“Thank you! Come again!” Clover smiled at the departing customer, who’d forgotten to bring a gift for his partner currently down on the third level. It was their anniversary, and he’d been in a panic about what to get her. Clover had recommended a beautiful dagger, as deadly as it was ornate; its jewelled hilt was stunning, but the blade itself was a true masterpiece- Kygorian steel, blued and folded a thousand times to form a perfect, razor-sharp edge. It had, of course, cost him a fortune; she wasn’t in the business of giving things away simply because someone had a sweet story. She’d been fooled too many times before.

A faint tinkling, scraping noise reached her ears as she began to rearrange her wares on the shop table. Peering curiously in the direction of the sound, she was alarmed to see one of her chanfrons scuttling away on the back of a large crustacean.

“Hey!” she cried. “Get back here!”

Naturally, the crustacean didn’t listen. Cursing, she spent a second trying to decide what to do – the chanfron was valuable, but she had too much expensive loot spread across the table. It was too risky - she’d have to let it go.

“I’ll watch this for you, go on,” a voice said, and she looked up to find a black Courser, dressed in silver-and-black robes and armed to the teeth.

Pushing away the niggling doubt in her mind – he looked familiar, somehow – she sprung away, giving chase. “Thanks, I’ll be right back!”

Her hooves left divots in the leaf litter as she pelted after the crustacean, pausing at the entrance to the next cavern. Shoot. A wall had collapsed, leaving piles of rubble everywhere - there was no telling which tumble of boulders the critter was hiding behind.

Now that it'd reached the safety of the rocks, the crustacean might not move again - she'd have to flush it out. She tapped experimentally on the nearest boulder with her hoof, and was rewarded with a faint clack of metal on stone. She began pawing forcefully at the rock, the sound of it echoing through the cavern and driving the crustacean from its hiding place. It scuttled across an open area, aiming for a crevice between two large boulders.

"Aha!" Clover cried and flew forwards, racing the chanfron-wearing critter across the cavern. It had nearly made it to the gap when she smacked the armour with her hoof, stunning the creature. She didn't wish to kill it; after all, it had just been looking for a shell to live in.

Or had it? Clover flipped the chanfron over and realised each of the leather strappings was properly buckled, tight enough that they would have been impossible for the creature to remove on its own. What's more, the crustacean - a lobster, she could see now - already had a shell. Why would it have been seeking another? How would it have- shit. The truth dawned on Clover and she whirled, lobster dangling from her jaws, and raced back to her stall.

The chanfron dropped from her mouth as she saw what was left of her wares. Where there were once neat rows of dungeon trinkets and hard-earned weapons, there were now just piles of rations and a handful of low-value daggers. "Fuck!" That thieving Courser! Clover's heart sank as she realised where she'd seen the black Courser before: the warning posters tacked onto the wall at the merchants' guild outpost in town. He'd been listed as a known threat, and his list of suspected hits had been long and centered around this area.

Clover shook her mane, annoyed with her own stupidity. Some stranger comes along and offers to watch your stall for you, and you let them?! What an idiot. Wait- Beep!

"Beep?" she called, head dropping under the table. Where was her beetle? "Beep!"

The iridescent insect was nowhere to be found. Clover's teeth gritted. What kind of asshole not only stole her entire stock of valuable items, but her pet, too? That decided it for her - she would go into the dungeon. The rogue couldn't have gotten far, and she had nothing left to lose.