Chapter 201: What a Beaut

“Huh?” I mumbled, turning to Skelly. “What did you say?”

“D-did you find my chest?” Skelly asked. “Did you look inside?”

“Your chest? You’re the one who hid that chest in the portal?”

“Um. No. Whew!” He wiped at his forehead. “No I did not. I did not hide a chest in a portal.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Skelly, what are you talking about?”

“He’s talking about his stupid chest,” Phisto said from the top of a shelf. “The one he has ‘hidden’ in the middle of his room. It’s where he keeps his secret stash that he doesn’t want anyone to find out about.”

“A secret stash?” I asked confused. “Skelly are you hiding something? What’s going on here?”

Skelly looked from left to right and right to left. “N-no. Maybe? Please don’t be mad.”

Phisto rolled his eyes. “Tell him no one cares about his chest full of spiders. No one gives a single shit.”

I scratched the back of my head. “A chest full of spiders?”

“How did you—?” Skelly asked. “How do you know? You’re not angry?”

I sighed. “Why do you have a chest full of spiders?”

He weakly raised a bony finger. “A chest full of spiders and one chochlik.” Then he shrugged. “And… I dunno. They were putting their webs everywhere and I didn’t know where else to put them. It’s very difficult to reach up high for me and clean all the cobwebs!”

“Well… I have no idea what to say to that. Thanks for keeping the place free of spiders, I guess.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“I literally don’t care. Like at all. Keep doing whatever you’re doing if it makes you feel good, Skelly. You do you.”

He bobbed his head. “Yes. I’ll do me. It does feel good to have so many spiders in a chest.”

“And a chochlik,” I added.

“And a chochlik,” Skelly echoed.

“May I ask one thing?”

“Yes?”

“Why the chochlik?”

Skelly gave me a sheepish look. “I thought it was going to tell everyone about my chest.”

“Riiiiight. I guess it deserved it then. Maybe.”

I didn’t really care. Chochliki were a bunch of mischievous little spirits, and if I could be honest, super annoying. It had been stupid of me to let them inside, because now they wouldn’t leave. Maybe stashing a couple of them in a chest full of spiders was exactly what they needed. Maybe then they would learn to behave and be a bit more respectful towards everyone around here. If we were lucky it might even convince them to leave, though that may be hoping for a bit much.

With the mystery of Skelly’s chest solved, I turned back to Kuba. “Inside our chest we found a goblet, a small black dagger, and of course a shard of Bies’ soul.”

“No spiders?” Kuba quipped.

I rolled my eyes. “Not to my knowledge, no.”

At this, Skelly left the kitchen, possibly inspired to go on a hunt for more spiders to fill his chest with.

“Oh,” I said. “And I also found a demon head. Well, I found it attached to a demon, so I unattached it. Uh… but I forgot to take it. Woops.”

Vasil opened his mouth and dropped the head on the table. “Do not worry, I brought it for you.”

“Thank you.” I inclined my head. “That was very considerate of you.”

“Just making myself useful,” he chuckled.

“Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just a little… you know.”

He smiled at me. “Please do not worry. It is alright. I am fine. You were right. We should have done more to help you and Kasia.”

“Yeah…” I drummed my fingers on the table. “All is forgiven then. Let’s move on. And I have the perfect way to move on from this whole debacle!”

Kasia clapped her hands in excitement. “You’re going to identify the loot?”

“Yes!” I pointed at her. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now I will close my eyes and you guys put everything on the table in front of me and I will blind pick one.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and held one of my hands in front of them for good measure. “This one!” I said, pointing where I assumed would be one of the items. When I opened my eyes I was pointing straight at Kuba’s unimpressed face.

“Again!” Once more I closed my eyes. This time I stuck out my tongue, trying to taste the air for where they might have put the head, since that was the one I was most excited about. “This one!” I opened my eyes and found myself pointing at Vasil, the goblet lying next to him on the table. I slowly moved my finger to the goblet. “Got it right the first try!”

“Second try,” Bogumir said. “Arguably the third.”

I stuck up my nose. “First. Try.”

Bogumir shook his head, but didn’t argue.

I took the goblet and held it in the light. It looked nice and sparkly with all those gems.

“Everyone ready?” I glanced around to see everyone nodding at me. I cast [Artifact Index] and read the System text aloud.

[Eternal Goblet of Cleansing]

Whatever liquid is put in this goblet will never run out. Should it be poisoned, the poison will be cleansed.

“Ugh. Lame.” I said, putting it back on the table.

“Lame?” Bogumir frowned.

“Hecate, that is a priceless artifact,” Vasil said. “With this goblet you could supply a village with endless clean water. This may very well be one of the most valuable artifacts in existence. The cleansing effect alone is extremely good, but the endless supply, now that, that is incredible.”

I tilted it so I could see inside. “There’s nothing inside of it yet. So whatever we decide to put in there, if we decide to put something in there, will never run out? And it can’t be changed?”

“That is correct.” Vasil nodded. “It likely will never be able to contain anything else. So choose wisely.”

“So we could also put in some kind of super strong healing potion? The strongest healing potion ever. That might be even better than water or tea. It’s liquid, so it should count.”

Vasil’s froggy brow shot up. “Now that… that would make it… Yes, Hecate, that might even be better than water. Having an endless supply of healing—the things you could achieve are endless. You could use that goblet to spread your legend wherever you go, healing all the sick and wounded. In fact… that is what Bies is said to have done. She was known as a healer.”

"Huh," I said. “So maybe this was her goblet. Maybe she left it there as a little thank you gift for us, to show her appreciation for saving her soul. Or part of it.”

“That may very well be the case. That makes this artifact even more special.”

“But if it was hers, then why is it empty?” I held the goblet upside down and shook it. Nothing fell out. I set it back. “Empty. And as great as that plan sounds, we don’t have a super good healing potion. I don’t even know how many I have left, and the ones I had weren’t that great. They didn’t even fix my eye. I needed [Greater Healing Nova] for that.”

“I am certain we will come across such potions in due time. We just need to keep an eye out for them, that is all.”

“Hmm. If you say so. Put it back inside of you for now, and try not to drool in it. I don’t want a goblet filled with endless frog drool.”

Vasil gave me a flat stare. “I do not drool.”

I held up the demon head and shook it in front of him. “Then why is this wet? How do you explain that?”

“Maybe the table was wet?”

“Pah!” I scoffed. “You know very well it was you. You’re always drooling on everything, especially runestones and money for some reason. Those get the extra drool treatment. Is it to maximize everyone’s suffering?”

Vasil pulled the goblet back inside of himself and didn’t respond any further.

“You know what you do.” I wagged my finger at him. “You’re a drooler.”

“Hecate, be nice,” Kasia said, giving me a stern look.

“Sorry, Vasil. I’m sure you can’t help it that you drool so much. Maybe we could find a frog doctor when we reach a town.”

“Hecate.” Kasia tilted her head.

I waved her off. “Yeah, yeah. I won’t mention it again.” I quickly crossed my fingers behind my back and giggled.

Bogumir stood on the table on his tippy toes and tried to look behind me. “She crossed her fingers, I’m sure of it. She’s lying.”

“By Her Pale Grace, Bogumir! Really? You’re calling me a liar? You’re a liar!”

“I’m a—what? Why?”

I crossed my arms. “You know why!”

He stood there looking at me with his mouth open, not sure what to say.

I grinned, pleased with my clever deflection, then grabbed the demon’s shrunken head and set it in front of me. “Ahh, look what a beaut. I can feel its power coursing through it. This is gonna be great!”