Mala had awoken before any other Kobold, and the green god was guiding his hand.

“Okay, good, thats a good try.” Mark spoke, causing Mala to stop and look up.

“If we had just a little bit of silver I could start a fire easily.” Alverost scoffed. “Thats what we should be focusing on.”

“A happy workforce is a good workforce. And a well fed workforce is a happy workforce.” Mark said as he reached out, enveloping the piece of fungi-wood Mala was holding in mana. He made it textured, rougher, and drier, and did the same to the board Mala was using to spark a fire. “Try again.”

Mala took the stick between his hands, spinning its base against a notch in the fungiwood until it sparked the kindling in a stone basin.

“Perfect! Now put the stone sheet over the fire.” Mark directed Mala. Behind him, two nameless Kobolds sliced mushroom chunks with sharpened, wooden knives. “Slice those a little thinner!”

Mala lifted a stone bowl of water, hefting it over the fire he had started and setting it on the quickly heating flat rock.

“After a good breakfast we can go on another expedition.” Mark said.

The nameless Kobolds brought the mushrooms they sliced over, adding them to the broth.

It wasn’t long before more of the other Kobolds stumbled in. Mala hadn’t seen them before. Well, he had seen them, though they were not what they are now; standing bipedal, with eyes to see. Under the rooms dull light, their scales were revealed in a motley mix of colors. Dull grays and blues and tans, and Mala served each of them food as they entered.

They looked at him reverently, and it filled him with a new sense of joy. He had failed to serve the Gods during their mission to collect metal, but this? This he could do. It filled him with something new: a sense of purpose, a divine mandate which he could follow to pay back the Gods for the life he had been granted. Mala smiled, his mouth cracking open to reveal his sharpened teeth.

Silver woke with a start, almost jumping, before sitting very still. Waiting. Listening. Something was very off— instead of the rough, uncomfortable ground, he felt softness below him. He waited, listening for the noise that had haunted him in the endless dark of his old life— the awful, chittering noise— to see if it was safe to move, to begin to forage, to try to find enough food to live another day.

Then he remembered where he was, how much had changed, and the soft bed he was laying on. He opened his eyes slowly, the room filled with the dim light of a tall, white mushroom. He rubbed at his eyes, sliding away from the bed, feeling his stomach rumble, stumbling to the door, pushing it open. He smelt food. Thats what he knew it was: mushroom, but the scent filled the air, it filled the hallway and the room.

He followed it, passed multiple other bedrooms— more than a dozen of them— before double doors swung open at Silver’s touch. When the door was open, he was met with more than a dozen stares— his kin, looking back at him. They were not as brightly colored as Axel or Mala— most of them were dull tans, grays, or blues. In corners of the room were still others who were yet unchanged, slow and nearly blind and quiet as they ate sliced mushrooms in corners of the room.

Those who were changed sat at fungiwood tables, smooth white marbled with green. Kobolds leaned over stone bowls, staring at Silver warily. Silver followed his nose, turning left in the mess hall, towards Mala, who pushed a stone bowl into his hands. “Mushroom Stew.” Mala said.

Silver didn’t look at it twice before pouring the bowl back, swallowing the contents in their entirety. Silver handed the bowl back, and Mala moved, ladling from a pot as Silver examined the room.

Axel stood out conspicuously, pitch black scale like a splotch of darkness painted on the room. Axel didn’t look up from the bowl he was slowly consuming even as Silver entered the room. Silver stumbled to the table as another Kobold brought him a second bowl, setting it in front of him.

The second bowl only lasted a minute or two longer than the first.

“Now that you’re both awake, come to the dungeoncore. We have gifts for you.” Alverost spoke, his voice flooding the room.

Axel stretched, stood. Headed back down the hall, Silver trailing, and into the dungeoncore room. Silver noted it had changed; most of their little fortress was unrecognizable between the days. Now the dungeoncore sat passed a black staircase, down into a basement level. The walls thrummed with mana, dungeon roots dancing in the walls in dull, rainbow colored ribbons of light.

The dungeoncore itself sat on an altar embedded in the wall. It was the size of Silvers fist, a rainbow of roots attached to the bottom of it. The walls were engraved with ornate carvings, and in the center of the room was a large inlaid pattern; the ritual Alverost was still waiting to activate. Decorative black pillars emerged from the walls of the dungeoncore’s room at fixed distances. Silver knelt while Axel folded his arms.

Across the room, below the shrine was a curved and wicked black blade, and a long, white spear which crossed it.

“These are for you. Just in case.” Mark said.

Silver stood, walking towards the two weapons on the ground, though Axel was even quicker, already having snatched away the large, black sickle.

Silver ran his hand down the cool, smooth, fungiwood handle of the spear.

“Today you’ll be heading in the opposite direction!” Mark said excitedly. “It looks like this place— that metal you brought us was armor, and blades from some kind of soldier. Not an adventurer, but a soldier. Which means this place was likely a battleground! And possibly an anceint dungeon. Since this area was most likely a dungeon and a battleground of some kind, there may be some silver left behind— as a magical tool.”

“That is, if this attacking force didn’t come from the Empire of Endless Dawn.” Alverost interjected. “But in that case, we might find Arcana: the crux of their Arcanist’s powers.”

Silver nodded. He would fulfill his duty.

That morning was like any other for Valleria. She had no way to know how it’d end. She awoke, stretching over piled wooden planks and rags that kept her relatively dry from the muddy earth that filled the Hallow, covered by more bug-eaten, tattered clothes that made a makeshift blanket.

She rolled over, tapping her brother. Con squirmed in his sleep, but he was still there. She thought about slapping him to wake him up, but decided against it. They could relax now; she had brought great treasure to the Longtail clan, enough to merit food for hundreds of cycles.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She needed to upgrade their house still; it was a small shack of barely tied together wood and rusted metal sheets, just big enough to fit her, her brother, and a small wooden box of fresh food. She opened it eagerly, reaching in and pulling out some of the few crops grown in the land owned by Clan Longtail, a hard grain covered in layers of soft plant fiber and filled with crawling Beatles.

She grabbed one eagerly, bringing it to her lips with a crunch, bug juice spilling down her face. She groaned, her tail swinging happily as she leaned back lazily enjoyed the flavor. The texture, the crunch, the sensation; these were things only the greatest Kobolds in clan Longtail could afford.

It was interrupted by a pounding on the wall, a great fist beating against the door that was held shut only by a flimsy metal bar.

Her face screwed up as she stared at the silhouette of the huge Kobolds outside. They were clearly well fed; town guards or nobility of the clan. What were they here for? An early delivery of food? It wasn’t expected until tonight, at the end of the cycle.

“Valleria Longtail!” They shouted. She paused, wondering why they would be coming to her at the first instance of the dim morning, the few hours of light a day in the Hallow.

“Yes?” she asked, her voice a croak from inside of her shack, her eye peering through one of the holes in the wooden planks.

“Raeph calls for your attendance. Come with us!”

Valleria hurriedly stood, making sure that Con was still wrapped in blankets as she worked to slide the iron bar away and open the door. It didn’t quite fit as a makeshift lock. Eventually she fumbled the door open, and one of the Kobolds immediately grabbed at her arm, holding her roughly.

“Unhand me!” Valleria hissed. “I’m an honored treasure-bringer!” She fished around for her knife, but it was left behind in the rag like clothes on the floor behind her. This treatment was unexpected, and completely unreasonable. She pounded on the arm of the guard, but it was no use. He was a full grown warrior of the Longtail, towering more than a head over her. He probably hadn’t missed a day of eating in his life, unlike the runtish and half fed Valleria.

She was dragged through the squat, compact buildings of the rot city, towards the clan heads house. Kobolds stared at her down alleys and through the planks of rotting buildings. At first, Valleria bucked and kicked, trying to escape their grasp, but eventually she had given up, letting them lead her forward. The Clan Head would hear of this, demanding her to be respected, she was sure.

She felt the city itself press against her, at times wide enough to fit the Kobolds that stared at her from outside houses and buildings, at others so tight together she was squeezed as they dragged her forward, the stone ceiling of the Hallow glowing above through the twisted veins of fizzling mana.

She stumbled forward, struggling to keep up with their slightly longer legs, at times being dragged over the earth, and by the time she arrived at the door, her legs were battered and scraped, her arm bruised.

They threw her forward through an open doorway, to a place that she had only ever had the privilege to visit once before, only days ago. She fell to the floor, gasping and looking up at Raeph’s back.

Raeph stood across from her, different somehow. Taller. He lost the squat hunch and curve of his back that showed his status as an elderly Kobold of the Longtail. He was wearing his clan leader garb— ratty cloth with tattered edges that shone a brilliant, light gray color, unlike the brown that made up almost all cloth in the rot city.

“Valleria. What have you done?” He didn’t turn as he spoke, staring forward into the dim inside of the building.

“I… I didn’t do anything! Elder Raeph, what is going on! What happened?” Valleria spoke, pushing herself forward, deeper into the building.

“What happened?” He repeated, before turning. There was something off about him. The structure in his face, the light in his eyes. It was like he was a year younger. “Look around and tell me what happened.”

Valleria spun, looking. “I don’t see anything, Raeph.”

“Thats the problem. The gem you brought us is all that remains, adhered to the ground. A mockery. A stone left to mock us, and you brought it here.” Raeph raised his arms. Valleria tensed as she realized; this was indeed the horde room, and all that remained in it was the pink stone. It seemed to have sunken into the ground, the wooden boards around it had disappeared. And, save for Raeph’s wooden throne, and the small, pyramid shaped lavender stone, so had everything else. Valleria’s eyes went wide.

“Raeph… I… what is this? I had nothing to do with this!”

“I exile you from clan Longtail.” Raeph spoke, turning around. Valleria felt one of the two lizards fall upon her, pinning her to the ground. She screamed when she felt his rusty blade hack at her tail, failing to cut through bone. She gasped, interrupting her scream, until the guard brought the blade down a second time.

“No, Raeph, I didn’t do—” her desperate cry was interrupted by a second blade hacking at her outstretched left hand. She tumbled, burying her fist in the second guards groin, slipping as she tried to bolt upright, spinning and tumbling and moving out of the first guards grasp, she turned, looking for the door, and collapsed in a heap as the Kobold regained his grip on her.

“A thief should be marked.” Raeph turned, the click, click, clicking of a long staff against the ground registering somewhere in Valleria’s hearing. She looked up at it, and for a second, even the feeling of pain receding as she admiring the treasure. It wasn’t wood or cloth or gemstone, but something prized even more. Untarnished metal of polished, smooth black, which Raeph’s hand wrapped around. Where did he get that? Valleria wondered, her mind instinctively having stilled at the sight of treasure. “For taking from the clan, we shall take your hand.”

Then the pain, blinding and hot, was back, too much for her to even process. She screamed, staring through rising tears at the scaled hand on the ground.

“Throw her to the Pit. Ensure that no one asks any questions.” Raeph said, bringing that metal staff up— and into her head. Mercifully, she lost consciousness.