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]

She gets out her loop of twine and fiddles with it contemplatively while he thinks.

[endragoned]

Well, all right, here's one thing:

Endarkened figurine approaches unicorn figurine, 'aaa', unicorn stabs Endarkened, Endarkened dies.

Endarkened figurine approaches unicorn-ally figurine, 'aaa', both flee.

Endarkened figurine approaches unshaped rock... helpless shrug?

[lurkingkobold]

That's probably a solvable problem! She de-laps and uses her twine loop to retrieve a handful of extra twine loops, which she then casts on. At the third one, she makes a pleased sound, and holds it up to show the Endarkened the yellow sky and tiny bright sun of an obviously different world.

[endragoned]

Ooh! Nod nod, smile, that seems much likelier to end well.

But... hm, thoughtful frown, there's another complication that he can't figure out how to communicate.

[lurkingkobold]

She keeps enspelling twine loops while she waits for him to work it out - if he does want to go, she'll need to know what kind of world he wants her to look for, and having several examples to point to can only help with that.

[endragoned]

After a few minutes, he settles on an idea that seems at least potentially effective.

So: here is a little group of unicorn-ally figurines, and here are a few figurines of a new kind of creature, rather larger than all the other kinds of person previously mentioned, with four legs and two wings and a long neck and long tail. The two groups meet. Everyone seems reasonably friendly. Then one of the large creatures and one of the unicorn-allies stare at each other, and snuggle up to one another, and now they are going about their lives together and seem to be the best of friends. He sketches out enough scenes to portray the fact that even on the rare occasions when they are apart, each can tell if the other encounters some sort of difficulty, and rushes to come help.

The large creatures as a group: 'dragon'. The unicorn-allies as a group: 'elf'. Unicorns as a group: 'unicorn'.

The specific dragon and elf who have become nearly inseparable: 'Dragonbond'.

[lurkingkobold]

That's kind of weird but also very cute; she nods and grins.

[endragoned]

Right then. He takes his particular figurine back to the area of floor previously used to represent Sad Wandering Time, and wanders it sadly for a bit to establish the reference. Then he makes a little stone egg that hatches into a wee stone dragon, and the dragon grows up a little, and the sad wandering Endarkened encounters it, and they look in each other's eyes ('Dragonbond,' he reiterates) and snuggle for a bit and then fly off to the island together and settle in.

[lurkingkobold]

Aww.

She doesn't seem to think that this is a problem - she pulls a slightly larger loop of twine out of her twine-portal and flies the Endarkened figurine and the dragon figurine both through it to the unshaped rock; that's totally a thing that can happen.

[endragoned]

Nod, smile. Good enough.

[lurkingkobold]

Pleased grin.

She pushes the pile of enspelled twine loops over to him, peering demonstratively through one first - does he see anything interesting in the collection so far?

[endragoned]

He begins looking through them one by one, contemplating their various apparent properties.

[pythbox]

A tentative voice calls out from the mouth of the cave.

[lurkingkobold]

That's alarming. The kobold is alarmed.

She moves next to the Endarkened, close enough to touch him in case she needs to teleport them away.

[endragoned]

The Endarkened is not alarmed; he's curious.

He gets even more curious as the voice says more things.

("Um, hello. My name is Tenathayan. If there's anyone in there, I'm supposed to ask you to please not... leave... the world. And - oh - I'm supposed to tell you that all of the Endarkened died, and so did nearly all of the dragons. But I suppose if there is no one in there then I am standing here yelling into this cave for nothing. I'm sorry.")

[lurkingkobold]

The Endarkened not being alarmed is slightly reassuring, but only slightly; the kobold stays alert and waits to see how he's going to respond to this.

[endragoned]

"And, I, um—" (here the voice briefly drops below audible volume before resuming) "—if there is someone in the cave who would like to talk to me, I am going to be in a tent on the southwestern beach." (Pause.) "I brought tea." (Mutter, mutter. Possibly another voice is involved in the muttering.) "And a unicorn. I am supposed to not surprise you with the unicorn." (Mutter.) "It's very good tea. Um. Anyway. Goodbye."

Well. The Endarkened is moderately confused, and very curious.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold is alarmed at the prospect of there being a unicorn here, but she doesn't seem inclined to stop him from going and checking the situation out. It's not clear whether she'll follow or not, if he goes; she doesn't appear to have decided that yet herself.

[endragoned]

Before he decides anything, he has a go at translating some of the things the stranger said.

First he enlarges the tiny island a bit, and puts himself and the kobold in the cave, and an unshaped rock outside it that he hesitantly shapes into something vaguely elflike - he thinks the speaker is an elf, but isn't sure. He labels the questionable rock 'Tenathayan' and '...elf?', uncertainly.

Then, "Tenathayan says all the Endarkened died." This illustrated by indicating the questionable rock, touching it while he repeats 'all the Endarkened died', and then going over to all the Endarkened figurines and having them inexplicably fall over dead.

"Tenathayan says almost all the dragons died." Touch questionable rock, go over to the dragon figurines, all but two of them inexplicably fall over dead.

"Tenathayan says he brought a unicorn." A unicorn figurine joins the questionable rock. "Tenathayan says he will go to the southwestern beach." There go the questionable rock and his unicorn companion.

[lurkingkobold]

She considers this.

Then she examines the dragon figurines, and the endarkened figurines, and considers the layout of the cave to this point, and seems concerned.

Well, she can do what she can do, anyway: she ties a few pieces of twine together to make a longer string, attaches it to the cave wall a above her own head height with some sticky goop she was carrying in a tiny waterskin in her belt pouch, then puts an Endarkened-sized portal into the wall of the cave behind the string leading to a different cave. She carefully touches the string, and mimes pulling it away from the wall, and the portal subsequently closing. There's enough slack in the string that the Endarkened should be able to get all the way through the portal before it detaches, if he walks or runs through, and then if the portal closes as described, nobody will be able to follow him.

[endragoned]

He nods.

And, after some thought, he says: "I will go to the southwestern beach to talk to Tenathayan." There goes his figurine.

[lurkingkobold]

More consideration, and she moves her figurine to the beach too.

[endragoned]

Nod nod.

And he goes out of the cave, and has to take a moment to adjust to the brightness of being outdoors, and sets off toward the beach.

[lurkingkobold]

She follows watchfully.

[endragoned]

On the beach there is a lovely elven tent, and sitting just next to it, with a little awning extended over him to give him shade, there is a miserable-looking unicorn.

When the Endarkened emerges from the forest, the unicorn squeaks with surprise. "Tenathayan!" he says, and then some more things in a language the Endarkened does not speak.

Tenathayan - who is indeed an elf - emerges slowly and nervously from the tent. When he sees the Endarkened, he blushes and averts his eyes.

"I, ah, I See you," he says. "Um. This is Liselen. He says - well, he says you are not evil. But he is also very seasick, and you are - he said that you are not, um, comfortable for unicorns to be near, anyway, and so if you would like to take tea with me I should bring the tea and things out to you, instead of you coming into my tent. But, um, you are welcome here! It's just, seasick unicorn."

"I... see," says the Endarkened, regarding the pair of them with amusment. "I think it would be very interesting to take tea with you. I mean you no harm, and it seems that you do not mean me any harm either."

"We certainly don't!" says Tenathayan. "We came all this way even though Liselen gets miserably seasick just so that we could give you a message from the Wild Magic, and the message is that the - well, the other Endarkened, I suppose - are all dead, and so are most of the dragons, and if you please, it would be very helpful of you not to leave this world." He fidgets for a moment, then adds, "I did not know it was possible to leave this world. Today has been a very confusing day."

The Endarkened laughs. Tenathayan smiles, somewhat nervously.