Treasure Chest Opened.... A simple chest, not surprisingly, with another box inside. Lifting it would find it light and easy to transport but hold it too long would make an itch in the back of one's head. It had a simple lid with a simple latch made with from the common oak and bronze. Is there a prize inside? Surely. A quill. Despite it's plain look, its a compelling proposition to see. How much power was in the word? They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Maybe should write something. Yes, the feeling is strong as that itch is grow stronger in the back of your head as you look at it. You could write something. Something beautiful, something important, something worthwhile.
You should write. You should write it all. Write. Write. WRITE.
All you need is some ink. And it's all around you. In all of them. So much ink. It's even in you.
Write.
The burnished lid was opened carefully, and for long, painful moments, Safrona stood staring, stiff as a board, at the very simple looking quill resting within the trinket box. The compulsion itched at her skin, made her mouth go dry, entrapped her gaze upon it, refusing to release her.
She had long grown a personal hatred for writing - there was a full reason why she preferred auditory notes and channels, why she often let a magical ledger transcribe her own words if she needed a statement or letter written. It made it easier to recognize the curse, feeling it try to re-arrange years of her own discontent and twist it to such a compulsion. It made it easier to resist, to only observe its impact, to study the details of how such a cursed object may have come to be.
For others that did not recognize the wrongness or understand the nature of curses or hexes, the simple little quill in its simple wooden box would create havoc. And she had opened it as casually as a simple lockbox with no initial hindsight, right at the lacquered bar top on the ground floor of the Elysian Sojourn. It was a mistake she would come to regret.
"Ohh...oh is that a writing quill?" the soft voice called behind her, and Safrona tensed like a wire, ready to snap.
It was late, and the common patron had retired for the eve. But Serenas liked to roam.
Her daughter loved to write.
The crazed look had already entered her daughter's gentle face, eyes fixed and wide on the trinket box and the quill within. She stalked down the steps from the second floor, her fingertips gnarling, raking the guard rail with each compulsory step. "C...can I see it? I want it....I think I nee--"
"Serra. Listen to me. You need to stop--" intensity snapped like a thread, and no argument would stop what set in motion as Safrona closed the box.
"NOO!" Sweet Serenas Dawnsinger screamed with a feral desperation unlike herself. She streaked toward her mother like a girl possessed, willing to claw her face off to have the cursed box.
And all Safrona could react with was the viciousness of her demons.
It was fortunate then that the Man in Black intervened, deftly dazing the girl with a harmless strike. Watching her Orchid catch the collapsing girl fully in his arms as she fell into unconsciousness, Safrona allowed herself to breathe.
Her immediate instinct then was to spit a demonic word at the treasure box, and watch a gout of fel flame torch the contained quill until it only remained as dust.
{ With some mention of @thefirstperished ;) Didn't want a demon killing off Serenas haha. This was a long in coming response, thank you anon for sending a magnificently disturbing prompt! }
