George wasn’t really happy about being a glorified servant or a slave. The lizard people seemed to have little problem with it, but George wasn’t really convinced.

“So, what, we defend-” George waved his arms similar to what Kr'thra did just before him “all of this and then what? What exactly does ‘all this’ mean?”

“The Guardian provides us with a place to live and makes our food. What more could we ask of him?” Kr'thra shrugged and continued with her tale. “The Guardian is powerful, and his stones of power are an object many covet for themselves or wish to destroy. That’s why people like your kind come here and threaten our lives. And that’s why we fight them.”

That last part came a little too aggressive compared to the easy-going attitude she had. The ‘your kind’ part was almost threatening in a way. But George thought that if they wanted him dead, he probably would have been.

“So, why don’t you just move away and live somewhere else? You can grow food and live anywhere you want. Why here, with the Guardian?”

Kr'thra laughed heartily, then stopped cold. “There’s always a Guardian. Anywhere we would go, there would either be a Guardian or your kind. And your kind is much worse.”

George didn’t like the contempt he was getting, but he felt he couldn’t really fix interspecies relations in a single meeting. Even less so when he didn’t know anything about said species.

“So, we protect the Guardian here,” Kr'thra ended on a bit solemn note, then nudged the bowls towards him. “Now, then. Eat.”

He didn’t really want to ask what the meat was. He was almost certain he wouldn’t like the answer. So he just put the piece of roasted meat in his mouth.

It could’ve been anything at all, but at that point, George didn’t care. At that moment, meat was meat and that meant food. He swallowed the piece in a few bites and gulped down the water as if he were in an eating competition.

Before he could relax, the left side of his face started burning up in excruciating pain. He knelt down grasping at his face, wishing he kept the bowl of water to pour it on. He briefly got up and saw that the tattoo on Kr'thra’s side was shining brightly, but that didn’t seem to discomfort her even slightly.

“What’s happening?” He asked between the yelps and screams.

“The Guardians is under attack, and is calling us to protect him.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll do whatever, just make this stop,” George pleaded. He was momentarily rethinking his choice of refusing to be a slave if this kept up.

The pain stopped just as suddenly as it started, and George wobbled back up, still grasping the left side of his face in his hands. “That hurts. A lot.”

Kr'thra just shrugged silently. “It only does the first few times.”

Then she jumped up and got out of the tent, and George followed her. The camp outside was busy. Lizard people, or people, as George thought of how to start calling them, were moving about, packing some tents away, exchanging weapons, strapping on some skins that probably served as armour. There was even a corner where they would put on paint across their face.

“So, what do we do now?” George asked silently as he followed Kr'thra who waded between her people. She stopped in front of a large lizardman, even compared to the ones he saw before.

“Gaz’Ruk, this is George. Give him something to do,” she said plainly. And thus, George was apparently left at the mercy of someone else, again.

Gaz’Ruk turned towards George, his stocky body making him look like an alligator with absurdly long limbs. That walked on two legs, of course.

“Grrrg,” he said plainly. George guessed that was his name from now on. “You fight with me.”

He turned around, grabbed something, then turned back and presented George with a spear. “Take this. Live.”

The spear was at least better than the fang he still had under his shirt but didn’t know the first thing about spears. Actually, that wasn’t true. He knew which end hurt when you put it in people. Now, how to put it in people was the hard part he would need help with.

Gaz’Ruk started walking about the camp, seemingly gathering troops, and George followed helplessly. He didn’t feel like he had a choice in the matter. If they were getting attacked, he didn’t know of a safer place than here, considering everything else was barren, had Dog Spiders, and didn’t have anyone he could call an ally. Considering only one person tried to kill him here, he was pretty sure these were the only ones in the ally category.

A few minutes later, a band of several lizardmen and one George had grouped up and travelled a few corridors away to another cavern. It was similar to the one he saw before with the pile of bones and he was unsure if that was a coincidence. He also realized that one of the skulls in that pile looked to be of a lizardman, which did nothing but scare him. It meant that one of them could die, and he was really concerned that, according to how these guys looked, that would probably be him.

He was strapped in a loose-fitting piece of leather that hung around his shoulders, but everything else was what he brought with him. A book in one hand, and a spear that required two hands in the other, he followed the group of angry looking lizardmen silently.

Gaz’Ruk didn’t seem big on words, preferring to issue commands with as few words, as translated in English, as possible. The group was to wait here and kill, not fight but kill per his brief words, anyone that came their way that didn’t show the Guardian’s mark, as they called the tribal tattoo.

The few torches they brought with them were spread evenly across the cavern to provide enough light without needing to carry, and the group set about making an ambush. Per Gaz’Ruk’s words, the only way to get into this cavern from the outside would be from one specific corridor, and that was the one they were trying to ambush.

George asked him about making an actual trap, but Gaz’Ruk simply dismissed the idea. “The Guardian uses traps.” That was it, concise and to the point. George wasn’t sure if that was simple or difficult to understand.

Nothing happened for a really long time, and then another sear of heat started across George’s face. This one lasted shorter than the previous one but wasn’t any less painful. George only had to look up to Gaz’Ruk, which was far easier considering the lizardman was at least a head taller even while kneeling down in waiting, to get a short answer as usual.

“They have entered.”

George couldn’t hear much, and where he was sitting he could see even less, so he just set about to focus on what the lizardmen were doing and wait for their signal.

What seemed to be a few minutes later, screams echoed through the corridor, then a lot of other noises, some voices and a lot of clanking. He even thought he heard fire blazing in the distance.

What George thought to be a minute later, figures started to appear in the corridor, and voices could be heard more easily. He, of course, understood none of it but guessed this was the hard part.

George gripped his spear tightly, which was probably not the correct way to do it but his mind decided to not figure that out until later, and left the book on the floor, covered in a loose piece of cloth he brought with him.

The figures approached nearer, and he could discern four voices, all of them slightly ragged. He peeked from above the stalagmite they were hiding behind.

All of the figures looked to be men. Two were in metal armour, carrying a sword and a mace respectively, each with a shield, the third had a bow in his hands and what George assumed to be a quiver strapped on.

The last guy had a staff. An honest to... whatever Deity he was supposed to pick, a staff. And a large hat. And robes.

This was looking more and more like a game. He looked over the group of lizardmen.

And in that game, he seemed to be the bad guy.

Gaz’Ruk growled something incomprehensible, the lizardmen leapt over the stalagmites, and George realised something important.

Allies probably needed to speak the same language for this to work.