"We're gonna be rich..." Brody uttered in awe.
"We're gonna be famous!" Stacy shouted, stars in her eyes.
"This could well be the greatest historical find of our generation!" Persephone mused with wonder.
"I don't know, Sephi, I got a bad feeling about this..." Randy complained. The hikers had been investigating rumors of a yeti kidnapping tourists at the South Pole, but what they couldn't have prepared for what they found. Embedded in the snow had been a three foot by three foot cube made of silver and lapis lazuli, intricate symbols and designs engraved into every surface. It took them most of the day to uncover it, partially due to Randy not helping since he was the one who twisted his ankle tripping on it. They decided to set up camp right there in order to study it thoroughly. It was late evening when Persephone finally discovered the locking mechanism on the outside of it. After an hour or so, she had managed to unlock it. An aperture opened on one of the cube's sides, and Persephone leaned her head in for a better look. The cube was furnished on the inside, with the floor being covered in an incredibly plush fabric, the walls and cieling being draped in cloth. The interior had the look and feel of a lavish bed chamber, except the bed
was the chamber. Even more bizarrely, while the cube itself was exactly three foot by three foot, there was easily five square feet worth of space on the inside!
Persephone stuck her head back out and shouted
"Come here, you guys, you gotta see this!" before eagerly peering inside again. She could hear her friends approaching when she spotted it. In the center of the cube, sunken into the otherwise pristine fabric, was a shriveled, mummified corpse. It's body was wrapped in loose, colorless threads that once looked to be some kind of garment. On it's head was the fossilized skull of a sabre-toothed tiger. Persephone slowly reached forward, gingerly attempting to retrieve the mummy without damaging it at all.
As Brody approached the strange cube, Persephone suddenly let out blood freezing shriek as she began to pull herself out of the cube, only to dive back in. Brody ran over to the opening and looked inside. The last thing he saw was a pair of golden eyes just behind Persephone's bloody corpse. The mummified corpse launched itself out of the cube and tore into Brody. Stacy screamed in terror, unable to do anything else, while Randy fled as fast as he could. As he sprinted across the snow, he heard Stacy's screams cut short. He continued sprinting at full speed. If he could just get back to the van! It had a full tank! It had snow tires! It had a friggin' radio!!! If he could just make it- but he didn't make it. The corpse tackled him to the ground, sinking it's own sabre-toothed fangs into Randy's thin neck.
Twenty minutes later, the hiker's bodies remained, but all trace of their blood was gone. Revitalized, Sabor slowly made his way back to the mysterious cube he had emerged from. His memories were fractured, as they always were after sleeping for centuries.
This cube... He thought.
It's not mine... why was I in it... that's right... that wizard... he and I had been traveling. After a very brief investigation, Sabor concluded that the wizard must have gotten them trapped in a blizzard where he died.
Which means that the wizard school's fancy magic cube is all mine. Sabor thought, the edge of his lip lifting into a poor attempt at a smile. Sabor climbed atop the cube and sat down, cross legged. The cube instantly began to respond to his will, turning fifty-two degrees north and, lifting a foot off the ground, began hovering in that direction. Sabor road his unusual mount into the night, taking hours to reach the nearest human settlement.
Or, at least, that had been the plan. After only a few short minutes, the scenery changed. He was suddenly surrounded by humans dressed in strange garb. One was dressed similar to the fools who had woken him, the other two were not dressed for the cold at all. Suddenly, Sabor sensed something; a powerful entity. He turned his attention to it and found himself locking eyes with a tall, old man. The man looked ancient, and Sabor could sense he was.
Only a fraction of my age, but that in itself is an achievement. In the old man's eyes he could read distrust, as well as the merest veil of threat. Sabor simply looked away, uninterested in the stranger's accusatory gaze. As he began examining his surroundings, Sabor came to realize he and the old man were not the only unnatural entities in the vicinity.
"Interesting..." he muttered. The stranger approached the crowd offering warmth and food. The last time Sabor had accepted such offers from a robed figure, it had sealed his destiny. And now... he would do it again. Sabor rode his magical cube up to the Inn itself before "parking" it outside and following the group in.