Setting the stage, Johan’s perspective

Finally I felt the iron handle lift free.

The first thing I felt as I entered the workshop was a field of phsychic energy, negative energy, not unlike that which I myself employed on a minor basis to influence the minds of others when absolutely necessary. But this was not that. This was old, potent, and I half expected to see a demoness, witch, or otherworldly entity sitting in the midst of my workshop… but there was nothing, nothing but Lilly.

I shut the door but quickly moved to the nearby window and threw it open, allowing the mid-day sun to wash the traces of dark magic away before they built up enough for anyone to notice. It was then that I noticed the box of dildos lying on the floor and the ancient relic standing straight up, on the floor, certainly not where I’d left it. Damnit…

“Lilly,” I asked carefully, pointing at the mess. She clearly didn’t get my meaning and instead started apologizing profusely and with much embarrassment for the mess she’d left. She said other things like getting carried away, assuring me that she had punished herself, and something about feeling much better. I blocked most of it out as I moved around, ostensibly cleaning up the shop.

In truth I was carrying the artifact, that ancient onyx dildo, in my hand, mumbling a few lines of magic verse I hadn’t used since the war… I needed to think, examine, and do it alone.

“Lilly,” I handed her the red cloak. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I do have a business to run here.” I tucked the bronze dildo in a soft skin of leather after washing it in a nearby pail. “I’m placing this here, behind this box on the shelf, whenever you need it it’s here for you.”

She nodded and thanked me, the words unimportant as my mind drifted back three hundred years and tried to remember things that had been buried ever since, since before I became a half-man.

“Yes, you’re welcome,” I interrupted her, “just be back here at sunset and we’ll wait for Charity together, or more accurately you will, I will be out of sight, but nearby to make sure she doesn’t do anything crazy, like try to chop off your head, for example.”

Lilly swallowed but nodded judiciously and promised to be back by sunset. Then she left, finally.

I spoke the last word in the magical verse and dropped the dildo on the floor.