Mia woke up, shifting in bed to sit up and stretch. She could not remember the last time she got to sleep that well, days? Weeks? Years? She didn’t realize how much she had missed it. The bed itself was marvelous, despite its weird initial texture, but once she got used to it she slept like a log.

But, she couldn’t help feel like she didn’t for the whole night, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it till she finished rubbing her eyes and noticed the frozen statue of a man in a black robe in the middle of the room “…oh” she glanced at the base of the statue, noting several items dropped on the floor, the most notable being 5 slave collars “oh…”

She flipped the blanket off of herself and rolled out of bed, trotting over to the statue but stopping just before the base “lot of items.” The floor was littered in items, all surrounding it “about…20?” she knelt down to the floor, looking over them.

Besides the five salve collars which she easily recognized there was a sack, the content which being various coins, a set of 6 daggers and a long sword, a crossbow, a few gold accessories with gems embedded in them, a golden symbol of some sort, and an odd ring device that held a stone in its center.

“what is all this?” she picked up a ring, flipping it around in her hand she turned her attention to the frozen man “Cult member, for sure…oh hey” she noticed the man had on a gold necklace, similar to the other accessories “More stuff.” She raised her hand, flowing her mana to manipulate the ice, the necklace raising up inside of the solid ice off the man’s neck, then spat out of it, landing at Mia’s feet.

“Had all this on him?” she found it odd, inspecting all this, if he had all this why was it on the floor and not on him like the necklace?

[Check the bag.]

“The coin one?” she obliged, opening up the bag and peering inside “Lots of… bronze? And silver, oh and 1 gold.” She shuffled the bag around, trying to count all of it.

[12 bronze, 20 silver, 1 gold.]

“Is that a lot?” she asked, her only reference of money being the price to enter town and how much she was worth as a slave, which was…not a good reference.

[Decent, shove it in your inventory.]

“Alright.” She did so, attempting to shove it in but it wouldn’t fit “hrm…” she took out an ice dagger, after which the bag went in, her inventory being filled with the money bag and the jerky. With that out of the way, she turned her attention to the man, deceased “What do I do about this guy?” she asked, her first idea simply being throwing him out the window.

[They said ring the bell for help. Good place to start.]

“Oh, right.” She forgot about the bell, unsure if it was a good idea but not wanting to go through the effort of getting the guy out the window, she carefully stepped over all the littered items and stood underneath the bell, staring up at it “…annoying…” it was clearly not made for someone her height, how was someone her height normally able to reach this?

She knew she was short, but there was other short races! There wasn’t a stool or anything, what if a cat beastkin stayed here? Were they expected to climb? Throw a rock at it? At least put a string!

[Why are you getting so offended over this? Just use your magic.]

Mia huffed, extending her arm out and forming ice into a long pole “Well, yeah, but what if I didn’t have ice magic. I’d be stuck in here…” she noticed the doorknob, that was also high up, as a test she raised her hand and could just barely reach it when standing on her toes “Why is it so high?!” who stays at this inn!!”

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“Shouting? Is she up?”

Mia paused, hearing muffled chatter through the door “uh oh…” she looked back at the statue, a slight feeling of dread hitting her ‘will I get in trouble for this…’ she shook the pole in her hand, it turning into snow and melting on the floor, she then listened in to see if they were coming.

“I wanted her to sleep more, she’s a child.”

“Tell that to the sailors! They run on a schedu-“

‘yeah they are coming.’ Mia moved away from the door, weighing her options, but before she had much of a chance, someone knocked on the door.

“Hey kid! You up? We have to go. Get this door open Gin.”

“Barging into a kid’s room?”

“No choice, if she’s lucky she can get something to eat before we have to run to the docks.”

“…” Mia stared at the door, watching the knob jiggle ‘what if I was getting dressed?’ she then looked down at her unchanged clothing, her only pair of clothing ‘…ah.’ She sighed, resigning herself she answered “Come in.”

“Hey, she’s awake, good.”

“Hrmph, fine, move.”

After a moment, the door was unlocked and opened, Sett entering the room “Alright kiddo we have a lot to discuss, I managed t-HOLY-!?”

“What? What ha- WHAT IN THE NAME OF GAIA HAPPENED IN HERE?!” Gin followed in, and like Sett did before him, freaked out at what he saw.

“Intruder, stopped.” Mia was standing next to the statue, looking as innocent as she could.

“…Is he dead?” Sett asked, walking up and carefully poking the ice.

“…Oops?”

“What do you mean, “oops” how did this guy even get in here… an assassin? Who is he?!”

“No one entered through the door, front or otherwise…” Gin eyed the window “Climbed in?” he then glanced at the items on the floor, noticing the gold symbol “…Gaia’s mark.”

“Assassin of the cult then.” Sett looked over the items, whistling “That’s a lot of magic tools.” He knelt down and picked up a few “Mainly a bunch of resistances…hrm?” his face twisted into a look of disgust “Slave collars, definitely the cult.”

“Magic tools?” Mia, interested in this new revelation, went up to look the jewelry over with Sett “What is?”

Sett raised up one of the necklaces “Just tool that when you put magic into it, it gives off an effect.” He jingled the necklace around “You need an appraisal to know what each does but, mine is at least high enough to tell basic information, or you can just activate it, hope it isn’t cursed, and get most of it that way.”

“Oooh.” She picked up the one she got off the man’s neck, throwing it on herself and channeled mana into it, her status screen popping up with a new segment between her name and status…

Equipment:

- Necklace of Ice Resistance: Provides basic Ice resistance and lightly reduces the [Freeze] effect.

“Ice resistance?” she was a bit confused, why would she need this? She deactivated it, taking it off and reached out for another, but her hand was stopped by Sett.

“Careful, crazy kid. What part of cursed do you not understand?” he pointed back towards the statue “I doubt anyone would be crazy enough to be knowingly caring around cursed items in their item box, but you never know.”

She raised an eyebrow “Cursed? Item box?”

He slowly let go of her hand “yeah, cursed. Can do a variety of things, hardly any of it good under normal circumstances. The worst being stuff like level drain, mental wipe, binding, or like the slave collars, mind control.” He then motioned to all the items “and yeah, when you die your item box gets dumped, all those items have to go somewhere.”

“Cursed…” she wanted to try another one, but… well one more couldn’t hurt. She saved and picked up another, ignoring the protest of Sett she slipped a ring on and channeled magic into it, and more, and more, and…it isn’t stopping? She looked at her status, her face paling.

- Ring of Drought, Curse of Drought: The wearer’s mana will constantly drain till it reaches zero, any mana regained will be drained. Cursed: cannot be removed.

“H-help…” she stood up, trying to pull it off but it wouldn’t budge.

“See! I told you!” Sett stood up, grabbing her hand and tugging on it “Jeez, this guy was obviously up to no good… carrying around slave collars, this is why you wait to get stuff appraised!” he said, pulling at the ring.

“…what is the curse?” Gin asked.

“D-drought?” Mia said as she cried, her mana was already drained and stuck at zero, causing her to feel lethargic and woozy.

“Oh, that’s a nasty one.” Gin sighed “I’ll go get a knife.”

“W-wait! Gin? What are you doing?! We don’t nee-“

Mia loaded, the implication they were going to cut off her finger to get it off her was all the shock she needed to snap out of it and load.

Back in the room she eyed the ring “…curses are scary.”