by Eric Ugland
They looked from me to each other, then back to me. Finally, one who had affixed a number of spikes to a helmet that didn’t at all fit him, muttered something, and the other kobolds turned to look at him.
And then this happened:
Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Ancient Kobold.
Awesome.
“… says we should just leave him,” Spikes finished up.
“Aww, come on,” I said in Ancient Kobold, “you don’t have to go and ditch me. I’m cool. I can hang.”
Another snout came around the corner, and an eleventh kobold peeked out at me. This kobold wore robes, with a large hood hanging low off the back. The robe was made out of almost random bits of cloth sewn together in a pseudo-quilt pattern. A mess of chains hung around the creature’s neck, and it didn’t have a weapon. Just a big stick.
“How you know this language?” Robe asked.
“I’m a special man,” I replied.
A harsh, guttural sound came from around the corner, and while I thought it might have been a monster of some kind, I got another notification:
Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Ancient Draconic.
“… And he knows the old language?” finished the creature around the corner.
I took an involuntary step back because, won’t lie, I was starting to think I might have stumbled on a kobold invasion. And maybe that there was a dragon around the corner.
“Who goes there?” I asked in draconic, doing my very best to sound like I was not about to poop my pants in fear. I mean, dragons? Come on.
A pause.
A very old-looking kobold came around the corner, his face covered in the wisps of white hair. Or feathers. His eyes were rheumy and he seemed to require a staff to stand even remotely straight. He extended his hand out, and I saw that though his fingers were tipped in talons, they had been dulled down over time.
All the kobolds shivered at the same time. I felt a familiar tingle as a blip of magic rolled over me.
The old kobold nodded.
“Good trick,” the old one said in draconic.
The other robed figure tilted his head to the side, looking to the older kobold. The older kobold just gave a toothy smile.
“How you do this?” the very first kobold asked.
“If I tell you,” I started thinking I might have found a bargaining chip to get out of the sewers, “you guide me to where I want to go.”
“Where you want to go?”
“Out of the sewers.”
The kobold pointed to the sludge river.
“That take you out.”
“Isn’t there stuff in there that will eat me?”
“Is death not an exit?”
“Wow, that’s deep. Not exactly the exit I’m looking for, though.”
“You tell, I take you where you want to go.”
“It’s an ability of mine,” I said. “I pick up languages real easy.”
The kobolds looked at each other, confused the answer had been so simple, relatively speaking.
“The exit?” I asked. “I’d like to get to Old Town. Or, you know, just anywhere not in the sewers.”
The old kobold nodded to the first kobold I’d seen.
“This way,” first kobold said.
Chapter 124
The sewers under Glaton are insane. Twists and turns everywhere, junctions at seemingly random intervals. Sewage coming in from pipes that just come out of the wall. A truly bizarre system. And yet, the kobold seemed to know exactly the path to take. And when to pause to let sewage flow in. He rerouted us around big monsters, small monsters, creepy monsters, all sorts of things capable of killing us. The whole time my little buddy remained in absolute silence, despite me trying to get him to chat.
Finally, we got to a stone door. The kobold pulled a large key off his belt, and shoved it into a hole. He opened the door and pulled me in after him. I caught sight of something large coming out of the sludge river. He slammed the door. Whatever it was on the other side started pounding on it.
The kobold let out a long breath he’d clearly been holding in.
“Safe now?” I asked.
He nodded. “Short distance to exit,” he said, and resumed walking.
We were in a different sort of place, somewhere with newer construction. It was a square tunnel, not a tube, made of large seemingly hand-hewn sand-colored bricks.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Boris,” he replied.
“Boris?”
“Real name is hard to pronounce.”
“Try me.”
“Rather not.”
“Okay.”
“Your name?”
“Clyde.”
“Real?”
“Yeah.”
He grunted, but kept on moving.
“How many of you are down here?” I asked.
“One,” he replied.
“Let’s not do this again—”
“I am only me here.”
“I meant kobolds.”
“Oh. There are more than one.”
“How many more than one?”
“Ten?”
“So there are eleven of you?”
“One of me.”
“Eleven kobolds?”
“Is that more than ten?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes. Eleven.”
“Would you say there are more than eleven?”
“How many eleven?”
I stopped walking, and held up my fingers to him.
“Eleven is one more than all my fingers,” I said.
He looked down at his claws, then at my fingers.
“Not as many fingers,” he said, showing his hands. Sure enough, only three fingers and a thumb on each hand. “More than eleven then.”
“Not really great with numbers,” I said softly.
“Boris know all the numbers.”
“Oh?”
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and zero. All numbers.”
“You’ve got me there.”
Another twenty yards farther, and we reached another door. Another key, and when that door opened up, there was a metal ladder leading up.
“Exit,” Boris the kobold said.
“Where does it go?” I asked.
“Out,” he replied.
“Anywhere in particular?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Out.”
“You are ever so helpful.”
He gave me what I thought was the kobold equivalent of a smile.
We stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then I started climbing.
At the top, there was a metal cover. It was pretty hard to push up and out of the way, but once I did I was suddenly out of the foul smells and in the cool night air. And a small park. Thank gods. Something pushed at my butt. I looked down to see Boris.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Waiting for big butt to move out of the way.”
“Why are you coming up here?”
“Ooze coming.”
Clearly tired of waiting for me to climb up, he just wriggled between my legs, up the ladder and out onto ground level. He took about twenty steps into the little garden, and looked around.
Meanwhile, I glanced down, and saw the entire ladder tube filled with an intense red gelatinous ooze coming up remarkably quickly.
I scrambled out, pushed the metal cover back in place, and stood on it.
Boris darted over and slid locks in place just as the ooze hit.
The metal cover buckled ever so much ,and ooze spread out around each of the locks.
“You think this will hold?” I asked.
“No,” Boris said. “Last one broke.”
Then he turned and burned, running for it.
I followed suit.
A sharp kap-thawng noise rang out from behind me, and, well, the ooze decided to follow too. And, for a gelatinous thing the size of c
ity bus, it could really motor.
We were in a small city park, somewhere in the Senate District. I could tell from all the grandiose statues of people who thought they were important that lined the pathways. An iron bar fence surrounded the park, ostensibly to keep the rabble out of the garden. Which meant that though Boris had a head start on me, once he hit the wall, that was it. He turned around, and held his spear out in trembling hands.
I did’t really stop so much as grab him and throw him while on the run.
As soon as I heard him splat against the cobblestone street on the other side, I started climbing up.
The ooze just went through the iron bars, the gelatinous stuff splitting and re-forming around the bars like it was nothing. The shiny red thing just cruised down the road after us.
I had a good idea of what to do. But if humans really killed kobolds on sight, I had a bad feeling it wouldn’t work out so well for Boris.
He was still trying to get back to his feet, so I just hoisted him up by his custom-made armor. Or at least I tried to, because as soon as I grabbed at it, the flimsy leather shoulder straps snapped, and the armor fell off and onto the ground with a light clank.
I skidded to a stop, grabbed him by the tail, and got him over my shoulder. The ooze was crashing towards us like a horrible red wave. I ran.
And ran.
In a straight line, I sprinted at top speed, blazing my stamina regen spell at full tilt, burning through both mana and stamina. A glorious combo.
Boris, meanwhile, had a perfect view of our pursuer, and I think he was rather terrified of the whole thing, as evidenced by the warm kobold piss running down my torso. Not the best of nights for me.
Ahead, though, was my destination.
At least, sort of.
The Imperial Palace loomed over the area, and even at night there was an impressive amount of light. Also, because it was the center of power for the entire Empire, there were a metric butt-ton of soldiers around. Legion, Watch, and Thingmen all had their own troops watching. So when I came screaming like a bat out of hell into the front public courtyard of the Imperial Palace with a ginormous red ooze following behind me, the response was quick and violent.
Everyone with a weapon fell on the slime with wild abandon, all trying to prove their own faction was the best. That gave me the perfect out, letting me slip away in relative obscurity. No one even noticed the kobold I was carrying over my shoulder.
As soon as we had some space between us and all the violent folk at the palace, I put Boris the kobold down.
“I wet you,” he said, ashamed.
“Happens to the best of us.”
“You pee yourself too?”
“Not this time,” I said. “Thanks for showing me the exit.”
He nodded.
I nodded.
And we stood there for a moment.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m going this way.”
Boris nodded.
So I started walking.
Chapter 125
I got a block before I glanced over my shoulder.
Boris was right there, barely inches behind.
“Jesus,” I said, jumping away from him.
He turned around and had his spear out to face whatever danger might be coming behind us.
“Why are you following me?” I asked.
“Who is following us?” Boris asked.
“You are following me.”
“Oh,” he replied, lowering his spear and turning back to face me. “Yes.”
“Any reason why?”
“Others would have left me. Use me to make sure they can outrun ooze. I prefer you.”
“So you’re just going to follow me now?”
He nodded, and smiled his kobold smile. Which seemed more about baring teeth than anything else, and was not at all pleasant to look at. Especially because, at least in my limited one-night kobold experience, they almost always had something stuck in their teeth. Usually not something I’d been able to identify.
“Okay,” I said, “well, you do you.”
I continued on down to Old Town.
Boris was never more than a few inches behind me, and the few times I looked at him, he was busy staring at the whole world around him, as if he’d never seen the city before. It might be the main reason why when I stopped to let a speeding wagon pass, Boris didn’t. He stepped right into the street.
Instinctually, my arm went out. I snagged the kobold by a horn on the top of his head, and ripped him back to me.
His legs went out from under him, and his tail got hit by the wagon with a loud thwock.
The wagon’s driver turned to look and see what he hit, but he never stopped, or even slowed down. I think, because he didn’t see anything moving, he didn’t care.
“Got to watch out,” I snapped. “That was close, man.”
“Tail hurts,” he replied, holding his tail up to me. It definitely had an angle to it I didn’t think it should.
“Looks like it.”
“Can fix it?”
“Me? No.”
He looked at his tail again, and then dropped it. He definitely winced as it hit the ground, but, otherwise, seemed happy to ignore it.
“We still have a long way to walk,” I said. “You going to be okay?”
“Be okay,” he said. “Only maybe broken.”
“Dude, it’s definitely broken.”
“Definitely maybe.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Stop.”
“Already stopped. Waiting to go.”
I was regretting my decision to save the kobold. Twice. So I walked on in silence, while the kobold now seemed emboldened by his new lease on life, and he was chattering on like we were old biddies at a tea party.
We finally got to the apartments as the sun was coming up, just as Titus was unlocking the front door to his tavern.
“You look like a pile of hot shit,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“Smell like one too. And what’s that with you?”
“Kobold.”
“Oh shit. There goes the neighborhood.”
“Only if you want to have an intellectual conversation.”
The kobold peered around me at Titus.
“Who is that?” asked Boris in kobold.
“Friend of mine,” I said.
“You speak their language?” Titus asked.
“I’m an elf of many talents.”
“Also speaks—” Boris started, but I gave him a nudge to stop him.
“Is he moving in?” Titus asked.
“I—” I started to say no, but then I saw Boris’s eyes wide at the thought, I suppose, of not living in the sewer. “Maybe.”
“Am I feeding him?”
“Yeah.”
“What does he eat?”
“He speaks Imperial.”
“You do?” Titus asked Boris.
“Yes,” Boris replied.
“What do you eat?”
“Garbage. Bugs. Fresh ooze.”
“You eat oozes?” I asked.
Boris shrugged. “When necessary.”
“I’m pretty sure he’ll be fine with anything that’s edible,” I replied.
Titus shrugged. “Hey man, you’re the boss.”
“I always thought Angela was.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Does he get his own apartment?” Titus asked.
“No,” I said. “He can stay in mine.”
“Might need to buy the building next door at this rate.”
“Is it for sale?”
Titus squinted at me, I think trying to determine if I was serious or not.
“Might be,” Titus said. “Surprising number of owners moving out.”
“Any reason behind that?”
“How would I know? I just moved in. Also, you mind bathing before you come into the tavern?�
�� He sniffed me. “You stink.”
Chapter 126
I thought I’d just go up to my apartment and shower. Seemed basic enough. But the damn kobold followed me up there. To be fair, it’s not like I told him he couldn’t go with me. But go with me he did. I tried to be quiet enough that Shae didn’t wake up when I walked in. Not so much with Boris the kobold.
For a small guy who made zero noise in the sewers, somehow in the civilized portion of the world, Boris couldn’t help but be the loudest damn thing ever invented. He walked into the apartment, and then into a table, and then knocked over a chair, which in turn hit a plate off the table and onto the floor, and somehow launched a fork across the room and through the window the grimeling had so carefully exited from the previous evening.
Naturally, this woke Shae. And, because reasons, she somehow saw Boris the kobold before she saw Clyde the elf. This resulted in her screaming and launching herself from bed with a dagger.
Boris the kobold had his spear out, angled at her, ready to take her charge.
I had to leap between the two, catching the dagger in my torso and the spear in my right butt cheek.
“Hey!” I shouted, pulling the dagger out of my body and tossing it to the floor, instinctually cycling mana to heal myself. “Both of you calm down.”
Shae stepped back around the bed, and I grunted as Boris wrenched his spear out.
“Boris,” I said, “this is Shae. Shae, this is Boris. You guys should be friends. We’re probably going to live with each other.”
“Shae,” Boris said.
“Boris,” Shae said.
