Midas was rather peeved. Some filth had tried to make his new favorite napping spot cold! Did it even know how much that made his scales itch? This new place had many shinys, but that thing had certainly not been one of them.

At least the new place seemed to make up for it. He was curled up in the hood of Napping Spot. At least the equivalent of the hood in the Shiny Place. Swimming through the Shiny Place for this long was a bit uncomfortable, but it beat the real world, where his own shinys might get stolen.

Every now and then, when Napping Spot was well hidden, Midas would flicker into the real world for a few moments. And what he saw was amazing! So many shinys, in so many different forms!

The majority were just like his own shinys. A metal circle with weird pictures on it. Although some were less shiny, but still shiny. That was weird. They weren't not shiny, but he felt almost instinctively that they were worth far less.

The rest were far more varied. Weapons, jewelry, treasures, and oddities galore! Midas had never seen such beauty before! There was so much to do, see, get, and Midas wanted it all!

Napping Spot kept moving. Slithering through the shadows, the strange thing seemed to take an odd pride in not being seen. How odd. Why, if he had no shinys, would he seek to hide? Why not flaunt your existence, and steal and bite all those who would challenge it?

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Elves were strange things.

They reached a gate. Napping Spot was fully within the embrace of the shadows, so Midas slipped out of the Shiny Place and back into the hood. Two other elves sat in front of the gate, playing with small paper rectangles. One sat proud while the other was slumped over.

"And that's game! You owe me twenty copper!"

"Cheating bastard..."

The slumped one handed the proud one shinys. Midas' eyes widened as the old friend called greed knocked on the door of his mind. It was welcomed in with haste. He dove into the Shiny Place, and swam to claim the shinys.

He reached the threads and outlines that made up the undeserving things, and he shoved as many of the shinys as he could within his Hoard. He got to three before the lines that held the shinys flew away, and a voice boomed out towards the other elf.

"You calling me cheating? This is only seventeen you arse! Give me what i'm owed!"

"I gave you twenty you greedy half-wit, now fuck off!"

The two clumps of lines yelled a few more obscenities at each other before they began to fight. Punches flew, and the men stumbled a bit further away from the gate in their fervor. Napping Spot suddenly dashed out from the shadows and crossed through the gate, forcing Midas to abandon the kinda-shinys in order to follow. He only got three!

He reformed in Napping Spot's hood, and curled up to sleep off his disappointment.

"Thanks for distracting the guards. That was some quick thinking on your part."

Napping Spot kept prattling on about guards and patrols and meetings, but Midas could not give less of a fuck. It was nap time, he felt like napping, and he was on Napping Spot. The next and only course of action was rather obvious.