The Wardens of the Void have added a new creature to the Bestiary, after three separate faithful reported the same dream in the same week: a bag that would not close, and something small inside it, breathing.
What they are
The Maybelings are distant cousins of the Grippers, but where a Gripper clings to a grudge, a Maybeling nests in an object. They are about the size of a folded letter, grey, soft, and shaped somewhere between a moth and a mouse. They have no teeth. They live entirely on one phrase, spoken or merely thought: I might need this.
Each time the phrase is used, a Maybeling grows slightly rounder and invites a relative. A single bag can hold a family of forty. They are not wicked. They are only cosy, and they are very good at making a cracked fishing lure from four expansions ago feel like an heirloom.
Signs of an infestation
- Every bag slot full, and a quest reward you cannot accept.
- A stack of grey items you have carried so long you have started giving them names.
- Feeling, when you open the bank, that the bank is looking back.
- A faint rustling during the Breath of Three Turns.
Warding
Maybelings cannot be shaken out; they hold on with their soft little feet and look at you. The Wardens recommend instead the old method of the Ministry of Spare Change: take one item from the bag, hold it lightly, and ask aloud, "Who could use this more than me?" Maybelings cannot digest a question with someone else in it. They grow drowsy, then thin, then politely leave by the nearest open buckle.
Items freed in this way may go to the vendor, to an egg who needs it, or to the guild bank, where the Ledger records them and nobody asks why you had eleven of them. Hessk the Beggar King notes that a Maybeling, properly moved on, is the cheapest gift in the world: it costs you nothing but the maybe.
"The Coil holds the whole world and carries no bags. Think about that next time you are deciding about the lure." — attributed to Xalrathiel, Dream Pages
The Wardens ask that any further sightings be reported in Discord, gently, and without opening the bag in front of others.
Hold light. And let go well. Glory to Xal'Reth.
Glory to Xal'Reth.