20 To Know or Not

The climb back through the tunnel above the ruined temple was agony, no matter what she did, Destorianaxe could not maintain her calm. Her breathing was unrestrained and drank deeply of the foul miasma that choked the waste chute. Yet she did not care. Her vision was awash in a red anger, a rage pumped through her veins like a surging river, the only thought goin through her mind was revenge and reclaiming what she considered as hers.

Pulling herself noisily over the lip of the hole, her claws dug into the floor alerting her lair companions that something was very wrong. While Stares at Skies Vast protectively wrapped her small body around her eggs, Talian strode forward slowly, his eyes noted the wyrmling was highly agitated, even more so had her plan failed, it was mire a look when one wanted to devour ones enemy alive. Which, for a dragon, wasn't that much of a stretch.

Still, approaching a riled dragon had never been a wise move in any of the texts Talian had read. Dragons were intelligent, insanely so especially with their bloodline feeding them ancestral knowledge, but one should never forget a dragon is at its very heart, a beast, no, a monster. Raging, even the goodly metallics have been known to lash out blindly against any near by to say nothing of an angry chromatic, in fact most horror stories about dragons originated from pissed off red dragons which had the rather uncanny universal trait of flying out and razing every village within a hundred miles of its lair should some fool manage to swipe a piece of its hoard...

Wait.

Talian stopped short looking at Destorianaxe who was pacing agitated around the lip of the pit, but that couldn't be, this wyrmling doesn't even have a hoard... or did she? Glancing to the pit he had to admit neither himself nor Stares at Skies Vast had been over that yawning edge. Could she have started early? Might the tribe finally breached the passage from below and stolen what little treasure the baby dragon had managed to squirrel away? Surely not! Destorianaxe would not be back here in this state, a violated dragons hoard would consume the creature with a madness that would not abate until it punished the thief and reclaimed what was stolen. Had the tribe truly taken whatever shiney trinkets Destorianaxe may have hidden below she would be down there... tearing them apart.

Talian frowned, for a dragon to return to its lair in this state was unheard of. Violation of the hoard was one of THE highest taboos people could commit towards a dragon. No way she would return... unless something prevented her from reclaiming what was hers. Coughing lightly the elf felt his heart leap into his throat as Destorianaxe's face snapped to the side to stare at him. Was this...Dragon Fear?! Talian swallowed the lump in his throat, that angry look made him want to run away at top speed and elves were highly resistant to fear effects much like sleep ones, yet dragon fear, that primal aura they had that made even the most stout slayer make them want to wet themselves and scream like little girls as they fled at the highest speed possible, did not care about logical things like resistances or immunities. If a dragon wanted you scared shitless, your bowels were empty post haste.

"Cough... um... Destorianaxe, what troubles you?" The elf found his voice but beads of sweat dotted his smooth pale forehead. Those yellow eyes wanted something of him he could tell, it was probably the only reason Destorianaxe had not given into her base instincts and lunged at him.

"Stolen! Need to find! You will tell me!"

Talian felt his heart in his throat again, someone... some reckless fool... had messed with her initial hoard. Clenching his fists, nails biting into his palms using the pain to stagger through the wave of mind numbing fright that seemed to radiate from those two inhuman yellow orbs like a lighthouse beacon beckoning any watching to a doom upon fang filled shores. "Ahem... who stole, I'll help if I can..."

"Don't know! Tribe gone. Leaders dead. Tribe torn. No bodies. Must find! You will tell me who took them!"

Destorianaxe's words slammed into the elf's mind like a blacksmiths hammer. The tribe below was gone? This news reached the other silent member of this conversation before it fully clicked in his head. Stares at Skies Vast had her head up, tears wetting her eyes as a wail of loss screeched out over the forced conversation between elf and dragon. If Destorianaxe recognized the kobold's misery she did not show it, she continued to stare at her teacher intently, her breathing ragged as some part of her was trying to remind her body that this elf could help, that leaving him alive was better than the urge to rip his head off and feast on his innards.

"I can't know for certain without seeing the place..." Talian spoke slowly, those yellow orbs narrowing dangerously when he couldn't produce results from the tips of his fingers. The elven scholar eased back a bit, he had some life saving items he could use if Destorianaxe truly gave in to her murderous rage... but Stares at Skies Vast would not be so lucky, were he to escape she would likely face the full brunt of her "goddesses" doubled rage. Gritting his teeth he prepared himself.

Still Destorianaxe did not attack rather she swung about towards the lip of the hole, "Come." Her voice was a deep growl, the impatience rumbled around in her chest as she prepared to climb back down. Talian quickly grabbed a few things before rushing to the wyrmlings side, surprisingly enough Stares at Skies Vast had also scrambled over, glancing to her he looked back to her area, "You should stay, we should be quick..."

The kobold shook her head, "If tribe gone is, go I must. Eggs in satchel..." Lifting a rough hide bag that bulged a bit. "If gone tribe is, all is on us. Cannot stay here, tribe survival is must by all clutches."

Taluan sighed looking to Destorianaxe to get the dragon to dissuade the distraught kobold but the wyrmling was ignoring both, she was more concerned with carrying whoever was coming over the edge. "On. Now!"

Talian sighed again, moving to mount the young dragon, he shifted on his perch trying to find where her back scales would not dig into his crotch before his concern became doubled as the kobold sat in front of him, grabbing onto Destorianaxe's wings for support. "Alright Desto..." Before he could further confirm their place on her back the young dragon thrust herself over the edge. Once again that elven heart found itself moving in with tonsils as the sense of weightlessness gripped him. The wyrmling was crawling down the cave wall at a reckless speed, her claws that missed the existing handhold created new ones as she thrust herself almost straight down the side of the pit.

The reckless speed made her two passengers cling to her back all the more tightly, worse was when she reached the "bottom" of the waste pit. While Talian gagged a bit, the kobold lost the contents of her stomach across Destorianaxe's back. Still, had she been in the right state of mind the dragon may have said something. Since she was not, Destorianaxe merely clambered over the boulder and continued forward in a flurry of movement, forcing the elf to not only hold tight, but also try to steady Stares at Skies Vast.

Destorianaxe wasted no time bursting from the the passage and dropping into a ruined temple, while Talian could now see some of what Destorianaxe had mentioned about the tribe being rather excessively primitive of bigger concern was Stares at Skies Vast who had let out a cry. What must it be like for her to return to her homeland after its destruction? Talian gave the kobold's shoulder a reassuring squeeze yet Stares at Skues Vast pulled away from his touch, slipping from Destorianaxe's back to stagger towards the altar upon which another kobold laid.

Destorianaxe rolled her body, rocking Talian off as well, that intense gaze focusing on him, "Outside. Tell me."

Talian swallowed that ever present lump in his throat, his mind screaming that the next time DG showed his face he was demanding extra compensation, no where in their deal did the deal maker say Destorianaxe was an early bloomer when it came to draconic natures! Sighing and gingerly stepping across the sticky floor he headed for the exit with some help from the dragon. The kobold brought up the rear, she wanted to see for herself but at the same time trudged after the other two with a distinct dread in every step. The temple she knew as a hatchling was gone, the oppressing bone walls were shattered completely, the home of their faith hadn't simply been wrecked, it had more looked like someone had went out of their way to tear it down completely. It would take countless generations to restore it to even half its former glory...

The trio followed the short passage that exited out onto a ledge that overlooked the expansive cavern below. The slowly rising moon shone in through the open mouth of the wide cave entrance, bathing the destroyed huts and tents in an eerie silvery light. Destorianaxe stared down upon thus destruction, a low growl rumbling in her breast as Stares at Skies Vast shrieked and pushed past Talian, rushing down the slope to search the ruins herself. The elf followed after slowly, but he was shaking his head. Just what did this to a kobold tribe of this size?

It has to be understood that the Tribe of the Bone God was fairly sizable. From the huts and tents Talian surmised that there was easy two to three score family huts. As he walked amongst the trampled tents and smashed huts he truly wondered how a force of this size got routed in but a few days. In his mind his thoughts raced over the potential culprits but other than the elven nation or the Dwarven empire he was rather lost upon who would have the forces to put down a tribe of this size so cleanly.

Clean it was at that. While he found signs of battle and blood there were no corpses, not even broken weapons were left behind. Whatever force did this wasted nothing save the hides of the tents, but considering the fire damage and rips, it was more easy to suspect the force was ill suited to recover the damaged skins. Could it be a goblin nest? It would have to be a rather large nest to handle fifty or sixty kobolds with home turf advantage. Neither elves nor dwarves would act like this, besides if they meant to put the kobolds to the sword (or axe and hammer), they'd have left more bodies than the pair in the temple. While recovering their own dead was a norm, taking the kobold dead was not something either force would waste time on.

Talian shook his head the more he walked amongst the destroyed tribe, Stares at Skies Vast was running here and there crying each time she saw a tent or hut that she recognized from her early days among the tribes. Go figure she had left behind friends and perhaps kin, yet there was no closure for the kobold. It was a mystery wether these friends or kin had been taken or slain. Destorianaxe watched the pair moving about below, her eyes narrowed on Talian, even she could see that he was having no better luck identifying the ones who did this. The rage in her heart was boiling over, if the elf could not help she'd fly out and destroy all she came across, perhaps she would find the missing tribe in her brazen attack on the surroundings, or at least force any neighbors to search on her behest!