It wasn't her doing what she was doing. It couldn't possibly be. She had broken into the church and watched, as if caught behind some glass where her voice couldn't be heard, as she broke into the vault. Kylus lay at the desk, head in his arms, asleep with that gold cube seated by his right elbow.
“The Cube of Noth..” came the only words she was able to utter past the divide and reached out for it. Once again, it felt so familiar and safe in her hands. I am so sorry, Father Kylus, she thought to herself as she made her way back up the stairs and out of the church.
----------(*)----------
He woke from the desk feeling discombobulated and cloudy. He couldn't quite remember everything about last night. He recall the crate, the cube, coming down into the vault--
The cube! He frantically began to search the desk, under books and papers, for the strange cube that seemed to follow him, in his dreams and his reality, from room to room and thought to thought. Did he knock it to the floor while sleeping?
“Kylus.” It was Paetines at the top of the stairs, calling out his name. He certain of it. Or was it the cube? Sleeping hadn't been his strength recently and everything felt fuzzy and undefined.
“Paetines? I'm in the vault. I was just logging in. Just researching. Just looking for--” and the priest's voice trailed off in a haze as his head ducked below the desk, feet shuffling to search where light was finding it difficult to touch.
“Kylus.” The call was still soft, gentle. It felt like a lovers caress to the priest.
Suddenly the thought washed over him. The door to the vault was wide open. Thieves? What if it was somehow opened? Certain this could rain destruction down on the good people, his good people.
“Great Paladine, what have I done?”
