Closed [Silver Chest Event] Of Gods and Men

[Dravite]

77 Summer, 515 AV
8th Bell, Morning
Endrykas

Dravite was only just coming right having almost recovered from his infection caused by the Zith bite just below his right hip. He would take better care of his wounds from now on and not let them go so long untreated. He still looked a little pale in the face and felt unbalanced on his feet, but decided it was time he got back to work all the same; a man of Endrykas cannot long lie before his family starts to suffer for his absence. Belkaia was there to help him up off the bed roll and dress his wound. They sat together near the fire pit just beyond the entrance to his tent, boiling water which Dravite added salt to before soaking a clean rag in the salty concoction.

As he applied the sterilised fold of cloth to his persistent wound, the man bit down on his free hand just below the thumb to stay the sound of protest that rolled in his throat. Belkaia frowned, feeling somewhat helpless. Dravite lay back on the deerskin at his back and covered his face with the fold of his left arm, trying to take comfort in the warmth of the rag rather than hiss at the pain it caused him. After a chime or two, Belkaia took the rag and soaked it again before applying it to the afflicted area once more. "It looks a lot better," she smiled.
"I feel well," Dravite admitted before looking up at his wife, "thank you for looking after me."
"You needn't thank me, Pearl did most of the work; the poor girl has been up day and night tending to you."
"She's been good for both of us."

Belkaia smiled again.
"I'm going for a walk in the marketplace today," Dravite told his wife, "it's about time I found my strength again; I can't rely on anyone else to provide for our family."
"You don't need to worry, my love, Roan and Sparrow have both been helping out a lot around here; no one expects you to push yourself if you aren't ready."
"Can you get my pants for me, the loose black ones; I don't want to wear anything that will rub."
Belkaia sighed at her husband's stubbornness and went to fetch his clothes for him before returning to help him get into them, "you know you might want to skip the markets today and head down to where everyone is gathering to check out that strange silver chest."
"What chest?" Dravite asked.
"No one knows where it came from, it just appeared overnight. When you place something inside and close the lid, some kind of magic takes place and you are given something in return for your gift."
"Magic?" The horse lord had never trusted that word, "perhaps I will stop by."
"But what gift will you take?" Belkaia probed.
"I suppose it all depends on who the gift goes to."
"No one knows, but some say the gifts are from Lhex; messages of fate," the woman explained.
"Then I shall take the God of fate something fitting."

[Dravite]

Dravite packed his wound with honey before wrapping it just as he had been instructed to. He fixed the loose material of his black pants over his hips and used his leather belt to hold them in place. "Will you not wear a shirt, my love?"
The Drykas man looked down at his bare chest and clutched the Zith claw he had fashioned into a necklace around his neck, "the white one."

Belkaia raised the shirt to him and Dravite put it on, readjusting his belt overtop of it to make sure he looked presentable. He smiled at his wife as thanks and headed out of camp with the dogs in search of the silver chest.

On his way to the heart of Endrykas, Dravite spent a bit if time training the desert dogs to listen to his calls and whistles. It had been a while since the man had taken them out and Dravite had noticed signs of their obedience slipping. "Bah!" He scolded Meka for racing ahead and summoned the animal to his side to walk alongside him for a spell before trusting her to go ahead again.

Kavu had his head down and was sniffing all the different smells. Dravite stopped the dog and kneeled down slowly, careful not to aggravate his wound as he took a rabbit's tail from the pocket of his black trousers and held it out to the dog. Kavu licked his lips and sat obediently while the horse lord tried to get Meka's attention. "Ka, come," he ordered and eventually, though in her own time as usual, Meka sidled up to the man and sat alongside her mate, "look," he said to perk their interest, "who's this, where is it? Where is it?" He repeated; exciting both of the dogs he had worked hard to train as trackers.

Kavu barked and put his nose to the earth before racing ahead with Meka hot on his heels. Before long the pair came across a tent which was fashioned from all types of animal pelts, including rabbit. Dravite smiled and called the dogs to him before rewarding them each with a small sliver of dried meat.
"I don't understand," Dravite heard a young woman complaining to one of her friends and lifted his stare to gaze at her as the two of them walked by, "my brother put his favourite pair of running shoes in the chest and he was rewarded with gold. I offer up my mother's pearl necklace and all I got was this silk blanket?"
"Perhaps the blanket has another use you have no discovered yet," the woman beside her replied, "my husband got a dagger with an inscription that told him 'with this I give you faith'. We can't rightly make any sense of it, but a lot of folk say their gifts are just as strange."

Dravite got to his feet looked down the lane in the direction the woman had come from, "and what will Lhex have in store for me," he whispered to the wind before pushing on.

[Dravite]

There was nothing special about the location of the silver chest, though its design did not seem of this world. As Dravite neared the intricately carved box of silver he could not recall a time where he had ever seen such detailed etchings and patterns tooled into a chest as handsomely as this. For every person that had used the chest this morning, there were ten more that refused; people were wary of magic in Endrykas and the horse lord was one of them, though something drew him to ignore this instinct and approach the chest all the same.

When it was his turn, Dravite kneeled beside the chest and looked inside to gaze upon the hollow interior that seemed perfectly natural of all chests of boxes crafted by man. He raised the things he had brought along to stow inside the chest and as he set the first item inside, he spoke of his story for the God, should there be one listening as the people of Endrykas had believed.

"She was young, fair, and beautiful. I cannot recall a night where she left my bedside without a parting story. Her hair was as yellow as the sun and in her eyes I saw the richness of the ocean. Lazuli Morningsong was my mother, a healer, and a good person who was taken from this life far too soon. She worshiped the First Witch and taught me to see the beauty in everything this life has to offer, even in those who would take so much from us. The balance of life on the grasslands was important to her and I intend to seek and understand what it means to protect that balance. Zulrav you have my faith, Semele my trust, and Caiyha my love. Lhex, if this chest is of your craft, show me a sign so that I may offer you my understanding and acceptance. Show me my fate and I will leave it in your keeping to bestow when you best see fit."

Set within the chest, Dravite had offered a folded leather water-skin, the same his mother had taken out to seek water on the morning of her death; on top of that he put down a lock of her yellow hair bound with pleated tallgrass before offering up something of his own, a dagger which he drew against the end of his forefinger to paint one edge with his blood. Before he closed the lid he took one more glance at his mother's lock of hair, shut the chest and stepped back to give the silver trunk room to work its magic.

Through the narrow rim between lid and chest, Dravite saw a bright light shine and felt an odd sensation settle in the pit of his stomach; had the God of fate accepted his offerings or would he walk away as confused as the rest of the crowd?

[Gossamer]

The silver chest cast an incomplete circle of light around itself for a fleeting moment where the magic beneath the lid spilled out. There was an odd sensation in the immediate space around it. It was as if the air had all emptied from the space for a single heartbeat then rushed back in. When things stabilized, the lid could be thrown back and its contents revealed.

A drinking horn sat in the center of the chest. It looked like it was made from an ancient zibiri, back when the animals had been far larger pre-Valterrian. It stood up, only because it had an ornate band near its tip with a small trio of retractable legs on it that caused the horn to balance. The horn itself was blood red - so dark it was almost black - with black metal worked into its lining and lid. It was half the length of his forearm and about its width at its largest point. The lid looked like it sealed tight. The tip looked like it was capped with more of the black metal that lined it and made up the cap. There were bands around it near the lip and tip so that it could be fastened to a belt or to a yvas for travel.

When Dravite reached in to pick it up, the horn revealed that it was indeed carved, but gently so and in a way that one might not notice until their work-worn hands wrapped around it. If he pulled it close, he'd see the carving was a likeness to his mother in silhouette, much like a cameo, though all in black gone to blood red rather than in white.

The image was a torso carved in such detail he could see the woman making the Grasslander Sign for comfort. It was the Drykas' way for such things. With no written language, an image of his mother making the sign for comfort would mean the vessel's name was "Mother's Comfort". It was masterfully carved and yet not deeply, almost flush to the original layer of the horn.

As he lifted it to examine it more closely, he could feel it growing heavier and hear liquid start to slosh around inside it. The drinking horn heated and began to give off a spicy appealing scent.

It wouldn't take much to flip back the seal over its end and drink deeply.

[Dravite]

When the magic was done Dravite knelt down in front of the silver chest and pulled back the lid. Inside he discovered the decorative horn with the silhouette of a woman on one side signing the Pavi word for comfort, who looked the spitting image of Lazuli; the yellow haired healer. Upon lifting the drinking horn, Dravite discovered its weight and undid the fastenings to find a spicy smelling liquid inside, something one might compare to a warm cinnamon and apple cider.

Belhatir has been a follower of Lhex, a god Dravite knew little to nothing about. His friend always used to tell him things like, “Lhex expects no praise,” and, “He doesn’t want my dinner.” Dravite thought that if this was the work of the god of fate; one charged with the care of souls in the afterlife, the liquid in the drinking horn could well be anything, perhaps even the last thing he ever consumed. One thing the man knew, one mantra he had stuck to all his life was never to question the gods, and he was not about to start now.

The horse lord peered down at himself in the dark reflection cast upon the liquid, rolled the tip of his tongue over his dry upper lip and then drank deeply from the vessel.

[Gossamer]

The warm spicy liquid slid down his throat tasting of hearth and home and all things comforting. A euphoric sense filled him for a moment, soothing his fears and worries away, like a child would be comforted by a mother's kiss upon a brow.

The taste was unearthly. But as he drank the vessel emptied and when he was done the liquid did not refill. There was a surge of energy that came from the fluid as it settled into his stomach. It reinvigorated him, refreshed him, and took all his pain way. The zith bite under his clothing smoothed out to nothing leaving only pale skin where broken flesh once laid. There was not a single twitch of discomfort, let alone pain, inside him.

The vessel remained empty.


He would discover, in the days that followed, that Mother's Comfort would refill each day and refresh and heal him one time of whatever light flesh wounds he had.

*~~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Leadership +1
Medicine + 2
Interrogation +1
Observation +4
Animal Husbandry +1
Storytelling +1


Leadership: Putting your peoples needs before your own.
Medicine: Treating Zith Bites
Medicine: Packing Wounds With Honey Prevents/Cures Infection
Silver Chest of Endrykas: Put something in, it vanishes, and is replaced by something else. A gift.
Animal Husbandry: Refreshing Dogs On Their Current Training
Silver Chest of Endrykas: The details of its appearance
Mother's Comfort: An artifact level stone hes given me
Mother's Comfort: Heals one time per day and restores and refreshes Their experience.

Magic Item: Very large Zibiri horn that's so dark red in color that its almost black. The item is called "Mother's Comfort" and it is a self filling drinking horn. It will provide unlimited water when needed, but beyond that once per day it will fill with a spicy tea-like brew that will heal wounds like a level 2 Rak'keli mark and leave the person that drains the horn feeling utterly refreshed and wide awake. If they are not injured, the refreshing part of the item works anyhow. It will only work on one person and cannot be split among multiple exhausted folks. It will also work on an animal if the horn bearer can get the animal to drink out of the horn or otherwise pour the contents of the horn down their throat. The liquid holds no potency and turns back into water if it is poured from the horn into vials or other containers thus the horn's special liquid cannot be bottled, stored, or sold. The horn knows when there is need and automatically changes from water to the special brew.

Comment: There was so much potential to go any direction in this thread. You made it extremely easy to play off of and come up with something fun to have emerge from the chest.

In this case, 'I'm glad you asked me to read this and give you some grades. PM me if there are any issues.

XP AWARD