Buried Treasure

As she drew her trowel across the soil at the bottom of the trench she had no idea exactly how the next few seconds would change her life.  Her eyes were drawn to a sliver of metal appearing out of the dust and mud at the bottom of the trench.  She had spent the last 3 days on her hands and knees in this and other trenches across the lawn, she was one of the group of 3 amateur archeologists working a private dig.  The phrase it’s not what you know but who, 100% true in this case, the team leader of this dig Jane was the daughter of the family who lived here and they were the first team to dig this site.  This was hardly a site of any national importance and there was little other interest, however Jane had a number of small items that had come out of the various flower beds over the years and did suggest that there may be something under the grass that would be worth spending this time.

Jane was her professor at University and for some reason had picked her to be part of this team, what she didn’t realise was that Jane had spoken to many other people at the University and in the end only two of her students were interested enough in her personal investigation to come and spend time helping her.  Debbie was in the 2nd year of her studies at university and her interest in archaeology that began whilst watching TV programs on a Saturday afternoon had grown into an academic focus.  She had been out scouring fields with metal detectors at 14 and had managed to join a local amateur archaeological group at 16 and had been on a number of digs.  However in all of these she was just a single member of a large team with little importance upon her shoulders.  Now with Jane her professor, Liz another student and her they were trying to cover all aspects of an investigation with three people.  They were taking turns digging, making details notes of any finds and then cleaning, identifying and cataloging them with the same level of professionalism that any larger dig would have achieved.

In general the finds were nothing spectacular and she was slowly giving up hope of finding anything to make these three days worthwhile.  Sure they had discovered a small wall , but after some further investigation they had decided that it was a small outhouse less than 200 years old.  There had been a few bits of pottery that had been discovered and a couple of rather nice broaches that had come out of Liz’s trench, but Debbie felt as though her trench was really giving up nothing. She had been taking back the surface an inch at a time for the last hour and had found little, as she drew back her trowel one more time something caught her eye.

It was a glint of metal that drew her eye to the find, she immediately reached to her kit and drew out a brush to allow her to clear the surrounding dirt without risking damage to the find.  As the dirt cleared she could now see that it was a ring with a gold band it appeared to have some kind of decoration on it, but at this point she could not make it out.  She managed to lift the ring without damaging it and with it now clear of the surrounding sould she could make out some kind of inscription around the outer edge in a language she did not recognise.  She continued to brush off the dirt and it was clear that the ring was in very good condition, which was unusual when compared to the other finds they had made.  She went to place the ring in one of the plastic holding boxes, however at the last moment she paused and drew the ring back towards her in her right hand.  As she held the ring up  it caught the sun and she almost felt a warmth pass through her body and her left hand seemed to move up towards her right without consious thought.  She sat there for seemingly hours fixated on the ring as her right hand moved closer, however it can only have been a second when Jane sat down beside her and started gushing over the ring she had found.  She managed to pass the ring over to Jane for her to look at it, however Jane had it in her hand for only a brief second before she handed it back complaining about how cold and evil it felt.  Jane beckoned Liz over to look at the ring and she also took it off Debbie but again she handed it back complaining that she didn’t like how if felt.  Debbie held the ring in her hand and again the warmth began to flow through her, she managed to place the ring in one of the holding boxes, but it took her some effort to break contact with the ring.