What do you want? I don’t owe you anything, do I?

Yes, pay up.
Nice try. I don’t recognize you from the pit fights. But you give me an excellent idea.
What if I were to go to a crowded tavern, storm up to a wealthy man, and demand payment for my “services?”
He would hand me his coin purse just to avoid a further scandal.

I’m sorry, we’ve never met.
No, we haven’t. Forget what I said. Unless you have coin. Then, if you ever visit the pits, I hope you remember me well.

No, but it sounds like you’re in need of some gold.
Maybe, but I won’t get it slaving in these mines. I need to go to the pits. Because the only honest way to earn coin is to gamble for it.

That’s not something I expected a miner to say.
That’s because I’m not a miner. I’m only working in this moldy armpit of the Reach until I can cover my debt at the pits.

You don’t seem to like this job very much.
I shudder at the thought of someone enjoying such tedious work. You take a pickaxe and chip rock. For eight straight hours.
Compared to that, even smelting is like taking a bath in liquid moon sugar. It also doesn’t help that I despise my co-workers.

At least you have another female on the crew.
Lash? She’s the worst of them all. At least the men take breaks.
That sword-tooth must have been a slaver in her past life the way she flogs me with her tongue.

How does Lash treat you?
Badly. The worst part comes when the work is done. I’d hoped that with all the dead Nords, it would mean beds to spare, but it’s quite the opposite.
Even though she’s a miner like me, I’m the one forced to sleep on the ground. Most nights I don’t sleep. I just pray.

What do you pray for?
I pray a dragon will swoop down and eat the Orc bitch, what else would I pray for?

That’s enough about the miners.
Fine.

So you decided to earn and pay that coin with hard work. Admirable.
Nonsense! This job is temporary. Until I pay back my debtors, they won’t let me back into the fights.

Gamblers claim to be experts but still manage to lose it all.
You claim I’m a liar, but it wasn’t my expertise that felled me. It was my lack of discipline.

You bet on pit fights?
I did. I aimed to make my fortune on the pits. I lost much coin the first time around, and still owe a sizeable debt.

Can you give me any gambling advice?
What I know applies only to amateurs. But if I learn something worthwhile, I’d be glad to sell it to you.

You sound like you know your wolves. Maybe I’ll follow your wagers.
No. When the risk isn’t your own, you worry too much. You question whether choices made purely on instinct have merit.
Caution may be a good quality for a mage, but not for a gambler.  A gambler must be decisive, even if her reasoning is faulty.

The only thing I bet on is myself. I’ve yet to lose.
I shared a similar confidence. It’s from that well of belief that a gambler drinks, and in that well that a gambler drowns.

You should be borrowing to win that coin back, not slaving in some mine.
You have a point, but it matters not. I’ve borrowed too much already the first time around and my credit is no longer good.

How did you accumulate your debt?
Simple. When I first began betting in the pits, I fell victim to three traps.

What are the three traps you fell victim to?
The first trap is the poison of winning. More addictive than any skooma. And when you’re lucky, it comes so easy you don’t value the money.

So you spend it. Only when the luck runs dry, there’s no coin left to cover your bets. So you start to borrow money so you can win it all back.
This is the second trap.
But Nocturnal has already cursed you. Desperate, you start increasing your bets. Soon you are gambling with numbers that you can no longer count.
This is the third and final trap. Once you raise the stakes, you can never go back. Because it’s no longer about the coin.
I probably won ten times as many bets as I lost, but in the end I still lost it all.

How did you get into gambling?
I got my start betting on the pit fights in Cragslane Cavern over in the The Rift.
As a young feline traveling with the caravans, I’ve always had a good nose for wolves.
I could tell the difference between a wolf that hungers for a fight and one that merely growls in fear. I simply applied that knowledge to the pits.

What gambling tips did you learn from the caravans?
There are many things to watch for.
For instance, people often mistake the bristling hair and bared fangs for aggression, when it’s nothing more than a bluff.
They watch the eyes, when the legs are what show the beast’s intent. It’s only when a wolf enters a crouch that it’s truly prepared to fight.

I suppose someone has to fill all those dead shoes.
Correct. Even better if they were too busy mourning the dead to notice if Okapi was taking a nap.
To think I even dreamt of sleeping in a bed. It was not to be.

To assist with the recovery?
No, you fool! To earn some capital.

What made you come to Karthwasten?
I was going to get a job with the caravans when I’d heard there was a massacre in Karthwasten.
Apparently Ulfric and his army of furless bears came and razed the city to the ground. I felt this raised an opportunity.

Not much of an opportunity, if you ask me.
You’re looking at it the wrong way. There’s free room and free board. The work itself is hard, but only if you’re actually working.

What kind of animals are raised for pit fights?
Wolves mostly. Sometimes bears. You hear of pit fights where they fight trolls and atronachs, but this is likely lies made up by skooma fiends.

Is there any mixed animal fighting?
Oh yes. The appetite for such sport is quite…how do you say…voracious.  I myself do not like it, because it’s so unpredictable.
Although sometimes, there’s an advantage to be gained by reading the people and not the animals.

Do you ever wonder if pit fighting is immoral?
Why? Are there fools who actually pity these wretched beasts?

We have a responsibility as greater beings to not abuse our power.
Look, I’m not saying what happens in the pit isn’t squeamish. You see a wolf tear into another’s throat and it’s hard sometimes to keep your lunch.
But in the end, there’s a difference between hurt and pain.

There are. And they’re totally unbearable.
Yes, if only they applied the same fervor to saving those who are capable of feeling pain, and not just hurt.

They mean well.
Misguided fools always do. Mean well. Yes, things in the pit do get…gory. But in the end, there’s a difference between hurt and pain.

Why do you think animals don’t feel pain?
To an ignorant observer the pit fights are ruthless. Cruel.
They will see things that make them want to claw their eyes out and donate the pieces to an alchemist. This is because they think the wolf feels.
It was explained to me when I was young, learning to hunt, that to feel pain is a different thing from being hurt.

How so?
Simple. When you touch a stove, your hand leaps back, but it’s only when your mind registers what happened that you feel pain.
This is what separates us from the animals. It’s why I have more in common with a Nord than a sabrecat, even if we both purr.
When the animals fight, they will get hurt, and they will die. They won’t feel pain. They aren’t capable of understanding it.

Tell me about the Breton.
Belchimac? A coward, a pessimist, a whiner, and a Forsworn apologist. He’s my favorite.

What about Enmon?
Another selfish one. I questioned Ainethach why his family gets such a large house while the rest of us are wedged into a food barrel.
He said such demands were too insensitive given Enmon’s daughter was kidnapped. Seems to me that just opened up more space.

Tell me about the Nord.
Ragnar? Just hearing his name bores me. The Orc has all but spread her legs for him, but he would rather mine silver.
Then again, I’m not sure I blame him. The mines are far less dusty.

Hello/Goodbye
Make it quick.
Care to loan a cat a few septims?

I’d like to see a fight between twenty bears and one dragon. My money would be on the bears, of course. Better odds. People fear dragons too much.

Need something?
What do you want?

Gah! There are only two chests for storage in the miner’s barracks. Lash uses both of them.

Belchimac whined to Ragnar about my shedding. Said it was all over the floor. I said I still shed less than that skeever on his lip.

I feel I’m making good progress working here. If I didn’t have to waste time pretending to mine, I think I could pocket even more.

I wonder if I could convince Belchimac to help me frame the Orc. I’m just not sure if he loathes her, or loves her.

About time.
Uh-huh.
Be gone.