From the travelling collection of
The Mystical Caravan
The Reliquary · Cabinet Catalogue
Danger level
Item R–3266–093The Box of a Thousand Footsteps
A teak reliquary carved with a procession of elephants, taken from an Assam shrine and followed by a spectral herd.
- Classification
- Ancestral animal reliquary
- Origin
- Elephant shrine, Assam
- Estimated date
- Unknown
- Collection status
- On display
- Materials
- Carved teak
- Condition
- Intact; carving permanently altered
The Curator’s record
A distant herd may pass beyond the Caravan's lantern light on quiet nights. Visitors are advised not to follow it.
Provenance
Dr. Silas Reed stole the box after its keeper refused to sell it. A growing number of elephant footsteps followed him until a moonlit spectral herd surrounded his carriage and he vanished.
Observed activity
The interior appears empty and dark, smells of rain-soaked earth, and produces an elephant call. Footsteps multiply nightly; nearby trophies may fall, break, or open as if trying to leave. A bowed elephant representing Silas appeared at the end of the carved procession.
The Tale of this object
The Box of a Thousand Footsteps
Season 2 · Episode 03In tonight’s story, we follow Dr. Silas Reed, an ambitious collector of curiosities who roamed the world seeking trophies of wonder, bones, horns, and hides, all in the name of knowledge. But when he acquires a carved teak box from an elephant shrine deep in the jungles of Assam, he learns that true wisdom does not come from taking, but from listening. For the dead have footsteps, too and they never walk alone.
Enter the Tale