The Solution
The horribly twisted carcass of a mimic lays on the ground behind the gift shop. Show the Gift Shop Window image to your players (found on next page). A DC 10 Medicine check or DC 15 Nature check will reveal that this mimic died by turning itself inside out.
A blue book is visible through the window. The book has the image of a triangle on its cover.
The gift shop door is locked but easily picked (DC 12 Thieves’ Tools). The store is cluttered with dust-covered goods. Some are useful, like wagon repair tools, art supplies, and game sets, but most are useless things travelers have left behind over the years.
On a bookcase in the back are a few knick-knacks and dusty old books. The blue book facing the window is called the Bibliotheca Ancestralis: History and Practice of the Librarian’s Guild. here is a triangle embossed on the front cover.
Reading the book (DC12 Investigation, repeat until achieved) they will find reference to the symbol called the impossible triangle. The book details how that symbol is repeatedly displayed throughout library architecture as a protection against mimics, libraries being an easy hunting ground for mimics. The symbol is irresistible to mimics who, when trying to emulate the impossible form, inevitably kill themselves with their contortions.
Conclusion
There are art supplies in the store, including paints, brushes, chalk, oil pastels, etc. If the PCs, and/or NPCs, inscribe the impossible triangle on walls all around the hamlet, the mimic scourge will soon end.
Once the mimics are all dead, the rats soon return. Granny’s traps fill up with rats and she can cook her famous rat stew again.
Milo and Rosy decide to marry and stay on as the new stewards of the rat stew inn.
Read aloud
As the paint dries on the last impossible triangles, a calm settles over the area. Within days, baffled by these geometric enigmas, the mimics die off and life soon returns to its old rhythms.
With the mimics gone, the rats return, and Granny Pickles’ traps soon overflow with the promise of her famous cooking. The kitchen hums with activity, and the aroma of simmering stew fills the air, a savory signal of normalcy restored.
Milo and Rosy, their spirits lifted by the community’s victory, decide to remain at the inn. Hand in hand, they step into their new roles as stewards of the Rat Stew Inn, ready to continue
its legacy of warmth and welcome.Upon leaving Ratstew Gap, the inn thrums with a renewed sense of peace and purpose. As the sunlight kisses your faces, you feel the god of travelers radiating his blessing upon you.
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