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

[lurkingkobold]

[curiosity [person [spellbearer?]] [lights [spelled?] [impressive]] [something else?]], the kobold is thinking, and then [alarm [freezing in place]], as she notices that the person is acting oddly.

[calescent]

With no language to borrow, Kiri can't exactly say anything reassuring. And if she backs up to seem less threatening she won't have anything.

...Well, the lights are impressive, and impressiveness isn't alarm?

The candleflames start orbiting her head.

[lurkingkobold]

...spotted, spotted, the kobold is definitely spotted. How, she has no idea, but it's definitely happened.

Why is the light moving. Is she about to be attacked. She scoots back fully behind the chair - it's not much cover but it's better than nothing. Can she get home - no, she's too alarmed to aim properly, who knows where she might end up, it might be better than sticking around but she's going to wait until she knows she's in danger before risking teleporting herself into a mountainside someplace.

[calescent]

The lights stop moving. That was not the intended effect. Sigh.

[lurkingkobold]

Well, that's better, at least.

The kobold gives it another moment, and when both the lights and the person show no further sign of moving, she peeks out again, staying behind the chair as much as possible but not worrying about whether she's seen.

[calescent]

The person with the firelights looks at her.

[lurkingkobold]

She looks back, assessing the situation, tentatively concluding that this person is not an immediate threat, even if they are almost certainly a spellbearer and probably a mage on top of that. But they aren't being threatening; they don't even seem upset, just cautious and a little curious - reasonable, considering.

Well, the kobold can be sociable. How will a greeting go over, in Animalperson? Hopefully the tone will help, even if the language isn't one they speak.

[calescent]

Fire-person repeats the greeting, smiling slightly.

[lurkingkobold]

Well, that seems like a good sign. The kobold spends another moment gathering her courage, and then steps into view.

[calescent]

Slightly more smile.

Fire person points at herself and says, "Kiri."

[lurkingkobold]

"Kiri," she repeats, with a small nod, and then she gestures similarly, "kobold."

[calescent]

Kiri repeats the animalperson greeting and follows it with "kobold".

[lurkingkobold]

This gets a grin and a little bow - she's not moving any closer yet, but she's not braced to dive back behind the chair any more at least. And then... she does have to ask... she points to the candleflames, "fire", and then looks back to Kiri, "Kiri do of fire?"

[calescent]

"Kiri do of fire," repeats Kiri, and she reaches into her halo with her bare hand and takes a flame like she's picking a fruit. It dances on her fingertips.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold blinks. [fire [illusion?]] - she steps forward, watching Kiri carefully for objections, and reaches up to see if it's hot as well as bright.

[calescent]

Since she's not planning to actually touch it, just get close, Kiri holds it out.

[lurkingkobold]

She pauses for just a moment when Kiri begins moving, but recovers almost immediately, and with a sense of familiarity with that reaction.

[hot] - she makes an appropriately impressed face. [Kiri [maybe fire spellbearer [protection separate?] [very, very good control?]] [maybe illusionist spellbearer] [impressive in either case] [dangerous in either case [especially if they're a mage, be careful of hexes [fire is an awful way to die]]]]

[calescent]

...None of this comes with words. In particular, Kiri can't claim not to be dangerous. The kobold's monitoring her body language; she is already trying to look nonthreatening, but she tries harder. When the heat of the fire has been observed, she lets it wink out.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold flinches only slightly when the fire disappears, and then considers. Kiri does seem friendly, and more interestingly, they do seem to think that the kobold is a person. (Probably; as near as the kobold can tell with so little to go on, anyway.) There are worse things she could spend her time on than making friends; if they are a mage, maybe they'd be willing to swap spells, and if not, well, knowing a friendly fire-or-illusionist spellbearer still can't hurt, if there are troubles again.

The first thing to do, then, is clarify that she is a mage; surprising Kiri with that wouldn't be very polite. First, vocabulary - "Kiri do of fire; Kiri is of spellbearer. Kiri is of mage? Mage do of spellbearer."

[calescent]

...Kiri doesn't have a word for no. She shakes her head, hoping that will work or at least informatively not-work. "Kobold is of mage. Kiri is of... Ardelay," she says.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold peers at Kiri - if that's a bad translation-guess it's a strange one, but what else could it be? Even if Kiri has some sort of mind-reading magic that works at a distance, her anti-magic should be blocking it.

...unless something stranger than that is going on. What does Ardelay mean, anyway?

Let's try to find out. "Ardelay?"

[calescent]

"Ardelay is of fire..." No word for 'and'. A pause will have to do. "Ardelay is of -" Also no word for mind. She taps her head. The head-shake produced an accurate but low-confidence guess; who knows if this will even be that good.

[lurkingkobold]

....... Kiri is probably not actually a god. Gods would be better at language than this, the kobold is pretty sure, if they used it at all. But that certainly sounds like a god's domains, and she wouldn't be surprised if a god's spellbearer could ignore her antimagic.

Well. Test the theory, then. Would Kiri like some more vocabulary? Let's see... "God, demon, magic, spell, spell-effect... mind, thought, knowledge, know, learn, speak, listen... yes, no, maybe, tiny, big, small. Kiri do of speak of language, kobold do of learn of language - kobold no do of see of mind of Kiri, do of learn of listen."

[calescent]

A few words in Kiri pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and starts scribbling notes as fast as she can. When the kobold is done speaking: "Kiri know mind -" She steps back, out of range. "Kiri no know mind. ...Kiri no god," she adds, stepping back but just to the very edge so if the kobold flinches it'll take her out of range again.

[lurkingkobold]

Huh. Okay. That's certainly something.

She dips her head apologetically and gives a 'hold on' gesture, then steps out of mind-reading range to consider what to do next.