Controlling my instinct to run away from the sex-starved stoned gnos, I stood my ground.
“What do you want Vorrick?” I asked.
“Just welco you to heaven,” the crazed veteran said. His eyes swam everywhere on . “Tell , why in Wyxnos’ infinite wisdom these idiots let a woman ride on the cars?”
I crossed my arms and stared at him. He couldn’t keep eye contact. His pupils were dilated and his eyes bloodshot. “Things changed back ho, Vorrick. What are you doing here, living among the kobolds? And what nonsense about heaven is this?”
He opened his arms and cackled, “Listen, children! Listen to us! We were wrong! By Wyxnos’ shadow, we were wrong! The kobolds are not our enemies! They are our friends! Follow , you’ll see!”
The newcors and I were boxed by the other gnos and the pack moved up the hill toward the last set of palisades. This last section seed to be their Royal palace as ard kobold guards stood next to the gates. But they opened the gate to us and we went through unchallenged.
The hilltop was surrounded by a ring of rocks. On the very top, a tall stone house and by the scent trail, it was the kobold [Queen]’s palace. We stopped before the line.
“From this on,” Vorrick explained, “You’ll be subject to Wyxnos burning punishnt. This is to atone for our sins before we beca enlightened and arrived here. We are the salvation of our people, the future of gnokind. You may choose to stay beyond these rocks and endure the punishnt until you die, or go back down there and live your life in service to repay for your cris. The choice is yours.”
He walked past the ring and started to squirm in pain. Other gnos among the veterans entered and scread in pain, returning back down where we watched the scene unfold. I knew what that was. The ring of stones marked the boundary between this shit-hole and a magic zone.
I crossed and confird my expectations. I’d acclimate fully in an hour and a half but the magic levels here were higher than in the outside world. Sothing told the magic was coming from below but aside from my feet hurting more than my head, it was only a hunch.
This hilltop was out of the dead magic zone even though for geotrical reasons it should be. I jumped up, clearing the roof of the stone building. I saw it had a garden in the middle with vibrant green trees and statues, but the magical zone extended as far as I could leap up. I raised a hypothesis that this anti-magic zone might be donut-shaped but the hole in the donut was too small if it was just this building. Too conspicuous too.
Other gnos entered, inspired by my antics, and imdiately fell on the ground, screaming as their flesh bubbled and burned. Vorrick expected it and crouched next to them.
“Do you want to repent or return to safety! Call for Wyxnos’ mighty na if you do!”
The gnos gurgled and shrieked. This crazy guy was a total asshole. Now I understood how normal gnos reacted to mana infusion (by literally having their tissues boiled by mana) and how so could survive. Those that had Perks saved for a “rainy day” bought {Arcane Magic Resistance}, the others died. Furious, I dropkicked Vorrick away and rolled the gnos back across the line. My deal with the kobolds didn’t include gnomish traitors.
“You crazy asshole!” I shouted at him. “Why do you want them dead!”
Vorrick rubbed his shoulder where my foot struck him, “You do not understand, stupid woman!” He roared. “Wyxnos hates us! Wyxnos hates us for our sins of stealing his treasures! The carcasses, the bodies, the items we secreted away in our caves, we were STEALING FROM OUR LORD!”
Oh, boy, I wanted so badly to do a murder on him. “Wyxnos does not care! This place should not exist! He didn’t even know the Scavenger Gnos were alive! And when I confronted him, he ran away, the coward! What’re a few bodies when he’s the one stealing them by the thousands! And he still got all the feces he ever wanted, maybe that’s why his head is so full of shit!”
“BLASPHEMY!”
Vorrick’s guttural yell was followed by a frenzied feral fecal gno rushing at . The flaps of his loincloth rose as he jumped at , giving a pri view of his tiny wiener. Scavenger gnos had short dicks, maybe part of the mutation that gave them the drug-oozing glands. Even when compared with total body size in proportion to a human, they were shorter than average. It only made even more disgusted.
I grabbed Vorrick’s arm and used {一教 (Ikkyo)} to pin him down laying flat on his stomach, holding his arm up in one of my hands. Then I {Backstabbed} his back with my hell as I kicked his spine until it broke. The other gnos were either horrified if they were newcors who didn’t jump in the magic zone, or cheering if they were on drugs.
“Wieners” don’t Use Drugs, said William S. Sessions, Director, FBI. I rember it well from the arcade. I totally support that.
For killing level 36 Vorrick, you earned 98,877 Exp (Base 39,551 x10 Fast Learner x0.5 Rank x0.5 Class Rarity) < -- This tiny Exp award was bigger than his... nevermind.
The commotion caused so kobold guards to co out of the “palace”.
“What is happening here? Why are you killing your own kin?” They asked, confused and disgusted by my act. I believed these kobolds ford tight family bonds.
“Wyxnos be praised!” Another drug-addled gno shouted. “Vorrick is redeed!”
The rest of the old prisoners started to cheer as if the dead guy won the lottery. Utter madness. But I could use that.
“Do you want to be redeed too? Please co over here,” I invited the stoned gnos.
“No! We still have too much to repent!” They lied. Bunch of addled hypocrites.
“Answer us!” The no-nonsense kobold Royal guard ignored the gnos and brandished their spears at . “What did you do with the prisoner?”
This book's true ho is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
So they were still prisoners.
“I was helping this guy go to Wyxnos!” I lied as I bead a winning smile at the kobolds. The damn little lizards pretending to be dragon heirs didn’t care or notice. I bla facial blindness.
Contested Charisma test failed.
I bla the System too.
The kobolds, however, blad . They pointed their spears at , again. “Co with us and don’t have any stupid ideas. You’ll explain it to the [Queen].”
“Sorry, us gnos only have stupid ideas, it seems,” I sneered with my back to the crowd in the dead magic zone.
I raised my hands and walked, leaving the gnos to their own devices. The guys that burned in the magic zone took little actual damage but I knew the pain was unbearable without a high resistance. They would have the equivalent of a second-degree burn all over their bodies. They’d need a lot of water and rest to recover but their lives weren’t endangered.
What was really endangered was our livelihoods back in the caves. If the vehicle returned to the cave garage like a steampunk batmobile made of trash, we were all considered dead. Poor Grenniana would think I died. But the gnos didn’t care much for the dead. It was just another aspect of life, with them being born and die by the dozens every day.
The sandstone “palace” wasn’t built for gnos or kobolds. It was built for normal people, which in our tiny-sized point of view, ant giants. The doorfras were tall and wide, the rooms too large. Now that I think of it, normal people would have a hard ti fitting inside so of the gno caves. The architecture resembled a mix of Middle-Eastern and Asia Minor influences, with brutalist rooms almost perfectly square, pointed doorfras, and columns embedded in the walls.
I was curious about the statuary garden in the middle but I only glanced at it. The statues seed to be human-sized. The guards led to the throne room, where no throne existed. Instead, it was covered in lavish and well-preserved furs and illuminated by magical lights.
Magical.
Lights.
Fuck it.
The [Queen] sat on a pile of furs wearing silk robes that would put my best weaver priests to sha. Even to , it wouldn’t be a trivial task to weave such fine embroidery.
“Welco, prisoner,” she said with a pleasant hissing voice. “I sense great power in you. How could a gno achieve your titles and level, is a mystery, yes?”
I think she ant my {Appraise} results.
“I traveled around a lot for a long ti. And here I’m restricted, I can't use my full powers.”
“You promised magic crotch juice, strange gno. I want it!” She licked herself again.
Oh, boy. Here we go. It was payday ti. I didn’t want to expose myself and I believe I didn’t have what she wanted. But…
“Wait. Why do you think I am a strange gno?”
The kobold [Queen] stood from her furs and walked around . She sniffed , going as far as to lick the poop dust from my forearm (I refrained from using my pseudopods to clean poop. I was waiting for a shower). After walking two full circles around , she stood right in front of .
“You look and sll strange. The other gnos don’t have bulges in their chest and your hips are too wide.”
I laughed, “Oh, that’s because I’m a female. The other gnos are all males,” I stated pointing with my thumb behind .
She widened her eyes. Standing in front of , she ca forward to lick . I flinched. “Do you lay eggs?” She inquired. I denied. “You lie! All females lay eggs!” She shouted and pointed at her furs.
I saw so stained round white-ish pebbles in the furs behind where she sat. It was a nest. I held my breath because I found the little dino eggs so cute.
“Do you lay eggs?” She repeated, annoyed.
“Your eggs seem very healthy,” I praised.
I think she did the kobold equivalent of blushing. “I need magical gno juice. It makes eggs even healthier. Give it to now! You're a special gno, you 'gives' better juice!”
We went in circles. “I don’t think I have it. I am a female.”
The [Queen]’s patience ended. “Liar! Female gnos never leave the caves, they stay inside nurturing eggs! Never in two hundred years of my life, I’ve seen a female gno! They are all bloated, you aren’t bloated, you don’t lay eggs, you are not female!”
The King of all misunderstandings. These stupid junkie gnos half-assed their explanation of their society and how it backfired on .
“Female gnos don’t lay eggs… Okay. Here’s the thing. The egg grows inside you, then you lay it, the shell hardens, right?” She nodded. “Well, our gno eggs don’t ever harden, so if we lay them earlier, they just pop and the baby dies. So the female gnos nurture their eggs inside them and lay the baby when it's finished. that’s why they get bloated because they carry their eggs inside them. I’m not bloated because I cannot lay eggs. I’m defective,” I lied.
The queen didn’t bite the bait. Completely pissed, she shouted, “Liar! Guards!”
I could’ve gone muderhobo on them now. I didn’t for a few good reasons. One, I wanted a raptor for myself. Two, I wanted to learn the mysteries of the kobolds and understand the ss they had going on here. The more I knew, the more I could squeeze out of Wyxnos later for this literal shit show. Three, I felt bad for the kobold babies inside the eggs. I didn’t know if they would hatch with only ambient heat and the kobolds weren’t reptiles. They had heat control like dinosaurs and dragons. So I let the guards seize but I tested if I could break free. It would be easy so I downplayed my true Strength.
The Queen ripped my pants off, leaving naked between waist and ankles. I had my good shoes back. She lowered herself next to my crotch and split my pubic hair with a clawed finger.
“Is this a combat wound?” She asked with a hint of pity. “Was your magic wand cut off by your enemies?”
I used {Titan Skin} to blush violently. Lowering my head, I mumbled, “You found out my sha.” Not a lie. “Sha” is a synonym for whatever she was touching.
She stood up. “You poor thing!”
“Gnos that don’t have the ‘magic wand’ usually develop these chest bulges if they don’t have it by the ti they grow up,” I explained.
“They did that to a child!?!” The [Queen] was outraged. “Release her. And get her a loincloth.”
I let her have keep misunderstanding. If she didn't want to belive I was a female gno, I wouldn't change her mind.
Ten minutes later, I was wearing the sa loincloths as the other prisoner gnos, sitting next to the [Queen]’s nest telling her tales of my adventures around the dead magic zone. Once she finished listening in silence for a long tirade, she spoke.
“This place, this desert, is very important to the Gods. Lost stuff cos here and is converted into energy to keep the world moving. Without this place, the world would be in great jeopardy! It is our sacred task to keep intruders from stealing God’s gifts for the world. You gnos are the worst offenders. You steal things into your caves and never take them out back to the desert. Here in Pumpees, we kobolds give back to the sands all we take. Our dead, our raptors, even our sacred poop the desert likes so much.”
Pumpees was the na of the kobold settlent.
I had to hold back my laughter when she called poop sacred. But she had a point, why the fuck the gnos didn’t dump stuff in the sand? They clogged a lot of tunnels with refuse. Every ti I got another piece of the puzzle, things got even stupider.
Stupider. Is that a word?
“You said sacred task. Who gave it to you?”
She smiled. “Our God! Follow . You earned the right to see God in the garden.”
Which God? One of the minor ones in the Pantheon? Who was Wyxnos covering for? Was this a feud or a ga between two major gods? I was curious, formulating a thousand theories as we went to the inner garden.
The vegetation was lush and small channels carried water everywhere. Clear, crystalline water, my pseudopods told . Flowers, fronds, ferns, bushes, trees. It was hard to see in this almost jungle-like environnt. The magical density in here was higher, almost like a natural {Mana Wellspring}. The damage I took was higher too, but still manageable. We pushed through a few branches and bushes before we reached the statues in the middle. Most of them were broken except for one.
“This is our God! He gave us our sacred task!” The [Queen] proudly said.
It was a statue of a tall and stern man, standing with his back straight, wearing glasses, and dressed in an impeccable Armani suit.
I lost it. “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...”
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