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

[calescent]

"I'm not sure why we do it, but it's very hard to stop when everyone's doing the same thing. A lot of human stuff is like that, really. I can't, say, wear anything that doesn't say something about my gender, even if it's 'look how hard I'm trying not to have a gender' - and if I do that I'm sacrificing important opportunities to use my clothes to say 'I am rich and important and paying attention to all the things that matter to people around me'. Which is important to say for other reasons, but is only ever said in gender-based ways."

[lurkingkobold]

Meh. Well, if they pick it up they pick it up, but their anatomy is still not anyone's business but their own, so the humans are just going to have to wait and see what happens with that.

[calescent]

"It's a little more obvious on human babies, but yeah, sure."

[lurkingkobold]

She didn't actually need to know that, but okay.

How are the portal frames coming along?

[calescent]

"They're done!"

[lurkingkobold]

Excellent.

She can get started whenever, then.

[calescent]

"I can take us to them. I've been popping in and out to make it less interesting to watch. If the egg definitely won't hatch today you can bring it."

[lurkingkobold]

Pretty definitely, and there'll be plenty of warning for her to take it someplace private if it does start to hatch early. Good enough?

[calescent]

"That'll do. Just hold it on the other side of you from me." Kiri extends her hand.

[lurkingkobold]

That's slightly awkward, but she manages it.

[calescent]

And Kiri puts them near one of the stone arches; it was built not too far away from her Chialto house and it's a short walk. It is set up so that carriages can drive off the main street and through it. There are blank wooden boards up into which Kiri intends to singe explanations. "Here's the first one - I have a map of how I want them hooked up -" Look, a map of how she wants them hooked up, how convenient.

[lurkingkobold]

She examines the arch, and then they can go see the one that's going to lead to it. (She puts the egg down to examine the arch, and it peeps when she picks it back up. Aww.)

[calescent]

Awww!

Kiri puts them at the next arch. She wants them set up to loop, so that someone who wants to go from any arch to any other arch will just have to circle around to the front of an arch they just emerged out the back of until they get where they're going.

[lurkingkobold]

Sensible and straightforward. They can proceed around the loop at a pretty good pace, though they're a little slowed down by the kobold stopping to coo at the egg when it starts getting too excited. "Hatch soon," she reports, after one of these sessions, "maybe tomorrow, maybe next day."

[calescent]

Kiri smiles. A little sadly.

[lurkingkobold]

...that would be a thing, wouldn't it. Well, the egg can stay here for a minute while Kiri gets a hug.

[calescent]

Hug.

[lurkingkobold]

Hug indeed. Better?

[calescent]

Better.

Anyway, so that's the portal loop set up. Kiri strolls through the entire loop, burning letters into the signs with destination and price information.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold hangs out in an out-of-the-way spot near the Chialto portal while Kiri does that.

[calescent]

And then she is back. One of her employees is talking to a person passing by in a carriage, explaining the contents of the sign. Kiri tells the employee that she'll be back for another circuit after dinnertime to clarify any particularly frequently asked questions on the signage and adjust the price if the volume is higher or lower than she'd like. Then she extends her hand to the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

And then they are back home.

So, what else has Kiri been up to?

[calescent]

Magic practice! There's a paper that apparently hasn't started acting up yet sitting on the kitchen table, glowing when Kiri gets near it.

[lurkingkobold]

Good!

The kobold suspects it's still early to be expecting any, but has Kiri had any good spells yet?

[calescent]

"Not yet, unless this is one."