The room that housed cursed items was very dusty, with cobwebs in the corners. When we stepped in, Cier picked up a small mirror and handed it to me. "Look." He said.

I looked into the mirror. I could see my reflection. I looked at him. "I'm guessing it's some sort of attraction curse." I said.

"Astute, and considering your resistance to it, I am fairly certain you can work in here with minimal protection." He blinked. "Then again, it never hurts to double check." He handed me a faceless mask with eyeholes. "This mask is cursed to become difficult to remove when worn. Put it on."

I did, it seemed to conform to my face while still remaining solid on the front. I grabbed it and took it off without too much issue, though there was a noticeable resistance. He had me do it again, this time with him pulling. It clung to my face when he pulled, as if superglued.

I took it off. "Weird." I remarked. He took it and then put it on me. This time, when I pulled, it was difficult to take off. After he gave it a go, we determined that if I did it myself, I had no issue, but if other people did it, the curse's effect took hold.

"It's a good thing I've always liked masks." I remarked as we both worked to remove it. With both our strength combined, it came off with a loud sound that sounded like a suction cup being suddenly removed from a smooth surface.

"Good to know." I said.

We walked around the room, Cier made certain to stand in the direct center of the areas between shelves. "There are only a few items of note in this room that require consistent care. One is a metal orb once kept by a priest, anything that is not blessed by a priest will cause it to erupt with holy light, potentially killing any who are caught within its sphere. You will not be cleaning this, not without having a priest bless you first. I am not willing to take that chance. My Lady hosts it within this building because it is too volatile to handle otherwise, and it is cursed to never be kept within a consecrated building."

"So, the holy hand grenade can't be kept by priests." I remarked.

Ignoring my comment, Cier continued, "Next is an amulet which allows for casting more spells than normal, at the cost of blood and flesh per spell beyond the limit. If dust accumulates beyond a certain threshold, it discharges, which has caused a death in the past."

I nodded. "So, the blood magic pendant needs to be polished how many times per week?" I asked.

"It is done once every three days." He replied. "The next item is a mirror which shows one's desires, all too often, there are those who find themselves unable to leave it, being lost in a world of their desires."

"Polish the Mirror of Erised, got it."

He shot me a look. "And lastly..." We stopped in front of a suit of black armor. "This armor needs to be polished daily, more for safety than necessity. This armor has ensnared hapless servants into putting it on, which in turn causes it to become locked together and thus unremovable until death."

"It kinda looks like a Dark Knight's armor." I remarked.

"Another of your world's idiosyncrasies?" He asked.

"Something like that." I said. "What happens if this armor gets too dirty?" I asked.

"It likes to find someone to clean it, which due to them being unprepared, leads to them being ensnared by the curse. Please note that while your resistance may prevent you from being made to put it on, putting it on yourself would still trigger it locking. Do not fool yourself into thinking you are incapable of becoming trapped."

"I'll keep that in mind." I said. "Should I get to work immediately?" I asked.

He nodded and I set to work on cleaning what I was told to clean, he left to handle a task in a nearby room. I first polished the necklace, which was a heavy gold chain with a blood-red ruby set into the pendant. It was obvious why this was kept in here, but I could tell that it likely had some utility in more dangerous situations. I then polished the mirror, When I stood in front of it, my reflection changed, first of me eating pizza in my room, then it slowly morphed to an image of myself stronger and wielding a sword. I was wearing the dark knight armor with the helmet under my arm. My reflection raised it to my head and put it on.

I felt a tickle in my nose, and the mirror immediately changed to an image of me blowing my nose into a tissue. It seemed, for me at least, my surface thoughts were reflected more than my deepest desires. I walked away and went to the armor. I polished it, though when I touched it, I felt a faint degree of longing, likely the curse, muted by my resistance. I finished polishing it and left.

Cier was waiting for me outside the room.

"Finished?" He asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "Why is it important the mirror is cleaned?"

"A dirty reflection becomes a twisted echo of reality." He said. "When it becomes too obscured, it turns ones desires into their greatest fears. We have had people die from being scared to death."

I nodded. "I see. It seems the mirror just shows me some of the things I'm thinking about at that moment."

"Indeed?" He asked. "And not your heart's greatest desire?"

"I don't even really know what that is." I admitted. "You'd think I'd want an easy life with nothing to bother me, and yet, I ask for a job. I kept pushing myself when Nash was training me, hell, I managed to stand close to a dragon and ask permission, granted that might be a factor of my fear being muted."

"And here I thought you were a noble man who pressed onward for the sake of your own personal growth." He remarked dryly.

"I'm just, y'know, trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing, I guess." I replied.

"You are rather decent at cleaning." He remarked. "Perhaps you could serve my Lady? You would be paid a worthy salary. The four Trias you earned today is exactly one less than even the lowest paid servant earns."

"Consider: The four Trias is the second most expensive denomination of currency, presuming low inflation, I could have earned as much as twenty times the average salary of a non-servant laborer just by specializing in efficiently cleaning a relatively small amount of important items. Granted, the work I did was important, my resistance trivializing for me what for others could be literal life and death. My circumstances have made me uniquely equipped to deal with these as necessary, essentially giving me access to lucrative, easy, and legal work that is also stable so long as maintaining them is required."

He nodded. "In spite of earning less, you also earn more in the long run." He remarked. "You value your independence, but consider this, the world outside this estate is a dangerous one, what wealth you can accumulate would become a target. Would it not be smarter to dedicate yourself to a kind and gentle Lady who will clothe and feed you, who only requires your loyalty and hard work in return?"

"Consider, I'm a lazy adult who's never worked a hard day in my life, not out of choice, but out of circumstance. What's to say I don't fall back on old habits and find my serve to Lady Lissana lacking, and thus find myself without a home or job?" I asked. "I can't make a promise I don't know if I can keep, and I can't accept a contract I don't know I can fulfill."

"Then we would train you to be a model servant." He replied.

"Can you overcome years of self-serving habits that were formed out of necessity without becoming an iron-fisted tyrant?" I asked. "Are you capable of understanding that even if I want to change, I will have to unlearn all of these bad habits at my own pace before I can effectively be what would be required?"

He did not respond, at least, not immediately. He stopped in front of a window and looked outside. From here, I could see a large city that was busy with movement.

"Have you no faith?" He asked.

"I lost faith in anything a long time ago." I replied. "Everything I've ever aspired to was ripped from my grasp. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. It's honestly a miracle I'm not dead."

He looked at me. "You lost faith, yet speak of miracles?" He asked.

"Correction, there's only one thing I have faith in." I said.

"And what may that be?"

"The unconditional love of a kind-hearted mother." I smiled. "Yeah, if there's anything to have faith in, it's that."

"Perhaps you are correct." He remarked. "I do not know how things are done on your world. What to me seems trivial, to you may be monumental. Who am I to judge what I do not know?"

I smirked. "In various stories that I've read, this would be the point where the protagonist declares their will to become stronger... But what is strength? Is it simply how many pounds one can lift, or how few swings of a sword they need to kill someone, or the power of their heart?"

"If not strength, then what?" Cier asked.

I thought for a moment, and a moment turned into a minute, and a minute turned into another. I thought about what I wanted. Sure, I had fantasized about being a big, badass warrior who swings around a giant sword with one hand, but I wasn't a particularly violent person. I didn't know if I could kill something if I absolutely needed to.

"Wisdom, perhaps." I replied. "I've always wanted to be a well-known author, to tell stories that not only entertain, but also make people think. To show why a powerful warrior swinging a sword around isn't always the ideal, to make one question what a monster truly is, if it's the goblin that's slaughtered to cull their numbers, or if it's the man mindlessly killing something he considers to be evil."

"In this world, that sort of thinking is dangerous." He said. "There are Fiends and Monsters the world over, if we think of them as being like us, then what are we?"

"Who is the real monster?" I asked. "I maintain there are no real monsters, just animals trying to survive. We Humans are just another kind of animal living in this world. We may be more intelligent, we may be able to eventually chase a prey animal to the point where they die from exhaustion, but that just means we're more effective predators."

"You sound like a druid." He remarked.

"Nature is sacred, I suppose." I remarked. "I like modern conveniences too much, though, I would never be able to survive in the wild."

"An enigma."

I stepped away from the window and stretched. "I've only been here a few days, maybe I'll come around to your line of thinking, maybe not." I turned to face him. "But, for as long as I am a guest here, even if involuntarily, I will do my best to be as little a burden on you, the staff, or Lady Lissana. If you could, would you deliver a message to the rest of the servants?"

"What message would that be?" He asked.

"Tell them they don't need to treat me like an honored guest, they can just call me Rex."

He smiled. "I will pass this message along." He said.

I spent the rest of the day in my room, I tried reading the local language, but I couldn't understand it. Instead, I spent the rest of my time copying the symbols down and trying to translate the text. I could have asked someone to tutor me, but it wasn't the first time I'd spent time deciphering text based on the frequency of letters. At around supper time, there was a knock at my door.

"I am dressed." I said.

Nash came in. "Have you been sat in here the entire day?" He asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "I did do some cleaning for Lady Lissana, but beyond that I didn't do much else that you would be interested in or don't know about."

He looked at the paper.

"What are you even doing?" He asked. "These letters are all jumbled about."

"I'm trying to learn the written language without bothering people." I said. "It's just a matter of-" He grabbed the paper and balled it in his fist before burning it with magic.

"You never start with Trysian glyphs, they're too convoluted, the meaning changes depending on how you pair it with other Kan. You start with Kan first, the basic sounds, then the Kanat, which are individual words, and then the Trysian glyphs which are the words under specific contexts."

He wrote a series of symbols, which I noted were components of a word. "Most don't bother with Trysian Glyphs." He explained. "Only Lords and Ladies bother with them, most folk stick with the Kan since it's more straightforward.

He showed me the difference, the Kan for 'moon' could be read five different ways when written as a Trysian Glyph, which was written with different Kanat based on what was meant.

"I think there's a few children's books in the library, I could fetch them for you." He offered.

"That would be excellent." I said. "Thank you."

"You won't live long if you can't read." He said. "Especially for one as soft as you."

And so, we took our supper in my room while he spent the rest of the night teaching me how to read and write...