"This place is the worst!” Wortelda spat. "There's fuck all here. What are they thinkin' of? Payin' us with food. Where's the gold?”

       The people of Janyoo-uhree were poor. Apparently, this was due to a huge over-indulgence that happened generations ago. Namely, a massive gambling debt. The townsfolk had lost pretty much everything in game of cards against a particularly tricksy goblin (whatever you do, never trust a goblin), and they'd just never financially recovered. Or, rather, they avoided all kinds of treasure, so they wouldn't be tempted to do the same again. To Glintsprock, this seemed strange. Why did these gnomes continue to pay for the mistakes of their ancestors? Many of them were not even born at the time the fateful card game took place. What was the point? Why didn't the younger ones just move? After hearing the story, all Glintsprock wanted to do was play cards.

       What with the lack of treasure and dull, dreary weather, Janyoo-uhree felt like a hopeless place. Which made sense, as Janyoo-uhree was actually gnomish for 'Dread'. Whoever thought that was a good name for a town was seriously twisted. Glintsprock liked them already.

       By this point, Glintsprock was used to the complaints from his bandmates. The gigs through Janyoo-uhree had been a bit of a bust... just not as much of a bust as the rest of the Shit-Stained Lizardz believed. While the people of Janyoo-uhree were poor and had been very generous with their food and shelter, they had given a few shiny (and not-so-shiny) coins to the band.

       It's just that the band had neither seen them, nor had any knowledge of them.

       And Glintsprock planned to keep it that way.

       It wasn't unusual for goblins to screw each other over, but Glintsprock's circumstances were rather unique. Mainly because he was being blackmailed by a dead wotdafuq. A dead wotdafuq who used to be his friend and business partner.

       You may be wondering what a wotdafuq is. All you really need to know is that wotdafuqs are a strange people who are short in height, with horns, tusks, cute smiles and bad tempers. They are also experts in Brain Chatter, which is pretty much communication through telepathy, but neither Basalt or Glintsprock knew that word, so they didn't say it. The wotdafuqs gained this ability through a combination of theft, a strange ritual, and an accident involving cheese. No-one liked to talk about it, but they liked the magic.

       So, Basalt was rather normal for a wotdafuq, with the exception of one thing: Pretty much every other wotdafuq that Glintsprock had ever met had been alive, so Basalt was rather unique in that respect.

       Given that Basalt's lack of life was Glintsprock's fault, he didn't like to dwell too much on the details.

       Every time Basalt ate, she looked a little healthier. With a constant supply of food there was a good chance that she would be completely alive... or, at least, look like she was.

       The Shit-Stained Lizardz tour had provided Glintsprock with plenty of opportunities to grab his charge a meal or two per day. That was until they got to Janyoo-uhree.

       Then it all fell apart.

       Basalt didn't eat food. She didn't eat people.

       She ate gold and jewels.

       The people of Janyoo-uhree were poor as fuck, so the gold and jewels were in short supply. Aside from the small handful of coins Glintsprock had pulled together, Basalt hadn't eaten in almost a week.

       And she was not looking well.

       At all.

       In fact, she looked like a nightmare. The flesh that had started to regenerate and fill out was now beginning to rot and fester. The eye that had grown back after her very first meal was getting dry, and was a few days away from resembling a bizarre raisin. (Glintsprock had to keep reminding himself not to snack on it; that would be disastrous.)

       Despite all this, so far Glintsprock had been lucky. Basalt had been kept hidden from view in his carriage (the fact that each band member now had their own carriage was a sure sign of the Lizardz's success, current issues aside), so no-one suspected that the reason they were skint was because of him.

       So far.

       "You sure there's nuthin' else?” Wortelda said. "Not even a tip?”

       "Yeah, there was a tip,” Glintsprock replied, trying to keep a straight face.

       "What is it?”

       "Don't eat yellow snow.” Glintsprock found that the best way to divert suspicion from himself was to act as normal as possible. This meant cracking the odd joke and generally being a bit of an annoyance. It was something he was rather good at. Well, apart from that time that none of the Lizardz got his joke and Glintsprock got pissed off and bit one of his bandmates on the end of his nose. The others had laughed then, but Tolgur got pretty angry.

       This time, the rest of the band laughed. Whether the laugh was out of politeness or because they thought he was funny, Glintsprock didn't know. Nor did he particularly care. A laugh was a laugh.

       And all the time they were distracted like this, they weren't asking him about the strange smell coming from his carriage. Glintsprock could be smart when he wanted to be. He'd come up with this idea while chewing on a toenail before bed one night (he did his best thinking when chewing on a toenail. Fingernails were okay, but he could always rely on a toenail to get the job done).

       The band packed up their gear and returned to their carriages. For Glintsprock, the band's frog player, this meant picking up Ribbit (his instrument, pet, and companion), giving her a little pat on the head, and getting her settled in his pocket. For some reason, the little creature was quite content to sit in there for hours, and wasn't bothered by the dead wotdafuq in the slightest.

       Which was odd... but handy.