| Ficbit Challenge 6
Three-
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| Coughing, Mustadio struggled free of the dusty pile of machine parts.
Odds and ends had been accumulating in this third bedroom since Besrodio
had first moved into this house, twenty-some-odd years ago; his father
added new finds without much care for balance or safety, so prospecting
in the piles could be a very dangerous endeavor.
However, it was also generally worthwhile. Mustadio was disheveled and streaked a ghostly grayish-white with dust but the pockets and pouches of his overalls were stuffed to bursting, and he had a heavy metal box tucked protectively under one arm. He was almost free of the storage room when something in the nearest pile caught the leg of his pants. Mustadio coughed again and tugged gingerly against the snag; the entire pile groaned in warning. Mustadio froze. Carefully, balanced on one leg, he leaned down and put the box on the floor of the hallway (spilling gears and gun parts from his tilting pockets, but it couldn't be helped) then grabbed the doorknob and levered himself back up. Shutting his eyes, he screwed up his courage and counted to three. On 'three' he yanked his leg back with all his strength, ripping his pants, and threw his weight against the door at the same time. For a bare moment he thought he'd actually gotten away with it, then the door slammed against his shoulder with an appalling roar of crashing, falling metal. Mustadio leaned against the door and gritted his teeth until the noise died away. Once the din had died down to the occasional ping of small falling objects, Mustadio carefully straightened up. The door groaned, but held. He watched it distrustfully while collecting his finds and then trotted away down the hall, throwing the occasional glance back over his shoulder. True to form, his father hadn't even noticed the commotion. "Hey, Pop," Mustadio said, putting the box down with a thud. "Mn," Besrodio said. He didn't look up from his workbench. "Pop." "... what?" "What's this?" "What's what?" "This," Mustadio said, slapping the box's lid with one gloved hand and raising another cloud of dust. "Oh, that," Besrodio said, peering at it over the top of his glasses. "Been in the family for years. You have to press the triangle there to open it." Mustadio squinted at the elaborate designs on the box's top and sides, brushing off some of the dust. "Fancy," he said in general approval, thumbing the triangle on the front of the box. It slid open soundlessly, revealing a squarish parcel wrapped in leather. Frowning, Mustadio stripped off his gloves and pulled out the parcel, untying the string. "I don't know what they say," Besrodio said absently, just as the leather fell away to reveal a thick pile of papers. "I keep meaning to sit down and break the cipher but... you know how it is." "Huh," Mustadio said. He paged through the first few sheets. "Any idea what they are?" "Not really. My father had the box among his things when he died." "Huh," Mustadio said again. Carefully he rewrapped the yellowing pages in the leather and put them back in the box, closing it and running his thumb over the inlaid plate on the box's top. CDB, it said, and Draklor. "I'll have to take a closer look at these later." "Good luck," his father said dryly. "Have you got a moment? Come take a look at this stone." |
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