The leader was called Kizap. He ruled a squat and imposing bunker mounted with ballistae and magical devices, with an all-Kobold soldier force. When Vonn reluctantly accepted his hospitality the group found an eerie monotony to the place. The few decorations in the stone halls were all in an alien style, minimalist painted murals suggesting battles.

Kotta sat in a simple dining room with wooden benches, wearing an unfamiliar monastic robe and not quite meeting Vonn's eyes. "Hello, everyone."

Vonn stepped forward. "What's going on?"

Kizap and two of his scaly men sat at the table and motioned for the guests to join them. He said, "Your enthusiastic friend here has been telling me wild tales. I've heard rumors about the flying machines, but it's impressive to see them myself."

Kotta startled at the sight of Ralator showing up. "Sir! I didn't... er, I've just been sharing what we talked about."

Ralator said, "For how long?"

"Over a week, sir. The leader here has been generous."

Kizap poured wine for everyone and was the first to drink. "I try. When I heard this business of a Fifth Dragon I put it down to the usual superstition among some of the cloistered coots. But this young man obviously has new insight. Where exactly does he get it? I wanted to hear it from you, Engineers."

Selen told him, "A few of us have had visions, sir. Near-death experiences that led to our meeting."

"And despite being non-Kobold you had visions specifically about a Dragon who posed as a mere human? Forgive me, but you don't seem the most likely people to receive insight about the true faith."

Selen's talons clutched her wine cup tighter. "My information is from a world where only Humans lived. Any application it might have to Dragons has to be understood in that light. Humans were considered good enough to receive that insight."

Kizap smiled. "I take it that this other world is a terribly flawed one."

"No more so than this. All people fall short of perfection."

"My officers can confirm that my performance reports agree." He drank. "Now, to the point. Kotta here had been wandering through border villages, and that drew my attention. How did you find out he'd come here, by the way?"

Ralator quickly answered, "We have an interest in the safety of our people." Vonn had in fact been about to blurt out something that might compromise a spy.

Kotta spoke up. "He really has been listening to me, everyone. Him and a few of his scholars."

Vonn didn't doubt it. He was thinking, Someone comes to your land with wild religious tales, but he also can't help mentioning that he personally knows some of the cutting-edge scientists from an enemy country. One of whom you nearly killed. Of course you'd listen.

Kizap said, "I'm interested in piecing together what truth there may be in these visions. If there were no aves in this other world you glimpsed, how common were the flying machines?"

Kotta put in, "I told him what I could, but he wanted to hear directly from you two."

Vonn sighed. "Quite common, sir. Used for both peace and war. And the reason these people were able to make such things, was their culture."

"Their belief in the Dragons?" said Kizap.

Selen squirmed. "I've been forced to question what I saw. Dragons were certainly part of that culture, always as something important and powerful. But the notion of treating one kind of people as superior was very much not part of it."

Vonn raised one eyebrow. Selen noticed and said to him, "New Testament. And really, even --"

The commander noticed too. "So there was some variation on doctrine? Were the visions logically consistent between the two of you? Oh, and there was a third, wasn't there? Perhaps even more?"

"We saw the same things," Vonn told him.

"So then: why would the Dragons choose you to learn these improbable things? I can accept that something bizarre happened, because neither of you seem to have a technical background and yet here you are, coming to me in wondrous ships. You seem to be making a stir in that backwater kingdom, too."

Selen said, "You should take it as evidence that the Dragons see non-Kobolds as worthwhile."

Vonn added, "In just a few short years, a few of us no-scaled folk built amazing things. You won't be able to keep up if you want the machines without the culture."

"Oh, I agree. There are systems behind the machines. Have you ever had to manage keeping a fort supplied?" He turned to Ralator and nodded slightly. "You, honored sage, also know something about managing a war effort. What do you make of this situation, of Dragon lore falling into the hands of outsiders?"

Ralator rumbled, considering his words. "I understood that what he had to say, might find a more receptive audience in your land than in mine."

"Ah. I had suspected your nobles saw him like a hornet nest or one of your exploding pots, best hurled somewhere else. Good to know they had no such malicious motive." He chuckled. "But here we have tolerance for varied understanding of the faith. We have true and living Gods, not the watered-down abstractions the River Kingdom's temples preach." He drank heartily, and on the bottom of his mug was stamped the twisted claw design that Vonn had seen in a bleak dungeon's sacrificial altar room.

Vonn said, "I've personally encountered some of that variety, where a traitor and his necromancer friend were slaughtering innocents."

Kizap nodded. "That was a terrible business. Sacrilege. You'll note that when the Baron came to our people, we sent his head back."