>>5307452The sense of wholeness which accompanies reptilian command is broken—or, at least, you are distracted from enjoying it—when the sound of slow movement against rough stone breaks your reverie. You send a pair of kobold hunters—Ivno and Ohle—ahead to investigate. They come back with worried expressions and auras.
“Fire-lizards,” one says.
“Must have come up from deep place, when the kobolds left,” says the other.
You’re… Not yet sure which is which. Both are male, scrawny, and their red-brown scales are close enough in hue (and their builds and voice also similar enough) to mark them as siblings of the same egg-clutch. You’re told that they are not, however.
“Fire-lizards?” you ask, and look to the knowledgeable members of the Master Race accompanying you: the Translator and Cartographer.
“I believe this term refers to what we know better as THERMAL lizards,” the Translator surmises. “They are but animals, albeit noble ones, who live solitarily or in small clusters, absorbing heat from the deep earth or the sun—whatever is closest—and then channeling it to empower themselves.”
“I could lead us past them,” the Cartographer suggests. “Cross-referencing the maps we’ve made thus far, and Hapo’s recollections, I THINK I have found some correlations with centuries-old expeditionary maps of our own people’s journeys into these mountains. There is an old hall which cold be dug out, by force of kobold-power or your new <Earth Tremor> spell, and thus avoid the encounter altogether.”
“Avoiding a battle is the wise course of action,” the Translator agrees.
Is that what a DRAGON would do, though? Given your recent meditations, you can’t help but wonder about that… And especially with all these kobolds’ eyes on you, including that hollow, bitter gaze of Hapo.
What do you do?
>Take the intellectuals’ advice and avoid combat by tunneling around>Lead a charge into the fire-lizards’ lair—you are now TWICE as resistant to fire as you already were, and shielding your forces as they return a ranged volley will be nothing to you>Send your kobolds to battle the monsters, while you and the more valuable party members provide support and advance past them>Use Reptilian Empathy in an effort to commune with these simple creatures peaceably>Write-in 