I’m not sure who will find this, but I feel I have to write this down. I’ve worked in sites the builders of must have thought would never be opened, and yet they wrote. So I will write too. My lantern is fading. The oil always burns quicker than I’d expect, no matter how many days I’ve worked underground.
I digress.
My name is Alexei Mauk. I have worked in excavations, translations, and not always with the most savory of employers. A year ago I was approached by an associate. He went by Mr. N and I knew not to ask for more. He told me about a site he heard of in southern France, not too far from Nice. He believed the site was a burial site, a tomb. An ancient Frankish chieftain had controlled the area and had amassed quite a large collection of gold jewelry.
Mr. N also had heard of some of my work, both the legitimate museum pieces I’d excavated, and some of the work I did to help make ends meet. He never directly stated it but his comments had a ring of a threat to them. But he didn’t just offer the stick, he also offered a carrot. He said he had a buyer already set up for whatever we found deep in the earth, and he was willing to give me 50% of the fee. Of course he could have always lied about the fee, said he only took 50% when he really gave me something like 10%, but even that claim was impressive from someone like him. To even pretend to offer that much money. I should have seen it as a warning.
Throughout the year we had many false leads and dead ends, and a particularly harsh winter, rare for the region, made the prospect of digging out of the question. But, then, in March, we found a cave north of Nice. He visited the site before me and I thought that would be the end. I was only supposed to be there to find the place, he and his men would excavate it.
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