Unlike outside, when I thought of a word in Kobold from English, I seemed to explode with information about it. I quickly had to think of something harmless and narrow, like meatloaf, to stop the flood of information, and I was left with a vicious headache I had a hard time setting aside.

Important note, I thought to myself. Create some kind of buffers or something to explore concepts in that language. I realized that when I thought of the word in English, I also received a load of information, but it was based on my understanding of the word buffered by my memories, which was pretty standard for a creature with a language center.

Basically, I had a load of understanding and history of a word I had never heard before, and it was painful. I did, however, notice that when I used words from one of my learned languages, little bits of the clouds surrounding my core began to drift forward. They did not touch me, but it was almost as if parts of it were associated with concepts.

I started randomly tripping off words as I thought of them. “Vortex, Trabajo, serendipity.” I stated in my soul space since that was what I started to call whatever this place was I felt when I went into the zone all the way. “Balance, altaeadul, heiko, equilibrar,” I continued, noting that using similar words from different languages caused similar sections to drift forward. Not identical, since they didn’t have the same memory associations, but they seemed to share sections. Trying to touch them didn’t help much, as I could distantly feel the memories, but these were not memories so much as collections of concepts.

It felt like, by maintaining the concept, I could group them, and by thinking about them I could more-or-less manipulate them as if I was touching them. It took a lot of concentration, but a little bit of time allowed me to sort of make sense of the drifting mists, depositing similar concepts together, and organizing them.

How fascinating. “Frenzy, hanaq, yofun, el frenesi.”. But again, when I called the kobold version of the word, it came forth easily enough, but trying to speak it in my soul space slammed me with concepts foreign to me, like a fury of blood or the special, mindless hatred for someone who tries to invade your land or destroy your clutch. “God, I could really use a translator.” I thought out loud as I tried to fit the Kobold words into the framework of languages that I remembered learning.

The problem mostly seemed to be how general-purpose each word in the lower version of the language seemed to be… when I thought of more specific concepts, or concepts that seemed almost foreign to the language, the resulting translations were much less powerful. ‘gyroscopic force’ certainly had its own word, and only a few concepts related to trying to turn too fast or fight against Coriolis effects, momentum, and centripetal force. It briefly touched on the gigantic lump definition of ‘Magic’, which made me wonder if this language had a set of words describing using magic to defeat momentum.

The concepts were amazing, but again, required someone who REALLY knew how the language worked in order to find the right term. I could feel that the language had specific terms for things, but when I tried to use both magic and momentum together, I was barraged by concepts utterly foreign to me and painful, ALL of them, rather than a specific group. Even making up terms in English that combined concepts, like ‘kinetomancy’ to mean momentum magic, did not yield a result, because, in the end, I had no real idea of how it would work.

But in Kobold, there was a word, which included the understanding of how it worked. I knew it. That was clearly what Kozmina meant, that inside my soul space words had real meanings. When I thought of something I truly knew, such as whittling, all the needed concepts were right there in the drifting blob of comprehension… my concepts of how to carve a wooden chain, how to read the grain of the wood, how to feel my way through a project or choose the right sort of knife, were all available to me easily enough, including where it touched on alternative woodcraft like building log cabins or fitting handmade buttstocks to a rifle.

Okay, I knew the basics, How it was supposed to work, but something told me I was in for a world of hurt trying to truly ‘learn’ the Kobold Language. Perhaps it unlocked knowledges and abilities specific to this world, but until I learned HOW to learn, I was sort of stuck.

‘Whittling’ in kobold was a word that meant a lot of things, mostly including what I knew about woodcrafting, and was a lot less painful because I already understood most of the concepts, but it started touching on concepts like manipulating wood in weird ways that were vaguely painful because I didn’t possess even a basic understanding of how they worked. Ironically, however, when I used one of the words I already knew almost everything about, a little blob formed from that strange pulsing group and connected to the blob that meant ‘woodworking’, and I could even see almost invisible strands of color connecting everything. If I peered closely enough, everything in the zone was connected by these translucent lines of color, some weaker, some stronger.

I wondered, if I had learned the other local language of humans, would it have been as rough? Perhaps not, if they didn’t have as… broad a word language as Kobolds did. Were there other languages I might have to learn? Should I go to an actual course or find an instructor in Kobold? The simplest terms like ‘food’ and ‘flee’ were easy enough and didn’t cause any pain, but the more complicated or esoteric terms were like slamming my face with a sledgehammer.

Perhaps this was why there were two different forms of the language. Barely sentient creatures would be baffled by more complicated terminology and the much richer vocabulary of ‘High Kobold’ or Draconic or whatever, so the lower-meaning version was perfectly useful for ordering them around or simple communication of basic concepts.

Were all kobolds born with this understanding of their language? Or did they have to learn it the way humans did, slowly and painfully through experience? The way even the simple terms worked, I was betting the latter, but somehow I had arrived with a full set of tools for being a smart kobold that I didn’t have the first clue how to use.

“No.” I heard a high, feminine voice inside my soulspace say, one that was NOT mine. “You received two languages, Kobold, and Draconic. Kobold is like simple common, you can use it easily because it’s all about things you already know. Rhydian, which Kosmina gifted you, is the same, but more complex. Draconic is the language of magic, which you don’t know, and every time you try to use it it will hurt you. You haven’t learned how to tell them apart yet. When you get back we can try to figure it out, but for right now, you need to LEAVE. Time passes slowly here, but if you don’t leave now, that bane wolf is going to EAT you!”

I quickly dropped back into my normal zone, I didn’t know where the voice was coming from but it hadn’t originated from my outside, I hadn’t heard it with my real ears. But right now the term ‘eat you’ seemed to have a slightly higher priority than a phantom threat, and I noted, through the pine needles that covered me, that she was right. A canine of some kind, large and vaguely resembling a cross between a fox and a wolfhound, was unerringly following my path into the clearing, nose to the ground letting me know that my concealment had been pointless when dealing with an animal that hunts by scent.

The thing looked mangy as hell, patches of fur hanging from it in strips all over its body and scrawny ribs sticking out. It was huge, although that was likely from the scale of how small I was, but if I had seen it’s like in the real world while hunting I’d have shot it out of hand, both because it screamed nasty predator, not a pet, and to put it out of its misery.

I had fallen asleep with my knife near at hand, and while it might not be much, it was what I had. There was no way the creature could avoid finding me, and I needed to deal with it before it had a chance to attack… considering its diseased state, there was no way I wanted that thing biting me. It was moving extremely slowly due to my zoned state, but since it was clearly moving its real speed had to have been very fast, probably having smelled my living odor after tracking me for a while by scent, it was charging in for the kill.

As it passed under the layer of low branches covered with needles, I struck. My tail was a formidable weapon, but I wasn’t trained to use it as such, so I braced my hands on the ground beneath my needle concealment and spun in place, both hands and one leg on the ground while my concealment splattered away from me in a spinning, modified Meia Lua kick. The Meia Lua kicks were considered the ‘king of kicks’ because if you can get them off, your full body momentum and weight concentrated in your heel or calf can hit with more speed and force than any other martial blow in existence. Enough force that, if you are not well-conditioned and trained, you could shatter your own bones on impact.

It was not my best kick ever, since I was still learning this body, and it didn’t have the same force as it had when I was larger, but when the claw on the back of my foot hit the side of the creature’s neck, it spun in place, in the air, twice before hitting the ground and rolling over. It seemed to be stunned as I sprang from cover, preparing to end it, but as it looked up at my charging form, the skin on its head seemed to peel back, revealing a disgusting and terrifying assortment of facial muscles, bones, and teeth that sent a jolt of panic and terror through me almost painfully and caused me to freeze and drop into the zone.

It started to slowly get to its feet, but in the zone, my terror had turned more intellectual. I didn’t usually feel fear, as such, but I could see waves of some sort of blackness spilling off of the beast and slamming into my aura. Was this magic again? I mean, yeah, the whole face-splitting thing was kind of gross, but I had seen way worse in old horror movies. It was different to experience it in real life, but this level of panic was both unwarranted and potentially deadly.

I pushed the fear aside with effort. The peeling back skin seemed to be an intentional response to danger. Maybe this was how it hunted? It was a monster, not an animal, perhaps its fear-triggering response was how it hunted, creating a panicked freeze in its prey before striking. I would ensure that, if that was the case, its hunt was unsuccessful.

I dropped out of the zone and stomped forwards with one foot. After having beaten back the panicked response, the display of internal skull was vastly less awe-inspiring and almost pathetic. I had shorter arms and thus decided to try the tail thing again… It was a little longer than a fully extended leg, so I spun around, dropping to my hands again, relying on the extended reach that Capoeira provided against an opponent I didn’t want to risk closing with.

My head was turned so I watched as the thing tried to rip forward, but apparently, kobold reactions were very fast… short nerves didn’t have a long way to go in such a small body, after all. Reaction and running speed was probably one of their greatest defenses, much like catching a cat that didn’t want to be caught. Its teeth managed to catch at my tail, but the scales on my tail seemed to deflect its turning mouth as the tip slammed the other side of its head.

Again I was impressed. I was not very strong, but that tail was a weapon to be feared. Again the wolf-thing spun as it flew through the air, and based on my size it must have flown ten feet before it impacted a tree. I had heard a crunching noise as my tail hit, but the lack of pain other than the thud of impact still shaking through it let me know that that cracking had been from the beast I struck, rather than my own tail-tip.

The beast lie still at the base of the tree it had struck, and I hopped over quickly. Its facial retraction had relaxed with its consciousness, and its face looked shredded rather than exposed with the muscles pulling back the shredded head relaxed. I tucked my knife underneath its head and dragged backward to cut its throat against the ground beneath it to save myself from arterial spray… but based on the lack of spray and the way the head wobbled as I pushed it out of the way, the effort of ending its life was already unnecessary.

This tail. It was already a real weapon, as dangerous as claws or teeth, but with a little capoeira added to the mix, it was an absolutely devastating weapon. I usually didn’t prefer to try and use Capoeira, since it required some range and a large fighting area and was seldom good in a close-range brawl, but I felt like Santana taking out a Gracie with that tail whip. Definitely working it into my training, since even as short as I was, I bet the thing could utterly destroy someone’s legs or lower vitals allowing me to escape easily. You cannot chase someone when your kneecaps are bent backward, after all.

I needed to get back to my soul space to figure out who had been speaking to me, but I had more important needs. The sun was behind the trees and thus barely tolerable, and my hiding place was wrecked. I was starving and needed to find out if this ‘bane wolf’ was even worth cleaning. Looking at the horrible state of its hide and possible diseased status, I doubted very much it would even be worth the time.

I checked the trap in the river and noted with pleasure that the woven twig basket, while dilapidated, had held together, mostly! Clearly, something had fought its way out of the branches, but two fine, large carp were still in the basket, swimming aimlessly in tiny circles and looking for an exit. Yeah, the basket couldn’t be recycled, but I hooked a claw-tipped finger through the cage into the gill of the larger of the two, and dragged it out of the water, wrecking the trap and releasing its companion in the process. It was a heavy fish, and nearly as long as my leg.

I was still too close to Sindaenaway, and couldn’t risk a fire or even the time to cook the fish, so I found a nice, flat rock to slap it against and kill it. This wouldn’t be the first or the last time I had eaten raw fish, and even though the rat meat hadn’t upset my stomach, Fish was far safer to eat, from clean water, than raw red meat.

I disassembled the fish quickly with my knife and claws, filleting it fairly easily. Alternate body or not, my survival skills hadn’t suffered, and the claws helped with the task, leaving me with two long and thick fillets. I discarded the skeleton, viscera, and head into the water where I am sure its mates would dispose of it quickly enough, and quickly slurped down one of the fillets.

Again, the meat was surprisingly tasty, much better than any raw fish I had eaten in my world, and I stared at the other fillet. The thick slice had taken me several bites to eat, but I was pleasantly full. I took a few more bites of the meat, not wanting to waste it, but then left it on the rock I had used to clean it. I wasn’t going to let raw fish spoil by carrying it around until I felt hungry again, and I didn’t want to stuff myself in case I needed to fight, and I didn’t have time to try and dry it.

I moved upstream a couple of miles as the afternoon shadows lengthened, and when I was well clear, I slipped off my makeshift tunic and took a quick swim in a shallow part of the river where it joined a stream. Surprisingly, this form, and its tail, were amazingly adept at swimming, and after a quick-slow test and a lot of ‘Mississippis’, I found that my time holding my breath at rest was extended from my usual three minutes to nearly twelve whole minutes! It was phenomenal, and as long as I hyperventilated first, it appeared I could swim underwater for almost ten minutes.

After half an hour of swimming exercises, feeling clean, and only having to dodge a suspicious shadow under the water twice. “Probably river monsters,” I conjectured, but quickly left the potential threat behind by an amazing swimming ability which allowed me to cut through the water nearly as fast as I could jog on land. I was confident following the river, and my tunic was undisturbed except by a few insects that I shook off. It was unpleasant to put the untanned leather back on, but until I had real clothes it was my only proof of sentience if I were discovered.

I felt bad about discarding the fish bones since there were hundreds of uses they and the fish skin could be put to in a survival situation, but all of them required a stable campsite and a whole lot of time. Until I had left the area people who wanted to kill me frequented, or figured out some way to earn their trust, I simply didn’t have the option.

I continued moving stealthily upstream, southerly, and as long as I kept out of the underbrush, I could move at a decent jogging pace while still keeping very quiet and low. My muscles ached as dark started to approach, but I had been exercising ceaselessly since late afternoon, and it was to be expected, especially since I was right about being out of shape.

There was another smaller stream that was outletted into the river, this one about twenty yards wide and probably ten feet deep in its middle, and since I still was not sure what sorts of monsters prowled the deeper sections I started moving upstream to look for a safer, shallow place to cross. I knew this made it more likely that I would be discovered by travelers, but death to something I never even knew would be stupid. Every once in a while I waded into the stream to mess up my scent trail, walking on the mud and stones for a few hundred feet upstream. I had learned my lesson.

After full dark, I discovered something that made me rather excited… a thick patch of water reeds somewhat akin to bamboo, although their sections were much longer and not as strong. The leaves were also long and tough, and would do well as makeshift bindings! I took nearly an hour cutting a dozen stalks nearly as thick around as my thick fingers and slightly longer than I was tall, and tied it into a bundle with the leaves, slinging it over my shoulder before I started traveling again. They were fairly light, and by switching shoulders, I didn’t tire my arms out too much, but when it came time to sleep a few dozen shallow holes filled with sharpened stakes could come in handy. They were also fairly flexible and could be split similarly to bamboo, which filled my head with images of spears and baskets made from the stuff.

And here I thought luck was with me. I had noticed the lack of monsters and many animals and simply attributed it to a dearth of local game. There were plenty of edible plants around here, there should have been deer and hares and other prey species in plenty unless something had cleaned them out or frightened them off, but I was used to the most dangerous monsters around walking on two legs, and seeing the lack of trails or civilization simply assumed that it was fairly safe.

Stupid Kobold.