Small Lurker in Milliways

[lurkingkobold]

Here is a kobold.

To people familiar with the species, it's obviously a young one, not quite three feet tall to the adults' three and a half foot average. Its fur is blueish-grey and relatively dull, a sign that it hasn't been eating properly recently, though it's not thin. It's wearing a simple animal-skin skirt and carrying a stick, not quite long enough to serve as a walking stick, but useful for shielding itself from the worst of the undergrowth at least.

It is moving through the forest at speed, not following any path, and then suddenly it is elsewhere. After a few minutes, it notices the difference in the light; after a few more, it notices that the trees are subtly wrong - wrong species, wrong growth patterns, wrong in subtler ways that defy describing, but that tell the kobold that it is not in the forest where it grew up.

After even more minutes, it stops, having come to a clearing. There is a building, which, despite not being alarmingly large, cannot be traveled around.

The kobold does not have permission to enter the building.

The kobold cannot go back to where it was.

The kobold sits, and waits.

Comments

[lurkingkobold]

Nod.

[scatteredstars]

"That's awful," Tyche says. "Do you want to talk about what your tribe was like before you left, or is that too upsetting?"

[lurkingkobold]

There is pause, a small sigh, and a companionable nudge of Tyche's arm, and then the kobold says "is okay of ask of."

[scatteredstars]

Ze nods. "What were they like?"

[lurkingkobold]

"Kobold tribe is of many of kobold," she says, making a series of hand gestures that work out to mean 'about 85 or 90'. "Is of live of forest, live of cave of forest, live of river of forest - is do of change of place; is do of go of place of many of tribe, do of stay, do of go of place of tribe, maybe of do of change of place."

The description of the tribe's migration is illustrated with hand gestures along the top of the bar, and as she does so, a napkin appears, just far enough from where she's looking to avoid startling her.

[scatteredstars]

Tyche looks at the napkin, still listening to the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

The napkin reads 'I can loan you some figurines, if you'd like; that might make this easier to follow.'

The kobold continues: "Chief do of choose of place - is thing of all of tribe, chief is of choose of thing."

[scatteredstars]

"Bar says," Tyche intersects, in a break in the kobold's speech, "'I can loan you some figurines, if you'd like; that might make this easier to follow.'"

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold blinks, and twists around to be able to see Tyche's face - she seems confused and skeptical. When Tyche turns out not to share her skepticism, though, she shrugs, "okay."

When she turns back to the bar, there are a few dozen figurines there, arranged neatly. Each one is a realistic depiction of a kobold similar to this one, on a round green base to let it stand easily. They vary in fur color (most are grey or brown, but a few are blonde or reddish or black), height (about a quarter of the figurines are noticeably smaller than the others, which are all about the same height), and other details, painting a picture of a society with a fairly complex set of roles and behaviors. There's also another napkin, reading 'let me know if you'd like any other sets'.

The kobold blinks, and cautiously examines the figurines from Tyche's lap. After a few moments, she makes a startled noise, and leans forward to pick a figurine that looks just like her from the collection.

[scatteredstars]

Tyche also reads the second napkin aloud, indicating it to smallbold. "Bar writes on the napkins," ze adds.

Ze also inspects the kobolds. Ze does not fail to notice that the figurine that resembles the kobold is one of the smaller ones, but is uncertain what the conclude from this other than that she is smaller than usual.

The proportion is wrong for it to make sense as sexual dimorphism. And with the variance in the smaller ones...

Tyche looks them over again thoughtfully. They all appear to be biomorphs without much in the way of augmentations, and all of the tools are wood, bone, copper, bronze, or some variety of stone. The copper and bronze tools are oddly sized for the kobolds, as are the metal parts of the weapons. There is no other visible technology.

The kobold apparently does not come from an at all high tech society.

[lurkingkobold]

One might say that, yes.

The kobold, meanwhile, seems to be a little stunned at her figurine, examining it from various angles and using the tip of one claw to poke at the short length of knotted rope it's carrying.

"...magic?" She seems very confused. "Magic do of kobold? Magic no of do of kobold, am do of see of."

[scatteredstars]

"I don't know very much about magic," Tyche admits. "Not nearly enough to know how that works. Bar?"

[lurkingkobold]

I included a likeness of her, the resulting napkin reads, in case she would find it helpful. I can see her regardless of her illusion effect, which remains in progress.

The kobold peers suspiciously at this last napkin, having seen it appear.

[scatteredstars]

Tyche reads this napkin aloud too. "Illusion effect?" ze asks the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

"Mage do of magic of kobold...", she pauses for a moment, to pick out a suitably attired large kobold and the three smallest ones, to illustrate. "Mage do of magic of kobold, other of magic no do of see of kobold." She pauses to think, then expands on the explanation, "trap is of magic, magic no do of see, trap no do of catch, kobold is of safe."

[scatteredstars]

"If magic traps are as common where you come from as that makes it sound, that must be very useful."

Ze looks at the figures thoughtfully.

[lurkingkobold]

She shrugs. "Trap of magic no is of many; trap of magic is of big of danger - elf do of trap; if elf do of take of kobold, elf do of eat of kobold. Elf do of big of danger, tribe do of thing of safe, important."

She picks out another figurine - again, a large one - and continues. "Kobold do of look of thing of elf. Kobold do of find, chief do of choose of place," she indicates that the figurine is the chief, "tribe do of go of place; elf no do of find of kobold, kobold do of safe. Is..."

She pauses in her explanation, and starts fiddling with the figurines, arranging the six other small ones into a line by size - she's still holding on to her own. Behind the smallest two, she places the two larger figurines that are carrying spears. She then points to each lined-up figurine in turn, starting with the smallest, and says "War of elf, war of elf, no of elf, one of elf, no of elf, no of elf."

[scatteredstars]

Tyche listens intently (and somewhat disturbedly), but looks more confused than anything at the last part. "Um," ze says, gesturing at the figurines. "What?"

[lurkingkobold]

Hm.

She takes a minute to consider this confusion, then asks, "Bar do of more of figurine of small of kobold? ...do of figurine of... tree, tree of apple?"

Another dozen kobold figurines appear, or rather eleven kobolds and one kobold egg. The new set, when combined with the six old ones, run the full range of sizes from newly hatched to just shy of adult. The kobold arranges them that way, with the egg figurine at one end of the line and an adult figurine at the other end, then turns to the set of four tree figurines and arranges them in a diamond - the one with green leaves farthest from her, the one with bare branches nearest, the one with pale pink flowers to the right, and the one with hanging red fruit to the left.

She then looks to make sure Tyche is paying attention, and draws a counterclockwise circle in the air over the trees with one finger. "One," she says, and looks back to Tyche to see if this is having the intended effect.

[scatteredstars]

Tyche looks intently at the tree figures. "Harvest?" ze asks of the left one. "Or -- Autumn?"

[lurkingkobold]

This gets a nod and a smile. Then, the kobold repeats the counterclockwise motion and "one", and gestures between the two smallest kobold figurines and repeats, "one".

[scatteredstars]

"Autumn... Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer? One year?" Tyche looks over a the kobold figurines. "One...?" Ze is clearly puzzled.

[lurkingkobold]

This gets another nod, at the season names, and a confused look at the confusion. She tries again: Tap the smallest figurine, tap the second smallest one, tap the bar top between them, "one of year". Tap the smallest figurine, tap the third smallest figurine, draw a curved line between them on the bar top, tap the imaginary line, "two of year".

[scatteredstars]

"...the distance between them, in time? Why would that -- oh! Naturally-grown biomorphs, of course. The years are age?"

This is followed by a thoughtful look at the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold understood nearly none of the words, there, but it's clear enough from Tyche's tone that ze's got the idea.

At the look, she sets her own figurine in front of a similarly-sized one - the ninth kobold in the row, just shy of the midway point between egg and adult. She then sets the spear holders up again behind the fourth and fifth kobolds, and counts out the years between the spear figurine and her own. "Four of year, tribe do of see of one of thing of elf."