Davin cursed himself as he ran through the damp tunnels.  There was precious little light to see by going at a slow pace, and dashing right through was ill advised considering all of the traps and other unpleasant things in the corridors.  Then again, dying was ill-advised in most cases as well.  Running forward and he was simply increasing his chances of probable death while running from certain death.  Wasn't that a fair trade-off?

He'd explored the catacombs with the hopes of finding treasure.  These places were supposed to be bursting with it.  Instead he found corpses and piles of garbage and debris littered passages.  The pickings had gotten a little better the deeper he went, but the danger ramped up as well.  He'd almost been crushed to death by three cave-ins and only had a few coins and other trinkets for his trouble.  When he'd stumbled across the remains of some fellow treasure seekers that had been mangled and burned by something big and mean, he decided to loot their bodies and cut his losses.  Hopefully none of the traps had reset themselves before he crossed their way again.
  
One would think that would have been the end of it.  But that was when Davin learned that there was more than one way people sought to find treasure in these places.  Some simply waited  for those who went in deeper to come out after doing all of the difficult work and then they would pull out their knives and clubs and lighten their burdens.

He'd run into the three men and was now running away from them as fast as his legs were willing to go.    It wasn't even as though he was that attached to the trinkets he found, but it was obvious enough that his would-be robbers didn't plan on letting him go once they stripped him clean of valuables.  He might tell other people, and those people might decide either to end the little robbery operation or start one of their own.

Davin hadn't put much thought into the notion that perhaps the men knew how to handle runners.  As he dashed madly away he spied another thief in his path and quickly veered into the closest tunnel.  At least he thought it had been a tunnel right up until he slammed into the wall blocking his path.  He'd been herded and corralled and now it was time butcher the kill.

He considered laying where he had fallen and attempting to either pretend to be dead or hide amidst the rubble on the ground.  The fourth robber that had blocked his escape peered down after him and gingerly picked his way closer.  He was clad in thick layers of clothing if the outlined shape in the dim light was any indication.

His first impulse was to continue playing dead, but he was breathing too hard and his heartbeat was hammering madly.  Davin pulled himself up to standing and drew his dagger out.  He'd never actually stabbed anyone with it before, but it had been sharp enough to cut rope and leather and those awful travel rations he'd bought.  Surely it could cut a person as well.

“Are you all right?”  

Davin balked.  For a typical criminal, this wasn't a typical thing to ask someone before you robbed them.  Then again maybe it was an elaborate ploy to throw him off guard.  “I've got nothing!” he tried to sound menacing.  “This was a bust of a trip and I don't even have any silver fillings worth swiping, so you and yours can shove off.”

The hooded shape moved slightly as it glanced down the tunnel Davin had appeared from.  He heard it make a soft humming noise that sounded mildly of annoyance.  “Let me guess,” it... no she said.  That voice definitely belonged to a female.  “Three men, one as big as a bull, one as skinny as a straw, and one sort of somewhere in the middle?”

“Couldn't say.”  Davin gritted his teeth.  “I was looking at the sharp things they were pointing at me.”  He could hear his pursuers steps echoing closer.  Even if he could somehow get the jump on the woman barring his escape, there was no way he could do so and still outrun the others.  It was over.

She made another annoyed sounding hum and slipped closer.  Davin braced himself for a fight and was somewhat shocked when she turned her back him him.  He considered lunging at her and taking at least one of the bastards down with him.

All coherent thought fled from his mind though when a man who looked like a cross between a bald gorilla and a particularly ugly but similarly bald ogre stepped into sight.  He was flanked by his companions who fit the description of 'thin' and 'somewhere in the middle' well enough.  

The three thugs began to close the distance when the woman slipped in between.  And much to Davin's continued shock and surprise, his future murderers seemed to hesitate.

“Maze,” she seemed to be addressing the skinny member of the trio.  “Do you remember what I said I'd do if I caught you at this again?”  

He growled, “You're not going to do anything, Mimic.  Have you met Puzzle and Stick yet?  I've told them all about you.”

Davin remained frozen with his knife out, the tip wavered in his shaking hands.  He watched as the gorilla/ogre thing bellowed and charged the shadowed woman.  At this point all he could hope for was a quick death, or maybe the thugs would get distracted with the crazy woman and he could sneak away.

Mimic, as the one he assumed was Maze had called her, seemed nonplussed by the attacker.  She stood calmly in his path with her hand on the handle of one of the twin swords hanging from her belt.  The moment the beast was almost upon her she jumped nimbly as his hands closed on the empty air she'd been occupying once before.

It was all over before Davin could even seen what happened.  The giant pitched forward and landed hard as Mimic balanced herself against his back, somehow managing to keep her footing as he collapsed.  He didn't rise or move once he fell.  The woman's gloved hand still rested on her sword, but now the blade had buried itself into his head, roughly where it joined with the neck.

She looked back at Davin and then up to the two surviving bandits.  Finally her gaze seemed to settle on the second largest.  “I'm going to assume that you're Puzzle.”  She pulled her blade out, wiped the tip clean on Stick's shirt, and hopped off of his body.  “This is what I told Maze, and what I'll tell you.  Fight me and die.  Leave now and live.  I catch you again and I cut off a part of you.”

Puzzle seemed to consider it for a moment and then quickly turned around and dashed back up the corridor, leaving Maze alone and now outnumbered.  Davin's knife wavered slightly less in his white-knuckled grip.

Mimic was on the scrawny thief in an eyeblink.  Maze lurched back as her sword slashed down, and his scream as the blade connected twisted Davin's stomach.  The bandit clutched the side of his head as blood poured through his fingers and down his neck.  She had severed his ear.

Maze howled a barrage of curses as he realized what the woman had done, but he shied back from her as she stepped closer.

“You haven't hired a thug yet that can scratch me,” Mimic said calmly.   “And I doubt you ever will.  Now go.  Next time I'll cut off the other ear, probably at the neck.”

Maze's lip curled as his hand brushed against his blood spattered neck.  His eyes held a silent threat as he turned and ran, following in the footsteps of Puzzle.

Davin sunk to the floor, his hands still clinging to the knife even though he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.  He watched and waited as the cloaked woman inspected the dead bandit.  She nudged him with her feet and finally knelt down to turn his head to the side for a better look at his face.

“So, I guess you want the stuff I found as payment for saving my arse, right?”  Davin finally let the dagger fall.  

Mimic didn't look at him.  “Do you not want it?”  She slid her fingers along the thug's face and gently pulled his eyelids closed.  The gesture seemed almost apologetic.

Davin huffed indignantly.  “Of course I bloody want it!  I've been almost killed about six times and would like something to buy the alcohol I'm going to need to help me forget all of this ever happened.”  He rubbed his temples and got to his feet again.  

The cloaked woman made a disappointed sounding hiss through her teeth and rose up as well.  She tugged her hood down and gestured over her shoulder.  “Then go.  Next time don't buy your supplies through that half-elf Benton.  He sells gear cheap because bandits pay him to know where the newest treasure hunter is going.”

That explained how they had found him.  Davin kept close to the wall as he attempted to put as wide a gap as he could manage between himself and the woman.  “Well, thank you kindly for saving me, miss Mimic.”

She watched after him, pausing to cast her gaze at the dagger he had forgotten to pick back up.  “Mimic is just what Maze calls me.  He thinks I'll be insulted if he calls me by one of those trap chest things.”

Davin paused at the end of the passage and peered out.  He realized that in his mad escape he'd lost track of where he was, and blindly wandering the catacombs was just asking for more trouble.  He stood there and glared down the tunnel Maze had vanished down.  Maybe it was the right way out, and maybe Maze was hunched around a corner waiting to slice his gullet the moment he got close enough for it.

“I was planning on resting nearby.”  Her voice shook Davin from his dark thoughts.  “If you're willing to wait until morning I can lead you out.”

Davin bit his lip.  “Is there any way I could convince you to lead me out now?”

Her shoulders rolled in a faint shrug.  “I'm gathering grave lichen.  Talbert the apothecary pays for every batch, but he pays more if I bring it to him cured and dried.  Which will take until morning.”  She stepped past him and turned down the opposite passage Maze had skittered down. 

He shifted nervously on his feet.  He could follow her, but maybe this was an elaborate ploy to rob him in the convenience of her own little camp.  But his chances weren't so great on his own with a very angry bandit between him and his way out, and he also was no longer quite sure which was the way out and which way would take him back towards traps and more chances at certain death.

With a resigned sigh he sprinted to catch up with his savior.  “If your name isn't Mimic then what do I call you?”  He brushed his hands down his clothing in a gesture that was meant to look as though he were cleaning the dust off as he checked the condition of the coins and little baubles he had stuffed away in his pockets.

“Whatever you care to,” she replied without looking back at him.  The overskirt concealing her legs made her seem to float across the stony floor.  Were it not for the soft tap of her footsteps Davin would have almost suspected her to be a ghost or a grave spirit.  Except ghosts usually weren't well versed on cheating businessmen or apothecaries that needed cured grave moss, were they?

“It isn't that I'm ungrateful that you kept those three from shaking me down and skinning me alive, but you're aware that this is the slightest bit creepy, right?”  Davin coughed into his hand.  “You're all bundled up, you don't give your name... it makes a person nervous.”

She kicked a small chunk of bone away.  It bounced against the wall and rolled into a crevice.  “If you weren't capable of dealing with nervous situations, perhaps you should have tried a different line of moneymaking.”

He couldn't help but laugh at that.  “Okay, one point for you.  Maybe I should try becoming a professional drunk.  The idea is starting to sound more appealing by the minute.”  Davin ran a calloused hand through his scrubby hair.  “But if you do end up shanking me, could you make it quick at least?”

The woman finally glanced back at him.  “If you're what you seem to be, then I've no intention of doing any such thing.”  He could just make out the glints of her eyes through the layers of cloth hiding her face.  “I'm taking as much a risk, you know.  Perhaps Maze got smart and set up a fake ambush.  Perhaps you're in his pocket and you plan to slip a knife in me the moment you catch me unawares.”

Davin sputtered indignantly but couldn't argue the point.  If she interrupted Maze's robbery efforts more than once he more than likely had a grudge.  “Would he do something like that?”

She rolled her shoulders.  “He's not that subtle.  I'm also guessing fewer and fewer people are willing to work for him since a lot of them don't come back.  So perhaps, but I'm not too worried.”

It was silent going after that as the cloaked woman led Davin along.  The catacombs were a mystery to the locals.  Part forgotten temple, part graveyard, and part something else.  People smarter than he said that in the past there were sects and cultures and other groups who would take the place over and add onto it, making it theirs and digging it deeper, then falling and dying the way these people seemed to.  There were probably other things coloring the tunnels as well, a mad wizard here, a dragon with a hoard there.  It made for what some people claimed was an easy fortune, and others said was nothing but a deathtrap.

Eventually she slipped into a chamber, motioning for him to follow.  It was a comfortable enough looking camp she had set up in an unused room.  Maybe long ago it was for storage or horrible rituals or nothing at all.  For now it looked to be a place to sleep, eat, warm up, and cure grave moss.  

“It's relatively safe in here.  Most of the other chambers are picked over and empty so nobody bothers with this end, and I've got some herbs sprinkled around to keep most of the creatures away.”  She gestured to a pile of blankets and hunched over an improvised firepit to coax some life into the fading embers of it.

Davin shifted uncomfortably on his feet.  “Most of them?” he asked.  Finally he decided that if this was a trap, he could at least be comfortable while he was waiting for it to snap closed.  He was impressed at how clean his host had managed to keep things considering the dusty nature of underground tunnels.  The blankets smelled of lavender and were soft enough.

He could hear the laughter in her tone.  “Well, they haven't perfected dragonbane yet.  But at least you won't wake up to find rats ate your toes.”  She moved methodically around the camp, gathering some bundles of what he assumed was the grave moss along with a few other odds and ends.  Good, the sooner she finished the sooner he could get out and start considering a new career.

The process of curing the moss looked tedious.  She very carefully held strands of it that had been wrapped around a stick over the fire until it had cooked or dried out or something, Davin couldn't quite tell.  After that she would transfer it into a mortar and pestle and grind it into a powder, then very carefully pour the powder into a pouch.  

As she worked Davin observed how she seemed perfectly fine with long moments of silence.  Unless he asked her a question or made a comment that invited a response she seemed perfectly at ease with not ever saying a word.  It shouldn't have been surprising since she did seem to live all alone in the tunnels, and the robbers and other crawly things probably didn't make for good casual conversation.  But it still made him uneasy, as if she forgot that he was there at all unless he brought attention to himself.
  
He asked what the smelly stuff was good for and was surprised at her answer.  It was good for poisons and corrupting illnesses.  If you had ingested something bad you could mix it into a tea and it would purge the toxins from you.  If you were outright poisoned you could swallow a glob of it moistened with some liquid and might have a chance at surviving.  Added to a poultice would keep a wound from getting infected, and if made into a paste and smeared into a wound caused by a venomous bite or a poisonous dart and it could draw the poison out.

Unfortunately the latest batch of the stuff she had picked needed a few hours to air out before she could prepare it.  She announced this fact and stated that she was going to get some sleep in the meantime.  Then spread out a blanket on the other side of the fire, stretched out on her side and seemed to do just that.

Davin shifted uncomfortably.  He'd been waiting for her to turn on him and it had never happened.  There was always the chance that she was waiting for him to sleep, but if she was really asleep he could just as easily steal a few things and sneak off if he wanted to.  The problem with that line of thinking was that he didn't quite know how to leave, and the only remotely friendly person around was asleep right in front of him.
  
Eventually he kept himself occupied by staring into the weak fire.  He could hear ambient noises in the hall outside, but they were muffled and distant.  The chamber had been well chosen in that you could hear someone coming long before they ever got to you, and it was in a section of the old temple that had been so picked over that nobody bothered with  it anymore to begin with.  Not the safest of places to live, but as far as safe spots in dungeons it was as good as one could hope for.
 
His gaze would stray from the fire and look over the shadowed form of the woman.  He could just make out the motion of her breathing.

He wondered why she kept her face hidden.  Maybe Maze and his gang had caught her and torn her up.    Or perhaps she was a wanted criminal that took to hiding here.  Or maybe she was just some crazy lady who had a thing about people seeing her face.  The more he thought about it the more it ate at him.  

Davin wasn't quite sure when he made the decision to try and steal a peek.  The reason he had thought all along that he might have a knack for grave robbing in old temples was that he was good at being sneaky.  He could pinch necklaces from the necks of refined ladies and steal coinpurses without anyone being the wiser, particularly if the owners of said items had a drink or three in them.  Surely it wouldn't be too much of an effort to lift her hood and look.

It all happened so quickly.  He thought he was being stealthy as he crept towards her, but as he reached for it her hand had snapped out and gripped his wrist tightly.  The rest of her didn't move and she didn't even bother looking up at him as she spoke.

“I'm going to assume that this is just a dream and that you really wouldn't take advantage of my hospitality by trying to look at something you shouldn't be.”  Her voice was low and flat.  Davin could feel the fingers of her leather glove dig into his skin, there was something sharp barely touching him, as if she had small blades or needles imbedded in the fingertips of her gloves.  If he wrenched his hand away before she released it he'd surely tear himself on those things.

She slowly eased her grip on his arm.  “Now, if I have the same dream twice in a row, I'm going to start to wonder if this is really a dream or not.  And I'll check that by putting a mark on you.  If I wake up from my rest and see you unmarked, I'll assume that it was just a dream.  If not, I'll know you went peeking where you shouldn't.”  Finally she let him go and rolled until her back was to him.

Davin considered running right then and there except his legs had turned into some kind of jelly.  So instead he slunk back to his blanket, tried to make himself look very small, and he waited.

The sound of scraping woke him up.  It was a soft insistent sound like the birds at one's window in the morning.  As he slowly opened his eyes he realized that he had no memory of falling asleep.  No doubt once the adrenaline wore off his body had decided that enough was enough and it was time to turn the lights off for a little while.  But there were no knives sticking out of him that he could see, and he could feel the contents of his pocket digging into his hip from where he lay.  As he rose a blanket that he didn't remember being there earlier fell from him.  The air felt cold in its absence and he reflexively grasped it and pulled it back over his shoulders.

His host was grinding up more of the moss.  The bundles that she had been airing out must have finally been ready enough to finish.  There was also the smell of strong tea in the air.  She had put a kettle on and it was steeping nearby along with an empty mug. 

“Um,” he said.

She looked up and nodded.  “I've had my fill.  There's some travel biscuits too so you'll have something in your stomach.  They're packed dry, so it's best to drink something with them unless you want to choke.”  True to her word, she made no acknowledgment of his attempted peek and seemed to be treating it all as if it was simply a dream.

“Thanks, miss.”  Davin had finally given up on his robber theory.  If she was going to beat him down and take his property it would have been done by now.  He also realized that he was ravenous.  

The tea was strong and bitter, but the hard chunks of bread were overly sweet and the two balanced one another out nicely.  He ate and drank his fill as she methodically ground up the rest of the dried moss.

Davin was never sure what prompted him to ask.  Probably he just felt he was too safe and comfortable and it was time to risk danger again.  That was a nicer mode of thought than assuming he had a sudden blinding flash of idiocy.

“Miss, what are you?”

She stopped and canted her head just enough that he could catch the embers of the fire reflecting off her darkened eyes.  “Does it matter?”  She sounded amused.

Davin dipped a chunk of the rocklike bread into the dregs of his mug.  “I guess it doesn't.  But I'd still like to know.”

She tipped the stone bowl carefully into a pouch and gathered up the last of the powder.  She pulled the drawstring closed and tied it to her belt.  “Depending on your definition, I'm a monster or a freak.”  She rose to her feet and brushed the hem of her thick skirt free of dust and remnants of her work.  “I'm finished.  Let me pack up the camp and I'll get you topside.”

He chewed the last of his breakfast and noisily slurped down the last mouthful of tea.  “My definition?”  He rose to stand and then hunched back down again, fumbling with the blanket in clumsy attempt at folding it.  “I didn't know monsters had definitions.  They just try to eat people.”

“Ah, and there we have it.  In that case I'm a simple freak.”  She had the fire contained and everything packed up quickly, the work of a hand who had done this hundreds of times before.  “Some people say that the thing that makes a monster are the looks, and others say it's how they act.  That's why human tyrants are sometimes called monsters even if they look perfectly normal.”
  
Davin could only stand back as she packed up blankets and snatched the mug and kettle and within minutes had things either stored in her pack or bundled away in corners of the room and out of sight.  The only sign that someone had been here at all was the fire.  “So why are you a freak?”

She laughed as she gestured for him to follow.  “Because that's what people scream when they see my face, either that or they call me a monster.”

He frowned, she was avoiding the answer.  “You think I'd scream?”

“Probably.  You might even wet yourself.”  A corked bottle held in a tangle of ropes dangled from her hand as she led him down an unfamiliar corridor.  The contents glowed well enough to see by.

Davin huffed.  “You saved my life, took me in, you even let me keep the things I found.  Why do you think I'd scream after all of that?”

The hooded woman dipped her head in thought.  “I once met a priestess of Miriam in the black forest north of here.  She had been foolish enough to think she could travel alone and almost got herself eaten by the stonewolves.  I drove them off and offered to accompany her to the closest town.  And along the way she asked if she could see my face.  I argued the point with her, and she insisted that Miriam loved all the creatures of creation and as a servant of her, she would treat me no different.”

“So did you show her?”

“I did.  And she looked at me, screamed loud enough to let every living soul within a five mile radius know where we were, and then she ripped the holy symbol off her neck and tried to beat me to death with it.”  The woman rubbed the side of her head.  “For a peaceful goddess, Miriam's star has some really sharp edges.  She almost took out my eye.”

Davin quavered as he tried to bite down on his laughter.  “What happened then?”

Her voice carried a smile to it, as if she were giving him permission.  “I bolted before she tore my face off.  And then she eventually started making her own way to town.”

“Sounds like quite the experience, miss.”

“No, the experience was after I realized she was heading back the way she came.  I had to rush to a trapper I knew nearby and ask him to guide her so she wouldn't traipse right back to the wolves.”  She glanced back at Davin and winked.  “After all the work I'd put into saving her, it would have been a waste for her to go back and get killed.”

Davin couldn't help but laugh at that.  He'd only met a priestess of Miriam once before, and since most of them were cloistered they tended to be a tad naïve.

His guide swung the bottle in her grip, making the shadows rock along the wall.  “So ever since then when someone tells me that they promise they won't react badly at the sight of my face, I'm a little dubious.  Suffice it to say that my appearance is distracting and you're better off not knowing it.”

The air in the tunnels began smelling a little fresher, and eventually he could make out hints of sunlight seeping through cracks here and there.  Soon enough she had led him to a section where the roof had caved in and the debris formed a nice little ramp out of the tunnels and into the fresh air.  It wasn't where Davin had entered the catacombs, but it was probably a safer exit if Maze was still annoyed and waiting for them.

Once they were out she hefted her pack and gestured towards a pasture.  “Don't sell your stuff in the town you came from.  You'll get bad prices and probably beaten up when you try to leave.  Garron's farmstead is that way and if you go there and offer to help him he'll give you a ride into the next town over where he sells his goods.  Tell him I sent you.”

Davin blinked.  “Thanks, but I don't know anything about working a farm.”

She tugged her hood down and adjusted her pack.  “If you're willing to work, he'll find work for you.  He'll even feed you properly if you're not a slouch.”  She turned to look at him one last time.  “I suggest you don't come back to places like this.  Steady work is better than gambles over treasure, no matter what the bards tell you.”

He could make out her eyes a little better in the sunlight.  They were green, a deep green like the emeralds that he never found amidst the treasure piles that weren't there.  “I think I'll take that advice to heart, miss.  And thank you, for saving my life and not killing me and all of that.”

The woman dipped her head and turned away, walking in the opposite direction of the farmstead.  “Thank me by staying out of trouble.  For every person I manage to fish out of there, there's a few dozen who never make it.  You got a second chance, so don't squander it.”

Davin glanced back at the farmstead.   He could hear oxen in the field complaining as they were herded to their morning pasture along with the angry squawks of the chickens.  He was never good with animals, but for a meal and a free ride, he'd be willing to try his hand.

He turned to say his goodbyes and found the woman had already vanished.  Somehow Davin wasn't surprised.  He waved in the direction he had last seen her and turned to go and introduce himself to farmer Garron.