"Three, damn, weeks." From the time the army had sent back the all-clear, it had taken three weeks for the first caravan to arrive. She hadn't known what to expect from a city that had survived a northerner attack without the need for reinforcements, but what stood in the middle of the meadow wasn't it.

The walls stood proud. There were the remains of earthworks that looked like they'd been used to siege the city, and the huge gatehouse stood intact and without any sign its gates had been demolished. It was exactly how the report she'd bribed to get said—including the strange tower.

It was the perfect cover for her. She had a wagon packed with the usual goods a new city would need, plus a few extras hidden in a compartment that there was always a market for. When she reached the gate, the guards there looked bored. "General goods. Here's my manifest."

The guard looked at the slate tablet he'd been handed. "You're Liz?" He waited for her to nod. "The cloth will go well. I don't think you'll have much luck with the hides, but these fine tools should make you a fortune." He passed the slate back to the woman and walked around behind her covered wagon.

Folding the slate closed, Liz tucked it into a large satchel bag and wrapped her hand around a dagger. The weapon was nothing like what her family would normally carry—it was exceptionally unadorned and business-like.

"You're clear. Wave her through!"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Liz shook her reins to encourage her horse to lean into the weight of the wagon and followed the nice guards to where they showed her she could pull up. The moment she did, a woman with what looked like a slate tablet covered in paper approached her. "Can I help you with anything, Miss…?"

"Christine Sellswell, head merchant and council member for Northridge. I just need your name, guild affiliation, what goods you are selling, and what you want in trade." There was nothing in any of the merchants Christine had encountered so far to indicate any weren't exactly what they appeared. Still, she had promised Stephan to personally check over each—and she trusted his inkling that they would have a spy or two coming soon.

"I've got my manifest. Here's my affiliation." Liz passed over her tablet and a stamped card of steel with all the credentials of a normally affiliated merchant—though in her case it was a realistic fake her family had paid very well for. "I heard you had plenty of food and metal, and thought I might be able to make a killing on some cloth and leather. The guard said you don't need so much of the latter, though. What about tools? I've got high quality scissors, knives, needles—"

"We've got plenty of weapon blades, but nothing for fine work. There's one good tool blacksmith in town, and he's working every hour of the day and not keeping up. Do you want gold for trade?"

"We're merchants. Gold is always king." Jumping down from the bench of her wagon, Liz focused on her horse first. She couldn't unhitch it yet, but she could lead the poor horse to where someone was putting out troughs of water for the caravan's animals. She paid the young woman who was doing so a handful of small coins and started brushing her horse down.

Taking time like this and having an excuse to look around at people was ideal for her line of work. She noted that though Christine had several people helping her, the council member was inspecting the manifests and affiliations personally. "Who tipped them off?" she mused softly as she worked, the words going no further than herself and her horse.

Most of the other merchant wagons had more than one person working in them. Here and there were twos and threes unpacking some goods, setting up on the tailgates of their wagons or anywhere else they could put out their wares.

Liz bided her time. She finished going over her horse with the currycomb, which afforded her the opportunity to witness an interesting moment. What looked to be a young lizard kin walked up to Christine. Fully expecting the merchant to foist the child off to someone else, Liz was surprised when the two began talking about something that, if Liz were any judge of body language, she was sure Christine was taking more seriously than her work.

Making it look like she was counting things, Liz focused on Christine's lips and did her best to follow what she was saying. "They're all fine. Everyone has——and they have——." There was a pause while the lizard kin spoke, though Liz couldn't make sense of their mouth. Then Christine spoke again. "Sure. The group on the right are——and on the left are new——."

A little worry hit as Liz realized she was on the left. Christine probably knew some of the merchants that had traveled regularly, but the lizard kin walked toward her side and right up to her own wagon.

"Hello," the lizard kin said, its voice sounding oddly adult to Liz, "I'd like to buy all your cloth."

Liz spared a glance around for any adult lizard kin who might be anxiously hunting for their offspring but, when she didn't see one, she turned her full attention to the one before her. The child was well-dressed, wearing a long vest, short leggings, and a cloak over the top of it all. It was nothing like any lizard kin fashion she'd seen before. "Do you really? How much money do you have?" She kept her tone light, wondering what the lizard kin's angle was.

The lizard kin tilted his head to the side. "There are three other wagons with cloth, but Councilor Sellswell told me yours is higher quality. Do you wish to sell it or not? Name your price."

An alarm bell rang in Liz's head. This was wrong and she could feel the situation turning to something she didn't want. "I think I might have made an assumption, and for that I apologize. My name is Liz, I'm a traveling merchant. The cloth I carry is not high grade—but it's better than what the others brought. I'm looking for five gold per square yard."

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"Perfect. You have ten bolts, Christine said?"

Definitely not a child, Liz decided. She nodded to that. "A thousand gold per bolt."

"There's a building on the west side of the merchant hall in the middle of the city. Please make your way there and I'll arrange payment. There will be facilities for you to quarter your horse and stow your wagon, if you wish." And, with that said, the strange lizard kin was gone.

Whoever, and whatever the creature had been, it seemed to Liz that they were respected. "Eliza Sussaridge, what have you gotten into here?" She thought about the question some more, then walked around and took her horse's traces. "Come on, we have to go see a very short lizard about some gold."

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The city hadn't been as well-off as Eliza had thought. Most of it seemed fine, but there were signs of a fire here and there. She could see that some sections of the wall had seen intense fighting, while yet others showed signs of repair. She wasn't well-versed in the actual mechanics of city defense, but she'd learned to notice the aftermath.

What surprised Eliza the most was the way the populace behaved. There was no gauntness in them, no shadows in their eyes, and no twitchiness. She got a few disapproving looks from the city's merchants, but when folks had been through tough times together, she knew they were often distrusting of strangers.

Finding the trade plaza, she noticed a large building with Council Hall written on a sign out front. Beside that, on the west side, was an almost equally large building that seemed like nothing so much as a warehouse with some kind of office attached.

Without a better choice as to where to sell her goods, Eliza figured on using the strange lizard kin's directions until someone said she couldn't anymore. Leading the horse to a hitch at the side, she was surprised to see another of the small lizard kin come out.

"Did Steph send you?"

Even for lizard kin, the female looked and spoke odd. Her form was, like the previous of her kind Eliza had met, short and somewhat stocky. This one was wearing a skirt and a plain shirt. Her mouth was longer and thinner than most lizard kin, too, and seemed to have far sharper teeth.

"Uh, the male in a vest and leggings?" At a nod, Eliza continued. "He wanted me to sell him the cloth I'd brought in."

"Ah! Yes! We have been looking for some. Feel free to use the stable around back. There are sleeping quarters inside if you wish to make use of them or, if you'd rather not, I can recommend a tavern." Her tone warm, the strange (to Eliza) lizard kin gestured to the cobbled path leading around and behind the building.

She took her time. There was no point to rushing what seemed to be the relaxed part of a merchant's life—that's how Eliza expected folks got caught. At least, that's what she'd been taught got folks caught. She unhitched her horse and brushed it down properly. There was a cask of sour oats from which she scooped a good amount into the food trough. And, only once her animal was settled did she start to wonder further on her current situation.

"You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat animals."

The voice was familiar. When Eliza turned her head to look, it was the first of the small lizard kin. She shrugged her shoulders. "He does his best to get me from place to place. He works just as hard as I do—maybe even more—and it's not like he can get his own food out of the cask."

"Well put. I have a donkey that is surprisingly okay with being underground. He did a lot of work for me, but now I let him relax and eat all the grain he wants. I give him a good brush down each day. He saved us a lot of hard work in our early days here, but now he's practically a member of the family." Reaching the side of Eliza's horse, the lizard kin ran a hand down each leg, slowly, and checked the hooves. "Good condition too. How was the road to Far Reach?"

"After an army marching over it, twice? Not the best condition, but not the worst road in the kingdom." Eliza still couldn't get the idea out of her head that there was something more wrong about him than being a particularly short race of lizard kin.

"You're taking all this pretty well. Some of the other merchants refused to do business with us." Raising an eye ridge at Eliza's confused look, the lizard kin added, "You haven't seen a kobold before, have you?"

It felt, to Eliza, like being dunked in an ice-cold river. She stared openly now, not quite understanding what she was seeing, but her mouth seemed to have no filter. "You're a kobold? From a dungeon?"

"That explains why you didn't react beyond that first, cryptic interaction. I believe introductions are probably best. I am Steph. The dungeon I work for is Travis—he's the one with the huge tower on the south side of the city. Are you with me so far?"

Eliza took a slow breath. Part of her training included adapting to strange situations quickly. Her mind was racing now, trying to piece together everything she knew of kobolds into a coherent picture, but them being openly trading in a city didn't fit any of that lore. With a nod of finality, she pushed all her assumptions aside and started over. "I think I said before, I'm Liz. Nothing odd about me, though, just an elf who loves to turn hard miles into gold."

"We turn hard work into gold, and are pleased to share that gold with those who are willing to travel for us. You can stay here for free, if you trade with us. Alternatively, you could stay in the dungeon itself or collect meals there. We actually pay you for either of those."

Struggling to keep abreast of the conversation, Eliza took a slow breath. "Can we start over from the bit where you want to pay me gold?" She put on her most hopeful smile—the kind any merchant would wear when discussing payment. "A room for a night would be good. The city lets a dungeon move itself inside the city's walls?"

"Two, actually. And we didn't so much move as we had to open a second entrance before we got boxed-in by the northerner army. They sealed up our forest entrance just after we'd opened one within Northridge."

This was going to take some time for Eliza to work her head around. What they described almost sounded malicious. "Why would you pay people to eat food in a dungeon if the dungeon was giving them the food?" He smiled, showing more fangs than Eliza was comfortable with—even if Steph was short of three feet tall. "Sorry if I sound like I don't believe you or don't trust you. This isn't a common situation."

"We're aware of that. How about I make one part of all this more bearable. I have the gold inside. You can either take it in bars or in local coins, with a ten percent bonus. The money changers in Far Reach have a deal with us, they mint our gold into coins there and apply a legal stamp to it. We'd do that ourselves but, as you know, we haven't been able to import any new talent for over a month." When he twitched his head to the side, Steph paused a moment and nodded, then turned back to look at Eliza. "You'll have to accept my apology. My assistant, Millie, will arrange your pay and offloading of the cloth."

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