>>5493538“Lizardmen are basically animals,” the skeptic asserts. “Just like kobolds.”
“Well, maybe they figure that if lizards can look like men,” the gossip at the bar says, “then… Maybe kobolds can, too? Or maybe the lizardman was really some weird kobold?”
“So, what,” the skeptic snaps, “you think the kobolds didn’t go away but just… Blended in, like?”
“Just speculating,” protests the gossip, returning to his drink with chastened body language. “That’s all. Just making conversation.”
The game continues for a time. The third man at the table, the quiet one, makes sure to lose. He pays his few coins of reparation for the defeat, then stands up.
“What’s wrong?” the skeptic mock. “Scared of the kobold-talk?”
“Maybe he’s just tired of losing,” Jasper cackles.
“Jussst tired,” the third man says calmly. “And out of money to bet.”
The quiet man leaves the table, and the store, and the village. He heads not towards the in, or onwards the trade-roads which lead to other human habitations, but into the forests and up into the mountains. It is dark, but darkness does not trouble him—he was bred, born, and raised in a deeper darkness than this, deep beneath the earth, deeper than any dwarf or kobold dwells. He is called The Thief these days, but tonight he is once more a Reptilian Infiltrator, and he has news to bring back to his people.
