Chapter 1: Origins [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment001-Tr.png]

Breanna ran through the underbrush in vain hope of escape. She bled from several cuts and punctures, and kept her left hand pressed to holes in her upper right arm where an arrow had pierced it. Her close relationship with the arcane mysteries of nature kept her steps silent and her trail unfollowed as the foliage politely and quietly moved themselves aside to let her pass through and then shuffling around to hide her tracks. This was not as reassuring as she would hope - she could hear the creatures fanning out through the jungle heading in the same direction she was. Her party must have slain hundreds of them, but still they followed. If she could just get to the airship before they found it, perhaps there was a chance of surviving.

A sudden loud alarm-call in the language of the creatures chasing her rang out somewhere just ahead and to Breanna's right, resembling the cry of a large, angry bird, It was joined immediately by several others in the same area. A screeching voice from further away shouted complex syllables in the unfamiliar language and a sudden explosion of fire erupted near her. Breanna gasped for breath and leapt away to the left, sprinting ahead further as charred chunks of some unlucky jungle-beast flew overhead.

She tried and failed to silence her internal screaming thoughts: this should not be happening! THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!

It had started with such promise. The fragments of centuries-old documents hinted at a magical artifact of incredible power hidden here in this far-off island, deep beneath the volcanic mountains and guarded by some sort of arch-demon. The power to overthrow life and death, one mildewed and half-burnt scroll-fragment had said. Protect and preserve the soul from loss said a piece of stone tablet. Wrought by the mightiest... intoned the half-crazed seer they'd paid to try to discover the nature of the object's keeper. That was all they'd gotten since the seer had started screaming and then passed out at that point. At least that had made it easy to take their money back and leave.

For adventurers who had braved occasionally-lethal dangers before, this could be an especially valuable acquisition. Being restored to life after dying wasn't unheard of and several of them had actually experienced it, but it had its faults. Finding a suitable sacrifice to convince the gods to allow the soul back from beyond the gates of death was difficult sometimes, and usually expensive. It was also often unpleasant and took time to recover from. Worse, it always felt like something was missing somehow afterwards. And, of course, you had to hope someone knew you had died and that your soul wanted to return to life, and that whoever they were they cared enough to go through the difficulties of making it happen. Some way to just not die in the first place even if you were 'killed' would be so much better, easier, and cheaper. Old Llywelyn was also facing the frailty of advancing age, and insisted he was just decades away from solving the problem of restoring youthful vitality, if he could just not die before then. He had been especially eager to provide his hard-won and extensive powers of wizardry to the expedition. The infernal thing that Kritchlette referred to as her "patron" - she claimed it was a relative of hers - had supposedly confirmed for them that there was a demonic power holding a powerful object that matched the description, and many more treasures besides. Months of research had finally discovered the jungle-covered and isolated volcanic island that Breanna was currently fleeing across, where the reported demonic power lurked. Weeks of flying across vast, empty ocean had finally led them here. They moored themselves to a tall jungle tree and prudently scouted the area, where they found an obvious entrance to the caverns and tunnels beneath the volcanic mountains.

They had also found tracks - small reptilian feet. Exactly the right size, shape, and number, Breanna had recognized, to have been kobold hunting parties. Kobolds! Just little lizard-people with dragon envy. Perhaps the demon was so isolated that it had to play "dragon" for kobolds in order to have minions at all, or perhaps this so-called demonic power was a myth. Surely, this would turn out to be much easier than the demonic hordes they'd expected and prepared for. They did all the right things - they carefully watched the massive entrance from afar to find out what the hunting-patrol schedule was like, optimized their preparations to deal with groups of kobold skirmishers and...maybe...one demon of some sort. They quietly ambushed the two clearly-symbolic gate-guards at the sides of the massive archway leading into the mountain after a regular hunting-party had left, and sneaked in. This should have been easy. How had this all gone so very wrong?

=== ELSEWHERE AT THAT TIME... ===

Squiggles stood proudly at his station next to the Exalted Reclamation Pit. He felt genuinely fortunate and honored in his role, despite realizing that he had probably been chosen simply due to having been the nearest available kobold when something unfortunate had happened to the previous attendant. Even so, nothing in Squiggles' life to this point had made him feel so proud.

Squiggles felt the rhythmic vibrations through the floor, growing stronger as the heavy footsteps of Mighty Shangrook approached. The eager speech of Mighty Shangrook's personal advisors became audible down the tunnel as well, promising that Mighty Shangrook would surely like what they'd brought today. The other attendants rushed to roll out the massive carpet of woven wool and gold thread at the edge of the Exalted Reclamation Pit for Mighty Shangrook to rest upon. Squiggles' heart pounded with excitement as Mighty Shangrook's head emerged from the tunnel at the other side of the cavern.

Mighty Shangrook was an awe-inspiring dragon beyond all others. Mighty Shangrook's scales, each of which could make a large shield for a kobold, were like a mosaic of smooth obsidian and shining silver. Mighty Shangrook's talons were like the finest sharpened steel and larger than a kobold's forearm. Mighty Shangrook's teeth were like curved blades of alabaster longer than a kobold's tail. Mighty Shangrook's wings could spread like the night sky to cover whole hunting-groups of kobolds. Mighty Shangrook's eyes could contain a whole kobold's body and they sparkled like polished hematite. Mighty Shangrook's muscles moved beneath the scales like an earthquake.

The carpet-attendants sprinted away to make room, and the advisors scrambled over each other to take their places nearby as Mighty Shangrook settled down on the soft golden carpet and got comfortable. A nod of Mighty Shangrook's head and a casual gesture with a talon signaled the advisors to begin. The elder advisor - a long, thin kobold with white but greying scales and ruby-colored eyes - hopped excitedly as she insistently waved for the other two to bring the scroll. They sprinted to do so, and the three of them ceremoniously unrolled it.

"This is a story from a far-away land!" the senior advisor announced cheerfully, and began to read.

"One time on the Borbory islands, there lived two dwarven brothers, Hans and Heinz..."

Squiggles fidgeted with happiness. He recognized this story. The elder advisor was reading a translation he had helped make into proper draconic language, from one of the books of human-ish childrens' stories that he had been found with.

Squiggles, unlike the others, hadn't been hatched in Mighty Shangrook's tribe, but had been found washed up on Mighty Shangrook's island alone in a lifeboat. Squiggles had been a city kobold. Not every kobold tribe was lucky enough to be had by a true dragon, and many tribes ended up needing to find a more metaphorical dragon to serve. Squiggles had been hatched in the New Frederickton Tribe, whose dragon was the government of the city-state of New Frederickton. The local governor had allowed one of her children to give Squiggles his name, and apparently the child had liked the way the border between his grass-green dorsal scales swirled irregularly into his medium-grey ventral scales, and had named him after the pattern. It could have been worse. A younger child had been allowed to name another hatchling. Poopoopeepee was actually a very fastidious kobold, in spite of his given name - or perhaps because of it. City kobolds often got the least desirable chores to do, but they did get some legal status and were paid a little, sheltered, and fed. At least they weren't from one of the unfortunate feral kobold tribes who had to make the tribe itself act as their metaphorical dragon.

Squiggles' chores in the city had mostly been as a courier and general servant for some of the more important of the city's human-ish citizens, and he had been brought as a sort of kobold cabin-boy on a cross ocean voyage of one of the wealthy merchants and his family. A terrible storm had churned up and the ship had started taking on water, and Squiggles had been commanded to prepare a lifeboat. He'd just finished loading some provisions, a waterproof trunk of clothing, and a chest containing some books and toys belonging to one of the merchant's children when the ship had broken up completely, throwing the lifeboat away into the wind and waves, with Squiggles in it. Some debris from the ship blown by the storm had struck Squiggles in the head, and the rest had been a hazy memory of running out of drinkable water after some uncounted number of days of drifting, and slipping into delerium.

"...But Hans just laughed. Why do you laugh, dwarf?, asked the Borborygmy chief. My brother is a day behind me with pineapples! laughed Hans...," the elder advisor read. A contented chuckle rumbled from Mighty Shangrook's throat. The advisor-kobolds all trembled and giggled with happiness that they had amused Mighty Shangrook but with some effort regained their composure and continued reading the story. Squiggles was not as strongly affected as those hatched in his new tribe, but even he felt a tingling joy that he had contributed to Mighty Shangrook's amusement by bringing this story from New Frederickton.

Squiggles looked nervously towards the tunnel opposite the one Mighty Shangrook had entered from. An unusual amount of noise was beginning to be audible there, and he didn't want Mighty Shangrook to be disturbed. The four kobolds acting as ceremonial guards there were hearing the same noises, so they quietly conferred and then began pushing the massive stone doors closed to muffle the sounds.

"...Hans saw this and thought to himself, Heinz was right, Zhunga-zhunga is no punishment for a dwarf, but neither is being made into a canoe. I must think of a way to avoid that...," the narration continued, but then the THUMP of a distant explosion was both heard and felt, and a few seconds later a faint glow of multicolored light shone through the closing doors. Squiggles became concerned as he thought he heard some rather un-kobold-like shouting among the yelling and alarm-calls of the many kobolds further away. The floor shuddered and cracks formed in the floor and walls, knocking the stone doors loose. Most of the guards managed to get away in time as they fell.

"MIGHTY SHANGROOK'S BODILY MEDITATIONS ARE NOT TO BE TROUBLED!" roared Mighty Shangrook wrathfully as a spray of sparkling black smoke erupted from Mighty Shangrook's nostrils, sending the three guards who had not been crushed by the doors sprinting down the tunnel to help deal with the problem, and sending the two younger advisors into a panicked frenzy. One flung himself into the Exalted Reclamation Pit, his screams of apology carrying all the way down until they were silenced with a wet SPLUT!. The other sprinted to join the guards. Only the elder advisor could muster the force of will to fall flat into a supplicating pose and stay silent instead of acting impulsively. Squiggles was not as forcefully affected, but even he felt his legs give way and he, too, fell prone. He suppressed an urge to beg forgiveness - he knew whatever was happening wasn't his fault, and the noise of his pleading would probably only bother Mighty Shangrook further.

For a moment, the noise outside stubbornly grew, and Squiggles was worried to note that some of the screaming sounded distinctly human-ish. Fortunately, that stopped quickly. The frantic shouting of kobolds continued for a short while, then began to recede into the distance.

"It would please Mighty Shangrook if you would continue," said Mighty Shangrook's voice, the terrifying wrath replaced with a reassuring croon. Squiggles stood back up. The senior advisor did as well, taking several deep breaths to calm herself. She picked up the scroll and read on.

"...But just then, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the Borbory-cat, who said: You're not here for the hunting, are you?..."

She soon got to the end of the story. Mighty Shangrook gave an approving chuckle, then made an announcement.

"Mighty Shangrook is ready."

Squiggles took up the expanse of cloth next to him. He suspected it had once been the heraldic banner of some mighty kingdom centuries ago, but now the faded fabric had a higher purpose. Squiggles placed it carefully into the trough of volcanically-heated flowing water behind him.

Mighty Shangrook's legs like the greatest of trees lifted the mountainous hips of Mighty Shangrook. Mighty Shangrook's tail, which could flatten forests as though they were but blades of wet grass, swung out over the Exalted Reclamation Pit.

The mighty contents of Mighty Shangrook's mighty bowels were expelled into the Exalted Reclamation Pit with a forcefulness and vigor appropriate to the mightiest of all dragons.

Squiggles was mindful to wait until Mighty Shangrook was done before lifting the expanse of hot, wet cloth and running to meet Mighty Shangrook's hindquarters as they swung back away from the pit. There was almost no cleaning needed - after all, the perfection of draconic flesh didn't have the disgusting, messy sitting-pads that the human-ish people had. Even so, Squiggles dutifully worked to make the portion of Mighty Shangrook that he was responsible for as comfortable, shining, and perfect as possible.

When Squiggles' duty was finished, Mighty Shangrook gave a deep sigh of contentment and looked around the cavern. Only Squiggles and the elder advisor remained, aside from the kobold crushed beneath the broken pieces of the stone doors, and the other lost forever somewhere down in the contents of the Exalted Reclamation Pit.

"Mighty Shangrook is content," Mighty Shangrook announced, "but now all those responsible for troubling Mighty Shangrook's bodily meditations shall be brought before Mighty Shangrook."

Squiggles and the elder advisor both ran obediently from the room to convey Mighty Shangrook's command.

=== MEANWHILE BACK IN THE TUNNELS, AS BREANNA WAS REMEMBERING... ===

The entrance tunnel hadn't narrowed as they'd expected, but had remained so wide and tall that someone could have easily driven elephants through, side-by-side and standing atop each other. A few small kobold patrols with spears had been quickly and quietly dispatched before one had managed to raise an alarm. Then the devious creatures had started appearing in larger numbers, emerging from side-tunnels barely large enough for them in endless streams. Breanna had noticed that they seemed to have far more variation than she expected. They were all still kobolds, of course, but the collection of shapes, colors, and sizes was very unlike the tribes she'd known of before, which tended to have their own consistent and distinctive shape and color patterns. As they flooded in, the adventurer's efforts went from infiltration to battle for their lives. Although they were cunning enough to try to keep their distance, the kobolds were still easy victims for the seasoned adventurers' abilities at first. They were slaughtered by the dozens, but still they kept coming. Kobolds who could use magic began to appear alongside the spear-throwers and bow-wielders, and by the time the adventurers realized they needed to retreat, it was too late. Kritchlette finally went down under one of several barrages of magical assaults and arrows. Their paladin, Bradley the Bold, fell amid piled kobold corpses, finally mobbed by too many enemies with spears and knives to kill them all. Old Llywelyn had made one last desperate act of wizardry. He sent an explosion of fire that obliterated the kobolds that had gotten behind them, then conjured a wall of shimmering rainbow light that filled the tunnel between him and Breanna.

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"Go!" he had shouted back to Breanna as he countered most of a volley of kobold arrows with some defensive magic. "One of us has to get away to bring back the rest of us! Run!"

A last demonstration of wizardly might shook the entire tunnel, knocking kobolds off-balance and opening cracks in the walls and floor from the magical earthquake. Breanna ran, and tried not to think about how quickly Old Llywelyn's shouting stopped afterwards. She had gotten back up out of the tunnels and almost into the surrounding jungle before a few straggling kobolds had spotted her and given chase. And now here she was, a lone wounded survivor fleeing for her life from creatures that were often considered mere target-practice for experienced adventurers.

Breanna could still hear her pursuers calling to each other nearby in their incomprehensible language, so there was no time for caution as she broke into the clearing where the rope ladder from the airship dangled. If she could just get to the top before she was caught, she'd be able to detach the ladder to drop anyone climbing after her, cut the mooring rope, and fly away from this horrible place. Gritting her teeth, she let go of the wound in her right arm to reach for the ladder. She leapt and grabbed on, yelping at the pain from her arm as she began climbing.

She'd only gotten a few rungs up when more arrows flew past her. She risked a quick glance to see a motley gaggle of kobolds had come into the clearing as well. Three were launching arrows at her from small bows, while the others seemed to be debating something loudly amongst themselves.

"That immortality would be very useful right about now!" Breanna growled angrily as she concentrated on getting up the ladder as quickly as she could. More arrows flew by, one miraculously passing through her hair without hitting anything solid.

Then, a stinging pain below her right ear. She whimpered and tried to ignore it as she struggled to climb faster, only to feel another sting in her right hand. She looked to see a needle of carved bone stuck there. She looked down to see two of the kobolds with long tubes in their mouths, pointed at her. There was another sting at her cheek.

How are they using blowguns without lips? she wondered as dizziness brought confusion. Her arms and legs ceased to obey her commands to climb. With her last moment of lucidity, she raged feebly.

"Damn you all! This is the opposite of immortality!" she complained.

Then, her grip on consciousness was lost just like her grip on the ladder.

=== BACK INSIDE... ===

That individual kobolds died wasn't especially shocking. Even Mighty Shangrook's tribe was made up of small, vulnerable creatures in a dangerous world, and somewhere deep down all kobolds knew this sort of thing just happened from time to time. What was shocking, though, was the sheer scale of it. Neither Squiggles nor the elder advisor had seen such carnage before. The dead and gravely-injured littered the tunnel on both sides of the wall of shimmering light that now blocked it. One of the few survivors who was in a condition to speak warned them not to try to go through it, and weakly described how four monsters had invaded and slain so many of them, and that one of them had been on the other side of the kobold-annihilating wall of light and had fled. Squiggles knew it was something worse than monsters when he found the remains of three of them among his fallen tribemates. Human. Or at least human-ish, there seemed to be horns and a small tail and dark red flesh on one of the arrow-festooned corpses.

As they assessed the aftermath, the wall of light flickered and disappeared. A short discussion later, and the elder advisor ran to find some healers while Squiggles rushed out through the tunnel to convey Mighty Shangrook's will to the ones who had gone through the side-tunnels around the wall of light to chase after the last invader.

=== SIMULTANEOUSLY, NEAR THE GATES OF DEATH ===

The peaceful meadow felt familiar to Breanna, somehow. She knew this wasn't the first time she'd been here, though she couldn't remember how she'd arrived. The mighty oak in the center towering up into the sky was familiar as well, and she felt an urge to climb it. The large grey squirrel that watched her from the roots was also familiar, and she thought she remembered it leading her up into the branches before. This time it just sat there, watching her, wordlessly telling her "No. Not now."

It didn't matter. Despite feeling that she wanted to climb the oak all the way into the sky, she couldn't muster the effort to even sit up. The ground felt scratchy, as if it was dragging across her back. An uneasy feeling of urgency began to build in her chest. Faint sounds and flickers of vision joined the feelings of pain in her limbs and body as the meadow began to fade away.

Her head lolled to the side, and for a moment she saw something beyond the meadow. There were mountains, and something surreal lay sprawled across them. No details were discernible except for a silhouette so dark that it almost hurt to look at, but the outline seemed to be a massive serpentine creature. Tiny silhouetted figures marched patiently along its back, climbed up the serpent's head, and flung themselves one after another into the serpent's open mouth without hesitation. Then, the rest of the vision faded into the same painful darkness as the silhouette, and there was only a numb sense of motion and a growing awareness of sounds - the strange voices of kobolds.

=== ALL TOGETHER, IN THE PRESENCE OF MIGHTY SHANGROOK ===

"All of Mighty Shangrook's Tribe shall be present to witness," Mighty Shangrook said to the scrambling kobolds. Several of them ran off to fetch the rest.

Squiggles had dutifully helped drag ...and shovel... the remains of the invaders into place in the Chamber of Gratitude to be inspected by Mighty Shangrook. They were arranged on the floor in the light of numerous magical torches that lit the chamber, and of Mighty Shangrook's own scintillating radiance. The invader the kobolds had captured outside was still intact enough to be breathing, but the other three were long gone. Mighty Shangrook looked on in silence while waiting for all to assemble. It wasn't long before the kobolds that had left came back, dragging a total of five more kobolds on stretchers. Mighty Shangrook counted as the kobolds stood waiting. Forty-seven.

"All of Mighty Shangrook's Tribe shall be present to witness," Mighty Shangrook repeated with an impatient growl. Many hasty shouts of obedient affirmation rang out, but nobody left to find others.

There had been over three hundred of Mighty Shangrook's kobolds before. The invaders had done great harm to Mighty Shangrook's servants. Mighty Shangrook's eyes looked out over the fraction that was left. The blue one with the silver-fringed frills was missing. It had taken five generations to get the frills right. Mighty Shangrook was displeased. There had to be more to the invaders than the pitiful few that had been brought. Mighty Shangrook insistently repeated the earlier proclamation:

"All who are responsible for troubling Mighty Shangrook's bodily meditations shall be brought before Mighty Shangrook."

An EEP! of embarrassment came from the crowd of kobolds and one pushed her way unsteadily through to the front. She was a bit larger than most, with scales of bright flame-orange. She had sharper teeth and claws than most of the tribe, and golden-tipped spines all across her back. Mighty Shangrook was glad that lineage survived. The teeth and claws had only taken two generations, but it had been a frustrating seven generations to perfect the spines. Survival appeared to have been a close thing, though - she had numerous bandages of blood-soaked moss and a wide patch of burn injury along one side. She obediently limped to the metal-clad remains of one of the invaders, where she stopped, and bowed down to lower her head almost to the floor. Her eyes rolled as she began to vomit. Chunks of bone, strips of torn pink flesh, and a few mangled pieces of metal spewed out to be added to the metal-clad invader's remains. The flame-orange kobold coughed and gasped for breath, then stood and with a polite, wobbly bow she staggered unsteadily back to her place among the crowd.

Mighty Shangrook stared in disbelief. It had been centuries since Mighty Shangrook had seen creatures like these invaders, and they were remembered as being weak and squishy. It made no sense that this insignificant force could dare do so much harm.

The one that was not entirely dead yet lay with eyes closed, groaning and feebly trying to move. Mighty Shangrook strode nearer, footsteps making the ground shake. Mighty Shangrook's head hung threatening over the invader and addressed it directly.

"Mighty Shangrook will know why you trouble Mighty Shangrook."

The booming voice jolted the invader awake and its eyes opened. They blinked a few times until they could focus on the head of Mighty Shangrook looking down on them. The eyes opened wider, and the invader began to scream and babble in a language that Mighty Shangrook's tribe was unfamiliar with...except for Squiggles, who recognized the common language of the human-ish peoples.

"Demon! What do you want from me!? Let me go!"

Mighty Shangrook repeated, unimpressed, "Mighty Shangrook will know why you trouble Mighty Shangrook."

She does not understand proper speech, Squiggles realized, noticing that he was already running forward unconsciously, someone will need to translate so she knows what Mighty Shangrook requires of her.

"You must tell Mighty Shangrook why you have come here!" Squiggles shouted frantically in the humanish language. The invader still lacked control of her limbs, but she looked in Squiggles' direction as he snaked through his assembled tribemates and ran towards her.

Mighty Shangrook looked on as Mighty Shangrook's will was carried out. Mighty Shangrook recognized Squiggles. Mighty Shangrook's attendant at the Exalted Reclamation Pit. The one who is smart enough to wait until Mighty Shangrook is finished. Ah, yes, and the one who was delivered to to Mighty Shangrook's Tribe as tribute by the ocean. Mighty Shangrook will remember to praise the ocean for its foresight.

"The artifact," Breanna said, weakly, "The immortality. It's here, isn't it?" she pleaded.

Squiggles translated, and Mighty Shangrook began to laugh.

"They trouble Mighty Shangrook because they covet Mighty Shangrook's toy? The Orb of Ineffable Potency is not even complete!"

Mighty Shangrook's laughter made the entire Chamber of Gratitude shake, and the kobolds couldn't help but laugh along.

"Is it laughing at me?" Breanna asked Squiggles, whose mood suddenly changed.

"Mighty Shangrook is not an it! Mighty Shangrook is Mighty Shangrook! Mighty Shangrook's First Precept is Mighty Shangrook is to be obeyed and respected!" Squiggles screeched at her involuntarily, before suppressing the instinctual rant. Of course mammal-people wouldn't know any better. Even Squiggles hadn't known Mighty Shangrook's Precepts before being accepted into the tribe. "You must address Mighty Shangrook as Mighty Shangrook. Mighty Shangrook laughs because you came for a mere toy. Mighty Shangrook works to perfect it when Mighty Shangrook feels boredom," Squiggles explained.

"A mere toy?..." Breanna echoed distantly, and reached for one last glimmer of hope in her delirium. "If it's just a toy...perhaps we could trade something for it?"

Squiggles dutifully translated this, which only increased Mighty Shangrook's mirth. A few of the kobolds were reduced to such intense shrieking laughter that they fell helplessly to the floor.

"Mighty Shangrook has not felt such mirth in a very long time," Mighty Shangrook finally said. "But you..." - Mighty Shangrook gently poked the invader's chest for emphasis with a taloned finger that was larger than the invader's body. There was a sickening squishy CRUNCH, and the invader shuddered and lay still - "...are in no position to bargain with Mighty Shangrook. Mighty Shangrook will know the details of the invaders' plans."

"You must explain to Mighty Shangrook how you got here and what precisely you meant to accomplish," Squiggles explained to Breanna's corpse, feeling foolish knowing she was beyond hearing now, but determined to be obedient. Then, he explained to Mighty Shangrook.

"She cannot answer, Mighty Shangrook's touch was too much for her to bear and she is slain."

Mighty Shangrook quickly withdrew the talon.

"Impossible! Mighty Shangrook hardly touched it! Mighty Shangrook will know if it is pretending!"

Squiggles dutifully checked to make sure.

"She is not pretending, Mighty Shangrook."

This is incomprehensible, thought Mighty Shangrook. How do they do such harm if they are so fragile? Mighty Shangrook thought perhaps he should be angry, but instead felt curiosity for this mystery.

"The Orb of Ineffable Potency shall be brought to Mighty Shangrook."

=== ONE LAST LOOK AT BREANNA'S POINT OF VIEW ===

Something very terrible had happened. She couldn't remember what it was, though, and it didn't matter because it was over now, and everything was fine. She sat up and smiled at the squirrel, there on the roots of the oak tree. It leapt to the trunk and began climbing, inviting her to follow.

Breanna stood and walked to the oak, and with a laugh, jumped up to grab the lowest branch and pulled herself up. She cheerfully climbed upwards, into whatever came after.

=== FINALLY, BACK IN THE CHAMBER OF GRATITUDE ===

Wearing thick gloves of rockwool to protect their hands from touching it directly, three kobolds rolled the Orb of Ineffable Potency out of Mighty Shangrook's Chamber of Creation and pushed it to the Chamber of Gratitude. The large spherical object was a complicated composite of metal, glass, wood, and gemstones. Mighty Shangrook picked up the Orb and explained what was to happen.

"Mighty Shangrook shall command the dead ones to be as though alive. Squiggles shall explain Mighty Shangrook's questions to them so that they may understand and answer, and will tell Mighty Shangrook the meaning of their answers."

Feeling a thrill run down his spine to hear Mighty Shangrook speak his name aloud, Squiggles watched entranced as Mighty Shangrook rotated and twisted the orb, lightly tapped several draconic runes that were inscribed on embedded bands of metal, and pressed taloned fingers against a selection of the gemstones. Then Mighty Shangrook said words of magical power, and matching deep violet glows emerged from both Mighty Shangrook's eyes and those of Breanna's corpse.

"What do you want?" came a hollow, echoing version of Breanna's voice from the mouth of Breanna's remains, and the questioning began. After a few questions, the body seemed to realize it was dead, and the animating force leaked out and evaporated away. Mighty Shangrook repeated the process to ask questions of the other corpses. When they got to the one with the horns and tail, the voice that came out was loud, deep, unnatural, and unclean, and spoke a language that made Squiggles feel as though he were covered with slime and insects. Mighty Shangrook reacted as though meeting a friendly acquaintance that had been out of contact for a long time, and rather than questioning seemed to have a short, polite conversation, speaking back in the same language. Squiggles understood none of it except for one brief moment when a different, more human-ish voice complained "But grandpa!..." before the unclean one returned, but Mighty Shangrook seemed pleased with the outcome.

Squiggles did his best to explain the answers he'd gotten. It took some effort to explain what adventurers were, but Mighty Shangrook was wise and perceptive and so would understand.

"They are mostly like other people of their kind, but they dedicate themselves to handling the unusual problems that are often dangerous. Those that survive collect a lot of wealth and become very powerful and dangerous themselves. Sometimes they would pass through where I used to live, and they always seemed to cause trouble for the local authorities."

"They cause trouble for Mighty Shangrook now, too. Mighty Shangrook would know what is most dangerous to these adventurers."

"Well, I think...," Squiggles answered, considering what he knew and head heard about them. "Powerful gods, demons, and monsters...the armies of governments or religions they've offended...diseases spread by close flesh-to-flesh contact with unclothed mammals...other adventurers..."

"Mighty Shangrook has decided. Mighty Shangrook will make adventurers from among Mighty Shangrook's Tribe. They will slay whatever troubles Mighty Shangrook."

Squiggles remembered Mighty Shangrook's Second Precept - That Which Is Mighty Shangrook's Is Not To Be Damaged or Wasted - and was compelled to speak up.

"Being adventurers is dangerous for those who are not Mighty Shangrook, those Mighty Shangrook chooses might be killed," he said, looking at how few kobolds were left.

"Mighty Shangrook has ways to manage this problem," Mighty Shangrook asserted, caressing the Orb of Ineffable Potency, then looked over the assembled tribe.

"That which belongs to Mighty Shangrook is part of Mighty Shangrook. Mighty Shangrook's Tribe is Mighty Shangrook. Mighty Shangrook's Tribe need not fear."

Such unprecedented verbal honor bestowed upon them was overwhelming, and a large fraction of the surviving tribe lost their senses entirely and writhed slowly on the ground in their euphoria. Not for the first time, Squiggles wondered if he should be envious of their joy or thankful not to be so joyous that he lost awareness of any duties that he might be needed for.

Mighty Shangrook sighed, and decided that perhaps Mighty Shangrook's efforts to breed for loyalty had been slightly too successful. Speaking of breeding, Mighty Shangrook noted once again how small the tribe's population was now.

"Mighty Shangrook shall also have Mighty Shangrook's Tribe restored."