Chapter 17: Chapter 17. Big Fat Liars

“Trapmasters stay behind.” The Chieftain’s words rang dully, like a death sentence, which they probably were. “You are part of the rear guard. You never looted Kreeark, and we found his corpse. You are a decent trapmaster, and we will add the story of your courageous sacrifice to that of Chadwick, Myrna, Melusine, Kathlyn, Lewlyn, and Arick.”

He smiled, “You can be reborn with the strength of a legacy behind you, the next step towards being reborn as a Dragon.”

Chadwick had taken me back to see Carolinus again, and she had confirmed that at least two of the individuals that had attacked had registered as what she called ‘energy vampires', or constructs. One had been killed by the hunters, and instead of leaving a corpse behind, it had simply dissolved. The rest were banded, which guaranteed that news of the dungeon, and probably quests to ransack it or the kobolds guarding it, would propagate.

It was the next day, after my return, and I had spent the evening brainstorming new and unique traps we could create to wreck adventurer morale. I got to showcase a lot of the traps and snares I had learned in the boy scouts, as well as put a nasty twist on some of my own ideas based on the idea that destroying the bodies was not such a bad idea when you didn’t expect to collect anything from them.

I hadn’t realized that normal kobolds were able to use something called ‘loot’ to shortcut the hours of tedious work it took to clean and dress a kill. This was part of Antowyn Online, not the Game, and proved to my satisfaction, unfortunately, that being banded was no guaranteed way of detecting things tied to AO.

Without actually touching one of the bracelets, though, I was supposedly just considered a ‘wild thing’ of some sort. Carolinus told me it was weird that her identify spell simply called me a ‘frost kobold’ instead of mentioning my name, power rating, or, in her case, affinities. She assumed that it was due to me still technically being an adolescent, most of whom had yet to graduate to full sapience, although named dungeon spawns like Kreeark, who were considered elites, definitely showed elite status, as did the more advanced warriors and hunters as well as what I called ‘department heads’, such as Carolinus herself, Melusine, and the chieftain, Mokruk.

Interestingly enough many of the kobolds I had met appeared as ‘earth aspect kobolds’ until I learned their names, but for the Chieftain and other elites, I got their name without having to be told. I had assumed that the game was gaining a greater percentage of resources with my improved power level, could that be part of it?

The problem, of course, was that the nation was leaving Dirt undefended save for those volunteer hunters and Warriors, as well as the trappers, that were forming the rear guard. I didn’t really understand why it was so important to leave death behind them when they ran if the real interest was in the dungeon itself. Dungeons were designed to protect themselves, right? If there was no way to prevent it from being invaded, why spend lives defending it?

Carolinus quietly explained it to me. I was worried she would think I was being cowardly, but she just shrugged. “I understand you are an adolescent, and you don’t appear to be particularly greedy. Ambitious, yes. Can you try to think like a greedy creature?”

I nodded, “I can certainly try.”

She chuckled a little, “If you were looking for treasure, and there were two paths, one of which was heavily trapped but otherwise looked abandoned, and the other was both trapped and guarded by monsters trying to prevent your entrance, which path would you choose?”

I thought about it. Obviously, the easier and less dangerous trap would...oh.

“They will assume that the harder path contains the greater rewards. And that the risky but less well-guarded path was a dangerous distraction, meant to whittle down their resources and numbers. At least, that’s what they will assume if they think kobolds are stupid.”

She nodded, “Exactly. And to be fair, kobolds are stupid compared to a lot of other creatures. Our nation is strong and much smarter than others, but that is due to the freedom we have had down here. I am not ashamed to admit that except for those of us that have grown under special circumstances, most fighting kobold clans would make a goblin look smart. I am glad you understand this but were it not for kobolds like us, the exceptions, The Earth Clan here would be every bit as stupid and savage as any other nation.”

“Kobolds are the origin, the starting place, the first sapient beings destined to grow their souls on the wheel to eventually be reborn as the pinnacle, dragonkind. We are not suicidal, but sacrificing ourselves for the greater strength of our nation is not suicide. Those who remain give their lives, but they give their lives dearly, and are rewarded for their efforts.”

Okay. I was not really buying into the wheel of souls religion stuff, but the basic explanation for why they would be defending a dead end made a lot of sense, even if I didn’t really understand the psychology of your basic murderhobo. The heaviest enemy fire generally meant you were directly over the target, after all.

Ignoring that rule had cost Germany dearly in World War II and might have been what cost them the entire war. They were convinced that D-Day was a feint because Normandy and other parts of France were heavily defended.

They could have shifted resources to respond to the well-known buildup of forces, If Hitler had actually listened to his military Genius Rommel and turned the Normandy invasion from a nearly pyrrhic victory into the most brutal and punishing defeat of the war, but they couldn’t conceive of anyone being stupid or crazy enough to attack an already well-defended position outside of Calais. So they assumed that the massive buildup was some kind of ploy to distract their attention from Calais, and the Normandy invasion marked the beginning of the end as badly as the Trojan Horse.

Obviously, the entire thing was much more complicated than a simple kobold versus adventurer feint, but the principles were very similar, if on a much smaller scale. We would be the distraction, for as long as possible, to allow the rest to get away.

The meeting was being held in the center square of the little town, under the weird false trees. Most of the rest were frantically busy preparing for an evacuation or trapping the areas adventurers would travel, but Carolinus said the Chieftain insisted I be present.

I suspect that part of the reason was that I had arrived soon before the adventurers, and they were suspicious that I might, in some way, be tied to them. This meant, obviously, it would be safer to leave me behind with the defending troops that would likely die than have me possibly accompanying the rest of the nation as they fled and reporting on their movements. Such suspicion was warranted but left me in a bad position.

That also meant that, most likely, the moment the nation left, they would take a different route and use different tactics than were being discussed here, which was a straight retreat down the riverside deeper into the mountain to an explored location where they could set up more defenses.

“Carolinus?” I whispered to her.

“Yes?” she replied quietly while the Chieftain expounded at length to the volunteers about the rewards they would receive in their next life, or if they could do their jobs and return to the nation still whole.

“I hope that whatever tactics they are talking about here, outside of the initial ambush, are changed the moment that they start to retreat. They don’t know me that well.”

Carolinus smiled slightly. “Yes, but Mokruk is a canny old monster. It’s equally possible that he may uphold those plans exactly, assuming that, if you are compromised, you would assume he would change them.”

Huh. “So clearly, I should choose the cup that is in front of me,” I remarked.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Oh, where I come from there was a genius that was trying to outthink an ambush and… well... never mind, it’s not very important. I get your point, though. Even if I were not talented in traps, he would have found an excuse to make sure that I was not with the rest of the nation when they flee. I can only hope that he’s not outthinking himself, like the guy in my story did.”

Carolinus looked interested, “So what happened?”

I shrugged, “He was out-clevered. He had to make a choice between two cups, one of which was poisoned, but he was so convinced of his own genius that he fooled himself into believing he chose the right cup. The fact was, both cups were poisoned.”

Carolinus nodded, “So he died because of being too clever. That sounds, ironically, very much like a kobold story. Do not concern yourself. When given a choice between two cups, one of which is poisoned, most kobolds would much rather trigger a pit trap and kill everyone involved, including themselves.”

I nodded, that would have certainly ended the story neatly, and in a far different fashion. Not as entertainingly, of course.

Carolinus spoke up, “We have another problem. One of the adventurers is an illusionist. They have disguised themselves as greater kobolds, which we would not have noticed if we were not on an emergency footing. One of the Shamans was dressed as a hunter and noticed the spell dweomer on our cousins, and called me. I don’t know if it was the same group as before, or a different group, since, while I can detect the illusion, I cannot pierce it.”

Mokruk looked thoughtful. “What are they disguising themselves for?”

Carolinus shrugged, “They have asked to be allowed to help clear some of Dirt. Right now we are feeding them, and pretending that they are not so obviously fake. They understand even less kobold tradition than Bran does, but we are having Juveniles acting as servitors who cannot speak clearly yet. What should we do about them? Try to kill them or let them into Dirt and hope that the dungeon finishes them?”

I had an idea. If there was going to be a raid, I really wasn’t certain I wanted to be on the losing side, but I also didn’t want to be a total coward. I raised my hand.

The gesture was apparently not a common one, because every kobold suddenly looked at me. “Can I make a suggestion?” I asked curiously.

“Speak.” Said Mokruk, his deeper-than-usual voice obvious based on his higher stature than most of the other kobolds present.

“I left a number of traps active in the rat tunnels.”

Mokruk nodded, “Yes, the scouts left them alone, they were obvious.”

I nodded, “Well, do they speak undercommon?”

Carolinus nodded, “One of them does, and it is the smallest one. One of the things that struck the guards as odd. Usually, the larger a Kobold is, the smarter it is unless it chose a primal evolution. They all look like normal greater wood kobolds not primal, and yet they let the… stupid one do all their talking for them. That is not normal.”

“That means they do not tie size and authority together. I can speak, and I am very small… do you think they would consider it odd if I were to be offered as a guide to the dungeon, and once they were in the rat tunnels, it could be sealed behind them?”

Mokruk started laughing, short gasping wheezes with an open mouth. “You don't buy into rebirth eh? You aren’t going to throw yourself into the ogre’s mouth to protect someone else's tribe?”

He shook his head, “I don't expect that. You know that there's only two ways out of Dirt, yeah?”

I shook my head, “I thought there was only one way out.”

He chuckled again, “No, there are two. One is the entrance or the shellcrawlers. The other is to break the first floor, which no kobold has ever done."

You are reading story The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. at novel35.com

“If you take the adventurers to their death, They are dead. If they beat the floor, they will leave the dungeon and you won't make it. Either way, it helps the nation and takes you, and the fakes, out. If they respawn, well, then they'll have to restart weaker. I like the idea. Do it.”

I nodded, make it so, Mister Crusher. Now I would have to lead at least two humans from Earth into a trap that would kill them to protect my own existence.

Did I feel guilty? Not in the slightest. They would respawn, but I wouldn’t. To them it was a game, to me it was my life. And to all the people here, even if they were short and scaley, it was their life as well.

You are aware that kobolds, in general, are much more monstrous than the ones here.

Of course. But these ones, at least, are people, and I don’t think that matters much to the ones coming to kill them.

So tell me. Celia mentioned that there might be some way to tap into their communications, or possibly their quests. Is this something we can accomplish?

We believe so. While the worm itself is tenacious, vicious, and paranoid, the Antowyn Online structure it leaves behind is actually far simpler than the game. It is far more like a powerful spell, using the magic at its disposal to make its changes, rather than the complicated artificial intelligence-run structure of the game.

You appear to be resistant to the effects of the worm itself or immune to its influence, but your energy manipulation can still interact with the world the same as theirs can. Assuming that a player attempts to try and create a sorcerous bond with you, the very act of impinging on your affinities with a construct connection should allow you to dominate that connection. Making it stealthy might be a challenge, but AO is still in its early release state. I suspect that some other monsters capable of player influence such as mind flayers and vampires might also try to take advantage of such a connection.

So It’s not a bug yet.

Approximately. I am certain that if, say, a mind flayer takes control of a player and can extend that influence to controlling their body on Earth, the vulnerability will be addressed, but while AO may be in a released state, I assume that the beta players never tested every possible negative bug.

What’s a mind flayer?

The Game downloaded a bestiary with their language files. It is apparently extremely incomplete since many new monsters were created after the invasion, but mind flayers were a creature in the original version. I am still trying to link many terms into your language centers as you sleep, and I apologize in advance for some of the more...horrifying dreams you may experience while I do so.

The Mind Flayer, also known as Illithid, is what happens to a human or other species that are born soulless and then infested by a spirit of chaos. They grow to resemble a creature from H.P. Lovecraft’s universe, with a squid-like head on a twisted, humanoid body.

Their most fearsome attacks are psychic abilities that attack sanity or control the mind, and they eat brains. Prior to the invasion, they were considered the most dangerous chaos threats in existence, due to both their soulless nature and ties to primordial chaos and the creatures of that realm.

I am still decoding and linking a great deal of information, but the story should emerge over time. Your chaos resistance should help shield our mind from some of the revelations.

Great. I thought. Not that great. I would need to make it a point to avoid mind flayers, illithids, or whatever octopus-headed monsters loomed in the future. My sanity was not exactly on stable ground, to begin with.

On the contrary, your unique disposition makes your mind vastly more difficult to penetrate than an average human, because you are used to uninvited overwhelming urges, and have trained yourself at length to suppress them. Clearly, you are not close to powerful enough to meaningfully oppose Illithids yet, but you have had Chaos resistance long before you ever came to this world.

You may have mental differences from many other humans, but despite some behavioral alterations, you are not soulless. The techniques you have spent your life developing to control your differences are proof that you have a soul.

In that case, what the hell is soulless?

Creatures born without souls. Incapable of empathy or connecting with humans, driven by their body’s needs and physical chemistry. They may be intelligent, but in the end, they are nothing more than animals with human minds. On the subject of the Soulless, the game is remarkably clear. Some creatures of every sentient species are simply born without a soul, turning them into monsters unless some more powerful entity moves into their bodies.

The most obvious ones become psychopaths, as the only time they can truly feel anything is when they are destroying others, and they are driven by instinct, chemistry, and ritual to appease that desperate need to feel anything at all.

Ugh. So being a soulless bastard was not a problem unique to Earth.

---

I quickly gathered a few supplies I thought I would need, including various sorts of Mushrooms and some other useful materials.

Carolinus guided me to where the five cloaked greater kobolds were being feted. At first glance, they were fairly interesting, looking like kobolds that were the size of humans, except for a short, squat one that looked… stretched sideways, like a kobold in a funhouse mirror. Their heads were far smaller in proportion to the size of their bodies but still larger than a normal kobold’s head.

Their eyes were tiny in proportion to their size, still larger than humans but not covering a good quarter of their face as mine did. I didn’t know what lizardmen or troglodytes looked like, but I suspect that they didn’t still have great tufts of feathers that made them look more akin to feathered dinosaurs rather than purely reptilian.

It took me a moment as I struggled to recall.

Dimorphodon

Thank you. I replied. Yes, Dimorphodons. Walking, humanoid dimorphodons. Regular kobolds were, in comparison, somewhat cute compared to the killing machines that would have made a decent alternative to the fictionalized version of velociraptors from that dinosaur movie.

“Greetings!” I said brightly as I walked into the stone hut. “My name is Bran. Your request to tour this dungeon colloquially referred to as Dirt has been approved! We are very much honored that our greater brethren have chosen to assist us in this time of stress, and are more than willing to assist in your attempts to enrich and improve yourselves in the face of our collective need, and I would be honored to guide you in this endeavor!”

“What the hell did he say? It sounded complicated.” The largest one said. Interesting. I had a little trouble following the words, but the weird part was that I could also hear echoes of English. American English. Probably West Coast.

The short, stretched-wide one said, “He was welcoming us as his great brothers. He said we are welcome to fight the dungeon, but that he has to come along with us, as some sort of a guide. I speak pretty decent undercommon, but ahh…. He is weird for a kobold, some kind of talker, and he uses words more like a Dark Elf than a kobold. I think he might be some kind of smart kobold even though he’s tiny, maybe he has negotiator or diplomat class levels. I hear some monsters can actually take class levels when they get smart enough. Maybe he’s a mutant since his brown skin doesn’t quite match the others here.”

I realized that the short one was actually female. Her voice was deep and rich, but undeniably feminine.

The big one shrugged and looked at one that was less bulky, but just as tall. “Weren’t we supposed to be looking for a strange kobold? This one is strange.”

The slender one shrugged, “He is strange, but the one we are looking for should be blue. Also, if he was fleeing from Sindaenaway, why would he be here to guide us through the dungeon? Most likely he has already moved on, or is hiding here someplace.”

I see. Someone WAS looking for me. I definitely needed to make sure I didn’t come out of camouflage while they could see me, which meant I needed to sleep apart from them until I could kill them.

I looked at them with my weird senses, trying to determine what sort of weapons or items they possessed that would be useful, and was in for a bit of a shock.

The bands on each of their left wrists came up as a purple glow, which I figured for some kind of powerful magic, but the tall, slender one had some weird sort of fading that prevented me from detecting anything else salvageable on him.

The little one was kind of like a kobold, in that there was not much that I could use in her current, living state, but she was wearing armor of some sort and carried a large battle hammer. The middle-height one, who had not spoken, was even more obscured than the tall slender one and appeared vaguely feminine as well.

The big one, who had undertones of English in his speech, was weird. His entire body was radiating energy, much like when I transferred the energy in my claws, which seemed to all be connected to the bracelet he wore. And the other feminine-looking one, who had also not spoken, simply…. Didn’t appear to exist. It was like her bracelet was hovering in space, along with her gear, with absolutely nothing to support them. I wondered if the illusion of her existence only appeared with the greater kobold illusion, or with those that had bracelets. Her gear, though, I could detect beneath the illusion, and her leather armor was shaped like a voluptuous-looking human.

The big one spoke again, “I just got another quest. So wait, we have TWO escort quests now? If this Kobold is so smart and special, why does he just come up as ‘a kobold’ and ‘low threat’?

The smallest of the three females spoke again. I realized that the language they were speaking was different, but similar in structure to the undercommon I was gifted with, and for some reason, I could understand it. “Maybe he was enchanted by the shaman? They felt like they needed to keep an eye on what we are doing, so they just grabbed a non-sentient juvenile and are using him as a kind of mouthpiece inhabited by a spirit. I know he’s not undead, so maybe one of them is possessing him so they don’t have to go into danger themselves.”

The tall, slender one spoke again. He had a very...cultured accent as if he were some kind of nobility. “That would make perfect sense. The Shamans use a kind of magic called spiritualism and kobolds of all types are known for their cowardice. The one you spoke with, at first, came across as challenging, which means she was nearly as powerful as we were. Kobolds seldom obtain that kind of power without becoming greater kobolds or evolving into other monster types.”

The one that seemed to be made of nothing finally spoke. “Hi! I am Shiana. I appreciate your assistance with my quest and will do anything you want because I love you. If you want to unlock enhanced real-life personality for me, please activate the REALPET DLC for only 699 Alandiacrypto, and I promise your dreams will come true!” In English, without the underlying language.

The short female said, “That’s the third time she has said that. I don’t understand the language and it doesn’t sound anything like elven, but she seems to say it every time we are not in immediate danger. Is she… okay? She hardly seems to say anything at all, except that, and yes and no.”

I snorted, and carefully suppressed a laugh with a short cough. Hopefully, these people didn’t recognize kobold laughter because my cover would be totally boned if they did. Whatever game the big fellow was playing, I wasn’t sure if it was the same Alandia Online everyone else was playing.

The slender male looked at me suspiciously, but I looked at him with the best big-eyed innocent expression I could come up with.

You can find story with these keywords: The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale., Read The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale., The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. novel, The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. book, The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. story, The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. full, The Chronicles of Alandia, A Kobold’s Tale. Latest Chapter