess as he took the steps out of the room two at a time to the nearest platform, where he shoved himself through the door and planted himself on the other side in front of it.

Then he had to remind himself to breathe. He let out a sigh, which turned into a groan as realization started to dawn on his feeble little mind. He’d now royally fucked up. What could he do now, though? Couldn’t fix the dial, he wouldn’t even know where to start. And he was already out of the room now.

Then a thought came and smacked him upside the head almost as hard as the squeezing pit in his stomach. He was starving. Ike left to get some food, got lost, came back and found the luggage there like that. Ugh. Thinking like that made him feel even worse, lying to Nerinai? Absolutely not. The best he could hope for now was the box being forgotten. What better way to get her mind off one mistake, then make one EVEN BIGGER?

To the Guardian, the logic was infallible. He strolled out of the little hallway from the staircase doorway and stretched out the tension through his arms. He found himself in an entirely unfamiliar location.

That wasn’t such an odd thing really. So far, he’d been in two rooms that weren’t the foyer, and now he was standing on the second floor. Under his feet was a burgundy carpet that covered the floor everywhere else on this level, and the walls were covered in pastry beige paint. Somewhere the music drifted on the air of a smooth piano, stronger than it was on the first floor but still quiet enough to be ominous in its own right.

Now that he was standing at the end of the hall with his plan all neatly in front of him, he realized he didn’t have a clue where to go. Where was the food? Where was he?

Something in the room to his left made a bump, and then Ike turned the corner to see the door slightly ajar. Light spilled into the crack, illuminating a very dim room. Shrugging to himself, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Turns out the room was- thankfully- not pitch black. Candles lined the walls sitting on iron discs to catch the wax. A few comfortable looking chairs occupied the room, and on the other side was a bar. Behind the solid bench and the single chairs in front of it was a man and a wall of glasses and drinks in a thousand different bottles. The man, Ike soon realized while standing in the doorway like a buffoon, was the butler they’d met before.

“Oh! Er, sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude or anything, I was just-”

“No, no! Please good sir don’t worry yourself over a thing,” said the butler. He motioned toward one of the seats. “I take it you could use a drink?”

Ike cleared his throat and stepped into the room on the old man's invocation. Did he have anything better to do? Bars had food. Taverns and stuff.

He sat down in the chair, nearly slipped off and quickly righted himself to do his best impression of a normal person sitting at the bar. The butler, who probably had a name, grabbed two glasses and a tall bottle of something piss yellow off the shelf. He put both things down on the bar and started to pour.

“I was, uh, looking for something to eat? Kinda been cramped up in the tower all day…”

“Hah! That's a pleasant twist on the story, isn’t it? The knight was stuck in the tower waiting for his princess.”

Ike raised an eyebrow at that. “Excuse me?” Even he was offended at that.

“Oh, nothing, nothing dear boy. I didn’t mean to make any offense at your or the Raveness.” In between talking he started to pour the drinks. “See, I’ve been part of this building for quite a long time. Seen many of the Raveness’s come, and go, then come again. So many.”

He stopped abruptly in the middle of his speech to stare off in the distance, presumably thinking about all the people he’d seen ‘come and go’. Ike eyed the drink with suspicion, but eventually put the glass to his lips and took a sip. It tasted a bit like salt.

“Well, by any means, Nerinai is truly something different. I saw her pass by not so long ago. That little trick with the palm and the eye doesn’t work so well on an old man like myself, you see. Clever though. You do know what she’s out there for, don’t you? And I don’t just mean her mission.”

The old man smiled with something beyond intelligence or compassion, but both were about the only words he could use to describe them. His eyes, wrinkled and sharp gray, seemed to be begging him for something. Ike had no idea what. In fact he broke eye contact almost as soon as it started, focusing on his attire and the drink. The butler wore a nice white button up with black trousers, a plain vest too. Ike wondered what he would look like in the same outfit. For some reason it seemed wasted on an old guy like him.

He shrugged in between sips of the mystery drink. “Not really. Nerinai doesn't…. Doesn’t really talk too much. At least, she doesn’t like to.”

“Of course not lad, she’s got plenty of voices to deal with already.”

“You mean her following? Church, cult, I forget what to call it.”

His smile twitched a little. “Yes, of course. So many demands. So much pressure. It’s a wonderful thing, you deciding to help her like this. Would you like to help her a little more?”

“What?”

“I’m just offering a bit of a helping hand. Come around the bar.”

Ike put down the drink and got the very sudden and weary feeling that he really shouldn’t have swallowed anything a stranger put in his hands. Was he stupid? The answer was obviously yes, but maybe he wasn’t suicidal.

“Just come on around. I think there is something you should really come and see.” The desperation in the man's voice was unsettling. In fact, it’d gone from smooth to gravelly and was getting worse by the second. It was as if a dozen voices were rolling over each other on the tongue and struggling to make words by the time Ike jumped off his seat and started walking himself back to the door.

“I should- you know- kinda busy, with all the stuff…”

“Oh, sir don’t do that. I’m only trying to help.”

“I think I’m good on that actually. Help. Yeah, bye!”

Without wasting another second he shoved himself out of the door and slammed it shut behind him. Nobody rushed out to apprehended him, the building didn’t start to swirl and bend, but he was still feeling sick with himself.He started putting distance between himself and the bar, the only word running through his head a very angry and quiet fuck on repeat.