Tyrosciol opened both eyes.
The human was standing in the middle of his treasure.
That was unusual. Very unusual.
Humans were normally dead by this point.
He blinked his tired eyes so as to be sure that this wasn't a dream.
The human remained.
They were dressed in black and had some sort of stick in one hand.
Something about it bothered him.
Tyrosciol leaned forward.
His nostrils flared.
The human smelled like decay.
But his eyes wandered to the stick.
There was something on it, and suddenly he felt like his treasure felt lonely.
He didn't like that feeling.
The human looked around the cavern with quiet interest. Then their eyes settled upon the little shard resting before him.
Tyrosciol did not like that.
He carefully placed one enormous claw over the shard.
Just in case.
It was his. He had found it. That meant it belonged to him.
This was, in Tyrosciol's opinion, an entirely reasonable arrangement.
Tyrosciol watched the stranger carefully.
They didn't seem to hunger for his hoard too much, but they didn't leave either.
That was less good.
Perhaps they simply needed encouragement.
Tyrosciol drew in a deep breath. Then he exhaled.
A dense cloud of pale green fumes rolled across the treasure like morning fog, flowing over coins and around stone pillars before engulfing the stranger entirely.
Tyrosciol waited.
Normally, this was the point where intruders would die.
They would cough, panic, then collapse.
Occasionally they attempted to run, but if they breathed in the gas, they wouldn't get very far.
The cloud slowly drifted apart.
The stranger was still standing exactly where they had been.
No coughing or staggering. They hadn't even looked particularly inconvenienced.
That wasn't supposed to happen. He looked at the lingering fumes.
They were certainly there.
He gave them a sniff. Still poisonous. Very poisonous.
He knew because his nose tingled pleasantly.
He looked back at the stranger.
They were now studying one of the moss-covered walls.
Perhaps...
Perhaps they weren't human?
Well.
They were certainly human-shaped.
They had the correct number of arms. The correct number of legs. The correct general arrangement of everything.
But being shaped like a human and actually being one were, upon reflection, two entirely different things.
Tyrosciol once saw a rock shaped like a deer, but it wasn't a deer. It was a rock.
Appearances, Tyrosciol decided, were not always reliable.
He squinted suspiciously at the stranger.
Yes.
Human-shaped.
Probably not human.
That explained everything rather neatly.
He felt considerably better about the situation. Not that it fixed what bothered him, but things were better taken one step at a time.