Young Ammolite lived with hir human parents, but also with hir fellow kobolds in hir family. The home had been modified to have a very well reinforced tunnel that went from the home to the larger underground warren. The humans were so well integrated in with the warren, then even more new hatchlings treated them as beloved relatives.
@internutter/challenge-04727-l343-earned-adoption -- Anon Guest
There's a million ways to have a family. This one was two Humans and the Kobold they adopted as their own. Ammolite claimed the nearby warren of Kobolds as her cousins, and lived with her parents, Aldin and Hirren Drakfield.
Kobolds usually remember their former life once they emerge. Ammolite was a new soul, but she still retained her Kobold instincts.
She liked to dig just like any other Kobold. And after finding some interesting gems, Hirren went out of her way to buy a manual about mining properly so that disaster would not strike the warren or their Kobold child. Before that day, Kobold tunnels of all kinds remained intact through sheer, unadulterated luck.
Propping and shoring was unfamiliar to Kobold-kind. Nevertheless, Aldin worked hard on teaching Ammolite while she was digging their cellar. Ammolite taught her cousins, and her cousins were very happy that their warrens weren't self-burying any more.
Kobolds and new ideas go together like hearths and fire.
If there's one thing you can say about new ideas, it's that Kobolds are the first to stress test those to the breaking point.
This one didn't break, no matter what the Kobolds did to it.
Then the Kobolds started improving on it. Not only in their own tunnels, or the Drakfield farm, but also the entire village. They all got cellars and tunnels to the now-fortified warren.
When the raiders tried to devastate them, they found no villagers to kill, imprison, or abuse. They found no resources to steal.
They did find a lot of very clever Kobold traps, with the armed and ready villagers prepared to dish out what the raiders didn't like to take. Not that they could easily report that to their leader. As far as the rest of the wandering raiders were concerned, that sortie just vanished.
A sure sign that the village was now a bad place to raid.
[Photo by Nicolas Verlhiac on Unsplash]
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