The Scales of War

Karmak was conflicted.

That wasn’t a new feeling for the Kobold, given that just a few fleeting months ago she had given up everything to join a monastery, and a few months before that she was picking mushrooms in a cave and running from giant spiders. Life had changed.

Ever since these damned scales came through, her life had been a mess of competing thoughts and instincts; A desire to protect against and combat the forces of darkness, and a desire for shameless self preservation. Selflessness and greed, civilization and barbarism. So being conflicted was by no means new for the former neophyte, but it was never something she liked putting up with.

The new sword was talking to her. She knew it was. It liked to whisper things to her when she wasn’t paying attention and remain stubbornly silent when she was trying to coax it out. It’d tell her things about “heritage” and “birthright”; words meaningless to a species hardwired to survive by begging and stealing from their betters. She grunted, the dark metal blade embedding itself in the neck of the practice dummy she’d been “sparring” with. (One that Akkonaa had made specially for her. Namely by cutting it in half and mounting it on an old coat rack.)

She’d found a good home for herself here, despite overwhelming odds. The Rilovo works was a frankly palatial estate, and it wouldn’t be hard for her to find a little corner of it for herself. Part of her was happy to simply settle, to be grateful for what she had and stay away from needless risk. She almost had a family here. The other was a growing restlessness, the fiery bite of indignation that grew only more unbearable the longer she stayed behind and benefitted from the sacrifice of others.

She hacked thrice more at the dummy, carving deep gouges in soft wood with an accompanying “thwack”. A dragon’s blood was in her veins, was it not? Kobolds may be far from the greatest of the Waybringer’s scions, but it was still there, and she would be damned thrice before she wasted it like so many others of her misbegotten kind. Sra’s hatching day celebration had been a moment of great consideration for her.

It became immediately apparent that something was afoot. She had presented the assembled family the results of her hard work in the previous few days, a set of matching silver armlets (including a kind of anklet bracelet thing for Pirr he could use in varying capacities as he grew older). The Ghostlands were not known to her at the time, but now she could not stop thinking of it. The knowledge of the undead hordes within sent shivers down her spine. She knew that it was her duty to prevent such creatures from escaping their seemingly self imposed prison. Though she did not understand the specifics, she knew what her duty entailed.

With a considerable heave of effort, she pried the sword from its lignified prison, and sighed. It was almost time for sleep. She’d been training as hard as she dared, but she also had her normal obligations from work to look after.

She had assembled a few hundred coins for the effort. A few frantic days of forging and scraping and sharpening. Nothing compared to the wealth that Sra and Akkonaa had devoted, but she tried not to let that bother her. The blisters on her hands spoke of her hard work. She was doing all that she could, and that was the important part.

She lay down on the cot of folded linen, eyelids heavy from exertion. She would need to rest before Sra left tomorrow.

The night brought dreams of long distant conflict, great wyrms battling against massed hordes of the dead. She was sure this sword was speaking to her in her dreams. She really needed to invest in some psychic earplugs.

She awoke with a start, the nearly midday sun streaming in through the window and blinding her. How could she have overslept on a day like today! Quickly leaping out of bed and scrambling to assemble her things, she tossed them all in her travelling pack. She only had a few things to pack, being of few possessions, but the weight of responsibility was a lot harder to carry.

Running through the halls of the works, she was immediately relieved to see that she’d been delayed by her family wishing her farewell. Skidding to a halt just outside of the door, she panted in effort.

“I am going too.”