"I mean, I don't really trust them to not decide that there's probably more where that came from and I look squishy if they can get a few silver out of me, if I were alone, so I'd probably just have it out rather than show them where my pockets are, but I'm not alone, and you can do your escalating light thing, we can do the more elaborate thing and take back whatever they got if they decide to go that route."

"That sounds very reasonable. And it's important not to fall for a second ambush or a pincer attack if they pretend to let us through."

"Yup, though that's a little more tactically advanced than I'd expect by default. Times like these it'd be useful to have a familiar to scout but I haven't, alas."

"What's a familiar?"

"A magically bonded animal."

"An animal that can scout does sound very convenient! We should proceed, with caution."

"Yup."

On they go.

The kobolds are not very tactically sophisticated; they catch a glimpse of one turning literal tail and skittering off down a side tunnel too small for them, a few minutes later.

Tanya debates whether to block the tunnel with an explosive shot. Normally she wouldn't hesitate, but she doesn't know when she'll get more bullets and it might take a few to do the job without endangering them. Also, they haven't been attacked yet and collapsing someone else's tunnel with possible collateral damage is a hostile act. Maybe she can heat the rock in it red-hot... no, it would take too long and could cause harmful outgassing.

She'll settle for watching the path behind them very carefully (with a mirror, of course she won't take her eyes off the path ahead).

"Just passing through," Belmarniss calls mildly after the kobold. No response.

There are a few more of the little side tunnels but they don't have anybody in them when they check; the next time they see a kobold, it's standing right in their path. Just one with a toothy grin of bravado.

"Halt!" it exclaims like it's always wanted to exclaim "halt" at somebody.

Are they armed? Threatening with a deadly weapon?

The kobold has a spear but is not, at this moment, pointing it at them.

"Like I told your pal, we're just passing through," says Belmarniss.

"What's in it for me?" chirps the kobold.

Tanya will let Belmarniss take the lead on negotiations, as agreed. She keeps her attention away from the fascinating alien talking humanoid(?) lizard(??) and on everything else.

Looks pretty lizardy, yeah, maybe crocodilian, and about halfling-sized.

"Well, let's see," says Belmarniss. "I can tell you about where we've passed through, in case you want to know what we met and what we took down and what got away."

"Pfffft," says the kobold.

Belmarniss will let her know when it's time for Tanya make threats. ...admittedly she has no idea if Belmarniss is any good at this, but Tanya isn't exactly experienced at threatening or bluffing a spear-wielding sapient crocodile either! 

"Well, if you won't settle for that you might want to see my friend's neat trick where it gets so bright it's hot. I don't like this trick, personally, because of the bright part, so I'd sooner just walk on by, but maybe you'll think it's fascinating."

"Doesn't sound like a 'what's in it for me'."

Is that her cue? Tanya focuses on the kobold. "Let us pass, or be blinded and then let us pass," she says flatly.

Tanya never learned how to physically menace people, because she never before in her life encountered someone she could physically menace, but she flies higher in case that does something. Most of her attention remains on everything else she can see through her array of mirrors; a single kobold with a spear couldn't extort Belmarniss even without her, so there must be an ambush of some kind.

"Penumbra," adds Belmarniss.

The mirrors show some kobolds swarming out of the side tunnels behind them.

Tanya speeds up and positions herself between Belmarniss and the larger number of kobolds behind them.

Any kobolds who are holding ranged weapons have their arms severely burned; their clothes may catch fire. When she's done with that (i.e. in a second or two, although not all of the kobolds are out of the tunnels yet) - assuming they don't have ridiculous toughness or fire immunity or something and react as expected instead of shooting Belmarniss anyway - she surrounds herself and Belmarniss with opaque mirrors (she can't do half-transparent), and lights up an illusion of the sun outside. 

Illusions aren't meant to be used offensively, but if you're putting one between someone and the sun then you need to make it as bright as the sun it's obscuring, so it's as bright as the sun on a clear day; you can't look at it directly, and you really shouldn't look at it directly with dark-adjusted eyes. In addition to that, she'll send wide-angle heat everywhere there were targets, adjusted to be painful but not immediately debilitating for the nearest kobolds in each direction (this is not an exact science). The heat is an optical ('sniping') spell, not an illusion, so it comes in rapid bursts and doesn't match the feeling of a real fire (or sun), but the targets probably don't care.

(The defensive mirrors are probably unnecessary, because the sun-illusions are facing outwards and the reflections from stone shouldn't be blindingly bright, but a tactic the enemy can defeat with a mirror is a bad tactic.)

After two seconds of this she takes it all down; not seeing what the enemy is doing is risky. She can detect any magic they use and snip that in the bud, but she can't let them have a chance to somehow target Belmarniss with arrows or thrown spears. What are the kobolds doing? Hopefully they'll be blinded for a few seconds, giving Tanya (and Belmarniss) time to react or to further threaten them into retreating, but if any of them are still attacking she will swiftly teach them that that was the low setting.

Kobolds don't go in for a ton of clothes and what they've got is mostly hide. They're yelping, but they seem to subscribe to the "why would you not shoot just because you've been set on fire" school of thought - they are, though, mostly aiming at Tanya, and some of them are distracted by rolling on the ground to be less on fire. A couple of them maybe are retreating, at least for now, though. Belmarniss hits the spear-kobold who greeted them with an Admonishing Ray and they go down.

Anyone who's still shooting (or trying to shoot) is immediately shot dead. Tanya will not tolerate attempts to use lethal force, for both safety and game-theoretical reasons, and these kobolds used up their second chance. Extra toughness or not, arrows are potentially lethal force and indicate a willingness to kill.

When she's killed a couple the retreat option picks up more support; the last retreater yells something in a language Tanya doesn't have shared after the departing others, maybe angry at them for breaking, but the end result is the same.

Once it's quiet, Belmarniss'll sigh and go through the downed kobolds' limited possessions, but she doesn't find anything good besides one shiny rock that she says she's not qualified to appraise.

Killing people for shiny rocks, bleh. 

"What a stupid, pointless, unnecessary waste." Tanya will break any weapons that remain on the battlefield, as she said she would. Presumably the other kobolds will come back to bury these ones; Tanya has no idea what's appropriate or possible in a cave.

"I hope a repeat performance won't be required, but some of them or their friends might be out for vengeance, so we should keep being careful." ...some of them might be in hearing range in one of the side-tunnels, so Tanya yells as loud as she can. "LET US PASS. APPROACHING KOBOLDS WILL BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE AND KILLED." 

In a more normal tone of voice she adds, "we should also do an after-action review, but better not to do it where they might overhear."

"...please do not do that, the kobolds weren't being especially quiet so it's probably fine but there are monsters that are attracted to noise."

That's the kind of intelligence it would be very useful to hear ahead of time!

"Do you mean people or beasts? Would the latter be after food and prefer the dead kobolds here? Either way, we should move on." Carefully.