When Shh, Gert and Momo had their transformation, made the unfathomable leap from mongrel to kobold, it was a moment of pure joy. Of giddy exploration. Of profound fulfillment. Regrettably, the seven new kobolds who joined their ranks had no such luxury.

They had a battle to win. Profound fulfillment would have to come afterwards.

Shin took a quick inventory of his new packmates, even as he quickly slipped into one of the uniforms pilfered from the dead scouts. “Who has a combat class?”

Six hands went up. Okay. As Monsters, even classless kobolds would be modestly effective in combat. But against trained guard? Not so much. Six might be enough to keep them above water. The question was, which classes were they? The former Soup and Fat-Face were clearly Brutes, both of the pair taller than even Gero and bursting with muscle. The rest were somewhat more difficult to parse, dressed in rough robes with chest guards and physically seeming to be of a type with Momo and himself.

The lithe kobold Shin had formerly known as Crunchy anticipated his next question. “I’m a Shooter. I think Waggle and Half Tail are, too?”

The former raised a finger. “That’s Choro, actually.”

The latter did the same. “Hanbun here!”

“Oh.” She blinked. “And I’m Karikari. This is weird.”

Shin absolutely sympathized, but this simply wasn’t the time for pondering the mysteries of the Self. Shooters, okay. “We only have two bows. I need a volunteer to come with me.”

The three kobolds shared a glance, and then Hanbun raised her hand. “I’m with you, Shin.”

“Okay. Grab one of the guard uniforms.” The Shooter nodded, moving to don the second stolen outfit as Shin began to consider who should take the third. He needn't have bothered. To mild irritation, it had already been taken.

“What?” The fierce-looking kobold stared at Shin with impertinent eyes, already stripping out of the furs he’d transformed with. “Should I have waited for your decree? Oh Shh the Brilliant?”

Goddamnit. “It’s Shin. What’s your name, now?”

The former Hi-Hi spat, moving to claim an extra pair of daggers from the dead guards. “Higen.”

Great, he had three knives now. Hopefully at least one of those would wind up somewhere besides Shin’s back. Whatever, they had to get moving. “Okay everyone. Here’s the plan…”

—————————————————————————————————

Shin gave Hanbun and Higen a quick once over, forced yet again to marvel at their changes. Dressed in the dead scouts’ cold weather uniforms, with their faces covered by their scarves? There was no obvious way to tell that they weren’t humans. Even if they could have conceived of it, this plan never would have worked while they were still mongrels.

The vision of his mongrel self standing on Gert’s shoulders, both fluff-brains mostly covered by a single scavenged guard coat popped into Shin’s mind unbidden. Okay, that definitely wouldn’t have worked? But he absolutely regretted not getting the chance to try.

“Wait twenty minutes before following us, alright?” Momo nodded in acknowledgement. Now for the hard part. “And once you reach the outpost, if the gates don’t open after twenty more minutes? Leave us.”

“What.” Gero pushed past the smaller kobolds, her eyes blazing. “We never agreed to that.”

True. But still. “If we can’t get the gate open, that means the attack is going to fail. That we’ve lost our home. But we don’t need this place anymore. Right? We want it, but we don't need it. If there’s a chance, I’ll take the risk. But if it doesn’t work out? The rest of you can still find a life somewhere else.”

“No!” Gero growled her disapproval. “You asshole. I’m coming with you.”

“Gero, you need to stay with the others. I know everyone is prepared to give their all, but without you as the vanguard? A lot fewer of us would make it out alive.”

The woman snarled, her pale brown eyes flaring with anger as she jabbed a finger into Shin’s shoulder. “That’s not fair and you know it. Don’t you try to guilt me into letting you do a suicide, you piece of shit.”

That...okay, Shin deserved that. The kobold managed a feeble smile. “Sorry, Gero. You can’t come. You’re too amazing for the guards to ever be fooled into thinking you’re one of them.”

Gero sniffed, eyes glistening as she prodded Shin in the shoulder again. But she didn’t seem to have anything more to say. It was Momo who spoke up, her little voice solemn. “We promise, Shin. Twenty minutes.”

Shin nodded. “...Gero?”

The warrior whirled on her heels, heatedly running a hand through her short blonde hair as she marched back to join the other two Brutes. “Fine.”

Alright, good. Had a fight with Gero right before leaving. Weird addition to the plan, Shin, but you nailed it. “That’s everything, then. Are we–?”

“Wait.” Kaiteki, one of the three classless kobolds, raised his hand. “What about him?”

“Huh? Oh.” Shin glanced down at the still bound and utterly shellshocked Ceril. “I forgot you were here.” He hunkered down, giving the Oaken Elf a once over. He’d certainly seen some better days. Maybe it'd be best not to mention he'd only been brought along in case the scouts didn't give enough Experience to level the rest of the pack. Shin wasn't intrinsically opposed to kicking someone while they were down, but a man's got to have his limits. “We’re going to leave you in this blank void for a while, okay?”

The elf mumbled something that Shin chose to interpret as an affirmative.

“You can try to escape, if you want? But it’ll be almost impossible to find your way out of here without enhanced senses.”

Another mumble.

“Good. I like that attitude. We’ll be back for you later, okay?”

Mumble.

“That’s swell.” He straightened back up, glancing questioningly at Higen and Hanbun as he began wrapping his scarf around his face. When they nodded their readiness, he turned back towards the others. “See you all soon.”

The pack chorused their support, but Gero wouldn’t look at him. Honestly, that was maybe for the best. Shin didn’t want another vision of her hurt and angry expression to haunt him.

It was time to go.

—————————————————————————————————

It was a strange thing, Shin realized, walking to your potential death. There was excitement and fear, certainly, but more and more a sort of dreadful anticipation. A feeling that he almost didn’t mind whatever wound up happening, as long as it happened as soon as possible.

The fact that the march from the Maybe Blob to the outpost was a bit of a hike didn’t help.

There was one topic of conversation Shin still had in his pocket, though he was somewhat reluctant to bring it to bear. That being said, he was going to explode if he didn’t say something to someone. So…”Hey Higen. What’s your class?”

The kobold grunted. “Wilder.”

Wilder, huh? That made five classes for the pack, in addition to the basic Kobold kit. That was probably all of them, then; based on his admittedly limited understanding, that was the amount most races naturally had. Shin was a little disappointed no one was a Wizard, but it was probably for the best that Higen couldn’t shoot lightning bolts. At least he didn’t think Wilder did? There was no reason to guess, though. “What’s that?”

Higen simply grunted again. Okay, it looked like Shin would have to guess. “Is it some sort of stealth thing? Or Ranger-y? Or is it more supernatural?”

“Yes.”

Goddammit. “‘Yes’ to which part?”

“What’s your class, Shh.”

Shin swallowed his sigh. “It’s Schemer.”

“Of course it is.” The wild-looking kobold was suddenly all-too willing to converse. “That’s you straight down to the fucking ground. You’re a schemer, Shh.”

This will not work if you kill Higen, Shin. Do not jump on him and chew his throat out. Do not.

Hanbun huffed in irritation. “Will you give it a break, Higen?”

The Wilder scoffed. “No one asked you, Half Tail.”

To both Shin and Higen’s surprise, Hanbun reached out and grabbed the bigger kobold by the collar of his uniform. “No one thinks that’s clever or funny, Higen. I’m Hanbun. He’s Shin. Whether we live or die tonight, the three of us are doing it together. So until we know which it’s going to be, how about showing just a little respect, huh?”

Shin almost expected Higen to go for one of his knives. But he didn’t. “Fine.”

Habun raised an eyebrow. “Fine what?”

“Fine, Hanbun.”

She nodded, seemingly more or less mollified. Good timing, too. Shin tightened his scarf and lowered his voice. “The outpost is up ahead. Ready?”

The two kobolds nodded, pulling up their scarves as well. No turning back.

Shin had hoped he’d have been over his terrible anticipation by the time he laid eyes on the outpost. But no, it only increased. How many times had he been in this exact position? Standing just within the tree line, outpost dead ahead, some grand scheme in mind? For a moment, there was no difference in feeling between the mongrel he’d been then and the kobold he was now.

He could only hope his chances were marginally better now.

Shin led the others straight towards the gate, clutching his cloak tightly around himself. A glance at the towers confirmed that no watch had been stationed, but the alarms on the outpost itself would alert the guards to their “scouts” return, right? Only one way to find out. Banishing all trepidation, the disguised kobold reached out and gave the dreaded gate a firm knock.

A moment passed. Then two. And instead of the gate groaning open, a voice called out. “Who goes there!”

Shin’s heart dropped.

The voice called out again. “I said, who goes there?!”

What should they do now? Try to scale the walls somehow? Run? Shin was still deep in the throes of indecision when a second voice joined in, thick with both laughter and intoxication. “S’right, haha! Who goes there?! Gonna need some ‘dentification, you fuckers!”

Shin’s heart soared.

The masked kobold held up a hand, asking the voices to wait as they loudly snickered. He carefully began to pat himself down, eyes furrowed in concentration. Then he lifted his eyebrows in success, pulling his hand out of his pocket to flip the gate and its unseen watchers the bird.

One of the voices roared in laughter, fighting back a mad fit of hiccups. The other was not yet satisfied. “Gonna need two forms of ID!”

Shin considered that for a moment, then flipped his hand around to point his middle finger directly at his own crotch.

The gate immediately began to grumble open.

Before he could fully process his success, he found himself being dragged into the outpost by a squat guard holding a familiar-looking bottle. He was clearly three sheets to the wind, throwing his arm around Shin’s shoulder as he indulged in an ugly chortle. “Haha, nice one!” He took a long pull from his already half-full drink, then abruptly realized something. “Um, yeah. We started drinkin’ without you.”

Shin could only hope his observation that the guards all sounded basically the same, combined with this guard’s drunkenness, would see his deception through. “You shits.”

The guard quickly threw up his hands, sloshing a bit of liquor onto himself. “Hey man, it wasn’t my idea!’ He quickly pointed to the other watchman, who still struggled to get his giggles and hiccups under control. “It was Thom! He said fuck those guys, let’s drink!”

That was almost certainly a lie? But it suited Shin just fine. He glanced back at Higen and motioned towards Thom with his head. The laughing guard barely managed to get his eyes up, let alone defend himself against his partner’s slander, before the wild kobold had punched him square in the gut as hard as he could.

At least his hiccups were cured.

The squat guard roared anew in laughter as Thom curled up on the ground, wheezing and whimpering in pain. “Haha yeah! Fuck him, right?!” He threw his arm around Shin’s shoulder again, pulling him further inside. “Come on, still a few bottles in the mess! Got your names on’m!”

Shin had to marvel at what was happening. Here they were, inside the outpost. The Sanctum Sanctorum. The ultimate goal of every mongrel who had ever lived or died within this zone. Every inch was uncharted territory. And their most hated enemy was happily leading them every step of the way. Unbelievable.

That being said, Shin didn’t miss how ugly the place was. How mundane. It was certainly constructed with a better eye towards defense than the Oaken Elf waystation had been, but all in all the outpost seemed like an unpleasantly spartan place to live.

The fact that their murderers had to live uncomfortably didn’t change anything. It certainly didn’t bring any of Shin’s friends back to life. But it did give him a brief surge of spiteful pleasure. The squat guard didn’t seem to notice the malice in his dark chuckle, fortunately, simply laughing along in woozy camaraderie as he threw open the doors to the mess hall and ushered the three disguised kobolds in.

The party had clearly been going at full force for a while. Shin couldn’t state for a fact the typical cleanliness of the guards’ dining room, but it was an absolute wreck at the moment. Two dozen guards, most with a bottle in either hand, caroused as if there would be no tomorrow. One of the tables had been completely overturned to make space for the seemingly impromptu wrestling match had broken out, two shirtless guards sweatily grappling while trying to avoid putting down their drinks. Another had smashed his own head through a portrait that must have once hung on the wall, his cohorts screaming in laughter as he pranced around with his head sticking through what must have once been the face of some king or noble. It was an absolute madhouse.

Shin barely noticed any of that, though. As soon as he stepped into the mess hall, he only had eyes for one of the guards’ choices in particular.

The squat guard seemed to notice Shin’s locked focus. “Oh yeah, we threw one’ve’m away.” He waved his hand dizzily at the empty space on the wide mantle of the mess hall’s fireplace, the only gap in a display of stuffed mongrels. “Gotta make room!”

They’d been unnaturally contorted to balance on all fours rather than on their legs, positioned in the posture of an animal for all eternity. Little collars had been fitted around their necks, seemingly marking the date of that particular mongrel’s capture. Their eyes had been replaced with glass simulacra, but Shin couldn’t help sensing a sort of horror inside their dim gazes as they were forced to helplessly watch their killers cavort.

Higen drew one of his knives, prompting a whisper from Hanbun. “Higen…”

If the squat guard noticed the bare steel, he didn’t seem concerned. Instead he took another swig from his drink, squinting his eyes in a drunkard’s concentration at the empty spot among the macabre trophies. “I know ‘sactly which one should go up, too. That big bitch, remember the one? Almost got her last time. Won’t miss again. Got the perfect pose for her. See?” He wobbled up onto one foot, adopting a fearsome stance. “It’s perfect, right? Ri–!!”

His loathsome display was cut short as both Higen and Shin surged forward, the two kobolds each sinking a dagger up to the hilt into the guard’s gut. He collapsed backwards into one of the tables, plates and glasses sent shattering to the ground by his helpless flailing. He gurgled weakly, blood already bubbling out of his mouth. He was done for, no question.

It would be the first time a guard had ever died in this zone. That undeniable fact was the first thing to burn through Shin’s rage. The second was that both his and Higen’s scarves had come off, and the rest of the two dozen guards in the mess hall were all staring at them now.

Better get that gate open. Fast.