Dignity was a very smart Kobold.

Had anyone been paying attention to the Kobold species, they would have concluded he was the smartest one in the whole world. But no one kept track of that kind of thing; Kobolds were “house fairies”, magical servants who were good at cleaning, not thinking.

The fact that no one was aware of how exceptionally smart he was did not bother Dignity terribly much. The goal was not to be praised by strangers, but to use this new intellect to serve his favorite person.

His favorite person was Angela. A furry person he’d found in the Cursed Woods, just inside the Idiot’s territory. He’d traveled with her for weeks and learned all kinds of secrets about her, things that even the Idiot didn’t know (which pleased him immensely). Dignity knew Angela was actually human, that she’d worked at something called a “retail” store, and that there was “technology” rather than “magic” in her world.

He was worried about this non-magical world, because he couldn’t live there. Kobold’s depended on magic to exist. Without it, they died slowly. Angela wanted to go back to that dreary world, which meant he needed to go too. But if he did, he’d die. And like any sensible being, he didn’t want to die. (This is why he was secretly relieved when the Idiot failed to grant Angela’s first wish.)

He’d put in a lot of thought about Angela, how she got there, and why she was there to begin with. When civilized men had, like him, concluded that level of transportation must be in the realm of the gods, he was not completely happy to be proven right.

Oh, the gods! He didn’t want to get involved with them. No Kobold did. Being so close to nature, they understood the natural order in a way People did not. And the one thing every Kobold knew: don’t mess with the gods if you can help it. This was not out of hatred, but fear. Every Kobold had a primal fear of the gods.

Dignity did too. He really didn’t want to get involved with any of them, even the nicer ones. But if they brought Angela to this world, changed her very species, then he knew they could do the same for him. How he was going to talk a god into doing what he wanted, he didn’t know. So far all he could figure was begging and groveling.

Still, he continued to ponder his possibilities.

Putting that aside, he was currently watching the Idiot make an idiot of himself.

Even though there’d been a truce between them, he still didn’t like the demon named Solomon. Something about how that guy acted rubbed him the wrong way. Dignity struggled to pinpoint which “thing” was the culprit, but since there were so many to choose from he found it difficult and had given up. He promised himself he’d think more on it later (as he often did).

“I’d like to speak with you in private for a moment, Solomon.” Angela had spoken in a dangerously neutral tone.

“What, right now?” The demon raised his eyebrows, scandalized by the rudeness.

She placed a vice-like grip on his arm. “Yes. NOW.”

And before he could argue further, dragged him away from the new party members, calling back: “We’ll be back in just a moment! Sorry!”

Dignity took a step to follow and then hesitated. He could sense the Idiot was in trouble and of course he wanted to be there for that. But leaving Atlas alone with two strangers seemed like a bad idea.

“Oh, I hope we didn’t cause a rift in the group!” Ben commented, worried. He was the kind of guy who naturally understood group dynamics.

“A little strife builds character.” Cale Aster said dismissively.

Ben shook his head in response to this. He got along well with everyone, even Cale Aster (a remarkable feat unto itself), but that didn’t stop him from disagreeing with his fairy friend’s ethical beliefs (or lack thereof on occasion).

The fairy saw Dignity’s uncertainty and flew lazily over, asking, “Is this the Page Kobold the Holy Knight owns?”

“My name is Dignity and I’m Angela’s FRIEND.” And then he added to keep up appearances, “…and her Page.”

The fairy dropped half a foot down in surprise.

“Woah, a Kobold with proper sentence structure!”

Cale Aster flew back up and stared intently at Dignity, his eyes flashing oddly bright.

“HEY!” The Kobold protested, upset at the fairy’s intrusive use of the Observe skill. It was stronger than it should be and left him feeling somewhat violated and goose-pimply. Even the Idiot had the manners not to go looking into people without warning.

“Now, now! I was only peeking at your attributes, not into your soul.” The fairy cackled, amused by a joke only he understood, his whole body swaying mid-air. “But you are I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T-I-N-G. All your mental attributes are through the roof.” He flew down and poked the Kobold in the forehead. “What’s with this noggin’ huh?”

Rubbing the spot that had been poked, Dignity glared at the fairy in annoyance. “What’s it matter to you?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged. “There’s something kind of odd about that Holy Knight you serve.” He palmed his forehead suddenly. “That’s right! I got totally distracted by the Prince! I should go take a peek at the Knight too!” Before anyone could respond, he zoomed away towards where the two had walked off.

“W-wait!” Dignity cried out, following hurriedly, forgetting Atlas.

Ben raised a hand and started asking, “Prince—?”

“Ah, never mind.” The musician gave up, letting out a long-suffering sigh. Until Cale Aster’s curiosity was totally and thoroughly satisfied he’d be useless for anything else. It was an annoying trait, but it was also why the fairy was a Regnal.

Ben turned to the young elf and gave an awkward smile. “So, uh, what part of Sagewind are you from?”

The elf’s eyebrows lowered and his lips turned pencil thin. Ben immediately realized he’d asked the wrong question.

Dignity caught up with the fairy, who was hiding behind the large wheel of their wagon. He could hear the conversation:

“—it’s very unlikely we’ll lose.”

“What because you’re a—” Angela lowered her voice, “a demon? You know that doesn’t mean you’re invulnerable.”

“I am well aware.” Solomon grimaced, remembering his defeat at the hands of that loathsome person so many years ago.

“Then you should know that a Witch who can control an entire population is no small thing. That kind of power is end-game boss stuff…”

“Pardon?”

Angela grabbed her head in annoyance and frustration. Dealing with people so thoroughly divorced from her reality sometimes made it difficult to get across certain ideas.

“I mean, the Witch must be crazy powerful. The kind of power that can destroy continents if it’s left unchecked.”

Solomon blinked. “Ah, similar to a Regnal then?”

“—a what?” Despite still being upset, Angela couldn’t help being curious. She still often found herself in situations where she’d missed something considered common knowledge.

“A being of extreme power, who can destroy countries and fundamentally alter the laws of nature.” Solomon replied dryly, as if quoting from a text.

She hesitated, slightly fearful at the answer. “So, er, do these regnal-types exist, or are they just stuff used to scare small children?”

Solomon chuckled. “I should hope they exist, otherwise I’m going to have an existential crisis.”

Angela held up her hands, shocked: “Woah, woah, are you saying YOU’RE a regnal-person-thingy?”

“Of course?” The disguised Demon looked as surprised as Angela did under her mask. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Huh, is it?”

“It is?”

They were both staring at each other, equally baffled into speechlessness.

Cale Aster, meanwhile, had gotten an eye full. Literally. He was rubbing his eyes like crazy, mumbling to himself.

Dignity had caught up to him, but seeing he was too late to stop the fairy, had decided to eavesdrop instead. (Whether this was his plan from the beginning, the world will never know.)

The fairy swooped down to Dignity and pulled rudely on his long, thin ear. “Hey Kobold!”

“Shhh! You want to get caught?” The Kobold hissed quietly and added: “Don’t pull on my ear either, that hurts.”

Cale Aster blinked and then shrugged, continuing in a whisper. “Sure, whatever. What is that Holy Knight?”

“Angela.”

“Yes, but what is Angela?”

Dignity glanced around nervously, unsure of the correct answer and finally said, “…human?”

The fairy smacked him, hard, on the head. Dignity covered his head with hands, eyes watering from pain.

“Do I look stupid to you?” The fairy got very close to the Kobold’s face, pupils turning into pinpoints, an unnaturally wide smile on his face. “Think carefully before you answer: What is Angela?”

The Kobold crouched down, his thin tail wrapping around his legs, shaking. Cale Aster wasn’t very tall by even fairy standards, but he was none-the-less very powerful and knew how to threaten someone when needed.

A hand shot out and grabbed the fair by the wings.

“And why might you be threatening Dignity here, hm?” Solomon narrowed his eyes and gave the fairy a rough shake.

“Gah!” Cale Aster kicked his little legs angrily at the indignity. “Lemme go! You can’t prove nuthin’!!!”

The fairy had made a fatal error and forgotten that Solomon was close by (his flighty mind was one of the many reasons he couldn’t beat the Witch). Demon’s were generally sensitive to power, but in this case Cale Aster had blasted so much power that anyone with any talent for it would have spotted him a mile away.

Dignity made a run for it and hid behind Angela.

“Cale, you weren’t threatening Dignity were you?” She patted Dignity on the head in reassurance, shocked that anyone but Solomon would make a real attempt to bully the Kobold.

The fairy went limp when he realized he wasn’t escaping the Demon. Cale Aster gave Solomon a dirty look, feeling bitter that Giant Folk always had the physical advantage, even if he was their equal in every other way.

“Fine.” He folded his arms, sulking. “I wasn’t gonna do anything to him. I was just trying to get him to tell the truth.”

“By threatening him?” Angela felt her starry eyed love of fairies start to turn brittle and break.

“What information were you trying to get out of him?” Solomon asked, completely unconcerned for the Kobold’s wellbeing.

“I just wanted to know what Angela—”

Solomon’s eye twitched.

“—actually is.”

Angela’s body tensed, furious that he’d threatened Dignity over something so stupid.

“That’s no excuse to—”

“She’s a Mewnin.” Solomon cut her off.

“A what?”

“She’s from another world.”

“SHE’S WHAT?”

Solomon let the fairy go, Cale Aster doing complex aerobatics in the sky, screaming obscenities into the sky in his excitment.

“Er, is that wise?” Angela whispered, saddling up next to him.

“Fairies are eccentric. They always have something that sets them off. It’s better to go along with it, unless it’s seriously dangerous.” He grimaced. “Why do you think I did what I did earlier? I’d never heard the end of him if I didn’t use full force right at the beginning.”

“…but won’t he tell everyone about me?”

“I don’t think so, but we’ll check to make sure. Cale Aster!” He called out, and the fairy immediately stopped what he was doing and zoomed toward them.

“Yes?!” He was practically hopping in the air, eager for more information.

“Are you going to tell anyone about Angie?”

The fairy stopped what he was doing and tilted his head.

“Is it a secret?”

“Would you tell everyone if it was?”

“Eh………” He eyed Solomon, and then gave Angela a long thoughtful look. “Oh, I suppose not. Except for Ben. Everyone else though… What could they offer me in exchange for such high quality information? Nothing, is what. I haven’t come across anything this interesting until meeting you, and before that it’d all been the same-old-same old for ages.”

“And you said you’d keep my secrets for free.” Solomon added pointedly.

“Pff, are you trying to say she’s your secret?”

The demon’s eye lids lowered and his eyes almost glittered. “Among other things.”

The fairy rocked back and forth at this, “oh-ing” as he swayed, and then suddenly straightened up. “It’s blurring the lines of the agreement a bit, but since I’m already partial… sure. I’d like to tell Ben though. He really can keep secrets.”

“Wait to decide on telling him until we’re out of the city.”

“Why?”

“She can take the mask off once we’re away from people.”

The fairy blinked and then grinned. “Oh, a surprise! I love surprises! Sure!”

Angela took a step forward. “Hey Cale?”

“Cale Aster.”

“What?”

“My name is Cale Aster, not Cale.”

“Oh. Sorry. Cale Aster?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t threaten my friends.”

“What friend of yours was I threatening???”

“Dignity. You threatened Dignity.”

“Oh? He’s just a Kobold though, who cares?”

Angela’s whole body vibrated with anger. She was so furious she didn’t know how to put it into words, so it just poured out of her body. Air was swirling around her feet, faster and faster, until everyone around her started to get pushed away and even the Wagon started to creak under the strain.

“Let me repeat myself: Don’t threaten my friends. Don’t threaten Dignity. Understand?”

The words vibrated out of her at an odd timber, and the fairy’s hair stood on end. He could feel the air around him constrict and tighten.

“Calm down woman! I won’t threaten any of your pals, even if they’re Kobolds! Holy ****!” He practically wheezed the last bit out, face purpling as the air squeeze out of him.

Like someone had snuffed out a candle, the wind stopped and the air loosened. The fairy dropped a few inches, gasping.

Arms folded, Angela nodded concisely. “As long as we understand each other.”

“Wow!” Dignity ran up to his “furry friend”, jumping slightly as he went. “How’d you do that?”

Angela’s shoulder dropped slightly and her head tilted. “I don’t know?”

Solomon was dusting himself off. “That’s probably the most impressive use of the Air Element combined with the Skill Intimidate I’ve ever seen.”

“S-skill?”

“Skills are actions modified with magic. Anyone can be angry, but if your anger produces or is augmented by magic, that’s a kind of skill. There are hundreds of thousands of skills. Some are unique, some aren’t. Intimidate is pretty common, but that was an stronger version of it.”

“Oh… so there are skills here too? And they’re basically the same as in the ga—my world. Wow! That means I learned a new skill! Amazing, I didn’t know I could do that!”

Cale Aster spoke up, giving a weak chuckle, “****, glad to have helped.”

She eyed the fairy, still distrustful. “Yeah well, how about helping without making me furious?”

“Will do.” The fairy gave a shaky thumbs up. He now perfectly understood why Dignity was so obscenely smart for his species: he was siphoning power from a Regnal. The lucky *******! Why Angela had contracted to a Kobold and put all that power into making said Kobold smart, Cale Aster had no idea. That went against all common sense.

What he did know was fascinating times were ahead. Three Regnals bumping into each other by chance? Ha, not likely! This just reeked of meddlesome gods. And where gods meddled, chaos ensued. So of course he had every intention of being there for that, deal with the devil or no.