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It's winter, and all is well with the tribe. Their new magic, an ability to make portals from one place to another, which was found by one of their members during the early-summer trip to meet with the other tribes in the area, let them both build up a decadent food stockpile and move to a much deeper part of the cave system without the worry of being unable to find their way back out. No-one has had to go hungry, and even the fiercest ice storm doesn't reach them; they are as content as kobolds can be.
Well, aside from their new mage, that is. She's bored, and curious. Making portals to known places is straightforward enough, with the magic she found, but that's far from the limit of what it can do... so one day, she slips away, portals off to a different cave system - one can't be too careful, after all - and experiments.
Temperature roughly the same... gravity roughly the same... air the same, not into stone or underwater or in a volcano or on top of a mountain... but, instead of patterning it after a place she knows, what happens if she only specifies those things, and lets the innate patterns of the spot she's casting on do the rest? Particularly this one part, which seems to specify the world...
She finishes the spell, and hesitates for just a moment before activating it.
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lurkingkobold
calescent
And Kiri puts them near one of the stone arches; it was built not too far away from her Chialto house and it's a short walk. It is set up so that carriages can drive off the main street and through it. There are blank wooden boards up into which Kiri intends to singe explanations. "Here's the first one - I have a map of how I want them hooked up -" Look, a map of how she wants them hooked up, how convenient.
lurkingkobold
She examines the arch, and then they can go see the one that's going to lead to it. (She puts the egg down to examine the arch, and it peeps when she picks it back up. Aww.)
calescent
Awww!
Kiri puts them at the next arch. She wants them set up to loop, so that someone who wants to go from any arch to any other arch will just have to circle around to the front of an arch they just emerged out the back of until they get where they're going.
Kiri puts them at the next arch. She wants them set up to loop, so that someone who wants to go from any arch to any other arch will just have to circle around to the front of an arch they just emerged out the back of until they get where they're going.
lurkingkobold
Sensible and straightforward. They can proceed around the loop at a pretty good pace, though they're a little slowed down by the kobold stopping to coo at the egg when it starts getting too excited. "Hatch soon," she reports, after one of these sessions, "maybe tomorrow, maybe next day."
lurkingkobold
...that would be a thing, wouldn't it. Well, the egg can stay here for a minute while Kiri gets a hug.
calescent
Better.
Anyway, so that's the portal loop set up. Kiri strolls through the entire loop, burning letters into the signs with destination and price information.
Anyway, so that's the portal loop set up. Kiri strolls through the entire loop, burning letters into the signs with destination and price information.
lurkingkobold
The kobold hangs out in an out-of-the-way spot near the Chialto portal while Kiri does that.
calescent
And then she is back. One of her employees is talking to a person passing by in a carriage, explaining the contents of the sign. Kiri tells the employee that she'll be back for another circuit after dinnertime to clarify any particularly frequently asked questions on the signage and adjust the price if the volume is higher or lower than she'd like. Then she extends her hand to the kobold.
calescent
Magic practice! There's a paper that apparently hasn't started acting up yet sitting on the kitchen table, glowing when Kiri gets near it.
lurkingkobold
Good!
The kobold suspects it's still early to be expecting any, but has Kiri had any good spells yet?
The kobold suspects it's still early to be expecting any, but has Kiri had any good spells yet?
lurkingkobold
Nod.
It could be a while, still - there's a fair amount of variance in how long it takes people to start casting good spells, and she's never paid enough attention to notice what might affect that. As far as she knows, everyone who keeps at it gets it eventually, though - the longest she's seen it take for someone to get their twenty-five was that one person who didn't have a mage in their tribe and was too nervous about it to be willing to cast unsupervised, who took two summers to learn from another tribe's mage rather than practicing on their own; usually it takes just the one summer, and the others all practiced on their own after the tribes split back up and were proper mages by the next time she saw them.
It could be a while, still - there's a fair amount of variance in how long it takes people to start casting good spells, and she's never paid enough attention to notice what might affect that. As far as she knows, everyone who keeps at it gets it eventually, though - the longest she's seen it take for someone to get their twenty-five was that one person who didn't have a mage in their tribe and was too nervous about it to be willing to cast unsupervised, who took two summers to learn from another tribe's mage rather than practicing on their own; usually it takes just the one summer, and the others all practiced on their own after the tribes split back up and were proper mages by the next time she saw them.
calescent
"Well, I'm practicing a lot. I'm not experimenting very much yet, but I'm practicing. Experimenting is trying new things to see what happens."
lurkingkobold
Ah.
Experimenting is probably not important - it could help Kiri learn faster, maybe, but plenty of the mages back home don't do anything besides the usual set of spells. (Usually it's the cautious, nervous types who go in for magic among kobolds - the kind of defense-at-a-distance that kobolds use magic for suits that personality type better than most; Koso is definitely a kosoen of a mage. Some of the usual sort do get a little creative, trying to eke a little more defense out of the knowledge available, but most of them are as cautious about trying new magic as they are about everything else.)
Experimenting is probably not important - it could help Kiri learn faster, maybe, but plenty of the mages back home don't do anything besides the usual set of spells. (Usually it's the cautious, nervous types who go in for magic among kobolds - the kind of defense-at-a-distance that kobolds use magic for suits that personality type better than most; Koso is definitely a kosoen of a mage. Some of the usual sort do get a little creative, trying to eke a little more defense out of the knowledge available, but most of them are as cautious about trying new magic as they are about everything else.)
calescent
"I definitely plan to experiment later, when I am sure that a runaway spell won't kill me."
lurkingkobold
The kobold is not surprised, and looks forward to seeing what Kiri comes up with.
lurkingkobold
Yup!
Hmmm.
There were other things she wanted to do on this trip, but she'd like to settle in a little first if she's going to be here for a while. Is there anything else interesting going on today?
Hmmm.
There were other things she wanted to do on this trip, but she'd like to settle in a little first if she's going to be here for a while. Is there anything else interesting going on today?
lurkingkobold
Hmm.
Well, okay. One of the things the kobold had to decide, before she got the egg, was whether to trust Kiri with knowing about their tribe, since the little one will almost certainly slip up on that eventually. Her conclusion was yes, obviously - she's still a little flinchy about the idea, and won't be sharing anything too sensitive herself, but she believes that Kiri wouldn't misuse that information even if there wasn't the 'it will result in a friend getting exiled' reason not to. Point being, if Kiri has any questions, she's willing to answer them.
Well, okay. One of the things the kobold had to decide, before she got the egg, was whether to trust Kiri with knowing about their tribe, since the little one will almost certainly slip up on that eventually. Her conclusion was yes, obviously - she's still a little flinchy about the idea, and won't be sharing anything too sensitive herself, but she believes that Kiri wouldn't misuse that information even if there wasn't the 'it will result in a friend getting exiled' reason not to. Point being, if Kiri has any questions, she's willing to answer them.