Zgk growled. His tribe was having the worst luck this season.
The tribe’s memory-keeper told them that they had once been a stronger people, but then the humans and elves stopped wandering. At first, this made them easier to hunt by the other thinking peoples of the world, the goblins, slimes, and kobolds like themselves. But very quickly, humans discovered ways of making weapons that held edges better than brittle flint and obsidian, and the elves harnessed the power of the world to cast spells against their enemies. Sometimes together, often separately, but the result was the same. Humans, elves, and a cave-dwelling race known as dwarves came to dominate the world, while those who chose to remain wandering hunter-gatherers were reviled as “monsters.”
Many such peoples were vanishingly rare, or subjugating themselves as dungeon slaves. There was stability there, but at the cost of one’s pride. You and your people would never again be free. To kobolds, cousins of the mighty dragons that ruled the skies and the peaks of the great mountains, there was no greater humiliation than to bow the head in servitude.
But some pull had their chief guiding them into the foothills of the ancient mountains anyway. These lands were sacred to their people, never to be trod upon except to die. To seek food in these lands was forbidden by ancient custom, for it was said that it was here that the sacred Dragon Goddess lay down to birth their people.
Still, the gifts of the Primal Goddess were lean this year. The golden path promised by the God of the Civilized was sorely tempting, as were the whispers of the forbidden, saying to simply take what was made by others. But Zgk held his pride. He was a son of the Goddess of Life, who commanded all to take nothing from another unfairly, and brother to the Primal Goddess, who would not allow any to be beholden to another. His soul would join the Eternal Hunt should his body fail, and he would stand responsible for all his actions without guilt.
Such was what it meant to be a warrior of the tribe.
Though as they entered the cave, Zgk knew the tribe was doomed. For what else could they be when sleeping mats, fire pits, and drinking fountains were all so conveniently arranged? There was even a pit for the disposal of waste in the wall, and a separate pair of rooms where they could bathe and excrete as needed.
And, Zgk thought as he challenged their chieftain for the leadership of the tribe, only a dungeon would be so convenient in its welcome. A trap, meant to enslave them with kind welcome.
Zgk’s knife, fine obsidian from the burning mountains on the coast, was already out and sharp when the rabbit-human appeared. Prey… but not prey? She smelled like rabbit, but was almost entirely human in appearance. Light brown skin like the more tanned people of the far eastern lands, with hair of a… dirty pink coloration? Brownish, but as if someone blended ochre mud into the light red of edible flowers. It was unnatural, like the ears of a rabbit coming out of the head of a human.
Shifting his attention, Zgk chose to screech the call of challenge against the rabbit instead.
“Huh. Alright, I’ll throw down.”
Zgk didn’t even ask how he could understand her. The words of humans were meaningless to him, and their tongues were incompatible. All that mattered was that the challenge was accepted, and this rabbit-human was standing ready. Zgk held his knife out in response, and the memory-keeper signaled the fight to begin.
When he came to, hours later, the mark of subjugation was already on his people. They were dungeon kobolds now, and he could do nothing but bow his head in shame. He could not even remember how he had lost, or what weapon the rabbit-human had used.
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Said human appeared now, and… bowed before him?
“Your memory-keeper says you were the greatest warrior your tribe has known in five centuries, and that I could best you unarmed was a remarkable feat. I can only feel shame that I didn’t hold back more and preserve your dignity.”
Wait… unarmed?!
The interface opened to show her stats to him, a measure of unspeakable arrogance… or impossible naivete. Yet…
“Ten… in all stats…”
It was shocking, and he felt himself soil the bedding he was in. As his memory-keeper had said, he was the greatest warrior their tribe had known since they had formed some four hundred and ninety-seven years ago, and his physical stats were barely over half that! Furthermore, he had to work constantly simply to keep them there!
Standing to remove himself from the puddle he’d made, Zgk stepped forward, and bowed until his head reached the stone of the floor.
“Mistress. I beg you to forgive my impertinence.”
She merely knelt, and drew his head up.
“You stood for the pride and independence of your people, Zgk.” She mispronounced his name, making it sound like ‘Zuk,’ but a human tongue couldn’t have managed it correctly anyway so he ignored that. It had been a good effort. “You fought with honor, and take defeat with dignity and grace. There is nothing I need forgive you for.”
“You…” a voice sounded from… everywhere? “You’re actually behaving like a well-mannered cultivator?”
“Well I was raised as one! You don’t have to sound so surprised, Rhys!”
Rhys. So this was the sound of their new dungeon-master. It was… neither kobold nor human. Nothing really living, just some disembodied voice that seemed to speak without speaking. Zgk raised his head to the ceiling, and spoke what honor demanded of him.
“I swear my fealty to you, great dungeon. How may this humble warrior serve?”
“Maybe drop the formality? Having Guiying talk like anything but a weird teenager is making me uncomfortable for some reason.”
The rabbit-human giggled.
“Don’t mind him, Rhys hasn’t gotten out in a while and doesn’t know how to talk to people. You’re the first people we’ve had in here since I showed up, and I think his last inhabitants were really old roly-polies.”
“Trilobites, Guiying. They only resemble pillbugs superficially, and have no living descendants that I know of. And the aquarium was doing fine before I fell asleep!”
“Uh… I am confused.”
The dungeon… smirked? How? “Sorry. Guiying is a bit odd, and as she noted I’ve been living alone for a few hundred million years. I took a nap shortly after I first gained sentience, and was pretty thoroughly underground when I woke up. Rocks don’t need to eat or breathe, but we tend to lose track of time if we don’t have enough to do, and our time is… different… from the mortal perspective.”
Zgk nodded. “So you have lain dormant for time uncounted, before the Goddess of Life laid the first eggs of our people in these lands. Perhaps it is truly fate that we stand here now.”
“I’m not the sort to believe in fate,” Rhys said, “But it makes a nice narrative. I don’t ask that you forsake the Goddess of Chaos for her twin altogether, but this would be the perfect birthplace for a kobold civilization, wouldn’t you agree?”
Zgk… no. It was indeed time to set aside their pride as a people, at least a little. Zuk agreed.
“From your dungeon, I would hope our people become a mighty nation.”
“From your nation, I would hope to become a mighty dungeon.”
And so the contract was sealed, and the Ruby Scale Dungeon was born.