Three days passed in the village. Elisif and Mathael had adopted roles as advisors in matters of defense against demons. Straga managed to detect a brine spring in the northern edge of the valley which allowed them to extract precious salt in much greater quantities. With more effort diverted to assisting the smiths, iron was already being produced. The deadly concealed pits surrounding the village were rapidly being completed, and Coralia was hatching a scheme to find the most capable kobolds for her next plan.

She announced a game night, where all work ceased and every fit kobold participated. The dwarves set up six mock camps all around the valley, each manned by a single dwarf acting as a sentry over a stone block. The kobolds divided into teams of five. Each team was given a piece of charcoal and a number. Their goal was to write their number on as many stone blocks as possible before the game ended at midnight. Being caught by a Sentry meant disqualification for the entire team and the best five teams would be granted a special prize.

Coralia was surprised by some of the strategies that developed. Some teams split up, sending one member to each camp. Others traveled in a tight group, using some members to cause distractions while another inscribed the stone. The one thing she hadn’t considered was the cooperation of multiple teams. A formation of two or more teams would increase the overall odds of each team being in the top five, and Coralia found it fascinating that they were able to so quickly establish such alliances.

Throughout the exercise she and Mathael whom she had asked to serve as a second judge took notes on specific teams and specific kobolds. One multiple team group consisting of twenty kobolds and led by Laz was clearly dominating the game. Laz was cunning, and not just for a kobold. She orchestrated beautiful attacks, using each member of the large group to draw the sentries in circles as the team of four writers easily made their marks.

The outlier was Nib, whom had asked to be in a team by himself. By midnight, his mark was on all six stones and he had been napping for half an hour. The game concluded with the clear winners. Twenty-one kobolds had secured marks on all six stones, and the vast majority of the others had been disqualified or fallen short.

Coralia and Mathael assembled the dwarves and compared notes with them. The consensus was clear, and the victors were declared. They were each given a wooden token that glowed with Coralia’s rune magic. It marked them as the first members of her guerrilla kobolds.

Her vision of the guerrilla kobolds was of an elite stealthy unit that could infiltrate camps, assassinate targets, poison provisions, rig structures to drop, and wreak general havoc in spite of their tiny stature.

With her twenty one candidates determined, Coralia went about the business of building their skill sets. With the aid of the young dwarf Kiri interpreting, she taught them how to extract and distill potent toxins from plants and animals. She had never guessed the skills she had picked up from her legendary alchemist husband would come into play in such a way. The kobolds absorbed the information eagerly and were surprisingly adept, even adding their own special techniques from their poison brewing customs.

They taught Coralia that kobold saliva had the unique ability to break down tissues and plant fibers that normally were not digestible. When added to toxins, it generally amplified the effects greatly. The concentrated poisons brewed with sophisticated human techniques combined with the primitive tricks of the kobolds yielded higher quality poisons than Coralia had ever seen.

As the guerrilla kobolds expanded their skills, the other kobolds worked hard to learn new engineering techniques from the industrious dwarves to augment their own advanced trap building and defensive construction techniques. The cultural crossover yielded strange but undeniably effective advancements. Snares meant for small game were scaled up with pulleys and restrained boulders. Pit traps were rigged with deadfalls which would drop suspended logs on top of the trapped victims.

Over the next week the network of deadly traps grew to surround the entire village, which was also growing with new log structures, barricades, and towers enchanted by Coralia with powerful light runes that could be activated with a command word by anyone that knew it.

Nib organically assumed a teaching role among his peers. His stealth and hiding techniques were second to none and he soon had the entire group able to evade even the most wary sentries when conducting their drills. Coralia was blown away by the incredible advancement. With Laz and Nib following the curriculum she had laid out, she was free to spend time working with the dwarves on their own combat techniques when they weren’t busy plying their trades.

She immediately recognized that they weren’t using their mana to anything close to its full potential. None of them seemed to be aware of the Raw Channeling principles developed by Agitha and the original monster hunters. She slowly introduced them to the meditation and self awareness techniques required to first feel where and how mana was gathered within their bodies.

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They were surprisingly fast studies, connecting with their mana in a time she hadn’t ever seen a human achieve. She could only guess that something about the dwarven mind operating in only direct lines had something to do with it. Humans spent the majority of their effort battling distraction. Meanwhile dwarves simply didn’t have distractions, only goals.

After one lengthy session, Hurstag’s eyes popped open and he had an astonished look on his face.

“I think I can knock a tree down with one hit.” He announced, aware of how absurd that sounded himself.

“Let’s see it then!” Coralia was grinning ear to ear in remembrance of the first time she had experienced a similar thought.

Hurstag hefted his axe and stumped to a nearby young fir tree. He tilted his head back to once again commune with his mana, directing its flow into the swing of his axe, a motion that was was practically a heart beat for the seasoned dwarf.

The axe flashed with a speed that Hurstag had never guessed was possible, and passed through the twelve inch trunk as though it were merely thick smoke. He hopped away as the tree toppled with a shocked expression.

“Now you can hit me.” Coralia clapped him on the back in congratulations.

The other dwarves clapped and cheered in amazement and redoubled their own efforts in connecting with and channeling their mana.

“Unbelievable.” Hurstag breathed. “If we dwarves hadn’t been so stubborn in our ways we might have learned these techniques and not fallen so easily.”

“Everything is obvious to a person with his eyes on their arse.” Coralia said. “Now you know and everything that matters is in front of you, not behind you.” She continued, drawing his attention to the tree felled in a single swing.

“You are a wise queen indeed.” Hurstag solemnly replied.

“What did I tell you about that ‘queen’ shit?” Coralia spat on the dirt to emphasize her point.

“Spoken like a true dwarven queen!” Hurstag laughed, breaking free of his melancholy.

“Bah!” Coralia waved in exasperation. “Get back to work. Go make me something useful!” She continued as she walked toward the longhouse to meet with Elisif and Mathael.

She walked in to the longhouse just in time to see the tiny Belithel popping a whole mouse into her mouth and crunching it happily.

“Oh my...” Coralia put a hand over her mouth reflexively and stifled a gag.

“Apologies, miss Coralia.” Elisif said unable to contain her smile. “We know that our eating habits are unsightly to most mortals.”

“No. It’s... fine really.” Coralia sat cross legged across from them on a large bear pelt. “About what we were discussing earlier?” She led the demons into the conversation.

“Yes, about the portals.” Elisif answered, nodding to Mathael to explain.

“They were reportedly opened by one of the divines.” Mathael began seriously. “There are two portals. One is deep under the earth here, and the other is far to the south beyond the empire of the elves. Like everything the divines do, this opening came with a vague prophecy.”

“Which is?” Coralia prompted.

“Six sleeping devils in silver cages. Four dragon’s claws to turn the pages. Ten vibrant springs give birth to five winters’ dead, and the tide of blood rises to hell’s master’s head.” Mathael recited.

“That last line is a little troubling isn’t it?” Coralia mused.

“Dramatic drivel is the native tongue of the heavens.” Elisif said derisively. “They are arrogant children playing with toys, nothing more.”

“I’ve never met a divine, but I agree that we should look at this in terms of military survival rather than focus on prophecies and goals of the higher planes.” Coralia replied.

“In terms of weathering and beating back the hordes, it is critical to deny them the surface for as long as possible. They have almost certainly already devoured most of the food potential in the caverns below. The longer they are trapped below, the more they will turn on and consume one another.” Mathael reasoned. “By their nature, they cannot reproduce with one another like native demons can. Once destroyed in demonized form, Maiphon’s demons are dispersed to the universe permanently. The force is overwhelming but not replenishing as long as it is contained. If they break free and begin linking with their mortal cousins, we will see true disaster.” He added seriously.

“They can’t reproduce with other demons but they can with surface creatures?” Coralia asked with a look of dread dawning on her face.

“It is exactly as you say. In fact all of the surface monsters alive now are descendants of defiled humans, elves, dwarves, and the other civilized mortal creatures from ancient invasions such as this.” Elisif confirmed.

“What a pain. I hate literally everything about this.” Coralia sighed in exasperation. She hadn’t realized the huge implications of the invading demons up until now.

“We need to change our plans.” Coralia suddenly said after a moment of reflection. “We need to get Belithel as far away from the two portals as possible. The human kingdom is almost equal distance from both of them and offers the most military support. I have some very powerful allies there. We should spend the summer provisioning and find a way south just ahead of winter. We will do all we can to exterminate as many monsters here so there are less to encounter the demons that do eventually surface.” Coralia studied the demons’ reaction to her reasoning.

“Do you truly believe the humans will be as accepting as you?” Elisif asked as she bounced the giggling Belithel on her knee.

“Not a chance.” Coralia replied honestly but not shaken in the slightest. “My mentor and her allies will be, and between us our strength is greater than the kingdom’s combined forces. Their opinions won’t matter in the face of the invasion. They will look to us to save them as they always have.” Coralia’s open admissions seemed to sway the reluctant demons.

“Your mentor... must be an incredible person. Is she as impressive as you?” Mathael asked in wonder.

“She is even more impressive than me.” Coralia assured them with a grin.