And then I met Frannie and Kit, and all of that went out of the window.
“I hear you’ve been asking for me,” I say to the fishy guy.
“Here. I was told you could make me a good deal on these,” he growls at me as he thrusts a grubby sack into my hands.
I peer inside, inspecting the golden cylinder inside. The top is slightly recessed, like it needs to be twisted or pulled off to reveal whatever is kept inside. It’s a cursed handheld safe. On their own, they can make a pretty penny, but often they still have whatever people put inside for safekeeping and then couldn’t find a cursebreaker good enough to open it again.
One itsy-bitsy tricky thing is that the outside is covered in sigils I can neither read nor recognise. So there’s a strong likelihood of it carrying some kind of curse against whoever dares to open it.
“Where did you get this?” I ask him, keeping my interest light and my volume low.
“You heard about the attacks not too far from here?”
I glance up at him, shoving the safe back into the sack. “Attacks?”
“Pirates,” he spits the word. “Attacked another ship, sunk the entire thing. Seems there was a lot of treasure onboard.”
Not surprising. We’re in the back of beyond out here, and that comes with a big dose of lawlessness, especially in the waters.
Someone jostles me from behind, and I jerk forward, getting a big whiff of Mr Fishy’s scent. I aim a sweeping glance around, checking that no one’s watching. But one benefit of the guy’s overwhelming stench is that no one in the vicinity has their face turned this way.
Some people who do this job have the ability to detect magic. I usually have a little gadget I bought from a travelling merchant which I can use to check. But since I wasn’t expecting to have any more work tonight, I left it in my other trousers. The ones lying in a heap in my bedroom.
I don’t have time to fetch it now, so I guess I’ll have to trust that this thing’s not about to burn my hand off. Plucking the cylinder from his hand with my sleeve, I peer down at it.
The issue is that there are hundreds of replicas of these things all over the place. Sometimes, they’re cursed too, just for the fun of it, so whoever winds up opening it gets a face covered in boils and then discovers that the insides are filled with sand.
“Is that what whoever sold them to you told you?” I ask. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for it.”
I should shut up, maybe humour him or ask him to come back another time.
Butinstead—
“There’s a chance it’s a fake,” I tell him.
Maybe if I’d been less tired after a long swim, I’d have been more tactful. Softer in my approach.
As it is, he doesn’t react well.
“What are you talking about?” His eyes bulge out of his head as he grits his teeth and spits the words at me.
“It might not be the real deal,” I tell him. And I’m not taking my chances inspecting it further without having it scanned for curses.
Thankfully, I know exactly who I can take it to.
He takes a step closer, his stench wafting over me.
It’s a distinct intimidation tactic, and he instantly has my back up.
“It’s the genuine article. Solid gold. Cursed by gorgons.”
I bet this guy has no idea whether it’s real. And while I might not have many special abilities without my sealskin, I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of a gorgon-cursed safe before.
“How much will you give me for it?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I reply softly. “I’ll need to get a contact to check it out first.”
“It’s real,” he growls, taking another step closer.
