While the three were peering over the map-scroll, footsteps approached from the stacks of books, scrolls and sheaves of paper that stretched behind Mr. Feltix’s desk.
“I found something, Mr. Feltix,” came a feminine voice that echoed through the space. “Not in Common though. You’ll have to translate it.”
“Ah, thank you Miss Tribi. Just leave it on the table. I’ll get to it shortly. Can you bring the measuring string from the supply cabinet?” the Archivist asked, not looking up from the map. “Now let me see. Cartin is about 20 miles from here. Mind you this is no surveyor’s map. At best it will be a rough approximation. And this is a copy too so the copyist may have made some mistakes as well.”
A thump came from the desk behind her. Kreet looked up to see a tail slide into a side door and her eyes went wide. The tail looked awfully familiar.
“Kallid!” she hissed in a whisper, not wanting to disturb Mr. Feltix in his analysis of the map.
Kallid looked up, curious, but Kreet just pointed to the storeroom door. Kallid turned to look.
The door opened and in it was the largest kobold Kreet had ever seen, holding a string with knots tied at regular intervals, wrapped around a holder.
“Here it is, Mr. Feltix. Ah! I see they’ve arrived!” said the newcomer, handing the string to the Archivist.
Mr. Feltix stood up, his knees creaking. “Ah! Thank you Miss Tribi,” he said, accepting the string in it’s wrapped-up holder. “Now, male kobold #1, if you’ll just take this end and hold it over the Royal City…”
Kreet and Kallid stood to greet the apparition. It’s not that Miss Tribi was unusually tall for a kobold. In fact, she was shorter than Kreet and only slightly taller than Kallid. But she was unusually wide .
“Oh, don’t mind him,” she said, smiling and holding her hand out to Kreet in the way of humans. “He wouldn’t know proper etiquette if it bit him. I’m Tribi. And you must be Kreet.”
Kreet nodded and shook her hand. “And this is my husband, Kallid.”
“Good to meet you Kallid,” she said, taking his hand gingerly but barely looking at him.
Kreet could swear she was actually shaking.
“I… didn’t expect you to be…”
“So fat? I know. I don’t think it’s due to lack of exercise. You’d be surprised how much walking I do every day back and forth down here! I think it has to do with the steady human diet. I have a theory about that.”
“Oh, can you all stop your gabbling?” Mr. Feltix said, back on his knees over the map. “We have important work to do here! Now please, if you would, male kobold #1!” he said, holding out the end of the string. Kallid took it and Mr. Feltix slowly began doling out the slack across the map.
“Um. I really meant… that you’re a kobold. I was expecting a gnome honestly.”
“Oh. Yeah. The whole gnome/kobold thing right? I suppose maybe it’s true down in the Underdark, but up here… the whole thing seems rather silly. Mr. Feltix is a bit… eccentric perhaps. Be we get along just fine.”
Kreet nodded, looking at the Archivist as he crept across the scroll, meticulously counting the knots aloud as he approached her old monastery.
“It’s not just that. He said you’re a hundred and ten years old.”
“ What ? I am no such thing! I’m forty seven at most! Mr. Feltix, what tales you’ve been telling!”
“Oh? I thought you were a hundred and ten,” came Mr. Feltix’s reply. And he continued counting… from one hundred and ten.
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“Excuse me, Mr. Feltix,” Kallid said timidly. “I think you’ve lost the count.”
He looked up at Kallid. “Oh, did I? Well stop distracting me you females! Now I have to start all over! Why don’t you two go do something useful?”
He began winding up the string and crawling back to the starting point beside Kallid.
“Come on, Kreet. Let’s go get some lunch,” Miss Tribi said.
“Good idea. Kallid, you help Mr. Feltix. We’ll bring somethingt back for you,” Kreet said, more than a little excited to be able to speak with another female kobold.
“I thought we were the only kobolds in the city!” she said as they climbed the winding stairs up and out of the archives.
“You might be,” Miss Tribi said from above her. “Aside from me. And I stay around the cathedral most all the time. A bit of a legend locally I am! The monster of the cathedral. But the locals, they know me well enough by now. I just don’t go much. Like Mr. Feltix, I live in a room in the archives you know. Been here for all my life practically.”
“That must be quite a story!”
“Oh, not really. Some adventurers found me when I was a whelp outside the Underdark. Lord Pelor knows why they didn’t cut my head off right then. But eventually I found my way here. Been helping Mr. Feltix ever since. I like it down there honestly. All the books. It smells a little musty of course, but I have such grand adventures reading them!”
“So, I have to ask. I’m pregnant, as you know. Do you know anything about it? I’m afraid I simply don’t.”
Miss Tribi looked at Kreet with some sadness. “I’ve been researching it for days, Miss Kreet…”
“Just Kreet, please.”
“I’ve been researching it for days, Kreet,” Miss Tribi corrected herself. “I must say there’s very, very little on it I’ve found. The books I just brought from the shelves might have something in them, but they’re in an archaic language I don’t know. Mr. Feltix might.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Is he really three hundred twenty seven years old?”
Miss Tribi shrugged, setting her breasts bouncing. Kreet wouldn’t say it aloud, but it was one of the things she liked about her fellow kobold. She had breasts too. Better yet, they were bigger than Kreet’s. She’d begun feeling like some deformed monstrosity. But then, everything about Miss Tribi was bigger than Kreet aside from her height. She realized that she should see if Kallid might make an extra-large bra for Miss Tribi. She could use it.
“I highly doubt it. From what I’ve read, they rarely go past three hundred. Besides, last year he was four hundred something. He does keep his birthday accurate. But I give him credit. What he knows, he really does know. The trouble is trying to keep track which is which. But nobody living knows much about him. He sort of comes with the cathedral. Some think he literally did. The archives tell of a Mr. Feltix going back centuries. But I’ve found an entry that suggests there have been multiple Mr. Feltix’s over time. Again though, no one around here knows for sure. Eventually you accept it.”
“So, about pregnancy,” Kreet said, changing the subject back.
“Well, of course I have no personal knowledge of such things. I’ve never met a male kobold… before today anyway.”
“Oh? Kallid?”
Miss Tribi nodded, looking away from Kreet.
“What is it?”
“I…” Miss Tribi started, then looked away from Kreet again. “I find it hard to talk about. Especially to his wife. I’m sure you love each other very much.”
“Oh, we do! But what? Tell me. This is just between us two. I won’t utter a word, I promise.”
“Well, you know… I’m in the prime of my sexual life. I’ve read about it! We have about the same lifespan as the humans, and that’s what they say! So… well naturally, I have thoughts.”
“About male kobolds.”
Miss Tribi nodded bashfully. Her eyes began to turn violet.
“Don’t worry! It’s not like I want to rape him. Much…”
Kreet laughed. “Sorry Miss Tribi. He’s spoken for.”
“You know, three hundred years ago there was a scourge that killed all the male humans in the Carlum district. There are stories. It’s said they shared three men among all the thousands of women…”
Kreet gave her a look that was unmistakable.
“Okay. I get it,” she said, avoiding Kreet’s eyes. “Sorry. It’s nature, you know.”
“Don’t worry about it. I understand more than you know. Sometime I’ll have to tell you about how I met Kallid. But to be clear, I’m selfish when it comes to my mate.”
Miss Tribi sighed deeply and finally looked at Kreet directly. “Oh well. It was worth a try. How is it? Is it everything I’ve dreamed of?”
“Oh, Miss Tribi. You don’t want me to go there. It would only make you jealous, and I want us to be friends.”
“Friends can still talk!”
“Well, maybe when we’ve gotten to know each other better, okay?”
“I know. I’m too talkative. But I don’t get to meet other kobolds. Like, ever. And you’re going to go back to that monastery.”
Kreet shook her head. “No, I’m not. Someday I might visit, but no. This is my home. This is where I’ll start my clutch. We’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
Miss Tribi’s eyes lit up at that, a pale blue. “Really! You’re going to stay in the city?!”
“I am,” Kreet said.
“Well then, let’s get back to the archives by all means. And… I apologize in advance if I seem weird around your husband. Just so you understand.”
“That you want to rape him?”
“Well… not really rape of course! But nevermind all that. I did find out a little about kobold pregnancy. Let’s go back and I’ll tell you what I’ve found.”