Yeah.

I would suggest I hang around rescuing more kobolds so there can be a little kobold community here, but considering how hard it is on all of them to be rescued like that...

She snorts. Yeah, no. We got really lucky with this one.

What should I do, if it happens again?

It depends on what your options are. If you can get them free without casting on them, definitely that, but if you can't - bringing them here and letting us sort it out isn't always going to end well, but it gives them the most choices.

Okay.

You did the right thing, as far as there was a right thing. It's a hard situation.

Just glad it didn't mess up everything with the elves.

Yeah. That one's kind of a separate question; I don't know why they were there exactly, but I'm sure they knew the risk they were taking, I don't think it would've been wrong exactly to stay out of it. Or give them a quick death if you thought the elves were going to be especially awful to them; I couldn't, but. Sigh.

I could, yeah.

Yeah. Teleportation's good for that, if you find yourself needing to.

No way for them to explain what they were up to?

Not yet. They're learning Quenya, but they don't have the vocabulary for it, once we can ask you can read their thoughts about it.

Okay. Maybe we can stop future ones from even trying it.

I really doubt it.

Because there's no way to communicate?

And because of how much of the culture it touches.

I don't think they're right. I just don't think they're going to change.

You said they don't do it to tribemates because they know it's wrong.

...kobolds don't do personal property, everything belongs to the tribe. And hiding things so tribemates can show off by getting them back is totally something that happens, it's just not theft when it does.

Ah, okay.

Mmhmm. There are some differences, when there's other kinds of people involved, but mostly it's the same kinds of things they do to each other, just... more, basically. It's about showing off, showing that you have valuable skills - it really bugged a lot of people in my old tribe that I wouldn't, even, I don't think it's very likely that Tirinquo was in a situation like that and gave in to the pressure but it's at least possible.

They'd pressure each other to go the Elf city?

Not often? For most people it's a way of getting higher regard in the tribe; in my case I already was a Speaker, it just bugged people to have someone in that kind of position who hadn't proven themselves. If I hadn't learned to talk - well, if I hadn't learned to talk I'd've ended up leading the tribe, but someone who was just content to be a crafter or gatherer or something wouldn't run into that much if at all, if they went it'd be by choice almost for sure.