F3 The Stash

     The room felt like that warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This room was nowhere near as big, perhaps eight feet by six feet, and instead of wooden crates stacked upon one another, metal shelves stacked to the ceiling. The shelves weren't even close to full, either. Yet there were quite a number of items on those shelves, covered in a layer of dust that could only come from a decade of neglect. Dozens of them. I swallowed hard, and rolled the floppy composition book into a tube. The faded red cover bore Max's scrawl in black magic marker: "Inventory of Artifacts". Not archaeological artifacts, though I knew many of the items would be old. Magic. Sorcery. Enchantments. Every item in this room except the notebook I found held some kind of mystic mojo.
     I had been in the practice of disposing of such artifacts whenever I came across them. My experience was they were a lot of trouble, usually downright dangerous. I glanced over the objects, trying to find some kind of pattern. There wasn't one. Boxes, jars, sculptures, bags, and items that didn't even fit into a category littered the shelves, all made of a variety of materials: wood, clay, glass, crystal, bone, cloth, leather, metal, and unknown composition.
     I felt like I stood in a nuclear missile silo, staring at enough firepower to crack open the planet. I just might be, too.. I hoped that Max had a really good reason for stockpiling all this stuff. I hoped that reason wasn't the supernatural version of the arms race. I hoped that this was to keep the items safe because he didn't know how to destroy them, or just keep them off the streets.
     "God I hope that's why."