Bad Day for a Kobold

OK, so I'm on a kobold kick again.  Here is a little short story for all the kobold loving folks out there.

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Mino was having a bad day.

First, Grillik had dropped the bottle of oil just as Dani was leaning forward with the torch to get a better view of the trap they were preparing.  The ensuing fire not only burned the two kobolds to a crisp, but alerted the giant spiders down the tunnel to their presence.  Mino almost felt bad about tripping Sorder and leaving him to become spider food, but someone had to be left behind to slow down the spiders.  The kobolds couldn't outrun them without a distraction, after all.  And Sorder had the most meat on him, so he made good bait.

Then as they ran away from the spiders, Mino noticed odd chisel marks in the floor.  He jumped and cleared the pit trap without pause, but klutzy Barran planted his foot right on the activation plate.  The floor gave out beneath them.  Mino heard the crunch of Barran's reptilian body impale itself on a spike.  Podam managed to grab onto the ledge, and Mino turned to help him up.  Barran cried out in pain, his voice echoing down the tunnels like a dinner bell.  Podam had the wherewithal to put a cross bolt in him to shut him up, but it was already too late. 

As Mino and Podam rushed down the tunnel to try and make it back to the warren, they were ambushed by goblins.  Mino cursed a hundred curses at Barran.  Kobolds being captured but goblins.  Falling for a goblin trap, no less!  The goblins forced the pair back to their camp and locked them in separate cages after taking all of their gear.   

From the smell of incense and the amount of face paint worn by the goblin shaman, it was clear to Mino what was going on.  The goblins began preparing the makeshift altar for the sacrifices.   Podam was fiddling with his cage, but his captors kept smacking his claws with a wooden rod.  He grew frustrated and started barking and snarling at the goblins, which just made them laugh. 

Podam always was short tempered.

Mino watched intently as the altar was prepared.  Unlike others in his tribe, Mino was somewhat knowledgeable regarding the religions and cultures of other underground races.  He had found a book on a dead human adventurer once, a book overlooked (or more likely, merely ignored) by his fellow scavengers.   But it was written in Draconic, so Mino could read it.   Of course, anything written in Draconic is supposed to be turned over to the elders.  But since nobody had even noticed the book, Mino saw no harm in reading it first to see if there was anything interesting.  The book summarized a variety of religions and cultures, many of which Mino had found amusing. 

Amusement aside, the book has also mentioned the goblin pantheon.  So Mino knew they were preparing a sacrifice for their god.  They would sacrifice one kobold to their god, and the other to his consort.  Mino hatched his plot.

"This is no way to treat a kobold prince!" said Mino in Goblinoid as he pointed at Podam.  His words were slurred a bit due to the tongue piercing, but the goblins understood him.  Fortunately, Podam had never bothered to learn Goblinoid.  Otherwise he would have spoiled everything.

The goblins grew excited as word spread that they had a kobold prince as a captive.  Goblins, being stupid, forgot that kobolds didn't actually have princes.  But their excitement at the notion of sacrificing a prince got the better of them.  They went to Podam's cage first, and the whole encampment pushed toward the altar. 

With nobody paying attention, Mino removed the small lockpick pierced in his tongue.  As the shaman began to chant over Podam, waving the sacrificial dagger over him menacingly, Mino managed to open his cage unnoticed.  It was easy to sneak away without being heard, as the goblins were cheering so loudly for kobold blood.

Moving alone, Mino easily distanced himself from the goblin camp.  By the time they realized he was gone, Mino had already hidden his tracks and was well on his way home.  

At least, until the earthquake.

Maybe it was an earthquake.  Or maybe it was a tremor worm.  Or maybe it was those damn miners again blasting above.  Whatever it was, several tunnels collapsed around Mino, almost crushing him in the process.  Unable to go forward toward his warren, and not wanting to go back the way he came, Mino's only option was to climb up.  He could see an opening above him, and felt air coming down the collapsed shaft.  All he had to do was climb up a bit until he came to another tunnel, then he should be able to locate an alternate way back to the warren.

He climbed.  And climbed.  The air began to smell different.  He squinted into the darkness.  He finally thought he saw small torchlights.  Quiet and cautious, he crept further up the shaft.  His arms and legs grew heavy.  How long had he been climbing?  There had to be an opening soon.

Mino stopped climbing as he heard strange sounds coming from above.  Voices.  Human?  They were too high pitch to be human, but he recognized the human language.  Something large and round came hurling down the shaft toward him.  He braced for impact, digging his claws into the side of the shaft hoping to hold on.  It was a long way to fall.

The round object smacked him in the head, bounced off harmlessly, and continued its descent.  The high-pitched voices came closer.  Suddenly a deeper voice yelled.  The high-pitched voiced began to whine.  Mino's human wasn't very good.  Something about a lost ball.  The deeper voice scolded the others and told them to return home.  Mino waited for all the noisy creatures above to leave.  It was hard holding on for so long.  His muscles ached from having to support his weight for what felt like hours. 

Mino finally determined it was safe to continue.  He reached the top of the shaft and pulled himself up, then sat on the ground and sighed.  He looked up to a black sky, full of white twinkling lights.  A large round disk cast a faint light across the land.  He looked back at the shaft and shook his head.  He was on the surface, for the first time in his life.  He had heard stories from the elders about the surface world, but everything seemed bigger than he expected.  He was alone, with no gear, on the surface.

Mino was having a bad day.  Something told him it was going to get worse.

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