Chapter Text
It was supposed to be just another chic opening gala—one of those events packed with endless speeches, white wine served at room temperature, and bored looks carefully disguised as academic interest. But for Shawn Spencer, wearing the same basic suit he’d owned since high school, the occasion promised two irresistible things: free gourmet snacks and the chance to stumble upon some old mystery hidden inside a newly renovated temple.
And of course, he had dragged Burton Guster along into the imposing historic building. Despite wearing the unmistakable expression of someone who deeply regretted accepting his friend’s invitation, Gus—ever elegant—was dressed in a dark blue suit, a white T-shirt, and a perfectly adjusted bluish tie.
While scholars and local authorities spoke fervently about sacred art and archaeological restoration, Shawn did what he did best: stuffing himself with food and drink while entertaining himself at the expense of everyone else’s seriousness.
“Gus, this truffled mushroom fritter literally connected me to another dimension. If a rushed rabbit shows up, give me a heads-up!” he declared theatrically.
“If it were literally, you wouldn’t be here. And what does Alice’s rabbit have to do with the mushroom, anyway?” Gus shot back, taking a critical sip of wine.
“They say Alice ate a hallucinogenic mushroom and started having visions. That’s where all the Wonderland madness came from. It’s science… or art. Or both.”
Noticing his friend’s look of disdain, Shawn decided to give him some space—probably so Gus could talk to a researcher about medieval pharmacology.
Armed with a glass of wine and two canapés balanced between his fingers, Shawn slithered through the hall like an eccentric sacred-art collector hunting for his next obsession.
“Ah yes, yes…” he said to a group gathered beside a seventeenth-century tapestry. “This piece reminds me very much of the lost pictorial cycle of the Order of the Rosary of Southern Moldavia… unfortunately destroyed by a poisoned goat.”
The listeners exchanged confused glances.
“Poisoned?” ventured a woman wearing a pearl necklace.
“Poisoned and enlightened. They say it bleated in Latin,” Shawn added solemnly, taking a sip of wine as if he had just quoted a secret verse from the apocryphal gospels.
Hesitant smiles turned into uncertain looks. No one could quite tell whether he was an eccentric genius or just a bold-faced fraud—which, in that kind of environment, was almost the same thing.
The more Shawn tried to strike up conversations and squeeze out interesting gossip, the more he realized the place was coated in a thick layer of suffocating formality. Bored rich people didn’t have scandals. They talked about restoration, investments in sacred art, and, occasionally, the seasoning on the smoked salmon canapé.
Shawn sighed loudly, pretended to admire a baroque statue for two seconds, and when he looked up toward the mezzanine, he spotted Gus in the middle of a group, fully engaged.
His friend gestured enthusiastically, listening along with everyone else to a man in a dark suit. Shawn frowned.
“Yeah… nothing down here is scandal-worthy. Time to change tactics.”
With that conclusion, he climbed the side staircase with casual steps, stealing another canapé along the way. From the upper floor, the view of the main hall was excellent: guests moving in clusters, waiters floating among them like invisible pawns, and art panels competing for attention with trays full of delicacies.
But that wasn’t what interested him. He wanted what no one else was seeing.
Shawn began discreetly checking the doors upstairs, one by one. All locked. No mysterious clues, no secret passages. Not even a suspicious echo to tickle his imagination.
He turned with a sigh and was about to head back when something caught his attention.
While the rest of the temple buzzed with conversations and clinking glasses, that corridor was pure silence. A thin, red-haired, hurried waiter emerged from one of the side hallways of the temple, carrying an empty tray.
Shawn’s eyes lit up. He wanted gossip—and he had just found a potential police case.
With the enthusiasm of someone watching a gate swing open to a brand-new mystery, he headed straight for Gus.
“…which suggests that the first sign of humanity wasn’t the tool, nor fire,” the man was saying calmly, “but care. They found evidence of a fractured bone—set and healed. At that time, an injury like that was a death sentence. But someone took care of them. Someone stayed.”
“That’s beautiful. Almost poetic,” Gus commented, genuinely impressed. “The first step toward who we are today was empathy.”
“Or an excellent cave insurance policy,” Shawn interrupted, popping up beside them with a mischievous grin and greasy fingers. “Seriously, imagine the claim form back then: ‘Cause of fracture? Mammoth.’ ‘Treatment? Clay and hope.’”
Gus sighed deeply—a clear sign the night had just taken a sharp turn. He discreetly stepped away from the group, not even trying to hide his disapproving look.
“You’re eating again?”
“Gus…” Shawn whispered excitedly, wearing that crooked smile that usually preceded chaos. “I found us a case!”
“What do you mean, Shawn? Did Chief Vick call us?”
“No, but listen… the waiter. That red-haired, skinny guy coming out of the kitchen with wine glasses. He came from there,” he said, pointing his chin toward the lower floor, “like he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to.”
Gus crossed his arms.
“Shawn, don’t start.”
“Start? I started a long time ago, Gus! Did you see that corridor? It’s practically a golden ticket. Empty, quiet, forgotten… there’s definitely something there.”
“Or it’s just a service area. Ever think of that?”
“I did. And dismissed it. Too obvious.” Shawn paused dramatically at the top of the stairs. “So let’s explore. A temple this big? I bet it has secret passages, hidden doors…”
“Shawn—”
But the fake psychic was already heading down the stairs with light steps, eyes sharp and mind buzzing with the promise of a new mystery.
Gus cast one last look at the man he’d been talking to.
“It was a pleasure, Mr. Rutherford. This conversation will give me a lot to think about…”
The man smiled politely before turning back to the enthusiastic debaters discussing the origins of humanity.
Gus, resigned, followed his friend.
The corridor felt colder than the rest of the temple—and not just because of the lack of lighting. There was a dense, damp silence there, as if the stone absorbed voices instead of echoing them.
“This area should be closed,” Gus murmured, walking carefully.
“Apparently it is. They just forgot to tell the red-haired waiter.”
“You don’t even know if he was really a waiter.”
“He was carrying a tray.”
“Shawn, you once mistook a SWAT officer for an Amazon delivery guy.”
Ignoring the comment, Shawn continued dreamily.
“Do you feel that, Gus?”
“What? Dust and bad decisions?”
“No. The smell of mystery. It’s like the perfume of an unsolved enigma.”
Gus rolled his eyes while adjusting his bow tie, as if it could protect him from the stupidity to come.
“If we get arrested, I’m saying I was coerced.”
They walked through corridors lined with sturdy dark wooden doors, each identified by golden plaques: Manuscripts Room, Liturgical Archives, Sacred Art Storage. All silent, locked, pristine.
Except for a narrower side corridor, discreetly hidden behind an unfinished baroque sculpture. There, the walls were bare—no signs, no windows. And at the end of it, a single door stood slightly ajar, as if forgotten by someone in a hurry… or deliberately left that way.
“Bingo!”
“Shawn, no. That’s the kind of door nobody should open. Just like in horror movies,” Gus warned, now whispering urgently.
“Exactly why I want to open it. Movies are survival manuals disguised as entertainment,” Shawn replied, already approaching the door with the ease of someone who ignores every ‘Do Not Enter’ sign. “And there’s something hidden in there. I’d bet my last cheese ball.”
“You’ve already eaten ten cheese balls.”
“Exactly. The last one has emotional weight.”
Without hesitation, Shawn slowly pushed the door open, carefully, just in case there was some Indiana Jones–style trap waiting on the other side.