This is all about a few lands on a very distant planet, where humans are the newcomers or the invaders depending on the townsfolk's viewpoint. So far only so called mythical creatures inhabited that unknown world, now you will learn more about one of them. His name is Randolphus "The Kobold" Longnails or Randolphus IV according to his grandfather, he is no actual kobold but a fearsome werewolf or that is what he pretends to let you think when you first meet him.

In the morning he did not want to wake up, he would love to think the sun comes up after ten o'clock or so. Then a slick cat of his got close to his bed, as if she were carefully planning her next move. Without previous notice she jumped at him burying her sticky nails on his fur. "Damn alley cat! How many times have I told you there's no need to attack me to get something to eat for breakfast?" the middle aged werewolf yelled at the selfish cat, feeling she ruined his peaceful dream full of bleating sheeps he could bite at will.

His relatives did not care about him, he could be as lazy as he wished, their only job was to grab some gold here and there or get some food, even if that meant they should bite it without actually paying for it first. Randolphus was the only one who every so often showed up at some partially forgotten pawn shop to get his wage, but this only happened when he had no bounty to claim or no wolvish ritual to attend anywhere else.

Cats seemed to be the only beings there that somehow cared about him or pretended they did to get some food or cat's treats. "Hey! Bite this treat of yours and go away at once, Gray Lynxie!" he quickly commanded her, hoping she would get satisfied and leave him alone. Then he could sit on the edge of his bed and get spirited enough to go to the bathroom and wash his furry, nosy face.

After he had checked out his hairy appearance in his round mirror, Longnails walked all his way to the kitchen, the one that sometimes look more like a slaughter house than anything normal. There he tried to grab some fatty piece of meat. His mother showed up right then to tell him "some human girl is out there looking for the pawn shop keeper, now don't be so lazy and go work your ass off!" He was a bit surprised his own mom would dare to tell him he needed to run to his workplace in no time so he did not move a finger for a while. Later he smacked some sheep leg to soften it in a weird wolf's style before he could start preparing his morning barbecue full of roasted vegetables.

His cat loving sister coincidentally reappeared once he had served all the dishes meant to be eaten by himself and nobody else, sadly it always lead to his sibling snatching some pieces of food here and there before she went back to her own home to continue practicing her bitchy spells. Some neighbors believed she hated somebody as much as to learn how to cast a dangerous spell, but Randolphus could never buy that story.

"I thought you were busy enough as to come here to steal my breakfast, sis!" he exclaimed meaning she had to leave at once. Even so she disregarded everything he told her and stole some hot bread and a creamy butter Longnails tried to hide from her slicky paws.

Randolphus then grabbed her left arm to make her pay for what she was stealing, somehow she managed to cast a low level spell on his paw instead. He had to blow on it to cool it because he felt it was burning in hell. "I don't know why grandma had to teach you any simple spells at all back in the days, you've become an abusive..." Longnails had to stop there, otherwise she would have made his whole fur burn thanks to her trustworthy servants, the will-o-wisps, who loved to play with the living in very inconvenient ways.

Sometimes he ended up arguing with his mom about how irresponsible it was to introduce her in the world of magic, especially black magic. She never attempted to stop her out of fear, her daughter's potential seemed to be big enough as to make her provoke a local flood or start a fire by sending a seemingly innocent spark to her next target right before people living there began telling tales about spontaneous combustion, in the best case scenario only.

Rand, as some neighbors called him since he was a puppy, told his mom that morning "this time I won't talk about this at all, instead I'll look for a way, pretty much any way, to temporary block her magic or turn the kitchen into some sort of sacred place she won't be able to slip in". His mother only laughed at him for being quite naive all of sudden.

The same twenty one year old girl that was looking for the pawn shop owner was still waiting for him to show up, she was impatiently standing right in front of the door, knocking on it, yelling at it. Sadly the owner was sick thus making Randolphus the actual wolf in charge of the store. It would be a must to state clearly that humans were not supposed to travel across werewolves' lands; still, that girl had a strong motive to remain there and ignore all warnings, all dangers and all of the suspicious wolves that were glaring at her already.

Once Longnails was packing everything he needed before he could start walking all the way to the store, Gray Lynxie returned and did not stop meowing, no matter how much he tried to scare her away. At the end she followed him to his workplace where she stopped to threaten the human girl. For unknown reasons Gray did not like her a bit. Her owner did not find a single reason to overreact like that and preferred to say "hi young girl! My name's Randolphus Longnails and I work here as you may have noticed by now".

His introduction did not impress the girl that only exclaimed "you know, I hate when people or wolves keep a lady waiting for them as if they were the big deal".

Longnails stared at her for a brief moment and then apologized for his delay; he also opened the main door. "Please feel free to take a look at our unusual goodies, my dear girl. Just in case you didn't know this, I'll tell you it's quite uncommon to get any human visitors these days. Most of them would prefer to stay away from us, the brave werewolves, for many, many reasons. What would bring a young lady like you to my humble store today? Are you looking for anything specific?"

For a few minutes she just peaked on the items he had collected in the past few years. By the way, his boss also kept some antiquities like ancient music instruments, kind of priceless wolvish totems, bronze weaponry, and much more.

"I've noticed you've got some interesting stuff here, perhaps there's a slight chance you've purchased some special item from days of yore, an extremely rare thing for sure..." she told him without being very specific as he had expected from the very beginning.

Randolphus Longnails had to inquire of her "what would it be, young lady? I don't mind selling certain stuff to people that don't belong to my own race so would you mind to tell me what it actually is?" He was getting a bit nervous, he had no permission to sell any of his ancestors' long forgotten trinkets.

She kept looking around as if she did not expect to find anything really useful anymore. Suddenly she just let him know "I guess you've neither seen it or heard of it ever before, it's a pillow, an extraordinary pillow indeed!"

Did she actually say she was looking for a pillow? Who would ever travel many miles only to get a darn pillow of sorts? Longnails was confused or surprised or something in between. He kept walking around trying to recall anything related to bedrooms, and before he could tell her that was a waste of time his eyes glared. "This is quite unforeseen indeed, young lady, but I think we might have what you've been looking for" he suddenly stated, then held his breath for a few seconds before saying "the downside would be that I'd first need to convince my boss to even let you take a look at our special pillow; this might take a while..."

The girl was not happy to hear that from his wolfish muzzle so she warned him "then get going and make sure to convince your stubborn boss of selling it or this infamous bounty hunter will sell your darn fur to any avid collector available out there!" She hoped he would get moving his feet quickly to fetch it for her, instead he reluctantly went after that amazing pillow.

His boss's private chambers, not the best place for a werewolf to visit if it has a weak stomach for there he had even sacrificed a few cubs once in order to achieve immortality or invulnerability in the worst case scenario. Unless they had never found that strange pillow for him to get some good sleep in no time, he would have figured out long time ago that the promising spell casted upon him was a failure or even a true scam.

Perhaps it was his damn fault for ever mentioning it to that impatient customer, still, he had sold pretty much nothing for the past month, besides some cheap and obviously fake amulets, some miniature totem, and a hood. He had told his young patron then "you might know this, but this is a legendary hood used by a hero in his youth, he was a famous archer indeed."

Randolphus slowly opened the door before slipping in, thinking his boss would hear him otherwise, he was wrong about it. As far as he could see then, it did not matter how silent or noisy he could ever be, the pillow would not leave him wake up as he was supposed to. There was just one more thing to do then, and he really did it, he had finally stolen his boss's best kept secret ever! Longnails was sure he would get fire in no time for betraying him so he did not celebrate his achievement at all. Then he only needed to pretend it was harder to get than it actually was. Yes, there was a question he had to ask himself, would his boss wake up any time soon?

"So did you find that pillow you were talking about, darn wolf?" the arrogant bounty hunter quickly asked him. He walked all the way back to the cashier as if he were completely sure she would buy it once she had peaked on it for a few moments, then he told her "this got to be the pillow you badly needed, something makes me feel quite positive about this!"

The girl doubted that could ever happened, but she still took a look at the item just in case, later she informed him "honestly I doubt this might be useful at all, it sure seems to be a common pillow you could have bought at any local shop." The Kobold disagreed with her by asserting "no way it could be called an ordinary goodie, I can assure you it does make your target fall asleep in a short period of time, it will look like a snoring or howling baby if it keeps touching its target's head!"

She was sure that could not be the mystic pillow she had heard about from many elders around the world, even so the young girl thought it could be convenient to keep it in her bag as a means to escape from some mildly dangerous enemy, somebody like an evil host who might want her to unwillingly marry him. The bounty hunter let him know "fine, I'll take it then, just make sure it's well wrapped." It did not take long for him to do so as he really needed to tell some good news to his boss, lest he would still lose his job.

The mysterious pillow was not cheap at all, but the impatient girl did not care about it, it would just mean she had to catch a few extra wanted criminals by the end of the month to save enough money for the actual item she wanted to purchase later on. Randolphus had no issue with extending his hand towards his patron in order to get her payment, it was a good sale after all, even if she was a real pain. He also took out his commission, it was about twenty silver pieces.

Not every single person or living being agreed with Longnails, it was a scandalous price, and he had forgotten to mention a curious detail concerning that special pillow. Thus our rodent friend Cheesie James felt anxious enough as to rat the shopkeeper out, but it was not any sort of vengeance. Nope, he only intended to let the cute girl defend herself before it could be too late for her. He quickly climbed up some old barrel located close to her.

"Missy, hey missy! Over here, let me introduce myself now, I'm your lovely advisor Cheesie James." The bounty hunter did not want to pay attention to a silly mouse, so Cheesie had to add then "please, listen to my story, it's short indeed!" Nothing seemed to be working as expected, she still ignored him and kept walking away. He was in need of running after her and later yelled out "I know I'm just a tiny mouse, but you should know that pillow can be dangerous under certain circumstances..."

Only then the young girl stopped walking to find out more about that so called threat the rodent was talking about, she also turned around to look at him. James stated in that precise moment "you see, the pillow you're carrying not only makes its target fall asleep, it can also let them get sick, symptoms may vary from patient to patient..."

The hunter could not believe it so she asked him "how am I supposed to believe you when not even the shopkeeper knew about that?" The goodwilled mouse shook his head before replying back "who ever said he did not know that beforehand? Didn't he tell you about his sleepy but also sick boss by any chance? Nope, I guess not, he wouldn't dare to lose a sale just like that..." She was slightly intrigued about those symptoms so she also inquired of him "and what exactly is his boss going through right now?" Cheesie James replied in no time "that's easy, he may vomit a bit, even while asleep, he's starving as well for not eating anything at all for a few days in a row, among many other things that may happen to the pillow's victims."

It was true she should be careful as to not use the pillow herself to get some sleep, at the same time it made sure that dangerous oponents that could not be defeated in close combat, could end up becoming some sort of defenseless sleeping beauties. Such an item still was useful even if the current owner were forced to keep it packed the whole time. This made the bounty hunter suspect that it could have been made out of materials similar to those used in the other pillow she had been looking for.

A few words escaped from her lips back then "meaning the same guy could have made both pillows, perhaps this one was just one of his first milestones..." The mouse did not know what she was talking about so he asked her "what do you mean by that?"

She preferred to frown and wave her hand as a way to tell him it was not some relevant at all so the friendly rodent let her go away. There was nothing else to say, besides he was not looking for a caretaker of his own. All of sudden Cheesie recalled one more thing so he said "I wonder if I should have told her about the fact that even still while packed it can make people get dizzy every so often, and probably feel the need to lean the owner's head on it."

Later on he only thought she would be clever enough as to figure it out on her own, and threw all of his concerns far away from his worried mind. It was better for him to search for some delicious root beer or water in the worst case scenario than paying attention to his silly thoughts. James simply ran all around the town looking for anything worth snatching.

Meanwhile, the Kobold was only thinking about what he should buy for lunch and dinner. Twenty silver pieces was a large sum for a pretty much jobless werewolf so there got to be something he should get soon. Could it be a large roasted pork? Should he have some well spiced salmon? He had lots of vegetables at home so he had not to worry about that, still, that let him remember he could visit a human town to buy some Chinese food. Of course, they called them by a different name since they had never heard about China or any other country we know about.

By the way, when I said he would purchase it, I actually meant he would ransack a local restaurant in order to snatch as many served dishes or whole pots as possible. The only thing that could go wrong would be a fellow werewolf following him to that town, intending to get his own share of delicious Chinese food. One of the potential rivals was Anselmus "The Howler" Strongfangs, he seemed to love swallowing tons of chop suey, leaving none for Randolphus's paws to steal.

While Longnails always simulated to be an ordinary, bulky robber, people would not take long to figure out that he was an actual werewolf. It was not his stupid fault but the Howler's, he said once that he had the urge to howl out loud once he begins his hunt for exquisite human dishes. Not even hitting him hard for blowing up his cover, would stop him from howling to the Kobold's dismay. Besides his so called rival also had to be violent and kill a single passerby, otherwise Anselmus would not be able to call it an actual adventure.