Maikana
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Chapter 56 – Aren’t you an ugly one
🕑 Added 2025-05-08 01:51:13 +0000 UTCAfter the evening’s discussion while training her senses with Snq, images of puddles erupting from beakers and engulfing her while she worked coloured her dreams and left her mood soured the following morning.
<<Skill proficiency improved. Mana Sense level 3 -> 4>>
She’d managed to get a single level in her Skill at least, but that was small recompense. Even breakfast, slabs of boar haunch fried in a pan with its own fat alongside diced root vegetables, was eaten mechanically.
The morning dampness she had noticed the day before clung to everything as they packed and they were prepared and on the road by the time the sun had fully crested the horizon. The gloom of her dreams lingered throughout the morning and left her with little enthusiasm for the days trek. At least it did, until a break in the sparse woods surrounding them revealed her first glimpse of their destination an hour before the sun reached its zenith.
The excitement of what she was about to see quickly evaporated the mornings dour mood as easily as the sun had the dampness, they’d arrived.
Walls of familiar stone peaked through the trees; the black sheen of the diorite speckled with white lending the nearly four-meter-tall walls a striking appearance. To some the walls of Whatzakt were thought to be ominous, to the kobolds they were merely seen as an extravagance. Kori couldn’t fathom why such a high wall would be needed, even the boar the combatants had slain only stood a meter and a half at the shoulders. She supposed it was simply in the nature of the humans, something she’d get to see for herself soon, to build things bigger than they needed to be.
As the treeline broke and the bare fields sloping gently downwards towards the town were revealed, Kori was taken aback at the sheer size of what lay before her. The walls were tall, but even beyond those, the buildings rose higher. Peaked roofs could be seen beyond the fortifications and the further into the town she looked the higher they soared. Wooden buildings gave way to those carved from the same stones as the walls in the distance, their squat squared heights towering above those around them even higher.
It all came together into an image of height and crowding. People living on top of each other, stacked like younglings in their compact little dens. Just one of those edifices could house hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kobolds. She had always heard that the town of Whatzakt was considered relatively small, but what she saw laid out ahead of her belied that statement, the entire clan could live in the space, probably twice over.
She was eventually broken from her thoughts by Har’s distant call.
“Kori, wait for the rest of us!” He shouted.
Looking around herself, she realized that, without intending to, she had quickened her pace upon seeing the town before her. She was dozens of meters ahead of the others. Stopping and waiting, constantly shifting her weight back and forth while her tail swished behind her with anxious and excited energy. It just made her want to break into a run to get there all the faster. She silently urged the oxen that set the caravan’s pace forward as her eyes flitted from building to building to wall to gate and back.
The wooden gate, banded in metal, stood at the end of the roadway they were on in stark contrast to the dark stone of the wall, appearing plain beside it. Though it did appear to be thick and sturdy from a distance and it was easily wide and tall enough for the carts they drove to pass through unimpeded and with room to spare. Above each side of the gate rose pennants of cloth, bordered in deep red, similar to that of her own scales, but filled with the black and grey of the wall from which they hung.
As she watched the gates began to slowly open, it would appear that their presence had been noted already. Her feet were moving again before she even realized it, ignoring Har’s earlier instructions entirely.
Humans!
Or at least she assumed they were humans. Tall figures slowly forced the large wooden gates open in preparation for their arrival. They both wore metal armour shining in the late morning sun, caps of mirrored steel over their heads and coats that were shimmering like individual scales in silver down their arms and hanging below their waists. Their chests armoured, but covered with a cloth bordered in red with grey and black, the same as the banners above.
By the time she had closed in on the figures, the caravan trailing in the distance behind, Kori was nearly out of breath from the sudden sprint she had not meant to be making. The pair of them looked alarmed at her sudden approach, one of them lowering their spear and darting their eyes about as though looking for a threat.
Kori, of course, asked the first thing that popped into her head. “You’re…” Huffing between her words, “humans?” Her eyes wide as she slowly examined the confused guards.
“I… uh… what?” The one that had not readied their weapon responded in what she assumed to be low vorisian, clearly not understanding what was going on with the diminutive kobold, or what she was saying.
“Can’t you speak Creation?” She asked, confused as to why the town would greet them with a pair of guards that couldn’t even speak to them.
The pair quickly shook their heads, making more sounds in their high-pitched tongue in an attempt to communicate their lack of comprehension.
“Well, that’s annoying…” She responded in a disappointed tone. Unable to ask her questions, she settled for examining the pair visually instead. They each stood over twice her own height, easily one and three quarters of a meter, their shining armour was made from innumerable rings of metal linked into each other and draped over their frame with the tunic like cloth over top. She wasn’t really certain if they were male or female, she supposed probably male between the lower tone of the still overly pitchy language one had spoken and the other looking similar enough to assume they were the same.
They were nearly completely covered between their armour, leather britches, metal cap, and they even wore metal coverings on their feet, which she thought must have been incredibly uncomfortable. What little of the being beneath it all that she could see, was the pale pinkish skin of their faces beneath the helmet they wore. Their eyes seemed small compared to their overall size, possibly smaller than those of a kobold, and the rest of their face just seemed… flat… like someone had smushed their muzzles into their skulls. She wasn’t sure what to think of the humans yet, she’d try to reserve judgement until she could see them without so much occluding her gaze, but she hoping that it was just these first two that were this ugly.
More words were spoken on either side, but neither comprehended the other and no progress was made in acquiring answers to her many questions by the time Har approached at the head of the caravan.
Giving the youngling a harsh glare, “I told you not to run ahead.” Shaking his head at her and using a tone that made it clear he was reprimanding her. “You’ve got these two spooked that some monstrosity is nipping at our tails.”
Realizing the truth in his words, and because it was impossible to relay her many questions, mostly the latter reason, she regretted rushing ahead and gave a quick “Sorry, Elder Har.” before he turned his attention to the guards and began speaking in their language to them. After a few quick exchanges, both appeared to relax and their weapons were brought back to a less threatening position. She also thought they might be laughing when they looked back at her, but it was kind of hard to tell if it was that or just some weird words of their incomprehensible tongue.
With the commotion at the gates quieted and the words being spoken little more than gibberish to her, she let her attention wander from the armoured figures to what lay beyond the gates. The immediate area within was clear and unoccupied for the most part, she could see a few tall people walking some distance away but no one in the vicinity. At even a cursory glance, Kori saw that their destination was barely beyond the gates themselves.
Just beyond the gates was a large open-air pen with several other oxen already milling about with a building that appeared to be for their care to one side and a boxy stone structure, just shorter than the walls on the other. Outside the structure sat half a dozen carts identical to those she’d accompanied crowding around an open lot and behind that, stacks upon stacks of stone blocks, neatly assembled and waiting to be collected by their buyers.
Past the open pen was something a little more familiar to Kori, a tunnel angled up from the ground and she could see several kobolds ascending from below. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, of course the kobolds that spent time in town would want to be beneath the earth, but it still did. She was disappointed that her thoughts of spending the night in the buildings upon the surface and seeing how the humans lived were dashed so quickly.
Kori saw the reason that so few humans were nearby when she looked further down the road, there was another gate, this one mere slats of wood with large gaps between them standing open and unguarded, but still a distinct delineation beyond what was clearly the kobolds space and the remainder of the town. The whole area was bordered with a similarly flimsy wall of wood, less a defensive measure and more one that marked the extent of their territory.
Har continued his discussion with the guards while the carts trundled past and made way towards the building, likely to be unloaded and join the others. She assumed that the ore they carried was likely destined for the building, she didn’t see any crates left outside of it after all, and was fairly certain that she’d be of absolutely no assistance, possibly even the opposite, should she try to help them with it, so she stayed by Har listening to the grating noises of their conversation.
By the time the last cart had passed and was queued outside the structure, the combatants that had accompanied them had already disappeared into the downward tunnel. Har left the human guards to their work as they muscled the gate closed and lowered a large beam of wood into place from above on chains and pullies. Collecting his overly excited charge, he guided her towards the rest of their group.
“Welcome to Whatzakt, apprentice.” Har exclaimed, gesturing towards the dusty streets and crowded wagons. His tone dropped back towards his earlier reprimand when he continued, “Your little mad dash cannot happen again, there are no lines carved upon the walls to follow here. It is remarkably easy to get turned around in all of this space and it is a scant few who will have any idea of what you are saying should you need assistance.” Pausing for a moment to let his words sink in before he sought her agreement. “Understood?”
Trying to look chastised, something she was only somewhat feeling, Kori lowered her head and mumbled out a quick “Yes, Elder.”
“Good.” Har nodded, quickly returning to his usual, less serious, tone. “Now, lets leave the others to their work, perks of being the boss and all,” he grinned, “and I’ll show you to where you’ll be staying while we’re here.” Beginning to head to the opening the combatants had wandered off into.
The accommodations were unimpressive to Kori, the tunnel led a dozen or so meters down before entering a central hall, one in which several warriors, more than had accompanied their group, and Shaman Aln had already tapped a keg and were busy celebrating their arrival. Beyond the hall were several other chambers, some storage for things not being bought or sold, a meeting chamber laid out similarly, but not as large as, the Elder’s, and a bevy of dens for those staying here. The dens were simple, a bit smaller than the one that Kori had stayed in when apprenticed to Ortik and obviously better than where the younglings slept in the brood chambers, but still unremarkable in any way.
With the brief tour completed and Kori instructed on where she would be sleeping for the duration of their stay, she was hopeful that she would get to go out and actually see some of the town proper.
Her excitement uncontained and unrestrained, she energetically asked Har as they returned to the hall, where the drinking only seemed to have escalated, “Can we go explore the town now? Or visit that potion seller so I can get a look at potions? Or maybe the herbalists?” When she mentioned the herbalists, her hand lowered into the satchel still strung across her shoulder and gripped her tome, thoughts of what she could add to it from their knowledge racing through her mind as she briefly paused her deluge of questions.
Before she could begin yet another question, Har held up his hands and interrupted, “Hold on, hold on. One thing at a time, Kori.” He said, clearly overwhelmed by the rapid-fire requests. “I have to check for any missives from my trading partners first, then there’s the matter of checking inventory here against the list of things you need, I got Bolst to check over it and he added a few things too, and then we still need to get you the [Basic Linguistics] Skill before you go making a fool of yourself… again.” Even his extensive experience in hiding his feelings during a negotiation failed to contain his laughter when he saw Kori’s pouting face at the denial.
