vs Shopkeeper

“Where wildlife takes flight, disaster soon follows. We should retreat and think about our options - the townspeople must have fled for a reason,” I say.

“No,” says Zorro slowly. “I know what’s going on.”

She marches to a fruit-seller’s stall, abandoned apples stacked in a perfect pyramid on the booth’s wooden top. She chomps into a bright-red orb and juice dribbles down her chin.

Tossing it away, she harvests the next one and tears into it til it's stripped like a corncob.

“Hey!” A gravelly, raspy voice emerges - it seems as though the plywood wall behind the stand has begun to speak. “Stop that!” says the Voice, with quiet indignation.

I look closely. It’s not the wall that’s talking - rather, it’s a lumpy outgrowth that’s the precise same color and texture as that façade.

As Zorro bears down on the third apple, the lump changes. Its colors ripple and fade to a scaly gray, and a figure becomes sharply defined.

It’s a creature with the head of a lizard, and the body of a man. His mouth’s agape, and he flicks a two-pronged tongue as he speaks - it waves and wags as if that tongue has a life of its own. “Are you going to pay for that?”

“Maybe if you throw in something a little extra,” Zorro says. “Information. Why’re all the kameleons here in camouflage?”

There’s another lump by a barrel, two lumps outside the GENERAL STORE, a lump rippling across a dusty road and over there a door that seems to flip open on its own. I can just make out sets of dark-pupils in each suspicious spot.

“Our scouts spied bandits and Imperia troops just outside town” the lizard-man hisses. “It’s a defensive measure, you understand. Of course, for petty-apple thieves, perhaps we’ll take offensive ones.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll pay.” Zorro pauses and glances at me.

“I don’t have any money,” I say. Or rather, I don’t have any proper currency; I have ten hundred yen but since it’s worthless here I’ve been using them as tissues.

“H-huh?” Zorro says. “It’s okay, I have some cash.”

She rummages through her bag and extracts a single, lonely, coin. The royal portrait stares back at us in contempt.

“Three apples mean three emprientes” says the kameleon shopkeeper, flicking his tongue three times.

“Would you take a three-letter IOU?” Zorro says.

He sticks his gray fingers into his maw and whistles, long and low. Another lizard man appears, this one shorter and with more lustrous scales. Stitched onto a dusty uniform is a pale yolk-colored badge. Above the crest in a broad arc are letters - “BERTRAND.”

“Arressst them at once,” the shopkeeper accuses. But the badged lizard’s eyes widen instead.

“Guillaime, do you not know who that is..?” says Bertrand. “She is the ‘infamous' fugitive Zorro..!”

I prepare for a fight. There’s a bounty on her head; the reward for turning her in would be worth far more than a pile of apples.

Zorro too, reacts in a flash. She raises both hands - and grasps Bertrand’s claws.

“Bertie! Good old Bertie! Still in the town guard, I see. I hope I haven’t put you through much trouble.”

“You are always most welcome at Kameleon. Who is this? Your boyfriend?”

“When I was on the train, he saved me from bandits. When I was in the desert, he saved me from the elements. He’s a member of my party; treat him well.” says Zorro.

“What she says is exactly right,” I say. “except she’s part of my party, not the other way around.”

Though I imagine these lizard-men, the kameleons, are cold-blooded, Bertrand’s eyes and his smile are warm. He greets me with vigor.

The merchant, whose name seems to be Guillaime smiles, sourly and looks at the obliterated apples.

“I will pay for these apples if you insist on it, Guillaime.” says Bertrand. These apples that you’ve raised the price of quite suddenly, I might add. I thought these were a dozen apples for one emp?”

“You may have these fruits… with my compliments.” Guillaime says.

She reaches out for more, and I grab her wrist and shake my head. Though his words are as sweet as the apples he sells, his tone is reluctant and bitter.

“Where might we find work in this town?” I ask. “I know there’s positions for mining and bartending. We need funds.”

Bertrand laughs. “I’ll provide; please, do not fret.” He presses coins into my palm. “In exchange, I ask that your companion and yourself help out around town while you're here.”

Bertrand whistles, a loud, joyous, bird-like call. At the signal, town comes to life; kameleons fade into view, one leaning on a saloon-post, another one with glimmering pink scales reading a newspaper in a rocking chair, and a crowd of five surrounds a poultry-seller.

He had given us fourteen emprientes - by no means enough to fund our journey, but certainly enough for food, a place to stay, and some equipment besides.

“No ordinary brigand would dare waltz in while a level-100 hero’s present, so we are happy to have you,” Bertrand continues. “The Imperia may invade, but in truth their troops are well-disciplined; so from them there’s little to fear.

I would love to take you both around town, but alas, even without the risk of bandits there are still the derelicts and drunks.”

Bertrand points us to the nearest inn - the Mertortue, 2 emprientes a night just down the main road.

“I’ll come visit in the morning,” says Bertrand, waving us off. “Enjoy Kameleon Town til then.”

***

“The emprientes were very generous of him,” I say. “and unexpected.”

We begin our walk. While the road is of course dusty it’s also firm and well-maintained; and though the surrounding buildings have stoops with skewed overhangs, a number of kameleons who show great trust in their stability dawdle underneath them. Four huddle by a poker table outdoors at the end of the street.

“I don’t know if generous is the right word,” says Zorro. “Outsiders think that the kameleons are obsessed with money, but that’s wrong. I know the culture cause I grew up here.”

“Oh?” I scrutinize her. Long, flowing, blonde hair - smooth skin that in some places like the cheeks and arms that are just a little coarse from burns and scars - thighs tucked into tall steel boots. Kameleons might be good at disguises, but I doubt she is one.

When I look up again, she’s leaned over, face close.

“I was left here as a kid, and the town raised me til I was six. I’m not a lizard in a skinsuit!”

She looks me up and down as if she thinks I might be one, then flushes.

“Ah-ah-ah-hrm." Zorro clears her throat. “Anyway, kameleons don’t care about money but they do care about debts. They’ll do anything to repay a favor from someone else. On the other hand, if they put you in their debt, they expect you to pay them back with interest.”

There’s a commotion at the poker game we saw before. Two of them have set down their cards; we’re too far away to see what they are, but the big pile of coins show that all the hissing isn’t just for fun.

“So, it’s nice that the policeman - policelizard?” I ask.

“Policmeleon,” says Zorro. “but they don’t really care what you call them.”

“It’s nice that the policemeleon gave us 14 emprientes as a gift.” I blink. “But what if these 14 emprientes aren’t a gift, but a loan?”

By the time we reach the inn, the card game outside is no longer a card game. It’s an all out brawl.

Redscales is howling. His left claw’s been snapped clean off, while Yellowscales examines the torn-away talon with a prospective look.

The table itself is toppled; the cards and the cash long forgotten in a wash of kameleon-on-kameleon violence. Redscales headbutts Yellow with his own thick skull and they both clutch their heads.

“I think 14 emprientes is a fair payment as long I protect the city. Which I am, aren’t I?” Zorro looks at the scene in distaste.

“But he didn’t ask you to protect the city. He asked us to ‘help out,'” I say.

“Break it up! Break it up!” Zorro cries. But before she can intervene, a heavy rock seems to fall from the sky onto yellow one's head - a hidden blue kameleon then morphs into sight as the jaundiced lizard collapses. The remaining players happily split the spoils of their poker game, chortling all the while.

“You might be right.” says Zorro. “If they want to collect, while kameleons aren’t good fighters, they do make great assassins.”

“Then let’s do a quest or two,” I say. “Then Bertrand can hardly fault us. And it’d be good to have more funds for the journey.”

“But would Bertie really hurt us…?” says Zorro, but my already mind’s set.

I have another, third, motive for doing quests - but it’s one I'll keep secret from Zorro. 

Shopping later today, a quest tomorrow - and unless we encounter those bandits again, we’ll be on our merry way.