The Bloodied King Painting

Ahh, just a painting of Prince George of Cambridge as a 35-year-old that HAS PASSED THROUGH HANDS BEYOND COUNTING, LEAVING A TRAIL OF BLOOD WHEREVER IT GOES.

Let's do a run-down of that history:

First-off, the painting is made. The "paint" in some cases is actually mixtures of molten metals such as gold and iron that were allowed to cool off to give specific colours and then coated with completely see-through artificial diamond. There are some valuable rocks like rubies embedded into the painting as well, although you have to look closely to realise they're there as they're all tiny and also used for colouring effects.

The painting is then sold at an auction where 3 bidders ended up battling over ownership of it. Eventually, it's sold for £7 billion to the grandchild of 4 individuals who invested all their life savings into shares in Elon Musk's companies (oh yeah, this whole universe is set in the future and I'm talking our future) and then put their money into the hands of an advanced AI that mucked around with stock exchanges to make tonnes of money and whose children were equally big fans of making big bucks.

A week later, 2 assassins, both hired by the other 2 that lost the auction, break into the painter's house and attempt to kill him but each mistakes the other for the bodyguard of the artist and one manages to kill the other but bleeds out afterwards while the artist runs away and calls the police.

The artist trips over a rock and bangs his head, dying of a concussion, 2 days after this. However, it's suspected that he was pushed or otherwise killed with it being made to look like he'd fallen over.

The painting ends up on auction a week after the painting's owner survives a "mysterious drive-by shooting" and the 2 who failed to acquire it before end up in another bidding war until a gang of 40 ex-military criminals come in and steal the painting, killing many at the auction in the process.

The painting is sold in an underground auction to the head of a criminal organisation that stretched across China, Japan, Eastern Russia, Korea, Indochina and some Martian colonies. This leader is later killed by his son, who grew obsessed with the painting, and the criminal organisation falls apart with the son being killed in the madness and the painting going missing.

Having been passed through bloodied hands in the criminal underground without any way to track it for 43 years, it re-emerges (alongside some narcotics, weapons, sex slaves and countless mountains of money) after a police raid on some "abandoned buildings" in Guanyin 1 (this was long before it was anywhere near being a hive-world). It's then claimed as property of the Oriental Empire government for some time, although the United Commonwealth claims that it should belong to them.

5 months later, a special forces group of the United Commonwealth raid the Oriental Empire facility where it's kept and steal the painting during the early days of Humanity War 3. However, they're intercepted by a group of space pirates who ultimately kill the special forces soldiers - but then kill one another over the painting. The 3 survivors of this take both the damaged ships from this and sail them into the Indian Republics to sell one of the ships and the painting.

It falls into the hands of multi-billionaire Jeff Musk. He's murdered by one of his maids who steals the painting and tonnes of money for herself, flees to the US, and tries to sell the painting to another billionaire but the billionaire instead has her shot in the head and takes the painting for himself before the sniper he hired to shoot her also shoots him and takes the painting for himself.

This sniper then sells a fake copy to another multi-billionaire as a "test" while getting a homeless man he paid to impersonate him before delivering the real thing to the person who bought it. The homeless man is killed by the sniper to ensure a lack of witnesses, but had already told many people of the events that had transpired.

When this billionaire died 4 months later due to "falling down the stairs while his daughter was unable to catch him", his will stated that the painting would be family property rather than that of any individual child or loved one. Over the next 5 years, there were countless "accidents" and more straight-up removals of individuals within the family until it fell into the hands of his granddaughter, who died 4 days later and so it fell into the hands of the man she'd been married to for 3 months.

The man tries to keep his ownership of the painting secret as he is concerned about how things have often gone for previous owners but a government worker who was meant to keep records of ownership of things secret spilled the beans to the press and that night over 3,000 people all attacked the man's home and one another to try and get the painting - which only avoided destruction because it was behind 2-foot-thick bullet-proof diamond-glass. During the battle royale that was happening, the government became aware and sent in 1,000 soldiers to try and stop the violence and theft. Problem was that quite a few of them went into the battle royale mindset as well after finding out how much the painting was worth at that point and, with 3452 corpses on the ground, the painting disappeared.

It re-emerged after the UHN takeover in the hands of one of the first individuals to be a part of the quickly-forming new upper class. He charged people money to be able to simply look at it in a 1-artifact museum from behind 3-foot-thick bullet-proof-glass with gun turrets always on guard for anyone that tried to steal the painting. The painting was stolen 4 months later, with 2 previous attempts having been made, but the rich individual wasn't there at the time to end up dead (unlike the countless bystanders that were caught in the crossfire between the turrets and thieves) and by that point had made so much money off of it that, although he certainly did mind, he wasn't gonna KILL himself over.

Except he totally was and he totally killed his wife, his dog and then himself, leaving a massive inheritance for his 17-year-old-son who is believed to have been behind the "accidents" his siblings suffered after they were suspected of being behind the "accidents" that almost killed him.

Back to the painting. The criminals sold it to the trillionaire Godfrey Grump and later were found dead in a ditch.

You can guess what happened to Godfrey Grump. In fact, this has gone on long enough but a quick shortener: countless hands, countless deaths.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

It's a painting.

Significance

Most of the significance comes not from it being a painting of someone from the British Royal Family (who exist to the days of the CHG but no longer even have the symbolic not-real-power they once had, instead just being another among many rich families that own several businesses) but because of the countless hands it's passed through and the blood trail it's left - which has had a bit of a magnifying effect as, for some reason, this makes people in the upper class and criminal worlds want it even more and so more atrocious acts end up being carried out in the name of owning it.

Item type

Unique Artifact

Current Location

Poseiden 7

Owning Organization

JollyWigs Circus

Rarity

There is literally 1 and only 1 (aside from the countless copies).

Weight

87 pounds

Dimensions

40 inches by 70 inches

Base Price

Worth conversion puts it at £30 billion.

Raw materials & Components

The canvas was of the highest quality and freshly made while the paint was some of the most expensive stuff ever as some of the strokes were actually done with handheld mechanical tools and made of mixtures of valuable metals like gold and silver and some jewels are imbedded into the painting but even with this the value is in the history not the object itself.

Tools

Paintbrushes, molten-metal-appliers, etc.