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]

Huh.

This... doesn't make sense. She'd guess that she's stumbled across some animal's food cache, but she doesn't smell any blood, and anyway whatever that is is too warm for that to be plausible. But there's not much else that would be squishy and unresponsive and not breathing in a cave.

She heads back out a little way and sets up a portal back to her experimenting cave, just big enough for a kobold and with a piece of twine strung across it so that the first thing going through will break the spell, then gathers some materials from around the mouth of the cave to make a torch and goes to see what the mystery lump might be.

[endragoned]

The mystery lump is large and red and winged and tailed and clawed.

When the light of her torch reaches his head, he uncurls a bit and inhales and opens his eyes, blinking at her in sleepy bewilderment.

[lurkingkobold]

Um.

Um?

Come on, you have to breathe, that's just not fair.

...also, let's get some cover, here: she snuffs the torch out against the cavern floor and moves a few feet away from where she was... then a few feet more, to get well out of the way of where he might go if he's going to leave the cave.

[endragoned]

The creature makes a quiet confused rumbly sort of noise, and sits up. He's still breathing, at least, now that he's awake.

But he's not going anywhere.

[lurkingkobold]

That's fine, she decides - he doesn't seem hostile, and if that changes, she can just teleport away.

After a little while, she makes a small querying noise.

[endragoned]

He says something in some language or other - not a familiar one. The tone is generally friendly.

[lurkingkobold]

That's about as much as she's going to be able to find out in the dark like this, isn't it. She weighs her options for a moment, then lights the torch again, returning her flint and pyrite to her belt pouch afterward with a practiced one-handed motion.

[endragoned]

He looks at her curiously. Actually, he's already looking at her when she lights the torch.

[lurkingkobold]

She's too busy juggling the torch and fire starting implements to notice what he's doing while she does; by the time she looks up again she's not surprised to find him looking at her.

She sizes him up for a few seconds, then seems to come to a conclusion, and sits on the floor of the cave, apparently unconcerned by his presence and not paying any particular attention to him - not dismissively, but neutrally, as if it doesn't matter to her whether he approaches her or not.

[endragoned]

Hm.

He regards her for another few moments, then picks up a small rock from the floor and holds it briefly and reaches over to put it down nearish the kobold. The small rock is now kobold-shaped, with small floppy ears and a small nose and a small tail.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold blinks, and watches his reaction closely as she goes to pick the rock up.

[endragoned]

He doesn't seem to expect anything interesting to happen when she picks up the rock; and indeed, it remains just a little tiny statue of a kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

She examines it, obviously impressed, then puts it back down and picks another rock for her own demonstration, teleporting it from one hand to the other with a bit of concentration. "Mage," she offers.

[endragoned]

The strange person smiles delightedly.

Then he adopts a more thoughtful demeanour and starts shaping the stone of the floor, drawing a little island in it - very miniaturized and simplified: little stone beaches surrounding a few little stone trees and a single little stone cave raised up out of the floor. He picks up a rock and shapes it into a winged person like himself and bobs it along through the air - its little stone wings flap realistically - and has it glide down to the little island and curl up in the little cave. Then he looks at the kobold, and at the kobold figurine, and blinks inquisitively.

[lurkingkobold]

She watches carefully, and when he's done, she considers for a moment before taking a piece of twine out of her belt pouch and tying it into a loop. She spends a minute concentrating while touching the beach section of the diorama, then picks up the kobold figurine and puts it through the loop and onto the beach, teleporting it a few feet in the process. "Mage," she grins, as she removes her hand from the miniature portal.

[endragoned]

He smiles. "Mage," he echoes.

Hm, hm, what else would be good to know... he makes a few more little figurines like himself, although not all of them have wings, and indicates the group and says, "Endarkened." Then he makes a little group of kobold figurines and nudges them toward the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

"Kobold," she supplies, setting the torch down carefully and taking the figurines to act out her own little skit with. Here's all the kobolds together, and then the first figurine sets out alone, through the portal again to find a winged Endarkened on the beach. The kobold figurine rejoins its group - either the portal is one way or she's just not bothering to show that part - and then the Endarkened follows. She makes the Endarkened figurine approach two of the new kobold figurines, which she then moves away, making a quiet "aaaaaa!" in demonstration. She looks back to the watching Endarkened and rolls her eyes fondly, shrugging - it's silly, but that's what would happen, so please don't.

[endragoned]

The Endarkened nods along to this explanation, and moves the Endarkened figurine away from the kobold figurines and sets it down firmly.

Then he considers what other things he might want to communicate...

Well, here's one: He raises a tiny mountain far away from the island, and puts all of the Endarkened figurines in it (it is just barely big enough to hold them all in its cutaway interior), and shows a brief scuffle between two of the winged ones (with a hesitant half-shrug that indicates this is perhaps not the entire story), and one of the winged scufflers is kicked out of the mountain and wanders around sadly for a bit before flying to the island alone and curling up in the cave.

[lurkingkobold]

Oh, dear.

...would the Endarkened like a hug? Because here is a kobold who would like to give him a hug.

[endragoned]

The Endarkened would very much like a hug, it turns out! He makes a quiet surprised sound and hugs back carefully.

[lurkingkobold]

Awww.

Well then.

How does the Endarkened feel about lap kobolds?

[endragoned]

The Endarkened feels pretty great about lap kobolds. They are so huggable, you see.

[lurkingkobold]

The Endarkened can have a lap kobold, then.

After a little while, she nudges his hand - lap kobolds are also for petting.

[endragoned]

Oh! Well, then, the lap kobold can have very gentle scritches. (He works a subtle bit of magic to make his talons dull enough to suit the task.)

[lurkingkobold]

Very nice.

Is the Endarkened feeling better now?