glowfic | Curiosity did what, now?

"...Well... what would get the tigerfolk out of the cave?" he wonders.

"If it is elves? They'll have trackers checking for signs of them; if they go long enough without seeing any signs they'll assume they're safe. Or if they run out of food, then they might try for it even if they're not." She seems genuinely distressed about this latter prospect.

"So... can't get the tigerfolk to go away without getting the elves to go away. And I'm guessing that getting elves to go away is difficult. Hm. I hope you're lucky talking to them, then."

She nods. "You should probably stay here while I do that - you don't look a lot like an elf, but more like one of them than like anything else around here." She considers for a moment, then pulls up the stake holding the big portal's rope down, which breaks it, and then casts a new spell in its place, showing the mouth of the cave from a few yards away. "So you can watch," she explains, and then asks, "anything else before I go?"

He thinks about it, then shakes his head. "Can't think of anything. Good luck."

She grins, and nods, and then disappears.

A few moments later, she steps out of the underbrush on the other side of the portal and walks into the cave, and a moment after that, there's shouting, and a spear comes flying out of the cave mouth, and then she appears back in the clearing.

"Well," she says, when she's gotten her bearings again, "I guess not."

"...guess not," he agrees. "So. How would we get the elves to go away, if there's elves?"

She makes a face, but sits and thinks about it.

"I wouldn't, I'd just wait them out. But that's - I have more than just myself to think about, there; if they see me and decide they don't like what I'm doing, they'll go after my whole tribe." She goes quiet and distant for a moment before pulling herself back to the present. "I don't know a lot about elves, beyond what I need to know to stay out of their way."

"So, okay," he says, thinking about it. "You can't get back to your cave and I can't get back to my world until the tigerfolk go away. The tigerfolk won't go away until they think there's no elves around or they're desperate enough to leave anyway, and we probably don't want to make the tigerfolk desperate to leave, that seems like a generally bad idea. You can't mess with the elves because they'll go after your tribe; I don't have a tribe to worry about, but I also don't have the fancy magic necklace so I wouldn't get much of anywhere if I tried talking to the elves about any of this... you might not know a lot about elves but you probably still know more than me; what else is there?"

"You can use the necklace, if that helps anything," she offers without hesitation. "And I know where the elves live - not well enough to open a portal there, but I can get us to within a couple hours' walking distance, anyway. I know something about the kinds of magic they use - they have fire, and something that's like tiny lightning, and a kind of magic that can push people around, and something that lets them control animals. They like to use magic traps - I can give you a magic effect that will protect you from that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea, their mages can probably tell if you have magic on you, and I'm not sure how they'd react to that. Other than that - there's the tree thing; like I said, I don't know why, but they get really upset if anyone hurts a tree; I'm guessing those tigerfolk cut one down for firewood or something, and if that's the case and the elves know about it, they'll kill all of them if they can - they're not actually that good at fighting, but they have their animals, and they don't stop."

"If I can use the necklace then I might at least be able to go find out whether tigerfolk cutting down a tree was actually the problem or if it's something else," he says. "And even if I can't do anything about it I probably won't make things much worse."

She nods, and takes the necklace off to offer to him, then retrieves a simple silver ring with a sky-blue gem set into it from a twine portal while he's putting it on. "You should have something to let you teleport back here, in case things go bad. I'll make it so it activates if you tap the gem while you're wearing it?"

He accepts the necklace and puts it on.

"Sure, okay."

She nods, and casts - this one takes a bit longer than the last few - and hands the ring over. "If you tap it a second time within about a minute, it'll bring you to another cave I know that should be safe; it'll do each of those five times before it stops working. I'd rather the elves not get ahold of that, or the necklace, but it won't be the end of the world if they do."

"Got it." He puts on the ring. "Anything else I should know?"

She considers. "Telling them about me is probably a bad idea. There was a ... thing, a few decades ago, they tried to wipe us all out; it's been better recently, but they still don't like kobolds at all. And I'm not sure they'd believe you, if you told them you met a kobold mage, even aside from that. They'd be more likely to believe you walked into a trap and don't know who set it."

He nods. "Yeah. I can just leave you out of it completely, I guess. I was somewhere else, now I'm here, no idea how it happened, the end. ...Except - you said they'd be able to tell if I had magic on me; will they be able to tell about the ring and the necklace?"

Nod. "They won't be able to tell what kind, though, just that it's something they haven't seen before. They might be able to tell that the necklace is from a different world, but probably not even that."

"Okay. That makes things a little simpler. Then... I guess that's everything."

She considers for another moment, then nods, and begins re-casting the portal to take them to the elves' part of the forest. When she's done, she sighs. "Okay. I'm not going to hang around, there - actually, I should go warn my tribe that something's up, but then I'll come back here. We've got about seven hours before sunset; if they offer you food, that's safe enough, but don't go to sleep there; I'll be able to tell if they hex you, but that doesn't mean there's anything I can do about it. If you're not back by an hour after sunset, I'll go see if I can find you - I can't go into their camp, but if you make it out, there's at least a chance."

He nods thoughtfully. "All right."

Through the portal she goes, then, gesturing for him to follow once she's taken a moment to look around.

Through the portal he goes, ears flicking back and forth at the unfamiliar sounds of the sunlit forest.

She's not much less alert, but not alarmed at anything.

She looks around the clearing (much smaller and less welcoming than the one they were just in), then goes to one of the trees and casts on it. "Teleporter," she explains, tersely and quietly. "Works once, only alive things, only soon. Touch here," she taps it to indicate. (It doesn't teleport her, but apparently that's as expected.)

He nods acknowledgment.

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