Willow
Feathered Lands Tribe Home, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
As she followed Skeetha down into a tunnel, Willow looked around curiously. She wasn’t an expert by any measure, but she thought it was a bit odd the tunnels were entirely unenforced by any bracing. She’d seen some YouTube videos where people had made root cellars and other similar underground structures, and as far as she knew bracing was extremely important.
Distracted by such thoughts, she was looking at the wall beside her rather than watching where she was going. As such she was shocked when the descending tunnel quite suddenly leveled out and opened up. Looking past Skeetha and Halshath in front, she saw an absolutely massive cavern. She thought it was likely 200 or more meters to the far wall, and she couldn’t see the edges to her left or right at all. Though it went at least as far, as she could see what looked like little mud hovels around that point to her right.
Just in front and to her left a bit was a bustling marketplace absolutely full of colorful kobolds sitting behind stalls, rushing between said stalls, shouting back and forth, and generally energetically interacting. Given all of the kobolds she’d seen so far were dressed in what would most generously be described as dirty tunics, she was shocked to see colorful clothing of many distinct and beautiful patterns and cuts.
The kobolds leading her had stopped and stepped to the side to watch her and her companions’ reactions and appeared not to be disappointed.
“Incredible.” Breathed Kent behind her. Although it was impressive she wouldn’t call it incredible. She turned to ask what he was talking about, and found he was looking upward rather than toward the market. She followed his gaze and gasped, hearing a similar sound from Naomi to Kent’s right a moment later. They were all staring at the light source for the cavern.
As they’d walked down the tunnel Willow hadn’t really thought about the fact that the ambient level of light had reached a certain level, then maintained a constant illumination. She could now see why. The ceiling of the cavern, which was probably thirty or so meters above them, was inset with hundreds of thousands of little gem-looking structures. Each of the gems gave off a small amount of light, which illuminated the entire area perfectly. More than that, the light didn’t quite seem to follow normal laws of physics.
To confirm, Willow turned to look behind herself. Yep, I don’t have a shadow either. The light coming from the gems seemed not to bounce and create shadows like normal light. Everything was lit almost uniformly, with the long tunnel they had just descended down being the best example. There hadn’t been a single torch or glowing gem in the simple dirt tunnel, yet the light hadn’t dropped below the gentle twighlight-esque level the gems created.
“Shiiit”
“Sweet Lord”
Naomi and Willow exclaimed in near unison. They threw each other a quick grin then both turned to look at their guides. Kent, who had already focused on the kobolds, asked, “What are those? Why don’t we have shadows in here? Do they ever go out?”
Although crocodile-like faces weren’t exactly easy to read expressions from, Willow was more than able to detect the sheer smugness exuded by the two little creatures.
Halshath answered, his voice cracked and stilted, like a smoker who had something stuck in their throat, “This is the suns-child dome. The suns-childs are ambitiouss and hopes to best the suns in lighting the darks. Their lights is not stopped so easily as the suns is.” He sounded smug, as if it was somehow his own accomplishment.
“That makes NO sense.” Kent argued, “It’s not the sun that ‘decides’ to ‘let’ its light be blocked. That’s just how light works. It’s a wave blocked by solid matter… And if it wasn’t, then it’d probably be dangerous for people…” his face suddenly took on a worried expression, “This weird light isn’t going to like, give us cancer or something, right?”
Halshath and Skeetha looked at each other, Halshath shrugging. Skeetha answered with a comforting tone, “I don’t know of a ‘cancer’, the word perhaps translated incorrectly to our languages? Either ways, we have never seen the sun-child stones cause any harms.”
Kent relaxed a bit from the reassurance but was still clearly over thinking it. Willow stepped closer to him so she could nudge his shoulder with hers. When he looked at her questioningly she flashed a quick smile, “Magic, remember?”
He nodded slowly and let the matter drop. Naomi spoke up after a few moments of silence, “You mentioned you could explain what’s going on with the dying land?”
“Yes, ifs you’re ready please follows us.” Skeetha answered with a nod, then lead the group further into and to the right side of the cavern. A couple minutes of walking later found them in front of one of the non-descriptive hovels. It looked identical to all of the others.
It looked somewhat similar to an adobe building, with a generally rounded shape. The exterior appeared to be packed mud, which they’d neglected to bake and simply just let dry. Given they were underground, and presumably underneath that massive tree they’d seen outside despite a distinct lack of visible roots, they probably didn’t need to bake the mud. It wasn’t likely they’d have rain wash anything away, after all. Instead, the hovels mostly seemed to be purely an area where kobold families could get a bit of privacy.
The group ducked into the structure one after the other, following Skeetha and Halshath. Willow found she could stand, but just barely. She could feel her hair brushing the ceiling. Kent and Naomi both had to crouch, though the later only barely. Willow grinned at both of them smugly, but managed to contain her jokes about the tables turning on the tall.
Instead, she followed Skeetha and Halshath past the entryway and into the main room of the hovel. It was a more spacious area where Naomi was able to fully stand, though Kent still couldn’t. The center of the room was dominated by something between a pot and a pan. It was a cast-iron creation which stood on what she’d consider a witches cauldron’s legs. The circular pan itself wasn’t a consistent depth, being maybe twenty centimeters deep in the middle, while a bare three centimeters on the edges, with a gradual increase in depth between the two. The structure itself was short, the legs holding it a half meter off the ground. Surrounding the odd pot-pan were scattered fluffly looking pillows. One each of which Skeetha and Halshath sat on.
Naomi and Kent followed suit quickly, with Willow following after a moment of looking around the rest of the room. It was cozy, with shelves built into all of the walls displaying various interesting things. On the far side of the room she saw a pair of sais. She’d never seen any of the three pronged ninja-knives in person, assuming one discounted the plastic variant she’d seen people in cosplay sporting during her one time attending comic-con.
In the end she resisted the urge to run around picking things up and looking at them like a little kid and sat. Being an adult is always so boring. Urgh. Skeetha smiled around at them. At least, Willow assumed that’s what she was doing. Her face didn’t change too much, so it was more her general vibe that Willow interpreted as ‘smile’.
“Lets us begin by thankings you for coming to listen to our stories.” Skeetha began.
Doing her best to appear serious and responsible, the kind of person someone would want to give an important quest to, Willow inclined her head. The act might have been somewhat ruined when she lifted her head and had to blow strands of her unruly brown hair away from her eyes.
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Naomi
Skeetha & Halshath’s Home, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Listening to Skeetha and Halshath explain the history of their tribe and their neighboring tribes was mildly interesting. Mildly interesting given that Naomi was able to somewhat pay attention. She’d always found it hard to care about the specifics of historical figures and places on Earth and she was finding that extended to the current situation.
Jonah looked to be at rapt attention, soaking it all in. Willow was listening with a polite kind of expression and her usual self control, not twitching or fidgeting at all. Sometimes Willow’s eyes would scan the room casually, then return to whichever kobold was currently carrying the story, but she didn’t seem inattentive or bored.
Meanwhile, Naomi had caught herself tapping her leg, looking around, staring at her hands, thinking about the sun-child stone things, and just generally ignoring the conversation. She got the gist. Actually, she’d gotten the gist about an hour ago, along with some other interesting facts.
For example, the things that Willow called pop-hoppers were locally known as jimble-grimbs. Given the ridiculous name Naomi didn’t care in the least when Willow declared her name was better and therefore should clearly be the official name. The kobolds seemed amused by the statement rather than offended and Halshath told her, “We’ll be sure to let the various powers who all claim ownership of the planet know about the change.
The situation itself was relatively simple, though. The kobolds had settled on this planet something like fifteen thousand years ago, but had failed to “conquer” it. This meant that, as far as most factions and other large groups were concerned, it was still unclaimed. The kobolds themselves had mostly all come from the same origin point, having been in the same tutorial and had wanted to maintain their simple lifestyles. They had no interest in the more modern technology or the hustle and bustle they experienced during their “contracted period.”
Almost the entire clan had stayed in contact through the UICI while they fulfilled their various obligations. Once they completed them, they had worked together to pool resources and acquire passage to an unclaimed planet. There, they had begun rebuilding their tribe properly. They avoided using the UICI as much as possible and when strangers came to visit they did their best to avoid being found. This had worked well for the last fifteen thousand years. Unfortunately, one of the visitors which they had avoided had followed a native animal which made its lair underneath sunsquat trees, which was what the kobolds called the type of tree they themselves lived under.
The visitor had discovered the sun-child stones, which had begun an inevitable series of events. The kobolds assumed when he left, things would continue as usual. Instead, they had received a notice on their UICI that their claim to the planet was being contested by two different factions and a guild. The Luminous Home faction, Autronima faction, and the Insight Entreaty guild had all laid official claims of their own.
Following this one of the factions, the kobolds weren’t sure which, had sent someone to “harvest” the sunsquat tree they found. The kobold scouts had seen them arrive, a group of about a hundred walking through a portal. They didn’t wear any particular faction identifiers and their UICI tags didn’t include their faction. The tags thing had sent the conversation spiraling for a while as Willow asked questions about that, very interested in setting up her own tags and figuring out how to see others.
Finally, the kobolds had learned that the group was intending to remove the entire tree. The tribe had sent a group of representatives to negotiate, asking them not to destroy the natural order of things. The kobolds sent had all been killed out of hand. Naomi had frowned and made sympathetic noises with her friends, but the kobolds dismissed it almost casually and continued as if it was of no consequence. They’d then explained that their scout had reported back that the group of people had surrounded the tree and used some kind of ritual to uproot the entire thing. They then summoned a portal, took the tree and left. They hadn’t been back since then.
Once they’d left, the kobolds had mourned the loss of the tree, but hadn’t thought too much more of it. Until about a year later when the first jimble-grimbs had shown up. Apparently, they appeared to be born, or as the kobolds said ‘spawned’ within the area the sunsquat tree had previously occupied. They pop into existence, about one of them every day or so. Then the jimble-grimbs had begun to spread out and collect materials from the forest. They were “normal monsters” so far as the kobolds could tell. They said they made good fodder to train their young.
This had brought up several questions from both Kent and Willow about the children. Naomi hadn’t considered, but according to their orientation all intelligent creatures came from the tutorial. So children were unexpected. The Skeetha had mentioned that was a longer topic, which they should discuss later, and continued their story.
The jimble-grimbs had gone on to put together a little village for themselves surrounding a familiar-sounding pot. The kobolds had begun to use them, as they mentioned previously, to train their young in the ways of combat. They would periodically raid the monster camp, culling them then retreating back home. That had maintained a balance for a while, until the jimble-grimbs had managed to kill two of the children being trained. They had then taken the corpses and tossed them into their pot and immediately the area had begun to change.
As Halshath told this part of his story, he seemed to become truly angry. The deaths of the children, unlike the scouting parties demise, seemed to infuriate him. He recounted the training group returning in defeat, having lost lives for the first time during a training exercise and Naomi thought she’d seem tears form at the corner of his large eyes.
The next day, the kobolds sent a squad to entirely eradicate the jimble-grimbs, locate their spawn point, and purify it. When they arrived, though, they found the land was dead. Previously, it had been obvious a grand tree had been removed but still had plenty of life and other trees in the surrounding area. They explained the surrounding wildlife had mostly been normal. Now, though, they found an area of dead grey for tens of meters. Only the pot itself remained. The jimble-grimbs were gone.
The kobolds had tried to retrieve the pot but had a reaction similar to Jonah’s. They’d been unable to approach without gagging and choking. The longer they remained within a couple meters, and the nearer they approached the cauldron, the worse the effects got. They had a couple kobolds try to charge the cauldron to knock it over before the sickness became debilitating, but failed. The pot was much heavier than it first appeared, with several of the warriors having stated it must be more than a hundred kilos.
Jonah nodded along emphatically about how horrible the rapidly increasing sickness was, looking vindicated at his own reaction. The kobolds hadn’t given up there, having sent several parties to try various methods of removing or destroying the cauldron with all having obviously failed. They talked about using spells and abilities, trying to use wands and other weapons and equipment their tribe had from their days under contract. Nothing had been effective in removing the stubborn pot.
That was the gist and Naomi had phased out about that time. The last four hours or so had been details and tangents, which Naomi was increasingly failing to care about. She felt drained. It had been a long time since she’d spoken with anyone for so long. Her chats with Jonah and Willow were nice, refreshing even. Neither of them seemed overly concerned about maintaining a conversation, which Naomi was now thanking whatever lucky stroke landed her with them instead of more talkative people.
Willow was upbeat and always seemed happy to talk, but also never pursued a conversation once it was complete. She also hadn’t constantly felt the need to fill silence while they were walking or working on something together. Sometimes she’d start a conversation, but ultimately she was much less of the “ultra-extrovert” that Naomi had initially feared upon meeting her and experiencing her unique personality.
Jonah, on the other hand, was absolutely an introvert like herself, though maybe not quite as much. Both herself and Jonah had been reticent to really talk much except when needed and had difficulty talking about themselves. As they’d gotten more comfortable around each other, though, Jonah had opened up a lot. He and Willow had spent more time chatting about random things as the days went on and seemed to have common interest in fantasy books and games. Naomi herself shared some of those interests, but had a hard time joining their conversations.
When she forced herself, they were always extremely enjoyable, but it was difficult. Even with Willow’s ever-positive encouragement and Jonah’s quiet support. She smiled slightly as she remembered gathering the nerve to apologize to Willow for always putting her off when she asked about her life. Naomi just didn’t like talking about herself. She wasn’t worth talking about.
She’d expected Willow to agree to not ask about her anymore, like some of her rare friends on earth had done. She’d even considered she might get annoyed and say she was being dramatic like some of her prospective friends had done. Instead, she’d just grinned and told Naomi she’d keep asking until Naomi was ready to talk about it. She offered to “take a break for a bit” if she needed, but made it clear she had no intention of forgetting about learning more about her.
Naomi had done her best to be graceful and just thanked her for understanding it was hard, then made her escape. She’d found herself sobbing softly behind some trees. She was sure Willow and maybe Jonah had known she was crying, they had agreed to keep track of each other while out here in case of danger after all, but neither had mentioned it. It had been a good kind of cry. It had been so long since anyone had cared enough to ask about her, much less insist that they would get her to talk about it eventually.
She returned her attention to the little hovel room as Willow stood, followed by Jonah. The meeting was apparently complete. Willow grinned down at Naomi with a knowing glint in her eyes, clearly knowing she hadn’t been listening. She didn’t call her on it, though. She just reached a hand out to help Naomi stand up. She took Willow’s hand with a smile.
It felt good to have a real friend.