Another Round, We Go

Akachi and the crew had decided to literally nail the dead kraken to the back and sides of the Shortreef and bring it with us.
 

 
We neared shore at Koboldhome. From our vantage on the ship, we saw on the beach a gigantic lizard-creature dragging along a giant wheel. Large spears stuck painfully out of its back, dragging the wheel along to spin and bounce behind it as it rushed down the beach. Inside the wheel were five kobolds, and two more on top: all running for dear lives as they simultaneously fired from inside the wheel at the creature between slats. Strange spikes dragged behind... as... brakes?
 
From the beach, we heard cheering as the entire monster-wheel contraption disappeared behind a hillock.
 
Lord Rohrouk: "Would it make sense that kobolds are both incredibly smart, and insanely stupid?" He mentioned interacting with some previously, back in Dekeli.
 
Either way, the Shortreef kept its course towards around Koboldhome, past a coastal marketplace area. Even from a distance we could see the dozens of market stalls, as well as kobolds with scales of every color the of rainbow. Attention turned to us as we moved onwards, towards an adjacent cove to moor the ship off to. As we weighed anchor, the sailors became uneasily quiet, as did things get still on shore.
 
Rohrouk suggested a feast, with the kraken corpse we had dragged with us.
 
 

A welcome

We all trouped onto a rowboat and made shore. The group that met us was an amalgam, with several members "over the fifteen-year mark" (and therefore wizened by kobold standards). At least one of the oldest males was recognizable as a member of the Rust-Scale Clan.
 
He introduced us by a draconic phrase (Rohrouk later translated as "over-predators") and himself as Kratuus; he made space for us by declaring we would only stay with the Rust-Scale Clan, the Odyssey-goers who "had spoken of us".
 
The kobold group deliberated before leading the party off -- to see a kind of kobold matriarch? -- with some unknown kobolds leading the way. One mentioned her sister Twitt, "good with her knife, stab you in the eye", as a member of the clan's Odyssey contingent, before we were told to lie onto the ground. Something passed overhead, a dark shadow in the sky, before the kobolds picked themselves up and continued onward.
 
 

The Rust-Scale Matriarch

We moved through the island, towards mountains, before we eventually entered a cave. Bioluminesence lit the way, and inside our way became littered with kobold corpses mounted on display with strange viny plants that gave off an overwhelming stench. It was explained, in few words, that the clan holds a vendetta against the Black-Scale Clan, and the corpses were from fights over the "generations" (generations being decades).
 
We had to wait a while near the (inside) entrance before we were allowed deeper in, to meet the matriarch.
 
"You must be very foolish to come here."
 
The Rust-Scale matriarch gave zero fucks when we approached her, nor when Rohrouk spoke with her. "There is no better beast than a demon, and the Karakedai are demons." Our lizardfolk lord offered an alliance, for the kobolds and the Fatecarvers to team up against the elf-killers. If the kobolds allow the Fatecarvers to win, Rohrouk can ("would try to") bend Dekeli to send beasttamers to Koboldhome, and teach the kobolds how to the monsters they regularly grapple with. As he spoke, Cassandra quietly pulled the strings of fate to help, but the rest of us were silent. Luckily, this earned us audience with the matriarch.
 
We ventured deeper inside, led further into the matriarch's cave. As we did, it seemed only to open up with more, and more, and more kobolds -- hundreds maybe? It was a veritable underground community, fishing, shouting, playing, working. Everything.
 
Eventually, we stopped in a chamber with kobolds, and a table. At least several hundred feet long, constructed from many, many tables put together for a single communal space that stretched into darkness. We sat at a space adjacent, where the matriarch took her (regular) space. She spoke about the unwritten rule of kobold mealtimes being peaceful -- it is where they would work out disagreements and settle differences.
 
The matriarch spoke about the strengths and weakness of both the Rust-Scale clan warriors as well as we Fatecarvers. To Brom, it seemed that there was no compromise nor agreement: the kobolds would stay in their fortifications in Deltavros' tomb, and we would fight the Karakedai outside. No help, or hindrance, from the Rust-Scale clan.
 

Things that rise from silence

 
The matriarch offered us weapons (an oil that was "good for killing ghosts" though it sounded suspicious, she "explained" that the weapon s would be useful against whatever lied deeper in Deltavros' tomb. Whomever won the fight (the Fatecarvers or the Rust-Scale Clan) would simply take the oil from the other.
 
Brom and a half-dozen kobolds returned to the ship, to retrieve the kraken for the feast. They played around on the way there, returning with foodstuffs. Rohrouk was in less-than-stellar spirits when he returned. Eragon was performng minor magic tricks for the youthful kobolds, and had quite a crowd. Cassandra was approached by a smaller (if that's possible) kobold named Nola, a mother to one of the Odyssey-competing kobolds, who asked Cassandra to give a bone amulet to her son -- no matter if he lived or died.
 
Before the meal, the matriarch called for a moment of remembrance, and a kobold dirge. Though only Rohrouk understood the words, we all got the meaning.
 
("They will go over the hill" -- they will die)


 
 

Onward, Through This Unchanging Fate

And soon it seemed as quickly as we had came, we left Koboldhome. Only slightly better off than when we had arrived, though that was not (necessarily) our fault.
 
The plan was to use Eragon's magic to drawn the Karakedai into the Rust-Scale Clan's traps in the tomb, then follow up. We drew the ship up as near to the tomb's islet as close as we dared, before saying our goodbyes and receiving the wishes from the crew.
 
The Shortreef was dropping us off, in a sense; Cassandra planned to use the scroll of teleportation to get us back to Forcalish. The Shortreef would meet us there, victors or not.
 
As we approached, we very clearly saw the kobolds' ship, beached and scuttled most definitely for parts.
 
 

Underwater entrance

Eragon found the underwater cavern, and with waterbreathing we all made it inside. The cavern was surprisingly lit (blue bioelectric moss).
 
For a while, almost thirty minutes, we hid under a false rock wall from Eragon's major image. Nothing, nothing happened.
 
So we pressed forward: Cassandra scouted with her own, only to lose it to a dart trap. We stepped forwards, only for a stone door behind us to close our only entrance and exit. And a single kobold stepped out from the shadows of the way forward:
 
"Come. We will speak, and then we will kill you."