“I keep dreaming of spiders, shape-changer, tell me what that means.” The Lizarian was holding a tiny clay cup in his claws and he watched Taiaka do the same.

“I have no luck with dreams,” Taiaka spoke as he placed his hand over the cup, shook it, and spilled a set of quartz dice onto the stained table cloth. He looked up and smiled, “How do you feel about your mother?”

The Lizarian snorted as he rattled the dice in his own cup, “I hatched from an egg. I never met the broad.” He tipped his cup upside-down on the table and held it there.

“Abandonment issues then,” Taiaka leaned forward and rested his hands on the table, “Watcha got?”

“Tell me what spiders mean and I’ll show you.” Needlelike teeth blossomed into a unique smile and he thumped his striped tail against the sandy floorboards.

“If you beat my run, I’ll tell you what spiders mean. But what do I get if I win?” The shape shifter’s Qua’ek was not as good as it used to be, but he was well versed in enough colloquialisms to sound authentic. The calm slits in his placid blue eyes would convince his friend the wager was all in fun if nothing else.

“I’m a scavenger; you know all I have is the clothes on my back.” The expression was unfitting at best since the creature wore little more than a sash on his lithe mottled frame. Scales grated against one another as he offered no more than a shrug.

Taiaka had no sympathy, “Exactly! You’re a scavenger. The endless jungle doesn’t deter you; you march in there with your tail in the air and claw the trees to see what falls out.”

The lizarian forgot himself and preened at the compliment, laughing dryly. Taiaka noted the approval by nodding and continued, “A successful scavenger too if I remember correctly.”

“One of the best, certainly the best in my clan…”

“Certainly,” Taiaka gently mocked and motioned for the Lizarian to remember he was holding blind dice, and there was still a prize to be won.

“Is it important to know what it means to dream of spiders?”

The shape shifter’s shrug was noncommittal. The Lizarian thought for a moment.

“Knowledge for knowledge then, Shape-changer.” He had arrived at his beneficial concession and lifted his cup to show his dice. Taiaka had scored higher and the Lizarian unintentionally grunted in defeat. “You cheat, those are loaded dice.” The statement was not an accusation but a method of making sense of the loss. Taiaka scooped his dice back into his cup and grinned innocently.

“Knowledge for knowledge, reptile, tell me….Whatever it was that you were going to tell me.”

The Lizarian nodded and couldn’t help but smile. He signaled one of the serving girls and demanded a pitcher of warm mavi for their table, averting his golden eyes for just a moment. He said with a sigh, “There’s an underwater cave, hidden in a river, where no one would expect it to be.”

The corner of Taiaka’s mouth rose into a crude smirk and he studied his companion’s creditability while a young toe-headed girl filled his mug with the blonde ale. She dried her hands on her greasy plaid apron and pretended to smile at the gentlemen before drifting away to another table. Taiaka leaned forward in his creaky chair and ran the back of his thumb across his sweating upper lip.

“And you’ve been there?”

The Lizarian nodded.

Taiaka sucked his teeth rudely, “Why would I care?”

“Because of what I found down there.” The Lizarian spoke matter-of-factly and washed down the vague statement with a dainty sip of his mavi.

Taiaka chuckled haughtily and shook his head, amused. “It’s like trying to get blood from a stone. So I’ll concede to my curiosity and bite. Tell you what though. You start loosening that forked tongue of yours and I’ll throw in the definitions of dreaming of spiders gratis.”

“As I assumed, Taiaka. You are growing predictable in your old age.”

“I’m younger than you,” The shape-shifter mumbled as he rolled a roughly hewn die around the center of his hand.

The Lizarian drained his mug, set it back on the table, and hunched his shoulders. He reached down between his feet and rummaged within the contents of his threadbare pack, “I found the cave by accident. I was molting, my scales were so damn itchy I spent the whole week rubbing my belly on river rocks.” The Lizarian paused, switched arms, and continued feeling around in his pack. “I was bathing, picking and scrubbing, my foot slipped and something beneath me shifted. I wouldn’t have thought anything about it if it wasn’t for the fact that an ice cold current swirled around my ankles. I knew right away that there was something strange.” The Lizarian stopped shuffling and placed something wrapped in dingy cloth on the table between them.

“Long story short, I ended up swimming below the surface of the pool and, to my disbelief, found a long tunnel entrance that emptied out into the mouth of a great cave. It was a long dark swim though and by the time I reached the surface, I thought I was going to drown.”

“Comforting.” Taiaka interjected.

“I loitered around a little while, sniffing the sand, saw some odd footprints, and eventually swam back the way I came without going deeper into the cave. I didn’t come back empty handed though.”

The Lizarian unwrapped the item on the table and Taiaka watched him skeptically. When the rags fell away, all that stood was an empty glass bottle the color of a stormy sunset. The shape-shifter furrowed his brow and was about to open his mouth when the Lizarian held up a hand and began making a god-awful retching sound. A sack on the side of his neck swelled like an infected goiter; the more he heaved, the larger it got until finally, his mouth opened and his eyes rolled back to their whites. He reached for the empty bottle just in time; a forceful stream of vile liquid poured from the Lizarian’s clandestine gland and shot into the bottle with one final gag. Taiaka set his drink down.

The reptile manually squeezed out the last few drops and they trickled down his forked tongue as he massaged his neck.

Taiaka cleared his throat and swallowed.

The Lizarian saw the levity ridden disgust on his friend’s face and, though unprompted, felt the need to defend his actions. “It’s the safest hiding place I could think of.”

The shape-shifter alternated his gaze from the bottle, to the Lizarian, and back to the bottle. “What is it?”

“I have no idea. But there was a fountain of it down there in the cave. Looked man-made.”

Taiaka reached out to touch the bottle but the Lizarian stayed his hand. Before he had a chance to even smell the vapors, the reptile had already jammed a stopper on the top.

“That wasn’t the bet,” His clawed fingers clanked protectively around the bottle, “50 gold and it’s yours.”

“I’m not paying 50 gold for something you hacked up.”

“Finder’s fee.”

“I’ll give you 10 gold.”

“30.”

“20, final offer.”

“Deal,” the Lizarian said and pushed the bottle towards Taiaka. He quickly rewrapped it, anxious to remove it from sight, and paid his friend begrudgingly. He watched the pulse in the shape-shifter’s neck and added, “If you’re going to go to the cave, remember to follow the river all the way down towards Kalghory Falls. You can’t miss it. And be careful, I have no idea if others know about it.”

Taiaka smiled genuinely, “Thank you Narog, don’t worry your secret is safe.”

Narog shook his head, “No it isn’t, but I appreciate the sentiment. And, before you go-“

“Yes, yes, spiders.” Taiaka had not forgotten. He stood and tucked the bottle safely away on his person. “Dreaming of spiders means that someone close to you is planning to betray you.” The shape-shifter gave a tightlipped smile to Narog, snatched his loaded dice from the table, and padded out.

The bar top smelled of white lilies and honey mead, the copper twist of blood and stale lager. Auereliano, head cradled in his folded arms, inhaled deeply with a sleeper’s breath and let the scents paint a phosphorescent mosaic of the patrons around him. This place was a poison pageant, hard eyed scavengers sharing drinks and muffled conversation. None of it interested him. The auger of sound kept him entertained, foreign languages broken into their basic syntax by Auereliano’s ears and used as a backdrop to his stupor. It was a bit like home, the sliver of reality he pushed himself through to reach these opulent jungles. The drone of silvery decibels brought him closest to rest, letting the pulp of collective evil encase him in its womb. He did not dream but he would draw out fantasies in his mind, threading them into his subconscious, perilous as it may be. It had been this way, at the corner of the bar, for the last fifteen hours. The tender left him mostly unmolested, every few hours or so, wavering by his slumped form willing himself to usher him out. Auere would lift his head; pitch colored hair webbed in front of his eyes, offering a smile and a rusted coin. The bartender would shake his russet colored head, giving an embarrassed twitch of the shoulder as he gathered the temporary rent. He would use his rag to slide the coin into the till under the bar. Auereliano knew why he wouldn’t touch it with his bare skin; it smelled of tears and loss and looked like a poor man’s hidden swag. Yet it would be enough to earn him a mug of stag marrow ale and a proper perimeter of privacy.

It was the speckled patter of hollowed dice that perked his interest enough to gather his comatose attention and straighten at the bar. The portly bartender, leaning against his shelf of dust covered bottles, snapped to with the sudden activity of his despot guest but a hard stare from Auere’s corner kept him planted. He took in the bar as he turned in his seat, hiding his smile with a faux yawn. One of the lizard kind was being hustled by what looked like a lanky native born, his features too unique to be common. It was a partisan game, when one man cheats he wins before he even begins, something that brings equal amounts of joy and misery. Auereliano enjoyed his spectator’s vantage, gathering up his half full mug of clotted blood, the fermentation curling the small hairs of his nose as he took a ginger sip. He never did have a head for spirits.

They were babbling in the reptile patois, it made his tongue curve into a sickle in his mouth as he unconsciously tried to sound out some semblance of understanding. He gave up quickly, running the edge of his mug against his moistened bottom lip and giving a carnivorous look to the barmaid that left their table. Her practiced smile wavered under the weight of his stare; Auereliano looked away just as the fringes of fear threatened to overwhelm her discomfort. She resolved the disquiet by doing her job, making her way to his side to recover his half empty glass. Auereliano remained still until her petite fingers reached for the tankard, using speed to guarantee her silence, using gentle pressure to be sure their conversation would remain intimate. His thumb rubbed lasciviously between her knuckles and he watched the rosy color to her skin dull to gray. Auereliano smirked beneath the shadows cinching tight round his face; she had given him a woman’s invitation when he had first come into the bar. She judged his frame and the hints of his features as proper, at least in this din of a pub, and warmed her demeanor to fit. For some reason, perhaps the near quake that radiated up her thin arm from his touch, Auereliano believed she wouldn’t be as sweet by him.

“Steady darling,” he crooned. She moaned gutturally under her breath, catching it with her free hand, slapped painfully across her mouth. “I’m just curious, is all.”

The wench’s back curved against the tension of Auereliano’s grip, pulled close to him so that her lips floated just inches away from his profile. He did not look at her, she managed to speak. “Wha…curious?”

Auereliano’s thumb moved down against her wrist as he shifted his grip, pressing ovals against her hummingbird pulse. “The Lizarian is a regular?”

She nodded her head with childlike exuberance; Auere watched the wide eyed hope of a child enter her face from his peripheral. “Yes, yes he is.” There was a lift to her voice, pitchy and quilted with satisfaction, a question she could answer and perhaps he would let her go.

“And the other?” Auereliano met her eyes with his now, the dark swell of his lips pressed into a tight line. Frozen, he could see the very core of her twist away violently even as she seemed to melt closer. There was fear, he smelled it now as well, hot and sweet from the moist patches of sweat growing under her lip and at her brow. Hate would form from that, but he would be long gone and too far to enjoy it; but what fascinated him was the eminence of lust that hid in her frightened gaze. He was the damnation of the abyss but her reality was not far removed; the allure of the razor to the desperate.

“I don’t know, sire,” she bubbled, “just a passer through like you.”

“Like me,” he scintillated his words through clenched teeth, “oh lover, you break my black heart.” The smile he gave her wrenched nightmares from the daylight and although thoroughly amused, Auereliano left her with that. He released his grip, leaving her a mottled doppelganger of the coin he’d paid his drink with pressed into her palm. She remained in stupor for a numbing moment before hurrying away, the coin held away from her in her outstretched hand. Auereliano recovered his cup and tilted a toast to the barman that had watched the entire exchange with slack jawed terror. His attention jerked away with Auereliano’s recognition, busying himself with tasks to hide his curiosity. Auere took a gritty sip from his cup and watched as the mystery dice monger gathered his things and made his way from the bar, leaving the lizard to count his earnings.

The loaded dice sung to him, it promised a kindred spirit in these unprofitable jungles. A man willing to eliminate risk from chance would not frown on a proper bet. A man convinced of winning will risk more than he dare lose. Auereliano stood from the bar walking over to the Lizarian’s table, wrapping his knuckles hard against the poorly stained wood. “Game of chance?”

“What?”

“Your dice, fellow,” Auereliano chirped, “and a faithful roll by your scaled hand to win a bounty.”

The Lizarian forked tongue touched his lips as he cracked a toothy grin. “Another gamer, I gather the shape shifter has opened the floodgates. I don’t bet twice in one day, move along.”

Shifter. Auereliano never trusted a man whose face betrayed familiarity; this was getting all the more interesting by the moment. “Luck favors the brave, sir, not the superstitious. One roll, three dice and if you score higher than four, I will triple your money.”

“Triple,” the lizard rolled the word over his tongue. “And if you win?”

Auereliano motioned to the door with the crown of his head. “Directions.”

The lizard was a gambler, and with favorable terms set, he slammed the cup against the table hard and moved to show his hand. Auereliano stopped him with two fingers against lukewarm scales; the touch was ever so slight. The lizard’s eyes dulled to a custard yellow as he removed the cup. He had rolled a three; they stared up like dying stars from the die faces.

“That damned soothsayer jinxed me,” he bleated out in a hiss, digging trenches in the table with his blackened nails.

Auereliano sat beside the lizard man, the hint of a callous man’s danger in his voice. “No matter anyway, friend, we are all slaves to the dice.” He clapped the Lizarian hard enough against his back to make his bones creak. “Names have power, power to soothe the strain of your accursed luck. I am Auereliano Tyl Kavas…” He leaned forward, tilting his head to catch the lizard’s frenetic stare. “Now tell me the name of the other man who beat you today and where exactly he was headed. I’ll be sure to pass along your good wishes.”

"So, 20 gold. We all in?" The dealer exclaimed, studying all of the players around him. Reinaka simply nodded, and continued staring down at his cards. Smoke clouded the area; blocking the shapeshifters sight. "Smokers." He thought pitifully, continuing to look down at his cards. The dealer gripped onto a porcelain tankard, threw in a die and rolled it. "Eight." Reinaka sighed, threw in twenty gold coins and walked alway from the table, leaving the men be.

The club smelt of alchohol, which blended in with the roudy crowd that inhabitated it. Many tables were filled with gypsies and fortune-tellers, Reinaka never really believed in pety things like that. Passing by a crowd of roused men talking, Reinaka made his way to the bar. The shapeshifter took a seat on the far right and smirked. The bartender approached the man; using a worn cloth to shine up a glass tankard. Hunching over the bench the bartender spoke slowly, "'nd what do ye' want?"

"A standard Ale thanks." Reinaka sighed, looking around at the bar. At least there was nobody at the bar, there he could get some privacy. To a certain extent. Five minutes later the old bartender returned, baring a full tankard of Ale in one hand, a small leather pouch in the other. "4 Gold, if ye' will." Reinaka payed the man, before continuing to look around at his surroundings.

On a round table to the right were a group of Reptiles, chatting away in their native tongue. He could not understand them; so there was really no point in listening. The shapeshifter pressed the tankard towards his lips; slurping on the cold ale it contained. Placing the half-full tankard back down, he sighed. Many of the people here were new to him; hell, he had never even seen a group of Reptile-men before.

"Shapeshifter huh." A cold, chilling voice said from behind, Reinaka turning to face the new figure. Now behind him stood a large lizarian, its green scales gleaming in the little light. "and you care why?" The shapeshifter replied, rolling his eyes in annoyance. The lizarian simply stared, wide-eyed, at the last words. "Because, I know your type. 'nd I sure don't like 'em." The lizarian spoke, twirling a small gold pendant around in its fingers. "And I do not fancy yours." With that comment, the lizard slapped the tankard from the bench, sending it crashing on the hard floor.

The remaining ale poured over the floor, leaving a long trail which went from the bench to a table. "Uncalled for there." Reinaka said, raising to his feet.

"You asked for it, you ass." The lizarian hissed, moving back a few steps to be cautious.

"No need to swear chap, no need.." Reinaka sighed, moving his head back and forth in pity. "That was perfectly good Ale." Reinaka's voice became firm and loud, heard from the other end of the bar. Quickly the shapeshifter sent around a palm, slamming hard into the lizards cheek.

The lizarian yelled something in his native tongue, and they were gone. A young barmaid approached the Shapeshifter, for a moment he thought he was going to have to leave. However she ignored him entirely; and went on to cleaning up the spilt ale.

"Oh darl, I can help." Reinaka said helpfully, jumping down onto his knees and wiping the ale with his hand.

"Th.. thanks." The barmaid replied, jumping to her feet and running off. Reinaka sighed, nobody seemed to like his type. Getting slowly to his feet he progressed towards the bar again; ready to purchase another drink and pay for the small damage done to the bar.

"How often do the lizards come in eh?" He questioned the bartender, resting his hands on the bench and flailing his legs over either side of the stool.

"Often. Naga type place, y'know." The bartender whispered, sliding the shapeshifter an Ale. Reinaka nodded, pressing his lips on the rim of the tankard and sipping slowly. "Lots of gamblers too," The bartender added hastily, walking off to serve another man. "You should have a go 't the gambling eh." Reinaka heard the bartender say as he walked away, gesturing over to a table of Lizarians.

"Might as well.." He sighed, getting to his feet. A small distance away from him was a lizarian Gambling, Reinaka could have some fun here..