Chapter 11: The War of Frogs and Mice - part 3¶
Prologue - Dravyn¶
The sigil aligns. That is what I tell myself as we descend into darkness, the mine's wooden beams groaning with age and the weight of stone. We carry a statue of a devil masquerading as a god, and I wonder if the kobolds understand what they worship—or if that understanding even matters when faith has teeth.
My glaive rests easy on my shoulder. The runed eye upon my chest watches the shadows as I watch them. Somewhere ahead, a purple-scaled pretender has convinced an entire tribe that without their idol they will turn yellow and die. A lie so transparent it insults the telling—and yet they believe. Perhaps that is the nature of desperation: it makes fools of the frightened.
We have a plan. Perry's calculations, Elroy's steady presence, Rust's healing warmth, Grotdor's disciplined flame. And my wrath—refined, measured, waiting. The angle of approach matters. The first words matter. When Tartuk's authority crumbles, the geometry of the conflict changes. I have learned this lesson well: break the fulcrum, and the lever falls.
The kobolds deserve better than a manipulator wearing scales. And we need what they have—Svetlana's ring, certainly, but also allies in this wild country. The Stolen Lands will not be tamed by blade alone. It requires the patience of diplomacy, the warmth of trust built between peoples who have no reason to trust.
By measured will, we descend. The wrath remains sheathed—for now.
Approach to the Oaktop Silver Mine¶
The sigil at Dravyn's throat pulsed once as they approached the Oaktop Silver Mine—a resonance he had learned to trust, if not yet to understand. The evening light died against weathered timbers and a cracked wooden sign that marked this place as something once civilized. Now it belonged to kobolds, and to the purple-scaled deceiver who had corrupted them.
A crudely erected wooden cage stood near the cave mouth, and within it, a mitflit prisoner sobbed with the particular wretchedness of the utterly defeated. Perry glanced at the creature, then at the mine entrance beyond.
The halfling had spent the better part of an hour that morning working with Elroy to decipher a note recovered from the mitflit lair—intelligence written on stretched lizard skin in the gremlins' strange script. The document described the status of the war between the Sootscales and the mitflits. According to its contents, the kobolds possessed magic dust, many coins, and—most importantly—a shiny human ring. Svetlana's wedding band lay in kobold hands, not gremlin clutches.
Perry studied the caged mitflit with analytical detachment. They had just slaughtered its kin at the Old Sycamore. Releasing it would only complicate negotiations with the kobolds. He looked away. Sentiment had its place. This was not it.
A small dark-scaled kobold with ashy bluish-gray coloring emerged from behind a boulder as they approached, crossbow loaded and aimed at Dravyn's chest. The wizard addressed the sentry in the dragon-tongue, his voice carrying the precise cadence of one accustomed to speaking with dangerous creatures.
The kobold—Nakpik—seemed cautiously receptive. He led them inside, first disabling three pit traps that guarded the entrance with practiced efficiency. The mine tunnels opened into eight-foot ceilings that Nakpik gestured toward with obvious pride, as if these cramped passages were vaulted cathedral halls.
A pair of kobold scouts emerged from the shadows, crossbows trained, but Nakpik vouched for the strangers and they retreated into darkness.
The shrine chamber stopped Rust cold.
The walls had been smeared with charcoal and blood, covered in cave paintings depicting a looming, sharp-toothed reptilian creature. Low stone tables stained with old blood dominated the center of the room. The imagery was crude but unmistakable to the goblin oracle's trained eye—not some primitive kobold deity, but a horned devil. A fiend from Hell itself.
Rust pulled the others aside. This was why he didn't deal with cults. The small statue they'd recovered from the mitflits matched the imagery on these walls. Perry noted the connection with a frown. Someone had brought Hell's architecture to these desperate creatures, and they had been too frightened to recognize the blueprint.
Chief Sootscale received them in a larger common chamber where cook fires smoldered among scattered fur bedding. The ancient kobold wore a skull headdress decorated with feather-like vines and wielded an iron-wrapped femur alongside a fossilized crab claw affixed to a stick. His body glittered with beads, river pearls, teeth, and copper bits—the accumulated wealth of a long and careful life.
The chief regarded the "bigginses" with wary hospitality, his Common broken but understandable. When Perry mentioned their troubles with the blue gremlins, Sootscale's interest sharpened visibly. He explained that without the statue of Old Sharptooth—stolen by the mitflits—his people were cursed to turn yellow and die.
Rust knew immediately that this belief had no basis in reality. Kobolds suffered no such affliction. These people had been manipulated.
Perry pressed for the source of this information, and Sootscale revealed it came from Tartuk—the purple-scaled priest who had arrived about a moon ago. Dravyn and Elroy both sensed the fear beneath the chief's words, and something more: an acute awareness that this Tartuk sought to usurp his position.
Perry declared outright that they believed Tartuk was a liar and fraud. Though Sootscale maintained diplomatic caution, a gleam in his ancient eyes suggested he harbored similar suspicions. At Perry's request, the chief directed them to meet with the purple priest in his quarters, sending two of his loyal warriors along—ostensibly as guides, but clearly to observe what transpired.
Perry secured one critical agreement: if Tartuk attacked, the chief's warriors would not interfere.
The False Prophet Unmasked¶
The heady aroma of roasting meat, incense, and spilled wine assaulted them as they rounded the corner into Tartuk's chamber. Rickety wooden shelving held bins of wriggling worms. Sloppily painted banners displayed mystic symbolism in beads and rope. An iron cauldron bubbled with red liquid in the center of the room.
And there, lounging on furs while being hand-fed a shank of meat, lay Tartuk—a purple-scaled kobold wearing a feathered headdress and an expression of lazy contempt. Six kobold fanatics gripped their spears and took defensive positions as the strangers entered.
Tartuk raised what would have been an eyebrow on a creature with hair. He spoke in the Common tongue, his voice dripping with theatrical mysticism.
Rust immediately noted the contradiction when Tartuk claimed to have foreseen their arrival moments after admitting he hadn't expected company. The purple kobold dismissed this as misdirection, claiming to have known they were coming before they even decided to arrive.
Dravyn invoked Chief Sootscale's authority, but Tartuk countered by invoking Old Sharptooth, warning that the god would punish transgressors. The air grew thick with tension as the fanatics' grips tightened on their weapons.
Perry reached into his bag of holding and produced the recovered statue of Old Sharptooth.
Tartuk's eyes widened. He recovered quickly, spinning the situation—these strangers were mitflit spies, he claimed, who might break the statue and doom them all. The contest of wills hung suspended between them, six kobold loyalties wavering in the balance.
Elroy stepped forward, his voice carrying the weight of a marshal's authority, bolstered by Rust's earnest reinforcement. Against Tartuk's impassioned counter-appeal, the guardian's words cut through—calm, certain, unshakeable.
Four of the six kobold fanatics broke ranks. They retreated to stand with Chief Sootscale's warriors, leaving only two loyal to the false prophet.
Tartuk snarled. He drew a curved sickle, his theatrical demeanor crumbling into naked fury.
Kobold Alliances Forged¶
The web spell erupted from Tartuk's outstretched claws, sticky strands filling the chamber's entrance. Dravyn felt the viscous material wrap around his legs and torso, anchoring him in place. Beside him, Rust suffered the same fate—both casters immobilized while their companions moved freely through the magical snare.
Grotdor didn't hesitate. The fire kineticist advanced to gain line of sight, flames coiling around his fists. His first blast caught Tartuk across the shoulder—a minor wound. His second struck true, the fire igniting the purple scales and leaving the false prophet burning and shrieking.
Dravyn, though trapped, could still see his target. Lightning crackled from his fingertips, thunder echoing through the chamber. The cold followed—a vengeful glare that left frost forming on Tartuk's burned scales. Fire and ice. The kobold shaman would feel both before this ended.
The solitary fanatic still loyal to Tartuk hurled a sling stone at Dravyn's head. Elroy intercepted, stepping between them and taking the blow himself—a rock to the forehead that he absorbed without flinching.
Perry vanished into smoke. The halfling investigator had produced one of his alchemical concoctions, disappearing into a cloud of concealing vapor from which only the occasional glint of his hand crossbow emerged.
Elroy tore through the webs toward Tartuk, his shield raised, his longsword seeking kobold flesh. The blade missed, but he kicked over Tartuk's dinner cauldron for good measure, spattering the shaman with his own bubbling stew.
The antsy fanatic drove his spear into Dravyn's side. The wizard gasped—trapped in the web, he was helpless against the precision strike. Elroy moved to intervene again, stepping directly into the sticky mass to position himself between Dravyn and further harm. The web caught him too, but his massive frame now blocked the fanatic's line of attack.
Rust stretched his healing power across the distance, soothing Dravyn's wounds with divine energy despite his own immobility.
Grotdor traced a path of fire through the air. A tiny shape of flame—a bird, burning and beautiful—flew from his position, passing through all three enemies. The fanatics screamed. Tartuk screamed louder.
But the false prophet still stood. He answered with arcane missiles of his own, bolts of force hammering into Elroy's chest one after another. The guardian staggered but held his ground.
Dravyn and Tartuk exchanged salvos of force—three missiles against three missiles, the purple kobold's wand against the wizard's innate power. Each impact drew blood. Each impact brought the shaman closer to death.
Perry emerged from concealment just long enough to send a crossbow bolt into Tartuk's ribs, then disappeared again. Elroy's blade finally found flesh, carving a deep wound across the shaman's torso.
Still Tartuk fought. Still the two remaining fanatics supported him, their sling stones finding Dravyn with devastating accuracy. One caught the wizard in the throat, and he collapsed into unconsciousness, tangled in webs and bleeding.
Rust's healing flared again—desperate, vital energy pouring into Dravyn's broken form. The wizard gasped back to consciousness, prone and immobilized but alive.
Grotdor drew fire from the chamber's cookfire, adding its heat to his own. A burning bird burst from the flames, more brilliant than before, and traced a path through all three enemies.
The fire struck Tartuk full in the face.
The false prophet flew backward, tumbling in a sickening, crunching reverse somersault. And as he fell, his body began to change.
Scales receded. Hair sprouted. Pale skin emerged where purple had been moments before.
The corpse that landed on the cold stone floor was not a kobold.
It was a gnome.
Tartuccio. The arrogant sorcerer from Lady Jamandi's banquet, whose schemes had led him to this final, fiery end.
The two remaining kobold fanatics witnessed the transformation. Their spears clattered to the ground as they fled to join their tribe, their faith in the false prophet shattered along with the illusion that had hidden his true nature.
Battle Aftermath¶
Chief Sootscale approached the gnome's corpse, lowering his skull headdress in what might have been respect or simply exhaustion. His people had been deceived. They had nearly destroyed themselves over a lie.
Elroy spoke of equitable relationships and mutual protection—words the old kobold admitted he didn't fully understand, but whose kindness he recognized. The Sootscales would welcome these strangers as long as they wished to stay. Even the goblin.
From the tribe's treasures, they recovered Svetlana's wedding ring—the promise fulfilled at last.
That night, the heroes rested in the silver mine under kobold hospitality. The tribe offered food, including roasted gnome flesh, which most of the party politely declined. Rust sat apart, uncomfortable with this alliance despite its necessity. Dravyn studied the wand recovered from Tartuccio's body and the personal journal that spoke of a mysterious patron the dead gnome had sought to impress.
By morning, they had grown stronger. The trials of the Sootscale caverns had forged something in each of them—new capabilities, new understanding. Rust could now turn aside hostile magic with a word. Dravyn had mastered flames that could bolt across battlefields. Elroy had deepened his knowledge of the earth itself.
They departed with Chief Sootscale's blessing, their path taking them back toward Oleg's Trading Post through the central Stolen Lands.
The Vein of Gold¶
The gold mine revealed itself late on the eighth day of Pharast.
A rocky crag jutted from the treeline, torchlight flickering from within a five-foot crack in the stone. Two collared wolves lay guard at the entrance—pets, not wild beasts.
When the party called out, four humans emerged in studded leather armor, hands on their weapons. Bandits, clearly, but Elroy had prepared for this moment. He produced the Stag Lord medallion and spoke the password with practiced ease.
The bandits relaxed immediately, treating them as fellow members of their organization. One eagerly showed them inside, revealing walls streaked with horizontal veins of gleaming gold. Using his newly acquired knowledge of stonework, Elroy confirmed what the bandits suspected—this was genuine gold ore, and a surface vein this pronounced indicated exponentially more wealth below. These men had stumbled upon a literal fortune.
Dravyn offered to cast protection magic over the find.
The lead bandit agreed, expecting some kind of warding spell. Instead, Dravyn raised his hand and spoke words of power.
Three bolts of blazing fire lanced from his palm. The first killed the confident hunter instantly, incinerating him where he stood. The second caught the more attentive hunter, who stumbled backward with flames licking at his armor. The third struck one of the wolves with devastating force, killing it before it could even howl.
Combat erupted.
Perry moved first, his analytical mind already plotting trajectories. His crossbow sang twice, both bolts finding the wounded hunter with precision that bordered on prescient. Rust hurled needles of cold iron at the joyous ruffian who had been celebrating moments before—the same needles that had troubled so many enemies now punched through leather and flesh with lethal effect.
Grotdor finished the wounded hunter with a blast of flame, then turned his attention to the surviving wolf. The beast had lunged at Elroy, knocking the guardian prone with savage efficiency, but Grotdor's fire found it regardless.
The remaining bandits fought with desperate fury. The fabulous ruffian—so named for his colorful language and flashy fighting style—caught Elroy with two devastating blows in quick succession. The first shattered the guardian's steel shield, the metal crumpling under the impact. The second sent him sprawling, his head cracking against stone.
But Elroy rose.
Rust's healing poured into him, knitting wounds that should have been fatal. Dog—Rust's wolf companion—tore at the surviving bandit wolf, keeping it occupied while the others focused on the ruffians.
Elroy drove forward, his longsword finding flesh despite his injuries. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds, but his voice remained steady as he taunted his attacker.
Perry's final shot went wide. Rust's needle darts caught the fleeing ruffian across the arm—just a graze, barely more than a scratch.
It was enough.
The last bandit collapsed, and silence fell over the gold mine.
Epilogue¶
They had secured a fortune. They had eliminated witnesses who might report back to the Stag Lord. They had proven that their newly forged capabilities could turn the tide of even desperate battles.
Elroy's shield lay in ruins, but his resolve remained unbroken. Perry catalogued the discovery with typical precision—another resource for their eventual kingdom. Grotdor's flames had barely dimmed despite the expenditure. Rust tended to wounds with efficient care, though his expression suggested he was already calculating how many more battles lay ahead.
Dravyn stood at the mine entrance, watching the last light fade from the sky. His sigil pulsed once, warm against his throat.
The Stolen Lands yielded their secrets slowly. But they yielded