What is that thing sitting at the table opposite me? All I can see are its orange eyes swirling in the darkness like the snake from The Jungle Book. And I tell you what it makes me feel: menaced. I know this thing doesn't like me and I feel like it wants to hurt me, but I can do nothing about it. I have to play its games, and it feels like it's my fate at stake.
I catch a glimpse of the thing every so often. I see a large, knobbly hand, green and weathered, and I hear its cheesegrater voice, scraping out words. Sometimes I see a face, or the outline of a face, but it's gone as soon as I realise it, engulfed again by shadow or obscured by a mask. And if it is a mask, it becomes a caricature for me, playing the role of a yee-haw gold prospector for a special boss encounter.
