Just a note that I own all the characters I make up and no others. Also, thanks to YF-21 for correcting my Money Pit error. Vercci would have needed a lot of men to dig that baby... Perhaps if he had given Voldo Knuckle's Shovel Claws, then LF-HT B B B millions of times... Oh well, enjoy the story. This is the beginning of Rock's tale:
"Mary! Where is she? Mary! Mary!"
"I'm here, William! What is wrong?"
"Mary!" William repeated, dashing into their room at the top of the stairs. His clothes were drenched with perspiration and were clinging to him uncomfortably. His hair, too, was plastered to his head from sweat. Only shallow gasps came from his chest, which was heaving dramatically up and down, and his face was flushed from exertion. Mary would have thought he had been running from bandits if she had not seen his joyous expression.
She rose, stepping away from the bed, and gazed at her husband curiously. "Dear, are you all right? Did business go well today? You look terrible, why were you running?" He continued to smile widely.
"I rode ahead to tell you, Mary," he took her white hands into his large, browned ones. In his excitement, they were trembling. "I could not wait, I ran through the lobby, I-"
"Shush, William, our son is trying to sleep!" Mary pulled him away from the door and closed it. "And you know what a terrible spy he is! Now, tell me what happened, quietly."
"Fine, quietly it is. But I must warn you, your excitement may prompt noise on your part as well!"
"Why, husband!" Mary exclaimed, quietly of course. She had never seen him so happy before. "What could it be? Certainly not-"
William bent down, for he was considerably taller than she, and whispered a few words in his wife's ear.
"They're willing to sell!" Mary clapped her hands to her mouth to suppress a squeal of delight. Seeing her reaction, William's grin broadened further.
"Yes, my love," he cried, "The museum's seen fit to be rid of them!" He embraced his wife in a bear hug, and then began dancing around the room and singing at the top of his voice. Mary was so in shock at their good fortune, she quite forgot about letting sleep her son next door. It was a few moments before she recovered herself and shushed her husband.
The boy next door, who was now wide awake, pressed his ear to the wall to better hear the conversation.
William, meantime, had sat down on the bed and pulled out his pipe. He did not light it, however, and simply stuck it in his mouth as Mary relaxed next to him. She now had a smile as big as her husband's, and was equally overjoyed.
"I assume you bought it," she asked William jokingly. He snorted.
"Of course I did! I didn't want some other bloody merchant getting them first. The museum only decided just today to unload the things, and I thought I would capitalize on the offer. The curator told me I would get the best deal if I bought them now, that if I waited there would be competing offers, all that rubbish. He seemed to want to get rid of the bloody things fast. He was acting like one of those street merchants, with those goods that are about to go off... Do you remember that one man with the fish and the bananas-"
"So, dear," Mary interrupted him. William had a great love of stories, and tended to begin telling them at the most inappropriate times. "There was no competition for the artifacts... Artifact... What would you call it?"
"No, there were no other buyers," William answered, unfazed by the interruption. He paused to retrieve his matchbox from a coat pocket. "But only because they all gave up trying to get it. I told you, the museum only offered it today, and I was the only man there. I'm sure that there would have been much competition had anyone else known about it. Anyone who knows the legend would surely be interested, if they could afford it." His excitement seemed to die, and he turned his face away from his wife to light his pipe.
"How much was it, William?" Mary took his hand and held it in her lap. She gazed at him, now concerned. He did not answer right away, but let out a long puff from his pipe. A small cloud of smoke came from the end, and he tilted his head to watch its progress to the ceiling. His face was now quite serious.
"We- we'll get it all back when we sell it," William said softly, turning his gaze to the floor.
The boy next door, struggling to hear his parents' lowered voices, moved away from the wall and pulled on a nightshirt. He opened his door, and walked out to stand in front of the room to the right of his. Putting his ear to the keyhole, he was relieved to hear that he had not missed anything.
Mary squeezed her husband's hand. "And you do already have a buyer," she inquired breathlessly.
"Yes," William said shortly.
"Who? Please comfort me, William!"
"He is a very, very rich man," he said, letting another cloud of smoke escape from his pipe. "An Italian by the name of Vercci. He is a millionaire, Mary, and is an adamant collector of ancient weapons. His agent told me Vercci would pay twice what they are worth if I could bring them to him. I already told you when we first saw them in the museum, I said 'Those swords could make us rich,' because I knew this Vercci wanted them. His agent told me, 'Bring Soul Edge to Vercci and he will be most pleased,' and I am bringing him Soul Edge. Oh, please, Mary, dearest, don't fret!" William put his arms around his wife, and they embraced at the foot of the bed.
Mary stood up after a short time, and walked to stand by the door. She sighed, and crossed her arms over her stomach. "I'm all right." William watched her for a short while, as if to make sure.
Mary broke the silence. "What is this Vercci's trade?" She did not really care how the Italian man got his fortune, but her husband would enjoy telling her. William shifted himself on the bed, and puffed from his pipe again.
"Well, I believe he is an arms dealer of sorts. Makes sense he collects old ones, eh? Anything he doesn't sell before something better comes out, he keeps!" He chuckled at his own joke. "But really has an extensive hoard, even after he lost most of his riches when Spain invaded Italy. His mansion was looted and burned to the ground. He wasn't there, he was off in a ship looking for Soul Edge! I suppose now it's a sort of grudge, that's why he wants it so badly. Anyways, Vercci's still a millionaire, even when he lost everything. It's already legend in the underworld, thieves have been trying to find his treasure for years. They say he dug a deep pit, 500 metres perhaps, on an island in the Mediterranean, and hid what he had left in there. No one that has gone in has ever returned, they say. Can't imagine how he found guards strong enough to hold off so many plunderers. Or, for that matter, how he found any that wouldn't join them!"
William laughed again, a deep booming laugh that made his son clamp his hands on his ears. Mary turned to him quickly, but not to remind him to be quiet.
"And for that matter," she had turned very pale, "who's guarding our investment?"
The boy's heart leapt when he heard his father's pipe hit the floor. He scampered into his room just as his parents' door flew open, and William crashed out shouting. "Damn them if they did! If those bastards ran off... Damn them if it's gone!"
As he heard William's feet crashed down the stairs, the boy opened his door a crack to watch for his mother. He saw her stride quickly in her husband's wake, closing the door firmly behind her. Waiting for the sound of her footsteps to fade, he creeped downstairs after her to eavesdrop further.
"I told you specifically- And then you- You weren't supposed to open the damn- I told you-" The boy heard his father's voice, still shaking the hotel. Thankfully, there were no other guests: not many want to visit Cairo in the hot summer. Mary often said William's voice could wake the dead when he was upset.
Peering around one of the stair banisters, the boy looked to see his father shouting at one of his native servants, who stood with an expression of defiance on his face. Around them stood the other servants, who looking utterly terrified, his mother, who looked very cross a his father, the hotel manager, who was hurriedly translating English to Arabic, and a number of bystanders that happened to be around in the middle of the night.
"William," Mary began, touching his arm gently, but he shook her off.
"You directly disobeyed me! You endangered our investment! You remember exactly what I told you, and yet you did not heed me! Why? What can you say for yourself?" He continued to shout at the Egyptian man, who glared angrily at William while listening to the manager's translation. When the manager finished, the man spoke in Arabic to him.
"He says," the manager began to William, "That while he did it, he..." He trailed off, evidently confused by what the man was saying. "While he did it, he did not do it."
"What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" William bellowed.
The manager and the servant spoke again, then the manager turned to face William.
"He elaborates that his hands were the ones that did it, but his will was not behind the act." The manager took a step back as William tensed for another shout. "I have no idea what he means, sir, please do not shout! He accepts full responsibility for what his hands did wrong, but he wishes you to know that he would never disobey a fine man such as yourself. Please do not shout again, sir." And with that he quickly scurried back to his office and closed the door.
William looked at the servant, still angry, but with a softer gaze. The servant looked back at him, as defiant as before.
"What is your name?" William asked the man.
"It is Ahmed, sir," he said in hesitant English. "I will close it now."
Ahmed walked to the entrance of the hotel, and the boy had to lean far to the side to watch what he was doing. He had not seen the two fairly large crates sitting there. One had its top removed, revealing a long bundle sitting on top of packing material. Ahmed covered the top with the lid, and began nailing it back onto the box. The boy noticed that the lid seemed to be stained over where the bundle was underneath.
"We will leave tomorrow night," William said to his wife, ushering the servants to leave, "To prevent any more incidents like this." Mary no longer looked cross, but now seemed subdued.
"So, the swords are truly not just a story, are they William?"
"It seems they are not, Mary."
"Then, is it really safe to have them near Nathaniel?" she asked her husband. "He's so curious, and so young, it might-"
"I have no fear of it harming our boy," William said, "He is strong and knows when he must mind us. He's as sturdy as a Rock, I'm sure his mind is as well. We'll tell him about the swords, but not everything about them, enough to appease his nature, but not enough to scare him. The safest thing is to not have any illusions about their capabilities."
Mary sighed, and embraced her husband once more. "I'm still frightened."
William put his arm over her shoulder. "I don't think it would be safe not to be." Across the room, he watched Ahmed place the last nail into the lid. The man glared back at William, and stacked the crates on top of another. He began to lift them up, but William called to him. "Have some other hands take care of those, Ahmed."
Ahmed scowled, and shouted in Arabic to the room the other servants had retreated to. Two men walked out, and picked up the crates. The Arabs began carrying them to the stairs, to place them with the other luggage. The boy, Nathaniel, nicknamed Rock, knew it was time to head back to his room. Just before they reached the bottom landing, he slinked through his door and lay down on the bed.