>>5302047Looking down into the fenced-off corral the kobolds have made for it, you cannot understand how these little weaklings ever managed to entrap such a thing. It is at least twenty feet long, from tip of beak to fork of tail. It has a crown-like waddle six powerful limbs, and a thick trunk. It is not chained, no restrained in any way—only the depth of the pit and the flimsy fence keep it contained.. And yet, it makes no move to leave the enclosure, nor does it struggle across the blindfold affixed to its face.
“How did they manage such a thing?” The South-Merchant asks aloud.
“Your leader knows,” a high-pitched voice relies, with the distinct accent of these kobolds.
You look up, and see a tall, lean figure, bundled in a cloak and standing atop a rock which just out precipitously over the basilisk pit—easily as tall as a Steeltalon, if somewhat shorter than you, and Definitely taller than any kobold you have ever seen. A face not unlike that of the other kobolds looks down at you with a sickening superiority. It is crowned by two curled horns, like those of a ram. And there's something else: a pressure, in your mind and soul, a friction against your own powerful will. A Fearsome Presence.
>>5270654“The Dragonwrought, I presume?” you address the cloaked figure.
“And they call you… DragonBORN, yes?” the Dragonwrought responds in kind. “Why you here, in my place?”
“To assert order, in the name of the Dark Gods and the Serpent Priesthood.”
The five or six other kobolds here, most of them chopping meet or moving basilisk dung, watch the exchange nervously. Your own forces are tense. You sense a cold-blooded hostility in your opposite number.
“We not heard from any Serpent Priesthood in hundred years, two hundred,” the kobold leader spits. “Not heard from Dark Gods, either. What they want with us now?”
“They do not appreciate your invasion of ruins which are not yours to excavate,” you say, “nor the attention to bring by attacking humans so aggressively.”
The Dragonwrought laughs.
“When THEY do something about humans coming closer-and-closer to our place, they tell us how to do things,” he says. “Even then, things in OUR mountains are OURS. If they want, should have stayed, when Big Red died. Not run-and-hide, STAY. Kobolds did.”
What do you do?
>Offer to bring these kobolds back into the fold, if they assume a proper posture of subservience>Apologize for the lack of communication between your races, but assure them that kobolds are a valued part of the coming Age of Scales>Ask to converse in private with this Hako, dragon-to-dragon, to find some common ground>Challenge the Dragonwrought to combat for the disrespect he is showing you and the Master Race>Order an attack—kill the leader now, and then terrify his servants into compliance with the righteous order of the Serpent Priesthood>Write-in 