Back in his shop, Boltac barred the door and retrieved the heavy lockbox from beneath the counter. It hadn’t been a busy day, but in dribs and drabs the coins had piled up. He had sold a bit of lace here, a poultice there. It added up to a living.

He poured the coins out on the counter. Then looked out the window and across the square. The boy was there and still unconscious. For an instant, Boltac thought about retrieving the blade. If the kid didn’t wake up, surely someone would come along and steal it. But, if Asarah came out and saw the kid with the sword, it would go halfway to getting Boltac back in her good graces. On the other hand, if she came out and caught Boltac taking the sword back… ergh, she’d never forgive him for that. Anyway, she was probably too busy fawning over that slumming aristocrat to tear herself away. That fop, throwing a gold coin away like it was nothing. Who did he think he was? Coins were for being careful with. For counting, for hoarding, for saving for a rainy day.

Boltac divided the coins for the day’s sales into three piles on his counter; gold, silver, and copper. He quickly counted the copper coins and made a note of them in his ledger. With the silver coins, he took more time. He used a set of weights and measures to make sure that not only the count was accurate, but also the total weight.

Boltac was very careful not to take any coins that had been clipped, or were too light to be pure. With copper, clipping was rarely a problem. The coins just weren’t worth enough to go to the trouble. With silver, clipping became a problem, but that was easily spotted. The gold coins presented the greatest difficulty for Boltac.

Gold coins were worth enough that instead of merely clipping them, counterfeiters would dip lead slugs into molten gold to create a coin that was worth less than silver. This presented a conundrum for a shrewd Merchant who did not want to be taken advantage of. It was insulting to test a customer’s coin on the spot, yet painful to take a loss.

Boltac grabbed a small glass dish and a bottle labeled Aqua Fortis from a shelf beneath the counter. He carefully poured the liquid from the bottle into the dish. Then he picked up one of the gold coins, dipped it in the liquid, and examined it carefully. If it had turned green, it would have been a sign that the coin was some alloy, or plated lead. But this coin remained its reassuring yellow color. With a satisfied grunt, he placed the sound coin on the other side of the dish.

He tested coin after coin, pleased to find that all of them were real. Finally, only two coins remained. When he dipped the second-to-last coin of the day, it did not turn green. It did not smoke. It did not sizzle or emit a smell like rotten onions. Instead, it hissed, came to life, and bit his hand.

Boltac cursed and threw the evil little thing across the room. Then he immediately regretted it. With surprising speed for a fat man, he scrambled out from behind the counter and pursued it. In the middle of the floor, the gold coin sprouted thin, insect-like legs and scrabbled for purchase against the boards. Boltac tried to stomp it and missed. He stomped again and again, hopping through his store, knocking items over in a strange, destructive dance. The coin scrambled under a rack of rope and strips of leather. With a roar, Boltac kicked the rack over and brought his booted foot down squarely upon the creature.

“HA!” he cried in triumph. He shambled to the other side of the room, dragging his foot as he went, grinding the creature across the floor, until he was able to reach a set of pliers hanging on the wall. Then he bent down and, ever so carefully, clamped the edge of the angry, savage coin in the teeth of the pliers. It let out another metallic shriek, but Boltac was unmoved by its pain.

He carried the coin into the back, past the foul-smelling bundle of gear he had purchased from Rattick and to a set of iron-bound chests that were sealed with fearsome-looking locks and bolted to the floor. The one on the right had a hole in the top of it, sealed with a piece of cork. He removed the cork, crammed the coin into the hole–having to hit it several times with a hammer to convince it to go in–and then replaced the cork. He put his ear to the chest and listened to the evil thing clawing in vain against the wood. Only when he heard the “clink” of the coin-creature settling down, did he lift his ear from the chest.

Boltac looked to his hand. A fingernail-sized disc of flesh was missing from his palm and blood leaked down his forearm. Damned coin. He kicked the chest and immediately regretted it. The chest didn’t move, and all he got for his trouble was a hurt foot. A bad trade.

Boltac smiled and pulled the thong from around his neck. There, amid the countless tokens and charms was a small silver whistle. He grabbed it with his uninjured hand and blew on it for all he was worth. Such a furious, shrieking commotion erupted from inside the chest that Boltac worried it might burst. He imagined the hundreds, maybe thousands, of coins in the cramped, dark space–all angry, all clawing at each other in fury. He smiled.

Boltac had named these treacherous pieces of currency the Creeping Coins. At one time, he had thought to train them to perform, as he had seen traveling mummers train fleas, snakes, monkeys, and even bears. But they were either untrainable or Boltac hadn’t the knack for it. For all his time and experimentation, he had earned only some nasty bite scars and the knowledge that a certain high-pitched frequency drove the Creeping Coins mad.

Who had created these creatures, and why? Boltac had been unable to find out. What he had learned was that they were a species of Magical animal that preferred to stay unseen. They had a most sinister method of reproduction. If you placed one of these Magic coins in a pile of regular coins, they would slowly but surely convert all of the real money to animated hunks of metal with sharp little teeth. One at a time, they were an annoyance. But in the depths of a dungeon, in a chest full of gold that might not be opened for years? These creatures could turn a payday into a nightmare.

He rubbed a healing ointment into the fingernail-sized bite in his hand. It stopped the bleeding but did nothing for the pain. What could a school of these things do? Or just a few of them under a suit of armor? He shuddered. At least death by Dragon would be quicker.

But that’s the way it was with any enterprise. People feared the big things, but it was always the little things that did you in. The demons were in the details, as they said. All the work you spent polishing your shield in preparation for a basilisk would be lost if you forgot to bring oil to protect it from rust.

It was a terrible business, Adventuring. Another reason Boltac was glad he had grown up, settled down, and learned to enjoy a warm fire and a crisp profit. Again, he reassured himself that he had done that lad a favor by knocking him on the head.