#crusad

To Crueil’s surprise, the party didn’t take too long to come to terms with its porcelain stalker. The weird mass of flesh was still following them, and no amount of yelling, pretend stabbing, shoes thrown, or Hyunahpark’s blubbering dissuaded it. After only five flights of stairs, the party finally stopped trying to get the thing to go away. Crueil had seen stranger things, and this chamber itself was already stranger than the armor. For a mere fire salamander, the monster had put surprising thought and architectural skills in digging the tunnel to its lair. Bright jewels periodically decorated the walls, and some parts of the tunnel was tiled. The corridor expanded again into a huge open chamber with a trunk at the other end. Even from the distance, Crueil saw the trunk glitter as if full of treasure.

  Hyunahpark , who had taken the place at the head of the line to get away from the armor, cautiously approached the trunk. It was partially open, and she could see rubies, gold, and diamond. But the armor at the end of the line had unnerved her. She rolled a small ball of  flame on the trunk.

  The trunk screamed.

  “Owwwww…what’d you do that for?? Fire hurts!” The trunk extended a mottled green hand out of its side and examined a small burn on its bottom left corner.  Hyunahpark backed away and stammered an apology. Ellyan, thoroughly unnerved by the amount of animate inanimate objects in the damn castle, thrust his sword at the trunk creature.

“What are you?” He demanded.

The trunk slowly retracted its hands. Its cover opened and closed as it talked. The rubies inside glistened.

“Jusssst a trunk. Move along. Nothing to see here.”

“What put you here?”

“Well, I don’t know. I was born this way. What do you have against trunks anyway?”

 "No one's born a box."

"Ey, I thought no one's born an asshole. They still seem to exist"

“Stop lying!”