INVIOLATE

"INVIOLATE" is the tenth episode of *The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality*.

Characters:

* The Audio Tour Guide
* The Visitor
* Dennis Quimby
* a dragon
* The Changeling

Exhibits:

* A Dragon's Egg
* The Fountain
* The Changeling

## A Dragon's Egg

### Summary

The Guide takes The Visitor to an exhibit that consists of an egg that looks like a dragon's egg, but can't be confirmed as one because, according to The Guide, dragons aren't real. Tests run on the egg have been unable to penetrate the shell, so the research department can't determine what is inside.

The museum inherited the egg from a man named Dennis Quimby, who was originally an incredibly boring person. On a Friday night, Dennis woke up to find a dragon in his room, which told Dennis that dragons had been hunted for generations by The Order of the Shattered Scale and that he was being entrusted with the last egg.

The next morning, Dennis woke up thinking it had all been a dream until he saw the dragon's egg at the foot of his bed. The next night, at 2 AM, an intruder broke into Dennis' house. Dennis fought off the intruder, defeating them by hitting them repeatedly with the egg. After this encounter, Dennis left his home city to travel the world, keeping the egg on him at all times. He studied a variety of combat techniques, using this knowledge to defeat presumed members of The Order.

As Dennis grew older, the egg continued not to hatch. Realising that he wasn't immortal, and therefore couldn't protect the egg forever, Dennis brought it to the museum, believing it would be safe there. So far, no attempts have been made to steal the egg.

### Alternate Version

There is also an alternate version of this exhibit, which was cut from the exhibit for being 'really really depressing'. It says that Dennis was a middle-aged man with a very unsatisfying life, who had a mid-life crisis in the form of a psychotic break, causing him to travel the world killing random people.

## The Fountain

### Summary

The Guide and the visitor come to a fountain. It's described as being just a regular fountain, albeit one architects would 'take issue with' for being a large water feature in an enclosed building filled with potentially unstable artefacts. The Guide offers the visitor somewhere to sit down, apologising for how long they've been walking. It tries to encourage the visitor to talk about the tour so far, but they don't say anything.

Without any response, The Guide rambles slightly, saying it can feel itself fading away, and that it's scared. It then sees what looks like a horse in the fountain, and suggests the visitor could try riding it, before realising that the 'horse' is actually a Kelpie, which lures people into the water to drown them.

## The Changeling

### Summary

This exhibit consists of a piece of yellowed parchment, with writing on it in an ancient language. This breaks the museum's ban on the written word, but special dispensation was given due to the central part of the exhibit being text. The writing tells the story of a Changeling Child.

The Changeling was born into a small subsistence-farming village and was different to the other children there. They had very few friends and preferred to stay home, rather than work or play outside. When it came to farming jobs, they were unmotivated, and yet they appeared fascinated when their mother wrote letters and did the family finances. Despite never having been taught, the changeling was able to read along with their mother. Though the family loved the changeling, finding the stories they would tell amazing, they were worried. The Changeling's parents asked the village Elder for advice on what to do and were told that the Changeling wasn't their child, but an imposter that a fairy, troll or devil had replaced their real child with at birth.

The Elder told the parents that if they took the Changeling out to the forest, and left them there, their real child would return. This was untrue because the Changeling was their real child, but the parents still did as the Elder had said. The Changeling explored the clearing all day until night came, and it started to grow cold. Small people appeared and led the Changeling through a split tree trunk to their home underground. The people told the Changeling that, whenever a child was abandoned in the forest because it was different, and its parents thought it wasn't their real child, the fairies, trolls or devils would take them in. So the Changeling lived happily for a long time and wrote many stories throughout their life.