Aidar Malone

Sam's thoughts:

The son of eastern european immigrants, Aidarious Malonsovich, or Aidar Malone as he changed his name, manages an import export business between New England and Europe. As well as mundane items like olive oil and booze, Aidar specializes in Antiques and early religious items.
He graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Harvard. He is fascinated by the history of humanity, but was often at odds with his department and classmates in school. During this time ideas of racial superiority and eugenics were passed off as fact. Because of his inferior racial heritage and poor background he was marginalized and abused his whole time in school. He can comport himself with high society and intellectuals, but has a deep disdain for them.
Stat rank (highest-lowest)
Education, Appearance, Intelligence, Dexterity, Size, Constitution, Strength, Power

***

Leaning forward in his chair, fingertips bleached white as they press together, Aidar regarded the box on his desk with a look of distrust.

The relic had turned up in a crate of Greek statuary, tucked with apparent care into the straw liner that protected the pieces in transit. It was built of wood stained a deep crimson and subtly engraved with patterns that captured the eye in a seemingly endless circuit, drawing attention away from the simple crease that marked its lid.

Who could have slipped it in? Aidar wondered. Was there a smuggler among his employees? I've known Luca since he was a boy, but the others... Could it have been misplaced? Shipped all the way from the old world in some kind of absurd accident?

Maybe, he thought, frowning as he reached forward, it is a joke. I will open it and SPLING! out pops one of those coiled-up snakes.

But the lid would not budge.

Holding the mystery box, Aidar could see no lock, nor any reason that it should remain closed, but still somehow it was sealed.

Briefly Aidar considered retrieving one of the mallets that the stevedores used to crack open the crates, but the thought was enough to put frown on his face.

No, Aidar thought, that is immigrant thinking. Father would do that, maybe, but father wore a bloody smock at the processing plant every day, and every day he wielded a hammer.

Father died with a hammer in his hand.

That is not me. I am respectable.

"Mr. Malone?"

Aidar started, the box almost slipping from his grasp.

"There you are. I hadn't seen ya all day," said Luca from the office doorway. "We've got everything broke down and ready for tomorrow's delivery, so I was going to head on home to Ma if you don't mind."

Shielding his eyes from the now-setting sun, Aidar looked Luca up and down and, as he did, Luca shifted his weight from foot to foot. For a moment, the sun peaked over Luca's shoulder and in Aidar's eyes he was transformed: no longer a young man, but a black void, revealed only by the harsh, dying light.

Then his weight shifted back and he was Luca once more.

After a moment's silence, Aidar spoke.

"Of... of course. Give your mother my best and be sure to get here early tomorrow. There is plenty to be done."

Before Luca had even left to the room, Aidar's attention was again drawn to the box. There was something familiar about it; something that he could not place.

That nagging familiarity stuck with him as Aidar reluctantly tore himself away, throwing himself into the day's paperwork, but again and again finding himself regarding the box when there was work to be done. It was not long before the paperwork had been put aside entirely and the box was once against consuming Aidar.

The patterns, Aidar determined, were the key; if he could identify them then surely he could learn something more about this strange item.

Diving into his impressive professional library, Aidar read deep into the night, stopping only as his bleary eyes began to slip closed of their own accord. After long hours of consulting tomes that those snobs at Harvard would pay a small fortune to get their hands on, Aidar was still no closer to finding any answers about this mysterious box.

"If only Professor Seymour were still at Harvard, he would certainly have an answer for me." Aidar mused aloud.

As he said this, Aidar's eyes alighted on the warehouse floor and the crate of statuary out of which the box had been pulled and he gasped in recognition.

It was fate.

The crate, proclaimed the paperwork that Luca had affixed to its side on the way out the door, was bound for an estate in Innsmouth, not far from Miskatonic University, the current residence of the disgraced professor, Lucious Seymour.