The Mimic Becomes a Merchant King

The group ran until the break of dawn, but a blanket of dull greyness had settled across the horizon. Coin, fortunately, had killed the last of his pursuers before the poison in his system took him down.

They had bundled him in the rear of the wagon, the mimic's face flushed red and slick with sweat. His breathing was shallow and laboured, and he regularly grimaced with pain in the depths of his slumber. His soiled coat and shirt had been removed, and Essine had personally seen to the cleaning of his wounds.

It prevented the others from glimpsing his shifting flesh before she could bandage it.

Elijah had a few potions stored away for curing poison, and they had forced Coin's mouth open enough to feed him a portion. But time would tell if it could handle the job.

"Emerald venom," Pearl murmured, inspecting the crossbow bolt in her hands. "It comes up in a few folk tales and fables. Brewed from a nasty concoction of poisonous flowers. Coin even being alive is a damn miracle."

"He'll make it. He has to," Elijah murmured. He'd barely taken his eyes off the hilly landscape ahead.

Essine watched him in silence, curling her clawed hands on her knees. She wasn't so certain. Who could say what effect that poison would have on a mimic? Or if the cure could even work for him?

Yet she tried her best to have faith. Iya'Shae, the All-Mother, taught her kobold children that all hardship could be endured. Coin would be fine, she told herself.

Sighing, she glanced through the flaps of the canvas toward the driver's seat. The landscape ahead looked... barren. The grass had grown shabby and faint, a few stalks of green barely poking through ashen grey soil. The trees, what few there were, seemed emaciated and blackened, devoid of any foliage. No birds dared to fly across the dark grey sky.

Wherever they were heading, she was starting to see why Pearl was so anxious about it. She just hoped there would be somewhere to wash up. The dried blood on her fur was foul.

"What lies ahead of us?" Essine eventually asked.

Pearl, frowning, glanced away from the kobold. "I suppose some of the details of Arcadian history are unknown to you, so I'll enlighten you about what is to come. Over 200 years ago, Arcadia was invaded by cultists from Vlithia, madmen who were pledged to the Bleak and sought to merge it with our Plane."

A bristle ran down the length of Essine's fur. "The demons from the Land of Shades?"

"If that's the term your people use, then yes," Pearl replied. She gave Coin a soft look as he huffed and fretted in his anguished slumber. "It was a chaotic war, where a few portals to the Bleak were forced open. And though they were all obviously closed by royal sorcerers, some were open long enough to leave lasting damage to the landscape."

"And this place... we are heading to a battlefield?" Essine asked.

Pearl's frown deepened. "Worse than a mere battlefield. Leagues from Grafia, there once sat a town by the name of Charnyll. Cultists infiltrated it and, in an act of divine cruelty, triggered a Bleak portal in the heart of the town. The citizens were wiped out to a man, and the ruins spent some time after being a haven for Bleakborn monsters during the war."

Essine shivered. "And now some curse of their presence lingers on the land. Enough to ward off pursuers. And put us at risk in the process," she reasoned.

"Yes. We can but hope that Elijah's hunch is correct, and that we won't be pursued. Especially with Coin indisposed like this." She folded her arms and spent some moments quietly examining Essine. "I... owe you my thanks. For killing that man and saving us."

"That’s..." Essine darted her eyes away. "This one does not enjoy killing. But it is something of a necessity at times, when threats pursue the koboldkin."

"Yes, well, those quick reflexes of yours worked a treat." The bard sighed and flicked her raven tresses back. "Owing my life to a kobold. Goodness, my life has taken some fascinating turns of late."

Some time later, the outer walls of Charnyll came steadily into view. Essine had moved to the head of the wagon for a better look. Her ears flattened against the sides of her head, a strange dread racing through the kobold's whole body.

The town, grey and lifeless, looked as if it was frozen in time. A wall ringed the entire perimeter, but several swathes of the colossal grey bricks had either been shattered in explosions, or scythed by great claws. Skeletons and stray bones protruded from the ashen soil, eyeless skulls watching them carefully as their wagon rolled slowly up to what had once been the main gate.

'Miserable' was the only term Essine could think of that remotely described the aesthetics, and that impression was only cemented further as their wagon rumbled into the town. It was a husk, only a handful of buildings still standing.

More than once, when they passed a wall, Essine saw human silhouettes flash-fried to the stone with their arms raised in a surrender that had been ignored by the invaders.

She had expected the scent of death and decay to be rife within the ruins. Instead Essine's sharp nose smelled... nothing. A sensory void. She couldn't even catch a whiff to imply anyone had ever lived here at all.

Eventually, their wagon came to a halt outside a large stone building with three floors. Judging by the size and shape, Essine assumed it to be an inn of some kind. Dancer was hissing and frothing only barely relaxing when Elijah offered him a meal of water and ground meat.

"Right," Elijah huffed, standing slowly upright. The merchant, normally jovial, looked positively gaunt and slick with stressful sweat. "Come on, help me get Coin out of the wagon. Should have some decent shelter inside here."

"You speak as if you know from experience," the kobold said.

"I've picked through Charnyll in the past, in my misspent youth. Know some of the layout, seems it's barely been touched all these years later. Come on lass, hurry."

The inn was as grim inside as it was outside. The floor and surfaces were thick with dust, but the lack of any footprints was a reassuring sign. There weren't even any cobwebs inside the scorched, crumbling interior. Not even bugs wanted anything to do with Bleak-cursed land.

They put Coin in one of the rooms, which still had something resembling a bed inside. His fever had not lessened, and he had yet to wake. But at least he seemed to be grimacing less.

An old well sat at the rear of the inn, miraculously in tact, and the water within was fortunately drinkable. Though it was only after much internal debating and extensive sniffing that Essine dared to sip any. And, after drawing a bucket, she set about swabbing the blood from her fur.

Killing brought her no joy, even if it was done to a man who probably deserved it. When she closed her eyes her vision was flooded by the sight of the thug's face, frozen in a mask of horror and pain. That would be another burden for her soul to carry in the next life.

Elijah approached, sighed, and sat down on a dusty stone bench. In the silence of Charnyll, every noise carried a dreadful echo.

"That lad is a fighter. I can only hope he'll pull through, but... Emerald venom is no joke. Racks the body in all manner of awful ways," he murmured.

"I have faith in Coin," Essine said in a soft voice. "He is strong." That was the polite, conservative way of describing him without divulging his deepest secret.

"Aye, and... the only one of us who can really fight. If those people keep pursuing us, and he's not around to defend us," he trailed off. The merchant didn't need to elaborate further. The plain truth was that, without Coin, they were all as good as dead. It was only paranoia and folk tales that kept them safe for the time being.

Silence fell between them for several moments. They were both exhausted, and stressed out of their minds, and being inside the corpse of a town did little to dull their discomfort. The thick, choking silence enveloped them like a blanket, and Essine glanced to each vacant window, expecting to see a pair of eyes looking back at her from the darkness.

Eventually, however, Essine asked something that had lingered on her mind for some time now. "Who is Zeke?"

Elijah didn't answer at first. Didn't move, or stir, beyond looking up at the cloudy sky. His expression was similarly stony, but there was something in his eyes that made Essine regret asking: A glimpse of deep, unrelenting sorrow.

"Suppose the shock of it all stirred some unpleasant memories. Seeing Coin like that, bleeding out in my arms. Aye, I've lived through it before." He sat upright, looking Essine in the eye. "Zeke was... my son."