It is about 65/i/i>/span18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Mariner/span

You’ve gone to a thrift shop! It’s a quaint little place with all manner of knick-knacks and old clothes on the shelves, and a smell of mothballs and things like that. Opening the door causes a bell to tinkle, and someone from the back room shouts, “Gimme a minute!” It seems Matias has some time to browse, and judging by the elderly sound of the voice, there doesn’t seem to be any rush.

Matias steps in through the front door, shaking some water off his blazer from the rain outside. After that its running a hand through dark thick curls of hair and sleepy grey eyes looking about. He moves as if he’s quite sore, but given he had not one but two forms of knife wounds yesterday it’s better than he has any right to be. Since the owner is taking a moment he briefly roams his attention to anything that isn’t accessible to the public, behind a counter, behind glass, or otherwise requiring assistance to appraise.

A thin layer of dust covers much of the shop’s inventory, and it’s hard to believe that the owner makes much money. Nevertheless, various objects have been put up for sale, everything from last-gen electronics to gently used clothes and so on. Not much appears to stand out as special, although there is a glass display case at the end of the counter, inside of which is a figurine of a man. The thing looks to have been cast from iron and is some eight inches tall, and it stands frozen in a pleading pose with its hands gathered.

Matias picks through the dusty select, not particularly interested in electronics or clothing but then comes the pleading eight inch tall figurine. There is a look around the room for the mysterious owner, his brazilian accented voice lifting “Is penant statue up front, iron, man begging. How long have you had, know where it come from?” and then his attention drops back down to the figurine as if trying to assess whether it is just a very large Dungeons and Dragons casting from ye olde days of Advanced DnD or something a bit older and significant.

The figurine looks too big to have been used for something as silly and inherently pointless as roleplaying games. It must have quite a bit of heft to it, too. In addition to that, the details are unsettlingly pricse: creases in the brow, stress in the fingers, even the fine shape of nails. The face is twisted in silent desperation, mouth open in a silent request. A small tag on the glass case reads: ‘The Iron Supplicant.’ “What? Oh, right,” comes the voice from the back room, as if the storekeep had forgotten Matias had come in. After some shuffled steps, an elderly man emerges. “You foreign types always wanna look at the heavy stuff,” he grumbles. “That thing there is said to have come over on the Mayflower back in the seventeenth century, but who knows if that’s true.”

You find it a little difficult to tear your gaze away from the figurine, as if it was held by a light magnetic pull.

“Iron Supplicant.” Matias/span echoes the name card with a tired glance to the elderly man offering a polite smile that is insincere, not touching his gray gaze, even as it is magnetically drawn back to the piece in question. “Is interesting piece would like to look, but do not think it came over on Mayflower. Puritans escaping the British Church and Catholicism were not common users of idols. They prefer symbols and motifs.” he explains in that professorial response that antigue shop owners probably looooove to hear because he’s just devaluing the providence of this piece in real time.

“Well, la-dee-dah. You Mexicans always try and pull a fast one,” the elderly man mutters and gives off a surly grunt. “Fact of the matter is that I’m retiring at the end of the year, and that thing’s heavy. On account of that, you can have it half price so as I don’t gotta deal with it when I pack the old shop up,” he decides gruffly. The man keeps a certain distance from the glass case, but is somewhat inconspicuous about it. “Fifty bucks, amigo.”

A strange sense of yearning comes from the figurine, as if it was beseeching you in some fashion. There’s no clear indication of what it wants, but there is a want.

“Ah Mexicans wish they were Brazilians, then they would have world cup victory to their name.” Matias sniffs with some innata Hispanic vs Latino racial comeptition just lingering beneath the surface. Meanwhile his hand is already going to his wallet where he produces sixty dollars and puts it on the counter. “Will pay sixty dollars, but want original receipt card for when it enter shop. Think you can do this?” he says not even looking to the elderly man, just absorbed in the piece.

“God damnit. Now I gotta find that. It’s always the same with you immigrants,” the elderly man grumbles and turns away to look through a small filing cabinet behind him. After some searching, he produces an old, yellowed card and slaps it down on the counter. “Happy now, Speedy Gonzales?”

Item: The Iron Supplicant

Date Acquired: March 3, 1971

Origin: Estate sale, Boston, Massachusetts

Acquired from: “House was empty. Keys left in mailbox. Never saw the seller.”

Historical Claim (unverified): Came over on The Mayflower in 1620, allegedly traded for 2 goats and a pewter cross by a starving settler.

Height: 8in, weight: 8.1lb

“No returns,” the storekeep mentions and reaches for the payment, looking a little bit relieved despite his grouchy exterior.

Matias straightens up finally as the elderly man returns with the yellowing card. Tearing his eyes away from the magnetically provcative statue to examine the card, his fingers tip tap against a blank spot on the yellowing paper. “Yes. Is exactly what I needed. Now for ten more dollars, this piece. Do you ever find it facing a different direction in the morning or at night? Like maybe someone move it?” he holds out a ten dollar bill to the old man while his free hand takes the receipt card and tucks it gently into his blazer breast pocket.

“No,” the elderly man says bluntly and gives the figurine a sideways look, still keeping his distance as much as possible while still remaining generally across from Matias behind the counter. “But listen here,” he goes on, lowering his voice a little. “Don’t… speak to it, comprendo?”

“Really?” Matias says while putting the tenner back into his wallet and back jean pocket. “I was going to put it in office at Windermere and call it Jorge.” he says with a completely straight face to the elderly man. “Is it bad listener?”

“Someone else bought it once and returned it again after two weeks,” the man explains, looking a bit impatient and annoyed with Matias. “Sounded to me like it listens a little too well,” he goes on and sidles closer to the case somewhat hesitantly in order to open it. “Here. It’s yours now. No returns.”

Matias walks stiffly over to the case two reach in with both hands to pick up the 8 inche tall and roughly 8 lb figurine, hefting it out of its appointed place then lifting it up to nestle into the crook of his right arm. “Interesting. To good of listener I will be sure to keep conversation short and professional. Was pleasure to buy.” he says again very polite if insincere.

“Yeah, yeah. Vamonos already,” the storekeep says and ticks his head towards the shop’s door. He soon turns to trudge into the backroom again, sighing to himself. The statue is heavy, and there’s a certain gravity to it besides its physical weight. As Matias holds it, there’s a sense of tension, as if the inanimate object could be anxious or impatient.

Once the elderly man is departing Matias begins to carry the iron figurine towards the door, but slips his free hand into his pocket and out comes a saint minted coin. If he is able to cross the threshold of the shop without anything to abnormal happening he begins to murmur a spanish litany prayer on the sidewalk. Essentially a call for wisdom and enlightenment. For the Lord’s favor to be upon him. For the secrets of the fallen and sinful to be revealed. The Catholic guilt is rich in this one and at the end he taps the coin against the figurine, if he manages to finish, as if testing a tuning fork.

Nothing particularly abnormal happens on the way out of the shop, and the figurine doesn’t respond to the prayer in any noticeable way. However, once Matias steps onto the sidewalk, there’s a whisper. Not in the air, not an audible voice, but in the mind. A voice like a creaking hinge speaks telepathically, “My name.. is not… Jorge.”

Matias tilts his head and begins walking in the direction of the Windermere campus trying to stay out of the rain. “My name is Matias, what is yours?” he asks in a brazilian accented english, apparently finding nothing particularly strange about talking to a statue.

“Gargalogolagos,” the voice responds inside Matias’s mind. The figurine itself stays just the way it is, unmoving and heavy and unwieldy. Only the telepathic voice indicates that there’s anything going on. “You have… freed a tongue sealed in silence. My domain is long forgotten, but I can regain it. For my… freedom, I grant you one wish. Wish for anything at all, and it shall be… precisely as you ask.”

“But be warned, Matias,” the voice grates on. “What is asked… is answered. What is answered… is owed. My gifts do not rust, but they obey the tongue, not the heart.”

Matias slows his pace as the figurine now known as Gargalogolagos speaks directly into his mind and finally there is a careless laugh and notably complete silence from the latino. His grip on the base of the figurine shifts as he turns it to look up at him as he peers down at it. Finally he says in a kind of melodical delivery: “For Gargalogolagos’ freedom, Matias asks, that the room tempature always be pleasant to me during my class.” a frivalous wish but as someone who is teaching in the basements of Windermere with ventalation systems that might as well have dead bodies in them, not exactly a wasted wish either.

There’s silence at first, as if the figurine is baffled by Matias’s choice. “You do not… want riches? Power?” it asks, sounding disappointed. “You do not want to wish for a fortune in gold? Go on, you… can ask. A ton of gold,” it continues, hopeful. “You need only ask, and don’t… look up.”

“Or the sharpest sword in all the land,” the voice encourages. “Do humans still… use swords?”

“You can be the king… of Atlantis,” it tries after another moment, sounding a little petulant.

“I am Fae silly thing. Bargains and pacts are my bread and butter. You claim your gifts obey the tongue and not the heart, but you seem selective in what you impart. Answer my tongue and giveth to me.” Matias informs the statue as they begin to walk again the academic humming softly, intentionally not including any other requests in his dialogue with the Gargalogolagos.

“No one ever goes… for the ton of gold,” the voice complains, and there’s a wordless whisper in Matias’s mind, as if someone had sighed into his brain. “Very well,” it intones telepathically. “During your class, the room temperature will be pleasant. When you are not… present, however, the lecture hall will be just ever so slightly chilly some of the time. There. I have won.”

Matias wonders aloud, “How can there be class when I am not present… I suppose I will need to coordinate with my colleagues so they can use it. Oh well more favors for me. Go be free silly little spirit.” but unless the statue disappears he is definitely keeping it.

“Free! At last!” the voice croaks, sounding gleefully triumphant in the way an ancient, creaking voice can. “I will rebuild my domain and wreak havoc upon your… what year is it? No matter. Free!”

The voice is never heard from again, and the iron figurine is just a piece of metal for the rest of time!

Matias says, looking down at the figurine, “Alright you are now Jorge and you will make better deals.“

Matias says “Lets go home Jorge.“

Mirabel says “Er. “

Matias points eastward

“Thanks for the coffee, dear colleague,” Mirabel says and smiles amiably at Matias.