The kobold approached Tam and Bow with a hand raised in front of their eyes. Dimly lit by the flame at Bow’s finger, Tam could just make out the shape of their clothes and the colour of their scales. They wore a piece of cloth with a hole punched through the middle for their head, the fabric hung stiff across their shoulders, as it was matted with dirt between the fibres. Their scales were a dull auburn, matching the muddy tone of their clothing. Tam didn’t recognize them by sight, but they smelled like the village.
“Hi there, friend. I am Tam, and this is Bow.”
Stepping close enough that Tam could see her snaggled teeth, he finally put a name to the voice.
Dut was a girl that never learned responsibility. She’d been causing trouble since she hatched, scheming up some grand trick without a thought to the consequences of her actions. She had a talent for convincing young kobolds that didn’t know better into following her schemes, whether it be setting a fire to a giant spider nest, or tainting a hobgoblin mushroom farm with poisonous spores. Where she went, she brought chaos.
“Tam? I heard you went off to die. How did you end up down here with a gnome?”
“Yik died, Dut. I can’t say what happened to the rest. I was surely dead too, but Bow spared me. Then a monster unlike I’ve ever seen burrowed up and attacked the adventurers. I fled down the tunnel it had made, and Bow here followed me.”
“This kid was one of the adventurers the village was so scared of? He’s barely taller than you! I could take him myself, not that I have to. That flame is a beacon bringing every predator down these tunnels right to him.”
Dut blew out the flame, and the darkness swallowed them, the only thing still visible were her glowing eyes, two slits of orange glistening in a deep black sea. Tam grabbed Bow’s shoulders and pulled them behind him, hiding the scared child from Dut. Bow sparked a new flame, shielding it from Dut with their body.
“You act so certain about the world Dut, but your words betray your ignorance. How do you know Bow is a gnome, or even a boy? Have you seen a surface child before, let alone enough to differentiate them by species and gender? You saw how it took only a single fireball to stop the stampede of spiders, so clearly you must think yourself stronger than the hoard that Bow saved you from!”
Dut snorted, “Oh my god, you’re a little sensitive today. Hold your breath, I’m not gonna hurt him. Or them, whatever. Pretty sure gnomes only have two genders, so I’m probably more right than you are anyways.”
Tam didn’t know enough about gnomes to be certain. He knew draconic and humanoid species had many genders, and that goblinoid species had only two. Gnomes and other fey species were a gap in Tam’s knowledge, as it was so rare to encounter them underground. There was a simple enough way to narrow the possibilities though.
“Moynt la refr aum?”
Are you a human?
Bow looked at Tam with considerable confusion.
“Aum?”
“What are you saying to him?”
“Give me a second, I’m having translation trouble. We both have a loose grip on Giant’s speech.”
“Moynt la reft… human. Dut do you know the word for human in any other language?”
“How would I know? You’re the linguist, figure it out.”
“Di moynt agwgwnt.” He gestured to Dut and himself.
We are kobolds.
“Moynt le…?”
You are?
Bow looked back and forth between the two kobolds.
“Ewg tindeit refr agwnt!”
I am a kobold!
One of them had made a mistake. Tam was coming to the conclusion that he was considerably less fluent in this language than Bow was. So he’d made the mistake.
“So, is he a human?”
“Maybe.”
Dut shrugged.
“Whatever he is, he’s your problem. I’m not gonna slow down so you can take him by the hand and drag him through the dark.”
“That wouldn’t work anyways.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t see in the dark either.”
“What do you mean? Did you poke your eyes out during the fight with the adventurers?”
“My darkvision was fried when a fireball went off right next to my eyeballs. I thought I could rest it off, but so far there’s been no improvement.”
“So you’re saying you’re both doomed. Well, thanks for managing to survive long enough to kill those spiders, I owe you one, feel free to cash in any favour back in the village.”
She turned away, flipping the hood of her crusty poncho over her head.
“Wait! Dut, you can’t abandon us! I promise, we don’t have to slow you down.”
“So then what’s your plan? You can’t seriously be thinking of walking the tunnels by fire-light the whole time, that’s suicide. So what else is there for you?”
“Your darkvision is still good.”
“You want me to lead both of you?”
“How did you put it? Hold him by the hand and drag him through it?”
She stood in silence for a long moment, still facing away, her face hidden from view.
“If Bow ever screws up and puts me in danger, I’m out of here.”
“Thank you.”
“Now get him to put out the light, it’s giving me eyestrain.”
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