Something Wicked This Way Comes

Sitting behind the counter of her little shop Ellody squinted slightly as she polished the lenses of her glasses, and then wiped down the shiny gold chain. As she adjusted her earrings the bell over her door chimed. Ellody put her face into customer service mode, a genuine smile and a pleasant voice. “Wel…” her voice snapped off short when she saw the group entering, a group of adventurers, if their filthy clothing was not bad enough the wave of intense magic that hit her as they entered would have been enough to put her in a bad mood. “Come.” she finished forcing a level of decorum to her voice.

She could see the dust motes floating off the four who just entered. One man, who wore little more than two leather straps in an X across his chest who stood at least two heads above his counterparts, was the dirtiest of all. Ellody felt a vein throb in the side of her head as he ran a grim-covered finger across one of the objects displayed on the shelves. The edges of her mouth twitched as she forced herself to retain her smile.

“Salutations m’lady.” a young man with messy hair stepped forward and Ellody guessed him to be the leader, or at the very least the ‘mouth’ of the group.

“Good…” Ellody began, but was rudely cut off.

“As you can see my compatriots and myself were successful in plunging and plundering the depths of a most dangerous ruin, and in a fortuitous turn of events we stumbled upon a most interesting relic.” he said a coprophagous grin plastered across his smug face.

Without being given an indication of it being acceptable, the man plopped a heavy makeshift cloth sack on the counter. Nearly spilling Ellody’ tea. He opened that cloth to reveal a strange egg-shaped object mired in centuries of undistinguishable filth and alien residue. Ellody nearly reeled back out of her seat, not only was it disgustingly covered in Gods’ know what it was obscenely magical.

“So…” the man asked, rocking forward and back on his heels and toes. “What is it?”

“You have only just placed it in front of me.” Ellody was on her last nerve with this man already. “You will have to give me some time.”

Ellody reached under her counter and pulled on her white gloves.

“How lo…” the man had started to speak again but Ellody cut him off with a snipping tst, sound. like one would do to a child to tell them to be quiet.

She waved a hand over the top a thin thread wide band of light coiled around the top of the object and the grime began to dissolve away as Ellody muttered something in a strange language.

“So…” the man started again.

Ellody sighed. “Do you or do you not want me to tell you what this thing is?” she said, peering up at him.

“Yeah…” the man said sheepishly. “We do.”

A woman in their little group pulled him by his cloak. “We’ll just look around.” she said with an apologetic smile.

“Thank you, that would be helpful.” Ellody said, but what she really wanted to say was ‘About time…’

Once the dirt was cleared from the object, it was a strange thing. It was cold to the touch, even through her gloves and made of some strange material that looked like black marble swirls and all but felt thin as metal. Polished to a degree unheard of, not something done by her magic. Ten rings trimmed in gold made up the bulk of the center of the odd egg shaped object. Each ring had Ten sets of matching symbols like a puzzle dial. “What a strange thing.” she thought.

Ellody waved her hands above the strange metal egg again, and her eyes sparked into a silvery glow, as the history of this object began to fill her mind. She soon snapped back to reality and swallowed hard, looking down at the thing these adventurers brought to her.

“What will you take for it?” Ellody asked their leader.

“Huh?” the man asked, coming back to the counter.

“I said what will you take for it?” she gestured vaguely at the egg. “I see you do not have a magic user among your group, and so it will be of little value to you. What will you take for it? How does one hundred gold sound?” Ellody asked

“For a hundred gold we could try to sell it ourselves, maybe make more off some actual wizard who’d want something like this.” he said, reaching out to grab it.

“If you take this you will die.” Ellody levelled with him. “You, and everyone you know and care about. Gone in an instant.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked, shocked.

“No, I am telling you what it does.” Ellody said. “You took an unstable arcane engine from its resting place. A resting place with wards to protect if something in its magical runes should go awry.” she explained. “I can stabilise it. You can not. I shouldn’t even pay you that much for being so greedy and so foolish, however you and your friends could have been killed doing it, so to make you go home empty handed would be an insult. I will not charge you for my services, I will pay you one hundred and fifty gold and you will leave. I am also willing to trade for anything else you would need or in my shop.”

The man began to speak again but a large hand grabbed his shoulder. “Lady is right. Thing to clean. Creepy. We take gold and leave.” the tall muscle bound man said.

“Clearly he’s smarter than he looks.” Ellody thought.

The leader shrugged away from his grip. “Fine…FINE!” he said angry but not shouting. “One hundred gold and two of those ‘Ever Cool’ canteens.”

“A wonderful choice.” Ellody said going back to saleswoman mode and placing the gold and two metal canteens on the counter. “Will that be all?”

“Me want swimming ducky.” the Muscle man said, pointing.

Ellody smiled. “That’s a popular one.” she said, placing a small toy duck on the pile.

“Thank you nice lady.” the man took it and joined the rest of his group.

“Is it really that unstable?” their leader asked, looking down at the metal egg.

“Yes.” Ellody said, “Next time stick to gold and jewels, but before you go can you tell me where you found it?” She unrolled a map. “Or close to it.”

For once the man’s ego dropped. “I screwed up big time….” he mumbled as he pointed out where approximately on the map she’d find the ruin in question. “I won’t go diving into any ruins for a while…” he said, defeated and motioning for his group to go.

“Failure is the best teacher.” Ellody told them, “Just be careful what you pick up. But if you can’t help yourself you know where to bring it.”

The man turned at the door and smiled a real smile. “Yeah…just don’t get killed by that thing before we can…”

Once they were gone Ellody took out a paper, quill and ink to pen a letter. “I should inform the dutchess about this…”