Building a Kingdom as a Kobold

We didn’t patch a single roof. We didn’t haul any buckets. We didn’t fix anything except our own pulse rates and the pile of busted, definitely-not-standard-issue gear lying in a heap at the edge of camp.

For the first time since the world went sideways, Ashring’s finest did absolutely nothing productive. Splitjaw sprawled on a crate, feet up, sharpening his favorite blade while threatening to slice Chaos’s fingers off if he tried to "fix the edge." Embergleam lay flat on her back in the grass, eyes closed, quietly muttering flame ratios and meal plans to herself. Quicktongue kept writing notes, then tearing them up, then writing them again. I didn’t have the heart to ask what she was actually keeping.

I sat on the well curb, hands still shaking a little, and watched the sun finally crawl up over the village wall. The whole place smelled like wet ash and too many bad decisions.

I felt this special kind of exhaustion. Your body knows it should relax, but your mind keeps prodding your ribs with invisible sticks, saying "you sure you’re not forgetting something?" Usually, the answer is yes.

This time, I wasn’t sure.

So when the Hero showed up—quiet, boots almost too clean for this much chaos—I wasn’t even surprised. Just nodded at him, because words felt like too much.

He looked at the squad, at the aftermath, at the dust on our faces, and didn’t say anything for a good, long while.

Chaos piped up, waving a half-melted vial, "If you’re here to ask about the lab, we already broke it. Twice. You can mark that off your list."

He almost smiled. Not quite.

He crouched near the ruined slab where our copycat enemies had last been pulped. "The guild is sending more people. Finally figured out this is bigger than one outpost."

Quicktongue snorted. "How many days late is that?"

He didn’t flinch. "Late, but not absent."