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

[spinnaker]

"I don't think it's that complic-" Jayce pauses. "Okay, it would be really complicated if you didn't even have 'property' as a concept."

[liakoura]

"Speaking of not having property as a concept..."

[calescent]

"The kobold is not going to steal your stuff."

[lurkingkobold]

Nod.

[liakoura]

"Okay, good, my twin in my head is one thing but some of my stuff is private. Or hard to replace. ...Do kobolds do 'privacy'."

[calescent]

"Privacy is when you don't want anyone, or only want some people, to know or see a thing. Most people consider their thoughts very private, which is why I'm careful about standing near people."

[lurkingkobold]

Ah.

Yeah, kobolds do privacy, nod.

(Less than humans, though, probably, if personal bedrooms are a normal human thing.)

[calescent]

"Personal bedrooms are a normal human thing. Sometimes people who are very close share rooms. Mostly - couples." Is that clear enough? Does she have to explain pairbonding?

[lurkingkobold]

She's missing the 'two' part, but yeah, kobolds do that.

"Kobolds do less privacy," she updates the other siblings, "sleep all together, safer."

[liakoura]

"From what?"

[lurkingkobold]

"Danger," she shrugs. "Animals, tigerfolk, fire," monsters, apparently her world has monsters, "...big things like animals. Few kobolds watch, other kobolds sleep; if trouble, watching kobold do noise, other kobolds do awake."

[calescent]

"The big animal-like things I'd probably just call 'monsters' or something... Yes, Aleko, some of these things eat kobolds - the tigerfolk are -"

A bell rings. "Ko -"

[liakoura]

Aleko gets up and bolts for the bells, then hollers, "Third from the left!"

[calescent]

Kiri disappears.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold takes a piece of twine and starts working on a viewing-portal. After several minutes, she manages it, passes the result to Jayce, and starts working on a second one for Aleko.

[spinnaker]

"What is this f- oh," says Jayce, peering through the portal. "Yeah, there's smoke - doesn't look like it's spread all that far. I don't see Ki- no, there she is, she must've commandeered somebody's horse. I can't see the actual flames..."

[liakoura]

"She might've put it out already, she could sense a fire that size from a few blocks at least and the smoke wouldn't stop right away. Where do you see h- oh, going up Wicker Street, okay, I bet she's going to go in and make sure she didn't miss any little smoldering bits and see if anyone's inside. She'd better not try to climb half-burned-out stairs...!"

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold, meanwhile, keeps an eye on the scene with a third viewing-portal in between casting mini-portals successively closer to house in question - if something does happen, she wants to be able to get herself and Kiri's siblings as close as possible. (If she finds a better viewpoint, she'll give them updated viewing-portals, too.)

[calescent]

When the kobold gets the view close to the house, Kiri has put out the fire, which affected two adjoining houses and produced quite a lot of smoke, now slowly tapering off. She is sitting on her borrowed horse outside the house rather than entering; a wind is whipping up, and she's addressing someone who has a ladder, pointing. The someone with the ladder puts it up against the window and some people come out, coughing.

[lurkingkobold]

She wordlessly passes this portal over to Jayce, and makes two duplicates for Aleko and herself. "Can go, if need," she points out after that's done, "but think okay."

[liakoura]

"Yeah. I would've gone along and physically carried her to the house if she'd wanted but the horse idea works too and at least she's not trying to go in."

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold nods and goes back to watching the scene.

[calescent]

After the house is empty, Kiri looks over the extracted persons from a distance. They converse. Kiri stays on the horse and out of their range, and of Helpful Ladder Person's range. Somebody rushes onto the scene with various medicinal supplies. When that's underway Kiri rides back to where she got the horse, returns it, and then reappears in her designated house location and walks back into the dining room.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold nods a greeting and gets to work breaking all these twineportals. Also, she should probably give Kiri a second set of spells to let her take a passenger, or give Aleko or Jayce or both the same spell set Kiri's got, or both, but not right this minute.

[calescent]

"Oh, you gave them a view, that's sweet. Yes, it would be really great if I could bring passengers."