Tazo's Perspective

Tazo had never been this far west before, but she'd been doing a lot of new things lately. She took her turn with the raft to haul it upstream along the Little Star River, using a mix of poles and oars and a foot-powered paddlewheel. The little group traveled all day and made sure to tie up on the south bank when they needed rest, since there was a chance of monster attack from the dungeon they'd just passed.

Urika had organized this trip, insisting on leaving town right away. He pedaled until he was panting, out of Stamina. He had brought along a few tools in a backpack. "Centaur, why didn't you stop in these other towns?"

Polestar was stuck in the middle of the raft, trying not to unbalance it. "I wasn't sure who ruled what, and whether they'd send me back. Wanted to get farther downstream before showing myself."

The Centaur was another mystery. If her brother was really partly a creature from outside the world, that meant that Polestar was also a chosen one with some role assigned to him by the gods. Why would they drop him into enemy lands, if they could send him anywhere and give him anything?

Dad had come along with his cutlass and a sack of biscuits from Mom. He'd refused to let her come this close to the border without him. Finally there was Kotta, reluctantly helping to paddle. He kept glancing north as though the dungeon might send its creatures this far out. "The simplest thing is to destroy it," he muttered.

"Then it's not our job," Tazo told him. "What we can do is reduce the harm."

They were now southwest of the accursed site. A village appeared just upstream. Urika rowed with renewed vigor.

When they tied up at the simple dock, meant for loading ore barges, they found a town in poverty and confusion. The population was mixed here but more Kobold than what she was used to. A group of grey and green Kobolds with a few Humans approached and one called out, "What brings you west?"

Urika said, "We're here about the mines."

"We've got practically no metal to sell you."

"Exactly." He climbed ashore. "I'm Urika, master Smith of Shieldpoint. I'm wondering if we can help. Can we meet with your leader?"

They got led to the house of the headman, a stoop-shouldered Human man with haunted eyes. The short walk from the dock showed Tazo a bunch of former miners desperately tending gardens in the hopes of growing spare food before winter, and using basic geomancy to hurry that along. Other townsfolk had turned to quarrying rock from somewhere outside the affected region and were preparing a load of stone blocks.

The headman took them in, except for Polestar who wouldn't do well with the low ceiling. After pleasantries and tea, Urika said, "In the war I ran a workshop. My group has been trying new crafting methods and tools recently. I believe you can resume mining if you have an orderly process for it."

"Defense, you mean. We've tried to have miners protect each other, but the monsters are too big a threat."

Tazo said, "There's an adventurer group nearby that you might hire."

Urika shook his head. "That's a possibility, but not a steady one. Their kind will get bored and move on. Instead, I would turn the dungeon against itself."

"How so?" asked the leader.

"My apprentice -- now partner -- has many strange ideas. Between that and my own work, what if..."

Urika laid out a strange plan that he'd been talking about along the way. The headman looked impressed, saying, "It may get us killed, but we're doomed without the mine. I'll ask for volunteers."

#

She went with Dad to ask around about the other villages ruled by Baron Kolm. The news made her tail frazzled. There'd been "bandits" kidnapping people and making no demands, for months now. Dad soon drew a small crowd of bereaved men and women saying they'd heard about terrible things in the dungeon. But this same group held out hope that maybe some of the vanished folk had escaped. After all, there'd been that Elf who got out at the last moment, right? He wasn't even a local, just a passing trader. Had Dad heard anything about other survivors being tended by Baron Bogstep?

Dad's ears lay low as he explained, "We only know of him and of one Centaur, an escaped slave from Kobold territory."

Kotta stepped forward. He'd been standing with his fists clenched as he listened to these people asking about their loved ones. He said, "Mister, this is partly Kobold territory. Please don't confuse it with the Scaled Nation."

Several of the locals grumbled in agreement. Dad said, "I misspoke, sorry."

Kotta bobbed his head. "I say to all of you that if your friends and family members are gone, their souls have moved on to something better. Because... because the Word of the Fifth has said so!"

These people weren't all followers of the Draconist beliefs and weren't even all Kobolds. But enough of the distraught crowd at least understood what he was talking about, that one young red-scaled man said, "What word? What does some obscure set of prayers have to do with this?"

Kotta began to preach, while Dad and Tazo were unsure how or whether to interfere. The indigo Kobold said, "There is a greater force than any dark ritual, and it can overcome death and loss. My friends have had a vision of what the Fifth Dragon was. Let me tell you of how the Dragon did not die but sacrificed itself to spread the Dragons' glory to another world, and then to echo back to ours."

The tale he spun was alien. Tazo had heard bits and pieces of it from Vonn, who considered it just an important story; from Selen, who seemed to believe it but to be embarrassed to admit it; and then from Polestar who was confused to be asked. Now Kotta had begun weaving it together with what Tazo knew of Draconism, in a way that reframed it as some kind of all-species religion promising blessings and spiritual redemption beyond anything the Kobold people normally spoke of.

"You're crazy," said one Human man.

A Kobold woman said, "What nonsense is this? You're no prophet."

"I'm not," Kotta admitted. "I just collect tales that have come from another world. You'll see soon. Urika the Smith is here to help everyone, and he has a plan for purging the evil of the dungeon. In our town we have machines that fly, incredible new tools --"

Dad laid a hand on Kotta's shoulder, finally interrupting. "Kotta, you're getting carried away."

Kotta told the group, "The Five are with us. You'll see!"