[Adelie]

Ven seemed... decidedly unconcerned about what the scientists had advertised as a threat to all of humanity and beyond. Maybe it was because she'd talked with the frightening lizard monster in question - the scientists had also mentioned they understood human speech and could be reasoned with - and only received a whole lot of minutiae about Aldrect history in response.

If that were the case, maybe she could just talk the lizard down by bombarding him about random historical trivia. She'd listened to enough rambles on the subject that she could hopefully make up something vaguely convincing. It just - well, she didn't really want to fight him.

It wasn't compassion or anything. The lizard was a bundle of pixels, just like everyone else in this world. Maybe there was some person behind the pixels - a player, perhaps, or a programmer admiring their work, or whatever - but it didn't really matter when nothing was permanent. She was just lazy.

She followed the coordinates Ven sent her, making some kind of vaguely convincing excuse to the staff member who tried to stop her - and walked backstage to where a rather annoyed girl and a very large lizard were standing.

[Adelie]

"Hi," she said, suddenly extremely aware of the fact that she had no idea how to mediate a situation like this. Was she supposed to introduce herself? Was she supposed to just announce her intentions of wanting a scale - or some slobber, or blood, or whatever would work here - and hope for a response? "I'm her friend," she said, pointing awkwardly at Ven. "She asked me to come over to help out."

What Ven had asked or what she meant by 'helping' she decided to leave up to the lizard person's imagination. In other words, she had no idea either.

The lizard, on the other hand, seemed blissfully unaware of her presence and continued on his narration. "In a minute, my pursuers - I believe you call them Seraph - are about to break cover, call me a demon and attempt to hunt me down. The other humans in the audience will rally to their cause."

"Fascinating," Ven said, in the tone of voice that suggested that this wasn't quite fascinating at all, but that she was too polite to say otherwise. "And what would you like me - well, us - to do?"

"Will you help me escape the city? Or join your other humans?" the lizard asked.

[Adelie]

What an overdramatic question. And a rather contrived one - if he hadn't wanted to get caught, he could've just not shown up, or god forbid, not decided to expose himself as a giant lizard person in front of an audience that seemed to span half the continent.

Since Ven was looking to her to provide an answer, she sighed and considered her options. "We can help you get out of the city," she said, carefully choosing her words. "But it won't be for free."

"Of course. Everything has its price," the lizard said. He seemed rather accepting of this. "So what will it be, little humans?"

"Well," she said, fishing the vial out of her inventory. "I want a sample. A scale, perhaps." She paused to examine the lizard in question. As his footprints had suggested, he was rather large, and unfortunately it looked like all his scales followed the same formula. "Although I'm not sure how we're supposed to get a scale off you... Blood, or horn shavings, or whatever would work, too."

[Adelie]

She eyed the lizard carefully. Blood seemed rather difficult, considering those scales looked like they'd take significant force to puncture, and she didn't exactly want to make any moves that could be misconstrued right now. A horn shaving seemed rather difficult too, considering she couldn't even reach his horns without performing some gymnastic feat.

"Saliva. Saliva will work too," she concluded. "That seems to be the best option for all of us involved."

"Acceptable," the lizard said. "I will provide the sample when you have helped me escape the city. Is that a deal?"

She was a little wary about accepting - after all, she couldn't be entirely sure if the lizard was planning to get himself to safety and then turn on them, as the witnesses to his great infiltration and escape, or if he was planning on shirking his end of the bargain. But the two of them could probably take care of themselves, after all, and this seemed like the easiest way to get what they wanted. "Deal."

Complete the original task and get a sample for Zae.