One Curious Kobold

[lurkingkobold]

It's winter, and all is well with the tribe. Their new magic, an ability to make portals from one place to another, which was found by one of their members during the early-summer trip to meet with the other tribes in the area, let them both build up a decadent food stockpile and move to a much deeper part of the cave system without the worry of being unable to find their way back out. No-one has had to go hungry, and even the fiercest ice storm doesn't reach them; they are as content as kobolds can be.

Well, aside from their new mage, that is. She's bored, and curious. Making portals to known places is straightforward enough, with the magic she found, but that's far from the limit of what it can do... so one day, she slips away, portals off to a different cave system - one can't be too careful, after all - and experiments.

Temperature roughly the same... gravity roughly the same... air the same, not into stone or underwater or in a volcano or on top of a mountain... but, instead of patterning it after a place she knows, what happens if she only specifies those things, and lets the innate patterns of the spot she's casting on do the rest? Particularly this one part, which seems to specify the world...

She finishes the spell, and hesitates for just a moment before activating it.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

And here is an aisle of high wooden structures, each laden with rows of tall rectangular objects in ever color, in leather and paper.

[lurkingkobold]

She peers through, and, when the place on the other side seems to be deserted, touches a different part of the portal's frame - setting it to close after a minute - before stepping through and examining the leather things more closely.

[alicornucopia]

There are lots of them. If she tips one off the shelf, it opens up on three sides to show marked paper.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold isn't familiar with paper, and spends some time examining it - she's careful not to damage it or make too much noise. After a few minutes, though, she puts the strange object back, and starts looking around the rest of the area.

[alicornucopia]

It's mostly more of the paper things. Rows and rows of shelves and shelves of paper things. And a nook with some chairs and couches around a low table, and over there some desks with oil lanterns on them.

[lurkingkobold]

Whoever lives here sure does love their paper things. They might not be too happy about the kobold lurking around among them - it might be a good idea to find out about that, before she runs into any unpleasant surprises.

She explores the nook, finds that she can comfortably hide behind one of the chairs and still see out, and settles in to wait and see who might show up.

[calescent]

Eventually, there are footsteps, which come with increased light.