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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3369292" data-attributes="member: 11760">Ducking beneath a stray root as he is led into the kobold's makeshift hidey-hole, Ebuferpaly Whitethatch Malpractice Potentloins glances around the damp, gloomy depression, and realizes this is likely where he is going to die.Surprisingly, the realization fills him not with fear, but bitter regret. He'll never get to see his sister, Ellyjojobell, grow up into the righteous paladin she longs to become. He hates the thought of High Priest Barennackle finding out his most promising apprentice allowed himself to be captured by 'kobold filth,' as he'd call them. The thought of the pain and grief his death will cause his mother makes Bufer's heart ache deeply.Mostly, though, it's the failure of his mission that puts the taste of ashes in Bufer's mouth. Although he's never shared this with anyone, not even Elly or Master Barennackle, Bufer has long wished and prayed for an opportunity like this, to be this close to one of the kobolds of Green Mountain, to talk to them, listen to them. Learn from them, and hopefully, have them learn from him, to make the first tenuous steps towards understanding and, maybe someday, peace.And now, here he was, closer to a kobold than any gnome he'd known had ever been, and he was blowing it! Making stupid jokes and "clever" remarks, the way he always did when he was frightened or nervous. All of his carefully planned, exhaustively-rehearsed-to-the-mirror speeches had abandoned him. Much to his disappointment, instinctual smart-ass remarks were about all he had left. It looked like his father had been right about him all along.Sighing heavily, feeling the full burden of his failure settle firmly on his shoulders, Bufer looks up and around at his captors."All right, so maybe y'all don't understand Imperial," he says, "But I'm betting at least some of you have been taught to understand Gnomish, bastard language though you think it might be. I know some of our more militaristic types have learned Draconic, as a means towards ... well, you know."Bufer shakes his head softly at the sheer idiocy of it all."Look, does anyone have some water, or something? I'm suddenly feeling a little parched, and I'd hate to die of thirst before you lot can think of a more clever way to off me."The kobolds look at Bufer, surprised. One has his mouth open to say something when Pick returns, sticking her head back in."If your friends loved you any more, gnomey, you be dead right now."She barks a short sentence in Draconic, and the group marches back out. Pick takes Bufer's rope in her hands and yanks him after her. The gnome cleric catches one of the kobold soldiers looking at him once, but that's all.The group moves into the darker portion of the woods, and Bufer can feel the damp as they approach the Moss River. Bufer smiles despite himself, and glances over his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of his would-be rescuer."You can't blame them for trying, really. They're only humans, after all." He glances up at Pick curiously. "The girl, or the young man with the hammer? Garl knows it wasn't the wizard, that's for damn sure."Pick says something in Draconic, and all the kobolds laugh unpleasantly. Bufer frowns."Oh sure, now you laugh?" He glances over at Pick. "Why do you hate us?"He switches to Gnomish."Seriously, what have my people done to you to make you hate us so?"Pick never breaks stride."Your god attempted wipe out infant kobold race because he jealous. He makes 'little joke' of collapsing great cavern of Darastrixhurthi and almost wipe us out, and only Io saved Kurtulmak and us. Necklace you wear symbolize golden keystone Garl Glittergold pulled from roof of Darastrixhurthi in attempt to wipe out kobolds." She turns, walking backwards a moment, and spits a sticky glob of spit onto Bufer's face, then turns around and keeps walking. "Your god start war. We finish it."Bufer sputters, and attempts to wipe the spit off by rubbing his face awkwardly against his shoulders. He is only partially successful."PBBLLTT! Ugh! No, no, no! That's why kobolds hate gnomes," he says, shaking his head vigorously, trying to dislodge more saliva. "Forget all that for a second; aside from that, why do you, the people of Green Mountain, hate us, the people of Wit's End?"He makes to raise his hand to tick off his fingers, grimaces as he remembers they're tied painfully behind his back, and has to settle for bobbing his nose back and forth on each point."Look, we've never fought, to my knowledge. We've lived in relative peace for years. We've even respected each other's borders, for the most part. I mean, sure, there's been the odd spy, an' some occasional saber rattlin', but that's just what kobolds and gnomes do with each other, it's practically sport. Ignore the whole ancient blood feud goin' on, an' to the untrained eye, we actually look to be pretty good neighbors, albeit really self-involved ones that never talk to each other, an' tend to glare over the hedges a bit." Bufer twists his head to the side a little, this last bit delivered to the kobolds behind him as much as to Pick. "But that can change! I mean the self-involved bit. Just because we've all been told since we were younglings that 'gnomes is bad!' and 'kobolds is bad!' don't mean that's the way things be, not in the here an' now. Why, if you stop and think about it, the humans are a bigger threat to both of us, if they ever decide to kick us out of 'their' barony. If anything we should be allied against them!"Bufer takes a deep breath, some of his practiced-to-the-mirror oratory finally coming back to him."You see," he says passionately, "I have a dream ..."The kobolds stop to gag Bufer.</blockquote>

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