It was absolutely beautiful.

I didn't even believe Lirk when he first woke me up from my nap and told me that we'd found it. I swatted his grinning skull away and rolled over, trying to get comfortable on the hard-packed soil of my bed. After that rude adventurer came in and laughed at us, I'd spiraled into another deep depression, thinking that we'd never find it. And yet only days later, there it was. Screw that stupid adventurer and her stupid spell.

"Get back!" I told my minions, who were all tightly clustered around the very end of the tunnel. Shoving them out of the way didn't do very much, because it normally just ended up moving that one particular bone out of place but leaving the others completely still. After the first few collapsed spines, I'd learned that it was just easier to order them to move. They each took a large synchronized step backwards, and I got my first sight of the Ruby.

Half of a skeleton, from the ribcage up, was reaching out of the packed earth. I could still see the spine-and-rib shaped imprint of where the body had been pressed against the wall. Worms has long picked the flesh clean from (who I assume to be) Mertialz's bones, but the Ruby was perfect and pristine; there didn't even seem to be any bits of dirt clinging to it. Inside the gem, it looked like a thunderstorm was raging complete with dark cloudy areas and what appeared to be brilliant bolts of lightning racing through it. The stone itself was ensconced in a pure gold necklace that I could sell for more coin than we'd earn in years of disposing of the clinic's corpses.

I reached out with one finger and touched the perfectly cut and polished surface. I fell to my knees as unspeakable power flowed through me. Even the skeletons around me staggered backwards as the Ruby unleashed a shockwave of force. It was glorious.

"Finally!" I whispered as I tore the necklace from Mertialz's clutches. Even in death his bony fingers maintained a tight grip on the golden chains. I draped it around my neck and let the ruby hang on my chest, right over my heart. It seemed to give off its own warmth, and throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat.

"Now what, Master?" Lirk asked.

Mertialz's skeleton was right in front of me, gaping eye sockets just staring down at my feet. I chanted the summoning incantation and ordered him to climb out of the wall and kneel before me. The bones didn't even twitch.

"Aren't you going to make him one of yours, Master?" Lirk asked.

"Be quiet," I told him, still studying the gem. "I'm trying to think!" Ancient Artifacts had been one of my least favorite classes back at the Academy. Just hour after hour of looking at paintings of old ruins in the textbook while Professor Histert droned on about the magical lost toilet of so and so and how it would give you supernaturally strong urine flow or whatever. But did he ever say how to actually activate the damn things? Isn't that the kind of information I might need?

The necklace thumped against my chest like it was taunting me with its power. Unimaginable magical energy at my fingertips... and no way to unlock it.

"Hurry, Master!" Lirk said. It was like dealing with a child who couldn't wait for a new toy.

I clutched the Ruby in my palm and stretched the other hand out toward the skeleton. I took a deep breath and belted out the incantation as loudly and as powerfully as possible. My voice boomed and echoed through the tunnel.

The damn corpse didn't move an inch.

"Well, crap."

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