image [https://i.imgur.com/enCHzih.jpg]

Hearing that Fabulosa had witnessed me taking the Artilith explained her mood and why she didn’t want to adventure in the kobold dungeon. I’d been so stupid. She’d climbed into the Dark Room and watched me destroy it. Why hadn’t I realized I’d done so in full view? I hadn’t been thinking because of the emotional drain of having avenged Charitybelle, plus all the Exhaustion debuffs.

I tried to justify my actions. “I didn’t think you’d want an arcane core. You can’t cast arcane spells, so I just thought the Artilith ought to go to me.”

“It’s not that you took it, you dummy. It’s that you didn’t tell me about it. Winterbyte was a shared kill. I had a right to know, and you know that. After all the goodies I’d gotten, you thought I’d throw a hissy over a core? Even a purple one.” Her rhetorical question made me hang my head.

I stopped talking.

“I’m trying not to make a big deal about this, but we were partners, Patch. We trusted each other. I would have given you that stupid little bauble. I’m not blind—I can see you need better gear. It doesn’t make a lick of sense for me to challenge you over it. You just saved my life, and I spilled my guts about how awful I felt after Charitybelle sacrificed herself for me.” She didn’t sound angry. She sounded hurt, and the distance in her voice hit me like a gut punch.

I couldn’t meet her gaze, and my eyes teared up.

“I don’t understand why you would hide it from me. It’s a core for arcane magic, and I don’t even cast arcane spells. You’re playing your own game—and you know I respect that. I don’t like not trusting you.”

“I’m sorry, Fab, I really am.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say to someone who felt like a big sister. Liquid dripped from my nose as I hung my head. No cash prize felt worth betraying her.

Fabulosa put her hand on my shoulder. “Okay. That’s what I needed to hear. It might be a little different, but I can get past this. Come on. I brought the Dark Room. Pick up your toys and get some sleep. We both have cooldowns to refresh.”

I wiped my face again. “Do you think we should leave this throne here? One of these gnolls or wererats might try to take over—and then we’ve got noisy neighbors all over again.”

Fabulosa looked at me, but I didn’t meet her gaze. I’d go along with whatever she decided. My track record hasn’t been good lately.

“Do you reckon either of us could sit on the throne? We could order the kobolds to destroy their obedience items.”

With all the construction, they undoubtedly had forges somewhere. The obedience gear wasn’t valuable or high-level, so they wouldn’t need runes to break their magic.

“I’ll do it. I’m not wearing gear right now, so you can cast roots on me if I act crazy.”

Fabulosa smiled and shook her head. “Crazy has been your mode for a while now. You gotta promise not to tell me what you and Femmeny were doing when I crashed your party. You’re into some freaky scenes, partner.”

I laughed and shook my head. It felt good to see her smile. Climbing onto the throne dispelled our worry about precautions—I didn’t feel any different and gave Fabulosa a thumbs-up gesture.

Extending my thoughts, I gave everyone in my range mental commands. I ordered the gnoll and wererat regents wearing crowns to remove and destroy them. “You guys get out. You don’t belong down here.”

When I felt them disconnect, I turned to Fabulosa. “It looks like I can disassemble the hierarchy remotely.”

With Creeper in my hand, I saw highborn rats near the front entrance of the throne room coordinating cave-in rescue efforts. They removed their amulets after I told them to do so. With their agency restored, they acted confused.

Fabulosa turned back to me. “That wasn’t so bad.”

With the crowns and amulets gone, I ordered subordinates wearing rings and cuffs to destroy them. The gray and white level magic items would be easy to mothball out of commission. The leather cuffs presented no challenge. Every creature wearing them could chew them off.

I sent a mental command to reboot the entire Graytooth kingdom to wipe its hard drive. If it meant Fabulosa and I would have to fight out of the hive, then so be it. We could survive with Fabulosa’s Blood Drinker scimitar and the Dark Room as a sanctuary. Kobolds made formidable fighters in large groups but might revert to a decentralized mess without the obedience items.

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After a few minutes on the throne, I ascertained the Graytooth population had smashed their obedience items. I fashioned a rune strong enough to destroy a throne. As a yellow item, the throne required 275 mana to empower a rune to destroy it, so I only needed my equipment and a lesser mana potion to scuttle it.

Fabulosa shook her head as she bent over Femmeny’s belongings. “It figures my only solo knockout comes from a player who owns nothing. She had nothing but junk in here.” She left Femmeny’s backpack where she found it. Instead, she uncoiled my Dark Room rope from her inventory. Thankfully, she retrieved it before searching for me. After tossing it into the air, she climbed inside.

When I collected my things, another pang of guilt tugged at my chest when I picked up and stashed the Artilith in my inventory. Even if it topped my list of most valuable items, the purple core had been nothing but trouble.

I wiped the throne from existence with a cringe-worthy pop. The firecracker sound of its destruction left a cloud of dust, but no tremors followed. The shockwave resembled a Compression Sphere, and I welcomed the anticlimactic closure. I’d had enough drama for one day.

We left the Dark Room after ten hours of sleep. I felt an odd sense of calm with access to my daily cooldowns. Fabulosa’s company comforted me, and Blood Drinker still possessed immense scaling potential against the mountain full of weak creatures.

Although the throne room stood empty, someone had already cleared the dirt from the antechamber when we emerged from the Dark Room. I surveyed the excavated passage using Creeper’s infravision. “Before we reintroduce ourselves to the kobold society, let me ask—Do you want to knock heads together or try diplomacy?”

Fabulosa shrugged. “Can you speak kobold?”

“No. But I think I learned enough to offer peace.”

“I hope you don’t want to recruit them to bolster Hawkhurst’s population.”

“Hah! No, they wouldn’t work out. It would be cool to see what use we could make from their tunneling skills. But I’ve seen their work—it would drive the dwarves crazy.”

“You reckon a peace treaty could stick?”

“Yeah. I bet we can make a solid agreement without more carnage.”

Fabulosa thought for a while. “You think they’ll change? I dunno. I’ve seen enough of kobolds to know what I need to know. They’re not exactly the peace-loving type.”

“Yeah. But if people can change for the worse, then it stands to reason they can change for the better.”

“I don’t trust their disposition.”

“If we don’t box them in, they might not become scorpions.”

“Scorpions?”

“Never mind. I’m just saying diplomacy works when you’ve got a big stick—and you’ve got that.”

Fabulosa hefted Blood Drinker. “I’m cool with sussing things out. There’s always room for Plan A.”

The kobolds showed no hostility when we entered the collapsed throne room antechamber. Workers stayed busy removing debris. A delegation appeared and beckoned us to follow them to another part of the dungeon. None carried magic or weapons.

We followed.

The kobolds guided us to their queen, a level 12 matriarch who met us in a small round room without furniture or purpose. Her nameplate confirmed her leadership, the Graytooth Queen.

I stifled a grin when the retinue parted, and a highborn kobold dressed in a shabby pink dress stepped forward. The queen gestured to one of her subjects, whose nameplate contained seven words—Chutters the First Hill Chancellor, Graytooth Highborn.

Chutters dressed much like Bix, whose ragged clothes only showed hints of tidiness, and his role became apparent when he greeted us in the Common tongue. “Shapes alive! You came just in time! Her Highness, Queen Mina of Graytooth and the Six Hills makes to press paws with you.”

Chutters gestured to the queen, who held her paws upward, displaying deference or friendship—I couldn’t decide which. It felt safe to assume she wasn’t looking for a double high-five, so we returned the palms-out gesture.

Fabulosa had the sense to bow, and I copied her.

I chose only simple words and short sentences to avoid mistranslation. “Tell the queen we mean no threat to her kingdom. We are sorry for the death and destruction.”

“It’s just loose soil by our account. I must say, she’s hitting the floor. You fixed her right up from the chittering dreams! She awoke the very day you arrived.”

Chutter’s tone seemed positive, but Fabulosa and I exchanged puzzled glances. If a sovereign credits me for mystical healing, it made sense to keep my mouth shut.

Queen Mina gave Chutters a few instructional squeaks, and he relayed her message. “The Queen’s dream is over. Shapes alive! Her people have a proper ruler again. She’s hits the floor like the rest of us.”

We smiled and nodded to show that we welcomed this strange news.

Fabulosa pulled a sizable hunk of ward worm from her inventory. The town still had gobs of the salty flesh leftover from my kill months ago, and we saved some in our inventory in case we needed food or dinosaur bait. She placed it at the matriarch’s feet, and all the kobolds in the room twitched their whiskers and smelled the meat, fresh as the day I killed it.

“Shapes alive! You killed the Great Tunnel-shaker! The queen thanks you for the flesh. When it ripens, it will provide quite a right-proper feast.”

Fabulosa grinned, caught my eye, and mouthed a word—ripens? She bowed once more before making room for a dozen kobolds to remove the gift. They lifted the meat and bore it away on their heads and shoulders.

As they staggered under its weight, I realized the tacit implication behind Fabulosa’s gesture. It showed Hawkhurst strong enough to kill the Ward Worm, making it in their interest not to trifle with us.

I seized the moment to make our peaceful intentions clear. “We claim the ward worm’s territory. We make no claims in the Highwall Mountains and lands held by Great Queen Mina. The humans traveling between the Highwalls and the Bluepeaks are under our protection.”

Chutters interpreted our declaration and conferred with the queen. She and the other kobolds squeaked for several minutes before he answered. “The Queen’s dreams have ended. She reigns again. Shapes alive! She gives you the valley as a gift of thanks! May walls of salt exist between us!” Even though the other listeners didn’t understand Common, Chutters spoke loud enough for the entire congregation.

We nodded and accepted the queen’s peace offering.

The congregation made hand-wringing, or rather, paw-wringing gestures, which I supposed signaled an agreement.