Kipsic chittered with both excitement and horror as he watched the Greenfolk get bashed, burned, and bled by the two strangers. Greenfolk were nasty creatures, so anytime he got to see them dead-dead was a good day. But the scary part was by how and who. He’d never seen a tall-man kill-kill someone with light. He’d also never seen a boney-person, and especially not a boney-person turn a Greenfolk into jerky. But now he had, and it was both equally splendid and terrifying.
Once it was over and the strangers started to loot the corpses, he rubbed at a soreness in his rear. During the fight he had to keep swatting at his tail to keep it from bouncing up and down, but it wouldn’t cooperate, so he resolved to sit on it so it could wag no more. Now the leathery thing was all kinds of sore. But the fight was over, so he was sure it’d be fine to let his tail free again. As he grabbed a tree with his paws so he could stand, he felt the bad-bad; it was a feeling that you felt when someone was looking at you. He turned his snout and saw that indeed he had been spotted by the black soulless eye sockets of the boney-man.
***
===
Jevrick’s Quest: Become Mayor of Maplebrook
Side Quest: Deal with the Kobolds and Bandits
Maplebrook’s Population: 998
===
I couldn’t make out exactly what it was, as my True Sight required me to be relatively close and have a good visual on who I was looking at in order for it to translate the makeup of the individual’s capabilities. But something was there, for a moment anyway. A glimmer of Tapetum Lucidum, the low-light vision that many creatures possessed. Then it was gone. But I knew it was still out there, and I grew rather curious.
While the paladin muttered some prayer over the dead bandits about sanctifying their sins or some other, I took a burning log from the fire and manifested another cantrip. A violet mist formed around my fingers, a Spectral Hand, which lifted off of my palm and carried the torch out into the night.
The trees glowed as the hand and torch moved up to where I had seen the flickering eyes. But nothing was there. Curious. I’d heard no noise, and seen nothing move. Whatever it was, it was quite the sneaky creature.
“Paladin,” I whispered, and did not look back to see if he had heard me.
“Yes?” Atan asked.
“There’s something else watching us. I can’t see it though. Some form of invisibility. Do you have any solutions for that?” I had known of some holy warriors who could summon a Light of Revelation. Quite annoying when infiltrating a town using my visage to produce cultists of Dread. Hmm. Shame suddenly crept into my chest. I supposed it was an evil thing I did back then, corrupt a town from within, watch it topple under Dread’s armies. I didn’t feel guilty back then, it was just my job after all. But now. . .
The knight’s armor creaked as he stepped beside me. “No,” he said, “that skill belongs to the sentinels of my order. I can sense undead and daemons, but I don’t sense such a thing nearby.”
“I see.” I then wondered how we might benefit from an additional member to our party. Despite all my capability with magic, I couldn’t do everything, not even close. Not to mention the limitation of what kind of opponents I was effective against. Things with blood and tissue? A matter of principle. Elemental foes? Now that would pose a serious threat to me. Thus was the risk that came with specializing in a particular school of magic as much as I had. Some wizards had the sense to be more generalists, and certainly elementalists were formidable masters of their environment. Though, I always found that it didn’t matter how special someone was when it came to one’s skin being flayed. But such musings weren’t a present matter. The point was that our duo of paladin and necromancer was already showing some limitations, but seeing as our mission was to be a short one of dispatching the local bandits and investigating the kobolds, I didn’t pay it much attention. Maybe I should have been more concerned, hindsight being what it was.
“Footprints,” I muttered, seeing the imprints of tiny taloned feet in the dirt. Sure enough, the mere word seemed to shift the small creature’s nerves, as leaves rustled an inch to the side.
The paladin shouted some prayer in a tongue I didn’t recognize, and a cage of light sprouted from the ground around the leaves.
The cage sparked as something bumped around inside of it. A tiny trail of smoke bled into the air.
Then the creature was revealed, its small lizard-like body flickering into view. It was red-scaled, with sharp ears and snout, and a thick tail that wagged. Its eyes were huge and round like a chameleon's.
“Youch!” it screamed.
“What a curious creature,” I said in fascination, running up the incline with my spectral hand following after with the torch.
The lizard-thing cowered to the ground, waving tiny claws at me. “No-No, not death-death. Not heart-suck-suck.”
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I bent over when I reached the cage and studied the thing further. Its scales shimmered, shifting a few shades darker, like that of the dirt beneath it—its body nearly camouflaged to match the dark brown earth.
“How fascinating.” I said.
===
Name: Kipsic, Clan Nak-Kan
Anima Level: 1
Age: 20
Lineage: Kobold
Class: Scout (Agility)
Status: Healthy
Conditions: None
Stats:
Might: 8
Agility: 16
Intellect: 10
Wit: 12
===
The paladin’s armor clanked up the incline as he joined me, lugging his great hammer with him. “A kobold,” he called it. “They infest the nearby mountains and descend on the town’s livestock in small raiding groups. Vermin.”
The small kobold’s jaw curled down, like a frown. It shook its head. “No-no, not vermin. Good-good, I am. Good kobold. No hurt livestock!”
“Yeah?” Atan scoffed. “What do you eat then?”
The kobold’s eyes squinted. “Meat? Flesh-flesh?”
“Yes, which comes from livestock.”
“Oh? Oh! No-no, I didn’t know. I didn’t know! Please, I no eat meat no more. No-no more meat. Eat plant. Watch-see?” The kobold ripped up tufts of grass and shoved them into its mouth, wincing as it forced itself to chew. “Shee?” It said with a mouth full.
Kobolds. . . interesting. I had heard the name before, but they were hardly abundant in the southern lands that I hailed from. This one was different from how I’d heard them be described. I wondered if there were different breeds of such a creature, much like the canines it reminded me of. Well, if dogs had scales, that was. I noted that it wore a belt around its waist with a dozen small leather pouches tied to it.
Atan scanned the perimeter. His eyes were looking rather drowsy. “We’re a day's journey from the Teeth. Creature's hovel must be close by for it to be so far from their colony. Where there’s one, there’s more. We won’t find any rest in these woods, sandwiched between both the bandits and kobolds. We will need to seek shelter elsewhere. Let’s dispatch it and move on swiftly.”
“No-no dispatch! No!” it begged, now on its knees.
I pitied it. Pity. Another new one for me. “Do you have a name, little kobold?” I knew its name already, but I deemed it polite to let it speak for itself.
Its eyes widened, or its pupils more so, which looked like giant glossy beetles. “Name? Yes-yes. Name is Kipsic. Kipsic, yes.”
“Kipsic? Hmm. Tell us, is your home far from here?”
It gulped, and looked up at the paladin through the glowing bars of the radiant cage.
I turned to Atan. “Would you mind not glowering at it for a moment?”
The paladin huffed. “You cannot trust the words of a Kobold. It will try to lure you into a kill zone of traps and other hidden warriors. They will be like this one—stealthy, quick, and have nocturnal vision to take advantage of our limited sight.”
Yes, it was a sensible deduction. “Very well. I’m sorry, little one. My companion is right.” I nodded at the knight to finish off the pitiful creature.
“Wait-wait!” Kipsic begged. “I-I’s not trap you. No, no. You fight the green folk, yes? Green folk are bad. Green folk attack and steal from us. I take you to king. He like you. He help you. He will! Help kill all green folk if you like! Yes-yes!”
I shook my head. It simply didn’t understand the way of things. “I’m sorry, dear Kipsic. I must side with the wisdom of my companion, I am of an ignorant mind when it comes to the ways of your people. May your soul be spirited off to whatever afterlife you desire.” I stood and brushed dirt from my trousers.
Atan took up his hammer and readied to smash the kobold.
“Wait-wait!” It cried out one more time—this time ripping off the pouches from its belt and tossing them at the cage, quite ineffective at stopping—wait, what in the Infernos?
“Stop!” I shouted.
Atan diverted his hammer into a tree at my interruption and cracked the bark. His weapon tumbled from his grasp. “What has befallen you?”
The chromatic glimmer of a diamond had spilled from one of the pouches.
I bent down and saw that they were real. “Where did you acquire this resource, little Kipsic?”
It opened its eyes and stared down at the gems. “Glass-rock?”
“Diamond? Yes, where?” I pressed.
Its mouth quivered as it crawled over to the front of the cage, eyes wary of Atan above. “Kobold home. King Nak-Kan. King kobold. Lots of color rock. Maybe he give-give you some? Yes? Yes?”
I chuckled. “Why, yes. Take us to your home, little one, in exchange for this resource.”
Its eyes glinted. “Yes! Kipsic get you glass rock. Take his! Take-take! Plenty!” It scooped up the gems and held them out to me.
I looked up to Atan and nodded.
The knight sighed, and waved his hand. The cage dissipated.
Kispic, looked around at its freedom. I had the sudden fear it might run, but instead it simply took my hand, shoved the little pouch of diamond in it, then spun and hopped forward. “Come-come! Home close. Come!” It waved a claw at us and hopped along.
I fingered the little gems in my palm.
“Greedy mage,” Atan said.
I shook my head. “Diamond itself is easy enough to replicate and sell to a jeweler. The true element however is an important material that I must have if I can.”
“Material for what?”
I looked at him. “Why, you should know more than most, dearest paladin. Hardened Anima, some call it. Others call them Soul Gems. In other words. . .”
The knight sighed. “It’s what lets you perform resurrections.”
I nodded, and with that, we followed the little kobold into the forest.
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