“I feel really badly that we had to kill them. I keep thinking about how colonization efforts treat indigenous people. Maybe those woods were their home…” mused Laura as they recorded the looted treasure from the kobolds on their character sheets.

“Kobolds are only there to be killed,” opinioned Dave, as he wrote on his sheet. “I’ll take the copper pieces if no one else wants them.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of bad,” Margaret agreed with Laura. “And it’s pretty meager treasure we got off of them. It would have been nice if we’d been able to find some sort of common ground.”

Laughing at herself, she continued “We’re such academics! How can we find common ground with the monsters in a fantasy game!”

“Speaking of which,” Gary responded. “We’re *THREE WEEKS* into the term and I still don’t have a computer. I don’t know how they expect me to teach computer science without a workstation in my office, but at this point it’s becoming pretty clear they don’t care.”

“Yeah, that’s how they roll,” agreed Dave. “There was a workstation in my office, but someone stole most of the RAM out of it. It runs slower and slower through the day until I restart it. I’m up to restarting it 5 or 6 times a day.”

“Somehow I got two iPads which I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with them,” said Anne. “I negotiated a Powerbook and an iPad with my contract, and I got them both, but then two days later a second iPad arrived. I don’t want to get in trouble for getting sent two of them, but I don’t want to return one then have them ask for the other one back or something.”

“Keep them both! I’m sure they’ll never realize what happened. Frank can use the second one. If they ever ask for it, just give it back,” Gary suggested. “This place is such a shit show.”

“Well, that’s what you get for working at Midwest Lutheran College!” teased Anne. “The Provost was really tough to negotiate with. She told me they had two other candidates for the music position and I could either take the salary offered or leave.”

“Really? She was a lot more flexible for CS,” Gary responded. “I was annoyed when they announced she was fired before the term started. I felt like we understood one another a lot better than the new interim Provost.”

“So, is there any way we’d be able to talk to the kobold prisoners?” asked Laura.

“Well, I’m running languages in the world as a bunch of very regional, kind of pidgin dialects. Any time you move to a new area it has its own language. Each day that you’re there, you make an intelligence check. After your first success you can exchange a single word in that language. After a second success you can exchange simple phrases with occasional misunderstandings and after a third success you’re basically fluent with a thick accent and can interact in that language. Whenever you learn languages in a new area, make a note of it on your character sheet in case it’s relevant in the future.”

“And that works for kobolds too?” asked Laura.

“Yep! And dwarves, elves and halflings. Each settlement or group will have their own dialect. Sometimes someone in it might understand another dialect you know. The non-human characters can each speak the language of their home settlements. If you want to spend a few hours each day trying to communicate with the kobolds, you’ll potentially learn some of their language.”

“What about if we time travel back before we learned it?” asked Andew.

“Well, in that case your time sprite would know the language better than your character did and can translate for them or prompt them through pronouncing things in the other language - so you keep language skills even after time travelling.”

After rolling a couple of times behind his screen, Gary announces that they make it back to the Fort with their prisoners.

“Sergeant Suzie is impressed when you show up with the prisoners. She flexes her biceps at Gevot and leans in and tells him she wants to hear all about the battle later at the tavern.”

“Ha! Is she hitting on him?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, knowing what you know about the human civilization in this world you’d guess she’s hitting on him,” Gary answered.

“Yeah! I’ll meet with her later!” agreed Frank.

“The guards lead the kobold prisoners off to the dungeon. What do you want to do next?” Gary asked.

“So, can I spend time with the kobolds and try to learn their language and eventually interrogate them about whether or not they’re the ones attacking the caravans?” asked Margaret.

“Sure, you can visit them in the dungeons and try to learn from them.” agreed Gary “What’s everyone else doing?”

“Nalda and Hernan know different spells, can they teach them to one another?” asked Dave.

“Yes” replied Gary “Typically in this world spells would be an intensely personal thing and it would be considered a very intimate act to give someone access to your spellbook. Usually specialized trainers would work with you and help you build your own version of spells for 100 gold pieces times the level of the spell. Because all of you are on a divine mission you’re willing to ignore the standard conventions and you can teach each other spells that you know and the other character is capable of learning. You can also teach yourself a spell from a scroll with that spell on it or you can cast the spell from the scroll as a one time effect. Any of these takes 1 day per spell level of the spell you’re learning. The day isn’t 24 hours of continual effort, but more a work day that you can do while you have meals and take breaks and all that sort of thing.”

“Ok, then we could spend the time teaching each other our spells if you want,” Dave suggested to Kate. “I know ‘Charm Person’ and you know ‘Magic Missile’ so we can swap them.”

“Sure,” agreed Kate. “Is there a limit to the number of spells we can learn? I thought I could only have one per day.”

“The one per day is the limit to how many spells you can memorize and cast. There’s no limit on the number that you can learn, which are spells you have in your spellbook and can choose between when you’re deciding what to memorize.”

“And this doesn’t affect me as a cleric, right?” asked Anne. “I don’t need to swap spells with them too?”

“No, because you get your spells directly from a god, you can pray for ANY of the cleric spells that you’re capable of casting. It’s like you’ve already learned all of them.”

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” asked Anne.

“Yeah! Clerics are great. Good spell casting, wide range of spells they can use, they can wear any armor, lots of hit points, good fighters. It’s surprising that they aren’t more popular,” Gary agreed. “So, Beler is going to learn Kobold, Hernan and Nalda are learning spells. What are Gevot and Anne doing?”

“ANNE is playing Creatures and Caverns!” corrected Anne. “Are there any other clerics or a church or religious people in the fort that Damin could talk to?”

“Yes, there’s a chapel and the Curate is the cleric who is in charge of it. She tends, with a number of assistants, to the spiritual needs of the fort. There’s also a travelling priest with two acolytes who is visiting the fort right now that you could meet with.”

“Ok, I’ll do that,” said Anne.

“I’m going to spend time with Sergeant Suzie and is there a thieves’ guild I could make contact with here?” asked Frank.

“The fort is too small for a thieves guild, but if you were in Hope you could make contact with the underworld there.” Gary answered.

“Ok, I’ll date Sergeant Suzie and try to scout around the fort and pick up any information I can,” decided Frank.

“Ok, so for the first day, make your intelligence check Margaret,” instructed Gary.

Margaret rolled and announced that she’d failed.

“Ok, so you don’t learn any kobold today. You get chatty with the dungeon guards and they don’t seem to care that you’re coming here meeting with the kobolds. Who is learning a spell today?”

Dave answered that he would teach Kate Charm Person. “That takes up all our time for both of us, right?”

“Yeah, you still have time to eat and stuff, but that’s your main activity for the day. Damin spends time with the Curate and the travelling Priest. Both are happy to talk to you. The Curate doesn’t have any information to pass on except that she’s worried about the local issues with caravans being attacked. The travelling priest’s two acolytes have taken vows of silence, but the priest himself is a jovial character who is very welcoming and immediately invites you into his chambers. He offers you wine and various delectables and is happy to discuss theology or anything else you’d like to talk about.”

“Does he know anything about the caravan attacks?” asked Anne.

“Just that they’ve been happening. He travels around the Cursed Colony, spending time at outposts like the Fort trying to spread the faith. He agrees that it’s terrible that the caravans have been coming under attack.”

“While you have your date with Sergeant Suzie she keeps cutting off your story about the kobolds to brag about various feats of strength she’s performed or her duties as a guard at the fort. Eventually, you end up back in a secluded area of the guards barracks and she has her way with you. In the morning, she’s noticeably less friendly and basically blows you off and goes back to her routine.”

“Did she just have a one-night stand with Gevot?!?” laughed Margaret.

Frank shrugged and said, “I’ll start scouting around trying to pick up any gossip or clues around the fort.”

“Yeah, she did!” Gary agreed. “You can spend the next day gathering information.”

“So, will people at the fort be angry at Gevot for sleeping with her?” asked Laura.

“Remember this is a matriarchy,” replied Gary. “Probably the popular view would be that Sergeant Suzie was just doing what guards do. They’d probably view Gevot as having done something that he shouldn’t have.”

“Oh well,” Frank replied, clearly not caring.

“So can I learn magic missile today?” asked Dave.

“Yep, that’s what the two of you can do. Make another intelligence check to learn kobold Margaret.”

After rolling she said, “Another failure.”

“Wait,” Laura broke in. “What has Yenser been doing?”

“That’s up to you” replied Gary.

“I’ll learn kobold with Margaret I guess,” replied Laura.

“Make two intelligence checks then, one for yesterday and one for today.”

Laura said, “I passed the first one and failed the second.”

“Ok, so Laura is learning very basic kobold. Not enough to discuss things of importance, but enough to name objects and whatnot.”

Rolling behind his screen, Gary said to Frank, “You don’t discover anything investigating around the fort.”

“At the end of the day, you return to the dungeon to talk some more to the kobolds and you see their two bodies lying on the floor of their cell. Their dinner is half eaten and spread around them. Both are dead, although the guards didn’t realize it until you draw their attention to the cell. They seem to have been poisoned.”

“Oh, great!” Margaret responded. “So someone in the fort doesn’t want us getting information from them.”

Gary shrugged.

“Should we go back in time and find out who sent down the poisoned food?” asked Margaret.

“I kind of feel like we shouldn’t be overusing the time travel,” suggested Dave. “There might be some price to be paid from it that we’re not aware of yet. We can probably get other kobold prisoners and learn the language from them.”

“Yeah,” agreed Frank “I think we should head back out to the cave with the energy column and where the kobolds were.”