All is silent for a few seconds. Mordecai is about to ask what’s going on when suddenly the sound of a door opening and three pairs of boots stomping across the packed dirt floor rises from the shop. Rhoth gives the footsteps’ owners a shaky “Evening, gentlemen.”

“This isn’t a social visit, elf,” a man’s voice replies gruffly. “You stay where we can see you.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yeah we got a problem,” says a second man, voice sharp and lined with anger. “Y’see, my poor old mother caught the Curse Plague a while back. The doctor said she’d be fine if she just took the medicine for a couple weeks. We heard there was an apothecary in the area, real close by, and that’s real convenient ‘cause my mother needs that medicine.” The man’s voice grows harder with each sentence uttered. “So we came and bought some from you.”

“And?” Mordecai can hear the simper in Rhoth’s voice. “How is the poor dear? Doing better I hope…?”

There is a loud thud and a strangled yelp. “It’s been two weeks since she started taking your medicine and she hasn’t got any better!”

Something about the man’s words itch in Mordecai’s memory, but he can’t recall anything new. He makes a mental note to ask Achillea about Curse Plague later, and after contemplating it, decides the likelihood of getting an answer is ‘maybe’.

As Rhoth starts stammering about herb potency and the inferior constitution of elderly humans, he glances over at Achillea to see her making a sour face at the door. She catches his eye and, interpreting his look as a question, mimes pouring something into a bottle.

Mordecai picks up on her meaning immediately and is disgusted. If he’d had even a smidgeon of respect for Rhoth before, it’s gone now.

Back in the shop, the third man speaks up for the first time. “What’s this?” he asks, and the store falls silent for a beat.

Rhoth replies nervously. “That? Just an old sheet.”

Achillea’s eyes widen and she shares a frantic look with Mordecai. In the mad scramble to get out of sight, they’d forgotten to hide the sheet. It was left lying in a heap in the corner.

“Why’s it on the floor out here?” the third man presses.

“I, ah, was going to turn it into rags.” Rhoth was practically audibly sweating at this point. “Can’t you see how it’s all torn up? I got a bit sidetracked, you see, and plumb forgot about it.”

“We’re kinda in the middle o’ somethin’,” the second man growls, and Rhoth whimpers.

“Is it important?” the first asks.

“There’s blood on it.”

“H-hence why I was going to tear it up! Who wants to sleep on a bloody sheet, right?”

Achillea motions to Mordecai to hurry up and finish getting dressed. He does so as quickly and silently as possible while Achillea heads further into the back room.

It’s not a large room to begin with and a good portion of it is dedicated to storage. The rest is partitioned off with an elegant folding screen. The other side appears to be Rhoth’s sleeping quarters, and the elf clearly spares no expense for himself. The bed is swathed in silk and buried under a mountain of downy pillows, and above it is a second window. Achillea climbs onto the bed heedless of her dirty boots on the bedding and undoes the window latch.

Mordecai makes to follow her, but pauses as he spots something in the corner of the bedroom.

--

“I’m telling you, gentlemen, this is a mere misunderstanding! If you would just hear me out—”

“First you scam my family and now this?” The second man, a big, burly fellow, looms threateningly from his position pushing the elf up against the wall. “I should’ve known better than to trust you. What have you done? Whose blood is that?!”

Rhoth squirms in the man’s grip. “I swear, there’s a perfectly rational explanation,” he pleads, trying desperately to think of said explanation. Damn Achillea, bringing undead and bloody sheets into his store! “It’s…it’s my blood! See? Perfectly rational!”

The third man examines the sheet from the other side of the counter. “Your blood?” He looks over the elf, not seeing any visible wounds.

“Yep! I cut myself peeling an apple. Months ago! It’s long since healed!”

The first man, standing next to the second ready to grab Rhoth if he wriggles free, gives him a flat look. “You cut yourself peeling an apple…in bed.”

Rhoth grits his teeth and glares at the man. “Yes.”

Third inspects the sheet again. The bloodstain isn’t big, but there’s a spray that shouldn’t come from that sort of wound. Not to mention the torn part, which looks less deliberate and more like it was dragged through the woods, and the two small, perfectly round holes. None of it looks good for the elf, and he says as much.

By this point Rhoth is shaking, half from fear and half from fury. How dare these humans come into his house and accuse him of criminal behavior! If anyone should be punished here, it’s Achillea for consorting with the undead, stealing his armor, and leaving incriminating evidence lying around his store.

Suddenly, a wicked idea comes to him. There’s no way he can enact it while Achillea is in the building, but pulling it off could mean taking care of both his problems at once. But how to get her out? He casts a thoughtful glance at the door to the back room.

Second follows his gaze and comes to entirely the wrong conclusion.

“So you do have something to hide,” he says, motioning to the door. First and Third nod and walk toward it.

Rhoth’s eyes widen. “No! Don’t open that door!” He begins to kick and thrash in Second’s grip.

The man simply tightens his hold on Rhoth’s collar. “What you got back there, elf?” he sneers. “What kind of sick bastard are you?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, you vermin! Get out of my store!” Rhoth shouts. He attempts to pry Second’s fingers open to no avail. At any second he expects an enraged orc to burst out of the back room and start spearing anything that moves, and he wants to be far away when it happens.

Second nods at the other two. “Open it.”

Rhoth watches in horror as the door swings open and First walks in. After a tense moment where no sounds of death and destruction come from the room beyond, the man returns. “I don’t see nuthin’.”

Caught between bewilderment and relief, Rhoth just sort of sags in Second’s grip. The man glares and drags him across the shop and through the door. “What do you mean, ‘nuthin’?” he asks.

What First means is that there’s nothing unusual in the room at all. There are baskets which the men rifle though and find nothing, vials which the men inspect but can’t identify, and a large old trunk which the men empty but find nothing but what clothes he has left after Achillea rifled through them. The only things out of the ordinary are his armor stand, which once proudly displayed his beautiful elven armor but now holds the boneman’s ugly, nasty old breastplate, and the bed, which is hideously mussed and sports a footprint right in its center. Rhoth recognizes the print from his own boot. He’d expect nothing less from a barbarian orc and her…whatever the boneman is.

Still, he thinks as he leans out the open window to look around, now he knows Achillea’s left the building. Perfect.

“Where do you think you’re going, elf?” A large hand grabs him roughly by the scruff of his neck and hauls him off the bed. Rhoth flails uselessly at him.

“You’ve found nothing incriminating, now let me go!”

Second looks at him skeptically. “What about the blood?”

“I assure you, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for that. Just let me close the window,” Rhoth pleads. He leans in close to Second’s ear and lowers his voice to a whisper. “It’s not safe to talk.”