Archimedes Artifacts

Iron Puzzle Box
Artifact N/A

One of Starless Sky's great secrets was the Iron Puzzle Box, a simple metal cube 5 inches wide by five inches deep by five inches high. When completely assembled, the box appears unremarkable.

The Iron Puzzle Box is an extremely dangerous artifact, and its origins and first owner are lost to time. Starless Sky took the Iron Puzzle Box from someone upon whom she passed judgement some moonless night, but she never spoke of it to anyone. Over time, she divined the secrets of the box, including the fact that, by tapping the top in a precise sequence, the entire box falls apart into 50 small interlocking pieces. Assembling the box once it has been disassembled requires 50 successes on an extended Intelligence + Lore roll, making one roll per hour. A botch at any time indicates that the work of the last two hours was flawed, and the player loses any successes from those rolls. The character need not assemble the box in one sitting.

Once the box is assembled, it can be opened. Opening the box with no idea what the artifact can do is unwise. The box contains everything in any realm in or outside of Creation. It is an opening into Heaven, Yozi, the deepest oceans, the heart of volcanoes, the council room of the Deliberative, the bedchamber of Raksi or anywhere else imaginable (provided the area if not warded against scrying or teleportation). One thing it cannot do is reach through time, but it can be used to contact any being capable of communication, ghosts included.

If attuned and pressing the box in a specific way, spending 4 motes, the box opens. If the character knows the place to reach of person to contact, the person rolls Intelligence + Lore diff 3 to guide the box. If they succeed. the character can peak through to the location or carry on a conversation. Forcing wider the connection, a portal can open allowing the holder to move through. If the roll fails, nothing opens. If it botches, the location is per the Storyteller's choice.

If the character opens the box with nothing in mind, the player must make a Wits+Lore roll dif 5. Succeeds, the mind fills with images of Hell, Heaven, and Creation for a moment, then it snaps shut. The character loses a Willpower but is fine and can roll Int + Lore to guess at the box's function. If that roll fails, the box opens to Yozi. Worse yet, it cannot be closed until a certain Old Realm phrase is uttered over the box. And the person who knows this phrase is Starless Sky.