[coronatiger]

Thoughts on October 31st

Everyone was awake when the kobolds attacked, except of course for Lady Karita. Although Ilzo and Va’lyndra were up and about, it was technically my watch, and Olivia’s, so I was armed and ready to strike as soon as the little buggers charged out of the underbrush. I moved in front of Olivia and landed a solid punch on the first one to approach. Ilzo smacked one, too, and that was that. The other kobolds ran away. They had counted on surprise for their little raid.

Concerned that the kobolds would trail us and attack again, I asked if we should track them down and deal with them once and for all. The others agreed, although Lady Karita was reluctant. She has an irrational fear of these reptile folk. She’s afraid of snakes, too. That was obvious in the fight where we lost Kine.

I didn’t want to risk losing masterwork arrows on such feeble foes as kobolds, so I swapped out the good arrows in my quiver with normal ones from my packs.

Va’lyndra tracked the kobolds to a cave entrance. Lady Karita hesitated, clearly afraid of going inside. Her sword glowed green, marking the presence of our reptile quarry. Va’lyndra speculated that there wouldn’t be much loot in a cave such as this; had the kobolds been rich, they’d probably decorated the place a little. Ilzo, who didn’t understand what the rest of us were talking about, entered. When it was clear that Va’lyndra and I was going to follow, Lady Karita lit her lantern and tagged along. She didn’t like the idea of remaining alone while her sword glowed.

We passed a couple of forks in the passage and squeezed through a tight spot. That is, Ilzo squeezed through, and I don’t think the others were all that comfortable in the cramped corridor, but I slipped by easily enough. Being a contortionist, I had no trouble bending whichever way was necessary to pass. Then Ilzo howled a war cry and stormed off. We followed, and caught up with him when he lost whatever he had tried to run down. Va’lyndra could run farther from the lantern than me, with her elven eyes, and I think Ilzo has perfect dark vision. I had to stay with Lady Karita and the lantern, and we stopped in a T intersection, some meters behind Ilzo and Va’lyndra, who had turned left.

The elf mage cast her ice slick spell as a small horde of kobolds hurtled out of the darkness towards her and the orc. I had my bow ready to fire at any opponent who managed to squirm past the two melee fighters, but Va’lyndra shouted a warning that they were coming from the other side, too. I whirled about and shot one of the ambushers, noticing that Lady Karita had completely frozen.

I wouldn’t have time to draw another arrow, to I took a defensive posture in front of Lady Karita. Va’lyndra was using her staff to great effect, and Ilzo grabbed still-fighting kobolds to use for weapons, and they seemed to be winning on their side of the battlefield, thanks to the ice slick, and Va’lyndra’s flying shield. Things were looking more dire on my side. I couldn’t count on Lady Karita for help, so I stayed on the defensive, hoping that Ilzo and Va’lyndra would wrap things up before the kobolds swarmed me completely. I threw the occasional punch when one of the kobolds got overbold, but for the most part, I used my superior mobility and world class acrobatics to keep the buggers occupied.

Then, in the corner of my eye, I noticed shadows moving out of the darkness; the way out was blocked! I fought down the rising panic, saying to myself that Va’lyndra and Ilzo would be coming, and so far, I had managed to remain unscathed, although my leather armor had taken a couple of scratches.

Backup arrived just as the shadows coalesced into more kobolds. I thought I should let Va’lyndra and Ilzo deal with the kobolds from the side passage, as they were closer to them, so I moved towards the exit, and the approaching spearmen. In the chaos, Va’lyndra struck me in the back, causing me to fall to the floor, dropping my bow. As I lay there, dazed, a kobold took the opportunity to stab me, but didn’t penetrate the armor. Swamp wurms have sturdy hides, and the armor has repaid the fortune it cost me to acquire it at the auction.

I gathered my senses, and leapt to my feet, using an acrobatic technique to get up rapidly. In a desperate attempt to get Ilzo, the last two kobolds dropped their defenses, allowing me to take them out easily, but not before one of them skewered Ilzo, slamming the spear through the bone armor.

Lady Karita, who seemed to have overcome her panic, raised her sword, pointing out that it still glowed green. Ilzo took it and decapitated all the kobolds. As the last blow struck, the light faded from the blade.

I asked Va’lyndra if she didn’t mind looking at my wound, as someone had landed a quite solid blow. I handed her my first aid kit, pointedly. Taking the hint, Va’lyndra attended to my wound and to Lady Karita’s, and then she tried to help Ilzo. I don’t remember from my teachers that you’re supposed to stick your finger in the wound and rummage around in there, and I don’t think Ilzo liked it very much. He howled and scowled at Va’lyndra. She tried offering him a healing potion, but he didn’t want it. I think he lost confidence in her good intentions.

Lady Karita wanted to go back to the camp so we could continue with our travels, but Va’lyndra and I wanted to search the caves first, and overruled her. We found a chamber with three kobold children and several eggs, too small to register on the sword, and I realized we had just killed their parents. Now they would starve! I told the others I felt bad for the children, and wanted to provide for them in some way. Va’lyndra offered to make a cage to keep them in. The thought of bringing live reptiles with us caused Lady Karita to have another panic attack. I gave one of the pups to Ilzo, bringing the other two myself. The one in Ilzo’s hand bit him, and was crushed for it, but the others took to me.

We found more eggs and pups in another room, and I didn’t know what to do with them all, but Va’lyndra said I should ask Olivia. Of course! She’s the wisest person I know. The children here made it clear they didn’t want to come, and I felt no twinge to rescue them. That made things easier.

Then we discovered the kobolds’ kitchen, with two wild boar carcasses. Ilzo sniffed them both and rejected one, shouldering the other.

When we came out into the daylight, Lady Karita calmed down, and said that Olivia would say to leave the kobold children behind. What would I do when they got bigger, sprouted spears and started to ambush us in the night? Her argument sounded reasonable, so I agreed to say goodbye to the two pups. Va’lyndra had jokingly asked what I was going to name them, but I had replied that I wanted to talk to Olivia before deciding on names for them, so I just said “goodbye, little ones”, patting them on the head. Lady Karita is so knowledgeable! I never would have figured out that the kobolds were capable of magically summoning their weapons.

As an afterthought, I carved a piece from Ilzo’s boar and gave it to the children with another pat on the head, and then we were off. I looked behind, and saw the little kobolds running after us. My heart broke. Lady Karita was fuming when we returned to Olivia. I explained what had happened as we travelled. I held the kobolds in my lap and guided Lightfoot with my legs. When I told Olivia that Lady Karita had said that we needed to watch out for the kobolds sprouting spears, she laughed and said that Lady Karita was a font of interesting facts. I guess it’s because she reads so much.

In the afternoon, we found a ruined fortress in a valley. We set up camp, and left Olivia to take care of the animals and the kobolds. After a couple of hours of searching, we agreed that there wasn’t anything to find at the fortress, so we returned to camp. Va’lyndra made a play pen for the kobolds, something I could tie to my packs and bring along as we ventured further.

After dinner, I was chatting with Olivia when suddenly her mouth dropped open, aghast. I scanned about for a threat, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Ilzo was fiddling with his pack, Va’lyndra was reading, and Lady Karita was wiping her knife in the grass. I watched the trees, looking behind Lady Karita to see what Olivia was staring at, but I couldn’t see anything. I turned to ask what Olivia had seen, but my eyes fell on the play pen, where Spark and Twinkle lay still, blood-red and butchered.

Olivia grabbed me from behind, and loving warmth seeped into me and prevented me from lashing out at Lady Karita. When I had calmed down a little, I fetched a shovel and buried the children, play pen and all. Olivia said maybe it was for the best. Sooner or later they would sprout spears and attack me for killing their parents.

We retired to our tent. I wanted to be noisy, to torment Lady Karita, but Olivia soon got me on better thoughts. Or rather, she wiped all thoughts from my mind.


Thoughts on November 1st

We kept going south today, and finally came to a parting in the road. One path headed south-east, the other west. Va’lyndra and I climbed the tallest trees nearby, but could see nothing but forest in all directions.

Ilzo signaled that he wanted to go west, and I trusted that he knew what he was doing, but Lady Karita wasn’t so sure. “What do we really know about what the orc wants?” “Nothing much, but if he heads west and we go east, we’ll never find out,” I replied. As there were more unexplored areas on the western side of the map, Lady Karita reasoned that we might as well go there. After all, we don’t have anywhere particular we need to go. At least, we haven’t as far as I know, but then, the others haven’t been very forthcoming with information lately.