I had a dream that I was a servant in the house of a very rich couple. That is to say, I was a servant in their New York house. Their Manhattan house. They had two young children. Babies.

One day, the parents died “somehow”. There was some legal wrangling, the result of which the family lost everything. The house was going to go up for auction and this one group looked poised to buy it. Of course, they were the ones responsible for the legal wrangling and the death, but what can you do? We couldn’t prove this.

Now, my work brought me in close contact with these kids, so I was concerned for their well-being.

Legend had it that, in the family’s country property, there was a cave, and in this cave was a labyrinth, and in the labyrinth somewhere were valuable antiques.

Because they were only rumored, they were not mentioned in the legal documents, and so belonged to whoever found it.

Of course, I couldn’t make it there myself. I hired a professional caver. I also contacted a member of the other mafia in town. I knew that they hated that the first group was getting all this family’s stuff. They wanted a piece. These antiques were supposed to be extremely valuable, so I offered a share if they would protect us during the trip. Of course, the first group would be looking for it too.

So the three of us went exploring the labyrinth. Eventually, we found it. There was a room there, filled with 16th century furniture, priceless works of art, tapestries, gold adornments. That would all go to the mafia. I was satisfied to take only this box. The box contained terrifyingly rare Lydian gold coins. Even one of those, sold to the right collector, was enough to buy back the Manhattan house. There were about thirty in this box.

We had to fight our way out. Not against people, but against traps. The other mafia had booby-trapped our way out, so the skills of the mafia man came in quite handy there. It was chaotic and disorienting, but we made it back out.

I thanked everybody, and proceeded immediately to a dealer to get an appraisal on the coins.

But when I opened them, I found that the box was empty.

The fucking mafia! The fucking fucking mafia! That jerk must’ve slipped them out of the box during some of this booby-trap business.

I watched with bitterness when the house and the property were auctioned off.

Surprisingly, the people who had them killed and who tied it up in court were outbid, so their plan to take over this family’s assets failed. Even more surprisingly, it was not the other mafia who outbid them.

About a week after it was all over, I received a strange letter, bidding me to show up at the family’s country property. It must be the new owners inviting me. Who were they? Why did they want to see me? Curiosity demanded that I show up.

When I got there, I got a much welcome surprise. The new owner was the professional caver that I had hired!

He explained that he sensed that I was in this for the children, and not for simple greed. He could sense that I didn’t even want the money for myself. So he had switched the coins from the mafia man’s pockets with fakes, pulling the same trick on him that he had pulled on me. Then he had proceeded to buy the property back up. He had put almost all of it in the name of the children. He had, however, reserved a small portion for himself and a larger portion for me. And, of course, I was able to come back to taking care of the children.

Horray!

Yeah, that was a strange one.