An apprentice healer saves a mysterious stranger from a fever. The thankful stranger gives the healer a box, promising that when the time comes, the box will open and the debt will be repaid. -- Deathshead419
Devryq never knew the stranger's name. They were just a fellow traveler at the waystation-house. One in need, because they were deep in a fever. Deveryq hadn't thought of rewards, just of the need ze could see to.
It didn't matter that the stranger was a Hellkin. Nor that this was one of the most inhospitable waystation-houses on any given roadway.
What mattered was that one more life had a chance. That might be why the Hellkin pressed the box into hir hands. Their grasp of the Trader's Tongue was weak. "You take. No money, me. You take. When open? Is pay."
Gifts from the Unwelcome had their hazards, according to the tales, but they sometimes held grand boons. It depended on the stories. Nevertheless, Deveryq blessed the creature, and they parted ways. With Deveryq puzzling over how to open the box.
It sounded hollow, so it had to be a box. Yet, there were no planks, no hinges, no joins. The grain seemed to wrap all the way around it. On all six sides. Sometimes, when Deveryq moved it, something inside rattled or rolled.
When it opened, ze would be paid.
It was a small enough box, so Deveryq added it to hir pack and tried not to think too much about it.
Ze was a good healer, and hir reputation grew with each patient ze saw. Years passed, and the box became something of a good luck token. It sat on hir bedside table at night whenever ze stayed somewhere. Deveryq always remembered the stranger Hellkin in hir prayers because of it.
One day, as the stories go, ze was called to the bedside of an ailing king. The king had an incurable disease, and promised Deveryq great fortune if ze could cure it... and death if ze could not.
Deveryq worked as hard as ze could to try and find a cure, as ze always did. Alas, that cure evaded hir. Day and night, ze worked tirelessly of it as the king's health slipped further and further downhill.
And then the box opened.
Inside was a single pill the size of a cherry pit, embossed with four simple letters: C, U, R, E.
Deveryq had saved that Hellkin's life. And now they saved hirs. The debt paid in full. Ze took it to the king, who swallowed it and fell into a swoon. For a night and a day, the king slept, but on the sunset of the second day he rose from his bed, hale and hearty.
"I know you promised me wealth and status," said Deveryq. "This cure came from a gift of kindness, and it must be paid in kind. So I ask instead for a boon."
"Ask, and it will be granted. On my oath, or may I die on the spot."
"One of the devilborn gifted me that which saved your life. So I ask that you decree kindness to the devilborn within your realm."
Some say that the king refused and fell dead on the spot. Some say that he refused, and was cast with eternal life, ageing all the time. Some say that he refused and was cursed with an eternal thirst for blood, and that was where vampires came from. Some say that he froze in place and was never seen again.
And some, who know better, say that the king announced that he would have to think. That Deveryq rushed to hir chambers and packed up hir things. The last thing ze looked at was hir box, where a little glass vial waited for hir. The piece of paper on it said, Break me. And that was all that was left when the guards came to kill hir.
It was a very useful box indeed.
[Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash]
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