(Open for a female writer. PM me for interest)
Jin Mantrell: 23 years old. Average height and in good shape with light brown hair and hazel eyes
It was a hot autumn day and after coming to his room after day of classes on spells and potions, Jin reached for the puzzle box again. He had found the box late one night in the school library, behind a dust-covered book on the pyromancers of Saudi Arabia that looked like it hadn't been checked out in decades.
Roughly the size of a shoebox, the exterior was made of beautifully hand-carved wood and it was obvious that a great amount of care and skill had gone into its making. While searching for a keyhole, he had discovered that the small tiles on the top moved, much a like the sliding tile puzzles he had played with as a child, but this was far larger and more complex. To make it more difficult, he had no idea of what the end picture was supposed to look like.
He was pretty sure there was nothing inside. The first thing Jin had done was shake the box, and had heard nothing, but the challenge still nagged at him. 'Why make it so hard to open if nothing is inside?' he thought to himself. He absentmindedly shifted around some of the tiles. He had been at this for months now and was no closer to solving it, but it was useful for killing time.
But today, looking at the box, he suddenly had an idea. Grabbing a piece of thick paper and some charcoal, he laid the paper on the box and rubbed the charcoal against it, making an etching. Cutting the paper into the tiles, it allowed him to move them about freely like a jigsaw puzzle. No longer restricted to moving just one at a time, the image quickly began to form. The edges were the most difficult, being mostly a series of geometric patterns, but the center formed the picture of a woman, in chains.
She had a long hourglass figure, with full breasts and hips with a slim waist and long legs. Long hair was matched by bright eyes on a face that seemed almost ethereally beautiful. If it weren't for the thick chains that bound her wrists and ankles, he might have thought she was a queen or a goddess of some kind.
With the final image at hand, he began the slow process of actually solving the puzzle, which turned out to be harder said than done, hitting several dead ends and being forced to start over several times. It was well past midnight, with dinner long forgotten, that he was finally a single tile away from solving the puzzle. Holding his breath, he slid the last tile into place, and heard a soft click from inside.
He slowly opened the lid....and found it to be completely empty. No bright light, no spell of power carved inside the lid, not even so much as a scrap of an ancient "April Fool's!" note. After all this hard work, Jin had expected something. He left the box open on his desk before going to bed, a little disappointed, wondering what he would do with the box now. Maybe he'd scramble it up again and send it to a friend as a joke. Or maybe he'd just put it behind another book in the library for some other student to find.
It was late, and Jin fell asleep quickly. So quickly in fact, that he did not notice the slow tendrils of red mist begin to creep out of the box...
Jin Mantrell: 23 years old. Average height and in good shape with light brown hair and hazel eyes
It was a hot autumn day and after coming to his room after day of classes on spells and potions, Jin reached for the puzzle box again. He had found the box late one night in the school library, behind a dust-covered book on the pyromancers of Saudi Arabia that looked like it hadn't been checked out in decades.
Roughly the size of a shoebox, the exterior was made of beautifully hand-carved wood and it was obvious that a great amount of care and skill had gone into its making. While searching for a keyhole, he had discovered that the small tiles on the top moved, much a like the sliding tile puzzles he had played with as a child, but this was far larger and more complex. To make it more difficult, he had no idea of what the end picture was supposed to look like.
He was pretty sure there was nothing inside. The first thing Jin had done was shake the box, and had heard nothing, but the challenge still nagged at him. 'Why make it so hard to open if nothing is inside?' he thought to himself. He absentmindedly shifted around some of the tiles. He had been at this for months now and was no closer to solving it, but it was useful for killing time.
But today, looking at the box, he suddenly had an idea. Grabbing a piece of thick paper and some charcoal, he laid the paper on the box and rubbed the charcoal against it, making an etching. Cutting the paper into the tiles, it allowed him to move them about freely like a jigsaw puzzle. No longer restricted to moving just one at a time, the image quickly began to form. The edges were the most difficult, being mostly a series of geometric patterns, but the center formed the picture of a woman, in chains.
She had a long hourglass figure, with full breasts and hips with a slim waist and long legs. Long hair was matched by bright eyes on a face that seemed almost ethereally beautiful. If it weren't for the thick chains that bound her wrists and ankles, he might have thought she was a queen or a goddess of some kind.
With the final image at hand, he began the slow process of actually solving the puzzle, which turned out to be harder said than done, hitting several dead ends and being forced to start over several times. It was well past midnight, with dinner long forgotten, that he was finally a single tile away from solving the puzzle. Holding his breath, he slid the last tile into place, and heard a soft click from inside.
He slowly opened the lid....and found it to be completely empty. No bright light, no spell of power carved inside the lid, not even so much as a scrap of an ancient "April Fool's!" note. After all this hard work, Jin had expected something. He left the box open on his desk before going to bed, a little disappointed, wondering what he would do with the box now. Maybe he'd scramble it up again and send it to a friend as a joke. Or maybe he'd just put it behind another book in the library for some other student to find.
It was late, and Jin fell asleep quickly. So quickly in fact, that he did not notice the slow tendrils of red mist begin to creep out of the box...
