The next morning I’m standing next to one of the campfires still burning from last night. I pretend I’m stretching while I glance around to make sure no one’s looking at me and I toss the shredded Schon packaging into the flames and discard the evidence of my shame. The rest of the camp soon rouses from their slumber and get to making themselves a simple breakfast from what they could find. Uriah’s not here to make us something extravagant as he’s staying with the girls, Riane, and Bafal along with the rest of the merchant caravan a few miles away near the main road. When everyone’s had a chance to get something in their stomachs, we start tearing apart the encampment to find any valuables we can bring with us.

The bodies from last night have already been taken care of and they’ve been burned to ashes after being stripped of anything that could be sold for coins. Derriv was explicit in his instructions on what to do with the bodies since any misstep could lead to disease spreading or an outbreak of undead. Even the scouts on the outskirts of the encampment from yesterday were dragged back here before the drinking started. Once all the bodies were collected, they were burned, including Georgil’s body. The Church of the Inextinguishable Light’s last rites ceremony concludes with the burning of the deceased’s body which makes clean up relatively easy.

When Quinn heads to the lavish tent he and Wraine pointed out to me yesterday, one of the prisoners who have kept their silence thus far, shouts out, “Wait! You can’t take the fortune in that tent. It doesn’t belong to you.”

Quinn grins back at the middle aged man with short cropped brown hair and exclaims, “Excuse me then! Didn’t realize this was your tent. Seems you have a misguided notion there though. The riches inside don’t belong to you anymore either and if they don’t belong to anyone and I happen to be the one who finds them again then they’ll belong to me. Funny how that works, innit?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. The gemstones inside that tent don’t belong to me either. They belong to the snake and if you take them from it, we’ll all die.”

Everyone except the prisoners have a chuckle when the man says that but seeing the prisoners uniform in their solemn demeanor, the laughter quickly dies down. “Alright, you have me intrigued. What d’you mean by that and what’s going on around here?”

The man with short cropped hair glances around his surroundings as if he’s scanning for something before muttering, “It’s a long story and it’s not safe here. Please, you have to let us go. If it doesn’t get those gemstones by tonight, it’ll kill all our families.”

Sympathy is a powerful human emotion and trying to appeal to it would usually work in most situations I think. But not in this one and certainly not with us. Quinn’s face is ice cold as he states flatly, “We have time.”

The man kneeling before him bound tightly with ropes nearly flies into a rage but he’s able to calm himself down before he says something he’ll regret. “Alright, but if I tell you what’s been happening around here, would you please listen to me? If you don’t, everyone here will die.”

“Get to tellin’ your little story. You have no power here. You’re lucky we haven’t taken your head but don’t mistake that for leverage. I can slice through your neck anytime I please and I’ll dedicate it to our fallen friend from last night.”

The man’s face is noticeably paler and he won’t look into Quinn’s eyes anymore but opts to stare at the ground instead. After a moment of silence, he begins speaking, “My name is Millson and one month ago, I was a simple miner. There’s a small village to the south of here called Mudrock and that’s where I’ve- no, where we’ve lived our whole lives. It’s an unremarkable village in every aspect but it’s where we were born, where we grew up, and where we started our families. There’s a mine near the village where the majority of the men in the village earn their living. It’s a mine with sparse copper veins and little to no future prospects but for generations, it’s kept the village alive.

“But one day about a month ago, we broke through a tunnel wall and discovered a massive cavern on the other side. When we sent people inside to check it out, they found countless gemstones covering the cavern’s floor. It was something unimaginable in this world and should have been an impossible sight. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, they were all there and there were even ones we couldn’t identify. They weren’t even embedded in the cavern’s walls like they should have been but they were already dug out, seemed to have been polished, and then tossed on the ground like garbage. A few of us had greedy thoughts and wanted to grab a handful of those gemstones as even just a single handful would have been enough for us to live the rest of our lives in luxury.

“But the older ones amongst us saw that fantastical sight and took caution instead saying every story about an incredible hoard of wealth all had dangerous creatures protecting it. What is a story about a dragon without a stockpile of riches? It doesn’t exist. In our situation, we found the mountain of wealth, but where was its protector? Under their warnings and pressure, we evacuated the mine that day to hold a village meeting the next morning and discuss our next steps. But just like those stories I heard as a kid, greed will always lead to the downfall of man.”

Millson pauses to ask for a sip of water for his parched throat. Someone obliges him and quickly gets back to their seat for the rest of the story. By this point in time, everyone has finished cleaning up the encampment of anything valuable and we’re ready to head back to the caravan after we clear out Millson’s tent. But when they started gathering around us to see what the hold up was, they too became enraptured in his story.

“Thank you. Where was I? Right, someone in our village left that night to get into contact with Penne the Fang. You should know since your caravan was traveling in Penne’s territory along his protected merchant route, but Penne is the overlord of this region. He’s not the greatest human being alive, but as long as our village gave him his annual offerings, he left us alone and we were fine with that arrangement. That person ran to Penne because he thought if Penne took over our mine and all that wealth inside landed in Penne’s hands, he’d be rewarded generously for his contribution.

“The next morning, when our entire village was gathered up and ready to discuss what to do with those gemstones, Penne and all of his men came out of the woods and surrounded us. He made his intentions clear and said he was taking over our mine and once he had all the gemstones transported back to his encampment, this encampment, he’d let us all go unharmed. Though I’m not too sure about that promise. We already saw too much and in all likelihood, he planned on massacring us to keep his newfound wealth secret.”

Millson’s story thus far lines up with a lot of the inconsistencies we saw yesterday and the day before. 100 people for this big of an encampment is far too few to secure it properly. Not only that, but they didn’t even know to set up sentries on their walls and only stationed scouts on the outskirts but they were too far away to be able to warn the encampment of our attack. But this encampment was originally Penne’s and he built these worthless log walls? Maybe I expected too much from a bandit warlord out in the sticks because the only comparisons I have are people like Derriv and Alira. The only questions that really remain is why he became a bandit and why they attacked our caravan.

“But Penne never got the opportunity to give the order to silence us forever because when he went into the mine with the majority of his men, including the man who sold out our village, they never came back out. Seconds turned to minutes which then turned to hours as we all waited for him to return but he never did. The rest of his goons started talking with each other and decided to send in a few more people but the second group they sent into the mine didn’t return either after an hour.

“Seeing the strange situation and feeling the mounting anxiety, his goons started worrying about what was happening but decided to try one more time to send someone inside. No one wanted to go in willingly but they singled out one of their own with their blades pointed at him and forced the decision. To make sure he didn’t go alone, they picked one of the villagers to go in with him and I turned out to be the unlucky winner. My wife and my daughter cried but I assured them I’d be fine even though I knew I wouldn’t be.

“When we first entered the mine, it felt odd because the mine was my place of work for decades and now it seemed unfamiliar and terrifying. When we reached the cavern, our nostrils were immediately assailed by the strong stench of blood and shit. I immediately wanted to leave but my bandit partner turned his blade on me and forced me to go inside ahead of him. With the burning torch in my hand, I could still make out the countless gemstones piled up on the ground but I could also see bloodstains all around us.

“Despite my warning, the bandit rushed to the gemstones and started shoving them into his pockets by the fistfuls. All I could do was stare around us nervously, watching for any movement and looking for what made the bloodstains. When I was looking behind us toward the cavern’s entrance, a massive shadow passed in front of the cavern entrance, temporarily blocking the light from the tunnel’s torches. My heart started racing and I nearly ran away without my partner but all of a sudden, I heard him shrieking behind me. When I turned back, I saw it.”

When Millson gets to that point in his story, his body shivers as if he’s reliving his experience with the snake. The shivering doesn’t stop but gets worse as his whole body starts shaking. It takes a moment for him to regain control of his breathing and continue his story.

“It was a massive gray snake at least 30 yards in length and thick as two grown men’s waists tied together hip to hip. But it wasn’t like any snake I’ve ever seen before because its head was huge even compared to its body and it was disfigured beyond recognition. Snakes have round heads which makes it easy for them to slither around on the ground but this… thing wasn’t like that at all.

“It had these huge tusks that protruded out of its face like a boar’s tusks but these things were long and sharp. Judging by all the blood that covered its tusks, I had no doubt in my mind that it could fully impale a grown man all the way through. On each side of its head, it had these large flaps that moved whenever it moved. I had a strange suspicion that they were its ears but snakes don’t have ears which made the creature all the more peculiar. It also had a sort of snout, like a pig’s snout but it extended quite far away from its face and nearly touched the ground. Finally, it had these big brown eyes that somehow looked intelligent to me, like it was curious why I was in its home.

“When the snake’s strange head drew close to the bandit, a pink vertical slit that stretched from the top of its head to the bottom of it appeared. Suddenly, its head split open right down the middle following the slit, revealing numerous sharp teeth dripping with saliva on each spread half and a massive dark hole where its throat was. That’s when I realized that what I mistakenly thought was its strange head was actually its mouth the entire time and then it used that strange mouth to tear the bandit to pieces before swallowing his body down.

“I’ve never felt as frightened in my whole life and my body froze against my wishes. I couldn’t move my feet, I couldn’t run away, I could only wait for my impending doom. When the strange mouth drew near me, I saw my life flash before me as tears spilled from the corners of my eyes and warm liquid trickled down my legs. Right when the beast opened its mouth and I thought I was going to die, it spoke to me.”