“Dahlia. Dahlia, wake up. Something is happening.”

Dahlia came to wakefulness slowly, begrudgingly, as if her mind were clawing its way out from under layers of some thick, heavy fluid. She had been dreaming – of what, she could not recall. Something unpleasant. Dahlia squinted into the darkness, trying to remember where she was; at first, only the gentle sound of breathing gave any indication of the world around her. 

Then, she heard it. Somewhere above, male voices filtered down to her ears – hushed, but obviously agitated. 

“Come on, up.” Nil’s voice again. “Or I’m leaving you here.”

“I’m up, I’m up.” With effort, Dahlia heaved herself up and swung her legs out over the floor. After a few seconds of blinking into pure blackness, she said, “Uh, which way is the…yeah, I can’t see nothin’.”

She could almost hear Nil roll her eyes. “You longlegs and your mediocre vision. Here.” Dahlia felt a small hand grasp her by the thumb. “This way. Don’t trip, you’ll make an awful racket.”

The unseen goblin led her across the dirt floor and up creaking wooden steps until they pushed through the trap door and onto the ground floor. Even then the workshop was only faintly lit; the various tables and furniture blended into a shadowy, grayish jumble in the gloom. By Dahlia’s estimation, it couldn’t be long before dawn. 

Finding the source of the voices was not difficult. Soren and Corgan stood near the front door, closely engaged in a heated conversation. 

“I’m telling you, we don’t have time to wait for them.” Corgan was saying, gesturing toward the street outside with agitation. “Nothing you’ve planned is going to matter if we don’t-”

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Nil said, not bothering to conceal their presence as she stepped into the main room. “What’s all this? Something you boys would like to share?”

Corgan looked up with a start, scowling. “You two are light sleepers.”

“Sadly, no. If not for me, this one would still be snoring loudly enough to wake the gods.” Nil tilted her head toward Dahlia. “Anyway, you haven’t answered my question. What’s going on?”

Dahlia looked down at her. “Do I snore?”

“Quite obnoxiously, yes.”

A haggard-looking Soren turned toward them. “Things have, uh…moved much faster than I thought. Cor says Gilveer is already on the move.”

“Huh?” Dahlia said. “On the move how?”

“Man’s a bigger coward than we gave him credit for.” Corgan said, crossing his arms. “Between the killings, the fire, the jailbreak…seems like the big man decided he’d bitten off more than he could chew. Spooked himself before we could even manage it. Point is, he’s about to be in a carriage headed for the south gate within the hour – if we’re grabbing him, it has to be now. Right now.”

“Hold on a moment.” Nil said, patting the air with her hands, “The entire regiment was on full alert last night. Do you actually expect us to believe you were able to procure such information this quickly without being captured?”

Corgan gave the goblin a poisonous glare. “I don’t expect anything from you, gob, ‘cuz I wasn’t talking to you. I got lucky, is all. Managed to catch my guy off on his own – they’re spread pretty thin, unsurprisingly.”

“Even so, what are we meant to do?” Soren ran a trembling hand through his hair – he looked to be nearly succumbing to panic. “Everyone’s still out, we…we don’t have the numbers to even try getting through Gilveer’s security.”

Corgan shook his head. “You didn’t let me finish. Y’see, Gilveer’s got himself convinced the whole town is about to mob up and break down that big fancy door of his, so he’s gonna try sneakin’ away. Small carriage, two, maybe three Watch with him while the rest spread out, keepin’ folks from organizing.” The big man reached out to put a hand on Soren’s shoulder. “Listen. If Gilveer gets out of town he’s gonna hole up somewhere and send for reinforcements, and in a couple weeks’ time Kaldemere is gonna be crawlin’ with soldiers. You wanted a shot at the Delegate, you got it, but you gotta make the call.”

“Soren, buddy, don’t worry about it.” Dahlia said, taking a step forward. “Your crew might be indisposed, but you’ve got us.” She hooked a thumb toward her breastplate. “Even if they’ve got those funky contraptions on hand, all we gotta do is get in close and fast. Get the drop on ‘em. Couple broken noses later and boom, you’ve got yourself a government official in the bag.”

Soren winced. “I…really wish you wouldn’t say it like that.”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

He let himself start to smile. “Still. You’ve done so much for us, and you’ve asked for nothing in return. I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger again.”

“Guess it’s lucky you don’t have to, then.” Dahlia gave a dismissive sweep of one hand. “We’ve come this far already. I’m gonna see it through.” She inclined her body toward Nil, stopping just short of prodding the goblin with her elbow. “How about you, Brinya? You in?”

“You know perfectly well that I am obliged to go where you go.” Nil said evenly. 

“Listen to that enthusiasm!” Dahlia said. “Sounds to me like you’ve got all the crew you need.”

Soren took a moment to reset himself, squaring his shoulders, standing up a bit straighter. “Alright. Alright. No use wishing for perfect circumstances. If Gilveer is headed for the south gate, there’s only one street wide enough to accommodate a carriage – if we can get there first, maybe an ambush will give us the upper hand.”

After a quick assent from the others, the four slipped quietly out into the street and began making their way south. As before, Soren led the little troupe through as many alleyways and abandoned buildings as possible to avoid any unwanted attention. Luckily, it seemed there was little attention to be had; even as the glow of dawn began to creep over the rooftops, they had yet to encounter any of the soldiers Corgan had claimed would be patrolling the town. 

Nil began to lag behind as the group picked their way through an old carpenter’s shop, its creaking floor caked with dust and littered with half-finished furniture. Once the men had pulled a significant distance ahead, she turned to give Dahlia a sidelong glance from under the brim of her hat.

“I hope you realize we are being led into a trap.” Nil whispered matter-of-factly.

Dahlia nearly tripped. “Huh? What the heck are you talkin’ about?”

The goblin indicated Corgan with a slight tip of her head. “The human. Something has been off about him since the beginning, and suddenly he has the answer to all of our problems? I don’t believe that for a second.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t trust anybody, anyway.” Dahlia said, somewhat exasperated. “You’re just saying that because he doesn’t like you.”

Nil let out an enigmatic half-chuckle. “As you say.”

Up ahead, Soren leaned against the wall to peer surreptitiously through a cracked window, scanning the street ahead. He turned to beckon them forward. 

“Everything alright back there?” Soren called. “Come on, not much further now.”

“Oop! Yep! Right behind ya!” Dahlia said, breaking into a jog. 

“Alright, everyone.” Soren murmured. “I think this is the place.”

The first hint of a coming rain was drifting in to tickle their skin as the group came to the mouth of an alley that would spit them out onto a thin gravel street. The path ahead was not quite wide enough for two carriages of average size to have passed one another, and from where they stood hidden at the corner, Nil could see sharp turns in either direction – it would have been difficult, not to mention dangerous, to bring a vehicle through the pass with any speed. Assuming their target actually arrived, this would be as good a place as any for an ambush. 

Nil began to scan their immediate surroundings, quickly taking stock of every feature that could be an advantage in a moment of violence, every avenue of escape. A ground-level window on the right side of the alley directly opposite their position, just large enough for a goblin to squeeze through; an overhanging canopy jutting from the second floor of a building to her southwest, weather-beaten enough to look on the verge of collapse; a rusted rain pipe running up the wall to her left that might be stable enough to support her weight. 

The sound of hooves and wheels crunching on distant gravel pricked up her ears, nearly swallowed by the chatter of gathering rain. 

“Someone is coming.” Nil hissed. “A carriage. North.”

Both men instinctively hunkered a little closer to the ground. “I don’t hear anything.” Corgan said.

“Hardly surprising, given your kind’s stunted senses.” Nil said. “Just wait. They will be coming around that corner in a matter of seconds.”

“She’s right.” Soren said, tilting his head slightly. “I can hear it now. Cor, head across the way – better to hit from both sides. Dahlia, can you-”

Soren had turned to address the emberling – he stopped dead, eyes widening. “Where is Dahlia?!”

Nil and Corgan whipped around – sure enough, the space behind them was now entirely devoid of armor-clad emberling women. 

The witch spun frantically, scuttling to peer around the corner in every possible direction Dahlia could have gone. There was no trace of the girl to be seen; it was as if she had simply ceased to exist. Nil wracked her brain, trying to remember the last time she had seen her, when she could have possibly slipped away without Nil noticing. Corgan and Soren were arguing in hushed tones, but she could not parse anything of the conversation over the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her skull. Had Dahlia actually managed to escape the moment Nil let her guard down? Could her cheerful, irritating persona have been a calculated act the entire time? She felt her breath begin to quicken. 

A carriage of rugged gray wood rounded the turn up ahead. Nil sucked in a breath and ducked around the corner, but not before her keen eyes picked out the curtained windows – and the pair of cowled drivers, their bodies oddly bulky and angular under dark robes. She glanced to her left, saw the men still arguing over Dahlia’s sudden disappearance. They had yet to notice the carriage. Nil’s eyes darted to her various avenues of escape; almost unconsciously, her hand drifted to the reassuring weight of the spellbook at her hip, its enchantment keeping it hidden until the last moment. She would use the longlegs as a distraction as she slipped away, then track down that two-faced emberling and-

“Pssst!” Said a voice from directly above. “Look lively, they’re just about to pass!”

Nil, Corgan and Soren looked up in unison to see the crimson orb of Dahila’s face poking out over the alleyway from a roof two stories above. She waved, looking as if she didn’t have a care in the world. 

“What the fuck are you doing, girl?!” Corgan hissed. 

“Dahlia!” Nil said, joining in. “Dahlia, get down from there this instant!”

“Nahh, it’s fine!” Dahlia called back. “I’m gonna get the drop on them, just like I said! Get ready to come in after me, ‘cuz this could get messy.”

Ignoring the frantic pleas of those below, Dahlia stood and crept to the edge of the rooftop, eyeing the approaching vehicle as it prepared to pass by. Ten seconds, and it would be directly beneath her. Eight. Five seconds. Dahlia backed a few paces from the edge, puffed a breath through pursed lips, and sprinted forward to leap out into open air. 

The others could only watch, aghast, as Dahlia sailed out over the passing carriage, a dark blur against the chill morning light of the sky. Then the momentum carrying her dwindled and Dahlia plummeted, tail flapping behind her like a dancer’s ribbon, one elbow outstretched and crooked toward the earth. 

“HahaaaAAAAAHHH!” She roared. 

The drivers looked up, far too late, as Dahlia and the hundred-odd pounds of plate mail encasing her came down atop them. Her hip connected with the first over his shoulders and the back of his neck, smashing his torso forward to jam the man’s head between his own knees; the second driver took her iron-capped elbow across the thigh. The entire carriage shuddered mightily, rocking forward as the driver’s bench sheared entirely away from the front of the cabin, hardly even seeming to slow Dahlia’s descent as she and her unwitting victims crashed to the street below in a tangle of limbs and splintered wood. No longer tethered to anything but one another, the horses screamed and tore off into the distance, dragging their reins behind them. 

A dreamlike quiet settled over the scene – for a moment, the only sound was the steady hiss of the rain and the weak moaning of one of the drivers. Soren took a hesitant step forward. 

“D…Dahlia?” He said. “Are you all right?”

Only Dahlia’s right arm moved, springing upward like a cobra readying to strike; her hand flashed a thumbs-up.

“Just peachy.” She said in a creaking voice. “Did I get ‘em?”

“Don’t worry about her, grab Gilveer!” Corgan shouted, dashing for the carriage door. “We can’t let him get…”

Corgan yanked open the door and stopped short, staring into the dark cabin with a growing expression of forlorn. He stuck his head inside for a moment, twisting this way and that, and reemerged.

“Cor? What is it?” Soren said with trepidation, “What’s going on?”

“It’s, uh.” Corgan’s hand trembled as he ran it over his scalp. “I think we made a mistake, boss.”

The sound of jostling armor and footsteps filled the air around them. From every direction, soldiers piled out from the corners of side streets – within a few seconds, what looked to be the entire platoon’s worth of Watch soldiers surrounded them, death-throwers resting in the crooks of their elbows.

“Don’t move.” One of them said gruffly. “Keep your hands visible and still. Any of you try anything, you die.”

Soren took a half-step backward, raising shaking hands. His face was growing rapidly pale. “W-wait, what’s going…this wasn’t supposed to…”

Across the way, a figure stepped out from behind a blind corner in the opposite alley. The Watch captain looked the group over, evidently unimpressed.

“Soren Morrelath.” She said, voice booming above the gentle static of the rain. She spread her hands. “You know, I was hoping things wouldn’t come to this. I really was. But you, you and your little gang, you just don’t seem to know how important Kaldemere is to the Triumvirate. If you had just done your part, you could have had a place in this operation. A share of the glory this place will bring to the Empire.” The Captain shook her head, almost sadly. “Instead, you chose… this. I don’t understand it.”

Dahlia pushed herself up on her elbows, looking around in wonder. “Oh, wow.” She said. “It was a trap.”

“Someone grab the hellspawn, if you please.” The captain said irritably, drawing up to the scene with her arms crossed behind her back. A pair of soldiers stepped forward and scooped Dahlia up by the armpits, hauling her roughly to her feet. “And check Hazlon and Benscher, while you’re at it.”

The soldiers shoved Dahlia over to stand with the others, then bent to begin dragging their compatriots from the splintered wreckage of the driver’s bench. One of them looked up. “I think Hazlon’s leg might be broken, ma’am.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Exemplary. If neither are actively dying, get them out of the way, please.”

“Rrrmgh.” Dahlia groaned, attempting to straighten up before suddenly doubling over, one arm wrapping around her ribcage. “I, uh. I think I busted something pretty good on that one.” 

Nil raised an eyebrow. “Small wonder. If that hadn’t been the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen, it might almost be impressive.” 

“Gee, thanks.”

“I don’t understand.” Soren was mumbling to himself, eyes darting wildly. He looked to be on the edge of a nervous break. He put a hand on Corgan’s shoulder, clinging to him like a raft in a storm. “I don’t understand what’s happening. What’s happening?”

“What’s happening, lord Morrelath, is that your days of skulking about feeding unrest and chaos are over.” The Captain said, crossing her arms. “Mr. Lebeaux, you can drop the act now.”

Corgan grimaced, shaking the elf’s hand from his shoulder with a shrug. He paced a few steps from the rest of the group and turned at the Watch Captain’s side. “Could’ve been a little more subtle.” He grumbled.

“Cor? Corgan.” Soren said weakly. “What’s going on? What are they talking about?”

“Get a hold of yourself.” Nil snapped. “Your man sold you out, obviously.”

Corgan rubbed at his forehead, refusing to fully meet Soren’s eye. “It’s nothing personal, boss but… We can’t keep going on like this, y’know? All your schemes, everything we’ve done, it’s like flickin’ pebbles at the ocean. Only thing we were going to achieve was gettin’ more folks killed. So… I made a deal.”

“A deal…?”

The captain cleared her throat. “Your life for the lives of your co-conspirators. Mr. Lebeaux here told us everything.” She shook her head, disgusted. “I suspected you were behind the discontent, the petty vandalism, but you’ve always been…slippery. But this?”

She took a step back, turning to address her soldiers as Soren mouthed half-formed, barely audible defenses. The elf seemed to have aged several decades over the span of a few seconds. “Take a long look at what happens when dissent is allowed to fester. Arson, jailbreak, wholesale destruction. Association with rogue Mages and Villains.” The captain stabbed an accusatory finger at Nil and Dahlia. “And now an attempt on the life of the Delegate himself, because there is no depravity a traitor will not stoop to. Remember that. Today, you are called upon to deliver justice.” 

With a series of quick gestures, she called forth four soldiers to take rough hold of the would-be revolutionaries. Dahlia, Nil and Soren found themselves dragged roughly into the street, their backs shoved against the cold stone wall. One by one, the men and women of the Watch stepped back and formed a line along the opposite side of the little road, unslinging their weapons and bringing them to bear. 

“Make ready!” The captain called out, standing at the end of the line. 

“I’m…I’m sorry, you two.” Soren croaked, voice wheezing. “All of this is my fault, I…” He swallowed with a dry click. “…I can’t think of anything else to say.”

Dahlia tried again to uncurl her upper body and let out a sharp gasp. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. “We should be doing something, right? I think, um…hey, are we about to die?”

“Aim!” The captain’s voice rang out, clipped and merciless.

Nil sighed with the sort of casual irritation usually reserved for a waiter who had brought out the wrong dish. “Relax, both of you. We’re going to be fine.”

Soren and Dahlia turned in unison to stare at her. “Huh?”

“Loose!”

A series of snapping metallic twangs rose from the Watch line, like a handful of firecrackers – Dahlia and Soren flinched, shrinking instinctively back against the wall. 

Nothing happened. 

Dahlia opened one eye. Some of the soldiers were trading confused glances; others were turning their weapons over in their hands, inspecting the devices as if they might find a flaw that could cause every unit to malfunction simultaneously. One of them tried the trigger again, and again, a look of irritation on his face. 

“What in the – I said loose!” The captain sputtered, rage and confusion fighting for dominance in her expression. She snatched the device from the hands of her nearest subordinate, took aim, and pulled the trigger for herself. Twanggg. Still, nothing. 

Something in the empty air around them twisted – a shifting of nothing, invisible but palpable enough to provoke surprised gasps from several of the Watch. A soft murmur of confusion rose from the line. 

Then one of the soldiers shot straight up into the air. 

There was no explosion, no burst of wind or energy, not even a sound aside from the man’s startled intake of breath as he sailed up past the rooftops. It was as if the force of gravity upon him had simply been reversed, then increased tenfold. All anyone could do was watch, and watch they did, faces raised in mute horror as the soldier became little more than a black dot against the morning sky. But soon, the dot ceased to shrink; a few seconds later, it became obvious that it was growing. 

In other words, falling. 

For a split second before the impact, the man’s terrified screaming pierced the misty air. His body came down halfway over the lip of the building behind the Watch line with a sound like a bundle of dry wood cracking in half, then tumbled in a boneless cartwheel to slap wetly against the gravel street. A pool of blood began to spread around his body, and someone started to scream. 

“It seems that the show has begun.” Nil said, clasping her hands behind her waist.

Soren and Dahlia stared at her, slack-jawed.

“Brinya,” the elf said weakly, “what…what just happened?”

“I had a theory, when first we saw these weapons in action.” Nil went on, “An impossible theory, I thought, and yet my suspicions were confirmed when we broke into the barracks. Magic, you see, only exists in the connection between the Vein and those it chooses to share its power with. That is the natural order, as it has been for as long as any of the histories record.”

Before the soldiers could recover from the shock of the first casualty, another of their rank had begun to scream, dropping to her knees and clawing at the lower half of her face. Blood poured down the woman’s breastplate as several of her comrades rushed to assist her, only to flinch back in horror and disgust when the nature of her affliction revealed itself; small white buds were growing from the soldier’s mouth, spreading across her lips, then her face, then creeping along her neck to disappear under her uniform. She collapsed, still twitching and gurgling, a human-shaped amalgam of pearly white teeth.

It was at this point that the remaining soldiers began to panic. One burst into a sprint down the street, legs blurring as he made to leave his fellows to their fate. He caught fire from the inside out, flames gouting from his faceplate and the joints of his armor like liquid. Those who had begun to follow after him shied back, shouting indistinctly.

“I don’t…” Soren shook his head, swallowed. “I don’t understand…”

She wheeled on him, sudden rage shining in her eyes. “Of course you don’t!” Nil snapped. “You don’t know anything! None of you have the slightest comprehension of what magic really is!”

Soren’s expression was startled, uncomprehending. “I…”

“But I’m going to show you.” Nil’s voice went low and sinister, dripping with hatred. “I’ll show all of you what happens when you try to take what does not belong to you.”

A soldier was thrown sideways, his armor pulled along as if by massive magnetic force to slam into the nearby wall. Rather than bending or crumpling, however, his armor began to phase through the wall, sliding through the stone surface not unlike a blade pushed into gelatin. The man’s body was not quite so fortunate, and the sounds of squelching meat and crunching bone were gruesome indeed. 

Dahlia stood with her shoulders slumped, arms hanging slack at her sides, watching the reaction continue to unfold with glazed eyes. She blinked, turning woodenly to Nil. “You…did this?”

“Magic is chaos, Dahlia.” Nil said, “Infinite, raging chaos. Reach out to touch it in ignorance and you’ll burn, just as sure as any fire.” She turned hard eyes on what was left of the Watch platoon – in all the death and chaos, the fugitives had been unsurprisingly forgotten. “I simply took it upon myself to…fan the flames a bit.”

The effects were coming faster now, relentlessly picking off the Watch as they fumbled helplessly, unable to comprehend or escape what was happening to them. Bodies swelled and burst into puddles of watery fluid, or decomposed into piles of worm-ridden loam in a matter of seconds. Bones pushed their way through skin like mushrooms breaking through soil. One soldier had a shimmering blue-black hole open in the ground at their feet, a formless thing the color of oil and rot rising up to drag them through, never to be seen again. Back turned to Dahlia and Soren, Nil watched impassively as the Watch captain, seemingly possessed of a force beyond her own will, tackled Corgan to the ground and proceeded to tear into his throat with her teeth.

Soren slid down the wall at his back. His eyes were wide, but unfocused, like he was no longer seeing what was in front of him. “I didn’t want this, I didn’t…I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” The elf let his face fall into his hands. “I just wanted things to go back to how they were!”

“What in the Hells is wrong with you?!” Nil snarled, whirling on him with such fury that Dahlia nearly jumped. “They took everything from you. Your livelihood, your pride, your backwards little nothing of a town. They killed your people, and they were going to kill you. And you don’t want to hurt anyone? What sort of pathetic excuse for a man are you?!”

The elf looked up, stunned. 

“Nil, come on.” Dahlia said softly. “Leave him alone. Let’s just go.”

“You two…you aren’t with the Guild at all, are you?” Soren said in a dry voice. He swallowed with some difficulty. “You’re…you’re Villains.”

“Your powers of deduction are a thing to behold, elf.” Nil shot a venomous glance at Dahlia. “Fine. No reason left to linger in this miserable little burg, anyhow.” 

As she turned to leave, Nil paused; then, after fishing in her sleeve for a moment, the goblin pulled out a thin roll of paper, the broken wax seal of the Triumvirate hanging from one edge. She flicked the document disdainfully at Soren’s feet. 

“That was in the captain’s desk. Correspondence from the Chancellor herself. Give it a read if you still think the Empire has your best interests at heart.”

With a final sneer, Nil turned and strode away down the street, leaving Dahlia in her wake. As Soren watched, the emberling turned her gaze over the corpses littering the street, then to him. Her face was blank, empty of emotion, mouth open slightly as if there was something she wanted to say. Then she, too, simply walked away. 

***

The countryside beyond Kaldemere’s south gate opened into a vast stretch of prairie, flat grasslands rolling out into the distance as far as the eye could see and interrupted only by a few lonely trees and the mountain range reaching toward the sky to the west. A light breeze played through the tall grass, the hushing sound blending with that of the morning rain.

Nil and Dahlia caught sight of it more or less simultaneously; a hulking shape huddled in the shadows of the nearest tree’s canopy, large and rounded and perhaps twice as tall as Dahlia herself. It shifted as they began to draw near, a ribbon of light gleaming on its glossy surface – they could see now that the central bulk consisted of a huge, hollow shell of glass, or at least of a material resembling glass. Small flowers, largely of pink but scattered through with yellow and blue filled the interior alongside the vibrant green of small bushes, tufts of grass and winding vines that crept along the inner walls like searching fingers. Nestled amongst the plant life were crates and chests of every shape and size, some sealed, some hanging open and spilling with all sorts of trinkets. Expensive-looking treasures sat piled alongside perfectly mundane household goods and items whose function even Nil could only guess at.

Perched atop the main body’s smooth curve was a tiny, colorful tent, its four corners lashed to the surface by ropes that fully encircled the thing’s bulk. A short flurry of rustling movement disturbed the front flap, and a moment later the round face of none other than Bobbi the goblin poked out of the entrance.

Bobbi’s face broke into a wide smile as she recognized Dahlia, the expression fading when Nil stepped out from behind her. “W-well hey there, you two! And, er, welcome to Bobbi’s Bountiful Boutique, such as it is!”

The goblin almost lost her balance as the glass hulk shifted and began to rise. It groaned, a deep, bone-vibrating sound not unlike the lowing of cattle, lifting itself on four stout legs sprouting from large, beveled holes in the underside of the body. All of its limbs – four legs and two tentacle-like arms – were composed of roots and vines entwined with earth extending from the creature’s terrarium-like interior. 

“Heh, sorry about that,” Bobbi said, stooping to give the top of the dome a few reassuring pats. “Grumbles isn’t always too keen on new people.”

“You… tamed a collector?” Nil said, eyebrows raised.

Bobbi struck a triumphant pose. “That’s right! After all, what good’s a traveling merchant without a traveling shop? Here, look!” 

With that, the goblin scurried over to an aperture near her tent that looked like nothing so much as the mouth of an enormous bottle and clambered inside. She tumbled into the interior a moment later and started rifling through one of the chests nestled inside the collector. 

“Whatever you might need, ol’ Bobbi has it in here somewhere. Or, uh, something close.” Bobbi said, voice muffled and distorted by the thick glass. She held up a silver compass, replaced it and pulled out what looked to be a lacquered box of cosmetic supplies, then repeated the process for several other random items – a chipped butcher’s knife, a pair of fine-looking shoes, a large ball of simple twine. The collector admitted another deep rumble, dirt and pebbles shedding from its undercarriage as it slowly shook itself back and forth. “Hey, easy, easy old girl,” Bobbi said, “I’m not giving any of it away, don’t you worry.”

“Ooohh!” Dahlia cried, dashing up to press her face and palms against the collector’s shell like a child at a candy store window. “That is so absolutely wicked, Bobbi! What else you got in there?”

The mousey little goblin beamed. “For you, uhhhh, let’s see…” She crawled over to a nearby crate and ducked her head inside, tossing out trinkets and baubles until her legs stuck comically up into the air over the lid. Finally, Bobbi tumbled out backwards, a black helmet with a faceplate sculpted into a sinister face clasped in her hands. She tapped a claw near the top of the helm, around where Dahlia’s horns would have been. “You might have to…er, drill some holes in it or something…” 

“Dahlia.” Nil snapped, “Need I remind you that we are on a schedule?” Her eyes flicked meaningfully to the gate they had just left behind. “Now is hardly the time to be window-shopping.”

Dahlia’s head pulled in toward her shoulders like a scolded student. “Oh, heh. Yeah. Sorry, Bobbi, maybe next time.”

The shopkeeper nodded and clambered up into the bottle-mouth, using a vine growing through the opening as a rope. “No worries!” Bobbi chirped, leaning halfway out of the opening. “Oh! Hey, this must mean you two managed to get everything sorted back there, right? Got that mean old…um, whoever it was brought to justice?”

Dahlia’s expression froze. “Well you see, about that-”

“The situation has been resolved entirely.” Nil said, already walking past them. “The Delegate’s corruption has been brought to light, and the man himself imprisoned until our report summons a proper investigation. All neat and tidy.”

“W-wow, that’s…that’s so great! Wish I could’ve stuck around to see that, but things were getting a little hot, i-if you know what I mean.” Bobbi brightened, pushing herself up on her forearms. “Uh, say, if you two are hitting the road, m-maybe you wouldn’t mind a little extra company…?”

A single look from Nil sent the shopkeeper shrinking back. “No. You would only slow us down, and as I mentioned before we have little time to lose. Come now, Dahlia.”

“Right behind ya!” The emberling called out. As she moved to follow, Dahlia turned to stretch an arm out above her head for one final wave. “Catch ya later, Bobbi! Best of luck with your wandering mercantilism!”

***

Bobbi watched for some time as the pair dwindled smaller and smaller against the horizon. Below her, the collector groaned. 

“Whaaat? No way, miss Brinya isn’t mean, she’s just…I’m sure she takes her work very seriously. All the best Travelers do. Helping people is hard work, y’know.” She settled a little, resting her chin between crossed arms. “I think those two are going to do big important things, Grumbles. Real Hero stuff. I’ve got a talent for reading people, you know. It’s what makes me such a good merchant.”

Another rumble, slightly higher in pitch.

Bobbi gasped theatrically, giving the collector’s shell a playful smack. “Now who’s being mean?”