Since it was dark, I wasn’t too worried about being seen flying in the night sky. This was especially true since few of the soldiers were looking up. The soldiers were running around like ants whose nest had been disturbed. Even though Alsvartr summoned shadowed creatures, they were destroyed almost immediately. That didn’t stop Alsvartr from swooping down and attacking people with the Sonic Blast cantrip though. Needless to say, her actions alone were enough to cause a lot of confusion.
Feeling safe, I dropped the invisibility spell and started using the Prestidigitation cantrip to start small fires on top of the tents. While I was sure the enemy spellcasters would put out the fires very quickly, I hoped that at least a few of the fires would go out of control before the spellcasters could stop the fire from spreading. I didn’t even bother attacking people. Instead, I tried to cause confusion. Despite this, I didn’t get another achievement like I had been hoping for.
After a few minutes, someone spotted me and fired an arrow before alerting the others that I was flying overhead. Because of this, I had Alsvartr fly back home. As for myself, I quickly followed myself. I wasn’t interested in becoming a pin cushion. When I got back to where I had exited the tunnels, I waited. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go inside yet or if I wanted to let things calm down again before going back and raising more mayhem.
Eventually, I decided to make them pay some more. However, first I wanted to see how deep the invading soldiers had been able to advance while I was outside. I was pleased to see that they hadn’t gotten too far. The soldiers were able to block off every arrowslit and trap all the way up until the point where the zombies had been raised.
I was a little worried that if the soldiers were willing to spend the time needed, they would eventually be able to reach the kobold city. It might take a while, but if the soldiers were determined enough, it could prove to be the end of the kobold city. Quite annoyed, I decided to see if the papers I had contained anything that might be useful. Curious, I popped a mushroom into my mouth and grabbed the first piece of paper.
Unfortunately, every piece of paper turned out to be a waste of time. They included lists of supplies, reports about disciplinary actions, and complaints by various officers about a lack of needed resources. I had been hoping for a diary with the commander's thoughts, maybe explaining who was behind the attacks. However, that didn’t happen.
The magic items were mostly useless. However, there were a couple of exceptions. I took a few minutes to cast the Identify spell and found that each one was a common magic item that was probably easy to obtain. One was a Scribe’s Quill, which would write down anything you said. However, you needed to be attuned to the item for it to work. It also didn’t provide the ink. Needless to say, I quickly extracted the magic from the quill.
The next magic item was a Bottle of Water. I couldn’t help but grin after seeing it. I had been lugging around several pouches of water continuously ever since I hatched so that I could drink while I ate my “delicious” snacks. Just this one bottle could provide all the water I needed. It didn’t even require an attunement. Quite pleased with my find, I immediately dumped all the water out of my water pouches and decided to use them for extra food instead.
The next item was a Stylish Robe. It had no magical function except that it could change its appearance. It could even make itself appear to be a shirt and pants despite still being a single piece of fabric. More than likely, it was for lazy people who were too lazy to change their clothing. Then again, it could be for people who wanted to pretend to have enough money to buy extravagant clothing but didn’t. While not cheap, the magical clothing was certainly less expensive than keeping a wardrobe filled with expensive clothing tailored for that particular individual.
Personally, I never had the urge to have a large number of clothes. In fact, I could count the number of shirts and pants I had on my fingers. Some of my students would even comment on the fact that I always wore the same clothing. Of course, I would change clothes every day. However, my pants all looked the same and my shirts were the same except for a different color or pattern. I wasn’t big into style.
In fact, most of my clothes were threadbare. When I got married to my ex-wife, she had thrown out most of my shirts that I had been wearing for the last decade. Of course, with the way she went through money, I ended up being able to put all my clothes in one big suitcase, which actually proved useful when I left that troll.
Dang, that tiny woman was an evil little troll. I would compare her to a gnome, but even gnomes weren’t as evil and twisted as that nightmare. Wait, weren’t trolls like hags? Maybe she had been a hag that used her witchly powers to influence my mind. That was the only explanation I could imagine that would explain how she was able to convince me to stay married to her.
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Of course, it might have had something to do with the boots she wore that ended up with my kids: Financial Burden Number Two, Second Mortgage, and Bankruptcy. Ah, I shouldn’t say that; I loved those kids. I had to admit though, they sure turned out strange. It had to be their mother’s influence and all her mind games and lies. Ugh, I hated people who knew how to twist innocent people to their will with their mind games and mental manipulation. I would never ever try to do that to someone else.
Realizing I had gotten sidetracked, I concentrated on the magic robe. I was a little torn. The Stylish Robe did seem useful. At the very least, I could start wearing more than boots and a belt to carry the pouches. On the other hand, it also required attunement. Since I only had one item attuned, I was definitely tempted to wear the item. However, it would take an hour to finish the attunement, so I stuffed it into one of the empty pouches to attune later.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t found any other magic items in the tent. There hadn’t even been a treasure chest or table in the tent. In fact, the tent was mostly empty except for a few chairs, a small table, and a small bed. It wasn’t anything like what I had expected a commander’s tent to look like. Even the armor the commander hadn’t had enough time to put on wasn’t magical. The man had to be one of the poorest officers I had ever imagined.
Then again, apparently, no one in the invading force had enough. I had seen several letters to the commander about a lack of essential supplies. Also, the commander himself had been a lot weaker than I expected as well. After thinking about it, I was certain that there was something suspicious about the invaders. This whole situation was starting to feel like an ambitious, but under qualified, underling had decided to take advantage of what he imagined would be a get rich quick scheme.
I could easily imagine the scene. Some lackey of the green kobolds would wait until an incompetent bureaucrat was temporarily in charge. Then they would convince the idiot to stage an attack on the kobold city with visions of easy treasure. That also might explain why the soldiers were under-supplied and why the commander was so weak.
Whatever the situation, I doubted the soldiers would leave immediately. While I would love for them to retreat now that the commander had died, I doubted they would. More than likely, the soldiers would stay as long as their supplies lasted. After all, they were already invading the kobold city, so they might as well continue. I’m sure there had to be an ambitious, competent officer who would take advantage of the situation to replace the old incompetent leader. In fact, I might have ended up doing the invaders a favor by getting rid of their leader.
That thought depressed me. I had wanted to do something useful but might have actually ended up making the situation worse. Realizing this, my decision to go back out and cause some more havoc was reinforced. Since I had found out that they were low on supplies, I could concentrate on that. Maybe I could make them leave sooner that way. However, I decided that I might as well attune the Stylish Robe before leaving. By the time I was done, the chaos and confusion in the enemy encampment would have started to die down. With that in mind, I started the boring process of attuning the magic robes.
Once that was done, I concentrated for a moment and changed the appearance of the robes. Soon, I was wearing black pants and a black dress shirt. I wanted to add a trench coat as well, but apparently that was too much for the Stylish Robe. Despite the lack of a trench coat, I was definitely happy to be wearing something other than boots again.
Satisfied with my appearance, I cast the Invisibility spell on myself again and started flying back toward the middle of the encampment. I was a little disappointed because I couldn’t really notice that I had done any real damage after taking out the commander. Everything had quieted down in the last hour. It was almost as if I hadn’t done anything. Curious, I flew to the commander’s tent to see if anything had changed there.
Nothing had changed except that no one was guarding the commander’s tent any longer. There weren’t even any soldiers standing guard outside the tent opening. I wondered who had replaced the commander. Realizing I could use my mental powers on someone and read their mind, I started looking for a likely volunteer for my experimentation. I was a little worried about the person noticing or resisting my mental probes, but I could always disappear into the dark if my experiment failed. Taking flight, I did a circle looking for a likely victim.
I soon noticed a young teenage boy who wasn’t old enough to be a soldier. At least I hoped he wasn’t old enough to be a soldier. In fact, he barely looked old enough to be considered a teenager. Since he was present, however, I was pretty sure that he was someone’s page or servant. Also, since he was young, he was probably a low-level minion. In fact, he might not even have gotten his first level in a class yet.
Nodding to myself, I followed him as he moved through the encampment. He soon arrived at another tent that was guarded by a large group of soldiers. While I was tempted to repeat the same thing I did earlier, I finally decided against it, at least for the moment. I could always change my mind though.
The boy stopped outside the large tent, obviously waiting for permission to enter into the tent. While he was waiting, I flew down to a nearby top of a tent and settled in. I also used my mental enhancement to establish a telepathic bond with him. I didn’t want to use the Mind Alteration power, but instead just wanted to scan his thoughts as he spoke to the new commander, or whoever he was meeting. I was curious to see what they would talk about and what normal people actually thought about.