Star Rattle

Item · 10 gp · Weight 0

As you pick it up, you sense an echo of an ancient memory... "The great night has come. The night when the precisely crafted trap of deceit, ruses, and guile will be sprung. The time it has taken me to lull my little thief into unwariness. The skill I have had to employ to make him believe that my treasury is unguarded. I wait, motionless and cold. Here he comes! The melodious jingling heralds that Star Rattle, my devious little protean thief, craves new spoils. How elegantly and carefully he bypasses my traps, how nimbly and nonchalantly he evades the dangers. His spells sweep the entire treasury and tell him that I am not here. And that is when my thief dares to lay a hand on his prize. He thinks that he has prevailed. His fingers sink into a scattering of purple pearls shining hypnotically in the dark. Cold, glinting, magnificent. My thief thinks that they are his prize. Instead, he is mine. The pearls stick to his scales and change shape, taking on their true form — that of the demon lord Nahyndri, master of gems! My thief hisses, having realized that I took on the guise of his coveted treasure. I grab his wrist, I clamp my hand around his sunken chest, I squeeze! 'You will steal from me no longer! Not one of my jewels will grant you even a spark of rapture!' I growl as my triumph devours me from the inside. But my thief merely shakes his crystal rattle and hisses without a care, 'What good are your baubles to me? I was never after them...'"