Ognevika woke up feeling as though she was missing something important. Something was going deeply wrong within her subterranean universe. Historically, this meant only one thing: intruders.
"Again?" she thought blearily. "Annoying little bastards..." As she blinked and her vision cleared she felt even more uneasy. She lifted her head a little and looked about her to see what the matter could be and was startled to find herself surrounded by what appeared to be giant kobolds, as large as she was!
She leaped instantly to her feet, then fell over immediately in surprise when she found herself standing on two legs.
"What in the Gorefield is...?" she snarled with a voice that felt much smaller and weaker than her usual thunderous timbre. She looked around at these giant kobolds more closely. Some of them were stirring around her in annoyance. Definitely kobolds; definitely larger than any she'd seen before.
She held up her front legs to see two slender, brilliant red arms instead. She waved her little arms around, incredulous. In her confusion she realised she was vocalising still, but all she could say was, "what, what, what WHAT?" over and over, as if she couldn't even finish a question. By now the giant kobolds were all awake and glaring at her.
“What is this?” she shrieked after gathering herself for a moment. She had finally arrived at the most concerning issue-- her hoard was not underneath her.
"Where's my hoard?!" she shrieked, spinning in a circle, trying to catch the soothing vibrations of the hoard’s magic. It was always singing in her head, telling her exactly where each item lay. Her hoard was still somewhere nearby, she felt it. She took off instantly, retreating towards the familiarity and safety of its resonant energy.
“Out of my way!” she bellowed at the oversized kobolds, barging past them towards her treasures. As she approached it, the wrongness only intensified. As she drew near her treasures became enormous, the piles towering above her like mountains. The chorus of the hoard vibrated at a far deeper, more ominous, perversely atonal intensity. She skidded to a halt in front of it, almost toppling in shock, overwhelmed by the overbearing chords of magic.
She tried to tune out the resonance and just stared at the hoard in frustration. A shiny polished plate was sticking up out of the pile. It was absurdly large, half as tall as she was!
A stranger’s reflection stared back at her out of the cold metal. It was a little red kobold with an amethyst-ruby mane and vivid violet-golden eyes that locked onto hers.
Ognevika saw a collar around the neck of the reflection, and when she reached up she felt it around her own neck. She tapped the gold collar.
[PROPERTY OF OGNEVIKA. NAME: ERROR ]
A horrid System message declared. Ognevika clawed at the collar although she knew it would do no good. When she was composed enough, she rapped on the thrall collar with one claw twice to get more detail.
[Level Zero Kobold, thrall of Ognevika the Red. Name: Error]
the collar announced in its smooth artificial voice.
“I’m not my own slave!” protested Ognevika, her voice cracking a little. “I am Ognevika! The feared guardian of the Nexus for millennia!” She thrust her slender chest out as she said it.
“Hi, Error,” said a voice from behind her and she jumped sideways in surprise to see the same blue kobold from earlier, the one who’d taken the book away. They were now about the same height. Ognevika just stared. After a moment of smiling blankly at her, the blue kobold jumped, clapping her hands together. “Oh! I forgot. I’m Agate!” she announced and resumed smiling expectantly, her little pointy teeth glinting.
“This is all a wizard dream spell,” Ognevika said. The blue kobold opened her mouth as if to speak, but Ognevika cut her off. “I’ve been magicked asleep and this horrible dream is going on while that foul little man steals my gold,” she told the blue kobold. She looked past the blue kobold, to the top of the hoard pile where she saw herself sleeping. Yes, that had to be it. She just needed to wake herself up.
She scrambled up the loot mountain, slipping and falling twice. She began to pant with effort.
“This is so much stuff,” she muttered. “Why am I hoarding all this stuff?” When she neared the top of the pile she rummaged for something nice and heavy. She pulled a jewel-encrusted crown loose of the pile and chucked it at her massive sleeping head, now seen from the third person.
“WAKE UP!” she commanded herself. Her dragon-self snuffled and twitched without waking. She ran closer, pelting her dragon-self with goblets, gilded armor, and a strange phallic shape carved from jade. Her dragon-self twitched again.
“COME ON!” Ognevika yelled in her puny kobold voice.
Her dragon-self moved her tail. “Here we go,” said Ognevika, trying to catch her breath. “C’mon, you big red lout. C’mon!” The tail lifted ponderously from the gold, and Ognevika smiled triumphantly, waiting for the spell to break.
The tail swayed, then drew back and whipped through the air. The red jewel-encrusted tail slammed into her chest and sent her flying. The sickening crack of impact rang in Ognevika’s ears.
“‘M napping,” her dragon-self mumbled. “Lemme sleep.”
Ognevika crashed down onto the side of the hoard pile and rolled down, her slender body bashing against hard, shiny things.
She yelped in pain until she came to a stop at the bottom of the pile, coins and relics sliding down after her, until she came to a sudden stop. She lay prone, stunned, for a moment.
“You’re an odd kobold, Error,” the blue kobold told her, staring at her from above. Ognevika realized that her tumble had been stopped by the blue kobold’s feet.
“Please, no bothering Mistress Ognevika. It is her naptime.”
“I… I hate all this stuff,” Ognevika groaned. “I have a problem. A hoarding problem. And a talking-to-myself problem.” At this point she was half-buried in coins and things with sharp bits. Her chest hurt fiercely from her dragon-self’s tail, making it hard to breathe.
“What have I been doing with my life?” she gasped, letting her head flop back against the pile. “And... why? Why do dragons hoard stuff? Why in Gorefield’s unholy name do I need all these things?”
“Error, why do you question this for?” asked the blue kobold, blinking in surprise. “And why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying!” Ognevika protested. “My face is just wet, you little fool.”
“It is wet from you crying,” said the blue kobold.
“Dragons don’t cry,” Ognevika said dismissively. The blue kobold wavered, looking uncertain for a moment.
“Kobolds aren’t dragons,” she said at last. “Maybe dragons don’t cry, but we do. Especially if the Mistress hits us with her tail. Fierce awful.”
“I don’t understand it anymore,” said Ognevika in a wrecked voice, gesturing to the vast expanses of treasure all around her. “This all made so much sense as a dragon. What sort of a magic dream tortures me with existential questions? And…” her breath hitched at the pain in her chest. “...Why do I have so many sharp things?”
“Come now,” said the blue kobold, extending a hand to Ognevika. “Let’s get you to the grotto. I’ll fix you right up, Error.”
“Right,” said the red kobold who remembered once being a dragon called Ognevika. Her new, ridiculous name echoed about in her head. Error.
Agate lifted her by the arm in support. "Kobold bones are made of what," Error winced, "spun sugar?"
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Just beyond the bleak, scorched tunnel leading to Ognevika’s hoard chamber, an adventurer’s camp was forming. A Probability Knight marched between the makeshift tents and groups of people, looking over his assembled troops. In addition to being the appointed leader of the expedition, he was the only Probability Knight with the party. Therefore he’d been upgraded from the fearsome status of being a Probability Knight to the even more fearsome status of being the Probability Knight.
Once his rank and file were ready, he assembled them for a quick briefing on the situation.
“Remember, the book artifact has probabilistic connection to the Catastrophe Prophecy,” he barked from behind his helmet. He knew how to speak clearly and threateningly even with his face obscured.
“Do not interact with the book. Do not acknowledge it in any manner. Don't read the words on its pages. Do not write in it. Don’t look directly at it for too long. Use the provided tongs, goggles and antimag shielded bag.”
“Hehe, anti-mag bag. That rhymes,” chuckled a soldier a few rows back. His friend elbowed him hard in the ribs.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The Probability Knight swiveled his head to fix the soldier with a burning stare. He said nothing as the man’s face went from impetuous, to uncertain, to afraid, and then past that to just bewildered.
“Stay behind Magisteel barricades at all times, unless ordered otherwise,” the Probability Knight continued seamlessly, as if nothing had happened. “Anyone holding the book without provided safety is considered affected by the prophecy and is to be executed on sight. The execution permit 11a is in the side pocket of the bag.”
A ripple of excitement went through the ranks. The Probability Knight allowed this. Morale was very important.
“Finally, a license to kill! I always wanted one of those,” said a soldier in the back.
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Error, leaning on Agate, slowly limped across the cavern and away from the hoard. Leaving her treasure alone with her dragon-self was mildly concerning.
“Where are we going?” she growled at the blue kobold towing her along.
“My favouritest place in the ‘neath’!” Agate chirped. “The kitchen!”
As they ducked into a dim little tunnel Error wondered what exactly kobolds ate and how they prepared it. As she understood it, adventurers were a vital, foundational part of the lair’s food chain. But what if there weren’t enough dead adventurers to feed everyone?
A sudden sense of hunger and weakness hit her, as if she’d been starved of rubies her whole life.
Crystalline sand crunched under their feet. The golden light of the hoard faded until the tunnel was illuminated only by hanging tufts of glowing moss. There was a cool, damp draft coming from up ahead, and a thunderous rushing sound. When the tunnel opened up into a massive new chamber, all Error could do was stand and gape at the view before her. A waterfall cascaded down from far above, smashing into the sand beneath with a rumble Error could feel through the ground beneath her feet. Curtains of green moss hung from the chamber’s distant walls.
“Was this always here?” Error asked in bewilderment. As a dragon her interests had rarely extended beyond the hoard chamber. She tried to remember what else was outside the hoard and discovered that she could not. Millennia of being a shut-in were probably affecting her memory of the outside, she concluded with a pang of unexpected dismay. Her detailed mental inventory of every item in her hoard had grown and grown until she remembered little else.
“Yeppers! Isn’t it the best?” Agate said, dragging Error forward across the sandbar towards the waterfall. Sand of many colors emerged, forming rainbows of glimmering crystalline channels and patterns. Azure pools of water shimmered closer to the endlessly cascading falls. Small groups of Kobolds were scattered atop broad, mossy stones rising above the sand. Error squinted at them.
“Plenty to eat here,” Agate said as she pulled Error along. “And lots of ‘bolds like to swim here, too. Not me, though. Swimming makes me sad!” Agate said the last part with nonchalant cheerfulness, which only made the comment stranger.
“I thought you said there was a kitchen,” she said to Agate, who led her up a well-worn footpath to the top of one of the stones. They stood looking out over the pools and sandbars. The moss up here was a deep red.
“Here!” Agate ripped a chunk of moss up. “Looks like you prefer this one!”
Error gagged at the damp, smelly moss being shoved into her face. “I don’t eat moss!”
Agate rapped Error’s crystalline red horns with her knuckles. “You must’ve! R--eEe--D!” she enunciated the color slowly, as if to explain.
“Say what?” Error protested as Agate continued to brandish the moss at her. “Stop! Gah!” she exclaimed far louder than she wanted to, slapping away Agate’s persistent hands. And then she paused, looking more closely at Agate.
“What’s with your hands?” she asked. At once Agate’s face crumpled with anguish. She dropped the moss and clasped her hands together so Error couldn’t see them.
“I am sorry for my ugly hands,” she whimpered.
“I don’t care, you’re all hideous little things anyways. Show me,” demanded Error, her curiosity piqued.
Agate was convinced that if Error got a good look at her hands she would be disgusted, and turn on Agate just like the others. Her hands had a thin, delicate membrane that stretched between each finger. The others told her this made her hands horrible and freakish, like she was an overgrown mucus-squirting rock salamander or a cave toad.
Error continued to hound at the mewling, groveling Agate, and the squabbling attracted the attention of the kobolds nearby. An older kobold wearing a necklace of dried mushrooms stood up and sauntered towards them.
“I don’t recalls you, girl. You’s must be new here. Here, we eats moss ‘n we likes it.” He was a wretched dull brown color, with scales on his snout and hands that were washed out to grey. His tongue flicked out from between his pointy teeth as he talked, a habit that Error found repulsive.
“I’m not eating your moss!” Error insisted, forgetting all about Agate’s weird hands.
“You’ve gotta. Mushrooms are reserved for wiser ‘bolds,” The brown kobold added, jiggling the mushroom necklace. “Moss is for youngins’. Makes ‘em grow up strong. Each flavour gives yous a different color. Your scale ‘n horns sing of rubinessence. Need the savor of rubies to keep em like that.”
“Rubies? Yes, I eat rubies!” Error agreed desperately. The kobold’s yellow eyes bulged at her, his lips pulling back from his fangs a little.
“Rubies are reserved for Mistress Ogness!” he rasped at her. “For a lowly ‘bold to eat pure rubies is blasphemy! The Undersea falls bring all the necessary minerals down straight to us from across the under’, and makes our moss grow rich and nourishin’. You have no respect.”
“‘Course I eat rubies!” insisted Error hotly. “Big ones only. At least thirty karats! I’m not going to eat sand like a domestic,” she sneered. The old kobold’s skinny tail whipped around in agitation.
“Who even blessed this one with a collar?” he barked. “Was it you, dummy?” The kobold glowered at Agate. Agate stared back with a blank, terrified look. Error waved a hand in front of her face, but Agate didn’t even twitch. Not getting an answer, the old kobold continued to berate Error.
“Foolish whelp,” he growled, shoving her back. She stumbled and slipped in the moss. “Kobold blood is cold like cave water. Dragon blood is fire. Remember that before you get burned.” They were eye-to-eye. It infuriated Error that a kobold dared to look her in the eye.
“Can I have my rubies now?” she drawled. She was hungry and this ugly little creature was wasting her time. His chest puffed up with indignation and he leaned in to hiss in her face. Error recoiled from the spray of spittle and turned away. She lurched as her feet found the edge of the little cliff. She teetered. Agate, still nearby, continued her statue impression.
"Accept your place, or die young!" the brown kobold snarled, and shoved her again, harder. Error fell back, wingless, into cold, empty air.
She hit the water with a slap that sent searing pain through her broken ribs. For a moment the world went hazy and her vision went white. Her bony little kobold body sank like a rock, limbs flailing. She gasped in alarm as burning-cold water filled her lungs. The bright surface of the pool faded as the last of her air rushed away in quivering bubbles. The world grew darker as she sank, and she felt her strength failing.
And then she felt nothing at all, and her thrashing stopped.
. . .
Error woke up sprawled out on one of the sandbars. She leapt onto all fours as a dragon would, and found herself still a spindly wet kobold with broken ribs, now on her hands and knees, coughing out the dregs of the water. She flopped back onto the colorful sand and moaned with despair. She was still in the enormous waterfall grotto full of other kobolds. They were sitting and eating moss in distant groups, mostly ignoring her.
Her chest still hurt, and she realized someone had pulled her out of the pool and dressed all her cuts and bruises with bandages made from seaweed over soft moss. Perhaps someone still respected her as their leader, even in her cursed new form.
Her dragonly greatness could not be so easily diminished!
She looked around for Agate. What had that one looked like exactly? All kobolds looked kind of the same to her. Agate was blue, she was pretty sure. Now that she was kobold sized, she noticed that there were obvious differences between male and female kobolds. The males were taller, bulkier, more angular. Their faces had more pronounced, longer snouts and their heads had much shorter crystalline hair.
She heard a splash down below. She rolled over on her side to look down over the ledge into the water, just in time to see a blue kobold suck in a breath of air and dive back under. Surely this was Agate.
Error, watched, fascinated. Agate swam with fluid grace. It was pleasing to watch, somehow. Her long blue tail was flattened laterally like that of a crocodile and it propelled her effortlessly through the sparkling, clear water with sweeping, undulating movements. Her hands seemed strange, but Error couldn’t tell exactly why through the rippling surface of the water. Error watched as Agate swam around gathering clumps of seaweed, silver bubbles drifting up from Agate’s nose, for what seemed like a very long time.
Just as she started to wonder if this kobold had gills, Agate kicked off the bottom of the pool and came splashing through the surface. Error tried to look away and seem disinterested before Agate caught her looking.
“Ho, Error! You woke up!” she called, and waded out of the water towards her, clutching fistfuls of seaweed.
“Of course I woke up,” Error said, scowling. She didn’t like pointless creatures that said pointless things. “Everyone who goes to sleep has to wake up.”
Agate just shrugged, craftily adding more seaweed to what was already on Error. Error allowed her servant to attend to her.
“Sometimes kobolds that get whacked by the Mistress sleep, and you think, oh, good, he’ll sleep it off, an’ then you come back in an hour and he cold and stiff. Chest all full of blood or some such,” Agate said as she worked.
“Well, it’s irresponsible of all of you to have such fragile bones,” Error grumbled. She felt odd, weak, defenseless, restless. It made her sour. “And I thought you didn’t like swimming,” she accused Agate. “And then I wake up and catch you splashing around having a grand old time!”
“I swim good,” said Agate. “It just makes me sad is all.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Error said automatically. She still felt so very off. Like she ought to be doing things. Things to protect herself. Things to secure her position in life. Before, she had never felt much of a need to do things. It was an unpleasant sensation. She scowled at the tranquil pools of water and the lounging kobolds.
“What about the hoard, though?” she asked.
Agate blinked at her, pausing in her bandaging work. “What about it?”
“The hoard,” Error repeated. “Thousands of magical items, just stacked up in a big heap. Why don’t I do anything with them?”
Agate’s mouth was slightly open, her brow furrowed as she pondered this.
“Hoards... are for hoarding?” she asked with a helpless shrug.
“But why!?” exclaimed Error, standing to pace about despite her injuries. “Is it a draconic instinct? To keep things and never use them? I could arm you all with magical weapons! Give you magical tools, so you aren’t all stuck in this… primitive misery!” Error said, gesturing expansively at all the naked, skinny kobolds milling about, eating moss like peasant livestock. “So much wealth… so much potential… I could conquer the world and have empires weeping at my feet!” Her last words rang out with a bit of an echo.
Conversations near them had paused, and the other kobolds were staring at Error with concern and annoyance.
"Potential?" Agate tilted her head.
Error’s triumphant posture sagged a little.
“Potential for… more,” she repeated as she mentally reassessed her hoard.
The white-haired kobold tilted her head at Error.
“Is this why adventurers always throw their lives away coming down here?” she asked Agate. “Is this how they think? Is this why they’re so annoying? I’m annoying myself thinking like this! But what can I do? I’m wasting my own power!”
“When we have a problem we can’t fix, we ask the Mistress,” said Agate.
“I am your mistress you freakin' blue dolt!” howled Error, and then doubled over in pain from her broken ribs. The other kobolds paused to stare at her again.
“The Mistress is in the big cave, napping,” said Agate patiently, patting Error on the head. "It's okay, Error. I forget things sometimes too, when another kobold bonks me too hard on the head."
An undercurrent of boiling anger rose inside Error. Anger at herself being trapped in a useless, fragile, level zero kobold body. Inability to do much. Kobolds bonking each other on the heads for no good reason for it instead of helping her.