No, not this dream again.

The sky was white, the stone black and gray.

The city is still lifeless.

"Beware."

Something in the dark behind me.

…

I was in a deep sleep when I heard a high pitch static whine interrupt my slumber. I rolled out of bed with my claws ready and spines raised, but there was no threat to be seen. Where was that sound coming from? Charles, that's what it was.

I peered into my mana source and probed the current looking for him, and after just a moment there was a red spot drifting up towards the surface to meet me. Charles, what happened?

"Foreign mana detected within source. Location unknown, intent unknown, area of effect determined to be Kayrux brain. Activation of alarm necessary to disrupt invader. Charles offers apologies for ending rest state."

Don't worry about it, you did the right thing in the moment Charles. Those dreams were the work of one of the dragons, and now I knew it was something internal that I'd have to deal with. I thought so, but confirming it made me question my sanity less than remaining uncertain. Thanks for the save little buddy, I owe you one.

"Unnecessary. Charles exists to serve. Resuming search."

Back into the current he went, and back to sleep did I go. I can figure out which dragon was playing around in my dreams later, but I needed my rest.

…

It's a lot easier to enjoy your commute to work when nobody has to be shot with lightning before you leave. The walk to the city center was quiet, the elevator ride pleasant, and the trip across the workshop floor uneventful. I was just beginning to think that today would be a calm day when I made it to the back area where the main path forked between the repair zone and my lab when I heard my name spoken in hushed whispers. I looked over to the repair area to see Zokkos walking towards me hurriedly, a look of genuine fear on their face.

"You're here. Good. Maybe now someone can calm them down."

Them who, and why are you covered in glue? I didn't get to ask that due to my arm being taken and used to lead me to the repair shop. There were a lot of red kobolds in here now, and one new short pink and green kobold wearing a scarf in the center of it all. I barely got around to counting the number of heads before my lab assistant hurled herself at me like a red missile, though instead of slamming into my ribs again she slid to a halt just before hitting me and stepped to the side with her arms stretched wide for all to see.

"This is Kayroo, the smartest kobold in the world! She's the one I've been telling you all about. I can read and write and talk really well because she taught me, so please be nice to her."

The tension in the air hung like a knife over my head. The five identical red kobolds stood there motionless for a solid minute, their unblinking eyes causing me a mountain of anxiety. What am I supposed to do, they're just staring at me! I raised my hand and gave them a meek wave, which seemed to only draw their attention to my hand. One by one they slowly began to approach me like a pack of raptors, circling me with those big green eyes scanning every detail.

All at once they pounced, but not the same way that Vimna would. Questions from every angle assaulted my ears as a few of the brave ones would poke at me or my belongings. I looked to Vimna who was excitedly jumping for joy, then to Dobo and his supposed spouse who were giggling and nuzzling one another as this went on. A cackling could be heard nearby, and following the sound led my eyes to Vynrashu on the floor above laughing his tail off at my dilemma.

Thankfully it seemed that this chaos had gotten the better of Hitkova and pushed her to her limit. She stepped close to the bundle of red scales surrounding me and barked orders at them like a soldier.

"Quiet, now! Be good pups and listen to adults, take noise somewhere else! I'm trying work here, can't think when so many voices around. Kayrux, show them place you work."

I don't really think that having half a dozen hyperactive kobolds in my lab would be a good idea, but it seems that what I think is irrelevant here. Vimna clapped her hands to get her siblings to look her way before waving for them to follow her. I was dragged by the torrent of lizards up to the doors to my lab where I tiredly obeyed and opened the doors. Why was this happening two days in a row?

The parents of the intrusive pack finally caught up with us, though it irritated me that they were still acting all lovey dovey while my lab was ransacked.

"Sorry for them, Kayrux, they not remember how to behave in city. Been traveling whole lives, just excited being home. Must introduce you Vimna mother and my mate, Gyloa. She speak pretty words and know many tongues, successful barterer of caravans.”

The named kobold offered me a gesture I was unfamiliar with, almost like a wave starting from her neck and ending with an outstretched arm just at eye level. Her white eyes were somewhat unsettling, but that smile and deferring pose told me that she was trying her hardest to appear as friendly as possible. She spoke in an almost singing voice that rang like a chime.

“I greet you, Kayrux. My mate has told me of your kindness toward the daughter I could not raise. You have done well to make her worthy of a scholar in writing skill, thus I offer my sincerest of appreciative gestures. The behavior of my other children is unfathomably impolite and cannot be forgiven so easily. Please accept both my thanks and greatest apologies.”

I meant no disrespect towards her, but I did have to kneel down in order to meet her height. I answered her on my slate, and luckily it seemed that she was much more fluent in written words than her husband.

“I accept both sentiments, and offer a thanks of my own. Your daughter has been a blessing in her own right, and I have to acknowledge the creator of such a wonderful girl. Don’t worry about how your kids act, I’m not upset by it.”

The demure little kobold bowed before leaning in close to whisper something to Dobo, who in turn snickered quietly. What was so funny? I followed their eyes to the space behind me, and as I turned around I was startled to find the entire flock of reds were right behind me. That confirms it, I’m just really bad at noticing anyone not in my line of sight. I tried to pick out Vimna from the group, but it was honestly a challenge since they were all crouched low and so close together, making them a single blob of scales and stolen things from my lab. Hey, wait a sec-

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A hand on my shoulder stopped me from moving to take anything, and the parents of this horde stepped forth to scold them for robbing me. During their individual naming of the pack, I gleaned their names and a feature that would identify them if singled out. First were the girls, Wheeth and Ghȧxni, who could be distinguished by being the largest duo with darker scales, though the latter of the two also seemed to have a tinge of yellow in her eyes to set her apart from her sister’s splotches of orange around her neck. The boys were slightly harder to set apart: Rokgu had dark circles around his eyes and ears, Tog had a thin yellow stripe that went from the back of his neck to the tip of his tail, and Sheep was the lightest overall. Now that I was having to play a guessing game of the red team before me, I also made note of how Dobo was now the shortest of the entire lot, his sister who was at her table being next after him, and Vimna being the smallest of the siblings and having a few pink scales on the back of her head that I hadn’t paid attention to.

All of them got a stern lesson in keeping their hands off of things unless permission was granted. The little posse of kids deflated when they were berated, but in the end they all just went about conversing with Dobo and Vimna about their travels while also keeping an eye on what I was up to. Their wariness made me a little uncomfortable since they were still gathered in my lab of all places. I guess I’ll do some non-hazardous magic practice until they decide to leave.

I set myself up at my bench with a few samples of each ore and began to put them through the filter rune until my patience burned out and switched to the upgraded refining rune. The half-hour long process from before had been reduced to a mere minute for each fistful of metal, though I noticed that the rocks were being torn apart much more violently than before. So long as they were being atomized in a stable manner, I was content to just keep processing them as the conversation in my doorway kept going on and on. I stopped myself at the halfway point on each crate so I could try some other methods of refining them later, but the current yield left me with a mound of around forty pounds of each.

While I had worked on the magical smelting at my table in relative calm and quiet, a crowd had begun to form as Vimna and her siblings were drawn in by my methodical casting, sorting, and storing of refined metal and waste products into various boxes on my shelf. By the time I had reached my stopping point they had all gathered, Dobo and Gyloa included, to observe and attempt to understand what my actions meant. Perhaps it was time for a real magical demonstration, one that would wow them all. I passed my slate to Vimna with instructions to gather everyone behind the blast shield while I went over to the testing area with an empty box.

I had learned how to handle the output of my wind runes quite well over time, but the aspect of precision was still an issue. Firing off a 10% gust into the box did little but blow the dust off of its surface while my sensor runes analyzed the data of the attack, but still somehow earned me a few impressed wows. The extrapolation was quickly broken down into two pieces of usable information: the rune itself wasn’t the right shape, and my mana output needed to be higher. Okay then, I guess I can just turn up the power as needed, but what does it mean by the shape?

I ran the rune for a while longer with my magical eyes watching it from every angle, and a quirk of this rune became apparent after poking the rune with my mental hand. Those wing-like shapes that hung from the sides of the wind rune weren’t fixed in place as I had thought, and could actually be extended or compressed to change the funnel width that the runes made. Even more interesting was the fact that the wings themselves would also pivot to allow the cone to be made taller or shorter, meaning that I could adjust the vortex enough that I could make the focused air current a wide blast or a narrow jet.

I used the same power level with both, the wide arc being strong enough to make a wave of sand dance in front of me as opposed to the narrow beam pushing the crate back a few inches before the dust on the floor even twitched. Adjusting the power flow from the variable limiter also revealed that these wind runes would operate immediately unlike the slow charge-up that the thunder runes had. Perhaps I could align a collector rune and a limiter switch right before the wind rune and dump a large surge of 30% mana into it. Would this give me a wind punch as I envisioned it?

I lined up my fist with the crate sitting a few paces before me and let the mana blast into the wind rune, followed shortly after by the wooden box slamming into the wall and bursting into large chunks of splintered wood. Hell yes, a viable attack spell has been found! I pumped my fist in the air in celebration only to have the sting in my arm make me recoil back. Oops, looks like that huge burst of wind ripped a few scales out and embedded them in the wood as well. Despite the usefulness of applying some secondary damage to a force like that, I much prefer to keep my scales where they’re at. Looks like I’m going to need some sleeves or bracers to keep that from happening again.

I looked back to the family behind me as they cheered and clapped for me while Vimna took extensive notes again. Thank you, thank you, you’re too kind! Alas, the demonstration has yet to end, as there was another Idea I had yet to experiment with yet. I looked back to my runes and thought of the channels the mana followed, the shape the flow liked, and the rules it followed when it came to how runes powered up. The two wings of a wind rune were effective, but perhaps there was more that could be accomplished with a spiral configuration of more than two wings.

The reformed wind rune felt out of place in my system, as unlike other rules that laid flat along the line and flowed forwards, this one sat like a disc in my arm and would work outwards. Four wings angled in such a way that they made a propeller shape along the mana line just before my wrist set for a clockwise rotation. The test fire began as soon as I increased the power fed to it, though it became immediately apparent that it wasn’t working as intended. The moving air was choppy and imbalanced while it flowed from every direction and away from the back of my hand, making my entire arm wobble as I tried to hold it steady. It was working, but the angle was all wrong and the blades needed to go the other way in order fo this to work. Maybe just a little tweak to the angle and a tilt to the inner system, now we just scoot it forwards on the line and…

That was the sound of a proper tornado! The air in the palm of my hand spiraled outwards as though a small twister had formed in my palm in order to send sand and wood fragments flying in every direction. One small tweak brought it all under control and narrowed the radius of the storm while also making my hand go numb from the cold, but the size was now perfectly large enough that it encompassed my entire front facing side. Wind shield unlocked! Oh dang, if Vimna wasn’t hiding from the debris right now I would totally ask her to try throwing things at me.

Another theory had been proven right and another usable spell added to my rune functions, which meant that I was already well on my way towards having viable magic defenses with my tesla field and wind punch, and now with a vortex at my fingertips I could possible defend against things like arrows or fire. As cool as the thoughts in my head were, I could only ignore the freezing pain in my hand for so long before I had to disable the runes. Damn it, now I have a lightly bloodied right arm from the ripped scales and a left hand that looked red and raw from the severe wind burns I just gave myself.

I signaled to Vimna that the test was over and left the cage so I could wash my hands before seeking medical attention. Gyloa was kind enough to fetch the bandages and help tend to my arm for me as Dobo wrangled the now riled up swarm of kids he had spawned. Our midday break was his opportunity to escape their unstoppable talking and questions since it allowed him to divert their attention to getting lunch. They were gone like racehorses leaving Dobo in the dust hurrying to keep after them with his wife walking behind them with an amused smile on her face.

Finally, alone at last.

“Hey Roo, your hand okay?”

Oh hi Vimna, I almost didn’t see you there. I tried to pick up my slate so I could reassure her that I was fine, but the sensitive skin under the bandages screamed in objection to that idea upon contact with the wooden board. Instead of trying to tough it out or brute force my way through the pain I merely gave her a tired thumbs up. I didn’t bother to use the chair as I sat with my back to the fence. She sat next to me and massaged my undamaged forearm gently, being careful not to touch the blistered palm of my hand. It was only midday and I was already about to say that the day was over.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and Gyloa will take them all home or on a tour of the city so I can work in peace. This recurring party going on in the lab was starting to get on my nerves, and a third attempt would be met with me locking the gate and ignoring anyone who dared to bother me. Well, everyone but my dutiful assistant and pet bug of course. Speaking of, where was the little guy anyway?