outlands said:
During a break, he sidles up to a patron who had previously cast the unfriendly glances toward the lizardman, picking a patron who looks to be honest and forthright without being belligerent.
"Hullo, friend! I saw ye took notice of Mum's new friend. She's a bad way for takin in strays. Dunno 'bout here, but at home if ye took in a stray dog, he's like tae bite ya as tae fetch for ya, if ye know me. I reckon ye know a bit of that scaly feller." He catches Pelo's eye. "Here, lad - fetch me and this gent a drink, eh? That blathering mess is right hard work and dries ya out. So, now, Mum tisn't letting a wolf intae the fold, is she?"
*Pelo returns with two brimming mugs of mead. Your table companion has the look of a hunter around him; he wears a bracelet of various kinds of teeth and there's an unstrung bow leaning up against the wall behind his chair. After getting the mead, the man takes a large swallow, then strokes his beard and mustache thoughtfully.*
"'Tis not a wolf. At least, he's never been mean to anyone. Old Hisk couldn't hurt a fly. But he's mortal strange, even for lizardfolk, and he ain't right in the head. It's just what he's been doing that worries some of us.
"Ya see, Hisk came into town over four years ago. He was old, but he wasn't thin like he is now. He seemed to have, I'm not exactly sure, but some kind of
purpose to what he was doing here, even if no one knew what it was,
he did. A few months after he arrived though, he just started getting downright strange. The town watch would hear him screaming in some dead-end alley or flophouse, and would find him with his clothes ripped up, sometimes bleeding, always beaten up. They looked for the culprit, but when it started happening damn near weekly, they thought that he was just beating himself up for whatever reason. Touched in the head, we all thought.
"Then about a couple months after that started, he started pestering passerby, particularly those that looked kindly, if you catch my drift. He goes and asks them something in private. Then some of them hare off into the swamp. Not all of them come back. Oh they all gave reasons for going into the swamp, but they never metioned Hisk directly.
"I don't know if that crazy old lizardman is giving folks the idea that there's treasure out there, or if he's asking them to take up some damnfool crusade, but if he hasn't gotten folks killed already, he's going to." He pauses to take another swig of mead, then looks at you expectantly.