Timestamp: 22nd of Fall, 518 A.V.
Continued From: Fulfilling Promises and Breaking Curses II
Kelski squinted through the jeweler’s loupe, studying the puzzle ring. At first it looked like a mass of woven wire intertwined with random loops and twists that ended up weaving back over itself until it looked like a woven basket made of metal formed by a master weaver. Kelski blinked, and moved the loupe to her special third eye, the one that Leth had granted her. She peered further and suddenly froze. The pattern became clear then, in that moment, and she hissed slightly letting her breath out.
She could feel the man under her hands who wore the collar tensing.
“What is it?” He asked, cautiously, as if he were afraid to hope.
“It’s a beautiful piece of masterwork. And I see the trick of it.” She said suddenly. Slipping the loupe from her eye, she moved away from him, dug around in her toolbox and pulled out wire cutters. “You’ve been held soundly in place for over two hundred years by a single thin wire.” Kelski said mater-of-factly. Then she slipped the loupe back into her eye and reached into the woven wire with the smallest most delicate pair of wire cutters ever. They opened their jaws even as Gilthas and Kelski took a singular deep breath together. Then they bit down hard, driven by Kelski’s grip on their handles. And with one solid bite, they cut through the wire.
The intricate weaving fell apart in Kelski’s hands, and the puzzle ring snapped open, releasing the collar from around Gilthas’ neck. She expected him to surge away from her, to leap up, to do anything. Instead, he blinked, and tears began to fall. He lifted his hand to the collar that Kelski gently pried off his neck, and handed to him. The chain attached to it which stretched off into the distance suddenly flared and was gone in a bright flash of sparkling dust, as if it were pure tasked djed that had been suddenly released from its task.
“By the Gods, Kelski…. Thank you.” He said softly, setting the accursed thing down on the work table and reaching up to touch his neck. Kelski expected him to hurl the thing away, maybe toss it into the fire crackling across the workroom. But instead, he seemed to hold it in some high regard.
He was painfully thin. She could count every vertebra in his neck. Gilthas was almost monstrous in his emaciation. Studying him now, it was hard to equate him to the man he’d described who’d thrown away the love of a Champion of Semele. After hearing the full tale, she was still a bit lost in the past even as her future had snuck into her awareness and sat quietly before her.
“Why aren’t you tossing it into the fire? I once wore one and when it was opened and I was freed I gifted it to someone who wanted to see me free.” She said, staring at the collar. Gilthas turned, and joined her in its study.
“Honestly, it made me who I am today. How could I throw away something that is so much part of my past? I’ve wore it most of my life, Kelski. For all the important parts of it, anyhow, perhaps besides my fall from Leth’s realm.” He said softly, then reached up with a bony arm to rub his neck.
Kelski studied his features, undecided if he was attractive or not. “You should eat. You look like a Skeleton with fresh skin stretched over it.” The Kelvic said candidly causing Gilthas to laugh.
