text: I've mended many trinkets and magical wares in my life. I like to think I've seen it all, even if I have worked for less time than some of my Elven contemporaries, I have managed to make a name for myself great enough that I may be hired instead of those elves. Yet despite my expertise I have very little idea what I'm looking at. All magic has a source. Some draw power from raw ambient magic in the environment. Often they draw power from some sort of magic source within themselves. Rarely I'd even be hired to inspect items of divine origin. Yet this, I could not place its source of magic. It's a simple box, a puzzle box even. If this box were mundane then there would be some sort of solution to open it, maybe you had to push in one part or turn another, but it could be opened. Supposedly this box was the same. The client said that somehow they had lost a wedding ring inside the box. Yet I doubted that was true. They had payed me an exorbitant amount of money, easily enough to purchase a dozen wedding rings. They may have been sentimental about their ring, but I knew that wasn't true. They payed with a golden statue that they were too foolish to know could come to life at the right command. This must've been something more, she was a dungeoneer, or maybe a mercenary. I planned to open the box no matter what of course. I was hired to do just that, and more importantly I was deathly curious. Yet I still puzzled over the strangest part. I had planned originally to disenchant the box. Of course there may have been a solution to the puzzle but I haven't the time or the patience for it. Disenchantment was always the easiest way to go with curses or odd problematic items. Yet, I needed to find the source of the box's power to disenchant it. Once I located where its power came from a fix could be made easily. The box currently sat in a void chamber on the limb that it might gather ambient magic. The chamber stopped any ambient magic from entering it, of course void chambers are exceptionally expensive and difficult to maintain, so mine was barely larger than a foot in any dimension, but easily large enough to fit the box. Of course the magic remained, which meant I could rule out that it drew on ambient magic. The pesky thing was irritating to test even when I tried. The best way to test if its magic remained was simply to try to solve it. The box had many sliding and rotating parts on it. The pesky enchantment made it so no matter how many of them you solved more seemed to appear. So I tried to solve the puzzle and watched carefully. If the enchantment had been dealt with then the box should remain the same as I turn it in my hands, yet it didn't. I took the box out of the void chamber. I wanted to throw the box and the chamber against the wall, but I control myself, since the chamber is far too expensive, and the throw wouldn't affect the box. In fact I had thrown the box extensively as an attempt at an easy solution. Yet the cube despite being made of wood was durable. Explosions, throws, or even immensely destructive spells had no affect on its integrity. This wouldn't surprise me if only I knew of a power source. For something to be so indestructible while being made of such a week material it would need a powerful protective charm. Yet in turn that protective charm would require a source for its magic. I took out pieces of enchanted paper and set the box on it. Ink started drawing itself onto the paper. Drawing complex and intricate runes. I couldn't read the inside of a box I'd never seen but I could read runes based on its power. The runes could be seen as blueprints of the item's power structure, listing where each part gets its power and eventually showing the type of magic used. This was the third time I had attempted this. It should be a surefire way to find at least what type of power this forsaken box uses. Yet the runes remained the same. They indicated no source of power. In fact the runes were purely self-referential. Each rune listed a source for its power, and that second rune listed a third. At the end of that chain of power should be a source, but instead it went in circles. Every rune eventually listed its source of power as simply itself. Of course this was ridiculous and blatantly impossible. A rune cannot get power from itself, it would lose any magic it stored within a matter of minutes of use. I picked up the box again and threw the paper away. I stared at the box, puzzled. Although I suppose ultimately that was the point, it was a puzzle. Yet I should be above this puzzle, I should be able to circumvent its tricks yet the process of circumventing those tricks seemed almost as tricky as the tricks themselves. Maybe I should consider myself humbled, brought to my knees even. I could ask my opponents for help, possibly even see if I could make a little money as an in between dealer. Yet this wasn't about money or business, it was about pride and curiosity. After a moment more of generous contemplation I reached to my trash. I took out the papers, all three, even if one of them was sticky with juice at the bottom. They all painted runes describing this terrible box's power structure. Since they were all drawn of the same box it is only reasonable that they looked the same, but there was one difference. The charts also showed me the amount of power stored in the box. Of course without a source of power the nonsensical looping power structure should mean the power waned, but it didn't. The power in fact grew only as it stayed longer in my lab. I have only ever seen power grow in this way under one circumstance. This box was adding to itself, and taking from something else. Now of course there were many powers in this room that it could steal from, but it hadn't interacted with any of it. It was only then I realized the particularity of the runes in my charts. The runes were built to receive power, not just from each other but from something outside of itself. That was just it, this box used the most undetectable of magics simply because I had not thought of it. This box turned thoughts themselves into magic. Of course humans and elves did this often, mages with their thoughts and knowledge could create spells with only a meager amount of arcane assistance. It must've been, I found no magic source as I was the magic source. Any time someone tries to solve the puzzle the puzzle only gets harder to solve. And to top it off, it is infallible, as you could never disable its magical source unless something without a mind worked on the box. Of course no matter how much I wanted one cannot stop themselves from thinking of something. So I could never solve this puzzle. I knew just the person. I took the box and a mundane paper. I carefully folded the paper over the box so that the box couldn't be seen. I took my now nondescript paper box and left my lab. Something I rarely did while on a job. I mounted my horse. Of course while the horse was mundane, though I could never bother with a mundane mount. The saddle and bridal were both magic of their own variety. It made it so I had no need to direct the horse, it simply knew where I was going and took me there. After quite a short journey I arrived at the smith. The smith was a large half-orc. I set the box on the anvil that he kept out front. The smith gave me an odd look. "What do you want today Isaac?" He asked, looking at the puzzle box on his anvil. Although all he saw was a cube of folded paper. "It's nothin' hard, just hit this with a hammer." Before I finished he slammed his hammer down on the paper. His strength was incredible given his orc lineage. Wood chips flew all directions out of the box. "Anything more" He asked. "No, you were as mindless as I needed you to be, thank you," I said as I picked up the paper cube and unwrapped the now destroyed puzzle cube. I hope the customer didn't want the cube back in one piece. Destruction of items is sometimes required for my services. I looked at the inside of the box, revealing what was a ring, but clearly not a wedding ring. The runes on the ring were tiny but intricate. It was a silver ring, so it was likely protective magic. Whatever it was, the price, the density of the runes, everything about it indicated it was incredibly valuable. Even more valuable it seemed than the gold statue I was payed with. I'll have to investigate this before returning it. If it's valuable enough I might even have to make a fake to give to the customer.